Home ec. or lessons for scratch cooking

[ny biker]

I took a sewing home ec class in high school in addition to cooking. I remember making something out of kelly green fabric, but I only remember the fabric, not what I made from it. We also got kits to make a stuffed animal - I made a black scottish terrier which I still have.

When I was little my mother made lots of dresses for me and my sisters, especially for holidays. I recall having to stand very still while she pinned things that I was trying on.

[shootingstar]

but for every day I don't like spending much more time making food than eating it. But it's important to me that my son learns the basics of healthy, simple food and how to make it.

+1 The healthy basics is most helpful for the young'uns.
which is why it bewilders me when even some people, ie. single, childless women /men who complain "how much time" it takes to cook at home. Really? Scrambling eggs for 1 person with some cut veggies and onion is not a huge effort. Under 10 min. Same for a totally different dish of washing, cutting and sauteeing Chinese green leafy veggies in a bit of oil and 1 small of soy sauce. Same amount of time for this side vegetable dish.

Both healthy and fast. Cooking simply and healthy is a daily (survival) skill.

My partner (who is 66) learned cooking by watching his mother. It was source of fascination to him especially the baking process. (And she was a real gourmet baker in the traditional German style.) His mother had a very natural style of story-telling and gentle manner that seemed to draw children and teenagers anyway. He did not do much real cooking in kitchen as a child...but he must have soaked up those lessons to prepare some of those dishes now off the top of his head regularily at home. I don't think he cooks because he loves to, it's just a daily thing to him...like brushing your teeth. Only occasionally he'll go onto this gourmet, creative streak where he invents some great stuff based on some recipes he found online.

He taught his ex-wife (who is British) how to cook better, tastier food because she lacked cooking skill (her mother died when she was 15) and also her family ate more dull, British cuisine (in England) which at that time, did not have the dynamic colonial influence of Indian, Chinese, Carribbean, etc.

I know my brother is not a cooking dummy, he knows how to do all the basic Chinese cooking techniques...steaming fish, stir-frying/sauteeing, cooking rice from scratch ...but he has eaten more take-out food and has become abit overweight.

[ny biker]

which is why it bewilders me when even some people, ie. single, childless women /men who complain "how much time" it takes to cook at home. Really? Scrambling eggs for 1 person with some cut veggies and onion is not a huge effort. Under 10 min. Same for a totally different dish of washing, cutting and sauteeing Chinese green leafy veggies in a bit of oil and 1 small of soy sauce. Same amount of time for this side vegetable dish.

Both healthy and fast. Cooking simply and healthy is a daily (survival) skill.

Unless you just really suck at it and manage to screw up even the simplest things. Then you just wind up with food that tastes bad. And you feel like a loser because somehow you managed to screw up such a simple task.

It's less aggravating to just have cereal for dinner.

[Trek420]

No home ec etc and I had the most incredible example at home. My Mom is a fantastic cook as was my Dad.

Dad baked, especialy yummy breads and biscotti. Mom cooks everything from scratch, she cans, puts stuff up, makes jams and much of it grown on the farm or what was left of the farm (orriginaly 14 acres then down to about 3 acres) and now at 86 cooks stuff grown in her yard or from local Sonoma farm markets.

Both taught me cooking but mostly I got a love of fresh local food. What skills I have I learned at work. I worked my way through art school in kitchens starting with a breakfast joint, a couple other spots in the East Bay's "gourmet ghetto" and my last gig assisting Alison Negrin (Chez Panise, Bridges, Ginger Island ....).

I'd say I'm not a good chef but I love to prep fresh produce and see no reason to get pre-prepped anything. Put away the packaged garlic and the Couisinart and me the French knife!

[OakLeaf]

Put away the...Cuisinart

You mean the "hummus/falafel maker"?

Much easier than grinding chickpeas the traditional way... whatever that might be? I'm guessing in a stone mortar?

(And since I'm using it to grind the chickpeas anyway, in those two instances I'll use it on the parsley - and onion in the case of falafel - as well.)

