Julie, at 13 there are a lot of things he can do, and should be doing, both in cooking and in sewing. I'm a firm believer in boys learning the same skills as girls; husband grew up in a home where both parents worked full-time, so both he and his younger sister would come home to an empty house (aunt & uncle next door though) and have a list of things to do, to make sure dinner was cooked on time. Most of the time all they had to do was put the roast in the oven and turn the oven on.
Things your son can learn now -
1) How to sew a button back on.
2) How to carefully hand-stitch the edge of a stretched buttonhole to make it smaller so the button won't keep coming undone.
3) How to darn or patch clothing; how to repair a split seam or fallen hem. These are even easier with a sewing machine but can be done by hand. With sewing machine, sew on patches or repair tears or holes using three-step zigzag, if the machine has it. It's brilliant for hiding the repair and so easy to do.
4) Cooking - making a salad sandwich.
5) Cooking again - putting a roast on to cook. I've got a healthy roast dinner technique (there are many of them) which a kid can at least do part of. Here goes:
Healthy roasts.
A) You need two roasting pans. First one with a rack. Put your lump of meat (seasoned to your preference) on the rack. Put some water under the rack but not enough to touch the meat. You may need to permenently bend the rack so it curves down, like rounded shoulders. That way when you put t he weight of meat onto it, it won't sg into the water.
Put that pan into the oven. You can put it into a cold oven and then turn the oven on, if you're worried your son will burn himself. A moderate oven for most roasts - pork with crackling is the exception.
Vegetables - cut your choice of peeled vegetables into pieces two bites big. Either spray them with oil or put the pieces into a disposable shopping bag or freezer bag, pour in a few tablespoons of oil, moosh the bag around a bit to make sure each piece is coated in oil, then tip the bag out into another clean, dry (preferably non-stick) baking dish. Make sure you available have utensils for use in non-stick pan or it won't stay non-stick for long! Slide this dish into the oven on the top shelf (the roast should be lower down). Halfway through the cooking, use a non-stick spatula to gently turn the vegetables. Don't be rough or you will be serving bubble n' squeak instead of pieces of roast veg. Still tastes great, just looks messy.
At the end of cooking time when the roast is done, remove it form the oven to a carving dish and let it rest for about 15 mins. Pour off the liquid underneath (you need to keep the liquid topped up a bit so the pan doesn't dry out during cooking). I pour this liquid into a glass jug. Let it stand so any fat comes to the top. Pour all the fat into a sacepan, being careful to pour only the fat. Pour off nay excess fat into the grbage, keeping only a couple of tablespoonsul in the saucepan. Now to make the gravy, put a tablespoonful of flour into the fat and mix it together over heat until the mix begis to brown a little. It's OK for this to be a very dry, crumbly mix - it's the low-fat gravy. Now add the rest of the liquid, about half to begin with (until you're sure of quantities). Mix it thoroughly off the heat until it's smooth - I often use a stick blender. Putit back on the heat until it thickens and simmers. Thin to the right consistency with the rest of the liquid or just plain water if you've run out of cooking liquid. Add salt to taste. Chances are it will be the best gravy you've had in years.
If there is no cooking liquid, then while the baking dish is hot and after the roasting rack has been removed, add some liquid and deglaze the pan, then use that liquid to make your gravy. If there simply isn't any fat to begin the gravy, you can cheat and use a few drops of oil or butter.
Making gravy is perhaps a bit advanced for your son at the moment. But preparing the vegetables and the roast is not. And if he likes to eat the end result, that is the positive natural consequence. You can have it all prepared well ahead of time and all he has to do is put the various baking dishes in at the time you say. Have good oven mitts available in the house and he should be quite safe.
B) "here's the one we prepared earlier" roast - you get your roast (a favourite is the flattenedd chicken, you cut out the backbone and flatten the chicken out. Keep the backbone in the freezer to make stock with when you have collected a few). Put the chicken in a zip-lok bag with a squirt of oil, the juice of a lemon (and hey, just toss in the juiced lemon halves too), some crushed garlic, a quartered peeled onion and a few sprigs of herbs. Leave it in the fridge all day then when you get home form work you turn the oven on about an hour before you want dinner. While the oven is heating, do the vegetables (if you haven't already done them and hve them also in the fridge in a bag). Empty chicken bag into baking dish (forget the rack) or onto a barbecue grill. Because it's flattened it will cook faster. meanwhile cook the vegetables - there may not be time to roast them, but steamed is quick and easy.
To test if the chicken is done, shove a skewer into the thickest part of the thigh and see if the juices run clear.
Any leftover roast meat makes great sandwiches or can be reheated for a second roast dinner the next night. I also have recipes that use leftover roast meat - they certainly don't taste like reheats! Sometimes I have to cook extra of the main meal just so we can cook the leftover dishes!
Crock pot meals are also great for kids to learn. If you learned by watching and helping your mother, then he could learn the same way. But if you feel he needs it written down, then try writing down your methods. Some things he needs to see, such as the correct consistency for a roux, for example (can't describe that). PLus there are some new recipes these days - I've recently been playing with Moroccan spiced lamb recipes. And various curries, including making my own curry powder from the spices. He could do that too. Learning to use his nose and his tongue is vital NOW if he is to learn to be a cook and enjoy it. If you want him to be a success in life, being able to cook for the woman in his future will give him a better chance to attract a good partner.
These days cooking is so much easier. Cooking over a campfire is a good way to teach cooking safety as well as some early simple recipes.
