This chicken tastes like a parenting lesson yet is oddly yummy...

Killer vignette on the Maya front this afternoon. Set the scene with me picking up Maya from the Lutherans in Ballard @ noon, as usual. The daycare center is a pretty standard churchy building of classrooms behind a contempo-bricko church. Everything around is residential. Save one place - Smokin' Pete's BBQ down the block and across the street. Maya and I've been there together a few times over the past months, and she's been a hit with folks when she's come strolling in before. Important to note: their ribs and chicken plates are crackin' good (my rating - usually a solid B but sometimes with a Plus, like today). Heavy as the recent Rush Limbaugh and often as merciless, though. The idea of heading there today for me was way down the list. Once we hit the sidewalk, Maya turns toward Smokin' Pete's in full babble. Forcing me to either cut bait and pick her up. Or let it run it's course. So we walked. I eventually tried to cut bait and head back to the car. But Maya would have none of it and presented a somewhat convincing case. In no time, we were inside Smokin' Pete's where she'd led me to the cooler for a "wa-wa" and then on to the deli counter where she'd identified the Mac 'n Cheese she's had twice from there. We debated, I caved and ordered a chicken plate to get the sides. We were at a table in no time - jackets off and Maya pleased as Hawaiian Punch way back when they made the stuff from real Hawaiians. We had some Mac 'n Cheese while we waited for the chicken and cornbread to go. Now mind you, I've introduced the hook - Maya's never heard anything prior this day about the cornbread from me or the hipster coolguy behind the counter. But she's had it before. Our food comes in a paper bag with all smiles and the whole spiel on all ends. I start prepping Maya for the exit. And just like a two-year-old, I thought, she got all uppiddy and wanted nothing to do with, um, getting up. She was mumbling something that sounded vaguely like Dubya's last State of the Union (my rating - F-plus), while I gathered our coats and foods and gawd knows what else arrayed around us like a schizophrenic banquet. By the time we'd crossed the street, it hit me. She was asking for "bre-bre" - her goo-goo-ish take on the universalized word for bread. I recalibrated. We saddled up on our hearty Volvo steed. Maya devoured the cornbread on the way home, washed down with loads of "wa-wa", then aced a bottle and passed out like Vince Vaughn at an open bar boat show. I'll see her in a few hours. When I do, I'll thank her for choosing our lunchspot on her own for the first time. My chicken is delicious.

Hope your own takeout is amazing today. Rock on.