Tastebuds Junior

Yesterday afternoon was our first tastebuds dinner club of the year.  We are beginning our fifth year of adventures in food and friendship and we have lots of plans going forward.  For starters as the kids are getting older, several of them are interested in participating in the food decisions and preparation.  Since we need to plan out the logistics of two sets of cooking, we had a couple of the oldest kids get a taste of it by preparing their dessert.

Sidney and Sam agreed on brownies as the dessert but Sid did not want to use my trusted recipe.  Instead, she went on to pinterest to find the most chocolatey one that she could.  We started about an hour early so the kids could get their cooking done first.  Sidney's only concern about cooking with the kids as a group was that all of them must wash their hands.  As you can see, she enforced that with her brother when he decided to join in.

 I asked if they wanted help, but they thought they could manage without me..sniff, sniff.  As I took pictures, I did interject a few tips that were taken without preteen eye-rolling in good spirit.

They ended up not only with brownies, but a grenache topping that was to die for. A beautiful first attempt, and a great precedent for moving forward into a new era, creating the next generation of tastebuds.  What a pleasure for us parents who so love the art of slow food to have our kids wanting to be part of it!

As for the adults, we chose Alice Waters as our chef inspiration.  Her food was delightfully clean and the recipes simple using few ingredients but exacting the most flavor from them.   As always, we began our new year with Julia's cheese souffle because after all it was she who began this journey for us.