A Tale of Two Dinners

Like many parents who dimly recall a time when they could just chose a restaurant and go to it whenever they felt like it enjoy eating out, we dream of raising our children to have great table-manners, to sit quietly throughout meal times, and to, eventually, be the perfect dinner companions.  In short, we dream of being able to bring them to restaurants where they will SIT STILL for-God’s-sake for more than 7 minutes, chose something other than pasta-pomodoro from the menu, and occasionally smile.  (Not spit.)

I think of this on the rare occasion when we – the adults – now go out for a grown-up dinner.  At some point in the evening I’ll suddenly remember I have children (usually about the same time I realise I don’t know the baby-sitter’s second name, don’t have their phone number, and in any event have left my phone at home) and spend a few seconds trying to imagine having them with us, then and there... After nearly four years of my mind going blank at this point, perhaps it’s time to give up that dream for good. 

I don’t tho’.  Stubborn and misguided that I am, I still cling to the hope that someday, we’ll spend a mealtime, en famille, somewhere quite nice.

Like the fantastic restaurant we went to last weekend, for instance, which I’ve since learnt is quite the In Place in London at the moment.  It was fabulous from start (“Oooh, glass of champagne? YES PLEASE”) to finish (“Oooh, any one of a number of digestifs, served to the twinkling of a bar-side piano?  YES PL... Actually, water is fine. Gah.”) – incredible food, cool surroundings, great service – which, on top of all that, had two stand-out events.  The first was the arrival of a man who looked exactly like Michael Caine;  and lo!  - if it wasn’t Sir Michael himself.   (And with that, I – natch - started to project fame onto every diner [and staff member]  much to the Man’s annoyance).  The second was the even more exciting arrival later on of the most sublime cookies I’ve ever tasted.  (So much so that I got some to take away, to bribe the children with the next morning - which, it goes without saying, never made it to the next morning.)   Anyway, there isn’t a hope in hell that the kids could ever fit into those surroundings.  I barely do, for goodness sakes, and I’ve had years of practice.

With this in mind, I decided to lower our eating-out standards.  And so it came to pass that we found ourselves walking through the unhallowed Golden Arches... Yes. Reader, they had their first McDonald’s experience. (Suddenly the nice people at the MADs start to twitch and mutter “Best Food Blog nomination?  I TOLD you it was madness....” ).   

I haven’t been to a McDonald’s in about 25 years (apart from a very hungover bathroom  pit-stop in Florida last year, when I was so ill that I contemplated lying down on the bathroom floor), when I was about 14 and had a mouthful of metal.   An American tourist who was sitting at a table full of BOYS - an exotic, and largely forbidden species - leant over to me and asked what would happen if I kissed a boy who also had braces – would our mouths get intertwined?  The entire table – all those BOYS, the SHAME – erupted into laughter, and I DIED A DEATH inside and don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered.  It’s no wonder really I’ve never been back. 

So there we were, just finished a class with the Boy, and I was invited along with all the other parents and kids. What was I to do - sniff and head to the pizzeria next door? (Which is what every bone in my body was telling me to do;  as well as being a complete food snob, I think that teenage trauma still lingers).  In we went. (On a side point - the arches are no longer golden!  And where’s the freaky clown man?) Being the precious little beast that he is, the Boy sat at a table and waited to be served (he must have thought he was at home).  So I served him (and her):  fish fingers, carrot sticks, and orange juice.  Oh ok, and fries.  Unbelievably, they didn’t touch a thing (apart from the ketchup, which they ate by the fingerful).   Which I wish I could say was down to their superior upbringing and innate foodiness, but in fact was a result of their sudden realisation that they could run around without their harridan mother shrieking, pointlessly, at them.  To be honest I was – most unusually - quite happy for them to run around and ignore their food, because while it was incredibly cheap - £2.50 for a meal – it really wasn’t nice what they’re used to.  Very salty FOR OUR TASTES (Note to McD lawyers: note reference to personal experience, as opposed to general statement of quality, or otherwise, of food...) and quite honestly, I thought for a moment that they’d given us strangely-shaped chicken nuggets instead of fish fingers (for those lawyers again – I THOUGHT THIS because I’m not used to the food. Not saying it all tastes the same or has a similar texture or anything...).  So anyway, they ran around like cats on fire while the other mums cast each other furtive glances and leant into each other to better hear themselves above the din, and I sat there thinking I wish I’d sat with my back to the window, when really I should probably have been slurping a chocolate milkshake and an apple pie, and been transported back to my teenage years.  (Or possibly not).  Eventually I scooped them up, and we went home and had this fried rice.

Anyway, this is the perfect time for a segue into a recipe for fish-fingers and  chips, but I think I’ll go with the other dining experience.   I emailed the restaurant to see if they’d share the cookie recipe with me and guess what?  They did! Within about 5 minutes of me asking, AND were very happy for me to reproduce the recipe on the blog.  Now that’s what I call great service. 

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies (with thanks to Phil Usher of 34 for his generosity in sharing – I think I would have kept these all to myself)

You need: (for 18 cookies;  the original recipe had twice the quantities.  I don’t need any excuse to eat 36 cookies, so for the sake of my waistline [at least let me pretend I still have one?] I cut the amount in half.  Double up if you have more self-restraint – or children - than I do. )

• 90g flour
• ¼  teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 60g soft unsalted butter
• 35g dark brown sugar
• 50g caster sugar
• ½ a beaten egg
• Heaped tablespoon peanut butter
• 100g white chocolate buttons (smashed up) (I used milk chocolate, which worked perfectly also)
• 50g crushed plain peanuts

Preheat the oven to 180c.

In a blender, cream the butter with the caster sugar, peanut butter and dark brown sugar until light and fluffy.  

Add the egg gradually then the sieved flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda.

Stir in the crushed peanuts and broken chocolate chips. 

Roll out the biscuit mixture into a sausage shape, as wide as you want the cookies to be,  and cut to desired thickness. 

Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, bake for 6-8 minutes, then leave to cool.  Which, thankfully, only takes a few minutes.

Eat with a super-sized milkshake.  (Or not.)