Fish.

After banging on about fish in my recent holiday posts, thought I'd blog about them tonight! After eating an obscene amount of fish'n'chips in Cornwall, I am kinda fish'd out a bit, but the kids are still going strong. They've always loved fish fingers and fishcakes, but seafood never grabbed them at all - in fact they both declared they hated prawns and mussels even before they'd even tried them. But Mr Moo has decided that scampi is his current favourite food, and he even likes chips now, which I'm secretly pleased about as he would never eat them as a baby or toddler; can't say I blame him, without salt they are frankly tasteless, and his tastes don't run to mayo or chilli sauce quite yet.

Little Legs also impressed me no end on holiday; she is not the best of eaters (well, she is really but uses food as a method of getting attention which can make mealtimes stressful) and is hugely reluctant to try new things. But fish definitely got her going, think she would quite happily eat it every mealtime now - provided she has tomato ketchup to dunk it into naturally! In fact she was given the choice yesterday of where to go for lunch - and turned down McDonalds in favour of the local chippy! To be fair this establishment has been visited by no less than the master of fish, Mr Rick Stein, so any place with his seal of approval has to be good.

Talking of whom, the last day of our holiday turned out to be a cracker of a day. We decided to take the ferry from Rock across to Padstow, as I'd heard that Mr Stein was going to be doing a book signing there. After walking half a mile down the beach and jumping across the waves to catch the ferry as it was low-tide, we took a trip across the Camel Estuary, passing the infamous Doom Bar (yes, what the beer is named after) on the way. 20 minutes later I was standing in a queue outside his deli, with the kids eating honeycomb ice-cream and the Husband being dispatched into the shop to buy a cookery book - after I'd remembered that standing in line for a book signing was no good without an actual book to sign! Shortly after that I was in front of the great man himself, a little awe-struck if I'm honest, while Mr Moo told him all about the mussels he'd found on the beach and eaten for his tea. Mr Stein seemed rather impressed at a 5 year old even trying mussels, let alone loving them!

He was a thoroughly nice man, even if the prices in his establishments are super-inflated. We're using his recipe book for the first time this weekend, a chicken dish as it happens, will report back if it's any good - and an adults-only visit to one of his proper restaurants in now on the wishlist! Will save the nest day's antics for another blog post, but let's just say another day, another celebrity chef...