Week fifteen - Robert Chadderton, master chef.

Rob has always had a love of food and drink. In fact, our whole family has. But no one else was quite as experimental with their eating/drinking habits as Rob. 

The way Rob would drink always amused me. I rarely saw him sip from a regular glass or cup -- and he would always sip, making a very particular sound when he did so. It was a full experience. He would pour out the drink, look at it from different angles, tap the container it was in, look at it some more, yell with delight (sounding kinda like this 'eeeeeEEEEEEEEh!') while waving his hand behind his back and then, maybe, if he was ready, he would take that very particular sip. 

Rob's brain could find a drinking vessel in pretty much anything but a cup. 

Measuring cups were also a big favourite. He would often line a series of them up and woe betide you if you moved one to the wrong spot. 

Rob has loved a fair few things in his life, most of which are food/drink related. It sometimes saddens me that, when I go and visit him at his care-house, I take a back seat to vegemite, chocolate, coke, chips and lollies.

As a kid, Rob was dead keen on one colour: pink (more on that later). This meant that all the foods he wanted to eat would be either pink or red (or the packaging would), such as strawberry Quik, Coke, raspberries, strawberry ice cream etc. Unfortunately for me, all my favourite lolly-type treats (I didn't care much for chocolate) were also strawberry/cherry based. There were never really any fights for food treats because usually Rob was too quick for me to even know they were there. 

Rob would also break into the staffroom at his school and pour liquids into the mostly full coffee containers. 

One of Rob's favourite foods was vegemite. Not pink but it did get the salty spread tick of approval from Mister Rob. This photo below (from from Rob's Visual School Diary - they took a photo every day!) is of Rob enjoying all his favourite food groups: Vegemite, Coke and strawberry ice cream. He is also using a regular cup (he had less access to his preferred vessels at school) but holding it in that particular way Rob liked to hold, with his pinky finger. 

Rob proving me wrong and using a cup at school. 

Rob didn't have much change in his diet. But he was quite happy mixing things that he knew were delicious.

It was very hard getting him to eat veggies or fruit. Anything that helped him eat things other than chips or chocolate cake mix was a plus. This is about the time Mum started making homemade pizzas. 

Rob loved these pizzas. A lot. Which was good to start off with as it meant he would eat some sort of veggies. But it soon got to the point that Rob was getting Mum to make 6 or 7 pizzas a day. And when told he had had enough, wasn't too happy. Rob doesn't have an off switch when it comes to eating and Mum received many bites and pinches relating to saying 'No' to making Rob more food. 

I mentioned above that Rob liked to eat chocolate cake mix (I'm also a batter eater - I still eat pancake batter whenever we cook them at home, much to the chagrin of my partner Owen). 

They actually taught him how to make a chocolate cake a school. 

The thought was that teaching Rob cooking skills would help him learn about cooking and eating, which it did. And if he found a mix packet, he HAD to make it. It was lost to you forever. 

However, it also created a new obsession: trying to find cake mix in any building he went into. His first point of call would always be the kitchen. 

But at home Rob could be sneakier. If he did get his hands on a pack o' mix (sometimes it didn't even have to be cake mix: anything brown and/or powdery would be fine), he would sneak it off to his bedroom or playroom and use one of the empty drawers to make 'Rob's Famous Cake Drawer Mix'. 

Rob was pretty good at sneaking ingredients away into his room. This led to a number of strange sticky brown stains, lumps and messes around the house. His pants would also be encrusted with what you hoped was 'Cake Drawer Mix'. 

Okay guys, that's it for this post. Although there are a ton more food stories, these are the essentials. I'd love to hear about what foods you were obsessed with as a kid, or maybe that a sibling of yours loved so much that you ended up hating (I don't mind chocolate cake, but let's just say it's not my favourite). 

Write you soon! xx