Cooking Lessons

I've always had my kids help me whenever I bake cakes or muffins. But I decided to give K a go at cooking a dish all by herself. Scrambled eggs seemed easy enough. I let her do everything -- cracking the eggs, putting the seasoning, beating the eggs, turning on the gas, putting the oil, pouring in the eggs, scrambling it and dishing it out. I just stood watch and played the boss barking out orders. The pictures I took above is actually her second time cooking eggs. First time must pay more attention to teaching and making sure no one gets hurt (including the eggs) instead of taking pictures you know.
Well, now she wants to be the official egg scrambler in the house. I have no objections. What she doesn't know is that this is mommy's sinister plan of having her take over all cooking tasks in the future so mommy will have more time to blog. MUAHAHAHA. Just kidding.

I think apart from scrambled eggs, other essential beginning cooking lessons are:
1. How to cook rice
2. How to cook instant noodles
3. Cooking sausages (the Americans call them hotdogs)

With these 4 lessons, I think they are saved from starvation.

What was the first thing you learned how to cook? For me it was cooking rice. I remember my amah would make sure I didn't wash it too many times (or else all the vitamins will be gone). Then how to measure the water. I remember one time she commented on how nice the rice turned out. Wah, felt so proud about it. But I also remember she didn't trust me to cook the fish. I knew that I knew how. But she took the opportunity away from me and did it herself. I remember thinking in my head "how am I going to learn if you don't let me cook?"

Mama's tips:
1. Encourage your child to learn living skills - don't chase them out of the kitchen.
2. Trust them... even though you don't.
3. Once in a while, let go of your need to shelter them (or do everything for them). Give them room to learn and grow.
4. Eat their cooking even if it's a bit flawed (yes, a BIT flawed, not plenty flawed to the point of giving you food poisoning). My kids would eat all my less-than-perfect baking like it was the best thing they ever had. So it's only right that I return the favour.