Ask Agnes

Disclaimer: Caution: Ask Agnes is intended chiefly as an entertainment column although Agnes may occasionally give good advice. Reader beware.

Dear Agnes,

I hate to be a whiner, but I'm whining right now. I have four children, aged 9 to 14. My husband did a disappearing act about three years ago, and I have had to go to work, as a result, to support the children. I just barely make enough money to keep food on the table and clothes on our backs with enough left to pay on the mortgage. In other words, I cannot afford a maid, a babysitter or a cook.

My problem is that when I get home from work each evening, I see four hungry mouths attached to bodies that seem to be watching television or doing homework. I turn into a royal witch (with a b), complaining to the children that I just cannot work all day and then come home and fix dinner.

I definitely do not want to resort to pre-prepared foods or frozen pizzas as I want my children to have a healthy diet. The children get very quiet when I blow up and I know it scares them. What can I do?

Desperate Mom

Dear Desperate,

If none of your children are mentally or physically handicapped, they are old enough to do cooking chores. I'm assuming at least two of these children are eleven years old or older, and they are old enough to take charge in the kitchen.

Here's what you do. Get your children together and tell them how hard you work all day and you are so sorry you have been coming home in a bad mood but that you know how to change all that. Appoint the two oldest children as "home chefs" who take turns cooking dinner each evening. Let each of them choose a dishwasher from the other two children. Then take the two oldest into the kitchen and teach them how to cook a ground meat patty in a skillet, how to warm up canned vegetables and how to cook a potato in the microwave oven. Show them how to make jello with fruit for dessert. There you have a meal everyone will like, is easy on the pocketbook and is well-balanced, easy-to-cook and takes less than half an hour.

Once your child chefs have mastered that meal, teach them how to make meatloaf, pot roast, baked chicken, a simple salad, beans and mac and cheese.

Give tons of praise to the chef each evening. If the two are pretty much equal in their kitchen abilities, you can even challenge them to find new recipes on the internet or to look in cookbooks, always, of course, getting your permission and/or advice on each item they want to try.

If the younger children feel like they have been dumped on by having to clear the table and wash the dishes, allow them to be "sous chefs" and help with the meal preparation. Praise all of them regularly and for Pete's sake, Toots, no more yelling at them when you get home from work. Ya' hear?

Dear Agnes,

I got married about a year ago, and my husband and I have both been working. Since we had the money to do it and saw no reason not to, we ate dinner out every night. Now I have lost my job, and we can't afford to eat out. My husband says I will have to start cooking dinner. Agnes, he has never known that I don't know how to cook. Sure I can pop a piece of toast in the toaster or heat up a frozen dinner, but that's about it. What am I going to do?

Kitchen Challenged

Dear Challenged,

Whoo boy! Ol' Agnes finds it astonishing at how many young people these days think cooking consists of heating up something in the "nuker". Well, Chicky-Poo. You are in a fix.

Assuming you do have some pots and pans, mixing spoons and cook's knives, I would suggest you find a book on the order of something like "Cooking for Dummies." That might be a good place to start. Another place to start is to buy some pastas, beans and rice and simply follow the directions on the package. Often the package will also have recipe ideas. Use them. Used book stores often have cookbooks really cheap. Buy several of them.

Remember, Hon, the way to man's heart might be through sex right now, but in the end it's always through his stomach.

Another source of help would be your mother and your husband's mother. One thing you have to realize about most men is they don't like any food their mother didn't serve them by the time they were six. In most cases that means you only have to master various beef entrees, green beans, potatoes, mac and cheese, bacon, toast and eggs. So, it's definitely a good idea to bone up on his mother's recipes and find out what your husband's favorites are.

Keep me posted, Toots. I'd love to hear the rest of this story, and I promise not to make fun of you. After all, even Ol' Agnes has had a kitchen disaster or two.

Ol' Agnes is inspired to write a cookbook for folks like you, maybe. The main thing is this: If you plan to eat, you must plan to learn to cook, and that goes for men as well as women.