Sunday, January 02, 2005

First Sniff of Mint

We're still bathing Celeste in the kitchen sink, which sometimes means bath time crosses over with dinner-preparation time. Tonight, I was making şehriye çorbası (orzo soup, Mahi Koç's recipe, which I found online years ago and still love) and we bathed Celeste while the tomatoes and broth were simmering.

I had to step away to add the orzo and to stir occasionally, but the funniest bit was when I was getting out the mint. We have a big bag of spearmint we ordered from Penzey's a while ago (who knew an ounce of dried leaves would be so big; I made the same mistake with bay leaves, too), so whenever I make the şehriye çorbası, I have to break up the leaves by rubbing them between my fingers.

It leaves a nice smell on my hand, so I thought I'd see what Celeste thought. She was playing her favorite bath game (she puts her hands in the stream of water and stares at them until the perfect moment when she quickly tries to cram both hands into her mouth), and I stuck one finger that had been rubbing the mint leaves under her nose. She stopped what she was doing, got very still for a moment, and her eyes got wide. And then her tongue leaped out to take a quick lick or two.

I tried it again a little bit later, nothing. I guess the experience wasn't new anymore. Luckily we have a lot of spices, and dinner comes every night ...

2 comments:

mc said...

I was sure this was going to end up with pouring orzo on the baby, or shampoo in the soup. But the truth is much cuter to imagine ;)

T. Carter said...

Well, I did give her the measuring cup to play with after adding the orzo to the soup; does that come close enough?