This past month, I had the pleasure of
visiting with my son, daughter-in-law, and my three lovely grand
children, ages 10, 8 and 5 years. It was an especially joyful time
for me because I don´t get to see see them often. I live at the Mexican border and they live at the Canadian
border, about 2000 miles away. While the children are always sweet and
loving, they are still a bit shy with me. Thus,
as a sort of icebreaker, I wanted to do a one-on-one project with
each child. After a bit of reflection, I decided to do a cooking
project with the children. My past
visits and recent communications had shown me that the grandchildren
were way above average, doing a multitude of activities such as soft
ball, swimming, gymnastics and community theater. All that was proof
of their mental and physical fitness. And I hoped that their days of
cooking with Abuela Susan (as they call me) would be รค giant, first
step toward "kitchen-fitness".
In preparation for this project, I sent
ahead a set of children's cookbooks. A cupcake book for Iris, the
oldest, a cookie book for Myra, the second, and a simple snack book
for Cruz, the youngest. In my judgement this choice of books
would reflect the complexity of the cooking tasks, according to ages.
(As related below, my estimation of the relative difficulty of the recipes
turned out to be wrong.)
As soon as I arrived, I asked each child
to choose one recipe from their book. They seemed eager to get
started and, within minutes, selected their recipes. Iris chose
lady-like, pink lemonade cupcakes and Cruz chose a fancier sort of grilled-cheese sandwiches, shown crust-less, cut into
quarters, and held together
with fancy toothpicks. Myra's choice was unexpected. She wanted to make
what were the most complicated cookies imaginable. These cookies,
called "Treasure Chests", were a quadruple-chocolate concoction with a brownie base, two layers of fudge icing, a chocolate cookie top and
MnMs, a child´s version of gold treasure, that fell out of the sides of the "chests". My better judgement
should have sent up red flags on Myra's choice but, being still
somewhat jet-lagged mentally, I agreed to help her make complicated treat.
The second day of my stay, I went with
the family to a neighborhood grocery store and, together, we bought all the
ingredients for the recipes. Cruz wanted to make his sandwiches the
very next morning. With just a bit of guidance, he was able to do almost all the work. I did the grilling, of course, and he cut them into quarters and
placed them on a large platter, toothpicks stuck into each piece. The
children and I ate them for lunch and leftovers went kept back for
their Mom and Dad. Cruz was very pleased with the favorable comments
that were made, and the first project was a resounding success.
Myra was ready to begin her treasure chest
making on the third day. The process took more than two hours to complete because
everything had to be done in steps. I helped her with the initial steps of measuring and mixing and put the brownies in the oven. We had to wait for them
to cool. And much care was needed to decorate the treasures.
 |
| Myra's 600-calorie "treasure chests". |
The
results were attractive and had a surprising resemblance
to those shown in the cookbook. These treasure chests definitely had the wow-factor and received family raves.
The only unfortunate part of this
project was that the children wanted to eat multiples of these 600
calorie creations. I put out one for each of us on a plate and,
when I had the chance, hid the rest in two plastic containers in the
freezer behind other foods. My idea was to keep them hidden so
that each of us could have one the next day. That trick worked, at
least partially, and only a few
had been stealthily removed from the freezer by the next day.
A few days later, Iris prepared her
cupcakes. I taught
her how to crack open an egg. She had never tried it before, but, after
just one demonstration, successfully opened the
remaining two eggs. She also did all the decorating by herself. I just had to oversee her work and helped her with the oven. The cupcakes
were quite attractive and good. Also, luckily, they were normal
cupcakes so that eating more than one in a day´s time wasn't so
much of a worry.
These
few days that I spent cooking with my grand kids were priceless to me.
It reminded me of my own childhood when my sister and I learned (mostly from our Mom and Aunt Jane) how to make such treats as popcorn,
chocolate fudge, cookies and cakes. With these long-ago memories go
warm feelings of family closeness and the joy of cooking adventures.
Project "kitchen-fit grand kids" was wonderful
fun. And they radiated confidence what with their new skills of grocery
shopping, measuring, mixing, pouring and decorating. All-in-all, it turned out to be a perfect
way to build a great family learning experience -- and all through the art of
cooking.
Yes,
it was a bit messy and the finished items were not quite as sophisticated as the pictures in their cookbooks. But the very best thing was that the kids felt
they did it "for themselves" and, for all of us - especially grandma,
we were building family memories. And that was absolutely worth it.
