Spinach is Greener on the Otherside.

Inspired by true events.

Have you ever made mud cakes? I don't mean putting loads of chocolate in a bowl with flour, eggs, sugar and other ingredients then baking the mixture to make a cake. No, I mean literally filling a bowl with soil dug from your garden, adding water to make a paste, making little patties with the mixture and leaving it in the sun to dry; well I have. Luckily, my mind goes convenietly blank as to remembering whether these mud cakes were ever taken up by human consumption. Truthfully even if they had I don't think I would admit it.

"Don't worry dear I won't be that much longer" mum was talking on the phone to my brother who was desperate for her to come home. "Nan is getting better by the day, tommorrow she will be back from hospital so it will only be a couple of days after that".

"Oh, mum I just miss you alot" my brother huffed at the phone. Grabbing it off him I started grinning whilst shouting down the phone "Only because he is missing your cooking" I started to laugh. My brother grabbed the phone back.

Mum had been gone for a week now and I was left in charge of the cooking and to be fair I was not the best cook in the house,(obviously after reading the first paragraph)so understandably my brother was not happy.

When the phone call finished dad went out to get some take-away for us all, which cheered my brother up. "Why don't you cook if you think my food is bad, you always say you could do better" I said in a mocking tone never expecting him to take up the offer.

"I will then, dad will probably love it more than yours anyway" he replied in a playful manner.

So the next day my brother was chef and as promised he started to prepare a meat and spinach stew. He chopped an onion and started to fry it in a bit of oil adding salt and mixed herbs which he found in the kitchen. He was following a recipe from one of mum's cook books' and seemed to be doing a good job as the smell was irresistable.

Bless, he seemed so happy in his own little bubble, faffing around in the kitchen cupboards thinking he was Gary Rhodes, chopping the spinach evenly which he had freshly picked from the garden. He was loving it.

I was beginning to get abit jealous now, not just because the food was looking and smelling good in the serving bowl on the table but because Dad kept saying "at last a proper meal, my son the cook" and then laughing with my brother.

We all sat down and started tucking into our meal. "Mmmm, that's lovely" dad said. "Are you sure you made it and it's not shop brought". My brother just grinned from ear to ear. I didn't say a word.

"Mmmm, delicious" again Dad made a point of saying. "Just one thing though,some of this spinach seems really tough". Dad said trying to clean some spinach off his front teeth with his tongue. My brother and me both looked at dad and I agreed there did seem to be something wrong with the food. "Which shop did you get the spinach from, I should complain".

"I didn't buy the spinach I picked it from the garden next to the mint leaves".

"Huh, we don't grow spinach in our garden" dad said while pulling a long thin piece of grass from his teeth.