Lion and Magic Boy

Thanks, everyone, for the deluge of gorgeous pumpkin pie photos. I’m making one today, and sorry, there are no photos because it is UGLY! I make delicious cakes and pies but they are SO UGLY! Martha Stewart I am not.

However, my son Nathaniel created a cookbook, would you like to see it? Of course you would! He was about 6 at the time, and decided that since I was knitting feverishly and making a doll for his school’s annual benefit auction, he’d like to contribute as well. Liking, as he did, to cook in his little kitchen (which has recently been appropriated by Eric, who can be seen from time to time stirring and tasting various concoctions), he developed several recipes which I translated and made into a cookbook.

Lest you be TOO impressed, I should probably mention that many recipes began with phrases like, “Take some dough…..”

Like dough just comes. Mmm, dough. Tasty! He still asks for tidbits of the UGLY pie crusts and whatnot, and would probably consume an entire loaf of bread, raw, if allowed.

Here’s a good one:

BANANA CAKE

Take some flour and put it in a bowl. You can use whole wheat flour, but usually I don’t. Take some bananas and smush them. Add some sugar to the flour. If you like a lot, then add a lot of sugar. Put in a little bit of chocolate, like a Hershey’s Kiss. Add the bananas to the flour mixture. Add a pinch of cake mix. Stir. Crack one egg and add it to the bowl. Take one stick of butter and melt some of it; pour it in and mix. Put it in the oven and bake. Make some icing and put it on the cake when it is cool.

Or this one…..

Vegetable Pie

Take some vegetables – a carrot, maybe a pepper.Use each family member’s favorite vegetables. Chop them and place them in 2 bowls, one larger and one smaller. Take 1 egg and crack it into a bowl. Separate the egg white and the egg yolk. Place the egg white in the refrigerator. Mix the egg yolk with some milk and some flour and stir that up together so it is mixed and combined. When it is all stirred, put in a few bread crumbs and mix it well. Throw one bowl of your vegetables in, and save the other one, the bigger one. Mix that around. Put in a small teaspoon of baking soda or baking powder. Cook this in the oven. Next add the larger bowl of vegetables in another layer on top. Or, you could cook them separately and add as a topping. Use a pan that can go in the oven. When it is baked, put it on the serving layer. Put the rest of the vegetables on top. Put some seasonings and spices on top of that, and it is done. Bon appetit!

Do you not just want some now? I have to wonder what this says about my own cooking technique, which he undoubtedly was basing his own on.

One more? Are you sure? Well, okay…..

Carrot and Chocolate Concoction

Use tiny tart pans, 2-inch. Take a round chocolate ball (like the kind Santa brings) and shave or grate it into small bits. Peel a carrot and continue using a ribbon-type peeler to create long flat ribbons of carrot. Take the carrot ribbons and press them into the tart pan to line it. Sprinkle seasoning over this. Peel and chop another carrot and some assorted vegetables (broccoli, celery, anything yummy). Place the vegetables in a mixing bowl and season them. Stir. Place a layer of the vegetable mixture in the Tart shell. Top with a small slice of ice cream. Sprinkle with a layer of the grated chocolate. Add a whole chocolate ball. Repeat with another two layers of vegetables and chocolate bits, ending with the chocolate. Enjoy!

Mmm, carrots and chocolate, a holiday family favorite! We actually made some of his recipes (not these), and they turned out okay.

Want to see what he looked like then? Of course you do!

And here’s Serena from about that time, at age 2:

And here they are together, maybe a year later. Look how they loved each other then. So what happened?.

Cute, weren’t they?

And now that the Way-Back Machine is in high gear, have a look at me from 1998:

I’ll just leave you now with that image.

Wait. What’s that? Oh, the things on his ears? Nathaniel had just come from the dentist, and those were the prizes he picked, a couple of bracelets, which to him became earrings. Did you not know he had on a skirt beneath that manly plaid shirt?

[Stupid HTML. Cannot get rid of these blockquotes. Gah.]