Post one! COOKING

Cooking:

Hello and welcome to the 2nd part of both this paper and my blog. This semesters Participation in Occupation 2 paper focuses on my own personal reflections and experiences involved with an activity of my choice. In week one of this course we were asked to brainstorm a number of activities that we currently so that were meaningful to us. The activity that i have chosen to work with throughout this blog and reflection process is cooking - In particular cooking a stir fry.

I decided fairly easily that I was going to choose cooking, as it is something which regularly participate in and enjoy doing. For me personally cooking and preparing food provides me with a sense of self-satisfaction and reward and i often use it as a means of social engagement. On average i would spend 4 hours a week cooking a meal and 8 or so hours prepping a meal. I have chosen to do stir fry in particular as this is a meal that i commonly prepare for my flatmates, family and friends as it is a quick, tasty and easy meal that can be slightly altered in various ways to suit peoples likes and dislikes.

I think it is fair to say that I was a late bloomer when it comes to preparing and cooking my own meals. Throughout my childhood I was brought up in a home in which each night, had meat and three veg chosen and cooked by my mother. I think this is why I now enjoy cooking so much as it is still a fairly new and vital skill which i am constantly developing my knowledge and gaining new skills in. One of the things that I love most about cooking stir frys is that you can put anything in and do what ever you feel like and normally it turns out ok. In relation to this I also enjoy learning new things and tricks about cooking and looking at meals from other cultures to increase my knowledge base.

One of the main things that I have to take into consideration when cooking is the cost of a meal and its value for money. This is due to being a student and having an extremely limited income.

Below is a video of an individual cooking a beef stir fry. Despite this is in a different language it provides a clear indication of exactly how global stir fry’s are and how simple they are to make.