Dodos and other game old birds

I am in mid thunk, toying with paper, pencil and an elusive menu plan when I am struck by a stroke of unexpected genius. 8 people in the family and only seven days in the week. Surely I just need to ask each person to come up with one dinner and I will save myself no end of brain injury? I skip the children as I already know that their choices carved in cement. I tackle Nonna in the garden. This proves to be the usual challenge, how to have a private conversation at 50 decibels?

“Name me a dinner. Anything you like.”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to make a menu plan for the week. This way you’ll have at least one thing you like.”
“But I already like what you give me.”
“That’s no help at all. Think of something else that you like.”
“You know……anything……I don’t mind.”
“You’re being very un-coperative…….be helpful!”
She grins as she opens her palms in question.
“Eggs.”
“What sort of eggs?”
“Quail, duck, caviar!”
I pout. She beams.
“Anyway…..you don’t like fish.”
“I’m very easy to please apart from dah fish.”
“So you mean hard boiled eggs?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Salad.”
“What kind of salad?”
“Dah usual.”
“Anything else?”
“Some kind of meat.”
“Which kind of meat?”
“Salami.”
“And……?”
“Some kind of cheese.”
“Which kind of cheese?”
At this rate of progress it will take me a week to canvas all the troops. I begin to wonder if I really am saving time and brain power.
“Oh you know.”
“No I don’t…….that’s why I’m asking.”
“Soft.”
“Brie?”
“Not really.”
“Camembert……Edam?”
“No I hate dat rubbery stuff.”
I make an exaggerated sighing noise, loud enough for people with dodgy hearing aides.
“Don’t be such an old fossil Maddy.”
“!”
“No……not fossil…..wot is dat ting without a spine?”
“A spineless…….an amoeba?”
“No. Dat old ting? Dinosaur ting without a spine?”
“Er?”
“No…..not spineless……flightless!”
“Pteradactyl! No that can fly. An ostrich? No that’s not a dinosaur……..”
“Anyway…..wotever it iz……do wot I do…….cook wot you like and to ell with dah rest of dem.”
“!”

Dodos and other game old birds

http://sandwichedgenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/dodos-and-other-old-birds.html