Little Chefs, Big Chef

Yesterday the boys got to do some cooking at the restaurant. They were so thrilled. It was beautiful to see them excited and happy. We went to Chang's yesterday after the County Free Fair. Ian has been working open to close (that's 6 or 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.) for 5 days in a row (except Mon. when he worked a mere 11 hours). So he is exhausted and demoralized by it. And he misses the kids so much. They miss him too. So we went up there to have an early dinner. The restaurant was empty when we got there. Ian took the boys back to the kitchen. They go back there to look around whenever we stop in. This time he let Zane make crab wontons. He put the wontons in the fryer basket and lowered it into the fryer. Then he plated them and brought them to the table. Caleb made spring rolls in exactly the same way. They both came to the table shouting across the room about what they had made. Then we all sat down to dinner. All the boys could talk about was doing more cooking. So Ian took them back to the kitchen to make dessert -- more frying. They made a new dessert called Lucky 8 which is phyllo dough rolled into long, thin sticks. They have mocha cream in the middle. Then there is a caramel sauce to dip them in and crushed toffee on the plate to roll them in after the sauce. It was good. We all needed to spend time together. I desparately needed to get out of the house. I feel so bad for Ian when he works so much. It's like he sacrifices himself every day when he leaves the house. It wouldn't be so bad if he was happy with his job. I mean he loves food and people and he is very good at what he does. But the restaurant business -- especially someone else's restaurant -- sucks away little pieces of him every day.