Eating  Thin Mints, Trefoils, Tagalongs and the other five types of cookies during the beginning of the year is almost as important in our national psyche as celebrating Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. Scouts started taking orders a few weeks ago for this mega fundraising effort.

Years ago, I was reluctant to ask co-workers and others if they wanted to buy cookies but I soon got the fever. I also go with my daughter when she sells cookies with other scouts outside grocery stores and other retail establishments. I follow along in the car when she’s walking through the neighborhood knocking on doors in search of customers.  I offer guidance in keeping up with the money.

Both my 16-year-old daughter and I favor the Thin Mints and the peanut butter and chocolaty Tagalongs. I’ll buy the usual eight boxes, two boxes of each for both of us. My daughter will quickly consume hers but this year, I’m putting mine in the freezer.  I’m trying to melt my middle.

We Girl Scout moms know that helping sell these once-a-year treats is special  bonding time with our daughters.

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Members of my daughter’s Girl Scout troop were on their  first of three planned weekend camping trips this spring. With some guidance from the leaders and several chaperone moms, the girls pitched their tents and cooked their food, the old -fashioned way. It wasn’t one of my daughter’s traditional lessons in my one-year effort to teach her to cook, but she learned how to make-do without the convenience of electricity. I learned a few things, too.

Of course, the first step was starting the fire, which took lots of coaxing from the girls and scurrying to find kindling and wood. Then, they had to learn how to manage it, figuring out how to avoid smothering the flame and keeping it alive until the late evening when they would roast marshmallows.  

The troop leaders gave them their dinner recipe: chicken breast smothered with some cream of chicken or mushroom soup, onions, potatoes and frozen mixed vegetables. The girls hauled water from the pump to prep their food, then each took foil and piled on their own mix of ingredients for their individual meals.  The dish was tasty and can easily be prepared using a grill. It took three times to successfully cook the dump cake; the first two times it burned.

My daughter and I will be doing plenty of grilling this summer, using some of the tips offered in “Martha Stewart’s Cooking School” cookbook, which I’m using as a guide for our cooking lessons. My mother also will be teaching some of her recipes.

At the campout, the girls also baked canned biscuits in a Dutch oven to eat with sausage and bacon for breakfast. And, they had plenty of Girl Scout cookies for snacks.

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I haven’t eaten honey buns for many years but my daughter loves the sugary, icing-topped  pastry. She enjoys them as a special treat and I encourage her not to eat them too often. Yesterday,  she had a honey bun attack.

While waiting for the afternoon school bus, my daughter had an urge to eat something sweet so she stopped by a vending machine at her high school, thoughts of tasty honey buns dancing in her head. “I pulled out a dollar and put it in the machine,” she said. “I really wanted a honey bun. Then, I thought about Lent and my promise to make a sacrifice.”  She pressed the change return button.

“Mom,” she said, laughing, “I know people were looking at me. I was holding onto that machine like I was never going to let it go.”  When she finally moved away, a boy in line behind her bought – you guessed it – a honey bun.  ”I followed him,”  she howled,  ”and when he opened up the honey bun I was sniffing the air to smell it.”  She even did a re-enactment.

I’m still chuckling.  I’m so proud of my 15-year-old daughter for understanding her personal commitment to God, and the significance of Lent as a time of self-denial, prayer and charity

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I hauled my daughter around all day on Saturday, starting with a morning meeting of a teen leadership group about 40 miles across town from our house and a trek to pick up Girl Scout cookies from the troop leader. On Sunday, we stayed at church several hours longer than usual  so that my daughter could attend a meeting of a ministry she’s interested in. By the time we got home, she had homework and I needed to finish up some work on my estate plan in preparation for a meeting with a lawyer (more on that later). We ate leftovers for dinner.

We were too busy over the weekend to do our planned cooking class. My one-year effort to teach my daughter to cook is going to be challenging, not only to make it interesting and fun, but to find the time to do it every weekend. My mom is helping (she has promised to teach my daughter how to make old-fashioned biscuits and other favorite dishes) and I’m using “Martha Stewart’s Cooking School” cookbook as a guide. 

This week’s cooking lesson:  Our teens are busy and teaching  them to cook can easily fall behind other commitments.  But, there’s always next weekend.

Have you started teaching your sons and daughters to cook?

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