My 4-Year-Old Thinks She's a Sous Chef. I'm Trying to Remain Calm.

[elleng]

'On trying to shape a happy childhood out of hard times.

I am what you might generously call “a skilled home cook.” I can follow recipes, copy pictures, execute a modest range of techniques and improvise a little with decent results. But I am no virtuoso; I have no particular talent for inventing dishes or harmonizing flavors, and even less for creating food that, arriving on the plate, looks appetizing. But it’s all edible, and for a good stretch of years it was my most reliably relaxing hobby.

Then my eldest daughter, now nearly 4 years old, grew inquisitive and persuasive enough to assert herself not only as an assistant — for a while there, she was an excellent holder of wooden spoons and fetcher of dish towels — but as a full-fledged sous chef. Had I any hopes of putting her off this, they dissolved when preschool abruptly ended with the stay-at-home orders, and my chance to cook dinner before dismissal vanished. Under her full-time observation, it’s no longer possible to get away with cooking without her. I am now the recipient of live-in culinary help, whether I like it or not.

And I do like it — mostly.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-quarantine-parenting.html?

[empedocles]

1. As I write this, my 4 yr-old granddaughter is vigorously mixing batter with her

grandmother - banana muffins are today's endeavor.

[elleng]

2. SWEET!!!

[SamKnause]

3. My mother will be 96 and I will be 67 this year.

I loved being in the kitchen with my mother.

I have been told I am a good cook.

I think of it as being an artist, only my masterpieces are eaten not framed.

I experiment and always find new ways to dress up old recipes.

My fortes are country cooking, comfort food, and Mexican food.

I don't bake a lot, but I can make a pretty mean cake and frosting.

[MontanaMama]

5. Totally agree.

Food is my love language for my family. I rarely make the same thing twice in a month. Cooking is how I express myself...I'm not a great baker but I'm working on it.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

4. So cute, love the "vague Renaissance smile" ...

"The help of a curious toddler is bracing, vigorous: They are people as yet unburdened with neuroses. I may try to spoon flour carefully into a measuring cup held over a wide mixing bowl, and then invite her to overturn it gently — only to be dusted in a burst of powder, rising cloudlike from the spot where she eagerly flung the whole lot of it. I have witnessed softening sticks of butter crushed in tiny fists, whole plum tomatoes skewered on searching fingers. I find myself faced with conflicting anxieties: If I’m too adamant that everything be done just so, she’ll develop some kind of complex — God forbid, the same kind I have. If I let her rip, whatever dish I embarked upon with such high hopes will come out wrong.

I train my face in a vague Renaissance smile as she takes an egg in hand. This could go any number of places, hardly any of them good. If I’m fortunate, I’ll just be picking shell fragments out of a prep dish with tweezers."

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Oh, you are so lucky to have a child that interested.

And it doesn't matter that you aren't "creative" in your cooking. Following a recipe is plenty good enough.

I'm likewise a decent home cook, and I do love my own cooking. I really feel sorry for people who hate to cook, who never learned how, who eat every meal out. I think for some of them they somehow got the impression that if you didn't make complicated recipes and four course meals, you weren't doing it right. Nonsense! I often don't even bother with making something if there are too many ingredients in the recipe. Complicated is often better.

[elleng]

7. I agree, and it's not ME!

However, my adult daughters are both engaged in cooking, and doing it for their little kids now!

I USED to be a decent home cook, but retired and home alone now, so need and interest have vanished.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. Ahh, now I see.

I am likewise retired and live alone, and especially these days I cook a lot more than I used to. I am saving a ton of money by not eating out two or three times a week, which is nice.