Learn to cook!

Cake and photograph by Zachary.

No recipe this time, just a simple request: learn how to cook! Teach your kids how to cook. It's so much fun you won't believe it.

If you don't know someone who can teach you how to cook and can't afford either the time or money for formal cooking classes, check out the links on the left for VideoJug online cooking classes or Leslie Bilderback's Culinary Masterclass, which provides simple clear instructions for a bunch of cooking techniques. Make the effort; in the end you will be part of one of humanity's greatest yet most basic endeavors (and if you don't believe that grandiose statement, talk to the Chinese or the French).

Making this cake with my nephew was one of the best times I've had within recent memory. Okay, so he's inordinately fascinated by Ace of Cakes, but he actually wanted to know how to construct a tiered cake, and so we did it one rainy afternoon. It was made with a cake mix, chocolate chips and leftover ganache, and yeah, maybe it is listing a little bit, but the end result was definitely more than the sum of its parts.

Try something like this yourself one day. You'll have so much fun.

Oh, and happy 2008, everyone.

© 2008 Sandy Soto Teich

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