This is how I cook

Everything I do, Firecracker does. I can't keep her down. If I remove her little chair, she'll stand on the wheat bucket. If I remove the bucket, it's the wheat mill. If I moved that (which I'm not, it's way too heavy!), she'd bring a chair from two rooms away.

So she cooks with me. She understands "hot." She's a fairly decent stirrer. And she pours like there's no tomorrow.

Notice how the seasonings are all to the side of the stove top that she can't reach? She'd have a pinch or handful of every spice in every pan on the stove if I let her! The pepper grinder is by far her favorite bottle. She loves to grind it, but even more, she likes to unscrew the little ball on top, remove the lid and pour whole peppercorns into soup. When I'm not looking. She's very good at that.
I wish I had a picture of her crouching on the kitchen table where we keep the Bosch. She climbs up there like a little chimpanzee, knows how to gently turn the knob on and off, lifts the lid to add ingredients, or just watches it whir.

Know what she's doing? She's mastering her world. She's an unstoppable force of nature, and someday she'll be an awesome cook.