The Muddy Kitchen: The Babymoon is Over

So, it's been a while since we really talked. What's new? 

Mmm hm, ooh. Well, good luck with that. 

Us? Oh we're just all growed up, 

that's all.

Our first baby is now the biggest person in the family. When did that happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that he was the dinky little dude who needed help standing up?

It's hard to believe that not so long ago, all four of our ever taller, always talkative, vastly capable, constantly eating kids were each once chunky, drooling, developing, constantly eating babies.  And, while I am so grateful for the years I spent caring for my kids when they were very young, I don't miss that time. Not even a little bit.

Here's a shocking admission: I don't get sad about my kids growing up. I have shed nary a tear about it over the years, not even a happy one. Watching them each become who they are, and helping them get through what comes next. keeps me too preoccupied to lament the bygone baby. I know that having three more babies after the first one gave us lots of cuddling opportunities, in spite of all the growing up going on around here; and that moms who sigh wistfully at baby photos are excited about their kids' futures too.This is different. I was nostalgia-challenged before motherhood, since being told as a kid, "I'm going to put a brick on your head to keep you from growing up so quickly!".

 I stare like Data when people declare that someone is growing up too fast.

What do you consider a more appropriate rate of maturation? 

Nothing against babies, but I'm pretty sure not enough good has been said about teenagers.They are majestic creatures, I tell you!  In the three and half years since he entered teendom, my firstborn has not only made meals and done housework, he's come up with some of the funniest jokes I've laughed at in my whole life.

He's inventing his own bread recipe and teaching himself French. 

He's tall enough to reach things I can't!

He also wears this jacket, and I have no idea what it means, but all the cool kids get it. And since he is enormous now, if I want to, I can borrow it and pretend to be cool too. #perks

Another marvel he performs is holding down the fort while I go to work, travel, and make food for my friend: a local lady who just had her own little tiny baby son.

Babymoon Breakfast Cookies

I call them that because I remember my first morning, back in my house, with a brand new baby and a husband out the door for work. I was elated, tired, wired, and finally hungry. No problem, Henry was sleeping. I could make myself a quick....oops, Henry's not sleeping anymore. And so, I rifled through the cupboards, with a big baby boy in the crook of one arm, searching for my first non-hospital meal as a mother.

It was a granola bar, that I got to by savaging the side of a cardboard box and stretch-shredding the wrapper with my teeth. Actually, it was about five granola bars. I remember thinking, "I am going to have to plan this better." as toasted oat crumbs dropped into the ear of my little nursling.

Don't go thinking I actually did figure it out though, not when it would have helped me. Thanks to being a noob, discovering the joys of newborn reflux, and the blur of utter sleep deprivation, I'm pretty sure I spent about four weeks subsisting solely on peanut butter I licked off of my hands, and crumbs from the area of counter top around my toaster. 

Many years later, between babies of my own, I brought dinner for a friend who had just given birth. Included in the big paper bag of foil-wrapped packages was a batch of something like the top of a muffin, baked like a cookie. When I talked to her later, she raved about them and asked for more. They're a real meal, that you can hold in one hand. Not unlike a granola bar, but with simpler ingredients, and a little beefier.

Ingredients:
Wet
2 cups dried dates (look at the photos below and instructions on how to prepare them.)
2 cups chopped and toasted nuts (any kind you like, a blend works well)
2 carrots, grated finely
2 cups dried apples, chopped coarsely
3 eggs
1 cup apple sauce
1/2 c. brown sugar

Dry
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 T. cinnamon
1 t.  ginger (Minced fresh is best, but ground works too.)
1/4 t. each, ground nutmeg and cloves
1 1/2 c. flour
1 T baking powder
1 cup oats

Splash o' milk

Date Base:
When I'm baking something a that I want to have reduced/ no butter or sugar, I start with dried dates.

I cover them in water, bring them to a boil, and then remove from heat. About thirty minutes later, when they're re-hydrated, I run them through my food mill. 

