Ambience is described as a feeling or mood associated with a particular place, person or thing (Sunderland, 2010). After much consideration and thinking about this definition I now view my own ambience as the reason to why I cook. I have had a change inn viewpoint on cooking and now find it a relaxing and a very therapeutic activity. I now have a sense of belonging when I cook, this is because of being able to connect my cooking with a place, person or thing. These coould be things like when I cooked my fathers favour meal, or using my mothers famous self saucing chocolate pudding recipe that link me to the person or the memory of the place in which this was carried out. For example cooking my mother's self saucing chocolate pudding for my flatmate links me not only to my mother but the memory of when I was younger and my mother cooked this for my brother, sister and I on cold winter nights. This is just one example of when ambience has been brought into my cooking.
Sunderland (2011) states that 'new technologies are never totally superior to older technologies they attempt to replace. This relates to using new cooking techniques or tools do not necessarilly make the end product any better than the tradition (or old) techniques. I believe this statement to be very true I have many techniques (or 'tricks of the trade' as my nana calls them) that I have learnt from my nana and my mother that are far better to use when cooking than some newer techniques.
References
Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 (lecture notes). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.
Sunderland, J. (2011). Participation in occupation I: BT230001 (lecture notes). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therpay.
Wednesday 26 October 2011
Tuesday 25 October 2011
References
Reference List
Caulton, R & Dickson, R. (2007). What's going on? Finding an explanation for what we do. In J.
Christiansen, H., Kruijff, G. J. & Wyatt, J. (2010). Cognitive Systems. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Creek A. & Lawson-Porter (Eds.) Contemporary issues in occupational therapy. Chichester: John-Wiley & Sons Ltd.Dul, J., & Weerdmeester, B. A. (2008). Ergonomics for beginners: A quick reference guide (3rd Ed). USA: CRC Press.
Green, T. F. (1968). Work, leisure and the American schools. New York: Random House
Lawson, N. (2004). Feast. Food to Celebrate Life. Canada: Knopf.
Oldfield, N. (2008). Gran's kitchen. Auckland: Beatnik
Louw, D. A. (1998). Human development. (2nd Ed). South Africa: ABC PressTurner, A., Foster, M., & Johnson, S. E. (1999). Occupational therapy and physical dysfunction: Principles, skills and practice. Philadelphia: Elsevier Ltd.Visser, M. (1992). The rituals of dinner. London: Viking, The Penguin Group.
Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 (lecture notes). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.
Sunderland, J. (2011). Participation in occupation I: BT230001 (lecture notes). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therpay.
Caulton, R & Dickson, R. (2007). What's going on? Finding an explanation for what we do. In J.
Christiansen, H., Kruijff, G. J. & Wyatt, J. (2010). Cognitive Systems. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Creek A. & Lawson-Porter (Eds.) Contemporary issues in occupational therapy. Chichester: John-Wiley & Sons Ltd.Dul, J., & Weerdmeester, B. A. (2008). Ergonomics for beginners: A quick reference guide (3rd Ed). USA: CRC Press.
Green, T. F. (1968). Work, leisure and the American schools. New York: Random House
Lawson, N. (2004). Feast. Food to Celebrate Life. Canada: Knopf.
Oldfield, N. (2008). Gran's kitchen. Auckland: Beatnik
Louw, D. A. (1998). Human development. (2nd Ed). South Africa: ABC Press
Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 (lecture notes). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.
Sunderland, J. (2011). Participation in occupation I: BT230001 (lecture notes). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therpay.
What is the need for cooking
It was the biggest event of the year even the centuary some might say yes last Sunday was the Rugby World Cup final the All Blacks vs France. It was the last evening in which my flat was going to be together as we all had different exams and moving out at different times. So this was double the reason to celebrate. we all invited some friends round and we though it would be nice to have a potluck dinner with the guests bringing a salad or dessert of there choice. This left me thinking I am on the meat for this occasion so I was trying to think of quick and easy ways to feed 10 people on a budget. I decided on cooking a bacon and egg pie because they are easy and everyone loves bacon and egg pie. It was also appropriate as none of the people coming were vegetarian or had food allergies which I also has to take into account. I also thought that I would just go BBQ style and cook up some sausages, beef patties and chicken kerbabs. It was a beautiful day so it was the perfect way to celebrate, and not many people I know celebrate without food, and we needed to get our strength up for the big game ahead.
This made me think about the need that cooking/food have for me. The need that food and cooking has is to consume, or to eat. My flatemates and I need to eat in order to be able to survive, and I like to give them the gift which is another need of a nutritious meal every evening. Both of these needs fit under what we call 'labour' the never ending cycle of life. Green (1968) refers to the endless cycle of 'gathering and consuming' (p17).
