My Perfect Parent Night Cooking With My Bright, Creative Baker, Dreamer, Potter, Possibly Future Welder-Artist Son

Yes, I am a Perfect Parent with my Perfect, Bright, Creative Baker, Dreamer, Potter, Possibly Future Welder-Artist son, making a project for his class that represents Treasure Island. The book. He and his class read it in English, then he read it in Latin. Because he’s Perfectly Bright and finds Latin romantic in a sad, soulful kind of way. If he was just a ten year old boy, he’d have only read it in English.

The idea was his. And everyone knows that it was his idea, because I would never, ever, eveeer in this lifetime, concoct the idea of making the Inn from Treasure Island out of food. I was more a shoebox project girl myself. I did a wonderful diorama of a beach with starfish and seashells I collected, (with real sand!)and a representation of half of the solar system. Food constructs? Not my thing. 

So tonight, we built the Inn from Treasure Island.  Bear wrote the name of the Inn on a graham cracker with pink sparkling food glitter gel! That was my idea. The writing the name of the Inn. The pink sparkling food glitter gel was Bear’s.

Because I’m a Perfect Parent, and Bear is Perfect, Bright, Creative etc etc., I documented the whole process, because why wouldn’t I share our Perfection with the world?

Old Treasure Island Inn Constructs were notorious for their weak

malleable walls, and often underwent extensive settling, it's what gave

the Inns their rustic charm.

He shopped. He insisted on pushing the cart. I didn’t catch any shots of us in the grocery store, but he chose all the ingredients, and said ‘excuse me’ politely to three people in the store! That’s the truth of just the ten year old boy. Since he’s Perfect, Bright etc etc he thanked them in Mandarin. The language spoken by a certain species of citrus fruit, specifically, not the language spoken in many parts of China. 

Do you see the perfection of these Cocoa Krispy treats?
Just any 10 year old could not have melted butter and marshmallows together
to get such a fine marshmallow-y glossy sheen of sticky gooieness.  

First step, Bright, Creative Baker takes off his shirt. It's a thing that happens every night when we get home now. It's because he's super creative. Shirts stifle the soul. Next first step, the creation of the chosen food for the walls of the cabin: Cocoa Krispy treats. Myself, I would have chosen a pre-fabricated Gingerbread House as a base, seeing as it’s That Time of Year where the store’s are overflowed with them, but Bear chose to use rice krispy treats. My contribution as his Treasure Inn Concoction Advisor was to use COCOA Krispies, so the Inn would have a darker, woodier look to it. They’re organic, of course, the Cocoa Krispies were $12 and imported from the same place as all my coffee.

Making the dirt

Second Step: Prepare the base. The idea was to use Graham crackers. Chocolate ones, because why not? Squish them up, and it’s early spring when the fields have been freshly tilled. No, there’s no grass. This is a self-sustaining Inn. The land in front and all around is used to grow hops.

There's a river by the Inn, Twizzler River.
Everyone knows this.

Next, Bear placed the walls of the Inn up. The Cocoa Krispie treat walls were malleable, and easily placed. Bear and I discussed the roof. Since I'm a shoebox girl, I thought we were done when the four sides of the Inn Construct were covered with a layer of pretzels. Roof done, good. 

Four pretzels=Door! Backside of Gummies=Window! There are
no structural concerns with the Cocoa Krispie walls, none at all,

There's a notch in the sign, from where the Capt'n cut it with
his cutlas. 

Still structurally sound! I was ready to call it good, but does
that look like a proper Inn roof to you? Of course not, because
it's not, not at all, and it just won't do. There's more work to do here.

Bear, however, is Perfect, Bright, Creative Baker, Dreamer etc etc., and he wanted his Treasure Island Inn Construct to have a roof that was more triangular-ish in shape. More pretzels! Since I’m a Perfect Parent guiding my Etc Etc child, I stepped back and licked the frosting off of pretzel sticks while he worked tirelessly on the roof.

Finally, in an effort to not confuse people who might mistake this for a crazed Gingerbread-Pirate Recluse’s House, we coated the white frosting with crushed graham crackers to make the white frosting look more like wood beams. The average 10 year old with a mom who specialized in shoebox dioramas as a child would not be able to pull this look off. Luckily for us, I'm Perfect, and he's Perfect, and everything is just so Perfect. 

Then we placed it in the freezer to solidfy it’s malleability.

The end result?

Everyone knows it's the final details that really make a
Food Constructed Treasure Island Inn... note how the
Cocoa Krispie Treat walls hold up just fine here?
Also, note, the not grass.

Ouila.