Master Chef What?

I am a fan of Netflix — and on my list, I’ve got some fun shows about food — Salt Fat Acid Heat, Sugar Rush, Ainsley Eats the Streets. My daughters (sometimes one, sometimes more than one) LOVE these, and will try to sneak down in various combinations after their bedtime to see if i am watching anything. The kids’ food show love began with the competition show Master Chef Junior, which if you have not watched, is when Gordon Ramsay is kind and encouraging to young chefs (as opposed to Master Chef, which is REALLY the opposite), and you are blown away by a small eight year old who needs to stand on stool to reach the counter, and still manages to create a professional level pho bowl from scratch. 

The upside of these shows is that my oldest daughter became very interested in the kitchen. She was always interested in food, but now she wanted to create, and take over tasks from me and her dad. So she started with scrambled eggs, and then took over brownies, and then last week decided to guide her little sister on how to make garlic bread. 

The real fun was when we first started watching it, though. That’s when she would come into the kitchen with advice:

Her: Ooh, what are you making?

Me: Spaghetti with asparagus on the side.

Her: Cool. I think you should sear the asparagus so it tastes really good. 

Me: Wait, what? Do you know what searing is?

Her: Yes, because I saw it on Master Chef Junior. You make the pan really hot and then put stuff in it. 

Me: Okay, but I was going to roast them because there’s a lot. 

Her: Oh, okay, then you can make a special sauce, and then whip it into a foam to put on top.

So this was really fun, and we actually had a Master Chef moment in our kitchen when she and I “competed” against each other to make a dish using bagels, cream cheese, and strawberries. Daddy and little sisters got to score, with special categories for “Freshest taste” and “Best Plating.”

But I love the culture of food that it has helped create, and the culture of wanting to be involved in cooking and enjoying the components of a meal, of creating and sharing it with others. And honestly, I love how food shows have changed the game a bit from when I was a child. I was expected to help in the kitchen because that’s what Indian girls did, and by a certain age I was supposed to know how to make a full Indian meal. While we had some good bonding moments in the kitchen and I am happy with my skills now,  was a little embarrassed at the time. None of my friends had to really help with dinner, at least not the way I did. It was almost awkward to be into cooking, as the stereotype was that it was domestic and something that only June Cleaver-type housewives did. But now, cooking is not as much a woman’s domain, at least not in the public sphere. And cooking, sharing recipes, creating something delicious to share — that’s cool. Or maybe it was all along and I didn’t know it until I fully embraced my joy of eating and creating dishes and experiences in my own kitchen. In any case, thank you, Gordon Ramsay, for opening up the culinary world a little bit more for my little ones.