Now, cheese is a trickier prospect than it initially sounds, so here are my thoughts.

My friend, who is Annabel Karmelising her eight-month-old child, is now getting to the stage where her darling boy (and he IS a darling) is eating finger foods. Cheese-wise, she went out to the supermarket and bought the blandest, most organic-est cheddar she could get her mitts on. I think it was a 'Strength 1' cheese, on that peculiar cheese tastiness index that all supermarkets seem to have adopted recently. (Don't get me started on that - since when did 'strength' have any bearing on taste?) Naturally, the bold boy loved it and now happily feeds himself flavourless cheddar whenever the opportunity arises. However, the system does mean that their's is now a two-cheese household.

Bearing in mind that I carelessly combine both a capacity for laziness and disorganisation, I can't handle the pressure of maintaining a ready supply of both parental and infant cheeses, so we just started Babybear off on a vintage cheddar. (Size 5! Get us!) Happy to report that she enjoyed it, but the problem was that it crumbled into pieces almost immediately which was very frustrating for a hungry nipper.

We've shopped around, airily dismissing the brittle curded offerings of Somerfield, Tesco and Safeway, but finding both the Isle of Bute organic cheddar from Sainsbury's and the Canadian Mature from M&S rather tasty. The Marks one is best on points for the kiddies as it is quite greasy so doesn't fall apart but I personally like the sainsbury's one better.

All in all, my advice would be to start your child on the cheese you like and adjust upwards or downwards from there. As for working out how to cut it up, it rather depends on the crumbliness or otherwise of the cheese. That Canadian Cheddar can handle being cut up into a chip shape, and with the others sometimes a small squarish slice about 5cm x 5cm x 1cm holds together well, but there's more wastage.

(Gad, who knew there was so much to cheese? And I didn't even go near the whole dairy intolerance thing. Mostly because I don't know anything about it. As usual, if anyone has anything to add about cheese/baby led weaning etc, post away. I should go now, as my head has just exploded due to calculating the perfect Baby Led Weaning dimensions for a slice of cheese. I used to be a career woman, for god's sake.)

Philly, full-fat. Is there any other kind?

According to Gill Rapley, you are better off giving your child toast than bread because the toast is kinda crunchier and is less likely to go claggy and get stuck in the babies' mouths. (I hardly need add that she expresses the concept rather more elegantly than I just did.)
I started Babybear off with some crusts of Italian bread in a cafe (honestly, the life I lead... it's a social whirl) but it was a bit too sharp so I slightly pre-chewed it in the mummy bird style.

Back at home, I am more likely to toast bread, pop some cream cheese or butter or hummus on it and then cut it into slices for the baby.

Initially I used white bread (for that mega-insulin rush) but I have slowly moved her towards a brown multi-grain that her father and I eat. She did a bit of gagging on it a couple of times but it's fine now. I'm not sure about the brown bread, however, as I read on the internet that fibre can interfere with Vitamin C absorption. But we all know that things you find on the internet can be very unreliable, har, har...

If anyone has any information on this I'd be delighted to hear about it. Cheers, all.

It was just one. Her Grandma gave it to her. There was no salt on it. It was a nice restaurant. We were out for Babybear's father's birthday. It won't happen again. (Aitch hangs head in shame).
Babybear LOVED it, by the way. See photo.

Not green ones. Why anyone would submit to consuming a sour green pepper is quite beyond me.
Interestingly, the one time Babybear wolfed down a pepper was when I gave her a raw slice of a rather elderly red one that had been lying around the fridge for a while. It was a little bit wrinkly, but probably quite sweet so she really enjoyed it. I have since given her raw and steamed (for about 3 minutes) organic pepper to chew on but it appears her love affair with this vegetable is over. I'm thinking it will be good for dipping in greek yoghurt, hummus or cream cheese in the future...

A note to my husband, however. Dearest, if we are in a Lebanese cafe and you see what you think is a piece of roast red pepper on your plate, please to not automatically hand it to our child. We wouldn't want to blow her tiny head off with a hot, pickled pepper now, would we?

So far, rice cakes are the only food stuff that break my somewhat sniffy 'if I wouldn't eat them, I'm not giving them to my baby' rule. God, but they honk...
Anyway, as long as you don't breathe in when you open the bag then rice cakes are useful for taking out with you as they don't make much mess. I take them out in a dinky little Tupperware pot that I bought for my purees, haw haw.
I buy Cow & Gate ones which are especially for babies and have extra vitamins added and don't contain added salt etc etc but I'd be interested to know if it'd be cheaper or somehow better to get adult 'no-salt' ones. Of course, they wouldn't fit in my baby-sized plastic pots...
If we are in the house I put hummus or cream cheese on them, which Babybear licks off/sticks up her nose/rubs into her hair before sucking the rice cake to death.
I can't think that there's much to recommend them nutritionally, other than if you are trying to avoid gluten which I appreciate a lot of people are. I just give her them because they are tidy. Does that make me a bad mother, I ask you?