cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Fifteen Year Old is the Best Friend I Would Go Anywhere With My wife left when my son was about three years old and my daughter was around six. I was a freelance writer and author and had no regular hours to keep, so I did most of the child-rearing. My daughter was in school by then, but my son was home with me. I looked into some play groups. Single men were definitely not welcome. What I ended up doing with a three year old kid was taking him everywhere. I taught him to play drums in the living room and he pounded on them to the sounds of Led Zepplin, Art Blakey and John Coltrane. I piked him up and danced him around the living room to Joy Division and Dave Brubeck. I took him fishing and canoeing. Once a strong wind held us against a less shore and I had to walk the boat two miles around the shallows to get back. I took him hunting for deer and squirrels. As he got older, he got his first rifle. I started taking him and his sister to concerts when I was writing about nightlife for the local paper, and they were the only kids allowed into the nightclubs. Around three nights a week, for a few years, they hung out with musicians and gallery owners and curators and artists. I taught him how to cook. I learned mostly when I was writing my second book and got to work with accomplished chefs around the eastern US. Doing TV, and publicity dinner. And then when I started writing for Smithsonian I got really serious about culinary history, and got to work with culinary historians on 19th Century recipes in a serious way. Both my kids have always cooked with me. They had basic knife skills by the age of five. Ida could quarter a deer, carve steaks and roasts, and cook them perfectly rare by the time she was six. But my son has proved to be much more of a natural in the kitchen. A bit over a year ago, he applied for a job at a fine French restaurant. He worked his way up from busing to prep cook, learning French Basque cooking techniques from a notoriously difficult chef. Harry, my son, has had a remarkable upbringing. He is a man raised by men. Me, most of the time, and during the days when his mother was nominally in charge of him her mother was really watching him. He has grown up going to bars, restaurants, nightclubs, art galleries, interacting with adults as an equal. Now he is 15 years old. I can honestly say that he is my best friend. There is nobody more ready for an adventure, more thoughtful about how it may be received, nor able to start work than my son. Everything that I ever heard about kids rebelling when they become teenagers has proven to be absolute bullshit. Ida has been such a perfect joy. She plays a dozen instruments, Her friends are great. She's fun. She came along for all sorts of adventures, like meeting the President of Iceland, and eating mastodon tissue, and guesting on TV shows. And Harry has been nothing but fun. There has been no rebellion. No distance. I remember very clearly when he was two or three years old, we were paddling a canoe on my family's upper pond, and he looked up at me and said, very plainly, "you and me, right, dad?" We are in charge of making Thanksgiving dinner this year. We've been through Parkinson's writings about Thanksgiving turkey from the 1870's. We are attempting his take on stuffing, which also involves oysters and hazelnuts. Harry is also in charge of the actual turkey and making the vanilla ice cream according to Parkinson's dictates, and by the way Parkinson's parents literally invented the concept of flecks of real vanilla bean in vanilla ice cream. Also we're making Parkinson's recipe for roasted oysters for Thanksgiving. But that's almost traditional for us at this point. When I think of most other people who have teenage children, I have hit the fucking jackpot. I have the best kids ever. My kids want to hang out with me. My daughter is awesome, living in her own apartment in R1chmond. And my son is working on recipes for ice cream and black garlic mashed potatoes. We're kinda talking about going to Belize for a month or so. He rides a skateboard and can do the basic tricks. He has longish hair. He can make any of the mother sauces. He can break up a lobster and make a bisque. He knows every song by The Cure and David Bowie. He is everything I could wish to go back in time and wish that myself at the age of fifteen might have been. Alex strikes out again and again as an actual girlfriend. But who would I rather come with me on a trip to anywhere? Harry. My fifteen year old kid is the best friend whom I would go anywhere with. I have raised the best possible human beings that I could ever have hoped for. My children are my best friends. There may be nothing else to hope for. Men with billions of dollars more hope for much less than this. I have perfect children and I am perfectly happy with them. 1:56 a.m. - 2022-11-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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