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A quarter of an hour passes, and I invite Alastair and Abner out to the kitchen with me.  “Are you guys ready to help me peel cucumbers?”

Two little heads nod up and down.  A short while later, a pile of green skins has overtaken the middle of the kitchen table.  I spend several minutes carefully slicing the cucumbers into thin circles.  When I finally finish this monotonous process, I glance up at my two little cutie pies. 

“Do you want to help me make the cucumber salad?”

Again, those heads bob up and down.

“The first step is to find a tall bowl that we can fit a plate down inside of.”  I reach for a large glass bowl.  “Now we’re going to place a layer of cucumber slices on the bottom.  Can you guys cover the bottom of the bowl with cucumber slices?”

They get to work while I gather the pepper grinder, saltshaker, and sugar container.  Once the bottom of the bowl is covered in cucumbers, I explain the next step.

“Now, we sprinkle some salt, pepper, and sugar over the layer of cucumber slices you made.” 

I demonstrate by shaking the salt out over the bowl.  Then I grind some pepper over the cucumbers.  Finally, I sprinkle a little sugar over them. 

“Now, we repeat the process until we’ve used up all the cucumbers.  Can you add another layer?”

We work for several minutes to fill the bowl with seasoned cucumbers.

“All right.  Now we make the marinade.  Did you know that we’re basically making fresh pickles?”

“We are?” Alastair asks with interest.

I nod my head.  “Yep.  Now we need to mix together a cup of oil and a third cup of some sort of vinegar.”

“What kind of vinegar are we going to use?” Abner asks me.

“Well, in the old days I used white vinegar.  But, honestly, it doesn’t have the best taste.  We could use white wine vinegar or rice vinegar.”

“Ooh!  Isn’t rice vinegar what we use when we make Daddy sauce for steamed dumplings?” Alastair recalls.

“Yes.  I use it in a lot of Korean dishes.”

“Let’s use the rice vinegar then,” Abs suggests.

“All right.  Let’s make one batch.  If it’s not enough, then we’ll make more.  This is kind of a make-it-as-you-go recipe.”

We whisk the oil and vinegar together and then pour it over the cucumbers.  It’s not enough for our massive pile of cukes, so we make one more batch and add it to the other.  Finally, our cucumber slices are all immersed.

“Now, we place a plate over the top and seal the bowl with plastic wrap.  We’ll store this in the fridge overnight.  Tomorrow our cucumber salad will be ready.”

“Yay!” Abs rejoices.

“Are we done now, Mommy?” Alastair queries.

“Yep.  I’m going to clean up this mess.  Then I need to make the meatball dough.”

“Meatball dough?” Lyric asks as he and Janna enter the kitchen.

“Yep.  For our Swedish meatballs.”

“Can I watch?” he asks. 

“You can help,” I reply.

His eyes light up.  I find him absolutely adorable.

“You’d really rather cook in the kitchen with me than play video games with Kookie?” I ask in surprise.

“I love to cook,” he unleashes that boxy grin on me again.  “And the best part is…eventually, I get to eat it!”

“Ha.  Yeah, that’s the part that Kookie really likes too.”

“That’s the part we all like,” Janna chimes in.

“Indeed,” I murmur.  “All right.  Swedish meatballs are a little bit involved.  But they are completely worth the hard work!  Let’s get started.  I need to make three batches.  Rather than trying to mix six pounds of meat at once, we’re just going to make three separate batches of dough.  So let’s start on the first one.  I’ll teach you now, and you two can make the next two batches.  How does that sound?”

It sounds blissful to me.  Could it be that I might actually get to sit down tonight?  My feet are tired.  Probably from all that ice skating followed by standing in the kitchen for half the afternoon.

“The first step is to dice half a cup of onion and sauté it in a tablespoon of butter.”

“Mom, can we just chop all the onion now and divide it into thirds?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll do it,” Lyric offers as Janna pulls a couple onions from the fridge.

“While you do that, I’m going to chop up the parsley.  We need a quarter cup per batch,” I inform my little chefs. 

Correction: big chefs.  My eyes travel up Lyric’s tall length.  The little chefs have left the kitchen.  To be replaced by a tall chef and a medium chef.

As Lyric and I chop our vegetables, I teach them a little bit about my recipe.  “The original recipe called for three-quarters of a pound of ground beef and a half pound of both ground veal and ground pork.  But I altered it.  I didn’t have access to ground veal, and working with three-quarters of a pound was inconvenient.  Then I went through a health-craze phase, so I replaced the pork with ground turkey and discovered the meatballs were even lighter then.  They still tasted delicious and were better for us.  So now I combine a pound of ground beef with a pound of ground turkey.”

While the kids sauté the onion in the butter, I add French bread to my food processor and blend it until I’ve got fine breadcrumbs. 

“We need to add one and a half cups of breadcrumbs to a cup of light cream.  Only, the store doesn’t sell light cream anymore.  So I substitute a half cup of milk combined with a half cup of heavy whipping cream.” 

I pull our milk gallon and a pint of cream out of the fridge and measure them out into my biggest liquid measuring cup.  Then I measure out the breadcrumbs and mix them in.

“We need to let the breadcrumbs soak in the cream for five minutes.  Then we’ll add the sautéed onion, parsley, and an egg.  Oh, and salt and pepper.  Your grandma also adds ground ginger and nutmeg.”

Janna sticks out her tongue.  “Isn’t that what you put in gingerbread?”

“Yeah.”

“Can we leave it out of the meatballs?”

“I usually do.”

“Good.”

“But your grandma always adds them.”

“It’s okay.  I like your meatballs better than hers.”

I smile at her, but I realize she likes mine better simply because she’s used to them.

After we combine all the seasoning and filling ingredients, I add the ground meat to my big mixing bowl.  Then I pour the seasoned cream-and-breadcrumb mixture into the bowl and turn on the mixer.  I let it blend until everything is mixed together.

“Now, we put it into a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit overnight in the fridge.  Tomorrow morning, we’ll make the meatballs and cook them.  Do you think you guys can make the next two batches without me?”

“Absolutely,” Lyric responds confidently.  But after a moment, he murmurs, “You are going to leave us the recipe, right?”

I chuckle.  “Of course.”

“Then, yes, we got this.”

I smile and gladly depart the kitchen for my comfy recliner.  Perhaps my husband and I can find a good mystery to watch.  Until I have to make dinner anyway.  Better yet, let’s order pizza.  

Now, that sounds like a plan.