In participation class this week my friends and I planned a class themed night this meant we would all do our activities together. We planned to go out for coffee, play board games and I would of course cook dinner. I cooked dukkah crumbed chicken with homemade wedges coleslaw and rice salad. Cooking in my friend’s house I felt lost, new environment and foreign instruments to use. I had made the salads previously so I wasn’t wasting good board gaming time. The process of making dinner went like this. I rolled and covered the chicken in dukkah, placed onto an oven try and covered with tin foil (so won’t burn). I then peeled the potatoes and chop into wedges (making sure I didn’t chop my fingers off with the very effective knife). My normal seasoning was nowhere to be seen so I adapted and shoved a few shakes of this and that on the wedges. I shoved both the chicken and the wedges in the oven at the same time as they take approximately the same amount of time to cook. Once all finished I plated up everything to look presentable and enjoyed the meal with my friends. They both loved being cooked for and kept raving about my food so thought I had better pass on the recipe.
Affordances:
Communication
De Lore stated “Conversations, gossip humour and ideas flow freely in the relaxed atmosphere of the kitchen (2000).” I whole heartedly agree with this statement, which sums up nicely my experience cooking for my friends. Conversations about our classes, placement and our participation activities dominated the kitchen as well as other goings on in our lives. Jokes and banter about cooking disasters started up while my friends watched my fumble around the unknown of their kitchen. We all shared advice; I shared my recipe while my friends advised me where to find things in the kitchen. All the activities we did that day, going out for coffee, board gaming and cooking all lead to more communication in comparison to our usual quite movie and popcorn nights. Connections - How one activity leads to another.
Who knew one night of cooking could lead to so many other activities. A trip to the supermarket was essential to gather my ingredients, because of my lack of transport I had to walk through the gardens to get there; this is even before I have begun to cook. Looking specifically at cooking itself, it lead to reflecting on my past experience of cooking this same dinner with mum at home I was not only drawing on memories but building new ones by cooking for my friends. Of course cooking always leads to the sharing and eating of food this sharing doesn’t stop there, if the food is a success and the chief is generous, the recipe may also be shared. The last and my most dreaded activity that cooking affords is washing and drying the dishes luckily teamwork or a dishwasher makes it effortless.
Moral properties: The good and bad aspects of cooking.
Cooking to me is a very emotion provoking activity; it is very personal to an individual. Where I see a peaceful, beautiful past time, others may view cooking as only a necessity to survive; not a labour of love but a burden. Klein (2000) explains that labour is like a never ending cycle when the tasks have to be done over and over again. I can understand how people view cooking in this way, three times a day everyday of our human lives. Once a meal has been cooked and eaten there is nothing more to show of it other than the eater’s satisfaction and full tummies, to the naked eye the cooking never happened. So how does one get passed this way of thinking about cooking, I think of the food as the reward after cooking it makes all the work worthwhile indulging in what I have cooked with others. Nigella Lawson once said “how we eat and what we eat lies at the heart of who we are as individuals, families, communities (2004).” This so true in my cooking, I love being able to show off my cooking that I have learnt through my family and am able to give others taster of my culture through the food I cook. Another positive aspect to cooking is that it is life-long learning and every improving, one can never run out of things to cook and there will forever be a need for food.
References
De Lore, C., & Brooke-White, J. (2000) Every kitchen tells a story. HarperCollins Publisher: New Zealand.
Klein, N. (2000) No logo.Knopf: Canada.
Lawson, N. (2004). Feast: food that celebrates life. Random house: London
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