Simple, but Not Easy: Lessons for the Kitchen, and Beyond

How many times have you seen some celebrity chef show you just how easy a dish is, only to have it fail miserably when you try it in your own kitchen? Way too many to count, you say? Me, too! It’s alright. I promise you, you are not alone!

Apple pie is something we tend to make everywhere we go, but it doesn’t always look this pretty!

It’s true, some things seem to come to certain individuals easily, don’t they? We all have that friend who can whip up a masterfully-layered chocolate cake in the blink of an eye, then stare at you in surprise when when you marvel at the ease with which it all seemed to come together. Or that buddy who can somehow magically create a new website out of thin air, then cock her head and furrow her brow in disbelief when you gape at her trying to figure out how it happened.

“Oh, it was nothing!” she’ll say, “All I did was . . . .” And that’s when the gobbledygook starts pouring from her mouth in an unintelligble flow!

I hear stories from people all the time about how they watched some television cooking program, or how they tried to follow this or that recipe, only to fail miserably in their attempts to recreate some celebrity chef’s famous whatever. The result? More often than not, they tell me that what they learned was that they’re just not a good cook. Or worse, I hear them say that the result was so horrible, they’ve decided that they’ll never try that again.

It just breaks my heart to hear such resignation, because it flies in the face of the sort of growth mindset that I espouse as a parent, educator, and lifelong learner.

We’re working to teach our child (and to remind ourselves as adults) that sometimes following the same exact steps that someone else did won’t necessarily get you the exact same results. We’re practicing being OK with that, too! After all, isn’t it those little differences that make us all unique? And aren’t those little idiosyncrasies part of what make the world such a wonderfully interesting place in which to live?

This Barbecue Chicken Pizza we made in New Zealand looks very different from others we’ve made elsewhere.

Every time we step into Our Kitchen Classroom, we are practicing the FEARLESSNESS that we want Our Little Sous to emulate. It’s a new opportunity to be CURIOUS about how things work, to PLAY with ingredients as we test our theories, and to enjoy the multisensory learning process of pulling together a dish.

Do you just cook to eat? Do you only prepare food to feed your family? Or is it possible that there could be so much more to it than just that?

Here in Our Kitchen Classroom, we know that each meal is a learning opportunity. It’s not just learning for children, either. We adults have a lot to learn, too!

That’s why we have so much fun PLAYING with our food, at every chance we get! We invite you to come and join us in our new online community. It’s so much fun, and there are always delicious new lessons that we can review again and again! We’ll see you on the inside!!!