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Missed my paper deadline. I think she'll take it anyway if I finish it tonight, but we'll see. It's not a huge percentage of my grade regardless, but it'd be nice not to have screwed up majorly. It's just one of those things where I'm juggling a lot of stuff and something slipped, and in this case it was a 700 word paper. I hate being this way, but it's all I can do to get through all the stuff I need to get done right now -- whatever my minor deadlines might be, there's a hard deadline of June 12th for everything in my life right now, and if things don't get done by then, they don't get done at all. There's nothing else to be done, frankly.
Yesterday was Will's birthday. I was going to wait and set up his birthday for next weekend, but.... honestly, I just couldn't. This is the last time for the foreseeable future I'd be with him on the day of. I couldn't let that slip by with nothing. So I bought a small ice cream cake, which he's asked for for years and I'd always said no to before, and I went to the bookstore -- I bought him the first two books in the "How To Train Your Dragon" series by Cressida Cowell, which he was really happy about. I also got him a book of poetry, written under the guise of poems written for school assignments by a boy who doesn't want to write, who ends up writing a lot about the writing he hates doing, himself, and his dog. And he comes to really like poetry. It's called Love That Dog by Sharon Creech.
The big present, though, was a pair of cookbooks. We have one cookbook that's for kids, which he bought one time through the school book fair. Honestly it's not a great cookbook -- it has some recipes, but they err on the side of "healthy" rather than "appealing" instead of combining the two, and the authors don't really instruct on how to do various bits of cooking... there's nothing on process, just on recipes. So I went looking and instead I found Betty Crocker Kids Cook!, It covers a lot of basic fun and yet healthy dishes, takes on traditional kid foods and staples like pancakes, scrambled eggs, omlettes, tuna salad, quesadillas, baked chicken, some casserole stuff, spaghetti sauce, meatballs.... he was pretty excited about it. It relies a bit more on processed food on a base level than I'm happy with, but it's Betty Crocker. I think that's okay at his level, though. He can learn how to make cheese sauce down the line, if he gets the basic idea of cooking down, much less entrees and side dishes and organization down. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff.
The second cookbook, though, is frankly more like a real cookbook and is really pretty awesome. I wasn't entirely sure if I should get it (and my budget was even more unsure) but in the end I couldn't resist. It's called The Silver Spoon for Children and it's based off The Silver Spoon, an apparently well-known/well-regarded Italian cookbook. It focuses on Italian food specifically... the first recipe in it is prosciutto and melon slices, for example, something Will got really excited about because ham/bacon and melon = two of his favorites. It's got good salads, breads, pizza dough, pasta dough, various meat dishes, and even desserts... all of which are really well illustrated, with talk about how to do this sort of process or that sort of process, how to chop everything and diagrams to show how and what size and what it should look like when it's done. Also, I didn't find anything in that cookbook I wouldn't be willing to try at least once. Good, good stuff, with real food that isn't dumbed down for kids.
When Will was looking through it, his eyes got big and he got really excited, and he came over and gave me a huge hug. I told him that if he could work his way through those two books, he'd know enough that I'd get him an Alton Brown cookbook. (He adores Alton Brown.) He got still and said, "Really? You mean it?" I assured him that I did mean it, and that if he learned the techniques in these books and could cook the recipes reliably without self-injury, he'd be able to take on just about anything else. He gave me another huge hug then.
He really enjoys cooking, in ways I never did even though there were some aspects of it I liked. Now, that said, he doesn't altogether have the patience or attention span to get through a full recipe, but he'll learn -- and honestly part of that may be that I'm there to watch the timer on things and tell him when it's done. He tells me he's thinking about going to culinary school when he grows up. I think I'll be happy if he learns to cook well enough to feed himself and impress potential partners. That said... if he's found a passion, I'll be the last one to squash it.
Happy birthday, Will. You're such an impressive kid. I can't get over how lucky I am to be your mom. Love you, boy.
Yesterday was Will's birthday. I was going to wait and set up his birthday for next weekend, but.... honestly, I just couldn't. This is the last time for the foreseeable future I'd be with him on the day of. I couldn't let that slip by with nothing. So I bought a small ice cream cake, which he's asked for for years and I'd always said no to before, and I went to the bookstore -- I bought him the first two books in the "How To Train Your Dragon" series by Cressida Cowell, which he was really happy about. I also got him a book of poetry, written under the guise of poems written for school assignments by a boy who doesn't want to write, who ends up writing a lot about the writing he hates doing, himself, and his dog. And he comes to really like poetry. It's called Love That Dog by Sharon Creech.
The big present, though, was a pair of cookbooks. We have one cookbook that's for kids, which he bought one time through the school book fair. Honestly it's not a great cookbook -- it has some recipes, but they err on the side of "healthy" rather than "appealing" instead of combining the two, and the authors don't really instruct on how to do various bits of cooking... there's nothing on process, just on recipes. So I went looking and instead I found Betty Crocker Kids Cook!, It covers a lot of basic fun and yet healthy dishes, takes on traditional kid foods and staples like pancakes, scrambled eggs, omlettes, tuna salad, quesadillas, baked chicken, some casserole stuff, spaghetti sauce, meatballs.... he was pretty excited about it. It relies a bit more on processed food on a base level than I'm happy with, but it's Betty Crocker. I think that's okay at his level, though. He can learn how to make cheese sauce down the line, if he gets the basic idea of cooking down, much less entrees and side dishes and organization down. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff.
The second cookbook, though, is frankly more like a real cookbook and is really pretty awesome. I wasn't entirely sure if I should get it (and my budget was even more unsure) but in the end I couldn't resist. It's called The Silver Spoon for Children and it's based off The Silver Spoon, an apparently well-known/well-regarded Italian cookbook. It focuses on Italian food specifically... the first recipe in it is prosciutto and melon slices, for example, something Will got really excited about because ham/bacon and melon = two of his favorites. It's got good salads, breads, pizza dough, pasta dough, various meat dishes, and even desserts... all of which are really well illustrated, with talk about how to do this sort of process or that sort of process, how to chop everything and diagrams to show how and what size and what it should look like when it's done. Also, I didn't find anything in that cookbook I wouldn't be willing to try at least once. Good, good stuff, with real food that isn't dumbed down for kids.
When Will was looking through it, his eyes got big and he got really excited, and he came over and gave me a huge hug. I told him that if he could work his way through those two books, he'd know enough that I'd get him an Alton Brown cookbook. (He adores Alton Brown.) He got still and said, "Really? You mean it?" I assured him that I did mean it, and that if he learned the techniques in these books and could cook the recipes reliably without self-injury, he'd be able to take on just about anything else. He gave me another huge hug then.
He really enjoys cooking, in ways I never did even though there were some aspects of it I liked. Now, that said, he doesn't altogether have the patience or attention span to get through a full recipe, but he'll learn -- and honestly part of that may be that I'm there to watch the timer on things and tell him when it's done. He tells me he's thinking about going to culinary school when he grows up. I think I'll be happy if he learns to cook well enough to feed himself and impress potential partners. That said... if he's found a passion, I'll be the last one to squash it.
Happy birthday, Will. You're such an impressive kid. I can't get over how lucky I am to be your mom. Love you, boy.
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Date: 2010-04-17 11:18 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-04-17 11:58 pm (UTC)From:*squishyhugs all around*
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Date: 2010-04-19 08:24 pm (UTC)From:That's awesome that he's so enthusiastic for cooking, I wish I was, given how much I'm into food. I just can't stand watching over things, much less keeping track of multiple things.
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Date: 2010-04-20 06:57 am (UTC)From: