Cheese!

Close call with the phobia today - I'm going to have to be more careful.

The grade 8s are making pizza. This, of course, includes, cheese. Yes, yes, phobias and cheese. Try to keep up with me here. See the last entry. The phobia victim is not in the grade 8 class, but the class right after.

So. The 8s are scrambling to finish up and get to their next class. I'm scrambling to tidy up and prepare for my next class which is trickling in around the edges. I lead them along with my preamble about our food based science experiment, and if we put cream into a jar and shake it, what do you think we'll get? (Um. Not very many kids guess correctly, in case you're wondering. Maybe 10 percent) Since one of the guesses was cheese (a very common answer, that and ice cream), one boy perked up in alarm.

As he rapidly scanned my work station for clues, I noticed that the mozzarella block was still out and quickly threw a towel over it. I'm sure he saw... but he didn't flee. Any predictions to make about the upcoming term? I'd love to hear them. Just remember, truth is stranger than fiction.

Food Allergies and Phobias

I had wondered if I would run out of material after a term or two. No fear! Looks like bloggable items will never be in short supply.
The new term of 6/7s started this week, and the first order of business is the allergy/food sensitivity sheet. A few children asked questions to clarify what they wanted to write so I had a general sense of what the concerns were, but I was still surprised.

• A child with an anaphylactic allergy to plums. This is my first encounter with severe fruit allergy. 
• A child with lactose intolerance, who can eat small amounts of milk but cannot eat a giant ball of cheese. Well, who can, really? 
• A child who reportedly eats only organic food. Staggering to think about, honestly, in terms of cost and effort. 
• Another one with allergies who reacts to raw, unpeeled, fruits and veggies.
• A hard-core vegan. 
• The usual peanut and nut allergies, a latex allergy and two who revealed medicine allergies - not that I plan to dispense codeine or penicillin in class. But good to know about!
• And the child who reported he's phobic about cheese. That one looked like a hoax, but we spoke, and his teacher checked and it seems on the level. The kid has a cheese phobia. Now there's some kryptonite that you don't want to reveal to your teenage friends!

So it looks like I'm reviewing my recipe ideas this weekend. Nothing with plums, that's for sure. But I might want to keep some cheese strings on hand for self-defense.