What a pleasure it was to cook with our guest from last week’s show, Brandon Firla...funny and a foodie ! He’s added great things to « Little Mosque on the Prairie» as Rev Thorne, check it out Mondays @ 8:30pm on CBC. I wish him and his lovely wife much joy and happiness (and the occasional full hour of sleep) when their new baby arrives!

Speaking of babies...my baby Spence will be our guest on our next show « Cooking with Kids » ...Okay, maybe he isn’t so much a baby anymore; he just turned 14. But in my heart he will always be the tiny baby boy that the doctor placed in my arms at 1 :01am that cold day in December. In that moment my life changed forever. I became the luckiest person on the planet. I have to remind myself of the moment we first met more often these days as he has reached his teen years and towers over me at almost 6 feet tall !

Communicating with a teenager can be well... lets just say...challenging. All you parents of teens out there know from which I speak! Finding time together without distractions; no internet, no tv, no video games , no texting...isn’t easy. Not to mention how hard it is to get them to answer you with anything more than a mono-syllabic grunt! Opening up and talking about their feelings is like pulling teeth so a girlfriend of mine told me about a great website: www.canadianparents.com.

They have a section on "big kids", articles and advice about exactly what's going on in our house. Very comforting to know I'm not alone! I liked the site so much I wrote a blog for them about "speedy suppers" (I figured it was the least I could do since their advice on teens has restored my faith in humanity!) Check out both my blog and their site and tell me what you think!

I try to get my son in the kitchen as much as possible. Whether he helps chop something up or makes a pizza for his buddies or just sits at the island while we are cooking dinner. It doesn’t always happen with everyone going in all different directions but when it does I really take stock. For me, the kitchen is the epicenter of any house and I have many fond memories of sitting cross-legged on our yellow Formica kitchen countertop in the house I grew up in. Back then, my parents and my eight siblings came and went in all directions too, so I guess not much has changed. When I was a kid, I loved watching everything happen from my perch on the counter. Homework was done at the kitchen table, boyfriends stopped by for a quick bowl of chili on Saturdays, my parents’ friends were entertained with wine and sharp cheddar cheese. There was always someone dropping by. Nowadays, I love the “drop-ins”; whether it’s one of my sisters or a friend just stopping in for a cup of tea I take it as a compliment if someone feels comfortable enough to hop up on my countertop and just hang out in my kitchen.

Being an admittedly over protective Mom, I struggle with the balance of letting my kid learn from his mistakes and wanting to cover him head to toe in bubble wrap! Spence is a great person; smart, funny, kind and he has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. I have to trust all that throughout these next few scary teen years... Mary mother of pearl help us all... and hopefully every once in a while he will hop up on our kitchen countertop, unsolicited, for no other reason than to just to hang out with our family. Check out « Cooking with Kids » and my son Spence making some easy fudge, this Saturday at 7pm or again on Sunday @ 630pm.

Until next time,
Jack

Keywords : Brandon Firla, Cooking with Kids, spending quality time with your teenager

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