Kids in the kitchen

Teaching kids how to cook and care for a kitchen is a must, particularly if they are future missionaries! I was not a member when I taught my boys to cook, but at first when it was mentioned the kitchen was cleared of boys pronto causing much laughter. Now they can cook as good as anyone

Kids in the Kitchen

by Lorae Bowden

With the return of school and the daily grind of schedules, it’s time for education of another kind: kitchen savvy. Teaching kids to know their way around the kitchen can save you time, money, and heartache.


My daughter Sarah came dejectedly home from the first day of "real cooking" in her sixth grade home economics class. "It wasn't what I thought," she confessed. The first project - smoothies - had turned out wonderfully, but was too basic for an 11-year-old who regularly bakes bread at home. What shocked her most, however, was that she had been the only member of her group who had ever hand-washed dishes. "They didn't know that dishes should be washed in hot water," she exclaimed, "or how much soap to use, or that the soap should be rinsed off!"



I sympathize with middle and high school home ec teachers, who try to give a fulfilling experience to both kids who can make a meal from scratch as well as kids who have never warmed up a TV dinner in the microwave - all in the same class period.



There are so many great extracurricular options for improving children's opportunities that many parents don't consider basic cooking and cleanup to be a priority for their kids. On the other hand, here are a few things to think about.



Save Time and Money
Teaching children to cook can dramatically cut home food costs. Real cooking is definitely cheaper than restaurants, fast food, and even frozen or pre-packaged meals. Besides, kids need more to do than play computer games, right? Have them cut up veggies for a stir-fry or peel potatoes for a soup.



Better Health
Research shows that today's kids will have shorter life spans with more health problems than their parents - a first in centuries. A lack of understanding food and how it works is part of that problem. Children who know how to cook are more aware of the health benefits of food and feel more in control of the food choices they make.



Lifetime Benefit
Kitchen skills will benefit children their whole lives. Most of us put our kids in sports, dance, and music because we want them to learn internal skills like sportsmanship, collaboration, communication, discipline, and determination - not because we expect them to be a pro ball player or prima ballerina or concertmistress. Physical skill takes second place to the character built. However, cooking, menu planning, grocery shopping, and washing dishes build character and useful skills that last a lifetime.



Learning how to cook builds self-esteem, sibling and parent connections, and family values, not to mention reading, math, and science skills. Put a child in charge of dinner for a night, and watch him or her learn responsibility and love it!



Kids want to feel grown up and in charge, so why not let them? Admittedly, it might take a little extra parenting effort at first, but eventually it pays off and you can take a break from a meal once in a while. Even parents who let their very young children help out in the kitchen will find that the involvement leads to less picky eaters and helps eradicate much of the before-dinner chaos.



Here are some age-appropriate ideas to get you and your kids started toward some great kitchen memories and skill learning.



Ages 2–4




Set the table. Learn visual place setting, count number of people, make sure all components are there—forks, knives, cups, napkins, etc.

Put condiments on the table—salt, pepper, butter, dressing, etc.

Talk about foods that are healthy "all the time" foods or less healthy "sometimes" foods.


Ages 5–7



Get things from freezer or pantry; open cans, stir, make toast.

Dish cleaning - wash, dry, load dishwasher, rinse off food, compost.

Note food groups used in a meal.


Ages 8–10

Make a green or fruit salad, peel and cut vegetables, and slice bread.

Measure ingredients and follow a simple recipe.

Dish cleaning—all aspects.

Put away leftovers properly.

Evaluate a meal for its health and use of food groups.

Discuss which dishes or ingredients were least or most expensive.


Ages 10 and up

Make a simple meal or dessert and clean it up.

Help plan the menu for the week and discuss whether it is healthy and uses all food groups.

Help shop for meal ingredients and calculate per person cost of a dinner, a day's meals, or a week's meals.


Maybe it's time to add some kitchen time to family time. How are your kids going to stack up when they are adults and in charge of their own eating? Will they know the basics of living on their own? We have seen a strong economy founder. While we hope the best for our kids, knowing how to be frugal and work with their food resources is critical to self-sufficiency. Kitchen savvy is a big part of that preparation.

LDS Living, September/October 2010.

When its time to go....

