A family event... applesauce!

Today we made applesauce. It turned into a whole-family event as Mike helped the kids core and slice all of the apples, and I got the canning stuff ready.
It's really easy... or well, it would have been had our food mill worked. Instead we ended up having to use a sieve... and that took a LONG time. But, in the end we got 20 small jars of applesauce and extra for lunch. It was fun... it was the first time in a long time that we cooked all together as a family.

I'm looking forward to the day that the girls can help on a more regular basis with dinner preparations. I have a fantasy that they will someday cook one meal a week for the family (easy stuff, I don't have high expectations of the meal itself, and with some assistance) and the bigger fantasy... that they'll appreciate me teaching them to cook. I taught myself as an adult, and I look back and wish I'd had a more confident history with cooking.

Too bad they have to wait until they're 21 to find out how great it is to drink wine while you cook. That is really one of the great pleasures in life!