Being a "foodie"

So this term "foodie" is new to me this year. I don't think I remember hearing it before we moved to the Middle East. I've discovered that my whole family - including my husband - are foodies. We love food. We think about it, talk about it, love to eat it, compare it, cook it, know where to go in town to eat it, try to guess ingredients, and so on.

It is one of those things that I've only realized now that I am no longer living in my nuclear family. Family characteristics sometimes show up when you are no longer with your family and your brand of normal is not all around. Hence, I've finally found a term that describes us!

Even in the Middle East our friends would laugh about Tom and I always talking about what to eat where - and we're not just talking fussy, upper class foods either.....there are plenty of road-side stands we recommend (=

All this came about because lately I've realized that when I don't know what to do with Layla, when I'm tired of doing 2-year old things - I cook with her. She is remarkably cooperative and USUALLY asks before sticking her fingers in to taste something. I have my suspicions that she'll be a foodie too. She'll try ANYTHING. And I mean that. Stuff that we turn our nose up at, she says "Just try?" How can you resist? That's how she's chewed raw garlic cloves, onions, ginger, bad mall Chinese food, cold soup/chili/leftovers in general and so on. Unless it will truly hurt her, we let her at least try it (= So impressed with her bravery. Taking a second bite is another thing, but I'm not caring about that at all at this point.

So anyway, I figured that since our Christmas plans were cancelled, we'd bake some Christmas cookies to send to folks. I was dying to see how she'd do cutting them out and decorating them and she really enjoyed herself. The little plastic bottles of decorating things are actually the "spices" I give her to shake around and pretend to cook when I'm doing something that doesn't involve her. She stands on her "cooking chair" and has rattled those bottles around countless times. I thought she'd enjoy actually opening them and USING the ingredients for real (=

Very Fun. Highly reccomend cooking with a 2 year old (= Just have a big enough table to put things out of reach.