Comments to other blogs

Here are four blogs I have commented on.

• Hannah Sinclair's Blog
• Kirsty Jackson's Blog
• Leigh Millward's Blog
• Rachael Watson's Blog

Here are my five references I have used throughout my blog.

• De Lore, C. & Brooke-White, J. (2000). Every kitchen tells a story. Harper Collins Ltd. New Zealand.
•  Visser, M. (1986). Much depends on dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos of an ordinary meal. Grove Press, New York.
• Sunderland, J. (2010). Human occupation. BT127001. Food for survival. Occupational Therapy.
• Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tools for practice in occupational therapy: A structures approach to core skills and processes. London: Churchill Livingstone
• Inkeles, G. & Schencke, I. (1994). Ergonomic living: How to create a user-friendly home and office space. Fireside. New York. 

Food is Essential

Conversations, gossip humour and ideas flow freely in the relaxed atmosphere of the kitchen. (de Lore, 2000). When the time comes to make dinner in my flat, one of the others usually comes to the kitchen to help out or just keep the other company. It is a place where we can chat about anything and everything. It’s an exciting time, waiting in anticipation for the deliscious dinner that’s being cooked, then to have it and watch TV together. It happens the same every evening, it’s become a flat routine that dinner is ready by 7pm in time for Shortland Street. This is so different from my home environment with my parents. We always eat at the dinner table together and say a prayer before we eat. The conversation and language used at home and in the flat are so contrasting and so are the meals. But I have managed to bring some of my meals from home and introduce them to my flatmates. I have already told you about mums bacon and egg pie that I was so proud to introduce to my flatmates; I also got them to try and now love this dinner that mum makes with sausages, onions, tomatoes, and herbs – so simple yet so tasty! Another food I introduced in the past couple of weeks is falafel. I first made it at home with my brother and his girlfriend and since it’s so healthy I decided to give it a try down here. Instead of making it from scratch though we bought a ready-made packet of falafel mix, so we cheated a little bit. Anyway I made the mix into small balls and baked them. We had them in pita breads with salads, humus, and other sauces. It was amazing. How good does this look…?

Food is ‘everyday’‐it has to be, or we would not survive for long. But food is never just something to eat (Visser, 1986, p.12). We need food to survive, for our bodies to continue functioning. But we also need food to survive with the social atmosphere that comes with it. There’s food for every occasion, we couldn’t live without it.

Reference

De Lore, C. & Brooke-White, J. (2000). Every kitchen tells a story. Harper Collins Ltd. New Zealand.

Visser, M. (1986). Much depends on dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos of an ordinary meal. Grove Press, New York. 

Ambience

This morning I made myself some porridge for breakfast. It was a pleasant morning. After showering I dressed in my dressing gown to prepare my breakfast. I was the only one up in my flat at this point. The morning is quite a quiet time of the day at the flat. My flatmates don’t usually get up particularly early. This morning I had class at 10am so I was up around 9am. Making breakfast is quite a solitary activity. I measured everything into the bowl to put into the microwave. Even though I can usually remember the quantities needed, I always check the back of the rolled oats packet to make sure I have it right. The nature of making breakfast is to bring about a good start to the day. If I have a big day ahead of me I like to have something substantial for breakfast. Porridge tends to fill me up really well as I have it with peaches too. 

The thing about cooking is that you know you’re going to have to do it again, a couple of times in that same day. However I don’t see this as a chore, it is something that has to be done; it needs to be done to survive. “Food production involves the making of tangible products usually for immediate consumption (labour). Sometimes food can be made more durable when preserved for later use when resources are not so readily available. Inevitably though, food is to be eaten and this is its essential characteristic,” Sunderland, (2010). We need to eat to survive, and food requires cooking.

Reference

Sunderland, J. (2010). Human occupation. BT127001. Food for survival. Occupational Therapy.

Affordances cont...

Carrying on from last week I’m going to talk about affordances through the experience of cooking a snack early in the morning after a night out in town. I came home still a bit drunk and in need of something to eat. We had leftovers from last night’s spaghetti bolognaise so I just reheated that in the microwave and had it on toast. Instead of making something new I simply used something that may otherwise have been thrown out soon. While I was making this my flatmate was up with me talking. We had to concentrate on talking really quietly so not to wake the others in the house. I think we really bonded over our late night snack and chat. We shared stories from the night and vented some of our problems to each other. This small activity of making a snack gave the opportunity for communication between friends. I wasn’t particularly worried about the food I was eating, or how it looked. Normally I like to present my food in an aesthetically pleasing way, but not tonight. I really enjoy looking at pictures of food on the internet because they are presented so well and so creatively. Here are some that I recently enjoyed looking at. 

Pretty Strawberries!

Red brownies!

In talking of spirituality to do with the activity of making this late night snack (spirituality being the potential for feeling in the activity) I value putting time and effort into making a really good meal, but this night I needed a quick fix and this was perfect, I didn’t have to wait long at all. I was satisfied in a few short minutes.

