The end of yet another Blog :)

Another brief touch on ambience

Ambience is described as a feeling or mood associated with a particular place, person or thing (Sunderland, 2010). After pondering this, I came to the conclusion that my own ambience is a large part of the reason behind why I choose to cook. As can be seen through my previous posts I love to cook and gain a lot of enjoyment out of doing so. Cooking has become a way in which I relax as it helps connect me to a number of past times and memories. It is due to these memories that cooking for me can easily be associated with person and place. Different meals create different memories for me. An example of this is when I cooked a bacon and egg bye not so long ago. This particular recipe is the one that my mother uses and makes to take away every Christmas on our holiday.

Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 [Lecture notes]. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.

purpose of cooking!

This week we looked at the need for the chosen activity within our life!

When this question was first asked, I sat and asked myself, what is the “need for cooking” within my life and the things that cam to mind were:

    -       Survival:  Without cooking and basic knowledge of food and preparation of food I would be unable to survive and function which would then ultimately lead to death over time.  Baines (2006) states that Humans need fuel to live, it provides energy the body needs to grow, stay warm and think.

-       Role fulfilment- This is not a relevant issue in my life thus far, however it is likely to be in the future when I have a family. As many people are aware it is the role of the parent to provide and produce cooked meals for their children in order for them to develop and live a healthy life style. Without knowledge of cooking and food we would be unable to fulfil this role.

These were my thoughts behind the "need" of my chosen occupation however as we all know by now there is always more knowledge revealed in class through group discussions and the knowledge of others.

I am going to put this into the context of last night’s meal that I cooked. I started to prepare my meal around 5.30pm this was done as I was hungry and I knew my flat mates were due to arrive home. This archives both of my initial thoughts regarding the purpose and need of cooking within my life. There was the basic need for survival in the fact that thosw whom I was preparing the meal for as well as myself were hungry and had come home from a hard day of study and we need to gain energy from good quality food. Looking at this example I also managed to fulfil my role as provider and flat mate carry out my duties and expectations that were held by my other flatmates.  

Along with this, cooking also has a need to fulfil my own personal feelings. This is meant in the terms that throughout my childhood I grew up having my meals prepared for me by my mum and it was not till I left home that I was able to cook for myself. Cooking leads to the feeling of independence and I also enjoy the feeling that I can learn more from cooking meals for others and cooking international and unfamiliar meals as they provide challenging occupations within my life.

Comments and references

Comment 1
Jo's Blog
http://jooneill.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-i-have-been-up-to.html?showComment=1319279222869#c3430321508470950355

Comment 2:
Lucy's Blog:
http://lucyanderson111.blogspot.com/2011/09/m.html?showComment=1319279659724#c3253107772530820280

Comment 3:
Jazz's blog
http://participationinoccupationbyjaz.blogspot.com/2011/10/day-at-work.html#comments

Comment 4:
Leigh's blog:
 http://leighmillward.blogspot.com/2011/10/affordances.html?showComment=1319280851159#c7713465654467611128

References

Dul, J. & Weerdmeester, B. (2008). Ergonomics for beginners: A quick reference guide. kohoho(3^rd ed.). Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor & Francis


Green, T.F. (1968) Work, leisure and The American schools. New York: Random House

Bryant, W. & McKay E. (2005). 'What’s cooking? Theory and Practice in the kitchen. kohohoBritish Journal of Occupational Therapy, 68(2), 67-74.

Stewart, D. Law M. (2003) The environment: paradigms and practice in health, occupational kohohotherapy ad inquiry. In: L Letts, P Rigby, D Stewart, eds. Using environments to enable kohohooccupational performance. Thorofare, NJ: Slack, 219-34

Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 [Lecture notes]. kohohoDunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.

Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tools for practice in occupational therapy: A structures approach to kohohocore skills and processes. London: Churchill Livingstone.

practical considerations

Things I need to think about when carrying out cooking:

Ingredients - As a student I am limited to what I am able to cook, due to the budget that my flatmates and I set in regards to what ingrediants we can purchase. Thus the meal is determined by what we have.
Space -My flat has a very small kitchen, this makes timing important as it is difficult to have more than one person in the kitchen at a time, also there is minimal bench space.
Equipment - Once again as a student flat our equipment is always going to be limited however I have the option of borrowing stuff off mum if I really need something.

Time - Cooking a meal can be a very time consuming exercise. The meals that I choose to cook normally depend on the time frame in which I have to make them.

Consumers - My boyfriend and flat mates.

Budget: Finding the cheapest deals and sticking to a budget will influence the meals that are being cooked and any decisions made on the purchasing of ingrediants .

Labour

The main focus of this lecture was on labour. This lecture was hugely relevant to my topic of cooking. Labour has a huge relationship with cooking as it is placed under this heading as opposed to work and play due to the simple fact that we need to cook in order to prepare food in which to eat, stay health and stay alive therefore making it an extremely essential necessity  of life. (Sunderland, 2010).This was one of the biggest things that I took from this lecture because in the past I have understood labour to be something that I did not enjoy doing and that was both energy and time consuming

Green (1968), describes the relationship between labour and food as "the gathering of nourishment, however, is not only necessary; it is also endless. Once done, it must be done again. Answering as it does to the requirements of life itself, it can end only with the end of life. The purpose of this activity is to provide for the seeds of consumption: food is taken from the earth, after all, in order to be consumed". This quote also backs up the content that was involved within the lecture. Labour that is carried out generally leaves no trace, because they have to be done over and over again in order to exist. This is clearly relevant within cooking .It involves the extremely repetitive processes of cooking ,  one cooks a meal only to have to cook again when one is hungry or when demands are expected to fulfil a role for example a house wife has need s to meet. Once the meal is consumed there is nothing to show for it except a satisfied tummy of the people who ate the meal.

Green, T.F. (1968) Work, leisure and The American schools. New York: Random House.

 

Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 [Lecture notes]. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.

Affordances

In order to discuss affordances within my topic of cooking I have decided to reflect on the last time that I could a decent meal.  Hagedorn (2000) states that Affordance is anything which the environment can offer the individual which is pertinent to the role challenge and can facilitate role competence. I fell that Hagedorn explains affordance in a complex way and I personal understanding of affordance is anything that can be taken or gained from an activity in my personal case cooking. The last meal that I prepared was a beef stir fry this was made for both myself and flatmates to enjoy. This meal took around 30min to prepare so in the scale of things was a fairly quick and easy meal .

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is the potential implicit in the activity for the person to express and enhance a sense of beauty

 

for me cooking is away to stay in touchwith my creative side. beauty of cooking is enhanced by the meal selection and the time and effot that is set aside. garnishing and utilising smells is a good way that i create beauty within my cooking.

Communication:

Cooking is an activity that can express a lot about oneself and is an activity that can incorporate a lot of various forms of communication. Is it important for individuals to communicate when cooking occurs as we are all individuals and all have our own personalised likes and dislikes that must be considered when preparing and cooking meals for others.   For this particular meal communication was key in both meal preparation and also the actual cooking of the meal as both my flatmate and I were preparing the meal together and my flatmate does not eat a lot of foods. It was my responsibility to ensure that communication was in place so that we could agree on a meal that we could both cook and enjoy.  Communication can also be seen through the ways in which I prepare meals. This knowledge has been gained through years of teaching and communication handed down though out my family.

Cooking is essential for my wellbeing in two different ways. The first one is that do to the fact that I spent a lot of time involved in physical activity  it essential that I am preparing good quality meals and gaining the life skills to do this now as they will be essential in future years in order to fulfil roles such as wife and mother. It is also essential for my wellbeing as I find this to be an extremely enjoyable activity when I set aside time do fully prepare and entertain people.  

Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tools for practice in occupational therapy: A structures approach to core skills and processes. London: Churchill Livingstone

Here is a brief intro of how an object can differ for many indviduals and differences can be gained.