Revisiting kids literature

N and I look forward to our 'reading time' everyday. For N, reading means listening and watching me bring alive to her another world filled with her favorite characters. To me, it means spending quality time with her, reliving my childhood memories and seeing these books in a new perspective - as a parent. I have consciously instilled the 'Enid Blyton' bias in N. It's a positive feedback loop I tell these stories to her with more vigour, she feeds off it and responds with equal or more energy. 

We started off with Eric Carle, Julia Donaldson and moved on to Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton, as N's capacity to understand and remember complex plot-lines grew. These books are a worthwhile investment (Eric Carle and JD are quite expensive). They are colourful, inspire imagination, build language and promote values like sharing and inclusion. From the start, I have been looking, with less success, for similar books in Tamil or Malayalam. I have to read and translate English books for N to comprehend. I want equivalent books in our regional language for N's grandparents to read to her too. Currently, they tell her Hindu mythological stories - I have come to see this as a 'can of worms'. I do understand that this is part of our culture and I grew up with these stories (and loved them) too. But now I see the 'Amar Chithra Katha' tales as reeking of violence, patriarchy, 'might is right', unreal black-and-white characterisation. 

I cannot shield my kids forever. This gives me an opportunity to make them aware of these 'forces' in our culture and build their 'self-advocacy skills' to resist it. So I let N listen to these stories and then we have long 'book review' discussions where we compare actual kids' literature with these similarly labelled, harmful books. I go into these discussions hesitatingly, worried if this is too much information for a 4-year old to handle. But I have never been disappointed by N's poise and aplomb to take it all in, weigh it in her head and arrive at her own conclusions. 

Coming back to Enid Blyton... I see my favorite childhood author in a different light now. All her stories reinforce, 'girls sew and clean up while boys 'take care' of them'. Bursts my bubble 😔. We do continue reading the Blyton books, but I filter out this biased content. The books are still filled with fun, food and adventures that N and I love. I'm waiting for N to grow up and read these books on her own and wonder why her amma presented these stories to her differently. 🤔

I am looking forward to buying works of குழந்தைக் கவிஞர் அழ. வள்ளியப்பா (Kids' poet, Azha Valliappa), trying some Tamil books from Tulika and printing some Tamil/Malayalam stories off https://storyweaver.org.in/ . 

Quest for a healthy pasta dish

'Cooking for a picky kid' - it's a tongue-twister and a brain-teaser 😉. Here is how I made a healthy version of N's favourite pasta from scratch, using ingredients usually found in a south Indian home.

1. Pasta dough

This can be made using any of the following flours or combinations. 

• Maida/refined/all-purpose flour - if you are looking for a chewy, tasty, generally likeable pasta version, increase the maida ratio or even go all-out with 100% maida.
• Wholewheat flour/godhumai maavu - if you are a health freak or if you are dealing with maida allergy (I suspect N has it) or if you just like the nutty, wholesome flavor like me. 
• Semolina/rava + Chickpea flour/kadalai maavu combo - I have seen many recipes using this but when I tried, it didn't work out so well for me. The rava flour has to be finely ground for this to succeed.
• Oat flour - I love oats. I'm yet to try making pasta with this. 

My best try so far has been the 80% wholewheat + 20% maida (refined/all-purpose flour) combination. It is both healthy and gives enough elasticity to the dough. 

For example, for one serving, I add 4 tbsp/quarter cup/56g of wholewheat flour and 1 tbsp of maida. 

    2. Pasta shape

I am always looking for new ways to present food to excite N into eating a few mouthfuls more 😅. Here are a few video links and GIFs (trimmed from the video for your convenience 💁) demonstrating how to make different pasta shapes. 

Fettucine 

No-name/I call it 'conch' shape 

Farfalle 

Fusilli 

Spaghetti

• For later use - You could air dry the pasta shapes and store it at 4 degree C in an airtight container. (I haven't tried this yet).
• For immediate use - After shaping the pasta, lubricate it with a few tsp of oil so that the individual pieces don't stick to each other. Boil two cups of water. Add a couple of pinches of salt and a tbsp of oil. Put the pasta in the boiling water for a few minutes, test it for al dente and drain it using a sieve. Your pasta is now ready to be mixed with the sauce.

3. White sauce

N loves white sauce. 

• Quick version - Gently heat a tbsp of butter+some milk (depends on how thick you want the sauce to be)+some shredded cheese+ a pinch of salt (add it towards the end to avoid milk curdling). Toss your pasta in it and serve.
• Longer and tastier version
• Prepare a cup of chicken stock by following this easy recipe.  If you are a vegetarian, may be you could replace this with vegetable stock instead.
• If you love the garlicky flavour, chuck in some finely chopped garlic. 
• Add a tbsp of cream cheese (made using this recipe, it's used in various dishes).
• Add a tbsp of corn flour (after dissolving it in some water to avoid forming clumps).
• Add your favourite veggies like peas, carrot etc. 
• When the sauce is at your preferred consistency, toss in the pasta. 

Food photo created by stockking - www.freepik.com

Pre-loved and re-loved

Proud and prized joint-family heirlooms 

Rusty toy tricycle 

Cracked wooden duck rocker 

Faded pink pattu pavaadai (silk skirt) 

Partially unbeaded necklace 

Passed down from Cousins C to V to So to me to Si to Ja 

- a chain never to be broken. 

Wait with bated breath for the older cousin to outgrow  

For the next little heir to take joyful ownership. 

Reuse - a normal way of life. 

Blissfully ignorant about 'style obsolescence' 

Not sucked into consumerism.