It resembles pudding at this stage; a highly useful, sweet base that I have used in a many a sugar and dairy-free recipe, over the years.

Back to the Breakfast Cookies:

The wet stuff gets mixed together, the dry stuff gets mixed together, then both groups get mixed together and a splash o' milk helps you achieve the perfect consistency for scooping spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and baking at 350 for about twenty minutes.

You can switch up the ingredients, and might need to, considering some of these ingredients can be potential allergens for mom and baby. What is most important is that they contain copious quantities of protein and fiber. Protein makes a lady feel better fed, and most new moms really need fiber, That's all I'm saying about that.

These things I've learned over years of motherhood can actually do somebody else some good, thanks to this guy.

Because he is willing and able to look after his little siblings from time to time, I am able to steal away, to the hushed home of a newborn baby, and deliver these cookies to someone who is just starting her journey. Hopefully, she is better fed than those of us (me) who came before her.

The Muddy Kitchen: Stuff It, Squash It, Love It

See that? There are big changes afoot in the BU! Specifically, the B. Our backyard is in flux*

 

*"In flux" means you don't have to feel bad for having stuff all over the place outside.  We're fluxing, neighbors!


What's all the flux about? The removal of our old outbuilding, to make way for the construction of a greenhouse, for which this is the frame.

While it just looks like a pile of metal sticks, this little baby cost a pretty penny. Buying it pretty much cleaned out our bank account in one fell swoop. When I imagine spending the endless end of winter in it, warm(er), keeping up with my planting schedule, no matter the icy rain, I know it will be worth it. But for now, I have six people to feed and the holidays are coming up.

Don't worry about us, this is what playing in the dirt, frolicking with fowl, and tending plants is all for: feeding the masses.

As I look around at my harvests and holdings, we can definitely make a few weeks of cheap dinners from the bounty. These acorn squash volunteered in my garden, popping up from seeds carried in compost.

       Exactly six. Coincidence????????  Yeah, probably. But also, coincidinner.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Stuffing:
1 1/2 c. cooked brown rice
1 1/2 c. cooked wild rice
1 c. finely chopped, toasted walnuts
1/2 c. finely chopped onion
3 finely chopped cloves of garlic
3 eggs
1. c. ricotta cheese
1 c. grated Parmesan cheese
sage, parsley, salt, and pepper to taste

Six acorn squash, of various sizes

Preheat oven to 350. After cutting the squash in half and scooping out the seeds, brush insides with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Set aside half of the Parmesan to sprinkle on top, and mix together remaining stuffing ingredients. Spoon into the squash "bowls" and press a little Parmesan cheese onto the top. Bake at 350 until the cheese is brown and the squash flesh is soft, turning halfway through a baking time of about 45 minutes.

Confession: I've made this recipe many times before, and despite it being delicious, it hasn't always gotten rave reviews from the under 12 set.  So I pulled a classic parenting move. I invited my good buddy in all things laborious (who also has been our most vocal anti-stuffed squash family member) Thomas, to help make it. Yes, yes, I do love to get kids cooking, just for its own sake, but there is an ulterior motive here.

 

When a child is free to handle and carefully destroy whole, stimulating ingredients, a deeper level of appreciation for a previously unpopular dish might develop. He smell smells and his eyes water.

 

From mincing, to measuring; stirring to stuffing, a kid plugs a little of himself into the process and notices all of the little things.

I mean, to brush something in extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle it with salt and pepper is a vital life skill, if you ask me.

Things don't just taste that way on their own. The next generation of grown-ups needs to learn that.

After preparing these squash, and sighing with satisfaction as we closed the oven door on them, it suddenly dawned on Thomas that he was not a fan of this dish. Drat! I was hoping he wouldn't remember.

"Hey....I seem to remember HATING stuffed squash!" he said, brow furrowed. I pointed out that they might taste better this time, because he made them. He finished that sentence, smiling, with "in MY image!" Exactly, my boy. You're in that squash, and soon that squash will be in you. Just as it should be.

