Cumin for kids

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I am teaching my children curry. They don't go to nursery so I figure I should make their time at home count for something. Today Abijah, 3, holds the handle of a cheese knife and I press down on the tip as we cut through a block of paneer. He watches as I slice the onions and eats more than I had planned so I am glad I'm not following any written recipe. Grams carry no weight here. Then, to stop him and his little sister swinging on the pull-out spice shelves, I give them what they're interested in, the cumin seeds. "If you're going to spit them out, spit them in the bin."
I turn on the spotlight over the hob. I want to see this in full colour. Oil, cumin seeds, chilis and onions on a big black pan start sizzling, singing. Most other stuff I do is coping but this quarter to five moment is me creating. This is perfume, this is memoir, this is travel, this is bollywood. This is why I don't talk much when the heat is high.
Then mummy thinks about the onset of nappy-time, bath-time, story-time, toothbrush-time, bed-time and go-back-to-bed-time and she lobs in frozen garlic frozen ginger frozen spinach and tinned tomatoes and hangs out the washing while the sag paneer has to make itself. Someone else inside me sulks that she doesn't have time to peel and pound fresh spices and that we are far from the palak fields of the Punjab. This paneer has not rested on a cool black stone, clean and white in a dusty bazaar. It comes from Asda.
But it is nice to see my baby daughter eat my favourite food.

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