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unqualified-advice-blog · 3 years

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Cooking Tips (Especially on a time & money budget)

These are things I wish I had known when I started having to cook for myself.

1. Read the recipe completely before beginning to buy ingredients/plan to make it. Often recipes will require strange gadgets that you might not have in your kitchen that won’t be apparent in the ingredients list.

2. Don’t plan on making something unless you know you can find all the ingredients at your local store or can make reasonable substitutions. (I know this sounds like a no-brainer but I have made this mistake multiple times and it has sucked every one of them.)

3. Freeze meals and leftovers. I cannot stress enough how much food I have saved from going bad & saved myself having to order out at the last minute by doing this. Freeze any leftovers you think you might not be able to eat before they go bad. The best way to do this is to buy single serving plastic tupperware so you only need re-heat the amount you need for a meal.

4. Find recipes for one-pot meals that have a) plenty of spices, b) protein, veggies, and grains, and c) can easily be frozen. Soups, chilis, pasta sauces, curries, and casseroles all come to mind here. Having lots of spices helps the recipe be filling and just makes it better in general. Also, feel free to add more spices than the recipe calls for if it doesn’t seem like enough.

5. Find recipes that have cheap, shelf-stable ingredients. Again, soups, chilis, pasta sauces, curries, and casseroles are great for this because their ingredients heavily feature canned goods (tomatoes, beans), frozen vegetables, or dried pasta/rice etc.

6. Beware recipes that aren’t a full meal. A lot of traditionally American cooking relies on multiple dishes: eg, a protein, a grain, and a veggie that are all cooked separately. As such, many recipes are only protein, only grain, or only veggie.

7. If you are just starting out, estimate the amount of time it will take to make the recipe and then multiply it by three. Have a friend on hand or on the phone to be able to answer questions you might have during the cooking process. Try to be patient with yourself - everyone goes through a learning curve with cooking.

8. Get out all ingredients at the beginning so they are ready to hand. Chop any vegetables you need and keep them off to the side for when you need them.

9. Clean as you go - if you are done with an ingredient, put it away. If you are done with a dish, wash it. If this is too much for you, designate a “this is where the stuff I’m done with goes” area where you unceremoniously pile all used ingredients and dishes. This should never be the sink - you should always keep the sink clear when cooking.

10. Don’t force yourself to finish cleaning right after you’ve eaten if you can at all help it. Give yourself about a half an hour to digest and enjoy having finished cooking & eating.

VEGETARIAN COOKING

11. If you have any anxiety about bacteria or find it difficult to maintain a clean kitchen, COOK VEGETARIAN. It is an additional learning curve, but there are plenty of reasonably priced meat substitutes available on the market that are pretty good. As with everything, there are pluses and minuses to vegetarian vs meat cooking, but the big plus here is that you don’t have to manage what has come in contact with raw meat when cooking vegetarian. That being said...

12. When cooking vegetarian, double or triple the amount of fat the recipe calls for. Most vegetarian recipes (in the US) are written by meat eaters who classify this as a “diet” recipe and therefore don’t list enough fat and salt to make the recipe actually taste good. Vegetarian proteins don’t have the natural fat that animal proteins do, so especially if you are cooking with a ground beef substitute, you will need to add more oil as the ground beef substitute will absorb a large amount of it.

13. When searching for vegetarian recipes, it’s good to start out with recipes in Asian cuisine. These often will be one-pot recipes over rice and might not be as easy to freeze, but they often have the benefit of originating as vegetarian recipes instead of being adapted from a meat-based recipe. However, many ingredients and tools in these recipes might not be easily available to Americans, so be extra careful here.

14. Vegetarian cooking has the downside that it might not give you the same long-lasting energy that a meat-based diet does. You can address this by a) swapping vegetarian meals with meat-based ones depending on when during the day you might need the energy or b) keeping protein-rich snacks to hand like nuts or protein bars.

15. However, vegetarian proteins often have the upside of being extremely shelf-stable. They are either vacuum sealed in packages that will last months, dried, or frozen. This makes them much easier to keep stocked than animal proteins, which often expire within a week.

