Don't Assume: Home Version

Today was one of those days that went on forever, so I enlisted Juniorina to help me prepare a dish for a neighborhood gathering tonight.  Right after work, Juniorette had a guitar lesson, so I emailed Juniorina a recipe for macaroni & cheese (James Beard recipe...to die for).  I even wrote it in a way that would make more sense than normal recipe-speak.  Juniorina is no slouch in the kitchen, but still, formal recipes assume a lot of prior knowledge.  Here's what I sent her:

1. Get the big rice steamer pan and fill it 2/3 to the top with water. Put in some salt (1 teaspoon or so), put lid on, and start to boil.
2. While the water is boiling, get the heavy orange pan that is shaped like a pumpkin. 
   
   1. Melt 4 Tablespoons of butter (that's half a stick) on MEDIUM heat.
   2. When butter is melted, add 4 TABLESPOONS of flour and stir into butter real good. Lower heat to med/low. Let bubble a bit, but do not let it brown.
   3. When your roux is ready (that's the butter and flour mixture), add two cups of milk and stir off and on until it is thick and bubbly.
   4. Add a dash or two of tabasco sauce and turn down heat to LOW
   5. Chop up or grate the big block of yellow cheese
   6. Is your water boiling?  If so, put in your pasta (most of the box)
   7. Put cheese in white sauce and let it bubble and melt.
   8. Add a little bit of half and half (in a small carton in the fridge---maybe 1/4-1/2 cup)
   9. Drain your pasta and add it to the sauce.

I checked with her before I came home, and she assured me that everything was fine, and agreed to take the dish to the neighbor's since I would be getting home late.   We all headed to the neighbor's garage as soon as Juniorette and I got home.  We met some folks, filled our plates, and I thought that Juniorette's first attempt at a classic mac & cheese dish was not too bad for a 12 year-old.   

Despite the miserable weather, I enjoyed meeting some new-to-me neighbors and getting to know others better. Mr and Mrs Bread (so named because they always have leftover bread from Panera after serving dinner to at-risk people on Tuesday nights at their church) had a Santa Claus-sized bag of bread that everyone got to pick from.  I got to hear Scott and another neighbor talk about the radical teacher nuns at Viterbo University.  And I met the neighbor cattycornered from us, who will be a new father come Thursday (wife at home on bedrest).  I declined the offer to stay out and drink beer with Scott and some others, since I hadn't been home all day, and came back to the house to decompress. 

After I'd sat for awhile, I went to the kitchen to tidy up.  Don't assume #1: I saw that Juniorina had used the wrong cheese. She did find a block of cheddar, just not the right one.  I showed her that we had some sharp cheddar that would have given the dish some more tang, but I didn't specify in the recipe.   Then, I did one of those cartoon head-shakes when I found my rice steamer with a big hole in the bottom.  Wha?!  The bottom wasn't burnt, just...missing.  I didn't see any evidence that it had been scrubbed, and there was no sign of kitchen drama.  I asked Juniorina about it and she was fairly evasive. "Look, I'm not mad. I just want to know what happened.  Did you just leave the pan on the burner and forget to turn it off?"   She said "yeah" without real conviction.  Then I remembered seeing the chair under the smoke alarm on the back porch. Obviously, it had gone off and Juniorina had pulled the battery. 

I talked to her some more, asking all sorts of questions.  "Really, I'm not mad.  I'm just curious how this happened.  If you forgot to turn off the burner, just say so."  She wasn't being evasive--she just couldn't tell me what happened, so I had her go over the process. "I had the top part on it."  "You mean the lid?"  "No. The other part." Ding ding ding!  "Oh!" I said. "You cooked the pasta in the rice steamer basket?"  "Yeah!"   

Don't Assume #2:  I gave her a hard time and asked her if she hadn't watched me cook pasta a million times.  I mean, I have cooked pasta a million times. But, I've never invited her to watch me.  She's made box mac & cheese, but uses a smaller pan.  When I told her in the recipe to use the rice steamer pot, I assumed she knew that I just meant to use the pot part, without the steamer basket.  "Nobody tells me these things!" she said.  "Haven't you watched enough Alton Brown?"  "He doesn't tell you how to boil water!"  She had put the pot on the burner with no water in it, but put the water in the steamer basket and got it to boiling.  No wonder I have a bottomless rice cooker now.  And, it's a wonder that I still have a house. And, it's a wonder that the pasta was not a gummy mess!

Don't assume #3: I think I tend to assume that my girls know how to do things because I either knew how to do things or had different interests at their age.  While I was no major whiz in the kitchen at 12, I suspect I had a few more skills than Juniorina, and possibly, a lot more interest. So, I learned a lesson or two tonight. Let's just hope I remember at least one of them.

Comments

[Faith]

This brought back memories of my mother teaching me to cook spaghetti -- lol -- one thing that required knowing how to boil water. Well, that and the other lessons learned in the kitchen gave me a bit of a leg up when I got into jr.high home ec.

[Beth]

Wow, this is really an eye opener. I have been figuring that my girls will just pick up stuff "the way I did." After reading your post, I began to remember that my mother actually spent lots of time teaching me how to do basic kitchen things. I don't remember her teaching me how to boil water, but who knows? I will have to make a point to do more explicit teaching as my girls grow older.

[to boil water is droll]

My daughter admitted today that she can't even microwave a "hot pocket" without ruining it. Seriously! It took her two times to get it right.... ugh!

I'm proud of Juniorina!

dd