The Boy is almost 12. Next month, in fact. It’s about this age that Mom started doing things with me like having me cook meals for the family. My meals tended to be pretty simple – macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, things like that. The point, when you’re 12, isn’t so much to become a gourmet cook as it is to discover that cooking isn’t that hard, that yes, son, you can cook, and that if by some chance a guy was home alone over dinner time, that guy probably wouldn’t go hungry. Because edible food? No big deal.
I feel lucky that Bond is growing up in a family of male cooks. Admittedly, none of the guys are OMG CHECK THIS MASTERPIECE OUT amazing cooks (except possibly my brother, who is good at everything, and I am not going to count him because somebody got all the cooking talent and it wasn’t me, and screw him anyway. xD) but all of them can produce good food that people are, at worst, willing to eat and at best actively look forward to. My father? Limited cooking repertoire, but he can do it, and has taught me a few tricks for such things as venison burger in the past. Grandpa, during his life, was an army cook in WWII and had charge over important parts of such family meals as Thanksgiving and Christmas – the turkey every year was all Grandpa, and I aspire to be able to roast a bird like he did. Grandpa had a fudge recipe that my mother still drools over to this day. My aforementioned baby brother can take a pantry full of whatever-the-hell and produce the food of the gods. He really shines with wild game, though. Bond’s got lots of role models – and when I tell him he’s got great places to go for cooking advice, he inevitably says “Yeah, Grandma’s an awesome cook!” But at least he wants to cook, he’s excited about it rather than scared of it, and I think it won’t be long before I’ll be having him cook a meal a week, just like I did.
Now to get him to clean his room and wash his own underwear.
Pinterest Activity
