When a Budding Cook Takes Over the Kitchen

Meet 14-year-old Iris, who steers us toward three terrific dishes for dinner

For today’s edition of Gaah! What’s For Dinner? we decided to bring in a ringer: Daniel’s 14-year-old cousin-in-law, Iris, is a wonderful cook, so we tasked her with picking out three delicious, fast and easy recipes that would be perfect for a weeknight summer dinner, cook them, photograph them, and jot down her thoughts. Not only does she appear to have some serious talent for this, but, given that she recommends adding extra salt to literally every one of my dishes, I think I’ve found a kindred spirit. Two things I’m particularly impressed with: 1) De-boning chicken thighs because you can’t find boneless at the store? Bravo. 2) The refreshing honesty of young people. If they think something is bland, they say it’s bland. That’s more than I can say for most grownups. Okay Iris, the floor is yours. —Mark

First up: Pasta with Corn, Zucchini, and Tomatoes. This recipe was very simple to make, as it didn’t take much time and didn’t involve many ingredients. Make sure to add plenty of salt to the vegetables, or else the end product will turn out bland. I also forgot to salt the pasta water, which was a huge mistake! I also think using a smaller pasta variety — I used rigatoni — would have improved the dish. We would have been able to get more vegetables for each bite of pasta, which would have made the whole thing more flavorful. Overall it was a fresh-tasting meal! With a little more salt, it would have been perfect.