My future vegetarian. Or psychopath.

[rivka]

Alex has been way into helping me make dinner, lately. I have to keep a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't add things unilaterally, but in general it's nice to have her company in the kitchen.

Tonight I was making shrimp scampi pasta. Alex loooves to peel things, so I had her help me peel the shrimp - they'd already been deveined, so the shells were pre-split down the back. As she worked, I thought with satisfaction about how great it was that she was already a real help in the kitchen, even at her age.

Then she started talking. "This one doesn't want to be peeled."

"Why not?" I asked.

"He just doesn't," she said dolefully. "He doesn't like it."

"But we have to peel them, or we can't eat them," I said. I helped her take the tail off and dropped it in the bowl. She picked up another one.

"This one does like to be peeled." I breathed a sigh of relief, until she continued. "But he doesn't like to have me take his little leggies off." She ripped them off, picked up another shrimp.

"This one used to like it, but now he doesn't. He doesn't like it anymore." She assumed a shrimp voice, high and quavery. "'Don't peel me! I don't like it!'" Her voice changed, became soft and sympathetic. "Don't cry, little shrimp. I will take care of you." She patted it soothingly. Then she tore the shell off and dropped it in the bowl.

Mercifully, the next shrimp liked being peeled, and after that one she lost interest in the game. And at suppertime she wolfed down every shrimp we gave her... although, at the end of dinner, one of the shrimp in her bowl did start crying for its mother. The baby shrimp and the mother shrimp had a touching reunion before Alex ate them both.

So... nascent vegetarian, or nascent psychopath. Could go either way, I guess, at this point.

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Heh. I couldn't. The one time I made cream of crab soup, I had to have the person at the seafood counter steam the crabs for me. I can't handle cooking live animals that are further up the food chain than mussels.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I remember the first time I cooked crabs. I had them in a pot on the stove. I opened the lid, and one jumped out. I tried to grab him, and he ran under the refrigerator.

B