[Trek420]

Much easier than grinding chickpeas the traditional way... whatever that might be? I'm guessing in a stone mortar?

Kids these days, when I was a kid back in the day we went down to the river and ground the chick peas with our oxen drawn mill wheels

[PamNY]

+
which is why it bewilders me when even some people, ie. single, childless women /men who complain "how much time" it takes to cook at home. Really? Scrambling eggs for 1 person with some cut veggies and onion is not a huge effort. Under 10 min. Same for a totally different dish of washing, cutting and sauteeing Chinese green leafy veggies in a bit of oil and 1 small of soy sauce. Same amount of time for this side vegetable dish.

It's not bewildering at all. Shopping takes time; if you have a busy or unpredictable schedule, keeping fresh food on hand isn't practical. I love to cook, but when I was working long hours, commuting an hour each way, doing volunteer work and taking night classes, I didn't cook much.

The grim misery of fulfilling a moral mandate that one "must" cook or eat a certain way undoubtedly wipes out any health benefits the food might have.

Pam

[redrhodie]

It's not bewildering at all. Shopping takes time; if you have a busy or unpredictable schedule, keeping fresh food on hand isn't practical. I love to cook, but when I was working long hours, commuting an hour each way, doing volunteer work and taking night classes, I didn't cook much.

The grim misery of fulfilling a moral mandate that one "must" cook or eat a certain way undoubtedly wipes out any health benefits the food might have.

Pam

I almost never cooked when I lived in NYC. It was easier to eat really good ethnic food than to try to prepare anything with no counter space, and often cheaper, too. Here, it's pretty necessary to cook. We don't have the restaurant choices, and eating out is definitely a lot more expensive than cooking.

[ny biker]

I almost never cooked when I lived in NYC. It was easier to eat really good ethnic food than to try to prepare anything with no counter space, and often cheaper, too. Here, it's pretty necessary to cook. We don't have the restaurant choices, and eating out is definitely a lot more expensive than cooking.

I barely had a kitchen when I lived in NYC. It was a combination kitchen/foyer. Four gas burners on top of a half-refrigerator (no freezer). I was always afraid I'd set my hair on fire if I bent over to get something out of the fridge while I was cooking something. Very old dirty oven that I was afraid to use. I prepared all food that wasn't take-out in either a toaster oven or a microwave.

[redrhodie]

I barely had a kitchen when I lived in NYC. It was a combination kitchen/foyer. Four gas burners on top of a half-refrigerator (no freezer). I was always afraid I'd set my hair on fire if I bent over to get something out of the fridge while I was cooking something. Very old dirty oven that I was afraid to use. I prepared all food that wasn't take-out in either a toaster oven or a microwave.

So much better to get take out, than risk setting your hair ablaze, don't you think? I'd often get lunch delivered to work, and have enough left over for dinner. Super cheap, really good food. It's what I miss most about NY (other than my friends )!

I really, really miss Burmese food most of all (even more than the friends ). Cafe Mingala was my main place. I haven't come across anything like around here.

[PamNY]

It's amazing how people adapt to tiny NYC kitchens, including folks who are food professionals. The best food I've ever eaten came from a tiny kitchen which included a shower. There was, literally, no counter space, but they managed to be brilliant.

I actually cook more here because access to ingredients is so inspiring.

I love Burmese food. My favorite was in Chinatown and it's gone now.

Pam

[ZenSojourner]

I started cooking and sewing when I was 6. By the time "Home Ec" rolled around, it was a ridiculous waste of time for me. In cooking, the teacher made a big deal about NEVER CHANGING INGREDIENTS in a recipe. So I just lied, and said the recipe called for whatever ingredients I felt like using. Turned out fine. In fact, the only failure I had in that class was a recipe I followed slavishly (for cake, turned out to be from a WW2 cookbook that was skimping on eggs, sugar and butter because of war time shortages).

Sewing was pretty much the same - total waste of time for me. I picked an easy pattern with some challenging details and the teacher tried to talk me out of it (reversible poncho with some fancy embellishments you had to do by hand - yeah, it was the 70's). Again, it turned out fine and I spent most of the class period working on my macrame because I finished my "difficult" project early.

