Cooking Skill Level: SUPER EASY
I gave a little
glimpse of what was to come when I mentioned Bath Soup. This was the best possible way to tie in to
the story of Livi, who finds amazing adventures along the way to her bath. It’s a great book for sparking the imagination. I would read a page and ask the boys just
what they would encounter, or do, or become.
We had some really great detail … I wouldn’t be a snake, they spit,
mommy says next time I spit I have to take a nap … I would find all of the socks
on the way to my bath and make a great big pile and jump in it … I imagine
there are quite a lot of hidden boy socks since there are 3 boys, that’s 2
socks a boy and I rarely see all three of them with 2 on at a time. It’s usually two have two, one has one and
while the one with one is getting two, at least one of the two with two is
losing one. Piles of socks.
As I said, we had a
lot of great discussions with this one.
Then came the meal. That was
amazing. When I told the boys we were
having Bath Soup, they looked at me like I truly was the crazy Grummy they’d
thought I might be. The oldest one said “I
don’t like soup Grummy and the little boys will just make a mess.”
So I put a tiny bit
of vegetable broth into three bowls.
Maybe a half an inch deep. I put
out all sorts of things that we might have seen on the way to the bath: green pasta vines, spinach/jungle leaves, carrot
Frisbees, cabbage ducks, green pea bubbles and cheese moustaches. The normal things you see on the way to the
bath.
I made the green
pasta vines, but I highly recommend finding some spinach linguini or whatever
those green noodles are. It took me 3
batches of pasta dough before I got something that was green enough and yet
soft enough to roll. The first time, I tried
it with dried herbs. A lot of them. Tooooooo dry.
Then I tried with the drained liquid from some thawed spinach. Almost worked. Then I tried with pesto in place of one of
the eggs. This worked, but the dough was
a bit tough. That’s why the vines look like they do. The boys loved them, but I often wonder if
they really have taste buds.
The cabbage ducks
were fun. I parboiled some cabbage
leaves, then stacked them and used one of those tiny little cutters that I’d
found at the craft store (scrapbooking aisle) and cut a bunch of ducks. They were so small that they were of course
something the boys could laugh at.
I trimmed some
cheese into moustaches just using a knife.
Those could’ve been a bit better, but they were the first thing in the
soup.
Anyway, I told the
boys to fix their baths with what they wanted and then to try to eat at least
one of everything they’d put in it. What
a hit. The oldest one said “Scuze me,
Grummy, I actually like this soup.” And
the little boys slurped and spilled, but still ate a lot of the soup. All three of them loved the warm vegetable
broth which is so comforting on a chilly night.
I made some little
biscuit sandwiches with cheese, lettuce and cold cuts all cut with my large
biscuit cutter to go with the soup. Make
sure you give the kids permission to dunk their sandwiches. They’re going to end up in the soup anyway,
so I made a big deal about the RIGHT WAY to dunk. And they all imitated me perfectly. Of course they giggled the whole time, but
they did it!
Dessert was
some apples I’d gotten from my farmer’s market.
After dinner, they
had me read the story a couple more times, and the last time, the oldest would
pick out the words he could read on each page and we’d sound out some of the
others. The middle boy was completely
silent until afterward, when he sat down with the book and “read” it out
loud. I don’t know if he actually was
reading, or just had memorized. But
either way, it’s a great sign of a good book!
|
Title
|
On
My Way to the Bath
|
|
Author
|
Sarah Maizes
|
|
Illustrator
|
Michael Paraskevas
|
|
Publisher
|
Walker Publishing Company, Inc.
|
|
Highlights
/Tie in
|
Stars
|
|
Reactions
to the Book
|
·
The boys really
enjoyed this one
·
They asked that
I read it a few times and then they tried on their own
·
There were a
lot of places in the book where we imagined OUR bath
|
|
Meal
|
·
Bath Soup –
Vegetable broth, carrot frisbees, peas (bubbles), cabbage ducks, spinach
(jungle leaves), cheese moustaches,
pasta vines
·
Biscuit
sandwiches – cheese, cold cuts
·
Fruit (just
plain fruit, not cut into shapes, nothing fancy)
|
|
Reactions
to the Meal
|
·
The firetruck
had to park and sit with us at the table.
He wore a cheese moustache the whole meal (so we wouldn’t complain
about a truck at the table?)
·
They all liked
the soup which they hadn’t thought they would
·
They ended up
eating a lot of veggies
·
There was a
mess, but it wasn’t as bad as their mother was worried about.
·
You need socks
in our soup Grummy
|
I’ll be working on
another hints posting to fill the time until the next book.
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