My mother had me helping get dinner for everyone when I was very young. There were times I had to stand in for her because she was in hospital, I had to have dinner on for everyone (ten of us at one point) and I was not yet ten years old. I also had to cook breakfast for my father and get the timing exactly right. She taught me how - when we heard his electric shaver start up, we put the eggs on to cook (10 minutes to boil the eggs from cold water on the stove). When the water comes to the boil, put the toast on and turn off the hot plate under the eggs. When the 10 minute timer goes, take the eggs out of the water and serve them into the egg cups. By now the toast should be done and buttered. Then put the plate on the table. Usually that was exactly the moment my father was walking in to the room to sit down for his breakfast. The eggs would be done exactly how he wanted them - firm white, soft yolk. It was like living with Phineas Fogg.
These days I still cook eggs the same way but I now cook rice in the microwave oven. No mess, no need to drain it. Perfect rice, no need for expensive rice cookers.
Once you know how to cook, you can learn how to adapt and modify. A beginner cook rarely modifies, but as a cook gets confidence you get a 'feel' for it. As kids reach their teen years, their own sense of discovery should have them at the stage of wanting to modify. I have a muffin recipe your son might like to play with. It involves the basics - a dry mix bowl and a wet mix bowl. You can play with the ingredients list as long as you have the right quantities - a certain amount of liquid (it can be juice of any kind, or milk) and a certain amount of chopped solid stuff (it can be dried fruit, fresh fruit, chocolate chips or any combination of the same) as well as the usual balance of eggs, flour & butter. As a result, depending on what is in the fridge or pantry, an inventive kid can produce wonders. I've done choc-cherry-coconut muffins, orange and date muffins and even savoury bacon and cheese muffins (with grated zucchini for the green eggs & ham look). You may have your own muffin recipe that works like this. It can be a lot of fun. Or there's Impossible Pie (not very healthy, but very tasty). Again, you add what you want from a range of possible ingredients. Every time you make it, it's different.
The Nintendo DS cooking guide was something we bought for difficult child 3 as a family. Usually he has to buy his own games (or beg them for Christmas & birthdays). The Cooking Guide doesn't really allow for much adaptation but if you are experienced or practiced, you can adapt from it. It's a bit like a GPS for cooking. Once you know where you are going you can turn off the main road and take a short-cut, as long as you can ignore the increasingly hysterical-sounding, "Make a U-turn NOW!" coming from the machine...
We have all learned some new recipes from the Cooking Guide. I find it a bit simplistic at times and have taken a few of their recipes and added my own home-grown herbs to them, or added other ingredients to make the recipes even tastier. But for difficult child 3 - it's been a brilliant way to get him into the kitchen. It also is good for helping him to see the extended process - you don't just assume you have all the ingredients or utensils, you have to plan first and maybe even do some shopping. It helps there, too. Extra tips are given where needed under "more information", such as how to peel and chop an onion. Pictures are used as well as short movies, so the learner can see and hear what it's like to brown onions, for example.
The thing is - we want our kids to be able to live indpendently. There are so many little skills that they need and it's never too early to learn.
Example - difficult child 3 was about 5 years old and we were having lunch in the garden. He wanted more red capsicum and I told him that it was insidde on the chopping board, to just go and get it. he did - but tried to cut it himself (I had wanted the whole thing brought out; difficult child 3 thought he would be clever and surprise me). And he cut himself quite badly, we had to call the doctor to come glue him back together. Blood pouring everywhere. So at 5 years old, we had to teach difficult child 3 (whose language skills were very poor) how to be safe around sharp knives.
Converse example - a friend of ours has a very bright young daughter. Classic easy child. But te kid never is allowed to cook anything for fer she will burn herself on a hot plate or using the oven. As a result she is now 11 and is still not permitted in the kitchen when any appliance other than the microwave oven is running. Crazy. But her grandma has been teaching her to cook behind her mother's back. That should not have happened, but the kid desperately wanted to learn how to make muffins and biscuits.
I remember the first time I burned myself. I was only a toddler and put my hand on the fins of the radiator on my father's lawnmower. It wasn't a bad burn, it didn't blister right away. But it taught me to recognise the feel of heat and the danger of hot things. My mother had me helping her to cook from a very early age. She showed me how saucepan handles had to be turned inwards for safety, even though the person being kept safe would be me and I knew better already, than to grab a saucepan handle. I don't know how old I was but I do remember being only at about eye level with the edge of the stove. I had to use steps to climb up and turn on the hot plates. I learned to put the saucepan with the vegetables and water, onto a cold stove, then turn them on at the correct time, then stay and pay atttention in case they began to boil over. Some people would say I was too young, but it was accepted in tose days. PPLus my mother had no choice, she was often in hospital and I was the first one home ahead of everyone else, it was my job to begin getting dinner and looking after the animals (goats, sheep, chickens). I never remember burning myself, I think because I already knew what a burn felt like and had been drilled in safety. I do remember a couple of steam burns as I had to reach over the top of the pots to turn down the hot plates. I learned to slide the pot out of the way after that. In the earliest days I just had to get the vegetables ready and have them on the stove. When my sister got home from work she would turn everything on and put the meat on to cook. When I was older, I would turn it all on as well.
We do what we have to do. I think it is better fror a kid to learn to cook because they're enjoying it, than because thye have to. But eventually they will have to. Better to begin having fun now.
Marg
