I am sorry to admit that my wife really doesn’t enjoy cooking.  She does her best, but sometimes her general indifference to the culinary arts rears it’s ugly head.  Who could blame her, since as a stay at home mom, it’s up to her to ensure that there are 3 square meals on the table (or more, since we have a very picky eater in the bunch) every day, rain or shine, no matter how she feels.  Then to make things worse, Daddy blitzes into the kitchen every once in while to engage his hobby, cooking.

 

I’ve been trying over the past year particularly to share my love of cooking with my two daughters, who are now 9 and 10 years old.  It’s a great time, and I think its a big help in terms of breaking down a few barriers for them, as well as showing them the most essential cooking skill of all; love.

Yesterday, a great opportunity arouse.  My wife hasn’t been feeling well, and was asleep when I returned with the girls at lunch time.  Mackenzie, the younger daughter, suggested soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.  Not exactly a gastronomic tour de force, but heck, it’s an easy lunch, right?  

Things got interesting when she realized we were flat out of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.  Her favorite, and in my mind, every thing soup ought not to be…

So I had a little look around, while attempting to channel Anthony Bourdain.  Indeed, we had both chicken stock and chicken broth.  For supporting actors, we had a little piccolini (mini penne pasta), some celery, onions, and a green pepper. Even better we had some rather gnarly looking left over rotisserie chicken from three days before that had started to dry out and was destined for the garbage can.

Here’s the key.  I didn’t get any of it out of the refrigerator.  Instead, I got the girls together and asked them where chicken noodle soup comes from, and out came the invevitable answers:

“The store…no wait, Campbells.” offered the older one.

The younger one laughs, “A can.” 

Okay, I don’t frown on sarcasm. They’re my kids after all and it’s probably a genetic thing.  In fact I often encourage it.  So I asked, them “No, what do you think goes into chicken noodle soup?”

That started the search.  Why of course, there’s chicken in chicken noodle soup.  We had some rather gnarly looking left over rotisserie chicken from three days before that had started to dry out and was destined for the garbage can.

From there, we discussed the vegetables that we’d need.  That gave me a chance to talk about mirepoix, carrots, onions and celery that are the basis of virtually any soup or sauce.  Since we’ve got a rabbit (who is pampered even more than the kids), we’ve got that base handled.  Additionally, there was a little fresh green pepper (which in Louisiana would take the place of the carrots in the trinity).

So slowly we got all our ingredients out, planning the meal before we actually began to cook.  First, I chopped the veggies, showing them proper knife handling techniques, cautioning them never to use daddies big chef knife alone, and even had them do some very carefully supervised chopping.  Before that I was careful to show them the scar where I had cut the tip of my finger off over a decade before.  “…With that very knife you are holding now.” I warned sternly.   Then the stock, broth, pasta and everything went into the pot, with a liberal dose of flakes from the pepper mill, and a while later we had a wonderful pot of Cahill Penicillin boiling away, which the girls were able to offer to their mother in bed.  It was so good they asked if we could make more today (and we did, only this time with turkey broth, and sans meat).

Okay, we’re not in Iron Chef territory here, but that was never what I was aiming for.  A few points to stress:

• There’s no such thing as man’s work or woman’s work. It’s all just work. 
• Cooking is fun, especially when you do it with people you care about.
• Homemade tastes much better than canned.
• Part of cooking is cleaning up.  While the stuff is cooking, all the dishes are cleaned.
• Dish cleaning is a team effort when your dishwasher isn’t working.

The timing for this couldn’t be better.  With “Eat the Bird” approaching, we’ll soon have the major ingredient for making turkey stock.  Which will precipitate the Thursday night question: where do you think turkey stock comes from?  

This time, ours won’t be coming from a can.

(For those of you more comfortable with a real reciped for Turkey Soup, check this out, for Chicken Noodle Soup, look here.)

Mark Cahill blogs on tech, social media, and whatever else comes to mind at http://www.allthingscahill.com