I'm willing to bet that the most attractive thing about this franchise is the socialization aspect. Imagine being a harried SAHM. Imagine all the demands on your time and always having to be in charge of organizing and coordinating everything, but being expected to pull everything off because "you don't work." Not only would this be a nice excuse to socialize with grown-ups, but not having to be "in charge" would be nice too! Also, a lot of women my age were taught to scorn anything domestic as somehow beneath us. As someone who has come to voluntarily embrace domesticity, I realize how much about cooking I didn't learn. Now mind you, I cook from scratch nearly every night, but if I were still working 60 hour weeks in the corporate rat race, that wouldn't be an option, and this would be a nice compromise. It would be a safe way to transition from processed crap to home-cooked if a person didn't intuitively know how to do it. Ell, your words made me laugh. My one cooking rule is: No cream of something soup! My parents thought I was snobby about this, as nearly everything they made for us growing up contained this. I don't care for the taste or the sodium. And the MSG gives Steve nasty headaches... My crock pot gets A LOT of use... but so do all my kitchen appliances. I enjoy cooking and consider it artistic expression. I'd never look down at anyone for frequenting one of these franchises... I think they make a lot of sense for a big segment of the market... but at this time of my life, they don't make sense for me...

Like Jemdandy, I also grew up on a dairy farm, only at our farm we had a coal stove in the kitchen and we did not have running water. Our day started at 5am when we went to the barn to milk the cows and feed the stock and we finally went to the house for breakfast at 9am. After breakfast grandad would assign one of us boys to help grandma in the kitchen for the day. That meant we had to carry 10 or 15gal of water in from the spring then shake the grate and clean the ashes out of the cookstove, and carry the ashes outside, then we had to go out to the coal pile outside and fill the coal bucket. Grandma was cooking 3 meals a day for 15 farm hands plus she canned about 4,000 quarts of fruits, veggies, pickles and sausages to get us through the winter, and in her spare time she baked 20 loaves of bread, a couple dozen yiest rolls and two or three pies every Wednesday and did the laundry for everybody on Monday. When she was canning the fruits and veggies were brought to the house in bushel baskets and we had to continually tote the baskets in to grandma and take the 5gal bucket she used to catch the peelings and veggie trimmings and dump that in the hog lot. When it was time to start preparing lunch Grandma would hand us a basket and tell us to get potatoes, so we headed out the back door, grabbed a hoe and headed to the potato patch where we dug a basket of potatoes. When we got back to the kitchen she handed us a basket and a paring knife and told us to go out in the garden and get leaf lettuce, onions & veggies (whatever was in season at the time). When we got back to the kitchen we had to clean, peel and prep the veggies under her supervision, while she continued working on what she was canning. We had two huge chest type deep freezers and in the fall we would slaughter 2 or 3 huge 900lb hogs, (I bet you guys have never seen a 60lb ham), a couple sheep, and at least two yearling steers, which then had to be cut up and wrapped for the freezer or hung in the smokehouse. When grandma wanted to make chicken we had to go catch the chicken, kill it, then clean & dress it and for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas we had to catch and dress a couple geese or ducks. (The first time I ever tasted turkey was after I went in the Air Force). In the winter we hunted racoons for their hides, but more often than not, a racoon or two ended up in the stew pot..as well as rabbits and pheasants. (We didn't have any deer on our farm). In addition to her veggie garden, Grandma had a huge herb garden and she was an undisputed master with herbs and spices. In summer it was fresh herbs but by fall we had to cut them and air dry them for winter and in the evenings after all our chores in the barn were done we used to sit around the kitchen drinking hot chocolate and coring and slicing apples, which we threaded on a string and hung across the kitchen ceiling to dry for winter stores. To this day I can still remember my Grandmothers weekly shopping list for the grocery store. 50lbs of flour, 25lbs of sugar, 3lbs of brown sugar, two large canisters of Quaker rolled oats, 5lbs of raisins, a gallon bucket of peanut butter (peanut butter used to be packed in 1 gal pails and grandma kept the empty pails for berry picking buckets for the kids), 8 packs of chewing tobacco for Grandpa and two boxes of arm & hammer baking soda and once in a great while she would buy 5lbs of whitefish fillets. At the time I didn't really think about cooking much, but over the years I have known a lot of guys who didn't have a clue how to cook and when they ended up divorced it was pizza or hot dogs and porky beans ( I couldn't live like that). Ladies, if you accomplish nothing else in this life, teach your children & grandchildren how to cook. Sometimes Jan laughs at me, but she knows, I don't need a menu plan. I walk in the kitchen and look around at what ingredients we have to work with, and I can turn out a gourmet meal every time. I may not have much money, but you can bet I eat good.

Fillmoe, My grands pay me too. When I feed them I write up a receipt like a waiter does and leave it by their plate. e.g. 1 sandwich, 1 juice box, 2 cookies=$3.00 or 1 hug and 2 kisses. When they get up from the table I ask "will that be cash or kisses".

Ah @maire_cate the pans didnt work out but I am actually even more thrilled to be able to give her a good couple of knives that she can safely and easily use. And really, the gift she will most love is the "Cooking with Grandma" gift I am coordinating with all of the kids, grandkids and great grandkids. It will be a fun gift throughout the year. Also, I already gave her a pair of sketcher slip-on boots-- the kind you can literally step into vs bendiing and putting on. THEY made her cry when I gave them to her a month ago because she could easily get them on and off and she was able to get around in them very easily and without hip/leg pain. Also, they are very warm as they are lined with fur. So really, it will be a win all around! Maddie @ Bbstx yes, I will look at one of the choppers-- between her potato salad recipe and waldorf salad, I think it will she will appreciate it. We will be wrapping small gifts with each of the "Cooking with grandma" presents (a small gift that goes with the meal or recipe you will prepare with grandma). I think I will do this to give with a lunch of waldorf salad and wine :) ... a shared favorite that no one else will eat. Thanks again all ... i am feeling pretty good about the gifts I have assembled. I have a lot of shopping done and most of the rest has been decided but waiting for black friday. I dont think I have ever been in such good shape!