Ilaya is always the first to help dice the mushrooms, stir the pot, and measure the flour. Her tiny hands always ready to bake, cook, and create. She was taught by her Tatay to always smell the food when cooking, making the usual hand-waving movement to get a whiff of the simmering sauce from a pot. She knows that if it smells good, it usually tastes good. She would follow with a “MMMmmmm.. smells good!”, just like a real chef.
When she cooks, she expects you to eat what she serves. She would set a table with matching plates, placemats, and utensils. Whether it be real spaghetti sauce or her special play doh strawberry cupcakes, she will wait for your reaction to see if she has prepared something yummy. By the way, the play doh cupcakes always hits the spot 🙂
“Is it perfect?” she would ask.
“Perfect.”
She gives a sigh of relief 🙂
Naturally, for her 5th birthday, we invited her girlfriends to knead and bake: Pizza Making Playdate!
I sewed all the aprons (12!) and Chef Ilaya’s hat
+ paint
+ invitation
+ decorate
Chef Ilaya’s sous chef, Tatay (Dad) Reiner, prepared the dough from scratch!
+ wrote the birthday limerick
+ assisted the little chefs throughout the pizza making
It was a fun afternoon of kneading, baking, and eating 🙂
Her 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and now her 5th 🙂
And there she is..
the loveliest tiny chef.
