Grown Up Children

We have been busy around here! Nice to get back to thinking about food and preparing some slightly more inspirational foods. So, I've been writing about my own children, who are far from grown. Always be skeptical of people giving parenting advice until you can see the end product. I remember reading my first book about an approach to children's education called "unschooling" and when I realized that the woman who wrote the book had kids only a couple years older than my own I wanted to ask for my money back!! Ditto for someone claiming to be qualified to guide me through childbirth who had never had a kid. Nope. Give me an expert, a wise old soul, someone who has been there and done that, or at least been there and done so many other things it doesn't matter if they've never actually experienced the issue at hand. There are some members of my "elder council" whom I can look to for such experiences. They are all also qualified to tell me if I just used the word "whom" incorrectly. For example, I have an uncle who raised 4 kids. He told me that one of the best parenting decisions he ever made was to put a couch in his kitchen. The benefits of this arrangement should be obvious and I can report, from my admittedly limited knowledge, that his 4 kids are fit, athletic, sane, funny, intelligent and love to spend time with each other and their father. One of them is even a food writer. I have a friend who has read way more parenting advice books than I have and she once told me that communicating with boys is very different than with girls and what the experts say is that boys will talk to you more if you just be with them, instead of actually trying to have a bona fide "conversation". That expert suggested bicycle riding or drives in the car, but my guess is that my uncle's couch-in-the-kitchen did the trick. He did the work of cooking, sometimes maybe his boys just sat on the couch, sometimes maybe they helped, but that seems like a low key, day-to-day chance for "side-by-side" communication. As soon as I get a couch, I'm going to put it in the kitchen.
Another member of my elder council is my aunt Judith who also raised and homeschooled two boys. She is the person responsible for creating an absolute certainty in my mind that sausage and cabbage soup, the most peasantiest of foods, might be the most delicious food invented. I can't make it myself at all, but hers is divine. Her boys are grown men, but recently came home and WENT FOOD SHOPPING with their parents and cooked a Paleo feast. This was sort of an unusual undertaking for them which is just so cool that no matter how old your children are, you can still have an evolving relationship with them and food. The photos are of the Cajun blackened chicken, roasted fennel, beet salad (from this very blog!), and Mulligatawny stew. So I will try to keep all this in mind when my own kids leave my kitchen and experience the world of Mountain Dew and Ramen noodles. They will come back if I am welcoming.