When the kitchen gets busy, think about some often under-utilized help that is probably right there under your nose: your kids.
Bringing the kids into the kitchen can not only help you with the little jobs but, more importantly, it can give them something that lasts a lifetime.
Gary Moore knows. Like many divorced people in a new relationship, the Chicago lawyer found himself a few years back with not only his own three sons but with his girlfriend’s two daughters as well. At the time, Moore was getting into cooking; getting the kids involved too seemed only logical.
“Since all of our kids had to be here for dinner, it was a good thing to say, `Well, we’re all going to cook it together. We’re all going to work in the kitchen.’ And the enterprise really put us together and it was fun.
“But some of it,” he added, “was practical.”
Parties at home
“We would have little dinner parties, just for the family,” Moore said. “We would do three or four courses. I really couldn’t handle doing all of them at once. So it was sort of out of necessity.”
At the time, one of his sons, Evan, who was about 5 years old, got his first taste of the kitchen.
“You could definitely see and pretty much feel everything that was going on, it was so small,” Evan recalled. “You could fit, like, two people in there.”
Evan didn’t start out at the top. “I worked my way up: dishwasher, helper, sous chef.”
Added Moore: “He just cut things for a lot of years.”
But Evan is 16 now. The family has long since moved to a larger kitchen and not only do they still enjoy cooking, they’re writing a cookbook together. Tentatively titled “Moore Food: A Family Cookbook,” Evan and his dad started the project about a year ago as an extension of their time in the kitchen, and it’s coming together nicely.
Filled with recipes and family stories, including a unique family tradition “regarding dessert recipes that fail,” as well as practical tips that they discovered as they went along, it promises to be a fun and entertaining cookbook for the family.
Though it is important as a way of preserving some family history, it’s also a way for a father and son to stay connected.
“There’s not always a lot of things you can do with your teenage son,” Moore said. “Interests are so different, the family dynamic is set. This is something we can do together.
“When you’re a kid,” Moore said, “you like helping. The kids actually like being involved and they learn to chop and dice and lots of things. When you get to be about 14, you don’t want to help anymore. Teenagers just want to get away from you. That’s natural.”
Evan doesn’t exactly argue.
“It gives me a reason to be around the house,” he said. But the fact is, he not only likes it, he’s good at it. He has cooked dinners for his father and his business associates. He has cooked for his mother and friends to applause.
And his awareness of food has helped him make the leap into his own culinary discoveries.
A recent paper he wrote for school was titled, “How to Cook for Your Date.”
A course in life skills
Certainly the sensual aspects of eating and cooking are not left out of their book.
As Evan tells it, “It was while cooking coq au vin, the very first recipe my dad ever taught me, that he first told my brothers and me that the key to a woman’s heart was to be able to cook and to dance.
“I still have a lot of work to do on the latter.”
Though Evan’s cooking skills have helped round out his education, he doesn’t plan to make cooking a career. “I’d rather treat it as sort of a hobby.” Otherwise, he’d rather be rocking–he plays drums in a band, Norge Glass Co.
Even if the book never is published beyond the family circle, its creation already has been a great story.
Coq au vin
Preparation time: 35 minutes
Cooking time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Chilling time: Overnight
Yield: 10 servings
Adapted from Gary and Evan Moore’s cookbook-in-progress, this recipe was the first Evan learned. Almost all the work can be done the day before serving, if you like. Three tricks: a good homemade chicken broth, tasty though inexpensive wine and slow simmering, never boiling.
10 slices bacon, diced
10 chicken legs with thighs
4 chicken wings, ends trimmed off
6 green onions, sliced
1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled
1 pound mushrooms (cremini or white button), halved or whole
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups dry red wine
4 cups chicken broth
2 teaspoons dried thyme or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
16 small red potatoes
24 pearl onions, peeled
1 package (12 ounces) baby carrots, peeled if necessary
1. Cook bacon in an 8-quart Dutch oven over high heat until browned and crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove; drain on paper towels. Set aside. Add the chicken pieces in batches to Dutch oven; cook at medium-high heat, turning to brown all sides, about 10 minutes, per batch. Drain on paper towels.
2. Add green onions and garlic to Dutch oven. Cook, stirring, over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms; cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Sprinkle flour over mushrooms; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Slowly stir in the wine and chicken broth; cook, stirring until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Add thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Add bacon, chicken and potatoes. Cover; cook on low heat 45 minutes. Remove from heat; cool. Cover; refrigerate overnight.
3. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Skim off fat from stew. Cover; bake in oven 15 minutes. Stir in carrots and pearl onions. Bake until vegetables are tender and chicken is almost falling off the bone, about 1 hour. Taste; adjust seasoning.
Nutrition information per serving:
710 calories, 49% of calories from fat, 38 g fat, 11 g saturated fat, 190 mg cholesterol, 28 g carbohydrates, 61 g protein, 1,050 mg sodium, 3.9 g fiber
