The day before Christmas Eve in a Polish household is always frantic. Cakes to bake, salads to make, and general culinary chaos.

The heating system dying in the morning didn’t help, though. The verdict: the zoning system’s main control board is malfunctioning. Cost: the part alone runs $1300. Time to make some decisions. Merry Christmas from Arzel.

In the meantime, we have baking to do. Cheese cake, for instance, requires room-temperature ingredients, a fact inconveniently forgotten by inexperienced bakers the world over.

Fortunately, we had a little helper today to get us through the tough parts. Without her valuable advice and assistance, I’m sure we would have got finished much more quickly than we did been at a complete loss.

With her in the kitchen, it’s a constant battle against her curiosity. “I want to do it!” is her refrain.

At the same time, how can one battle curiosity? Who would even want to? It’s a question of direction and redirection.