Crab cakes and the long chive.

The long chive? “What is he writing about now?” you say. There are four of us who know all about the long chive. When the girls were only knee-high to a herb patch, the Wife and I tried many things to get them to eat anything green. One of my more successful ruses was ‘the long chive’. If I asked them to eat scrambled eggs with chives, they would both refuse. The conversation every parent knows “Ugghhhhh, I hate chives.” “Have you ever tasted a chive?” “No, but I hate them.” would ensue. My answer; The long chive.

“You aren’t man enough to cook a crab soufflé.”

Idly flicking through the Lidl ‘Luxury for All” brochure, I noticed that they were selling their excellent West Cork crab meat as part of their all-encompassing benevolence. I read this out to the assemblage and eldest daughter asked what I would cook with it. “Crab cakes with chili sauce would be nice.” came my reply.

Goading daughter: “Pahhh, what a cop-out. Do something adventurous. Do a crab soufflé. That is…, if you are able to.” 

Manly father: “I’ve never cooked a soufflé before. I understand they can be tricky.”

Goading daughter: “You aren’t man enough to cook a crab soufflé.”

That was it, of course. Like a crab to a barnacle on a piece of string, I rose to the bait. I undertook to cook West Cork Crab Soufflé with Toast and Mixed Leaf Salad. How do I let myself be backed into these things?