Cooking a meal for others used to be very much a chore to me through this process in this course I have found that preparing a meal for others is very fulfilling, relaxing and now get alot of enjoyment out of it. Oldfield (2008) states that “It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing”. (p. 5). By being able to bring my cooking into many celebratory occasions in my life has given me a new sense on how much I really enjoy cooking, not only for myself now but for others as well.
References
Green, T. F. (1968). Work, leisure and the American schools. New York: Random House
This made me think about the need that cooking/food have for me. The need that food and cooking has is to consume, or to eat. My flatemates and I need to eat in order to be able to survive, and I like to give them the gift which is another need of a nutritious meal every evening. Both of these needs fit under what we call 'labour' the never ending cycle of life. Green (1968) refers to the endless cycle of 'gathering and consuming' (p17).
Cooking a meal for others used to be very much a chore to me through this process in this course I have found that preparing a meal for others is very fulfilling, relaxing and now get alot of enjoyment out of it. Oldfield (2008) states that “It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing”. (p. 5). By being able to bring my cooking into many celebratory occasions in my life has given me a new sense on how much I really enjoy cooking, not only for myself now but for others as well.
References
Green, T. F. (1968). Work, leisure and the American schools. New York: Random House
Oldfield, N. (2008). Gran's kitchen. Auckland: Beatnik
Monday 24 October 2011
Things that need to be considered when cooking!
Last week it was my father's birthday so the good daugther that I am I thought i would cook my dad's favour meal for dinner. This was going to be a very challenging task for me as I had never cooked roast pork before in my life. I have cooked many roast chicken before so I thought it can't be very different to that. I got the pork out and prepared it to put in the oven, I read that this particular pork took about 2 to 3 hours to cook. So I really needed to get this into the oven nice and early for it to be ready when I wanted it to be. I then had time to kill so I thought I could prepare the vegetables and leave them covered so they are ready to put in the oven for around 45 minutes to cook. As I was peeling the carrots, potatoes and kumara I realised that this might not be such a good idea because the kumara was starting to go a little bit brown so I had to put them in water. It was now time to put the vegetables in the oven, I oiled them up so they would not stick to the tray and poped them in the oven. I checked on my pork at this stage to the crackling on top had not gone crispy like I'd hoped at this stage. I used a trick that I had learnt from watching the television series My Kitchen Rules and cut the crackling off and placed it on a tray. Back in the oven the pork went which was looking pretty good at this stage. 10 minutes until everything was ready I put my crackling back in the oven on the top tray closest to the element to crisp up. Now the last thing to do was to make the gravy I did this whilst my dad carved the pork. I got the juices that came out of the pork and added some water salt and pepper, chilli powder and some cornflour, brought that to the boil until it was thick. Everything was now ready .. now all we could do was taste test.
The first practical consideration I had to take into account was how long each aspect of the meal took to cook so that it would all be ready at the same time. The second consideration I had to think about was I was working in my dad's kitchen so I had to check that I had all the ingredients and the appropriate equipment needed to be able complete the task. The third consideration I had to take into account was when I prepared the vegetables, this I did a bit to early so it lead to a change in the plan that I originally had. Another consideration that I had to take account was the space in which I needed to complete this activity, because most meals need to be prepared in the kitchen so I needed one of them. The final consideration I had to think about was do I have a plan B if something goes wrong, it was only when something went wrong I thought of this. In the case of the crackling and the vegetable I was able to think on the spot and come up with a new solution to fix the problem.
The first practical consideration I had to take into account was how long each aspect of the meal took to cook so that it would all be ready at the same time. The second consideration I had to think about was I was working in my dad's kitchen so I had to check that I had all the ingredients and the appropriate equipment needed to be able complete the task. The third consideration I had to take into account was when I prepared the vegetables, this I did a bit to early so it lead to a change in the plan that I originally had. Another consideration that I had to take account was the space in which I needed to complete this activity, because most meals need to be prepared in the kitchen so I needed one of them. The final consideration I had to think about was do I have a plan B if something goes wrong, it was only when something went wrong I thought of this. In the case of the crackling and the vegetable I was able to think on the spot and come up with a new solution to fix the problem.
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Aesthetics, Spirituality, Health
In class we discussed and were asked to relate our chosen activity to aesthetics, spirituality and health.
