Slave Labor In The Kitchen

We are entering into a magical period around our house. The temperatures are cooling down, it’s football season…and I have started cooking again.

My mom loved to cook, as long as it came out of a box. (Did you know spaghetti came in a box? With powder for sauce? It does.) She did some things really well, like Chop Suey and Sunday Roasts. But then there were the other things, “her inventions”, most of which involved canned Spam. Really. She was like the Forrest Gump of Spam. Fried Spam, Baked Spam (with pineapple!), Spam salad and the scariest, Spam Surprise….some type of odd mix of Spam, mustard, pickles and Idon’tknowwhatelse that you would spread between two slices of bread and eat while your friends ran to the bushes to throw up from the smell of it. Needless to say, I pretty much stayed out of the kitchen when I was a kid.

I probably don’t need to tell you that I don’t want my kids to have those same memories so when we get to this point of the year where I really want to be in the kitchen, I try to get them as involved as possible. Also, you should know that thankfully the boxed food and Spam gene seems to have skipped a generation because for the most part, I cook everything from scratch.

Unless the dish involves vegetables (which everyone knows are totally disgusting) they are usually game to pitch in for a little while at least. Today we made homemade banana bread and Miss G was dying to help because there is nothing more fun than mooshing up bananas and then leaving the mess behind for your mother to clean up. I decided to let her pitch in, but under one condition: she had to stay for the duration and help every step of the way.

Presenting a few easy ways to torture your child in the kitchen:

Step one: Apply pressure. Tell them to be sure not to get the egg shells in the mixture and watch a cold sweat break out on their little head.

Step two: More is better. Make a double batch so that tiny hands are struggling to sift more flour than they have ever seen in their entire lives. Also, wearing the flour makes the dish infinitely more yummy.

Step three: Demand perfection. Upon being presented with the mooshed up bananas, examine them and proclaim them not mooshy enough. Then yell, “Moosh! Moosh!” and watch your child frantically try to murder the bananas with her pink princess spatula.

Step four: Engage in slave labor. After putting the entire mixture together and not allowing your child to spoon a huge heap of it into her mouth because it contains raw eggs, inform her that those dishes “just aren’t going to dry themselves, now are they?” Swell with pride as she actually says, “GAH!” in the same manner you do.

Step five: Deny. When they yummy bread comes out of the oven after fifty minutes of baking and fifty “how long until it’s done Mommy???” questions, politely inform apparently famished child that it needs to sit for a few minutes to cool down. Get upper arm workout from pulling said child who is now laying on floor clutching stomach to her feet repeatedly.

Step six: Give in. But be sure to keep clicking pictures until you have thoroughly annoyed your child to the point they execute the perfect eye roll.

Step seven: Sit back and enjoy watching her tell everyone that SHE made that delicious banana bread you are now enjoying. Because she did.

On tap for tomorrow, Potage Parmentier, or Potato and Leek soup….because I like to sound all fancy and stuff. Lunch is at 3:00, see you then?

But please understand that I will totally make you do the dishes.