< ![CDATA[   "Linguini! You're FIRED!" One of the goals we have for this trip is making self sufficient humans of our children. There is a certain amount of justified pride, at ten years old, in knowing that you've pedaled yourself, and your gear, five thousand kilometers in six months and that you can march into a store without knowing the language and come out with what you were sent for. Those two tasks are just the tip of the iceberg. In that vein, Tony has been teaching the children to cook, beginning with Megan, who managed to master all manner of outdoor meal preparation with only minor finger trimming mishaps. Of course the children have helped me cook since they were tiny. They'd sit on the counter with a butter knife and a carrot and saw away while I made salad. They graduated to sandwich making somewhere around five years old, and Hannah can cook a whole meal and serve it to company. But that's IN the house. When we are inside, cooking is my job. When we are outside, it becomes Daddy's domain. There is a certain art to priming the little gasoline tank, squirting out just enough fuel to prime the jet, lighting it, letting it burn off and then gradually easing the gas flow on to produce the proper jet of flame necessary to boil water. I confess, I am not a master. Sure, I can light the stove and burn dinner, but I never do it just right. Gabe was the first to take up outdoor cooking, since he believes it to be "men's work." Ezra, who can recite portions of "Ratatouille" (the kids movie about a rat turned chef) named him "Linguini," after one of the characters. Gabe swelled with pride a this new moniker, and it stuck. Linguini has been declared "sous chef, in charge of tea." He guards this title jealously. No one else must make tea. He rolls out with enthusiasm of a morning when I shout from my end of the tent, "Linguini!! Where's my tea?!" Before I know it I hear the little, thwack, thwack, thwack of him priming the gas and the little roar of flame which means I'll soon be able to thin out the blood clogging my caffeine system. Linguini has graduated from tea. He can now manage rice, potatoes and sauces of various sorts, as well as coffee; second in importance only to tea. He helps with almost every meal. Ezra gets great joy out of lowering his eyebrows, and pursing his lips, like the food critic in the movie, and judiciously tasting each dish. Sometimes he'll pronounce it good, which it almost always is... he only burned the potatoes once. Mostly, he's looking for the opportunity to shout, with glee, "LINGUINI! YOU'RE FIRED!!" and then laugh his head off while we all enjoy our meal. Reluctantly, Hannah has taken up cooking lessons as well. She views this as unfair, as cooking outside IS men's work, after all. She has a point. However, nobody gets to graduate around here without learning to run the camp stoves, so grudgingly, she submits to the lessons. Ezra, happy to have another victim to fire at random, has agreed that her name should be Parmegiana, since she likes cheese more than anyone else in the family. Gabriel is tolerating her presence on the tarp, but has made very clear that HE is the "sous chef, in charge of tea" and that there will be no encroachment. Period.]]>