REGRETS OF THE DYING
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

...and for those of us says I...I wish I had spent more time with those who have gone

Finding Father

Well, that was the crux of the matter I suppose. Finding him Would probably caus a lot of changes in my thinking and how I saw myself was a private thought. Well, maybe, I mean, I already had a father, or so I thought for I had carried his name for years, and I loved him. A wonderful New Zealander. I was his shiralee; we did everything to gether during my growing up and teenage years in the bush and goldfields towns. As the eldest of a large family of eight, helping to provide for their necessary sustenance of life was my lot with my er...step-father.
But curiosity got the better of me when in my teens and I discovered that another father was around. Friends urged me to contact him at the time. Not on your Nellie was my outraged rejoinder. I thought about it though. Mind you, it took a few more years for me to pluck up the courage to contact him, so I was a young married woman when I decided to give it a whirl, for I wondered what my other father was like.
So what could I do? Now I am talking about a pretty famous man here at the time. I mean, he was always on the news and that with his books that he had written. It was a bit of a challenge really. Well, I guess i would write him a letter, though I didn't have an address. A challenge to think about but finally I upped and wrote. To this day I cannot remember what I had written on that blank page of a writing pad. Another challenge to think about then reared its head, which took me a couple of months before I decided what to do. This was his address. Well, if he was famous, everyone should know where he lived I reasoned with myself. So I addressed the envelope with his name, included in brackets the title of his best selling book, and sent it to the city where I knew his home was.
It was about three months later that a reply finally arrived, well and truly after I had given up hope of hearing anything from him. He was up on South Molle Island in Queensland, collecting data for his next book. My newly-found step-mother wrote me telling me that. This was followed swiftly by his delightful letter. He was pleased to hear from me.
Changes in my life? Oh yeah. I know had two fathers; the newer father was to teach me what I could really accomplish if I set my mind to it, which in turn was backed up by the other father who was happy for me. And I learned to love my new father too. What more could I want in life? Both are gone now and I miss them. A writer and author I inherited from one father, my bush life and a love of the bush I inherited from the other. Combining the two brings out the poet and author in me. That was the result of finding Father. The photo above was taken when I first met him after I had found him. It was September 1966 and he was in Perth for the Premier of the movie They're A Weird Mob, which was based on the book he had written with the same name. his name was John Patrick o'Grady

written under demand in two minutes

Brian Brandenburgh of Wynnum Writers meeting on the 3rd November 2009, requested the profile of a place to be written within two seconds and this is what I wrote:
Brian wants me to write a paragaph about a place, a description of it. There have been many places, so which one? How about the Murchison? Now there's a place. Spring is out of this world in the Murchison. The red soil, stunted mulga trees, winding creek beds lined with eucalyptus and coolibahs; sandy and dry, but now after winter rains, the red soil is smothered with wildflowers. Pink and white everlastings, yellow belly buttons, mauve and green mulla mulla and even that exotic rosy dock. Budgies land on the brilliant red sturt peas turning them to green.

This was my four wheel drive that I went all over the North West of Western Australia during 1996 and again in 1997. These photos were taken in 1996 at Tom Price, an iron ore town, at my son's home after a very long and tiring journey from near Gascoyne Junction in the central Gascoyne area, driving 300-odd kms south to Meekatharra ahead of an approaching cloud band, via a very slippery and flooded Landor-Meekatharra Road and crossing the equally-flooded Landor River. On arrival at Meekatharra, it was a further three hundred kms to get to Tom Price via Wittenoom totalling over 600 kms in one day. The easier roads traveling west from where I was were closed by the police and the Gascoyne Junction Shire because of flooding and Meekatharra was the only way out. So off I slipped and slithered just before noon as the pitter patter of rain was heard on the tin roof of Dalgety Downs station homestead, where I had been for the past eleven days! My son was horrified at the vehicle's state when I arrived at his place in the early morning of the next day, having camped behind a truckie parked at Kumarina, but I brusquely informed him it was an off-road vehicle and that's where I had been. Most of the Landor-Meekatharra Road was atop what is called the Cunyu land system, which was really an old river bed that once ran between the Gascoyne and Murchison Rivers. A great adventure. On my arrival in Meekatharra about 8:30 that night, when I pulled up at the post office to call the station I had left, and my son at Tom Price to say I was 'out', two geologist bound for Newman wandered over to my vehicle for a chat, wanting to know where I had come from and where I was going. They were pleased that they would be following bitumen all the way north to Newman and told me that the Landor-Meekatharra road had been closed by the Meekatharra police because more rain had fallen and that there was one vehicle coming through - me! I had to really push the Feroza door to get out, and was astounded to view the Feroza, mud everywhere, and it was dropping in the middle of the Meekatharra main drag in great blobs! And Meekatharra I might add, was bone dry! No rain there at all. The phone call to Dalgety Downs took place and Debbie informed the Gascoyne Junction police that I was out and safe, and they in turn, I knew, would inform Meekatharra. So I grabbed a steak sandwich at the roadhouse and carried on up the smooth bitumen to Tom Price, many miles past Newman in the Hamersly Range.