Black/Runny Sauce

It's nice when some things you do as an adult take you back to when you were a child. As it was for me this morning when I was making breakfast – baked beans on toast – to celebrate the Queen's birthday holiday. I know you expected something fairly exotic, me being from the very exotic New Zealand, and so did I, so I was trying to exotic it up a notch. This made me think about my childhood.
There were things in the pantry that were kind of 'adults only' because us kids (5 of us) 'wouldn't like them'. This usually turned out to be true when we tested the taboo items. Olives were one of my first soirée into the 'adults only' food arena, and I didn't like them and still don't. Probably because of that memory as a child. Worcestershire Sauce was another 'adults only' item, and it was called Black Sauce by my mother and Runny Sauce by my father whenever we were sent on a mission to fetch it from the pantry. The mission would also be passed down from (usually) Father to eldest child, who would pass the orders onto next eldest, and so on until it arrived at the youngest, me, who would also be then charged with the 'get me a drink while you're up' mission.
Worcestershire Sauce has the ability to make everything taste better. This says an awful lot about my mother's cooking because dad would splash it over every meal, and despite this fact, would never remember to get it out of the pantry before eating. Nor would the table setter remember to get it out and put it with the Red Sauce (Tomato) or the Brown Sauce (BBQ). We only got to have dinner in front of the telly on Saturday night, and this was a big deal for us because I got to put my plate on the floor and eat from there. So by the time I had completed the Runny Sauce Mission the dog had usually snatched my portion of meat and hightailed it out the back door with me running after it and my mum yelling 'leave it, you should have put your plate up'. Luckily there was always a little more left in the kitchen for me and my empty belly.
My current dogs would never take food off a plate, mainly because now when I go to get the black runny sauce I keep yelling 'I can see you, leave it alone', and here they are:







I would also like to pass on the 'one lovely blog' award to Rae. I really like the walks down memory lane http://myweathervane.blogspot.com/2009/05/place-i-know-best.html