TL;DR:

• For the past two years, Ray has involved his two boys with cooking by taking turns shopping, preparing, cooking, and serving the food from different countries around the world.
• More recently, they have changed it up by challenging themselves with a cost budget and weight budget, forcing them to be more creative.
• The best part of this experience is the quality time Ray spends with his children as they cook, learn, eat, and experience food together.

Do You Enjoy the Drive?

Many of us have enjoyed an amazing home cooked meal with our families.  Did you take the time to “Make the Drive Part of the Experience?” Over the past 2 years, I have been cooking dinner with my two boys (11 and 9 years old) every Saturday.  It has been such a great experience for us.  Not just the meals, but more importantly, the process of planning, learning, and cooking together.

Each of the boys has been taking turns picking a meal and making it with me.  It started with them picking meals they wanted to make—shrimp tempura, pork katsu, shrimp, and grits. They each picked a meal and we would make it.  I would sit back and watch them, giving instructions when needed, but they were each the chef in the kitchen.  I was just there for support, their sous chef per se. 

Seeing them learn everything from basic knife skills to how certain flavors work together was wonderful.  I enjoyed them figuring out how to plate their meals in restaurant-quality ways.  The 1-5 hours we spent cooking was irreplaceable and priceless.

Choose a Destination

It then evolved into each of them picking a country for the other one to cook a meal from.  We researched traditional foods from the chosen country to make that week.  We learned about pie floats from Australia, poutines from Canada, mole from Mexico.  The boys expanded the process to learn about the countries, their traditions, and their cooking techniques. 

Together we bought a scratch-off world map so we could scratch off each country as we cooked from it.  Learning about different cultures, traditions, and geography wouldn’t have been able to happen if we ignored the drive and the process, and only focused on the destination—the meals.

Don’t Be Afraid to Change It Up

Lately, we have been choosing games from the TV show Guy’s Grocery Games and pretend we are on the show.  The boys have been shopping for the ingredients with me.  They have played Budget Battle (having to make the whole meal for under $30), ABC game (all ingredients had to start with the letter S), and Watch Your Weight (all ingredients weighing under 7 lbs.). 

They have learned how to budget, shop, and be creative.  Whether it was the grilled shrimp skewers, the seared scallops and risotto, or smoked salmon with a salad and homemade strawberry vinaigrette, and Spanish rice, changing it up has allowed us to keep it fresh and show their creativity.  They have learned all new skills and are taking some of the cooking techniques and recipes they have learned and are applying them in other ways.  They are using the knowledge they have previously gained to new meals they are creating.

 [scroll down to keep reading]

The Drive Is the Best Part

The food has been wonderful!  It has been interesting and tasty!  But the best part has been watching the boys learn about cooking, meals, different countries, and their cooking techniques.  That has all been so amazing!  Seeing them learn and grow has been so fulfilling.  I know this because of our Mongolian meal—lamb and beef potstickers with scallop stir-fry.  The process of making the potsticker wrappers and filling from scratch was so much fun and very interesting.  Although we learned a lot and had so much fun doing it, the potstickers themselves were not very good. 

We learned a couple of things. First, we are not fans of lamb. Secondly, there was too much salt in the recipe. And finally, we learned how to make potsticker wrappers.  So the meal itself wasn’t the highlight that night but the experience of making the meal can’t be replaced.

If I focused on enjoying only the finished meals, I would have missed out on the drive, the process, the best part.  Watching my boys grow and learn, spending time with them, and seeing how proud they are of their work has been better than any meal I have ever eaten.  I can get great meals at local restaurants. However, they would never fill me like the drive has. 

Just like in our classrooms, don’t just look forward to the destination; enjoy the drive as well!

Take time to enjoy the drive.  Don’t miss out on possibly the best part.  Make the drive part of the experience!

About Raymond Porten

Raymond Porten is a husband to an AMAZING wife, 2 wonderful boys, a principal of an elementary school in northern Illinois, and a Golden Apple Scholar. He spends his free time traveling with his family, cooking with his boys, and he finds the time to co-host 2 podcasts. He’s been in education for 20 years and has worked as a 5th grade teacher, middle school dean, 7th and 8th grade social studies teacher, middle school assistant principal and now as a principal. He believes in the importance of building relationships and of taking every opportunity to lead and make a difference in the world.