Cooking in the Kitchen

It almost seems to be a creed among home schoolers that cooking in the kitchen, at a young age, is essential. That it's a great way to learn math. It's a basic!

Well, it certainly is a useful life skill, but for whatever reason, we've been a bit negligent in this area. And now, at the age of 8, my son has little interest in this endeavour. And while we do have time on our side-- I mean, he is only 8-- I still have doubts creeping in. lol. Perhaps it's a stage, but that doesn't mean I don't take certain measures! I can not stand the idea of my son being 18 and not able to cook an egg...or something vegetarian... or vegan...whatever  ;-)
Besides, it would be lovely to have help in the kitchen and sharing the cooking duties when he's a bit older. It's all about being equal members of the household.

But we're Natural Learners and I don't force him to learn specific things. So what to do?

First, I continuously borrow children's cookbooks out from the library and leave them on his library bookshelf. I suggest he check them for something he'd like to make. Although he'd often flip through things, nothing came of it.

Second, I have to restructure my thinking. We're fairly healthy eaters over here and seldom eat junk food. Ah, this means we've done very little baking. Duh! There's my problem. How hard is it to entice a young chef into the kitchen to bake? Well.... it can be, but I won't go there.

The latest round of cookbooks included new finds in the areas of my son's current interests: Star Wars and Garfield. The Star Wars Cook Book: Wookiee Cookies and Other Galactic Recipes by Robin Davis. The Star Wars Cook Book II: Darth Malt and Other Galactic Recipes by Frankeny. I'm in the Mood for Food: In the Kitchen with Garfield. 

The Garfield one was thoroughly flipped through and all comics read, but no interesting recipes caught the attention of my boy.

The two Star Wars Cook Books were a hit though as several desserts and drinks have been highlighted and put on the agenda. Now, I must say *I* am not impressed with the recipes, but it's a cute set of books that my son enjoys.

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