Last night, faced with a week of school vacation at home, my 11-year-old son and I signed up for America’s Test Kitchen online cooking school.  He’s been wanting to learn to cook, and I think he’s ready. I want to be a better cook, and I’m not always the most patient teacher. But Bridget, the nice ATK online teacher? Wow, she’s endlessly patient. She doesn’t care if we replay the section on how to grip your knife ten or twelve times. Which we did. Because we started in the scariest section possible  - basic knife skills.  Here are a few things we learned.

1. A truly sharp knife slices easily through a piece of paper. Really.

2. None of our knives were truly sharp.

3. That boy is a really good and patient knife sharpener.

4. I’ve been gripping my knife the wrong way - my entire life.

5. As a control freak concerned parent, letting him handle an 8-inch chef’s knife took more maternal cojones than I knew I had. But I’m really glad I did. His pride in mastering the technique was worth every deep breath I had to take to keep from shrieking. Here is a photo of our nights work. Lesson one - check.