AND SO IT BEGINS

Me and My Boys

     I decided to start writing this blog today after talking to my youngest son about what he was going to cook for his girlfriend for dinner. In typical fashion for him and his brothers, he called me from the grocery store, as he strolled the aisles, asking for the ingredients and the recipe for Vegetable Bolognese.


     This is not a simple request. Texting all the ingredients to him and then walking him through the recipe takes time. Time that I don't always have at the moment that one of the boys is strolling the grocery aisles.


     Even worse, after the process, as he checks out the ingredients, he realizes that they are going to cost more money than he has on him. Being a lowly student with a job at his university, money is necessarily the underlying factors in these decisions. And he is not alone, his brothers are at different universities, but they have the same considerations. So now we have to start all over again.

     Well, for some time now, I have been coming to the realization that I managed to screw a few things up as a parent. Oh, I got them through many things, taught them the value of human life and the worth integrity. I taught them to think for themselves and use logic and reason in their decision making. Yep, they are great boys. Considerate, egalitarian, intellectual, kind...in short, everything you could want a son to be.

     But, I left a few important things out. Like, how important it is to perform regular maintenance on your car and not drive 60,000K without changing the oil. Yep, that's a problem. Or how, you should not continue to drive your car for 3 months with the 'check engine' light lit. Yep, that's a problem.

     And, even though I managed to teach them how much girls like it when you take the time to cook dinner for them, I forgot to teach them how to do it. Like the car thing, I just assumed, since they spent so much time in the kitchen with me while I worked, that some sort of osmosis thing would happen and they would know what to do. Apparently not. Epic fail there.

     In light of this, I am publishing this blog as a cooking manual of sorts for my boys. If you have real kitchen skills, you are probably going to find me rather tedious as I explain things in detail. But if, like my sons, you are just learning your way around the kitchen then you may enjoy reading this blog.

     My methodology will be simple. I will go through all of the recipes that they are always asking for, thus letting them be my guides in this process. I will lay out the ingredients and prepare the recipes, providing step-by-step images along the way.  And, I will tell them where they can buy ingredients and how much they should expect to pay. Finally, I will try to use the simplest tools in the kitchen since I know that they don't have the fancy equipment that I do.

     I expect that the pictures will likely suck at first. And so may the writing. I am a novice at this, after all. But, as with all things, I will improve as time goes on.

     Finally, it is my fervent hope that this will forever remain a loving, motherly reference for them throughout their lives.


                                                                               Enjoy,
                                                              Keyla