ADVANCED TECHNIQUE

16. Once you have explored cooking for a while, try to find/choose three recipes that you can memorize and keep a majority of the ingredients for stocked in your pantry or freezer for when you haven’t been able to plan ahead.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Financially disadvantaged millennials and gen zs often don’t have the luxury of enjoying the process of cooking and eating food. Many of our parents did not teach us how to cook, and there is a paucity of resources geared toward helping beginner adults understand how to cook. I was lucky that my mom did teach me how to chop vegetables, what things go together, etc., and it was genuinely surprising to me to watch one of my friends who did not have this advantage greatly struggle with cooking. He has been cooking actively for almost three years now and still becomes extremely anxious whenever he has to do so.

The cooking culture that has developed over the past 70(?) years is almost universally useless to us. Food has been marketed to within an inch of our lives as diet products, expensive indulgences, or status symbols. Most mainstream food culture is aggressively white and upperclass - see the cottagecore aesthetic. On the other hand, areas with majority minority population are way more likely to be food deserts (not have easily accessible grocery stores) and have attempts at community gardens bleached and destroyed by “law” enforcement. I fall sort of in the middle of these extremes: I am lucky enough to live in a nice area with an many easily accessible high quality and bargain grocery stores. Even with these advantages (and being trained from an early age), I find cooking extremely annoying, time consuming, and anxiety inducing.

I would be remiss if I didn’t address the fatphobia in many cooking spaces as well. Food is marketed as a diet product, which is ridiculous. See this post for a better take down of this than I could come up with. Food is something your body needs to survive, and it is ALWAYS BETTER TO EAT SOMETHING THAN TO EAT NOTHING, NO MATTER WHAT THAT SOMETHING IS. If your breakfast is a donut, that’s better than not eating breakfast. Try to eat a balanced diet with veggies, protein, and carbs (the one-pot meals help with this), but if you ever encounter ANYTHING in the world that is shaming you for what you put in your body, walk the other way, they are lying and trying to sell you something.

In general, the theory I agree with the most is the set point theory of weight: your body has a natural “resting weight” that fluctuates as you age and your body changes. Deviating significantly from this “resting weight” is extremely difficult and oven very very unhealthy. Your “resting weight” is largely determined by genetic factors and has nothing to do with your behavior. The “obesity epidemic” is a myth that has been perpetuated by drug companies and diet companies for profit and has done an extreme amount of harm to the livelihoods of fat people who often do not see their medical needs met properly because the doctor simply diagnoses them as “fat” and investigates no further.

All of this is a bit more big-picture and outside of the scope of your control, but I bring it up to contextualize that your struggles with cooking are in many ways not a personal failing but caused by broader social failings. Also, a lot of people are literally trained by our culture to be anxious around food, so if this is how you feel, again, it is not your fault and while it is common, it is not “normal” or “good” to feel this way. Anxiety around food is something you should work to overcome, not encourage in yourself. That said, the mental and physical practices you must undertake to get as good at cooking as you need to will take a lot of time to develop. Try to be patient with yourself and hang on to the moments of progress: you’ll get there eventually <3.

#cooking #advice #budget #tw food #tw fatphobia mention #tw eating #idk really how tw tags work please please tell me if i'm doing it wrong or need to add anything #vegetarian #listicle?#please love yourself bb i'm so sorry that food is such a garbage thing to exist #long post #my post #i cant remember my own tags oh well

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survivingthelion-blog · 7 years

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A Sister’s Glance into Asperger’s - Alicia Hughes

