This was my final week. I continued to prepare (or help prepare) dinner – which has now become a daily routine! – during the week, and concluded my 50-week journey with the giant shortbread cookie recipe I had found on Tasty.
“Japanese style pasta” has become a regular menu on our dinner table. This consists of pork strips, carrots, okra, shimeji mushrooms and capsicum, dressed with soy sauce.
Having done the 50 weeks, I became to realise that preparing dinner really challenged and helped improve my ability to instantly adjust to changes and unplanned situations. This is because there were many times where I had to change the menu I had initially scheduled in my mind, due to being late from school, being short on ingredients… or simply because of being tired. I also believe this challenged my creativity a lot, as I would often “create” a dish after examining what I have in the fridge. As such, cooking was, unexpectedly, a significant activity which helped me nurture my management and adaptation skills, as well as creativity and skill to improvise.
Other than my usual dinner preparation, I decided to bake these two giant shortbread cookies as finale. The one on the left is strawberry jam stuffed, while the right is mixed with chocolate chips. Instead of the usual white flour as mentioned on the recipe, I decided to swap two-thirds with wholemeal flour. This added on a crispy scent and crusty texture, which is what I favour.
Throughout the 50 weeks, I truly enjoyed cooking as an opportunity for me to take a break from academics or exercises. I realised that cooking is not just simply following the recipe – which I had been mostly doing at the beginning -, but is to be creative and adjust, according to personal favours. By cooking my own meals, knowing the ingredients and being in control of the portions, I believe I have become more conscious of my health. In addition, this reflection process made me constantly look back at my self, and recognise my small progresses. I believe this is a very important skill which can be applied to anything in life, and feel that it was a great preparation for the CAS reflections next year in the IB course. Finally, of course, cooking is a skill which would become useful for me in the future. This was a great opportunity for me to experience first hand, and acquire this essential skill.
