on watching Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food

"Good food and good eating aren't a class thing -- anyone can eat good food on a budget as long as they know how to cook." 
-- Jamie Oliver

While flipping channels one night, Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food show in TLC caught my attention. Being culinarily challenged myself, I could relate with the people featured on the telly. In the episode I watched, Jamie gathered together people in Rotherham who had no clue about how to cook (one didn't even know what boiling water looked like!) and who relied on take-away dinners to feed their families. They reminded me of Master Shifu's statement at the very beginning of Po's training in Kung Fu Panda (the first movie): "There is now a Level Zero."

As I watched the episode, I thought that I fare a little better than these people because I do know how to cook rice, pancakes, and scrambled eggs... and a few others. I had my first taste of cooking (simmer meats and cut vegetables, really) by assisting my mom in the kitchen (though I always successfully disappear when I'd be assigned to deep fry meats... I never got over my fear of splattering cooking oil). Remember "Wok with Yan", "Cooking It Up with the Dazas", and that Chinese cooking show on RPN 9 after the Sunday morning Chinese action movies? Well, I was a fan of those too. 

Despite knowing enough to survive on food that I cook up, I previously opted to eat burgers, chips, and soda (don't forget the chocolate chip cookies!) when I was a grad student. My reason, similar to Jamie Oliver's students, was that buying take-away is much much easier than cooking my own food... well, until I got quite sick and was forced to three days' worth of bed rest.

Watching the cluelessness in Jamie's students made me wonder, aren't there home economics classes in Great Britain where the students are taught how to prepare weekly healthy-food menus?

By the end of the episode, the students were nothing short of amazing. From clueless fast food fans to confident cooks!

If they could do it, so could I. How hard could following instructions from a cookbook be, right?

Right?

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

How MALDI-TOF-MS makes mycobacterium diagnosis faster and more accurate

The laboratory I work in has plenty of instruments that help us characterise and identify microorganisms causing diseases in patients. One of my current projects is to validate an instrument called "matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometer" (MALDI-TOF-MS) in identifying members of the Mycobacterium  species. Many of these organisms are opportunistic, meaning they only cause illnesses in people whose immune systems are not strong enough to fight infections. Mycobacterium leprae  is known for causing leprosy, but we cannot grow this bacterium in culture media, so we cannot isolate it. Mycobacterium tuberculosis  complex, on the other hand, is a group of several species of Mycobacterium  that causes tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a disease that killed 1.6 million people in 2021 alone. It is a leading cause of death globally, second only to COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Identifying the Mycobacterium species that has infected a patient is
Read more

a crash course on traditional Filipino houses

Image
On Dr Jose Rizal's birthday this year, I was back in historic Manila with Ate Bing, Ate Mary , and Manuel . But instead of visiting him, we opted to soak up on Philippine culture. Our first stop: the Cultural Center of the Philippines ' (CCP) Museo ng Kalinangang Pilipino .  Aside from the musical instruments, I noticed the dioramas about Filipino homes. Filipinos living by the sea (the 'sea gypsies', Sama Dilaut or Badjao ) have boathouses; those who live in the mountains, like the Bagobos , have developed interconnected houses in the trees; Filipinos who live along the path of the strongest typhoon winds, such as the Ivatans , have developed houses of thick limestone walls; and people who live in calmer conditions used bamboo and nipa to construct their houses, like the lowlanders and the Agtas . Sama Dilaut 'lepa' and houses on stilts (in the background) Ivatan limestone house nipa hut Ifugao 'fale' Maranao '
Read more