Will: Age 4 Will floats down the tiled walkway of Best Buy. He makes whooshing noises as he weaves in-between shoppers with huge shopping carts. His homemade cape sails behind him as he gleefully pretends to be a superhero. He’s enjoying himself, even though a few minutes ago he was whining that his legs hurt. The image makes me recall the disaster we had last week when he had to go without it. We’d gone out with my Aunt Jen to Target to look at things Will would want for his birthday. Will was in a phase where everywhere we went he liked to pretend he was a super hero. My mom, seeing nothing wrong with a little imagination, had made him a cape out of my Dad’s old pillowcase with the letters “SW” (standing for Super Will) on the back in blue painters tape. He didn’t leave the house without it. So, of course, when we went to Walmart he insisted that he would wear his cape. My Aunt Jen was staunchly against this. I can vividly imagine how she frankly told my mother so when he first started wearing the cape around. “Do you let him wear that when you go out?” “Yeah of course. He loves it.” My Aunt Jen scoffs, “It’s a little silly don’t you think?” “He is four you know, he’s a little kid. He’s just having fun.” This seemed to quickly put an end of that conversation. But now, with our Mom not here, it was her grounds and her rules. And the last thing she was going to do was have Will walk down the aisles of Target wearing his cape. “You’re not wearing that into the store, Will. Leave it in the house.” She stood with her hands on her hips in front of the door. “No!” I can tell he’s starting to get upset, as his face turns red and mouth starts to turn downward into a pout. “Will, I’m not taking you into the store in that ridiculous cape. You look silly!” “No! No! No!” Will stomps his foot, as tears start to drip down his face, “It’s mine! No!” He’s starting to shake and I can tell a tantrum is coming. Will throws himself on the ground, kicking his legs and slamming his fists into the hardwood. He screams and sobs for fifteen minutes while my aunt stands there, trying to talk him out of the tantrum. “Will, you’re acting like a two-year-old. Do you want me to call your father? Do you think he’ll be happy with this? Four-year-olds don’t throw tantrums like this.” She reaches down to pick him up from the ground. Will is having none of that though, instead he turns and bites her arm. “Will!” She’s furious, I can see it in her eyes, “Jesus you don’t bite! That’s it I’m calling your father.” Later that night was the first time I heard a label put on Will. At seven, the term “anxiety disorder” didn’t have any impact on me. I had no clue what an anxiety disorder was, let alone that they’re the most common psychiatric disability in adults and children with approximately 40 million American adults suffering from one. When I was told that Will was going to go see a doctor I’d been confused. “Is Will sick?” “Not exactly, baby. Will’s just a little different than some of us and needs help from a different kind of doctor.” I had no clue this doctor was actually a psychiatrist.

Will: Age 7 At ten years old I’m not particularly thrilled to be going to some stuffy Christmas party where there would be more grownups than kids. But nevertheless I hurriedly climb out of our car and onto the pavement when we arrive at the party. The ground is dusted in snow, making the light from the streetlamps cast a glow across the entire neighborhood. As we walk up the sidewalk to the house my Dad goes over manners as he always does with Will. “…And what do we do if we don’t like the food they’re giving us? Will?” “Don’t complain?” He mumbles shuffling his feet through the slush. “You got it bud. Let’s work on remembering to try to look a person in the eye when they’re talking to you okay?” Will nods his head resolutely. “Alright.” We finally reach the front door and Will is excited to push the doorbell. My Dad gives him a look that says ‘you better only push it once’ and he listens, Will reaches up and pushes in the white plastic oval only once. The door opens with Mrs. Jenneve on the other side. She ushers us all inside with an “It’s lovely to see you all!” following it up with “How have you been?” But before my parents have time to answer Will speaks up. “It smells in here.” He pinches his nose between his forefinger and his thumb. As it always does, my face heats up and my cheeks stain red. I nudge him in the side with my elbow “Will!” I whisper yell at him. He scrunches his face up at me in confusion mouthing, “What?” “It’s probably the food you’re smelling. I made a ham and a roast.” Mrs. Jenneve laughs through the incident, trying to play it off “I’ve been cooking all day it feels like! Jeff spent all morning…” I glance up at my parents as Mrs. Jenneve recounts the incident Mr. Jenneve had with the snow blower this morning. I can tell they’re both relieved she didn’t take Will’s comment the wrong way but I know that this will definitely be brought up later.

