cooks in the kitchen

Because we hope they can eventually function on their own someday (and not die of starvation), we’ve been slowly attempting to teach the boys to cook.

It has been an experiment with mixed results. Most meals have been edible, but their appearances may leave some room for improvement. Chili was interesting with very strangely shaped (and very large) chopped onions and celery.

Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches were a success but the cook that night was very frugal with the cheese, never guessing that his mother uses at least six slices per sandwich. I doubt he’ll forget that next time; the astounded look on his face that he could use THAT many was priceless.

The main specialty of at least three of the boys is eggs. (The youngest still isn’t allowed near hot pans, even though he insists he’s old enough to fry his own.) They have mastered frying both hard and soft eggs (many preferences within this household - from yolks running all over the place to smashed as hard as possible). They’ve managed omelets, but again the chopped veggie thing tends to be a problem. Someone taught them that eggs on peanut butter toast was a good meal, so that’s been the go-to breakfast for awhile, much to Mom’s repulsion. And they do extremely well in the fine art of hard-boiled eggs - even getting the timing down just right so the yolks don’t turn greyish.

Awhile ago, two boys wanted to know what a poached egg was, which made for the perfect opportunity for a cooking lesson. Here’s what I heard during the process: “Oh sheesh, that’s gross!” “Oh sheesh, that’s crazy!” “Wow!” “Are they good, Mom?” “Don’t know, never had one.” “How long does it need to cook?” “Don’t know, never made one.”

They figured out that they had to keep the water boiling or the egg will stick to the bottom of the pot and that they didn’t add enough water either. When the egg was done: “Why are you putting it on the stove?” “Why not?” “Where else would I put it?” “On a plate?” (I think Mom’s sarcasm gene was inherited by this one.) “Why would I do that - it’s more work!” (This come from the one whose chore was dishes that week.) After making them eat the egg, they concluded it was much better than a hard-boiled egg, because the yolk doesn’t get stuck in their throats. (Go figure.) Then it was off to brag to their brothers that they got to crack an egg into boiling water. “When can we do it again?” was the last question I heard.

Cooking class apparently was a success that day.

Hubby has used the kitchen to his advantage too, only in the area of preparing venison on the days when Mom is gone. He had all four boys grinding deer meat with an antique hand-crank grinder and packaging it into 3-pound freezer bags to use later for venison burgers or jerky. Making jerky was pawned, er, delegated to the boys, who mixed up the seasoning packets into the ground meat by hand, rolled it out to the right thickness, cut the strips and placed them into the dehydrator. Somehow hubby seemed to have failed to get his hands very dirty with that project. The end result apparently was edible, but I’m taking their word for it because I’m not a fan of venison.

One boy wants to be a chef someday, but he has flat out admitted that the only reason he does is so that he doesn’t ever have do the dishes. Apparently he’s seen enough cooking shows on TV to know that some other peon does the cleanup, not the cook. The other boys I think would live on cold cereal if they had the choice, mainly because there are fewer dishes.

I supposed in many ways they are typical of most humans. They enjoy the fun parts of cooking: the tasting, the nibbling, browning hamburger, using a hand mixer, licking spoons, dumping in spices and of course the eating. But they do not like the cleanup and inevitably someone will complain about how many dishes a certain other someone used while they were cooking. And the boy whose chore it is to clean up the table gets upset because of the onion skins or potato peels that get dribbled all over.

The only one who doesn’t complain is Dad, because we made a deal when we first got married - whoever cooks doesn’t have to clean up - and now he’s somehow getting out of all of it.

Turns out he may be smarter (or sneakier) than all the rest of us put together. Wonder how long it’ll take before the boys catch on.