Chef Aseem

Aseem is very tactile. Touching is believing for him. One great outlet for this has been cooking and baking. He loves to help Manisha and me in the kitchen. Whenever Manisha is baking something, he is the first in line to help. Yesterday they baked banana breads. Aseem helped Manisha measure the honey and butter, crack the eggs, mix the dough and finally pour it in the pans. He stayed with the process right to the end. Today they are planning to bake cranberry breads to take with us to Orlando, and he is already at Manisha, "When are we baking? When are we baking?"!

I recently wrote about making chapaatis. That is of course heaven for a tactile person. Aseem (and Supriya, surprisingly) is eager to roll out the dough and then put it on the hot tawaa. He is not yet ready to do the whole thing by himself, but I think he is going to be rather soon.

Where Aseem really shines (so far) is making an omelette. He cracks the egg in a bowl, mixes it with a fork and pours it on the pan - all by himself. As one side gets cooked he flips it over with a spatula, and then lifts it up and puts it on his plate. The drive to learn came from Aseem, and Manisha let him learn by getting out of the way. He made mistakes along the way, got eggs everywhere, and became really good at it in the process. Letting go continues to be my challenge and I am learning a lot about that from Manisha.

More on Supriya's Sudoku

We were at Pheasant Lane Mall on Thursday and made our mandatory pass through KB Toys. We did not buy anything, but as I was passing the counter I saw some sudoku books there. I looked through one and it looked just right for Supriya. It was called "Super Sudoku for Kids" and it had a variety of sudoku. There were many easy 4 by 4s (numbers, shapes and letters), then 6 by 6s (numbers and letters) and finally the standard 9 by 9s. Best of all, it cost only $1.99. I had to buy one.

We must have come home by 4:30 or so. For the rest of the evening Supriya was glued to the book. She completed 48 4 by 4s that evening! She was on a roll and just kept going, taking the book to bed even. By now she has completed - or "played" as she calls it - all 80 4 by 4s.

The next day Manisha showed her how to do a 6 by 6. There is a significant jump in challenge going from 4s to 6s. There are more place-holders to keep track of and it calls for a much longer attention-span. It took Supriya quite a while to do one on her own, but she did it! There was only 1 mistake where she had flipped a 3 andn a 6, but the rest was fine.

Next I wanted to sit next to her and watch her mind work as she did one. I wanted to see how she tackled the logic. Well, the logic part is no trouble at all and she is handling that very well. What was difficult for her (from my perspective) was deciding which row/column/rectangle to do in which order. That's the strategy part and of course that is advanced stuff. In the meantime we are enjoying watching her grow and her mind sharpen.

Making Chapaatis

I came back from a short trip to India last week and am all inspired to make chapaatis. Yesterday we had our first experiment which went better than expected. Making the dough was easier than I thought. The real skill is in rolling out the dough flat, uniform and round. We all took turns rolling the chapaatis, Aseem being the most eager to try out the process. They did not all poof up as they are supposed to, but they did make at least feeble attempts at it. And of course we had several of them looking like the map of India (take a look at the map of India and you will understand why that analogy is so often used in India).

My sister-in-law told me that the real secret to making chapaatis is to make them every day. The point is well-taken. We made them again today and they are already coming out better. Supriya made one that poofed up very nicely, round as a ball, which excited her no end. One of mine turned out very well. The rest were OK. We plan to make them regularly and they can only get better...