learning to trust herself

"Mumma, how do you make your chip dip?"

Most of you can answer this question without my description, and because you know how 'semi-homemade' it is, you are giggling as I was earlier.

"Take sour cream, and add onion soup mix."

She asked for a few more details, like how much cream and how much dip. Until it looks right, honey.

Shockingly, she headed off into the kitchen, by herself, and made it. Asked for my help tasting it, and agreed it could use more soup mix. "Is it right now?"

The smile on her face when it was finished was like she'd just made a souffle.

So much of cooking is tweaking the recipe until it looks and tastes right. As kids we started with chip dip, too, and moved on to create our own Chex mix... and from there, any recipe we thought looked good. Mom was around, but we quickly got to the point where we'd tackle anything, even without her standing next to us to help. Today, I mostly look at recipes to confirm that I'm on the right track with whatever I'm doing. This is one family trait I'm happy to have her take with her.