|
Lights, Camera, Cook
by Nora Sherman
Create a moving catalogue of cooking with the grandchildren
A recipe cannot convey what makes a dish special, says Lauren Bank Deen, author of Kitchen Playdates (Chronicle Books, 2007) and an award-winning cooking and lifestyle-television producer. Instead it is in the movement of the fingers in dough, the speed of the whisk, the spoonful of sugar in the tomato sauce that never makes it on the list of ingredients.
“I believe most people forget a step or a tip when they retell or write a recipe,” Deen says, “either because they do it intuitively, don’t think it’s that critical, plain forget — or intentionally don’t really want to share. Like the grandma I know who never wanted to own up to the tablespoon of sugar in her tomato ‘gravy’ red sauce.”
Creating a homemade cooking video brings a recipe, bland on paper, to full-flavored life. “Besides capturing the [cook’s] spirit and personality,” Deen says, “you can see the nuances of the recipe.”
As owner of Cake Productions, a television production company, and mom to two young children, Deen’s milieu is organized chaos. She started hosting kitchen playdates with other families as a twist on the playground meet-up. Making a meal side by side, children learn as much about new spices and unfamiliar cuisines as they do about sharing and cleaning up.
“For grandparents and grandchildren, a kitchen playdate is an opportunity not just to spend time together but also to pass on a special family recipe,” Deen says.
But in the joyful and often messy frenzy of meal-making, children easily miss precious lessons, which can come and go in the time it takes to crack an egg. To record and preserve the moments when a grandparent’s experience leads to a grandchild’s discovery, Deen suggests a “video cookbook playdate.” She encourages families to shoot simple videos of the cooking process, focusing on the subtle details that make a treasured family recipe unique.
“I wish I had been smart enough to videotape my grandmothers cooking, to keep me company in the kitchen [and] show my kids,” Deen writes in Kitchen Playdates. “Fortunately, the kids have coaxed my mom into starring in her own cooking show.” In the informal videos, she is their own personal Julia Child, guiding them through the steps to make those special foods when she can’t be there to show them.
Deen suggests that grandparents make nostalgic comfort foods for their video cookbooks, like the baked potatoes her dad slow-cooked in a campfire. Today, Deen starts them in a microwave and finishes them on a grill. They’re perfect for a backyard summer meal starring a build-your-own-hamburger bar and topped off with homemade coconut macaroon ice-cream sandwiches.
In decades past, grandparents spent more time in the kitchen, while their grandchildren looked on and lent a hand. But today, many families live far apart, and overstuffed schedules mean few of us can spend days by the stove. A grandparent-and-grandchild cooking video is a decidedly 21st-century solution. The reward is not just a meal, but a living recipe for grandchildren to keep. And why keep those lessons in the family? You might even consider posting it on YouTube.
Continue to the recipes: Burger Bar, Dad's Campfire Potatoes, and Coconut Ice-Cream Sandwiches
Also, see our Video Cookbook Playdate Tips to help get you started.
|
