Monday, July 28, 2008

Marshmallows, Fluffy's, and Ketchup

There have been a lot of adjustments since moving overseas; but there are also some things here that we wouldn't experience anywhere else. Our first night in New Zealand, almost two months ago, we went to a restaurant and asked for "milk" for Lilly. The waitress said "Fluffy" and I totally thought she was calling Lilly a cute (but kind of odd) nickname. We kind of smiled and she walked away... and came back five minutes later with what looked like a miniature cappuccino. "Here's your fluffy" she said, and placed it in front of Lilly. We came to find out, that I guess kids here don't drink regular milk in a restaurant; they drink a Fluffy, which is basically whipped frothy milk, with a little cocoa (or is it cinnamon?) on top, in an espresso cup, with a tiny little spoon. It always comes with two marshmallows on the side. Ever since that first restaurant experience, every time we go out, we order Lilly a fluffy. At first, she just looked at it, appauled that we would try to make her drink a coffee drink. Then she started trusting us that it wasn't really coffee (or maybe she just wanted to play with that cute little spoon), so she started taking the spoon and dipping it in the froth. This lasted about a month. Then, she graduated to actually occasionally sticking the spoon in her mouth, and realized it wasn't in fact poison. (She should have realized that when Mommy and Daddy ate her fluffy when she didn't touch it all those times... but anyways.) Well, this past weekend she finally decided that she would try those big marshmallows on the side of saucer - and was shocked that they weren't horrible. She was a little confused at the texture, but still thought they were kind of tasty. Here was her expression: However, she only ate one marshmallow; as she discovered an even cooler thing a few minutes later: Ketchup. Or, as they call it here, tomato sauce. She started by dipping her french fries and nuggets in, and then realized she could either dip in the fry in and lick the ketchup off (without taking a single bite of the fry, leaving it fully entact, aside from the sogginess of where the ketchup used to be); and finally she realized she could cut out the middle man - and just stuck her fingers in the ketchup directly. I'm a little suprised myself that this little girl had not tried ketchup until she was over 2 years old; but I guess we figured that if she liked fries without a condiment, why start? And now I think we wish we hadn't, as ketchup is the only thing she wanted to eat after that!

1 comment:

Melanie said...

that expression is priceless!