school of cake

I know I often wring my hands here about the difficulty of finding balance between work and family. It's a problem, being pulled in opposite directions. But this morning? This morning I got a break, because there was nowhere else in the world I would rather have been, nothing else I'd rather have been doing, and no one else I'd rather have been doing it with. Kitchen + cake-baking + Gabriel = blissful mothering.

Are there any pedagogical approaches to homeschooling that advocate cooking? All the time? I mean, what better way to explore science and math while nurturing a sense of imagination and wonder? First, we read the recipe together. After I peeled, Gabriel eagerly took to the job of carefully cutting the pears into many small pieces. He was wielding a knife! He was a dicer! Needless to say he was very pleased with his work.

Then came the most successful egg-cracking of his short culinary career, and witnessing the magical transformation of raw eggs into an airy, thick, pale yellow mountain via lots of high speed mixing. There was measuring, counting, smelling, touching. Sprinkling pear and chocolate that we'd cut into fairy-sized pieces onto the finished batter, then licking the impossibly delicious residue off our fingers. Oh, and did I mention the thrill of operating heavy kitchen machinery?

We luxuriated in a whole morning with nothing else on the agenda. Cooking with a small person, without the pressures of the clock or other children anxiously awaiting a turn (sorry, Frances!), is an activity that opens and opens and opens. It's beautiful. It's a place I love to be.

The only thing left to do, while our fragrant cake was cooling on the counter, was hang up the welcome sign for Heather, today's birthday girl (and a frequent commenter here, famous for her love of order, white sugar, and good clean living). She arrives at four, direct from a conference in DC. We cannot wait to see her and celebrate together!