Do you think Rachael Ray gets tired of cooking every day? I watch her 30-Minute Meals show occasionally. She’s on from 6 until 7, two episodes, naturally. And my kids don’t seem to mind watching it.

When I think my head will explode from too much Dora the Explorer we watch the Food Channel. Because it’s kid friendly. My other choice of neutral, kid-friendly channel after a day of too much children’s programming is HGTV.

Anyway, last night we were watching Rachael make a low-carb spaghetti meal. And I thought it was interesting watching her chop her stuff. She made some kind of vegetable dish that went on the spaghetti and then she seared tuna (yuck) and put a type of salsa on top (just tomato, onion, and some herbs chopped up).

If you’ve never seen her show, her thing is that she’s cooking in real time. So the meal she is making in the thirty minute time frame should take you at home no more than 30 minutes. As someone who did not grow up watching an adult cook, I do find it somewhat fascinating. I always struggle with knowing when to start stuff so everything is hot at the same time.

I guess that’s just about time management, but it’s still a question mark for me.

Quick side note that I found amusing. A couple of years ago my mother-in-law was making some kind of cheese sauce to go over broccoli. And I was sitting in the kitchen watching her cook. She said something like, “A cheese sauce is just a modified white sauce.” And I was like, “Come again?”

“Didn’t your mother teach you how to make white sauce?”

“Um, no. I doubt my mother knows what white sauce is.”

I don’t fully remember, apt student that I am, what exactly comprises a white sauce. Flour, butter and maybe milk, I think. But I do remember being floored when my sister-in-law mentioned a year or so later that she had made potato soup and it came out really well — she said she just started from a white sauce.

And I had to laugh thinking, Wow, your mother taught you how to cook. That’s so wild.

Besides feeling like I have no plan over all, I tend to get hung up on the preparation of dinner, you know? My middle kid wants to help with everything and I don’t always have the patience for that. And my youngest kid wants to be in my arms, which makes chopping carrots difficult.

That’s where I was noticing Rachael Ray doesn’t have small children in her kitchen. She mentions that certain meals are good for kids, in that the children will like the presentation. And sometimes she will say that a particular meal would allow kids to help in the kitchen.

But mostly it’s just her and the food. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have kids I would still find cooking a chore. Usually we have sandwiches for dinner. Unless Mr. C is cooking. But somehow watching Rachael Ray on television makes it all seem potentially doable, you know.

If not for the kids.