Passing It On

I read a letter in one the foodie mags earlier in the week that inspired me. The letter was about how the reader and her son had started cooking dinner together one night a week and, despite letting the kids help when I'm baking a cake, it make me think about how much I don't let my kids do in the kitchen. So I decided to have a chat with my 8year old boy, Offspring #1, and see if he wanted to try something similar. 

The plan is that we'll have a flick through some cookbooks and foodie mags, as I do when I'm doing the weekly menu plan anyway, and find something that #1 would like to cook for dinner on night each week. He was desperate to tackle Spag Bol for his first meal but was persuaded to leave it a few more weeks as we already have a couple of pots in the freezer. Instead he decided that we'd make hamburgers for Friday night. So we did.

He learnt to peel and chop an onion, grate carrot and cheese, shape meat patties and turn on the gas for the hotplates. He discovered the fun of mixing a meat pattie mixture with your hands and loved watching the onion change in both colour and texture as it went from raw, white and hard to  a deliciously sauteed soft, shiny and translucent. And he found out how satisfying it is to cook something yummy and have everyone pay you lavish compliments.

We both had lots of fun and have plans to spend some time tomorrow looking for something to add to next week's menu. Look, honestly I'm not sure how long it'll last - either his interest or my patience - but I figure it's worth a try. I'll let you know how it pans out.