I find one of the most rewarding things about teaching cooking is seeing the sense of achievement in the clients as they produce good food. This is doubly rewarding when they are beginners or unconfident cooks.
I have taught many beginners, of all ages and experience and there are many different barriers that people face in cooking. Ironically it is often the people who are not confident in cooking are also reluctant to book a Beginner’s class as they don’t feel they are good enough to join a class.
Cooking is one of those skills that we are expected to have. Women in particular are expected to be able to cook, however increasingly men also find they have to cook for themselves.
We may have had a taste (sorry!) of cooking at school through Home Economics, as it was known in the dim and distant past, or Food Tech as it’s called these days. However, I remember “Home Ec” classes being pretty boring, not particularly practical and the food we produced not something I’d repeat at home (it was the late ‘70s).
There are so many influences on our relationship with food including family background, culture and health, even our understanding where food comes from and when, will have some impact on our willingness to cook. Government information and TV shows will give us all sorts of information that can contradict and confuse us.
All is not lost! Our “Introduction to Cooking” course is designed to be a friendly and safe place to learn. We limit the number of clients in a class so our experienced chef-teacher can devote their time and attention to each person. We explain what we are doing and why, taking away some of the mystique, as well as giving lots of hints and tips and answering any questions. The class takes place in a large domestic kitchen so there is no scary industrial equipment. We teach a range of delicious recipes that build on the skills learnt during the day, and that can be easily replicated at home.
There is such great satisfaction and reward in seeing beginners or people who think they can’t cook, realising they can, losing the fear they had and gaining confidence. A memorable occasion for me was at a recent class. Two clients, one a highly successful business woman the other a recently widowed gentleman, I taught them how to cut an onion correctly. They said if that was the only thing they had learnt that day, it had made their life complete!
The Cooking Academy provides a variety of courses and our chef tutors provide advice and information on the nutritional benefits of ingredients and seasoning. Click on the link for details of our Introduction to Cooking class
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Kumud Gandhi is a Nutritional Food Scientist bestselling Author, Broadcaster, and Keynote Speaker on the subject of nutritional health for productivity & performance in the workplace. In 2010 Kumud founded ‘The Cooking Academy’ a cookery school that focusses on cooking for nutritional health and wellbeing. Kumud regularly presents to international audiences on a variety of topics such as ‘Eating for Immunity and a Lifetime of Wellness’. She is an expert in the field of Wellness in the Workplace and works with organizations to create transformational change in employee health & well-being through nutrition and health coaching.
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