Watching the Food Network can make your mouth water for exotic dishes that you can't possibly assemble after work.
This is not a problem as an adult, because you would never think of preparing the featured dish immediately. Instead, you might make some mental notes for a future shopping list and tell yourself you'll print out the recipe from the Web site and prepare that extraordinary dish later, over the weekend.
Then, when the weekend rolls around, you'll open up a bag of salad, throw some chicken on the grill and call it dinner.
So it is probably entirely your fault that you have a foodie child.
A foodie child will open the refrigerator hoping to find some baked brie with cranberry-pecan glaze on toast rounds for an after-school snack.
No, no - he won't be happy with a Ho-Ho.
I am all for the creative and fun art of cooking. I used to do it with a lot of joy and passion before I realized that I would soon have two children in college at once and my time might be better spent in the lucrative humor-column business.
Perhaps it was this abrupt redistricting into the town of slice-and-bake, in the county of just-add-water, in the nation of microwave-and-serve that has caused my youngest child to become such a foodie.
At any rate, when he said he wanted to have some friends over to cook, I encouraged him. When I asked what he and his pals would be making, he said they would be picking recipes that appealed to them from the Internet and walking to the local market to procure ingredients.
I don't know what I was thinking when I guessed they would be starting off with something simple, such as beer-battered tilapia with red chili mandarin orange sauce. But I knew I was in trouble when I got a call from my son reporting that he and his friends were having difficulty finding egg-roll wrappers.
Egg rolls? I would have definitely dissuaded them from attempting the egg roll. Egg rolls are in that food-prep category "best taught by your grandmother who made egg rolls, who learned them from her grandmother who made egg rolls." Unfortunately, here in Janet's World, we only have grandmothers who make cheese balls.
When I arrived at the market, the kids piled in the car and announced that I didn't need to go in and search for egg-roll wrappers - they had cleverly made a substitution. Flour tortillas.
I tactfully explained that I was not sure this would work. But perhaps I thwarted the invention of the chimichanga egg roll. I dropped them off and went to a store where I knew egg-roll wrappers would be in abundance, and while I was there, I picked up a package of chicken parts for dinner.
I returned home to a kitchen that appeared as if a major squirrel family reunion was in progress. Still, if you could manage to overlook the fact that virtually every pot and pan, cutting board and utensil appeared to be in use, it looked like fun, and I couldn't stop myself from joining in. I revealed to them my garlic-peeling trick as well as my onion-chopping technique. I watched as they carefully referred to the wrapper package's printed instructions and assembled the egg rolls, sealing them with an egg wash. We began frying.
In a few minutes, a delicate aroma of seasoned shrimp and pork, minced garlic and onion, rice vinegar and grated ginger wafted through the house. It was heavenly. Suddenly, I was inspired to whip up some Szechwan green beans as a side dish.
Their foodie faces were exhilarated as they sat down to eat their labor-intensive creation. I couldn't help but notice there were plenty of egg rolls left over.
I tossed the package of chicken parts into the freezer.
Contact Janet at janet@janetgilbert.net.