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Last weekend, my nephew at long last cashed in on his Christmas present—a cooking session with Aunt Janet to go along with the vintage aprons (made by my grandmother for my sisters and me when we were children) and wooden spoons (matching; no fights) I gave him and his sister. To my great pleasure, they were delighted. Even though I’m not as committed to teaching kids to cook as Ed Bruske, I liked the idea for a whole raft of reasons.

• They already have plenty of things.
• We could get to know each other better.
• I think cooking is a pleasure to be shared.
• I didn’t have a lot of money to spend.

I told them they could pick what we would make, and I figured they’d go for cookies. That was fine with me. Cookies are fun and easy to make, and a good intro for kids.

No cookies, thank you

My niece, though, said she’d like to make a main dish, but she didn’t have a preference as to what. So we made Chinese Chicken Wraps (I don’t know whether a Chinese person would claim them). My niece is 9 (maybe 8 at the time), was quite focused on the task at hand, and willingly tried—and even liked—the somewhat unusual fare. (Spicy chicken wrapped in lettuce? What a trouper!)

My nephew, though, didn’t push for his cooking date until he realized what he wanted to make: rolls! His inspiration was the rolls that his Aunt Susan frequently makes and brings to family gatherings. I warned him and his mother that rolls were an hours-long process, and Lori was willing to give me a bye. He was so thrilled that I decided we’d work it out.

Unlike his sister, he brought neither his apron nor his spoon, but that was OK. I have plenty.

Everybody’s different

My nephew, a newly minted age 6, provided a fine example of individual differences (which a friend of mine, the sexist, attributed to his maleness): Whereas his sister or my daughter when she was younger were prone to crying Let me! and I can do that! this one was much more Why don’t you do it? even when faced with such highly desirable tasks (or so I thought) as breaking eggs and beating eggs.

Thanks to my serious mixer (a 50th birthday gift from my ex-sweetie), mixing and kneading the dough was easy. Waiting for the dough to rise was hard, but a walk down to the park made time pass quickly enough.

At last we got to the fun part: punching down the dough.

And forming the dough into balls, which S. later said was his favorite part (with face-making ranking up there, IMO).

Then more waiting, which gave us time to clean up—S. is a first-rate dishwasher, which is a trait I find very charming—and play a few rounds of Uno. (He’s also an Uno shark.)

Patience rewarded

Finally, the rolls came out of the oven, and my nephew displayed rare caution compared with my prior kid experiences. Even with oven mitts up to the armpits, he didn’t want much to do with the hot pans of rolls. And (I love this!), he soon got the instant-read thermometer from the drying rack (we’d used it to test the water temperature before adding the yeast) to see whether the rolls were cool enough to try.

Joy!

To tell the truth, I think he was far more interested in the product than in the process, but maybe, just maybe, getting to make the rolls will make him appreciate them all the more when his Aunt Susan brings them. And maybe it was enough fun that he’ll be willing to try something else later—and follow his dad’s fine cooking example.