Dining

J and I make a great culinary team. She's the "head chef" of our kitchen, and takes care of most of the "skilled labor" food preparation. My role is to do some more basic low-skill jobs to make her life easier. She knows exactly how to delegate certain tasks to me so that she can make sure that she's freed up to flip something into the skillet at exactly the right moment, or to add an extra layer of glaze at exactly the right moment in the mixing process, or to taste for an elusive and subtle texture. I do my part proudly, though. For instance, I can....well, I'm able to...okay, so I'm not actually good for much of anything in the kitchen except for carrying the groceries in from the car (but not putting them away, because I don't know where the correct spots are) or maybe taking out the trash once the bag gets full.

This is why cooking for the boys on Saturday evenings is so stressful. They usually don't look forward to it any more than I do.

Sometimes J is able to get something in the crock-pot earlier in the day, and that's a nearly foolproof method of ensuring that we'll all get a hot and delicious dinner in her absence. I say "nearly" foolproof, because someone might have endangered their family and home by turning the crockpot to "Low" instead of "Off" when they took the chicken out last week and then left a quarter-inch layer of sauce that gradually turned to charcoal in the bottom of the pan until the next morning. Someone might have scrubbed hard to get the crock clean that afternoon.

But on days like today, there just wasn't time to get something prepared beforehand.

"Wait," I called to her as she headed out the door "what am I going to give the kids for dinner?"
"Uhh...bacon and eggs. But don't give Owen eggs. Check James' Berenstein Bears cookbook for a breakfast toboggan recipe that he wanted. He'll eat that."

The kids looked as concerned as I did.

We rammed around the downstairs for a bit and penned Owen into corners while we built tall block towers before turning on the soundtrack to Jaws and letting him loose. When they started to show signs of being hungry (screaming, whining, and crying) I decided that I couldn't put off dinner prep any longer and went into the kitchen to start working.

I was already too late, and I knew it. J doesn't dread cooking like I do, so she starts doing food prep BEFORE the kids are melting down from hunger. My work becomes exponentially harder when I put off food prep until they're screaming and tugging at my leg. I went into the kitchen and reviewed my plan:

For Me:
A rasher of bacon and an omelette. I love omelettes, and they always turn into a heap of nasty looking egg mush when I try to make them. I knew we had all sorts of delicious things to put in an omelette (sun dried tomatoes and gruyere cheese) so I was up for risking failure again to get my omelette. I looked up instructions for omelette making on incredibleegg.org and read the directions carefully several times. Yes, I was sure I had it this time. This was going to be fine.

For James:
From page 14 of "The Berenstain Bears Country Cookbook--Cub-Friendly Cooking with an Adult" I found the recipe for a Tasty Toboggan. I wondered as I looked at it whether I counted as "an adult" that was qualified to help a bear cup with this recipe. It basically looked like a piece of french toast on two pieces of bacon. I decided not to get over-ambitious and to just do a piece of regular toast instead of French toast. After all, I know my limitations. James thought it was very important that I make sure that there was a visible pat of butter on the toast. He's really big into making the final result look just like the picture. I also decided he needed to eat a sunny-side up egg.

For Owen:
A clementine, cut up and seeded. A piece of toast with jam, cut up into small bites. Maybe a couple bites of bacon.

This wouldn't be too hard, right?

I started with the bacon, and that went okay, except for Owen continually pulling at my leg. Bacon is one of those things I'm actually okay at. I can usually guess when it needs to be flipped in the pan and when it needs to come out. So that went fine.

Then I got out the eggs. One egg for James. I put that in the pan while Owen tugged at my leg and screamed. "Yes, I know you're hungry. Let Daddy work."

I got two eggs out for my omelette and attemped to whisk them up in a bowl while James' egg was frying. "Owen, no, stay out of the trash can." <set down the eggs on the counter> "Owen, what do you have in your mouth" <set down flipper> "Did you fish that out of the trash?" <go to pick up egg, knock one onto the floor which breaks> "AH, no stay out of that. James, come in here and sit on Owen until I get this picked up." "Hey Daddy, why are you cooking the flipper?" "AHH!" <pulls flipper out of pan> "Gah!" <pulls Owen out of egg mess on floor>

By the time I got back to James' egg it was burnt on the bottom, and then it broke when I tried to flip it. The toast popped as I was attempting to deseed the clementine, and I gave up on letting Owen roam free and let him scream out his hangriness in the high chair while I attempted my omelette. I shredded the cheese, cut up the tomato, and made sure that the pan was greased and hot.

I poured my egg mixture into the pan and made sure that I gently pushed the uncooked portions towards the heat in the center, then continued cooking, gently tilting the pan and moving the cooked portions as needed.

I ended up with a heap of nasty looking egg mush.

Owen ate his clementine in about eight seconds and then refused to eat anything else, pointing instead at the big plate of monkey bread that J had made earlier in the day.

James was thrilled that I put a pat of butter on his piece of toast so that it looked like the picture, but then tried to eat a spoonful of just butter and almost threw up. He ate some of his bacon, but then just begged for the monkey bread that J had made earlier in the day.

I ate a few bites of my egg mush and decided that monkey bread would probably be better.

We're all really glad that I only cook once a week. The kitchen works way better when I'm just helping the master.