I am sitting here writing this while the house is filling with a wonderful smell! I have the oven on and there is fresh rasin bread in there baking! That’s right, everyone, it is fall and it is time for baking, pumpkins, soup, and sweatshirts!
I have to say, out of the two appliances I put into the kitchen, my KitchenAide and my Bread Maker are the two essentials. I usually only use the bread maker to make the dough since I have taxed my mixer too many times and had too many close calls with it to risk using it for bread any more, lol, but they both get used at least 2 or 3 times a week each.
When Little J gets home from school later, we are going to bake something, not sure what, but something, probably banana nut bread, one of our favorites, since I have some bananas that are getting mushy.
When I think about the fact that he loves to cook and bake with me, I feel so blessed. Not many boys will admit to enjoying cooking with their mom, and I have such great memories growing up of all of us gathering around the kitchen table, the mixer closer to overheating then any of us probably realized at the time, making hundreds of cookies for the holidays, or making Thanksgiving dinner together, and looking back now, I really wish I had taken advantage of those moments of family more.
But, some of my best persoinal memories growing up were in my grandmother’s apartment and she and I cooking together. Grandma was the best cook I have ever met, and I still carry the lessons she taught me today, teaching my son the same ways she did me.
I value the time I am getting with him right now because I know he will not always want to spend time with his mom in the kitchen.
And, the tradition is continuing. Every time I watch my son, covered in flour, butter streaked across his cheek, I am reminded and instantly transported back to when I was the 9 year old baking and cooking with my mom. I think ahead to the next few years and know he will not be this little and this innocent forever, I know he will grow up, and I know I will be right there to watch him, to watch this young man who is developing before my very eyes, and, before I know it, I will be the one cooking in th ekitchen with my own granddaughter, teaching her the way my grandmother taught me.
But, not for another 20 years, I hope. Until then, though, I will cok and bake with Little J, creating those treasured memories for him the way they were created for me,.