The other day I made my flatmates their daily dinner meal, this choice was a simple fettuccine. This was my first crack at cooking fettuccine without my mother’s input. In my opinion the dish did not turn out as well as I had liked, the cheese in the sauce had gone a little lumpy. My flatmates assured me that it’s not about how it looks but about how it tastes, I was still not happy with serving them this. The ‘recipe’ I followed was from memory so this even though it was simple was very aesthetically challenging. When it comes to cooking I am a firm believer in ‘freestyle cooking’ rather than following a direct recipe. The aspect of cooking a meal and giving a gift to my flatmates and I wanted to try and fit this gift to the aesthetic preferences of my flatmates, in this aspect in my opinion I had failed. Cooking is something we need to do to survive, so from an aesthetical view point food and cooking should be completed all year round.
Cooking helps me to link to my family especially my nana and my mother. This allows me to connect with my sense of being a woman when I cook. Traditionally cooking is a very female orientated task. Most households (not all) have the wife or the mother who cooks and prepares all the meals. This is very prominent in my family my nana will cook for my grandad and my mother cooks for my brother, myself and my sister when we are home.
In order for human being’s to survive as a race we need to eat. I am a big believer in eating healthy in order to stay healthy. So when I cook for my flatmates I try to create them a meal that is healthy for them but will also give them the nutrients and energy they need to function during the day. It also allows us to be social when I am either cooking the meal or when we are sitting down and eating the meal which is great for our health. We turn the consumption of food, a biological necessity, into a carefully cultured phenomenon. We use eating as a medium for social relationships: satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes the means of creating community. (Visser, 1992, p. ix)
Food for thought
Cooking has many functions, and only one of them is about feeding people. When we go into a kitchen, indeed when we even just think about going into a kitchen, we are both creating and responding to an idea we hold about ourselves, about what kind of person we are or wish to be. How we eat and what we eat lies at the heart of who we are as – individuals, families, communities. (Lawson, 2004).
Reference
Lawson, N. (2004). Feast. Food to Celebrate Life. Canada: Knopf.
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Affordances of cooking a meal
Christiansen et el (2010) states affordances to be, namely features if the environment that are relevant to enabling or obstructing actions that the perceiver can perform that might be relevant to achieving goals. In class when looking at affordances we broke it down into three categories of communication, action properties and moral properties. For this aspect of looking at cooking I will do the same.
Firstly the connection and action properties:
Yesterday morning before I went to class I thought to myself hmmm ... what am I going to cook for dinner tonight. I looked in the freezer to see what kind of meat to get out so that it would thaw by the time I needed it. The freezer did not have much meat in it but I found some mince and I thought I would be able to make those into meat balls.
It was that time of the day again when I had to cook the mince I had gotten out earlier had now defrosted so I got it out and a large bowl broke it up into small pieces added some chopped onion, soy sauce, herbs and of course an egg to hold it all together. As I was cooking the meat balls I needed to put some spaghetti pasta on so that it would be ready at the same time. I brought the water to a boil at this point my flatmate had joined me in the kitchen. The meat balls were cooked and the pasta was in the pot, now all I had to do was make the sauce for the meat balls. This consisted of a can of tomatoes, tomato puree, some chilli powder and some water. I added this to the meat balls and left to simmer. The pasta and the meat balls were now ready so I served them as my flatmate and I were very hungry. I had to leave some in the fridge because my other flatmate was not going to be home for dinner at the same time.
Secondly Communication:
Because the activity of cooking a meal is carried out in the kitchen in my household this means that there are many communication properties to it. For instance in my flat the kitchen is considered a communal area, therefore whilst I was cooking my flatmates would get home from wherever they had been. They would then engage in a conversation about how my day was and were curious as to what they were going to be eating that evening. The environment also gave me a sense of belonging; I choose to cook for people as when I was a young child I learnt these behaviours from my parents. Louw (1998) states that observational learning or modelling refers to the viewpoint that people can learn behaviours by observing the behaviours of others. I learnt my cooking skills from my mother and my grandmother from a young age, these learnt skills I am now able to share with others socially.
Thirdly Moral Properties:
Good: The good moral properties from this task are that I was completing an activity, the degree of precision, thrift, and the gift I was giving to my flatmates
Bad The bad moral properties from this task are that my flatmates don’t really understand the meaning of food, they were wasteful of some of the food put on their plate and judgemental of my cooking.
References
Christiansen, H., Kruijff, G. J. & Wyatt, J. (2010). Cognitive Systems. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Firstly the connection and action properties:
Yesterday morning before I went to class I thought to myself hmmm ... what am I going to cook for dinner tonight. I looked in the freezer to see what kind of meat to get out so that it would thaw by the time I needed it. The freezer did not have much meat in it but I found some mince and I thought I would be able to make those into meat balls.