Will: Age 10 With July in full swing, I’m glad to finally be able to lie around all day in the air-conditioned house. For most kids, summer vacation is a much-needed getaway from the monotonous school lessons and homework. Not for Will. He’s been struggling with his reading, failing to reach his grade level in reading tests again and again. This is the second time I hear a label put on Will. When I’m told Will has Dyslexia, it’s something I understand. I’ve been told about it in passing at school, about how some kids can’t read because the letters and number get all jumbled up in their head. This time I can even acutely relate to Will, as I’m still struggling to choose the right way to write ‘b’ and ‘d’s and ‘w’ and ‘m’s at thirteen. After receiving no help from his teachers, my mom decides to take Will to a tutor. Mrs. Parish is a solidly built woman with gleaming black hair and sharp eyes. I can tell even from the first meeting that she’s the perfect fit for Will. She takes his out bursts in stride and can talk him out of a negative state of mind. She can coax him into finishing just about any assignment most of the time, with her gentle voice and firm teaching. Will is particularly defeated today, staring gloomily at the words on the page that he just can’t put together to form a sentence. “It’s too hard. There’s too much left in this book, I can’t do it.” “Don’t think about it like that. Just take it page-by-page, chapter-by-chapter. If you only think about how much you have left you’ll just get discouraged. Tackle it piece by piece, instead of trying to handle it all at once.” Will went from reading at a 1st grade level to a 3rd grade level by that October.

Will: Age 12 The new school year is something Will always struggles with. Desperate to hang on to his sleep schedule and nonstop video game marathons, it always takes him at least a month to get back in the swing of things. This year he’s especially struggling with it. I’ve been hearing my parents have hushed conversations lately. They talk about pulling Will out of the private grade school that I had graduated from and that Will still attends. It’s gotten bad this year; the school won’t offer any of Will’s 504 accommodations. They yell at him for reading his tests out loud, but refuse to place him in a separate testing room. Will is struggling more than ever to keep up with the homework without any of the help he needs. After long nights of deliberating, they decide to transfer him to the public middle school at the end of September. Before Will starts his new school, my Mom decides Will should be reevaluated, that he probably needs more than a 504 plan. This is the third and final time I hear a label put on Will. As a sophomore in high school, I’m not very familiar with the label “Asperger’s Syndrome”, but when I do a quick search of it through Google I recognize the listed behaviors: • limited or inappropriate social interactions • challenges with nonverbal communication coupled with average to above average verbal skills • inability to understand social/emotional issues or nonliteral phrases • lack of eye contact or reciprocal conversation • obsession with specific, often unusual, topics • awkward movements and/or mannerisms Will doesn’t take this label in stride as he did with the others, resenting a label that puts him on the autism spectrum. He’s furious to have to be in different classes than other students, desperate to not be labeled dumb. “Everyone in class is so dumb” he crosses his arms, “It’s too slow.” “It’s not forever, Will. If you work to reach your goals you can go back to a 504 plan instead of an IEP.” My Mom tries to explain to him, but he doesn’t listen. They continue arguing for another hour before my Dad gets frustrated enough to send him to his room. Soon enough I find out through my research into this new label that people who have one disability often times have other disabilities paired with it. I realize that even though Will has dyslexia and suffered through an anxiety disorder that these labels were all really different pieces of this new one.

Will: Age 16 As Will and I check out his schedule for his Junior year, it’s surreal to see AP Chemistry and AP American History printed underneath his name. Will may not be able to write a solid essay but he sure as hell can memorize facts, a talent that shines through in both history and chemistry. Today we drive along the 77 towards Darien Lake on our way to Warped Tour, something he’d been looking forward to for a month. We talk about the future, classes for his senior year and where he wants to go to college. As we sail by trees and cornfields, Will turns to me. “Hey Annie want to hear an interesting fact?” “Not really.” I say at first, tired of hearing irrelevant facts I have no interest in but cave in after seeing Will deflate. “Alright go ahead. What is it?” Will grins, “Did you know Karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese?” “Really? No I didn’t, that’s interesting.” And Will’s face lights up in a smile while he goes into the meaning of other words in foreign languages. I nod along not really listening but letting him go on his random tangent, embracing what makes him different.

Alicia Hughes Nonfiction Oswego, N.Y.

#nonfiction #literature #writing #personal #oswego #new york #literary #publishing #journal #small journal #aspergers #autism #siblings #brother #sister #family #values

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