The Muddy Kitchen: It's About Thyme

It's weird when you have a blog. Life gets full, time becomes tight, and you notice you haven't been writing much on it. But then, you think, what should I write? At the switch-over from 2013 to 2014, I don't want to waste anyone's time with a top ten list of crunchy cute things they'll never get around to doing. I don't want to wax nostalgic about how grand the last twelve months was, even though it was pretty great at times.

I will probably want to stick a recipe in here somewhere.  Especially since New Year's Day typically presents an opportunity to eat a particular something, with the belief that it will influence your luck throughout the next year. For those of us who grew up in Midwestern/ Southern U.S., black-eyed peas would be that magic dish that will hopefully ensure some good times in the next twelve months. Whatever. You don't need to give me a reason to eat black-eyed peas, I love them. Tell me it'll bring me good luck, and I might end up eating seconds or thirds. You know. Just to hedge the ole' bets.

The time is upon us for such a dish, but instead of going to my favorite black eyed peas recipes, I decide I want to switch things up. Do something different this time. To the internet! All of my searching left my mouth watering and my brain noticing that one word kept popping up again and again: Thyme.

 Whoa. I think mama just got her blog back.

Did you get a chill? Because I did. I put on a hat and it went away. Anyway, thyme, it seems, goes with the timely little bean. Every recipe I found called for thyme. You get it right? Time, thyme? Homophones, yo. What a perfect dish for me to make today and eat tomorrow, because, on New Year's Eve, I can't help but be contemplative about this time marker, and how it seems to arrive sooner each time.

Here's a little tale from way back when. When I was about 7, I got my first invitation to a slumber party. I clearly remember the date printed on the little card and that it was three days away, which seemed like FOREVER.  Eons passed as I clutched that little card and compared it to the calendar, looking at what seemed to be a frozen clock. Time didn't just drag, it sagged and stretched tortuously.  I don't even recall anything about that slumber party, just the agonizing wait that preceded it.

Now, as I anticipate putting the household Christmas decorations away, when three days feels like the blink of an eye, I am somewhat comforted by the fact that time flies more and more, the older you get. Celebrations of next year will arrive faster than they did last year. And no, this is not because I am a Time Lord.

See, forget gray hair and wrinkles. You know you're getting older when it feels like time is speeding up. What used to feel like forever is nothing. A year? That's nothing. <-Not something I would have said ten years ago, when a year was a larger percentage of the time I've been walking this earth.

Time, for us peoples, is relative. That means a day is not a day and a year is not a year. As far as we're concerned, these things exist in a relationship with us, because we obey the laws of time ourselves. When we are first born, a day is equal to our whole life. At the end of your first year, 365 days = 100 % of your time here. All the living you've ever known.

A year later, 365 days drops down to only half of your life span, but that still feels like a significant chunk of time. Like half an eternity.

 As the years go by, each one diminishes in comparison to your time here, which really does alter how you perceive that span of days. It feels like something you're seeing from farther and farther away. It never changes size, even though to you, it appears to be shrinking.

This can make us good elders for generations behind us, as we age; because we become capable of thinking more realistically about five years from now, ten years from now, generations away. These notions are less abstract, and more approachable.  It's like seeing more and more of a mountain range with every day. I, personally, find this journey calming, even though I already don't feel like there are enough hours in the day.  I have so much living in the moment to do before the rapidly approaching Christmas 2014.

Like eat these delicious, lucky Stewed Black-eyed Peas.

The Muddy Kitchen: It's Easy Being Green

Whew, summer! Is it just me or do the longer days act as a vacuum, sucking into existence ten million new things to do everyday? More daylight should mean getting more done, and while we have been doing a lot, it doesn't feel like we're getting much done. Hence the blogless month of June.  But I am grabbing a very squirmy July by the tail. I have something to say and I am carving out time to say it, minute by minute, as I work on tonight's dinner.

