Welcome to the first day of Foods and Nutrition 1

When you're in the kitchen do you feel like Lindsay Bluth-Funke,

 

Or Carl Weathers??

Whatever your skill level I am here to help! If you were in my classroom, I'd make you watch Lindsay cook and list the good and the bad about what she does. You can do that on your own. I counted 5 good and 5 bad.

Answers:
Lindsay:
-She wore an apron! (yay! An apron is for more than protecting your clothes from food, it's about protecting the food from your clothes. Just think about how many kids you hug, dirty laundry you carry in your arms, push-ups you do on a dirty floor... your clothes are germy and you don't want those germs in your food)

-Using appropriate pot (there's a lot of soup, I mean hot ham water, the pot is big enough to hold it. When choosing pots, you don't want it to full since it might boil over. Her's might be too small but it's pretty big. She probably has too much water but we'll give this one to her.  You don't want it too small because it's too easy to burn.

-Handles turned the right way (this is more important with saucepans because they have longer handles  but again, I'm really giving this girl the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to bump a handle sticking out or for a child to grab it and pull it down)

-Using appropriate long handled wooden spoon (The spoon is long enough to get to the bottom of the pot. This way she can be sure that no ham will burn to the bottom.)

-Using hot pads (almost everybody has forgotten to use a hot pad before. It hurts.

Bad:
-Opened lid toward herself (Steam gets a LOT hotter than water. To avoid burn, open lid slowly and away from you so the steam doesn't touch you.

-Hair down (This should go without saying, pull your hair back. Unless your family enjoys a strand or two in their meal... I keep a clip on my apron so I always have something available to hold my hair back)

-Long sleeves (probably not as big of a problem in your own home as it was with 9th graders, but just think about everything your sleeves touch, usually the same as your hands, and you wash your hands throughout the day but not your sleeves. Baggy jacket/sweater sleeves are the worst! At least hers were tight)

-In the second segment she is stirring with a spoon rest. (It's important to use each utensil properly and for what it was intended for)

-Serves Buster with the same spoon she's stirring with. (If you're going to do this, you might as well just spit in the food before serving it. It's the same thing. Gross. If you need to taste test it, use a spoon- only once. Get a new spoon each taste test.)

Did you catch anything I missed?

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

Do you ever feel Home Wrecked??? According to Google (with a little help from me):

wreck  

/rek/

Noun The destruction of sanity at home; a homewreck.

Verb Cause the destruction of (sanity) by family or life in general.

Synonyms noun.   ruin - wreckage - homewreck - destruction - insane person-  verb.   ruin - destroy - demolish - shatter - smash - homewreck

If you fall into that category, then this blog is for you!!

I'm just curious, how often do you use Avagadros number in everyday life? Or actually need to know all 50 State Capitals? Or what was so special about Rembrandt's technique? I'm sure sometimes it feels like we spent years and years in school preparing us for the "real world" (which really just meant college) and yet, here I am, a college grad, in the real world, not really using any of my AP Human Geography knowledge. Not that there was much of that to begin with. I got a 1 on the test. But I digress. I want to clarify- I AM NOT PUTTING DOWN ANY TYPE OF EDUCATION BY ANY MEANS. (For the record I do use Algebra every time I go to the store. Especially when  calculating if it's worth spending more per pound on a leaner cut of beef.)  But I do feel like there were some gaping holes in a lot of people's education. For example, certain "core" subjects were and are required for everyone. I understand, those are important to know. But why are other subjects considered unimportant? I haven't found exact statistics but something like 47% of college grads go on to use math or science everyday in their careers (to be clear, I made up that number). However, more than 95% of people go on to be parents (Again, another made up number but I feel like it's a fair assumption that more people are parents than go into a scientific career). So why are the subjects that involve family life desperately left out of our education?   

So maybe you did take Home Ec/TLC in school but likely it was years ago and after a kid or two do you honestly remember how to sew a drawstring bag/pajama pants, or "cook" an orange julius? How about knowing how to hem a child's or husband's pants? How to create a family budget? Where to put that super-cute border up in your child's room? Or what are developmentally appropriate learning activities for children of all ages? How do you get your kid to eat more vegetables? How many extra calories do you actually need while pregnant? What the heck is gluten?

The point is- life is hard. Parenting is hard. I'm here to try and make it a little easier. I graduated in Family and Consumer Sciences Education (Home Ec). And while the joke commonly heard was "oh, so you're majoring to be a mom?" It's true! Yes I did!! Being a mom is crazy enough WITH the education I had, I can't imagine doing it any other way. 

So here's how this blog works. I'm a teacher and I will teach you things that I think are good to know as a parent. I will cover  5 categories: Foods & Nutrition, Child Development, Interior Design, Financial Literacy, and Clothing & Textiles. I will post a "lecture" of types and there will be assignments/challenges you can choose to do. If you have a request for a lesson, leave a comment or e-mail me.

Above you can see I have tabs to organize my posts for you. Constructive feedback is always appreciated (remember, even though the internet doesn't have feelings, the people using it do!)

Enjoy!
-Aimee