All Kinds of Balls

Carter has barely been home from camp and she is off again.  Carter’s great friend Ashley recruited Carter to go to cooking school with her this week.  Ashley has not had as much practice cooking at home as Carter has, but they both were worried about their futures in the kitchen if they did not start learning now.

The class they signed up for is The Science of Cooking for Teens, which makes it sound practically educational.  I know that understanding the science behind food prep is incredibly helpful, but I think the science is the last thing on Carter’s mind.  She, like her mother, likes food and if you like to eat an interest in cooking is usually not far behind.

I was not given a syllabus for this class so I had no idea what the girls were going to learn, just that they would cook and eat what they make for lunch.  So today I dropped Carter off at the mall with a sports bag full of clothes and some loose plan that I might not see her for a couple of days and no other information.  I am still trying to adjust to being the mother of a teenager who makes her own plans.

Feeling a little worried at the end of her class time that I was not completely sure what was happening I texted her and asked what they had learned to cook and to check on the rest of her day.  As is usually the case in the texting world of teenagers I got back the message that they had made “Pizza meatballs monkey balls.”  No punctuation.  Was that Pizza, Meatballs and monkey balls, three things, and what are Monkey balls anyway?  Or did they make pizza meatballs and monkey balls?  Still unsure about what in the world monkey balls were.

My friends Amanda and Christy who were with me when I got the text translated Monkey balls for monkey bread.  Sure enough when I texted back to Carter, “What is that” she said dough covered in cinnamon, which means monkey bread to me.

I’m not sure how much science Carter and Ashley learned today, but learning to cook all things balls is very trendy.  Everywhere I turn these days people are making things into the ball format and not just the ground meat variety or the very 1960’s version of a cheese ball.  Now there are rice balls or Mac and cheese formed into balls and fried, rum balls or matzo balls, sausage balls or spinach and cheese balls, the ever-popular popcorn balls, or crab balls.  When I searched the Food Network’s recipe site for “Balls” I came up 479 recipes on their one site alone.

No matter the format I am just happy that my child is learning to cook somewhere.  I think it is easier to have someone else teach her and I know she is happier with their menu because there is hardly a ball recipe that is healthy enough for me.   All I can say is there are no balls in my eating future.