That's right, a recipe! But first, some details: I have a summer job. That might be contributing to my overflowing schedule, now that I think about it, but it's totally worth it. I have the best job I could possibly have. I work at my local farmer's market, running a booth that is like a co-op. My neighbors bring what they grow, and I sell it for them. Not only does this generate income for the smallest scale farmers in my area, it supplies our market with a more diverse selection. People grow interesting stuff when they know they'll be using it on a small scale. I mean, Magenta Spreen?

I'm pretty sure we were the only booth in town with iridescent pink leaves last weekend.

Of course, my booth showcases a lot of conventional fare as well. One thing that grows and sells like hotcakes is greens. Kale and chard, mostly. People want to eat them, they know they should eat them, they buy them, they try to cook them, but sometimes they hate them, but they know they should eat them, but they really don't want to anymore. So, regularly, someone dutifully lifts a bunch of great ribbed rubbery leaves from its water-filled bin; and holds it, dripping, aloft, asking, "But, what do you do with it?" That's when I get excited and start talking fast. Because I used to HATE eating greens, but now I LOVE them. I believe this transformation warrants capital letters, and is due to my having developed a method of preparing them which renders them delicious (especially with roasted potatoes.)

Mix It Up: Back where I grew up, this would be called a mess of greens.

It would also be cooked in bacon fat, but now I'm just getting ahead of myself. Look at this photo.

There are five different kinds of leaves here. One thing that always made eating a mess of greens less than appetizing, for me, was that I was usually eating a mess of one kind of green only. Collards and kale, in particular, I never liked. But I can eat them now, because I eat them with a bunch of other plants. When there is a variety of flavors (turnip tops, beet tops, chard, kale, mustard), my mess sings, rather than bash you over the head with one funky or spicy form of chlorophyll.

Separation of Leaf and Stalk: One sacred rule when cooking greens, and a lot of vegetables, is not to overcook them. Removing the thickest portion of the leaf allows it be cooked separately.

For tender stalks, I just trim them off of the end of the leaf. For thicker stalks, I cut the stalk out of leaf a bit.

 This means the delicate leafy part can be cooked later in the process, for less time than the stalks.

Add Allium:                

 This little guy is your secret weapon. 

Who says greens just have to contain greens? Add some chopped garlic, onion, scallion, chives, whatever to your mess before the delicate leafy parts go in.

I put onions with the stalks. The chopped garlic is in its own bowl because I add it a little after the stalks and onions have cooked, a few minutes before adding the leafy parts. Onion turns translucent and sweet when sautéed for a long time, but garlic turns brown and bitter,.

 Flavorful Fat:

 As I mentioned before, bacon fat is the preferred oil for those who prepare greens the old-fashioned way. I use butter, or vegetable oil I've saved from frying.

Meet my girl, Sherry: 

 Well, la-dee-da. Look who thinks she's all fancy. It's the lady who adds a little cooking sherry to her sautéeing leaf stalks, (seasoning with salt and pepper, and letting it cook on med-high for a minute, to remove the alcohol and reduce to a light broth.)

 You might be reading this thinking, "Okay, now you lost me. I'm not one of those fancy 'cooks with wine' people." Neither was I! But then, I obeyed a succotash recipe I read online. Later, another online huckleberry sauce recipe used up the rest of the bottle I bought for the succotash recipe. I bought another bottle as a replacement, without a recipe ordering me to do so, I missed it that much. It's probably in the salad dressing aisle of your grocery store. Get some and get over yourself. You're one of those people now.

When the stalks are tender, add the chopped leafy parts.

The more finely you chop them, the easier they are for little mouths to eat . Turn the heat to med-low and stir constantly, for about two minutes. Then cover and remove from heat.

Sweet and Sour:  Give your greens a stir and a taste. Do they need something? Think sweetener. Sometimes a sprinkled pinch of sugar helps. Or a little acid. Try a splash of balsamic vinegar or squirt of lemon juice.

