Friday, February 29, 2008

Cooking in the Kitchen with Mommy



When I was growing up I loved to "help" my Mom in the kitchen. I always wanted to be in there helping or watching her prepare meals, cakes, and more. It was so fascinating.
Now that I have my own daughter I can empathize with this little cartoon my Mom had posted in her kitchen cabinet. It was a Family Circus cartoon and the gist of it was the little girl asking Mommy when dinner was going to be ready and the Mom answered 10 minutes if you don't help and 30 if you do.
CG absolutely loves to help, watch, and just generally be in the kitchen with me. She would rather do that than play. She even just likes to watch when I am doing something that she can't help with (such as stirring things on the stove or chopping things). She is so fascinated with the fact that simple ingredients when combined produce yummy results. She loves to mix, pour, and measure what ever I will let her do and then is really enchanted and amazed by the end result of whatever we made. It is so cute.
I love that she loves to be in the kitchen. Even right now when she can't do a lot of stuff by herself, she is being exposed to the process. It is such a learning experience. I really think that it will come back to bless her when she has her own home just as watching and working in the kitchen with my Mom throughout my childhood has blessed me in my kitchen!
Today we worked together to make cookies. She loves to sniff every ingredient and help me by dumping them all in the bowl. She was just enthralled with watching the mixer mix it all up. When the cookies were done she was so pleased and kept asking me if the flour was in them and where it was. I think she is still trying to work out in her head how all the ingredients transform into the finished cookie. It really is neat if you think about it. I wonder who first thought to combine flour, sugar, butter, eggs etc? How did they know how long to cook it and how much of each thing to use? However it came about they sure were yummy and such a sweet time for CG and I!

2 comments:

Aimee D said...

Yummy! Send some of those our way! Will has been sitting on the counter (well now he has graduated to a stool) since he was at least 1 1/2 "helping" me cook! I don't know what I'll do when both of them want on the counter!

Nashvillians Now said...

You'd be proud of me Aimee. We made the cookies with 1/2 white whole wheat flour! They were really good and you couldn't tell at all.