You should have heard the screaming when I put my foot down the next year - 8th grade - and insisted I wanted to take SHOP. After fighting and the intervention of my dad, they "let" me take photography.

Can you imagine a world where "photography" would be considered solely a male occupation? I was the first girl ever to take that class.

PS - They DO make oven cleaner, you know. Given the chemicals in that stuff (rubber gloves are de rigeur) I guarantee there's no oven scurf scary enough to live up to them. And I've seen scary ovens - before I whupped 'em into shape.

Even if it did take 3 cans of Easy Off.

[GLC1968]

You know, I don't think I ever took 'home ec'. I did take a cooking class in highschool, but that was mostly because it fit my schedule and sounded like fun. By then, I had already learned from my mom the golden rule "if you can read, you can cook".

Funny, same thing applied to sewing for me, too. And aparently, milking a goat and delivering it's babies when they come out wrong...

My mom was always teaching my brother how to cook things because he was always asking. Me, not so much. I lived on my own for so long after college that I learned to cook by trial and error. I did eat an awful lot of cereal for dinner until I got the hang of it.

Now I can't say that I really enjoy cooking, but I do enjoy eating home cooked food, so that means cooking now and again.

[Trek420]

it bewilders me when even some people, ie. single, childless women /men who complain "how much time" it takes to cook at home. Really? Scrambling eggs for 1 person with some cut veggies and onion is not a huge effort. Under 10 min. Same for a totally different dish of washing, cutting and sauteeing Chinese green leafy veggies in a bit of oil and 1 small of soy sauce. Same amount of time for this side vegetable dish.

We who live in urban areas have access to fresh produce, or are able to grow our own, we who have creative and or ethnic foods and the knowledge and time to learn how to use and enjoy them, wealth and leisure to explore and shop around for the perfectly ripe summer fruit .... we sometimes forget that whole sections of our cities, sometimes whole towns do not have access to grocery stores.

My own wife grew up so poor that though there was a grocery store nearby the family could not shop there, instead sometimes surviving off charity from a church and often raiding the dumpster behind the store. It's impossible to get fresh produce under those conditions. It isn't laziness that keeps people from cooking and prevents them from being scorned by wealthy home cooks, it is poverty.

I never felt poverty or hunger as a child, living on a farm food abounds. Besides our crops we always had a garden and bartered what we did not grow with neighboring farms. But when I asked my Mom & Dad why we supported the UFW (United Farm Workers) since we owned a farm they replied something like "we are in the same boat. We earn about the same. The only difference is we own the land". So we were very poor, I never knew it.

In the Bay Area, where I formerly worked as a chef, large areas still lack grocery stores. They have liquor stores or fast food. Grocery stores and banks do not go to these areas. Working class and urban poor sometimes working 2 jobs are not going to be able to go to the farm market and fast food advertises as the friend of the busy and/or working poor "got a buck? you're in luck".

I'm glad to see a growing (pun intended) movement of non-profit groups literally bringing farms and fresh produce to urban areas.

Rather than criticize others for not eating in the way we are truly blessed and privileged to enjoy, I hope we can all support, donate and/or volunteer for groups bringing gardens to needy areas. Here are just a few:

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.734899/

[PamNY]

We who live in urban areas have access to fresh produce, or are able to grow our own, we who have creative and or ethnic foods and the knowledge and time to learn how to use and enjoy them, wealth and leisure to explore and shop around for the perfectly ripe summer fruit .... we sometimes forget that whole sections of our cities, sometimes whole towns do not have access to grocery stores.

This is a very good and important point. I was glad to see NYC is at least documenting this problem. You don't want to know what I said to friends and neighbors who think we are among the underserved -- I guess because the store with the best kiwi fruit doesn't stay open 24/7? What will come of the survey, I don't know, but at least the issue is being addressed

One good thing -- farmer's markets are available in most neighborhoods. I've even seen chickens in community gardens. We still need plain old grocery stores with reasonable prices available to everyone.

Pam