Affordances

This week’s topic is affordances. According to Hagedorn (2000), affordance is anything which the environment can offer the individual which is pertinent to the role challenge and can facilitate role competence. I will write about affordances in the context of making pizzas with my flatmates.
Tonight I made home-made pizzas for dinner with my flatmates. We all came together in our small kitchen and each prepared our own pizza. With all of us working in such a small space we had to think about the environment and where we could each have our own work space. I stacked the dishes tidily so I had more space and the other two worked on the other benches. We worked together by each preparing the toppings for the pizzas. I chopped up the mushrooms and tomatoes, while my other flatmates prepared the capsicum, cheese, spinach, and turned the oven on. We had to look out for each other and communicate with each other about who was using what, where things were, who wanted what ingredient etc. We did this really well and made our pizzas really quickly and had fun doing it. We also have a small oven so we had to be patient when waiting to put our own pizza in to cook. I think we communicate really well when we’re cooking together because we’re such good friends and we have a mutual respect for each other’s needs and wants. We express care for each other by preparing things for each other, and helping the other out – I had to help cut the pizzas because one of the others found it difficult. There’s an overall sense of equality among us, and we each have the power to choose what we want for dinner during the week, and tonight, what toppings to have on the pizza. There’s no arguing or disagreements, just a sense of togetherness and caring.

References

Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tools for practice in occupational therapy: A structures approach to core skills and processes. London: Churchill Livingstone

Ergonomics

Tonight I had to make dinner again as it was my turn to cook. I had decided to make bacon and egg pie which my mother makes a lot at home. I wanted to make this because it reminds me of home cooking, and I have been trying to introduce my flatmates to some new easy foods. Mums bacon and egg pie is the only one that I will eat, because no-one makes it quite like she does. I had never made bacon and egg pie myself before now so I had to ring mum a few times during the week to clarify what I needed for it and make sure I got the right pastry. When it came to rolling the pastry out, I realised that we don’t actually have a rolling pin at the flat! But a round glass jar of tomato sauce did the trick nicely. I rolled it out to fit the baking dish, checking it how I used to watch mum do. When I was making the pie I really felt a great connection to mum, like I was following in her steps, doing something that she had taught me first hand. I felt kind of proud to be making it for my friends/flatmates, especially because one of them had never had bacon and egg pie before!

The kitchen in my flat is quite small and isn’t particularly well set out. There isn’t much bench space, especially where there are dishes around. It would be helpful if the kitchen was a bit larger, however Inkeles and Schencke (1994) state that people should realise that kitchens don’t need to be large to be economic. I agree with this, but my flat kitchen would be better if it were set out differently and a little larger. The benches aren’t very deep so this made it harder to roll out the pastry big enough. I overcame this by clearing everything from the bench and turning the pastry round all the time so it would fit. This isn’t how I would normally do it but I had to make do with the little bench space I had. The way I put the pie together is just how mum does it. It’s not from a recipe book, it’s just the way mum taught me and it’s the way I like it. When I was younger I remember mum having to make the pie with different ingredients at each end because one of us kids didn’t like one thing or another. I had to do the same with this pie because one of my flatmates doesn’t like tomatoes so I only put them in half of the pie. I felt really proud of myself when the pie came out of the oven looking amazing, so golden brown. It was really tasty and my flatmates loved it! Cheers mum J

References

Inkeles, G. & Schencke, I. (1994). Ergonomic living: How to create a user-friendly home and office space. Fireside. New York.

First Post!!

My blog is about my cooking experiences. I cook dinner twice a week in my flat as well as lunches, snacks, and breakfast sometimes. I quite enjoy cooking however baking is more fun. I bake a lot more at home but in the flat only every now and again. I cooked lots at home as a kid – helping mum and dad in the kitchen. They taught my siblings and me all to cook reasonably well. Meals are quite a family affair at home, eating together around the dinner table. In the flat this year though we don’t have a dining table so we eat together in the lounge and watch Friends and Shortland Street. The three girls of the flat cook together and we try and help each other out when we can. I have been taught to keep a tidy work space when cooking and the other two girls seem to hold this same value which I appreciate. We cook rather simple meals that we know or make them from Maggi packets, but every meal is delicious.

Last night I made a honey soy beef stir-fry from a Wok Creations stir-fry sauce packet J I had to get the stir-fry meat out of the freezer in the morning for it to defrost during the day. Around 6pm I started making dinner. I began by putting the rice on to cook in the microwave. I had to check the rice a couple of times to stir it and add more water. I then began cooking the stir-fry meat in a pan with a little oil. While this was cooking I got the frozen mixed vegetables from the freezer and put them in a bowl of warm water so they could defrost too. I don’t like leaving them in the water for too long though because otherwise they soak up too much water and become mushy. I stirred the meat a little to make sure it gets cooked properly, then I drained the vegetables and added them to the pan. At this time I also added the stir-fry sauce. It’s really hard to get all the sauce out of the packets and I got some sauce on my fingers. Once the sauce had been added to the pan it only took a couple of minutes to heat through and be ready. I had to put the rice in the microwave for an extra few minutes until it was cooked then dinner was ready. I called the other two girls for dinner and they came right away. It was cooked right in time to watch Shortland Street together!

I really enjoy cooking. It gives me a sense of accomplishment when I make a really tasty or healthy meal the others can enjoy. It’s a way of giving to others and also showing my parents that I am able to cook for myself and their teaching has paid off. It’s something I can give back to my parents, cooking for them. In relation to Occupational Therapy, cooking is used widely for assessments, therapy, group sessions, or as an excuse to get off the ward for a while. On placement I did many cooking assessments with patients. It is also used verbally in establishing some ones role within the family or community E.g. the provider for the family. Over the next semester I know I will have plenty of opportunities to be able to write about my cooking experiences mindfully in this blog.