It started when he first watched the movie Ratatouille. He quietly sat through the first viewing ... and said "that was good."
Then the next night, he asked to watch it again. He asked me to stop it several times throughout the movie, but with no explanation as to why. Once we reached the final credits, he started asking if he could make up a recipe.
He asked for a blindfold, asked for strawberries, cheese and nuts.
(have you ever seen the movie?)
He had learned - from a cute little animated movie - that recipes are the culmination of tastes and flavors coming together to meld into something delightful to your taste buds.
He spends nearly every day in the kitchen at some point. Mixing drinks, constructing desserts.
I get impatient - too often - and tell him that I am not in the mood for creations in the kitchen. I explain that I'm tired of recipes that haven't been planned out. I say that maybe tomorrow, we can make food together.
I try to explain to him that recipes are best to eat when they've been planned out. When you FOLLOW a recipe that someone else has written. When you read the instructions FIRST before proceeding to dump random ingredients into the pot.
The cool thing is though ... is that he doesn't give up. He doesn't let my annoyance with his obsession get in the way of obstinance.
He loves to create ... loves to experiment .. and so he presses on.
He loves being in the kitchen.
Just the other day, he asked permission to use the blender. He added lemons, melons, sugar, ice, milk and a couple of other ingredients that I cannot remember now. I squinched up my nose and politely suggested that it was NOT going to taste good. I asked him to wait until tomorrow so we could get strawberries, because THAT would taste so much better. I asked him to wait until we had better bananas, because THAT would make a proper milkshake.
He did it anyway. I sighed a deep sigh and said "whatever." I put my hand up and walked out of the kitchen because I was tired of arguing with the little guy.
You know what? He made it anyway. He pressed on and ignored my great wisdom that his combination was going to be rotten. It tasted delightful. His combination of melons and lemons and other ingredients ... was really, really good!
What a great reminder to quit squelching the imagination, dreams and creativity of others. Just because it doesn't seem to make sense to YOU at the time, doesn't mean it isn't valid (or delicious!).
