Flea and Annabel Karmel One of my first posts on this blog was my confession that, when she was in pre-school, Flea’s usual breakfast was cereal in a cup.

We’ve moved on from those days. We’re older, wiser, more sophisticated.
Yes, now that Flea is four, she’s big enough to get her own breakfast, thereby allowing me an extra two minutes in bed. I know. Bad Sally.

Perhaps sensing we need to develop better breakfast habits, Cereal Partners UK invited us along to a cooking event in London, where we’d get tips on cooking with wholegrains and nutrition from the likes of Annabel Karmel, Lesley Waters, Greg Searle and Zoe Ball.

The event was held in what I can confidently say must be London’s nicest kitchen. It was all artfully distressed French furniture, painted floorboards and stylish artwork on the walls. Obviously, we fitted right in.

Within five minutes, Flea had bumped into a coffee table that probably cost more than my car, knocking it into an alarmingly tall Zoe Ball, while I squeaked “Celebrity down! Celebrity down!”

We then chatted with the team from Nestle, who kept smiling even as Flea loudly announced her favourite breakfast was not Cheerios, in fact, but brioche. “My kids love croissants, too,” one of the execs confided to us.

My daughter then spat out Lesley Water’s muffin and spent 20 minutes squirting a tube of black icing onto a plate, with a generous amount distributed across her face.

Then Annabel Karmel introduced herself, like some kind of angel in a pink cardigan, and asked Flea if she liked to cook with her Mummy. Flea nodded. “And do you make fairy cakes?” asked Annabel. “What are fairy cakes?”said Flea.

Flea and Annabel
Annabel wasn’t phased in the slightest and proceeded to teach Flea how to make delicious bumble bees out of crushed Shreddies mixed with melted marshmallow, butter and peanut butter, in the process handily addressing that wonder-if-Flea's-got-a-nut-allergy question – she doesn't (although if your child does, this recipe works just as well without the peanut butter). 

I'll confess, I'm not usually a big fan of 'cute' food, feeling life's too short for fancy shaped sandwiches,  but the bees looked impressive and required almost no cooking skill. Even I was able to knock up a couple of bees in around 5 minutes -  although Susanna said mine looked more like a bat, which I found deeply hurtful, if accurate. Annabel also offered to send us some recipe books to try out at home, and I'm looking forward to seeing if anything tops the chicken and apple ball recipe, which is a regular standby for us.

Despite our lack of social graces, everyone was really nice, and it was great to catch up with A Modern Mother, A Mother’s Ramblings, Nixd Minx, Suburban Mummy and Are We Nearly There Yet, Mummy.

Just to round the day off, as we left, Zoe Ball leaned over and said to me, “My little boy always has dirty nails, too.”
It’s so important to leave a good impression, isn’t it?