Cookies? Cookies!!!

I woke this morning to the delicious, but rather disturbing, smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.  Extra vanilla.  Why disturbing?  Because the oldest person stirring in the house to that point was nine years old, and the youngest has been known to alter the time-space continuum simply by walking through a room.  I really wasn't sure what to expect when I walked into the kitchen.

Yesterday evening, I had come upon Jonathan in the kitchen with flour, butter, sugar, and an electric mixer spread across several acres of my kitchen.  "I'm making cookies!"  He announced.  In response to my worried look, he reassured me:  "I'm even following the recipe this time."  We have had several batches of I-made-it-up-myself-and-cooked-it-in-the-microwave.-Is-a-cup-of-vanilla-too-much? cookies which made the aftermath of a nuclear war look like the Garden of Eden.

But, sure enough, he was following a recipe, so I helped him find a few of the more esoteric ingredients (shortening) and gave him a few pointers (The beaters tend to fall out of this mixer so be careful), and pointedly left the room.

Yes, I know, I'm still in shock myself -- leave an easily-distracted nine-year-old in the kitchen with five pounds of flour and a hot oven?  But one of my main goals for my boys is for them to be good cooks, who like to cook, who can plan a menu, shop, and make a lovely meal.  Because I want my daughters-in-law to like me.  Maybe that way I'll get to see my grandchildren occasionally.  I like my mother-in-law, and I've taken her grandchildren to the other side of the earth.  I know the power daughters-in-law have.

Anyway, back to the cookies.  Jonathan made a very passable batch of cookies.  In fact, except for the fact that I forgot to tell him the vanilla was double strength -- it really did taste like he'd put a cup of vanilla in the cookies -- they were nearly flawless.

But it was still surprising, and a bit disconcerting, to know that he'd turned on the oven with Benjamin unsupervised in the house.  Jonathan, I'm not worried about.  Benjamin, I'm always worried about.

Jonathan confessed, with a cheerful grin, as soon as I came down the stairs, that he had forgotten to take the cookies out of the oven and they were burned to a crisp.  "I call them hockey pucks!"  He announced proudly.  "Benjamin wouldn't even eat them."

I checked the kitchen, and there they were, marble-sized, blackened hockey pucks, still in the pan, still smoking a bit.  Yup, looks like my boys are on their way to becoming excellent cooks -- just like their mom.

At least he remembered to turn off the oven.  In fact, maybe he's turning out to be a better cook than I am.