Tonight we made some of my famous Minnesota Mooshy Chow Mein for dinner.

When we were at the Asian market on Thursday I picked up some fresh pea pods and some fresh bean sprouts for the dish.  I thawed an IQF chicken breast and sliced it into bite-size pieces for us.

As usual, Sam was ready and eager to help me.  I have the sense that she is eager to show me that she’s a big girl – than she can do real tasks and make a serious contribution to the welfare of us all.  I’ll buy it.

My little muffin has been cutting things since she was three years old.  I recall one man on the food group rec.food.cooking making tsk-tsk-like comments about the folly of allowing a small child to be too involved with large appliances and/or sharp objects.  I explained to him, I think, that it’s not like I had turned her loose unattended to play with her baba’s kitchen gear.  As my pastor friend likes to say, I was born at night, but not last night!

Anyway, she’s a schoolgirl now.  She is seven years old.  Mostly she is interested in helping and if I have learned nothing in the years between her mother’s and her uncle’s childhood and her own, it is that you have to be ready to act when they are interested.  I flog myself frequently for not teaching my children certain things that I wish they now knew.  And I try to forgive myself by simply understanding that it is what it is.  When they wanted to learn, I didn’t want to (or was unable to) teach; when I wanted to teach, they didn’t want to learn.  That’s it in a nutshell and I regret it and there’s just not much to do about it. 

Samantha is my redemption.  When she wants to cook, we cook.  She doesn’t have a real good grasp, I think, that some things require some preparation, though, and maybe have to be postponed for a bit.  That will come with time.

She was quite proud to do it and as I watched the blade get close to her little fingers and hand I just reminded myself to keep breathing and to keep praising her work.  And then I’d be talking to myself: “Great! All I have to do is return her to her mother with a bandaged hand and stitches and I’ll never see her again.  Oh my Alex!” 

The good news is that there were no accidents.  She is responsible and attentive to what she’s doing.  Good job, Muffin!!

I’ve written about making Minnesota Mooshy Chow Mein before and there’s a pretty good recipe for it here.