Life lesson in a cucumber canapé – Summer is a great time to let go a little and put young people in charge of making part of the family meal.

Summer is a great time to let go a little in the kitchen and put young people in charge of making part of the family meal. An hors d’oeuvres that all three of my children have relished making and eating is cucumber canapés, simple little rounds or squares of bread slathered with mayo, topped with fresh slices of cuke and sprinkled with salt, pepper and dill. It’s a great way to use summer produce from the market or your own backyard. We’ve been making these little pick-ups for so long that no one ever had the chance to say, “Eww. Dill,” or, “I don’t like cucumbers.”

I usually set up a corner of the kitchen where my kids can work, and I supply them with bread, a cutting board, a juice glass for cutting the bread into rounds, mayo and a cucumber. Even my youngest son, who is nearly seven, can handle peeling the cucumber, and when it’s time to slice it, I hover over him and let him practice with a dull knife. He spreads the mayo onto the rounds, loads them with cucumber slices and hits them with the salt, pepper and dill. When you’re that age, food tastes better if you make it.

It’s hard to give children, especially younger ones, freedom in the kitchen. Most of them don’t clean up along the way, and sometimes it seems like too much trouble. But letting go pays dividends. My 12-year-old daughter has been making canapés for years, and they’ve proved a good springboard for other dishes, including spontaneous, from-the-hip quick breads that come out tasting pretty good. No, she doesn’t eat everything, but she is open-minded and curious. So often, we point to letting kids cook in the kitchen as a way to expose them to healthy foods, but there are other reasons, too. It piques interest in textures and flavors and, most of all, it builds confidence in an essential and rewarding life skill.