don't ever take chocolate chip cookies for granted

i had some younger girls over to my apartment Saturday to show them how to make homemade tortellini. 6, 9, 12 and 19 years old. "so this is what being a mom must be like."

it takes thinking to tailor activities for each different age group so everyone stays happy. so no one feels bored or discouraged.

i have to say it went extremely well. the 6 year old stood on a chair in my kitchen as i helped her place the ricotta cheese mixture in the middle of the tortellini dough. the 9 year old wet the edges of the tortellini so they would stick, and then I showed the 12 year old how to fold the dough and mixture to make a tortellini.

we made spinach tortellini and sun-dried tomato tortellini. yum!

then i put a movie on for the girls to watch - Ever After - to be exact, as i made some double chocolate cookies. yum....warm cookies from the oven....a sure hit with the young girls. to my surprise once they saw me open the flour and cocoa and mix it together, all 4 of them abandoned Ever After - shocking - and came in to watch me make these cookies.

one asked, "is that real dough?" "did you make that with flour?"

upon questioning them....none of them had ever had homemade chocolate chip cookies. they had never seen homemade cookie dough. i was shocked.

it once again made me realize how different life is in the inner-city. things we consider normal; having pancakes on a Saturday morning, homemade cookies, etc are so foreign to these kids.
yet their vocabulary consists of words like welfare, housing, WIC.

we were on welfare when I was a young child but i never knew it. the one thing i do remember was paying sometimes with "the red and green money." (food stamps). but other than that our poorness didn't really affect my life.

with these kids its so very different. they live in one of the biggest cities in the world yet it's almost as if they live in a box. they rarely leave their neighborhoods and a trip to Beth-l is a huge treat.

when they look out my window and see the view of Manhatten it's as if they've never seen their own city -- because they haven't.

makes me appreciate what my mom gave me.