Cooking

Jordan asked for a cookbook for Hanukkah and I was more than happy to oblige. Since then, he makes dinner every Thursday night. It's awesome. Here he is with his first dinner ever, savory meat pies (yes he made the crust!) and a salad with cranberries, almonds, and optional blue cheese.

A few months later: pigs in a blanket (the blanket is puff pastry, and no he did not make the pastry from scratch); roasted beets with cilantro-orange dressing; and his favorite kale salad, which he makes just about every week, massaged with parmesan and a fresh lemon dressing. He has named this Snicket Salad, because it is so lemony. We all love it.

In the kitchen zesting the lemon. He is a zesting master by now.

After several weeks he stopped consulting the cookbook and started just suggesting things he wanted to make. I find him a recipe or just give him directions. Here he is with tortellini with homemade basil-walnut pesto, crispy paprika-roasted cauliflower, and Snicket Salad.

There is so much to learn in the kitchen! Cracking eggs, peeling beets, operating the food processor, chopping onions (always the onions), rolling out dough, seasoning things, it just goes on and on. He is more and more confident, though he still dislikes getting things in and out of the oven. It's worth it, though, especially when you have a friend over to make chocolate chip cookies.