It was that time of the day again when I had to cook the mince I had gotten out earlier had now defrosted so I got it out and a large bowl broke it up into small pieces added some chopped onion, soy sauce, herbs and of course an egg to hold it all together. As I was cooking the meat balls I needed to put some spaghetti pasta on so that it would be ready at the same time. I brought the water to a boil at this point my flatmate had joined me in the kitchen. The meat balls were cooked and the pasta was in the pot, now all I had to do was make the sauce for the meat balls. This consisted of a can of tomatoes, tomato puree, some chilli powder and some water. I added this to the meat balls and left to simmer. The pasta and the meat balls were now ready so I served them as my flatmate and I were very hungry. I had to leave some in the fridge because my other flatmate was not going to be home for dinner at the same time.
Secondly Communication:
Because the activity of cooking a meal is carried out in the kitchen in my household this means that there are many communication properties to it. For instance in my flat the kitchen is considered a communal area, therefore whilst I was cooking my flatmates would get home from wherever they had been. They would then engage in a conversation about how my day was and were curious as to what they were going to be eating that evening. The environment also gave me a sense of belonging; I choose to cook for people as when I was a young child I learnt these behaviours from my parents. Louw (1998) states that observational learning or modelling refers to the viewpoint that people can learn behaviours by observing the behaviours of others. I learnt my cooking skills from my mother and my grandmother from a young age, these learnt skills I am now able to share with others socially.
Thirdly Moral Properties:
Good: The good moral properties from this task are that I was completing an activity, the degree of precision, thrift, and the gift I was giving to my flatmates
Bad The bad moral properties from this task are that my flatmates don’t really understand the meaning of food, they were wasteful of some of the food put on their plate and judgemental of my cooking.
References
Christiansen, H., Kruijff, G. J. & Wyatt, J. (2010). Cognitive Systems. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Louw, D. A. (1998). Human development. (2nd Ed). South Africa: ABC Press
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Ergonomics of cooking a meal
Ergonomics is an important concept to be mindful of when carrying out an activity. Dul and Weerdmeester (2008) state that ergonomics is derived from the greek words of ergon (work) and nomos (law). Ergonomics aims to design applicances, technical systems and tasks in such a way to improve human, safety, health, performance and comfort. Through using ergonomics an activity is able to adapted where necessary to fit the clients needs and be suitable for the environment. Carlson & Dickson (2007) explains that occupational therapists need to make slight adaptations to an activity to suit the needs of the clients involved and continues to be effective for its intended purpose.
In class we discussed ergonomics in three categories person, environment and activity so that is exactly how I am going to analyse this task.
PERSON
Caulton, R & Dickson, R. (2007). What's going on? Finding an explanation for what we do. In J. Creek & A. Lawson-Porter (Eds.) Contemporary issues in occupational therapy. Chichester: John-Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Dul, J., & Weerdmeester, B. A. (2008). Ergonomics for beginners: A quick reference guide (3rd Ed). USA: CRC Press.
In class we discussed ergonomics in three categories person, environment and activity so that is exactly how I am going to analyse this task.
PERSON
- Cooking is an activity that is well known to me and that I enjoy
- I have multiple skills with cooking but am learning new skills
- I have a small budget when it comes to buying food to cook as I am a student
- I need an adequate amount of personal space in order to carry out my cooking
- I am able to do other things whilst cooking eg watch tv, talk to my flatmates, have a beer
- I find cooking very therapeutic
- A kitchen is preferred but not essential to complete the process
- Heights of bench's and stove tops need to be suited for the person to prevent bending or awkward positions for me the heights were great
- Positioning of items in the kitchen: Pots and pans are located in a cupboard under the so getting these is not ergonomically friendly. But the location of knives and plates which is an over hanging cupboard is great not too high.
- Cooking is culturally appropriate for me as my grandmother and mother first taught me how to cook
- To cook the social environment can be present but not to the extent that it is distracting and the cooking gets forgotten about
- Some meals are more complex because there are more aspects to the recipe so therefore different levels of engagement is needed for different levels.
- Recipes guide the process of cooking
- Some foods can be expensive so people can not afford them so they are unable to cook certain recipes
Caulton, R & Dickson, R. (2007). What's going on? Finding an explanation for what we do. In J. Creek & A. Lawson-Porter (Eds.) Contemporary issues in occupational therapy. Chichester: John-Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Dul, J., & Weerdmeester, B. A. (2008). Ergonomics for beginners: A quick reference guide (3rd Ed). USA: CRC Press.
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