I had never been in the habit of going home during the Golden Week holiday. However, since a child was added to our family, I started going home during the Golden Week holiday. The reason is that I want to show my son Takeh’s grandparents how much he has grown.
Children grow up every day. Their speech, their movements, their thinking, everything is progressing. I think this powerful progress is the best content in the history of mankind.
So this year, after last year, I returned home during Golden Week.
The Okaden family has a culture of going out to eat when the family is together. My parents, who lived in the Showa period, rarely went out to eat. It is a precious event that is held on occasions of celebration or when the family gets together for the first time in a long time. Therefore, when we go out to eat, we all put on a mysterious face and dress up a little nicer.
The restaurant we went to that day was a Western-style restaurant that I have been going to since I was a child. That was the first time I heard that my grandfather loved their fried shrimp. Two generations after my grandfather, I always ordered fried shrimp when I visited this restaurant as a child. Even when the adults around me were eating meat dishes, I kept asking for fried shrimp.
At that time, I had a senseless obsession: “If the adults around me and my older brothers eat meat, I’ll insist on eating fried shrimp.
That was about 40 years ago. By that time, I think my grandfather had already ordered meat instead of fried shrimp, so “my grandfather loved fried shrimp” was probably more than 50 years ago.
This year, my son Takeh ate fried shrimp from such a restaurant.
He was surprised by the size of the fried shrimp. He looked at the fried shrimp and was surprised to see his eyes roll back in his head.
I asked him, “How much do you want to eat?” He said, “I want to eat a big one,” and opened his hands wide.
It was the first time I saw a child’s lunch as a parent. (If I am not mistaken).
It consisted of fried shrimp, tartar sauce, potato salad, French fries, hamburger steak, and demi-glace sauce. Oh, I see, that must be something kids like. And they are all in a shape and hardness that even children can easily eat. It’s very well thought out.
Eating this kind of food every day is not good for one’s health, but this plate is very special and the children love it.
Takeh eats a large piece of fried shrimp with his hands. He eats it in silence, as if it were a blessing.
Being two years old, he is very picky about what he eats. In order for him to eat his meals maturely, I think it is best to give him food that “takes a little effort to eat, but that he likes. It is very difficult to determine the difficulty level of such foods.
Right now, “large fried shrimp” was a food with the right level of difficulty for him to concentrate on eating.
(2023.05.04)
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