I’ve said before that summer is the season when I love to corral my kids in the kitchen to tackle a meaningful project together: fresh lemonade, bread or a fruit pie, homemade jam, even plain old dinner. What I haven’t confessed is that one of the often surprising by-products of these adventures is how much I learn from them. Perhaps as much as anyone, especially considering I enter the room with a slightly overinflated feeling of mastery and general air of food know-it-all-ness. The person with the ideas and answers. (What? There are others?) Yet I can’t help but take pleasure in the topsy-turvy feeling of being hit head-on by the beautifully simple possibilities that flow through younger mouths. Mouths that know what THEY like to eat, and with taste buds unencumbered by creativity-stifling notions of what-goes-with-what and why. And, I must admit, why not?
