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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] cooking at home

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  • From: Joan Vibert <joan@windwalkerfarm.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] cooking at home
  • Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:21:20 -0600

Title: Re: [Livingontheland] cooking at home
This is a great thread and right up the alley I’m working on right now.  I teach cooking classes at Whole Foods in their Cooking Studio and we are currently looking at how to “start-over” with the basics because so many of the students don’t cook – period.  In fact I have some who just want to sit and watch me cook (like I was on tv and just entertaining them).  I insist on “hands-on” and at least get a knife in their hands.  But my classes can get too involved because I’m teaching recipes instead of techniques.  So the techniques have to be their first introduction.  I just began teaching “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” classes at Whole Foods and at home and the classes are packed.  Women and men are so pleased with the results and its satisfying to see them actually making something edible with their hands.  I need this same idea to apply to other foods and that’s what I’m working on.

I also have daughters who need the basics, unbeknownst to me.  Given a list of cooking terms, i.e. sauté, they are clueless and, I’m sure, immediately shut down when faced with terms they don’t understand (such as I do when trying to figure out computer issues).  I’m attempting to put together a cookbook for the family (my second) that will provide them a month’s worth of meal ideas, complete with what they need to have on hand as staples plus a weekly shopping list.  And, they need these to be 30 to 40 minute meals – they think!

This is exactly why people are eating crap and think they are cooking.  First they have no clue about basic food, what to buy, how to prepare it, what it will taste like.  I’m afraid that given bags of dry beans and rice many folks would starve.  

Our goal, here at the farm, is to teach Life Skills workshops (www.windwalkerfarm.com) but it has to start with food.  Its the basis for all of life and needs to be done right, with knowledge and respect for our bodies and our food.  And, by the way, I’m buying copies of Food, Inc. to give to all seven of our children and their families for Christmas, with the directive that it must be watched, with their children, and passed on to another family.

I’d love to hear ideas from some of you out there -

Joan
joan@windwalkerfarm.com






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