I always did a lot of cooking and baking with my children and the other children that seemed to spend most of their time at our house. When ever everything got to be too much, we would bake a batch of cookies or something. It used to drive my mother crazy because she was a very neat organized person and she would rather send us to the garden and clean up the mess. I always felt that if we had some fun first then the cleaning up wouldn’t be so bad and the children would be more likely to pitch in.
By the time Jessica was nine she was making and selling cakes to the bars in the village and they were very popular. Every spring, when my parent’s garden was at its best, they would have a cocktail party and invite everyone. It was their one party of the year. My mother didn’t cook so they rarely had people over for a set dinner unless my dad was making it. I catered the party every year with my little group of helpers. We would set up an assembly line and started turning out the best and most different tapas anyone had ever seen. We usually had between five and nine little girls at our house at one time. They loved making the hors d’oeuvres and listened to their favourite music and laughed the whole while they were assembling all this tasty food. During cooking we would talk about how to measure and what kind of food is good for you and what is not, where different foods came from and how to eat everything but not too much of anything. It was great fun and a learning experience as well as teaching them social skills. When the food was ready they all changed into Flamenco dresses and passed the food around and chatted up the guests. The party began to make a reputation for itself and Jessica started getting a few catering jobs. She even got the job of cooking and serving at the opening a large new law firm. She only charged the cost of the ingredients and gave the host the shopping receipt but it started taking up a lot of my time because I had to take her to the store, light the oven and deliver her and a few friends with all the food to some destination then pick them back up again so after a little while we stopped doing it. It was great fun and a treat experience for all the girls and a treat for the guests. Now Jessica is a fabulous baker. She makes special, to order, cakes ranging from sheep to princesses and wedding cakes; she also has a great line in cookies.
Most children love to eat sweet things and junk candy. If you start them out young enough you can convince them that raisins and dried fruit are candy and call corn ‘little packets of sunshine’. This system works until they are about in first grade and then they see what the other children have and they want it, but hopefully they will have had a good start to life and may even continue to prefer fruit and vegetables over sweets. My son Daniel is like that, he started out life only wanting fresh fruit and vegetables and never liked candy. He would take a bell pepper and some carrot sticks to school and this was his preference, he still to this day prefers healthy food over junk food and still doesn’t like candy.
By the time Jessica was nine she was making and selling cakes to the bars in the village and they were very popular. Every spring, when my parent’s garden was at its best, they would have a cocktail party and invite everyone. It was their one party of the year. My mother didn’t cook so they rarely had people over for a set dinner unless my dad was making it. I catered the party every year with my little group of helpers. We would set up an assembly line and started turning out the best and most different tapas anyone had ever seen. We usually had between five and nine little girls at our house at one time. They loved making the hors d’oeuvres and listened to their favourite music and laughed the whole while they were assembling all this tasty food. During cooking we would talk about how to measure and what kind of food is good for you and what is not, where different foods came from and how to eat everything but not too much of anything. It was great fun and a learning experience as well as teaching them social skills. When the food was ready they all changed into Flamenco dresses and passed the food around and chatted up the guests. The party began to make a reputation for itself and Jessica started getting a few catering jobs. She even got the job of cooking and serving at the opening a large new law firm. She only charged the cost of the ingredients and gave the host the shopping receipt but it started taking up a lot of my time because I had to take her to the store, light the oven and deliver her and a few friends with all the food to some destination then pick them back up again so after a little while we stopped doing it. It was great fun and a treat experience for all the girls and a treat for the guests. Now Jessica is a fabulous baker. She makes special, to order, cakes ranging from sheep to princesses and wedding cakes; she also has a great line in cookies.
Most children love to eat sweet things and junk candy. If you start them out young enough you can convince them that raisins and dried fruit are candy and call corn ‘little packets of sunshine’. This system works until they are about in first grade and then they see what the other children have and they want it, but hopefully they will have had a good start to life and may even continue to prefer fruit and vegetables over sweets. My son Daniel is like that, he started out life only wanting fresh fruit and vegetables and never liked candy. He would take a bell pepper and some carrot sticks to school and this was his preference, he still to this day prefers healthy food over junk food and still doesn’t like candy.
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