Skip drive-thru & cook with the kids
BY KAREN DEERWESTER
Ooooh...the sensory pleasure of cooking and eating at home! Not only is cooking at home fun, it's
healthy! And with the slower pace of summer, it's a great time to get into the habit of cooking with
the kids.
Take a tip from an early childhood classroom - the "product" doesn't matter. It's process. Family cooking is all about the time together. There really isn't anything except "process" for making family memories. The mistakes and the crazy-making are the fabric of your family story.
Three Tips for Family Cooking:
1. Use all your senses. Chop fresh herbs - smell, compare scents and flavors, pick favorites and
choose recipes accordingly. Look for interesting textures - okra tops my list; try buying a whole
fish; or play name-that-pasta blindfolded. Pretend you're seeing, touching, tasting all these foods
for the first time or as if you're from another planet.
2. Express emotions. Cooking offers a wonderful physical outlet for the day's emotions. Choose
recipes based on the family's emotional needs to express themselves. Squish the meatballs - slowly,
deliberately, working through tension. Pound the chicken paper thin - remember how it felt to walk
in late to school and blame each other for a minute or two. Throw the pizza dough in the air - spin
it twice for a happy day. Shimmy and shake the Parmesan cheese - get out that mood that's been
lingering since your mother-in-law left. Violently spear the fruit kebabs - for no good reason.
3. Play without distraction. Shift away from thinking of cooking as a chore, the drudgery of
having to cook another meal. Turn off phones, televisions and computers except for recipes, and
possibly, dance music. Make this a routine like bathtime - set the mood with lighting, favorite
beverages and teamwork. You might just discover 30 minutes of cooking is like a mini-vacation
without all the other nagging demands of your day pulling at you.
Get some fun recipe ideas you can do with the kids at TLC Cooking.
Karen Deerwester is the author of "The Entitlement-Free Child" and "The Potty Training Answer Book" and the owner of Family Time Coaching and Consulting. She offers one-on-one parent coaching, as well as classes and seminars. She is also Mommy & Me director at B'Nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, where she works with mothers, infants and toddlers through age 2. Get more information about B'Nai Torah's early childhood education program here. Visit the Family Time website and follow Karen on Twitter @FamilyTimeInc.
