I am lucky because both of my kids like to cook with me. When I am chilled and relaxed I always try to encourage it. My problem occurs when I either feel that there is some sort of time crunch (sometimes a place to go, sometimes I just want to get it done with and move on to the next thing). When I am relaxed and thinking about it, I realize there's really no where I need to go so badly that I need to be stressed and either telling them "next time" they can cook with me - or rushing them along so none of us enjoy it.
Maybe at breakfast there's a time crunch - but really, neither kid is fully hatched out by breakfast time so there's not a lot of offers. I don't "work" (by that I mean, I work really, really hard - but I am a stay at home mom so there's no going to the office etc), so it's not like I have to be somewhere by a certain time. Does it matter if it takes us 5, 10, 40 minutes longer to do something if we've all done it together?
Although I have not blogged about food much this summer, we sure have done our fair share of eating it. Much of this I will blog about as things slow down in the fall. We had a summer full of house guests, beaching, going to the pool and having a great time in the sun. One of the people who visited us was Alvero from Anis et Marjolaine in St. Lazare, Quebec where we lived for 2 years. Aside from having a lot of fun with him and Ashley, we ate wonderful food and learned a lot about food and cooking while we were at it. It was a great treat for Brad and I, but one thing that really stuck with me was a morning when Alvero made us the best omelettes. Eggs with sauteed shallots and spinach added, then some goat cheese to finish it off. He made (as Jenna would say) puny omelettes, so you got a good whack of flavour in every bite.
Jenna was very interested in what Alvero was doing. What struck me as so great was how he just stopped what he was doing and got her to bring over a chair and taught her how to do everything he was doing. Didn't DO it for her, taught her how to do it. She learned how to crack eggs on the counter and now thinks that's the best thing in the world! (her boring mommy cracks them on the side of a bowl).
(ps. notice my poor dog hoping so badly something will drop for her :-) )
That stuck with me - then the past couple of days the weather has been kind of gross (rainy for the first time in forever - can't complain too much) and I have started watching Emirl Green on TV. I honestly didn't like Emirl too much before - I found the BAM! stuff too loud. But Emirl Green is great. He's a very quiet, nice guy on this show. He's either out in gardens or cooking in Whole Foods and showing people how to work with organic, whole, natural foods. One of his shows, he went through Whole Foods and walked up to kids and asked them if they cooked with their parents and what they cooked. I thought to myself - man, I hope that my kids remember cooking with me as being a fun time.
Sunday we were hanging around the house and I decided it was a good day to have pizza for lunch. I made the pizza dough by myself because the kids were off doing something else. But, they helped me roll the dough out, then put all their own toppings on. They enjoyed this meal more than most pizza days I think because they were so involved in their food.
They loved their pizza and we froze some and they have been eating it since!
