Michael's Cooking Lessons

My friend, Michael (and me with the wine - I could really get used to teaching)

I have a friend named Michael. He’s a great guy with a lot of special gifts. He’s like a walking calendar – you give him a date (your birthday, for example), and within a couple of seconds he can tell you what day of the week you were born on. It’s pretty cool – I wish I had that kind of Gregorian acuity.

He has quite a variety of interests too: his record collection is full of 60's folk music (and they have to be LP’s – no modern CD’s or mp3’s for Michael. He's strictly an analog guy); a fascination with sports cars; a photographic memory for billboards; and he never misses Lawrence Welk reruns on PBS every Saturday.

Recently, Michael expressed a desire to broaden his field of interests – he wanted to learn how to cook, and I was more than happy to give him a hand. When I asked him what he wanted to learn to cook, he said “Thanksgiving dinner” (talk about being ambitious). Thanksgiving dinner is a little advanced (even for me), so we thought we’d work up to it over time.

Since Michael isn’t big on a lot of preparation or following complex recipes, I started writing some special recipes geared specifically towards his strengths. I’m going to use this page to update our progress from time to time. If you want to offer some feedback or have some recipe ideas that would fit Michael’s special requirements (no knives - OK, a butter knife; simple directions; conveniently packaged ingredients), send me an e-mail. I’d love to hear from you.

July 31, 2010 – Our First Lesson
Recipes
Michael’s Pasta with Chicken and Vegetables
Michael’s Italian Salad
Michael’s Cupcake Sundaes

This was our first lesson, so I had to outfit Michael with some of his own tools: measuring spoons, measuring cups, some spoons, and of course an apron. Here, we're starting on the pasta sauce.

Michael sauteeing the chicken

 

Combing the pasta and sauce - almost ready to eat

Michael and his first dinner.