Learning to Cook

Bridget has taken to cooking lately. I love to watch her mind because it is so sharp and quick.

Her outlook on life is mirrored in her food preparation and I am beginning to wonder how she came into this world with such power and confidence. My biggest fear is that she will lose that confidence and doubt herself.

I only want her to be mousy with me so I can keep this place in some kind of semblance of order. As I have said before, I want my children to question authority, just not mine.

The following are real-life examples of what she does when she cooks:

--No partial measurements. If it calls for 1 3/4 cups, she either does one cup, or two. I asked her about this and she simply responds by saying "I don't want to measure a portion of a cup."

--If she doesn't have an ingredient she doesn't blink an eye, she just throws in a substitute or leaves it out. Tonight she made some sort of shepherd's pie. No meat? No problem. Let's use refried beans instead. Have you ever had refried beans with carrots and cheese? Surprisingly, not bad.

--She reads the instructions and decides whether or not they are legit. Tonight she was supposed to boil potatoes and then mash them. She cooked them in the oven instead so they were way underdone and then she tried to use a meat mallet to mash them. I actually intervened on that one but still, she was adamant that she could mash the potatoes that way.

--In spite of changing up recipes, she is actually making a conscious choice to skip those parts--others she HAS to have the right way. She asked three people in the neighborhood for avocadoes before I told her she was running out of time on the dinner preparation and decided to substitute tomatoes instead. I tried to tell her that you can borrow things like a cup of sugar or pasta, but you do not borrow three avocados which she immediately dismissed as being ridiculous logic. I have no idea who all she asked so hopefully people don't think I actually sent her to borrow something like that.

--Time is meaningless. If the recipe calls for 45 minutes of cooking time, she just cooks it for 20 because that is when she wants to eat. She made some frozen yogurt and then instead of freezing it for 2 hour minimum, she pulled it out in one hour and it was kind of liquidy still. I asked her if it was runny and she said "yep" as if she planned it to be runny like that.

All of her dishes come out fine so she has no incentive to change this behavior. Once she doubled an entire recipe for pancakes except for the flour so the batter was very thin. I asked her why she did such a thing and she told me she didn't feel like measuring out more flour. Sadly, the pancakes turned out perfectly. Also the beans and carrots (not cooked) were surprisingly good (also helped that dinner was 90 minutes late) so she doesn't see any problems with her substitution magic tricks.

I definitely am proud of her kitchen antics but I see some patterns that are troubling. I will have to limit her endeavors to vegetarian efforts as I am not interested in a bout with e.coli or other raw meaty kind of stuff. I wish she would work WITH me and not insist on working alone but perhaps we can find some kind of middle ground if we plan it out in advance.

If you are ever in the neighborhood, stop by and we can see if she can make you one of her signature dishes. I promise I make her wash her hands.