Step One

The toughest part of this journey seems to be making itself clear already.  Patience.  Connor is very excited to begin this process.   Right now.  The glory of children is their vision of a finished product and not being overwhelmed by the tasks of getting there.  This seems to come from the fact that they dont see there are any steps between what we want to do and doing it.  
We have managed to choose a cookbook to start with.  Last Christmas, we gave Connor several cookbooks of his very own, and he has read them and examined them in detail cover to cover many times.  His favorite seems to be Willams-Sonoma "The Kids Cookbook" (Oxmoor House -2000).  It has beautiful pictures of each recipe, has very clear, easy to follow steps, and provides and equipment list in addition to the ingredients which helps with getting the tools needed together ahead of time.  My favorite feature is the spiral binding.  Why isn't it a rule that all cookbooks be made this way?  It makes them soooooo much easier to use!
To preface the discovery of this book (and a few others I have found to be great cookbooks for kids that want to cook) let me just say.... the choices out there for kids that want to learn to cook sucks!  I spent many hours in and out of bookstores and doing online searches to find only a small handful that provide what I was searching for in a format that was user-friendly for a young boy.  I found tons of cutesy childish creations that said they were "kids cookbooks".  No. These are cookbooks for adults that want to make food that looks cute for kids to be entertained by, not to cook themselves. Connor doesn't care about making smiley-face pancakes as much as he cares about making pancakes... period. 
Other "kids cookbooks" I found were geared toward adapting recipes into bland, small-portioned adjustments of what the adult version was.  Stir-fry where you remove the child's portion before adding the sauces and seasonings (where the FLAVOR comes from) and similar ideas were abound.  Nope.  The rest were intended for cooking with very young children like toddler/preschoolers, or pink, frilly, girl cookbooks because apparently the stereotype of women in the kitchen is not beyond booksellers either.


So Williams-Sonoma, my hats off to you for giving us someplace to start.