Skip to main content

The Proper Way To Sippy Cup

Do you ever get the feeling that you've been mindlessly shoveling food or gasping down liquids without truly appreciating the tasteful bounty? Like an old professor of mine used to say; eating is something that is done at least three times a day, you may as well do it well.
Or one of my all time favorite culinary quotes from food critic Anton Ego: If I don't love it, I don't SWALLOW. (Quote taken from my also all time favorite movie Ratatouille.)
Here is Leo, (a true Sommelier of the sippy cup beverages) on a very hot day this past week, showing us how it is done! Oh yeah!



First, the bouquet. A long silent pause is required. A thoughtful pause in which the nose can assimilate the slightly pungent smell of a sippy cup that is indeed a rare vintage. The sweet aroma of warmed rubber and of the other random debris which has fused to the outside of the cup during its dark sojourn in the Cellar of La Diaper Bag.. 




Before that first sip is taken, the appellation of origin must of course, be determined. Is this intriguing h2o from the sparkling pristine Swiss Alps? Or perhaps from the mysterious and bottomless depths of a Vermont artesian well? Or is it from a bubbling prehistoric underwater spring? Who can say? It's anybody's guess at this point.
Leo decides the time has come for a taste.



A genteel sip is all one needs; a swish through the mouth and pallet, to determine the body, the balance, yes, even (especially) the astringency of the vintage.



Wowee! That first taste can be a shocker! Sometimes time is needed for the senses to assimilate the onslaught. The taste buds need time to recover so that the accurate mouthfeel can be determined.

Or not. Sometimes the best way to know is to have more. Lots more!


Ahh. There. Now the proper finish of the beverage can be ascertained. 



The lukewarm water has some sweet and sour notes, perhaps from the residual soap from a previous washing. A gentle light body, with just a tasteful hint of fermentation, and wait, wait, aha! The subtle taste of cheese-puff backwash. 


Perfection, thy name is Sippy Cup! A revelation in every sip. (Like the revelation that it's time to clean out La Diaper bag.)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

With Mixed Feelings

So for the past couple weeks my feed has been filled with the "back to school" and "end of summer" and "beginning of parental freedom from their annoying offspring" photos. It's ok, I totally get it. Another year, another back to school pic, another notch in the door jamb, and another chapter of growth and development with junior. Look at him go! Or not, as the case may be for many children. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease control and Prevention) one in six children has one...a developmental disability. A stamp of "not normal" across their foreheads. A number. A check mark in a box. My kid is one of them. I heard a brief segment on NPR that enticingly started out with the title of developmental delays on the rise, a 17% increase over the last twelve years. And though I turned up the volume the segment only talked about how it's probably only due to poverty, and it's only the upper classes that actually pursue diagnosis...
34 comments
Read more

Kinda Like 'Nam.

First off, sorry about the disjointed nature of the posting from yesterday. I was updating via text messegaing from my phone and because the service is patchy in the hospital not only were the posts chopped up but they were frequently out of order. You have to be a sleuth to figure it out. On the other hand, I guess it was a direct reflection of what we were experiencing! Between getting little bits of info and there, we had no clue what was going on. This is what we have been able to piece together since yesterday. The surgery itself was a definite success, though there were a few surprises. One of which being that when they took out Leo's shunt of 8 months they discovered that it was not working. Huh??? He never showed any symptoms of shunt failure and brain compression, so what the heck? In between the sobering list of items now holding risks for our guy, the nuero surgeon dropped this little bombshell on us. Does that ...
18 comments
Read more

The Heart Knows

Today during the physical therapist's visit, Leo was put through his paces. She had a whole list of things, 40 to be exact, of regular newborn motor reflexes and characteristics. Each one gets a check-mark (or not) and then a total score once she tallies up all the information that she observed. Although the final score for Leo really itself doesn't matter, the test was more to establish a baseline of development for Leo, and to find his strengths and weaknesses. Once this baseline is established, it will be easier to tell any progression and growth. Just since her last visit, she observed that Leo was doing a much better job of keeping his head in mid-line position. Before he would always keep it on one side or the other. She also determined during the exam that Leo definitely tracked her with his eyes and responded to sound. More specifically, to my voice. She had him on his tummy facing away from us, and she shook a rattle and made some noise to see if he would move his head...
18 comments
Read more