Julie Bove wrote in rec.food.cooking:

> But... An unnamed female who lives in this house just told me that
> she wants me to teach her how to cook because she wants to learn.
> She also said that we need to buy more vegetables. I think this
> might be hard to do as those are the food that I buy the most of
> but... I told her when we go shopping tomorrow, she can pick some
> out.
>
> Now... Let's just see if this lasts.

Thats good Julie!

From experience with this, a good way to start is to have her look at
some of the simpler recipes. Need not be something you make often (or
ever) but let her pick something that appeals and that other than you
helping chop, she feels like she can make.

Since your family is used to making different dishes for a meal based
on who eats what, it's a good thing to let her make something she
thinks she will like even if no one else is likely to to have picked it.

What I find is in most families, there is one primary cook, and others
maybe pinch hit a bit with certain items. (Like, Daddy does the
grilling, Mom cooks most other things). If kids do not start young in
the kitchen, they tend to be intimidated by it all. That almost
happened to Charlotte because Don and I are good cooks.

Once we realized it, we had her in a cooking class (HS Home Ec type but
just cooking) and told the instructor on the side privately that we'd
intimidated her but she had the background. Charlotte made straight
A's and started getting cookbooks of things *she* wanted to try. A
symptom of this is her cookbooks are German, Polish, Russian,
Scandinavian and a nifty one all about Udon/Noodle soups.

Charlotte now is 22 and still doesn't cook as often as Don and I do,
but her miso-dashi-udon soups are supurb and she has many variations
that span off that and are all fantastic. She's also great at comming
up with uses for leftover chicken. We had a Scandinavian sort of
'wrap' earlier this week. That was a keeper for all of us.

So the point is, give her her own zone to work within. You are dead on
right to let her select some veggies and other things she wants to try.
If she has a rough idea of what she wants to do with them, all the
better as you can make sure you have the stuff.

Charlotte and I are making a grocery trip tomorrow. Mostly fresh veggie
run but there's a good sale on fresh wild caught tuna and a decent one
on cleaned crab. Charlotte is looking up a crabcake recipe she wants
to try and listing what she needs to try making them. I've never made
them but she's happily pulling various spices to the side.

I'll post more as our trip develops.

Carol

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