Last Ditch Effort: This is for those of you who cannot be reached. You did everything like I said, and you still hate your greens. But now you have this mess on your hands, and it'd be nice if you could find some way to get your family to eat it, after which, you swear, you will never never try to eat them again. Parmesan cheese. A handful or two of that has made all the difference with those in our household who are less inclined to love their leafy meal. Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. Feed it to your chickens.

The Muddy Kitchen: Subject to Change

Just who do you think you are, anyway?

Are you a lady, or a kid, or a cat who wandered in front of a laptop?

Does thinking about your identity trigger a cascade of memories in .jpg form, all seen through your eyes only?

Or would you answer differently? Would you say, I'm a pastry chef.  I'm a competitive jump rope jumper. I'm a manager of many underlings. I'm a student and a big sister? I'm an iguana handler? Aristotle said, "We are what we do repeatedly." Are we?

The fact that you alone can answer that question about yourself is kind of huge. That means there's one unique story that nobody but you can tell. It's your story, and you don't have tell it in written, oral, or pantomime form, but you put it out there everyday. Just by being you.

Mr. Rogers was right!

If you know who that dude is, you've probably heard all of this before. Just be yourself and make the world a more magical place! Right? But what about....everybody else?

They seem to be convinced that they should just be themselves too. Oh boy. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. How to be me while letting you be you? This is at the heart of  my experience, raising young humans, but it's also the constant challenge for anyone dealing regularly with, well, everyone.

In this house of growing creatures, change is the order of the day. In order to govern lovingly and logically, there must be freedom to be, but there must also be freedom to be something else; to change. To say that that mental potential, to be a princess one moment, and a frog the next, is necessary to our survival, is no overstatement. In the big biogamble that is life on this side of the carbon cycle, flexibility is a highly valuable strategy. Freedom to determine for yourself just who you think you are on a moment by moment basis is crucial; so it stands to reason, allowing those around you the same liberty is only fair.

And it is with that that I make a major, earth-shattering confession. We have changed. Remember? Way back when we first met? And I said I was a vegetarian? Raising li'l vegetarians, with my vegetarian man? Yeah, about that.

We all eat fish now. And crabs. Weekly. We even hope to begin snatching these creatures from their nearby watery homes soon too. That's right, nearly vegan to stone-cold killers in a matter of months!

I don't want be a bore and list all of our reasons for this change, just like I never felt like lecturing the world on why I was a vegetarian for nearly ten years. All of our dietary decisions are based on a complex amalgam of responsibility, convenience, and self-interest. Even though I eat according to ever-changing self-imposed rules, I firmly believe in my tendency to screw up, so I can't assume that others should adopt my way.

You should, however, adopt the following recipe. As a novice, I'm not about to give out advice on how to prepare fish. It's what I add to it that makes it special: a very simple salad that makes undressed fish flesh and cold quinoa taste like a party in your face. I learned to make it many years ago in Ecuador, on a little adventure there. Ecuadorian people from one border to the other, up high in the mountains, or down in the jungle, ate one dish regularly, and fed it to me often. It was a cold chunk of tuna fish, right out of the can, next to a scoop of rice, with a side of what I'm about to share with you. Feeling sorry for Ecuador yet? Well don't. Just:

Slice equal parts tomatoes and peppers very finely.
Add half that quantity thinly sliced red onion.
Drizzle with lime juice, vegetable oil, and salt, to taste, and that's it! Stir and let sit in the refrigerator for an afternoon, and enjoy getting blasted in the mouth every time you use it. Oh, and you will use it. Not just on fish, but on whatever animals and plants you are at peace with eating.

Here's what it all looks like, minus the fried egg. Because, as everyone knows in Ecuador: you want to make sure someone likes their dinner, you slap a fried egg on it.  Plop it right on the quinoa in this case. Just puncture the egg yolk and enjoy the muy rico sabor.


Or don't. It's up to you.

The Muddy Kitchen: Eternal Flame

You know how some moms feel about tulips and daffodils? All in love with the gardeny goodness of a fleeting dramatic set of blooms? Well, that's how I get in June when my Egyptian Walking Onions do their thing.

