Cooking With Josefina and Friends

The "Josefina and Friends" Cooking Show

Recently, I walked into my living room and was surprised to discover that I had stepped onto the set of a live cooking show (just like the ones on TV). The expert cooks were dolls named... oh heck I don't remember; maybe she can tell me later and I'll fill in their names here: Jenny and Laura. The dolls were "assisted" by Josefina. (Got the names, haha!)

Lots of plastic vegetables and imaginary spices cooked and sizzled in pots and pans while the dolls gave very slow and considered explanations of each step. The audience was very impressed.

Jojo loves to watch cooking shows on television  This is a relatively new development for her, although she's been running her pretend restaurant for some years now. It's good because we all like to watch cooking shows. The best ones are very entertaining, and of course they about food, which is one of our favorite things, haha!

I am a person of Mediterranean heritage. That means that I not only enjoy eating food, but I also enjoy... food, period. Food is beautiful. Food is culture. It is the expression of peoples and their histories. Food is art! Good food looks beautiful. It sounds beautiful. A good chef (or even a good recipe) can get you to try new things in your own kitchen.

The cook and her book.

Watching a chef like Jacques Pepin beat egg whites while he describes the souffle... well, it's great fun as long as there is some hope that, someday, you might actually get to make it (or at least eat it) yourself.

Josefina certainly has this hope, and she has already begun to realize it in our (real) kitchen, thanks to her Kids Cooking cookbook. She made dinner for us last week, using the spaghetti sauce recipe. She has done a few lunches too, like tuna salad cones.

Lots of fun stuff that kids can do. Great, pre-digital illustrations.

I have great hopes for her future -- amateur at least, if not professional -- as a culinary artist. Yum yum!