NYR 6-28-11 - a chef is born

The other day Mac and I made a list of everything we wanted to do during his summer vacation. One of the things I added to the list (which was copied from a friend) was for Mac and me to plan and cook one meal a week together. Even though my mom was a home ec teacher and taught me how to cook, I have zero patience with Mac in the kitchen because a mess always ensues and I hate messes. But I decided he needs to start learning and there's no time like the present.

Mac's first planned meal was spaghetti (no surprise for anybody who knows him well) and salad. I'd thought we'd make the spaghetti sauce from scratch but we were sidetracked by an unexpected trip to the doctor's office for strep throat this morning. So instead we took the easy way out and bought a jar of Prego at the commissary.

When I make spaghetti sauce and put onions in it, Mac will detect nearly every single piece of chopped onion in his sauce and put it to the side of his plate. So when I asked him if wanted to add onion to the ground beef, he characteristically said no. When I told him that was fine but that would mean there wasn't anything to chop, he changed his mind and said we needed to add onions because that "adds so much flavor to the sauce".

So he chopped half an onion for the sauce and half an onion for the trash can (it was just for practice), browned the ground beef, drained off the fat, and added the jarred sauce. He also cut up carrots and cucumbers for the salad and helped me wash the lettuce and broccoli as well.

He also wanted to set the table, complete with glasses that matched the placemats. He even wanted to put a water pitcher on the table so we had to pull out the one that matches the glasses from Mexico we were using. He thought something was still missing from our tablescape so we had to cut off some flowers in another arrangement and put them on the table. It was very, very sweet and he was very, very proud of himself.

Not proud enough to cook every night, though. When I told him how much fun I'd had with him, I asked if he didn't want to cook with me every night of the week. He told me in no uncertain terms that one night a week would be sufficient.

For finding that I really didn't need any great reserve of patience to cook a great meal with my boy, I am truly thankful.