This top-setting onion is hardy and, in some cases, can take over a space. Our big bed started with just one little plant, purchased at a farmer's market, five years ago. I've never pitchforked the bed to harvest the whole plant. Just snipped the green parts off when I needed them, and waited patiently for summer, when the tops of the green spears explode in  purple clusters, replete with flowery, snaky antennae, bending in all sorts of directions. I guess this is why they have the name, Egyptian Walking Onions, because all of those kooky spirals reminded someone out there of The Bangles.

In the past, I have always planted the bulbs that form at the top of each plant, in the little spaces left in the bed. I was building up my beds so that I would have more every year. This was a special year because the beds are full and most of the bulbs are available to harvest. Finally! I get to see what weird tastes like!

After beheading, pulling apart bulbs, and skinning them, I put them into sterilized canning jars, with a hefty sprinkle of cumin seeds, a few slices of jalapeno pepper, a minced mustard leaf, and a few tablespoons of minced parsley. Then, I poured in a boiling hot brine solution to cover.

Here's the recipe, brought to a boil, stirred to dissolve, over medium heat:

1 1/2 c. white vinegar

1/4 c. pickling salt

1/3 c. sugar

This sealed jar is sitting, several inches underwater, in a boiling pot right now. I'll take it out in about thirty minutes, let it cool, and wait a couple of weeks before opening it. I'm not one to predict the future, but I bet I'll be humming Eternal Flame when that big moment arrives.

The Muddy Kitchen: Cooking With a Toddler

I'll begin by saying, this post does not contain a recipe. If you want to make the same thing Mae made yesterday, buy Vegan on the Cheap, a cookbook we picked up recently, and make the Moroccan Chickpeas With Couscous, only make it with quinoa, which is what we did.

No, this post contains a recipe for a budding chef; How to Make the Perfect Young Gourmand. These are my tips on how to cook with someone who has just two crazy years behind her.

It's more fun than it sounds, I promise. You have to know your kid really well, and do things just so. But, I'll get to that later. Let's talk about why a small young tiny baby girl should be wielding knives and working near a heat source?* Because it is within their grasp, with a little help, and I believe it makes them mighty. It is my goal to see my kids familiar with the ingredients that go into food they love to eat.

*with constant, vigilant**  parental supervision. 


**bordering on panicky, but you don't want to make the air in the room full of  fear chemicals, so try to keep cool.

So, yesterday I decided it was high time our youngest child, Mae, stopped her free-loading ways and made us all dinner. And no Air Cakes, or Lego Sandwiches. Dinner. Something hot and filling, and you know what? Moroccan! Yeah, you tiny small little young baby girl, make us a wonderful ethnic vegan dish, because mama has a blog and this would be the ultimate. Get to work.

1.  Start early: Hold the Angst

When cooking with a toddler, you don't want to wait until 3pm (aka The Crankening) to start. If your li'l chef is no longer napping daily, that's still a bad time, for two reasons: 

  a. They are usually very tired at this point in the day if they haven't napped. Exhaustion can greatly increase the chances that your cooking kid could get hurt.  

 and 

 b.  If  it ends up being for the best that the attending adult throws in the towel, puts on some Netflix instant streaming gobbldeygook, and takes over, finishing the meal, said adult still has to do it while said toddler is perhaps ignoring the Netflix gobbldeygook, and is clinging to the lower half of her mom's legs, wailing into her knees.*

*By the way, if this happens, quit stirring. Turn off the stove, heat up the oven, and pop in a frozen pizza. But, first, top it with something from the garden and take a picture. You know, so you can still blog about it.

Here is Mae in the morning, starting the garbanzo beans. You might call them chickpeas, but I don't. I did, however, call Mae a Chickpea, and I enjoyed that very much.

They're dry, raw, and perfect for scooping from one container (a bowl) to another (a large cooking pot).  I gave her a pitcher of water, and placed one hand on the handle, the other wide against the front of the pitcher, and helped her pour.  I have made a point of acquiring small and child-friendly tools for our kitchen over the years. However, a liquid measuring cup, filled and emptied several times would do just fine.

