Cooking Class with J

When you're the new mom in school, you're immediately asked, "Oh, what would you like to sign up to help with?" A sweet Canadian mom was scheduled to cook with the preschoolers Feb. 4, so I decided it would be great to have someone show me to ropes my first time, so I agreed to help. I sat J down at the kitchen table one day, asked her to look through a kiddy cookbook (from my cousins, Amanda and Jon, last Christmas - thanks guys!) and told her to tag a few recipes that she thought would be fun to make with the class. We decided on homemade pretzels. Yum! So after preparing with Line (the other mom), we showed up this morning to make pretzels. Inside the kitchen is an island just the right height and size for mini chefs along with an oven, microwave, sink, dishwasher, and plenty of utensils. The plan was to take a few pictures, but with my excitement for the day (teaching again!), I simply forgot. J told me this morning anyway that, "You'll have to ask my teacher because I don't know if you're allowed." I had premade the dough so all the kids had to do was roll it into a snake just like they do with play dough, form the pretzel, brush egg over the dough, sprinkle coarse salt on the top, and we'd put it in the oven for 15 min. With two of us moms there it was a breeze. The children were well behaved and had a great time with us. I even met a little girl from J's class that's going to one day man the Clinique counter. While I was helping her make the snake part of the project she says to me, "Your skin is so nice and smooth!" Wow! What a compliment from a 4 year old!