Cooking With Sam

Today, Sam and I decided to make meatballs and sauce for dinner. Actually, we decided it yesterday. It’s a part of our routine for Saturday errands. We talk about what he might want for dinner for either Saturday night or Sunday night, and we work this into our making of the grocery list. 

First we have to decide what we want to eat, then we have to figure out what we need to make it. Next, we have to check to see what ingredients we have, and whatever we don’t have, goes on the list. We were a little undecided whether we were going to be eating meatball grinders or having spaghetti, so we covered both bases by adding both spaghetti and rolls to our list.

So, today it was going to be meatballs and sauce. And since we still weren't sure whether we were going to end up grinders of pasta for dinner, we decided to slightly modify our recipe. This meant two things. First, we weren’t going to add sliced mushroom to the sauce. Sliced mushrooms are fine for spaghetti sauce but we didn’t want them in our potential meatball grinders. 

The other thing we decided was that we were still going to cook Italian sausages but we were going to add them in whole to the sauce instead of slicing them. Again, this was due to the potential grinder issue. Other than that, recipe-wise, things stayed pretty much the same. What changes was how we went about it.

Normally, Sam and I make our own meatballs using a recipe he got from school. This usually takes us a couple of hours and we bake them the day before, then I add them to sauce and along with garlic and spices the next day. Sam is usually in charge of slicing the mushrooms.

But today, we did it different. When we went grocery shopping yesterday, the precooked meatballs were on sale so we decided to give them a shot. It also seemed like a good time to keep building on how much of the cooking Sam would be responsible for. After all, our weekend cooking projects aren’t really about what we’re cooking. They’re about teaching Sam some basic skills. I’m not sure he realizes this or not, but it doesn’t really matter, as long as he’s getting something out of it- along with the good food and companionship.

So, today Sam did a lot of work. After dumping the meatballs into the crock-pot and adding the sauce, I took out a bunch of the spices I normally use, and went through them all with Sam. I had him smell each one so they would meet with his approval - and so there wouldn’t be any surprises. With a little help- mostly for reassurance, he added them.

Next up was peeling and cutting the garlic. This is something that would have been unheard of a few years ago. First of all, Sam would never have stood for the idea of his fingers smelling like garlic, and secondly, he wouldn’t have liked the smell. But little by little, as we’ve baked the safer things (that is to say, sweeter things) over the years, he’s gotten used to dealing with different textures.

For example, he’s been cracking eggs for a while. When he started, he washed his hands every time he got so much as a drop, or thought he got so much as a drop, of egg on him. Now he can wait until he’s cracked them all. Plus, he actually enjoys doing it instead of being disgusted by it. We have certain system that we follow and I think that it help a lot knowing what the routine is.

Anyway, I showed him how to break the clove off the garlic bulb and had him try a few. I did the same for showing him how to peel the clove, and slice it and dice it. This was a very big deal for him. And it was a very big deal to me, too.

Besides the smell, I don’t think Sam would have had the skill to cut the cloves a few years ago. I mentioned that I have Sam slice the mushrooms whenever I cook with them, and I’ve been doing this for a few years now. He uses a semi-sharp knife for this and while he was a little nervous to begin with, he doesn’t think twice about it now - as long as he’s using the same knife. 

At the beginning of last winter, I started having him slice that apples for me when we made apple pancakes. This required a larger and sharper knife than what he was used to. But the knife isn’t razor sharp. Yeah, he could cut himself if he wasn’t careful, but he’s careful, and I’m right there. 

And I figured the apples would be a good thing to lean on. They would be a little wet and maybe a little slippery, but they’re large to hold which means he has a better chance of keeping his fingers away from the knife while he’s cutting. So, little by little, he’s been doing great. (So good, in fact, that I’ve stared- just stared- to teach him how to peel apples).

Anyway, since he’s been getting better with the knife, with a little bit of help and some off and on guidance, I had him slice and dice up the cloves of garlic. This was a pretty slow process for him, but it was his first time, and for a first time, he did really great.

He slid the chopped garlic off the cutting board onto the sauce and spices and meatballs - and he stirred them all up.

Now it came time for cooking the Italian sausage. I’ve had Sam do a lot of baking, but other than cooking some hamburgers a few times, he hasn’t done a whole lot of stove top cooking. This to me, is more dangerous. It’s easier to get burned and it’s easier to have hot spills- which can lead to bad burns. But a lot of it is not only knowing the right settings, but having some confidence, and knowing how to react if you do get burned.

I had him put some olive oil in the pan and the sausages in the pan and had him turn them a couple of time. This was on pretty low heat, but it was still enough for a tiny, very tiny, bit of grease to splatter. We discovered that when a tiny bit of hot grease gets on you, “it stings a little”. But all was taken in stride - there was no panic, there was no dropping of pans, there was, in fact, no problem at all with it. He’ll need a lot more practice, but like everything else, we’ll take it slow and we’ll take our time.

He cooked the sausage and with very little help, added them to the crock pot and stirred everything together. All in all, a great job.

We left the sauce to simmer in the crock pot and later, we went to feed the ducks this afternoon. On the way home, I asked Sam if he had any more thoughts about dinner. He decided he wanted meatball grinders, but maybe I could make the spaghetti anyway, so all we would have to do is heat it up for leftovers tomorrow night. It sounded like a good idea to me. 