With tasks like pouring a full cup of water into pot, I introduce it in phases. At first, I model how to do it. Next, I transition to the child doing the action once, with my hands also there, doing all the work.  Finally, I let go and let the child do it on her own, and make sure I know where the nearest towel is.  Practice saying "We'll wipe it up!" if they spill, and they probably will. But, they learned a lot from that spill, most likely, so let them have another go, right away. If children don't fear mistakes their determination can shine, and they usually show a lot of progress. Children learn from their mistakes very quickly, when they're motivated.  

After she had covered the beans in water, I dumped a little pile of salt on her palm and told her to put it in the pot, which she did. Then, I handed her a spoon after stirring for a second and said, "Stir it. You're making dinner." She was totally on board with that! So, we went up to the stovetop.  

2. Using the Stove*: Using Some Sense

 *At your own risk!  Consider for yourself whether you and your child would have a good experience working around a hot stove top.  If you feel you would be too nervous, or your child would get hurt, (or both, obviously), or that all of this Make Your Baby Cook Dinner stuff is nonsense, don't do it. )

I put the pot on a burner, scooted up a chair, turned up the heat, and handed her a long-handled spoon. We have been teaching her "hot" and "be careful" for a long time now, so she was hip to it right away. The burner warmed slowly (perhaps the only plus to having an electric stove) so she could feel the heat intensifying gradually.  I noticed her becoming more and more aware of the heat, keeping a distance from the burner as it got more dangerous. This is not to say that she is anywhere near ready to be near a heat source of that magnitude without a parent right there, free-hands, and fully attentive, at her side the entire time. But, I could remain calm around her and give her instructions, like "Stir it, and now pour this in.  Stir it some more.  Be careful. That's hot." while there was bubbling and heat and sizzling and all of that.

3. A Lot of Here We Are and There We Are

Mae's major contribution to the preparation  of tonight's dinner was Moving Small Bits From One Location To Another.

When putting beans in a pot, or chopped nuts in a pan to toast, or mixing a bunch of ingredients in one bowl and dumping it into a larger receptacle , the main thing a little kid can already do is pick stuff up and put it somewhere. And they love it!  Plus, I noticed she was trying to mimic the way she has seen me scoot little crumbs together with the side of my hand, like a squeegee on the cutting board. That took some doing.

Little kids also love cutting parsley with scissors. Do with that what you will. 

4.  Onions: Give Baby a Break

Don't make the little child cut the onions. Do it for them, offering chopped onions, if called for, when needed. The end.

5.  Math: Sneakin' It!

Yeah, yeah, the measuring cups. We all know how kids learn fractions by using measuring cups and spoons. Only problem is, try to explain the marvelous world of fractions to a toddler. They don't care! You know what they do love? One-to-one correspondence, which came in handy when we didn't feel like setting the table.  We handed Mae four bowls and told her to put them on the table. She did. Then, we handed her four spoons and she knew she was supposed to put one with each bowl, and she did. Did you know she just demonstrated mastery of a kindergarten grad-level concept there? boom.

 Extra Zen Credit Points: She also shuffled meticulously across the vast kitchen floor with brimming cups of water, and lifted them above her head to the top of the table, spilling nary a drop. Four times. That demonstrated a level of focus and commitment I'm not sure even I possess. It was an inspirational little moment.

6.  Garnish: Love Sprinkles

You don't need garnish.Or do you? Does your soul need song? Does your heart need art? Does your tongue need love?  If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you might consider garnish. It's a way to celebrate life by sprinkling something on your food. Something delicious. Freshly-snipped herbs, toasted nuts, grated cheese, sliced peppers: garnishing a lovingly-made dish is an easy way to convey to your culinary kid that we are trying to have some fun here.  This is fun. Sprinkle Away! Life Tastes Good! Look at that! You just made dinner!