My New Favorite Tool in the Kitchen & In Life!

This blog as many know for me has been instrumental for me while I learn about key things in life, through food.  The food is a catalyst for my evolvement in life.  As I have shared before, food is my art.  As we speak about patience in this month’s blog, I have shared that I have up to this point in my life, not had much and for those who know me, they most likely concur with this statement.  But like anything in life, the more you look at it deeply the more it changes in what it looks like.  Upon further investigation and delving deeper into my history, I realized that patience came easy to me as far as kids and specifically kids in the kitchen. I have been working with kids in the kitchen for as long as I can remember, regardless of how old I was, I always allowed younger ones to be in the kitchen with me and to this day, I have no issue sharing a kitchen with kids, I quite enjoy it. I learn a lot about myself while in the kitchen with kids, not only about cooking but about myself.  I think this is ultimately because children are not tainted yet by what is “supposed” to be and have these perfect little minds that simply move with excitement, wonder, some fear and generally curiosity.  I am a rare breed I think as I not only think children should be in the kitchen with us, but I also think they should play with food.  This very idea of getting to touch and play with food is somewhat foreign as it seems so wasteful, however it crucial not only for their development of culinary skills and basic kitchen instincts and having a sense of flavor, but further than that it teaches them skills that we do not have the opportunity to learn much in life anymore, like being fearless, being creative, experimentation, trusting their own judgment, walking the line, discovering and many more ultimately I think, skills.  We adults do not readily teach kids these things as today these things seem “risky”.  But without these skills, we would not have evolved as the world we are, many discoveries in life and the food world would not have been made.  Imagine a world where Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison didn’t get to  experiment, operate with fearlessness and essentially be comfortable with their differentness.  In today’s world being different is hard, why not allow children to play with food and in the kitchen as means to grow more comfortable with the idea that different is good and can lead to learning and growth.  We have to have a bit more patience with children and make the time to be with them in lots of ways but food is a great way to help evolve these little lives we are shaping while not investing nearly the amount of time and energy we should be.

I have a close friend who is also a fellow foodie and he has daughter who is just moving into teenage hood.   He describes her as this amazing human being as most fathers do,  but he also describes her as really a fellow human being and I think that is extremely important.  I am not sure he is really prepared for all that this your girl is about to move through as many of us women know, the teenage years can be quite difficult.  He says she has a love of food and all things culinary, which is common for a lot of children her age.  She watches all the food tv and likes to cook.  I have been thinking about my friend and his daughter and her draw to food and her journey she is about to embark on and as my mind has been on patience lately how that all relates.  Well I guess I think that this friend of mine has this beautiful opportunity to remain close to daughter while many teenagers begin to drift apart.  He may start to discover that he will have to have a new found patience (perhaps) as she moves through life trying to discover how to become the women she hopes to become, she may not tell him everything anymore, she may not hug him the same way, she may start to wear makeup, she may start to like different things and she may even start to like new people, people he may like or understand.  He will probably have to start to exercise this patience while he watches his little girl grow and evolve and he may not understand exactly what is happening to her.  But he has this remarkable opportunity in their mutual love for food, to continue bonding and remaining close through other means.  This takes time, commitment and this takes a bit of thinking outside of the box.  Perhaps he should take a cooking class with he, perhaps they should go to a new restaurant together, perhaps they can visit a farm together, there are so many opportunities and I use this friend as an example because I think that ultimately people miss out on the opportunity food give to teach and grow with our children. 

We forget all the important learning and growth that can be done in the kitchen and the learning and growth goes both ways, we teach our children and we learn from them, we all evolve and grow! Let’s all  try and have a bit more patience with our children and allow them into the kitchen with us, so many spectacular things will happen if we do this, let’s give them the best tools for life and there is no more enjoyable teacher than food!