Why You Should Cook With Your Kids

As I've mentioned, every week I teach a cooking class to youth aged anywhere from 6-12.  There have been moments filled with stress, joy, and everything in between.  Before I started, I knew next to nothing about working with elementary-age youth, and even less about teaching them cooking skills.  It's been about 8 months now, and there's a few things I'd like to say to those of you with kids.  Or if you don't have kids- grandchildren, nieces/nephews, babysitees, or future kids. (:

If you have young children (or old children), please have them help you cook.  Give them tasks and projects, let them explore and figure things out.  Let them help you plan meals and choose things at the store.  Cooking is the perfect place to start exposing them to a multitude of concepts and skills- critical thinking, measuring and math, cultural appreciation, creativity, understanding nature and the environment, and so on.  Not to mention getting them used to the idea (girls or boys) that home chores can be shared rather than being the "job" of one person- and they're fun to do together!  (and seriously, imagine how great it will be when you can ask your 10 year old to make that recipe of rolls for you and they don't even need any help)  It definitely requires more time and energy to delegate and teach than it does to do it yourself, but it's so worth the learning moments.  Cooking together gives both of you the chance to explore new foods, learn new techniques, ask questions, and bond.  It's also an opportunity to get them to articulate their dislikes and preferences.

Speaking of dislikes, when I started there were so many things I would never have anticipated that the kids didn't like... onion, garlic, cheese, NUTELLA... I am just so curious as to what's going on in their little mouths and minds when they decide they don't like those delicious things...

You might not think they're capable of much in the kitchen, but I promise, they'll surprise you.  It seems like every week in cooking class I'm like whoa, that actually turned out!  And I'm talking pastry crust... not just mac and cheese.  Resist the urge to take over and just do things for them... let them work through it.  You must accept that your food will definitely look less than perfect.  They will interpret your instructions in ways you could not have anticipated, and it will be messy and ugly and beautiful at the same time.  At the end, no matter what it looks like, they will be proud of what they've created and you will be too.

Stepping on a soap box now: please, please do not just limit them to "kid food".  At what other point in their life are they ever going to need to make a bear shaped mini pizza with olives eyes and a red pepper mouth?  Sometimes it's fun to show them that you can home-make things that usually come in a box, like mac and cheese and brownies, but more often I think this should be a time for helping them try new foods, showing them that vegetables can be incorporated into a delicious dish, and giving them real skills that can be carried into adulthood.

There are hot things and heavy things and there's a chance they'll get hurt.  But I bet they'll learn their way around things pretty quick.  If knives are something that concerns you, there are some child-safe versions you can buy online.  They're not great for some things (don't even attempt that butternut squash), but there are a lot of things they work for.

If you want to take it to the next level, involve them in the cooking and gardening process.  They'll be like: a seed contains a BABY PLANT?!  Mind blown. (when my kids saw a baby succulent, they asked "is it sleeping?!"... so cute).  And it's so true that they'll be more willing to try things that they've made and grown.

And if you feel adventurous enough to make a production of it, invite your friend's kids over and have a group cooking lesson.  If you babysit, this would be a great time-killing and productive activity.

To get you started, here are some kid tested and approved (mostly) recipes.  I'm lucky if I can get the kids out here to eat carrots, so these are all pretty like-able and low on the vegetable side. You'll have to come up with that kale and beet quinoa salad on your own. (hmmm... I just put random words together, but I think the earthiness of those ingredients would be interesting together... maybe a balsamic vinaigrette with some goat cheese on top... yum.)

Lifestyle Limitations

This subject has been on my mind for awhile... sort of simmering in the background I suppose.  It's a difficult thing to put into words.  It is not intended to offend, obviously, (how often do people really intend to offend), but I hope it maybe makes you rethink a few things.

Over Christmas, when I went home, the contrast between the worlds in which I have existed was thrown into sharp relief.  My life in Indiana was surrounded by the middle class, even middle/upper class.  The middle class norm was my norm, and my concept of the number and quality of things we need to make our lives happy and comfortable stemmed from what surrounded me.

The view of life from my seat had a certain pattern: you go to college, get a good job, get married (which includes accumulating a large amount of wedding registry items), buy a house, accumulate more stuff, have children, buy your children all the things they could ever need, send them to college, retire, travel, etc.  It seemed that all around me people were walking this invisible timeline with its invisible milestones and visible stuff.  No one says it's what you have to do, but they're all walking it.  It's the good ol' American dream: the pursuit of the middle/upper class.

That's natural, right?  I mean, when you get married, you gotta get that Kitchen Aid mixer, right? (never baked in your life? so what)  And of course you need to redecorate the room as a nursery when you have a child, right? And for my summer wardrobe this year, I just really need two more pairs of shorts, a flowy tank top because I don't have one of those, and a pair of strappy sandals that would round everything out.  And really, if my TV were just a little bigger it would make my life better.

Actually, I think that our own concepts of what we need in our lives is entirely skewed.

By the way, if it sounds like I'm pointing fingers, I'm totally guilty of this. Definitely more with clothing, food, and smaller items because I've never had enough money to buy furniture or matching appliances.

If you ask most of the 3rd graders in Green River what they want to be when they grow up, they say a cashier. It's all they've ever known.  I would venture to say that 90% of the jobs in this town are part-time.  The 9:00 to 5:00 just doesn't exist, and the middle class hardly does.  And shockingly, people are still happy with their lives. But beyond those who get somewhat stuck here- because of cycles of poverty and lack of opportunities- there are some people who actually choose to live here, accepting this isolated small town and it's lifestyle limitations.

I'm only one example of a Green River resident, and I have it better than most.  My current reality is $10,000 a year (the poverty line for a single person).  There are still a few costs I haven't totally taken over for myself (holding off on that health insurance until 26), but for the most part, $10,000 a year is totally doable for me.  It just means that I have mismatched furniture, a TV from 1980, and a plastic dresser for my clothes. I won't be buying a new car anytime soon, and I visit the food pantry once a month or so. It requires the conscious effort to look at nicer, more aesthetically pleasing, more exciting or even useful things and say yes, that looks amazing.  I would love to have it.  But that doesn't mean I need it.  And, of course, it means I'm not walking the invisible timeline.  I can't accumulate many things, I'm not looking at buying a house anytime in the near future, and since I'm not married, I don't have to worry about children drawing on my meager funds.

Sometimes I feel like people look at me with a little concern, and the doubts about whether it's worth it creep in: But what if you never do anything with your life?  What if you stay in this little small town forever and no one beyond your little community and your family has ever heard or cared about you?  What if you don't ever have a large home, or a wardrobe with all the things you want, or the ability to go out to eat and buy all the high-quality cooking ingredients you want?  What if, though not quite as relevant, you never have a family?  What if, in short, you life doesn't follow the invisible timeline that you've never acknowledged but have always wanted?

You know, I'm becoming more and more OK with that.   

You don't have to embark on a journey to the middle/upper class to have a worthwhile life. 

You don't really need those matching mugs or throw pillows or new furniture or the latest technology.

Those things are pretty and useful and tempting and so seemingly harmless, but they rob us of something very precious- the opportunity to spend our time and our money doing and creating things we love, things of purpose, rather than accumulating things we only marginally care about.  You can be happy choosing to have less and less-than-perfect things.  (Besides, you really won't be satisfied with your new furniture for long.)  I'm not going to go with the "use your money to travel and experience things" because while those things are cool, there are even more important things.  Invest in something you really care about.  Support a friend.  Give it to a local non-profit who's cause you care about (I guarantee they would love your unrestricted funds).  Start a small business.  If it's time you have and not money, find a thing that you really care about, no matter how big or small, and make that thing happen.

Please, just do anything except continue to consume things you don't actually need.   We are made to do so much more.

It's easier for me.  I don't have money.  So my challenge, I suppose, is to those of you who have a choice.

And really, with views like this, what else do I need?