New skillz

Some of my fondest memories are grilling steaks and cooking fish outside with my dad on both our grill and the “disco” (pronounced [dees koe].  The disco for you Mexi-can’ts, is basically an old tractor plow disk, with another disk underneath welded to it with a stand.  So essentially it’s kind of like a wok, but with tractor parts and you put wood in the lower level.  You have a really hot center and a less hot outer ring.  In any case, we used to have some pretty mean fish fries in that bad boy, while we had fajitas going on the grill.  We smoked a lot of meats and really had fun with it.  Also, mom knew her way around the kitchen as many of you know.  For years I thought chicharrones were the most special part of the dinner.  Mom would carve off the fat with just a hint of meat, and cook it up (to season the pan I found out later), then salt it and put it in a corn tortilla for me…I was in heaven. I couldn’t understand why she gave the rest to the dogs. 

My love for cooking carried me through college when my first year at Texas A&M was spent in an off campus apartment without a meal plan.  I cooked most of my own meals and luckily mom and dad gave me a pretty good base.  Then when I bought my first house, I used to have “fill the grill” Sundays which many of you also know about.  I’d smoke a brisket, or some ribs, make a steak or two and usually put a beer butt chicken out there just for fun.  Friends would just show up on Sundays, (imagine that), and we’d watch football then movies, and I’d still have food for the week.  And my dogs Shiner and Rio would eat like royalty. 

When I married Nita, I did a lot of the cooking early on, but at the time I was on the Atkins diet.  This diet does not sit well with Italians.  No bread, no pasta, no starches, sugarless dessert, November Foxtrot Whiskey.  Nita decided she was taking over in the kitchen.  As many of you know I gained a zillion pounds, but that’s not the point of this. 

Connor LOVES being around us in the kitchen.  He is also just shy of three years old and is in that very want-to-be-helpful mode.  If you remember the blog two weeks ago, shake and bake baby.  Nita has been allowing him to help with a few things here and there, and our new nanny is doing a “Thursday cook day.”  Three weeks ago they made cookies.  Two weeks ago was mini-biscuit pizzas.  Yesterday Nita unveiled the new utensil of the month.  Yes the Williams Sonoma train cake pan.  And Yes Connor helped.  My favorite part of asking Nita how it went was, “How did it go, honey?”

“It went great, but we’re out of eggs.”

“Really, how many eggs did it call for?”

“We used seven eggs.”

“The recipe called for seven eggs, or you ended up using seven eggs.”

“We’re out of eggs.  Connor kind of…, we’re out of eggs.”

“Okay, good tip.  I’ll put it on the list.”

Connor had a blast, and the cake came out great.  We’re thinking that this might end up being his birthday cake.  You know how that boy loves Trains right?

Josie is also developing her skills.  In addition to Connor’s play scape on the pea gravel we moved Josie’s little playhouse/slide there as well.  She LOVES playing on it.  She can climb up the slide, stand up in the playhouse and even slide down the slide with a little help.  And as most of you veteran parents already know, she’s quite the daredevil.  She wants to do everything that big brother does. She has quite a little grip and is very proficient with the sippy cup. She also is at the stage where she has decided which books (so far) are her favorites.  She’ll grab them and then crawl them over to me or Nita for us to read them to her.  I can’t believe she’ll be a year old in a month.  The time is screaming by.  And I am continually amazed at both of their new interests, words learned, tendencies, and skills they pick up every day.