The apprentice

There is a perfect weekend in winter--the one when you don't have much scheduled, your two men are at home and your daughter promises to stop by for a lunch together. The house is cozy, albeit messy, and the cupboards are full. The teen kid has been easy-going and we have been together a lot lately: shoveling sidewalks, playing Scrabble (me pointing out the possibility for "drivel," which used up all his letters and added a double-word score thereby putting him ahead for the win by just four--I mock him and say your win was based only on drivel!), and cooking together.

Our house is known for big weekend breakfasts. Big, cholesterol-laden brunches with homemade buttermilk biscuits and thick-cut bacon, and fried eggs, over-medium. My son likes to cook and so we are teaching him a few standbys. He stood by the stove Saturday, watching the bacon sizzle, and said, "But how do you have the patience to watch this bacon fry?" He is a techno-multitasker; that is, he can play PSP in one hand, hold the TV remote control in another, all the while watching for text messages on his new cell phone. But I needed to show him what cooks do "in the meantime."

"You don't just watch it, you do other things to get ready for the meal," I say. "Like set out the jam for toast and bring out the eggs to cook from room temperature."

"Can I just go in and watch TV, then?" he asks.

"No, you can leave rising bread unattended or a pot of soup, mostly, but you probably shouldn't walk away from frying bacon."

"Dad does," he says.

"Yeah, well, Dad also once let your sister fall into the ice fishing hole. Only one leg fell through, but still," I say. He knows I'm joking. Mostly.

"Or a cook could read," he says.

"Of course, a cook could read." And so I sorted through a few cookbooks for a cake recipe while he sat nearby, drinking his hot cocoa and reading a novel about baseball.



I love these weekends.