Panic Frying

Today I had a taste of what it’s like to be the mother of five children. Joe invited his three school friends, the Slinger brothers over for tea.

“What shall I feed them?” I asked Zoe-the-daughter (13).

“Fish fingers for Slingers” she breezed.
Great idea, everyone loves a fish finger. But then I felt guilty because Mother Slinger has to cook for the four of them every night (there’s another, smaller Slinger at home) and she does so after working all day in a care home. I imagined the Slingers would have fish fingers quite often.

Fish fingers also seemed like a bit of a cop out for a chef who’s supposed to be showing the world how to feed their families for 70p per head. So, I braised a pack of pork chops in the oven (sitting them on apple slices for a bit of moisture) ready to take them out, dot with butter and crisp up in the oven before serving.

I had rather a lot of biryani rice left over from the night before (not the one my kids refused to eat but another one that my husband had not been too keen on either) and some plain white rice. All I had to do was heat the rice and cook a vegetable.

But what if the Slinger’s didn’t like my biryani rice too? Then poor Mother Slinger would have to cook for them all when they were home and that wasn’t fair. So I started frying potatoes. Then, when I took the pork chops out of the braising pan there were all these lovely, mushy apple slices and pork juices so I decided to make a sauce.

We still had freaky cider left over from the Christmas party which seemed like a natural choice to add to the sauce. So why did I reach for the Coke (also an after party leftover)? Because I was worried the Slingers may not like the cider sauce and refuse to eat anything it touched.

It now looked awful, as you can see. It was a big scummy mess. I could have thrown it away but food waste is against the rules so I puréed it with the stick whizzer and boiled it up with a bit of double cream. It was too sweet so I splashed in a bit of vinegar, whisked it up and yee ha! I had a sauce that everyone, including my kids and the Slinger’s loved. Even me and God know’s I’m hard to please.

Just as well they did like it as I forgot to cook a green vegetable and had to resort to giving them raw carrots and cucumber – which they gobbled up after dipping it in the delicious sauce.

Here’s the happy Slinger’s with Joe. Zoe was allowed to eat in the sitting room to avoid the madness.

All was well, I had even washed out all the Slinger’s packed lunch bags and was wondering which Victorian parlour game I could play with them once they’d finished their yoghurt when this happened . . .

Yes, that’s yoghurt all over the floor, the chair and two Slingers’ trousers. Why did I not remove the foil top for them? I swear to God I’m going to sue Mr Muller-Bloody-Corner.

As I wiped and mopped I said, “Your mother’s going to kill you when you get home in that state.” To which Biggest Slinger replied, “Nah, she’ll be alright.” while the others giggled at the thought of their mum killing them over something as trivial as spilled yoghurt.

There were no parlour games because I had to do this . . .

followed by this . . .

The next time I get some old woman at church telling me how I shouldn’t be collecting food for my starving kids because their parents must be boozing it all away I’ll reply, “Absolutely, please put a bottle of gin in my Food Bank collection box for the parents too.”

Mother Slinger, for the record, doesn’t drink and is a superb cook. I did her a great injustice by presuming she would give her kids fish fingers every night. Her boys said their favourite mum meal was lasagne which she expertly makes from scratch. I loathe making lasagne. I never make enough white sauce and I always overcook it because I want the top to be nicely browned.

I vow to have the Slingers over at least once a month from now on to give Supermum Slinger a break because I really, truly don’t know how she does it. I’ll leave you with a picture of the banana yoghurt stuck between my floorboards. Lovely.