When we got back home from feeding the ducks and I started cooking the spaghetti- I’m not quite ready to have Sam handling big pots of boiling water- not yet, anyway. And while I was cooking, there was a last minute change. He decided we’ll stick with the spaghetti, and we’ll have the grinders another night. Which also seemed like a good idea to me.

Grocery Store Roadkill

You try not to look over, but can't help it. Once you do, you're left with a lingering feeling of nausea mixed with regret. 

The Ride Home

English Lesson, Part 2

After one full class of reading Shakespeare in Language Arts, Sam's class has now moved on to doing plot summaries of unrelated short stories. I'm not surprised by this.

I'm not sure how I feel about all of this, but I think I commend the teacher for trying. It's good to expose him, or any kid, to something like this. But I'm pretty relieved to see that they have moved on to something else. The problem is not that reading Shakespeare would have been a challenge for Sam. The problem is that it would have been just shy of impossible for Sam.

When Sam first told me about the Shakespeare stuff, I picked a random quote, just to juxtapose it with what I know about Sam. This is the quote, "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."  To say that Sam would struggle with this would be an understatement.

I think with a lot of effort, Sam might get the meaning- and maybe even retain it for a little while. But to what end? There would be a lot of frustration involved- on his part, and on the teacher's part. And I think that Sam, being Sam, would easily read the teacher's frustration, and that frustration, along with his own, would make him feel more and more like a failure.

I would struggle if someone forced me to learn, never mind understand, Chinese. And I would get pretty nervous and frustrated if someone put me in front of a piano and expected me to play. It's not that I wouldn't want to be able to do these things. It's just that they are not within my abilities to do so.

I can remember reading Shakespeare in school, and I remember struggling with it. And I remember wishing that it came easier to me and, especially, that I enjoyed it more. I remember feeling like the kids that really enjoyed it were in on some secret that I just didn't have the ability to easily understand - no matter how hard I tried. It was work for me, and it was frustrating - and I felt left out. It was like being stuck outside of a party and trying to look in through a fog covered window.

I worry that there are a lot of things in life that are like that for Sam.

So, I'm glad, I think, that he was exposed to this. But I'm more than glad that he wasn't made to feel like an idiot for not understanding it. I'm glad he tried but I'm glad they didn't push and push and then get mad at him for not being able to understand Chinese.

English Lesson

In our afternoon, Home From School phone call, Sam tells me that they were doing poetry in Language Arts. I asked him how he liked it and he said it was okay, but a little hard to understand. Apparently, the poetry was written by some guy named "Shakespeare".

I'm surprised, but glad, that Sam didn't seem frustrated by this. Considering his struggles with everyday language, I'm curious to hear how it goes today.

I Will Now Be Going to My Happy Place

A large, used, metal gate has mysteriously appeared in my backyard. Since I don’t own a fence that this thing would fit into, or have any discernible use for something like this, some people might think this is strange.  I prefer to try and not think about it.

I do wonder though, where was this thing found? Was this picked up off the side of the road? Was somebody advertising “Free Gate” - like maybe on one of those homemade posters you sometimes see on telephone poles - the kind with a photo, where you have to rip off a little tab with a phone number on it. 

Maybe this was ripped off of someone’s fence, as payback for some perceived slight.

These are all rhetorical questions, of course. I don’t really want to know.

The only thing I really wonder is - how long before this free gate turns into a jagged hunk of rust, and how much is it going to cost me when I inevitably have to get rid of this thing?

Free gate. Note the free bikes and the free shelves behind it.

Cold Season

I feel bad that I've given Sammy my cold. He started off with a scratchy voice on Saturday morning and from that point on, I've been putting the steamer in his room at night. I thought his cold was getting better but he came home from school today pretty stuffed up. 

There's no complaining on his part, as usual, but still I feel bad about it. I filled up the steamer again tonight and we'll see how it goes I don't really know how much good it's doing, but he seems to like it and it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

Years ago, when I was small, if I had a bad cold, Mom and Dad would put a steamer in my room, as well. I don't remember it helping a whole lot, but I don't remember it hurting, either. In any case, it felt like I was getting attention, so that was a pretty good reason to go along with it, regardless. 

If my cold was really bad, they would set up a makeshift steam tent. One time, this consisted of a sheet, one end of which was tacked on to the adjoining wall of my bed. The sheet was pulled across by bed, where the other end of the sheet was draped over the backs of a couple of chairs. On one of the chairs was the steamer. 

The theory was that the steam would be more concentrated, than if the steamer was just filling up my little tiny room . I think it pretty much worked because I remember the wallpaper next to my bed almost peeling off because from all the humidity. 

Another time I remember Mom and Dad setting up a card table that straddled the head of my bed. They draped a sheet over that, too. This held the steam in, but it also produced so much condensation that it was like rain dripping down from the underside of the table. Still, between attention, and having Mom and Dad making me a pretty cool fort, it was more than worth it. It almost made me not want to feel better- which was not something I need a lot of encouragement on, anyway.

I don't do anything as fancy as that for Sam. Its not that I wouldn't bother, but his bed is pretty much a fort already. He sleeps on a lower bunk and every night, he surrounds himself in a nest made out of his stuffed animals. Still, I'm pretty sure he likes the extra attention that comes along with having the steamer in his room. And I think he likes feeling that someone cares and that he is being cared for. Who wouldn't?

I'm hoping he'll feel better in the morning.