What I Learned from Four Teenage Boys and a Saucepan
I once heard that some people require a careful approach—like coaxing a wild rabbit to eat from your hand. Move too fast, speak too loud, and the moment is gone.
I’ve met those people. Often, I am one of those people. And you know who else fits that description? Teenagers. More specifically, my 14-year-old son and his friends. But by some glorious twist of parenting fate, I ended up in the middle of a summer afternoon with four of them.
Summers in our house are lazy and tinged with the vague scent of boredom. We sign up for the occasional camp. We wander to the pool now and then. Mostly, we sleep late, sprawl across couches, and consume our weight in cold beverages. My days are filled with books, journal writing, music practice, and long stretches of thought.
Needless to say, for an extroverted, athletic teenager, my house is the definition of summer doldrum. I know this because he sighs often and doesn’t refrain from verbalizing his general displeasure. So occasionally, I throw out an activity. This week, I offered my son and his friends the chance to cook a meal in my kitchen—on the condition that they would do all the work: choosing the recipe, shopping for ingredients, all the things.
Honestly, I expected them to forget. But they didn’t. Not only did they remember—they chose Chicken Parmesan with homemade vodka sauce. Here is where it got a bit dicey. That’s a recipe that requires adult supervision (frying, alcohol, general risk of turning my kitchen into an inferno).
And that’s how I found myself in Trader Joe’s with four teenage boys explaining where to find tomato paste. I taught them the difference between a head of garlic, a clove of garlic, and garlic powder. I gave a fully age-appropriate explanation on selecting wine for a dish where the alcohol would cook off, leaving only the flavor behind—and reminded them (in bullet points, naturally) that this was a no consumption situation.
Somewhere between the herb garden and the stovetop, I was swept up in their adventure.
We went out to my herb garden and I gave a quick lesson on herbs. I made them smell everything I had planted, and we made a bouquet garni with oregano, thyme, rosemary, and basil. This confused them a little when we tied the bouquet to the side of the pot and let it sit there like yard weeds but they trusted me. I showed them how to mince an onion, explained why garlic should be crushed, and introduced terms like infusion, deglaze, reduction and simmer.
“That’s not in the recipe,” one of them pointed out as I added less tomato paste and more cream and parmesan.
“Cooking is an art,” I told him. “Recipes are a place to start—but you decide what you want to create. You like it creamier, right?”
He nodded.
“So we add more cream.”
They pounded chicken thighs with wooden spoons until they were paper-thin (seriously, those boys made some THIN chicken thighs). I managed to hold back a lecture—only reminding them to wash their hands and bleach the counter once we were done with the raw chicken. But when it came time to fry the chicken, I gave a thorough talk on grease fires and where we keep the extinguisher.
For the whole of the afternoon, I stayed close but careful—feeling lucky to be included in their world. I chose my words the way you do when you know one wrong move might scatter the moment like birds from a branch.
Then, one of them asked, “Mrs. Tallamy, where did you learn all this about cooking?”
And just like that, my kitchen filled up.
So quickly it took the air from my lungs.
I saw my mom teaching me to make cinnamon toast when I was small and Spanish pork chops when I was a teenager. My dad showing me how to filet fish and roll out biscuits. My Aunt Rosie, elbow-deep in icebox fruitcake. Aunt Nell writing out her sweet potato casserole recipe. Cousin Kathy making Divinity. A long-lost friend bent over a soup recipe. My Aunt Venie and her famous potato salad. The kitchen in Gray, Georgia where a dozen family members gathered for Saturday breakfast and argued over how crispy the bacon should be (burnt on the edges if you ask me). Sister Annie Lou at church picnics with fried chicken piled high. Evangelists playing cards and shelling boiled peanuts. And there was my Uncle Sonny, leaning against the counter, showing me how to crack pecans with one hand—pecans we put in pies, banana bread, and ice cream.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I picked it up along the way.”
He nodded like that was enough. And it was. Because he was learning the same way I did—in the kitchens of his childhood.
But something more important occurred to me: I was cycle keeping.
Here on this blog, we talk a lot about the cycles that need to be broken—harmful legacies that must be dismantled and laid to rest. But healing also means recognizing what’s worth keeping.
I come from people who cook. Not just cook—they cook from scratch. A pinch of this, a handful of that. They forage, garden, and treat recipes as suggestions (if they even bother to look at one). I treasure that part of my heritage.
We can’t discard it all. If we do, we lose our footing. We become untethered from what made us. I know. I tried. I’ve spent seasons of my life throwing it all away, only to find myself aching with incompletion.
So if you’re working to build a stronger family line, I invite you to slow down. Become still. Hold your hand out to the past. Move gently. Something beautiful might come close—something soft and fragile, worth carrying forward.
For me, it came in the form of four teenage boys, a pot of bubbling sauce, and a single question. That question opened a door to memories I thought I’d forgotten. I stood still. I let them come. And instead of passing judgment or discarding their value because they are tangled with some much more difficult memories, I simply said thank you.
Thank you for what you gave me. For this small, steady piece of myself that I now get to pass on.
Like the pride of knowing how to crack pecans with one hand.
(Note to self: The next kitchen caper should be how to make a pecan pie.)
VODKA SAUCE RECIPE (SUGGESTIONS)
Melt half a stick of butter in a sauce pan. Tie a bouquet garni to the pot handle. Add 1 cup of minced onion and a dash of good salt (I prefer Maldon). Caramelize (approximately 5-8 minutes). Reduce heat and add in 3-5 cloves of garlic (crushed and minced). Saute another minute or two. Add chili flakes to taste (½ tsp is nice). Stir in 6 ounces of tomato paste and combine. Deglaze the pan using ½ cup of Tito’s Vodka and ½ cup of a sweet white wine. Add in 1 cup pasta water (or a mildly salted water). Let sauce simmer until it reduces to a little more than a cup of liquid. Stirring frequently. Stir in 1 cup of heavy cream, 2 pats of butter and 1 cup of grated parmesan. Add salt to taste. For creamiest sauce, use an immersion blender for 1-2 minutes to liquify any pieces of onion.
**Note: My adult son adds a spicy italian sausage (crumbled) and swears that’s the only way it should be served.
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