Write a 200 word reflection about your expectations, what you learned, and how the experience changes your views or how you will apply this knowledge in the future! Pick 1 of 2, or incorporate both. Post as a comment
Due: November 5 at 11:59pm
Write a 200 word reflection about your expectations, what you learned, and how the experience changes your views or how you will apply this knowledge in the future! Pick 1 of 2, or incorporate both. Post as a comment
Due: November 5 at 11:59pm
Hi!
I thought that the cooking class was such a fun experience for our class! I loved how we used food just from the farmers market and had no meat involved in our meal at all. I was expecting the food to be under cooked not have much taste. I was extremely delighted when the food was very good. Eggplant as a main dish was new to me too, and I ended up loving it and favoring it out of all the dishes. I also was a huge fan of the apple dish, personally a big apple fan. I like how we even made our dessert fruit-centered instead of just being sugary like typical sweets. Now I am going to have to recommend to my family that when we start cooking at home we need to have plant based meals, and also to start expanding our vegetable options because my family usually just sticks to the same couple of vegetables. Overall, the cooking class was a great experience and I hope we get at least one, if not more, opportunities to cook and/or eat with our class again, because not only was the food great, but our class environment while sitting at the table together was very positive and exciting.
The cooking class this past Thursday was a great experience. It was really fun to work together with our class and watch everyone combine their cooking skills to make a delicious meal. At the beginning, I really didn’t have high expectations for the meal’s outcome. I thought it would be good, but probably not great. But as we began cooking, I realized I was wrong. For the most part, I worked on the apple tart dessert. My group split up the different tasks so we each had a specific job. It was great to see our finished project and eat with the whole class. Everyone seemed to really enjoy all of the food cooked so it was awesome to see the work pay off. The pasta dish was great, the eggplant too. This was also really special because of the ingredients we were using. It was so cool to pick out the various ingredients at the farmer’s market and then use them later in the week for the meal, and know the exact source of everything we were consuming. This experience definitely motivates me to continue going to farmer’s markets and buy organic, fresh produce. I’ve always loved cooking, and I realized recently that it truly is necessary to shop wisely and choose the ingredients from the right source.
I really enjoyed our first cooking class together! I was pleasantly surprised by how easy everything was to make and how fresh everything tasted. I’m so glad we got to pick out the ingredients from the farmers market and then cook with them next class. It had a very “farm to table” vibe, which is very much in alignment with the slow food movement. I normally do not like eggplant dishes but the eggplant parmesan was absolutely delicious and I’m definitely going to be including that in my cooking rotation when I am back home. I’m glad that I decided to try it and broaden my horizons. I felt very connected with the class after because we used teamwork to make the dishes and when we all sat around the table it was very informal and we got to talk about things that we normally don’t in class. I’m looking forward to the next cooking class because I’m excited to eat a good, fresh, home cooked meal again!
I personally really enjoyed the two cooking classes that we did over the past few weeks because it opened my eyes about the cooking process. Often times I am under the impression that cooking meals for large amounts of people is incredibly time consuming and often leads to me eating fast food, junk food, or takeout from a restaurant. But in these two classes I learned that some recipes over others are easy to assemble and cook and take only 20-30 minutes including time to cook. I learned that gnocchi is made from a potato-based dough, which gives it a unique temperature and style of cooking.
Another thing that I really enjoyed about this cooking class was that we were able to cook a fresh meal with ingredients from the farmers market, allowing me to have a meal away from the DUC. The food at the DUC is often unappetizing and appealing so when I am given the option to eat fresh cooked food I will jump at the opportunity. This class taught me that it is easy for me to cook myself something simple in the dorm kitchens if I wanted to escape the DUC another time. After the first weeks of school, the food was way better than I had expected it to be.
I absolutely loved the cooking classes led by Dr. Muratore. One of the things I miss most about home are fresh meals prepared by my family. Not only do I enjoy my parents’ culinary skills, but I relish our nightly conversations at the dinner table. Many nights I will join my parents in the kitchen and help prepare the meal. Now that I am in college, I do not have this opportunity to cook anymore. However, these cooking classes gave me the opportunity to learn some new culinary skills. In the 1st class, we cooked eggplant parmesan as well as pasta with a gourmet tomato sauce. It was very fun to help prepare the dishes and make sure they had just the right seasonings. In the second cooking class, we cooked homemade gnocchi in addition to some delicious tiramisu. It was a really fun experience to be cooking with all of my classmates. One of the biggest lessons I learned from Dr. Muratore is that Italian cooking is all about improvising. As she told me, you never need to feel compelled to follow the recipe. I am excited that I will have the opportunity to be back in the kitchen again when I go home for Thanksgiving break. As I create various dishes, I will remember both the technical skills I learned as well as the importance in following your tastebuds and not the recipe. One of my favorite parts of the cooking class was eating all the food together as a class. It was fun to learn about how everyone prepared their dishes and to just have a thoughtful conversation. In true Italian tradition, the meal was equally about the food as it was the company and dining experience.
Our seminar class has had two cooking classes so far and both were a ton of fun and were great meals. The first cooking class we made eggplant parmesan and pasta with tomato sauce. I have never been a big fan of eggplants but after this meal I changed my mind. It only took about 30 minutes to make and it was very good. I helped make the pasta, which was fun because the class split up into many small groups to complete different tasks. The first cooking class was fun but I enjoyed the second one even more. For the second class we made multiple desserts and dishes. Unlike the first class, I worked almost solely alone on my dish, which was a tomato mozzarella dish. I started out by cutting up all the tomatoes into circular pieces and the mozzarella into small chunks. After, I made sandwiched a piece of mozzarella into two slices of tomatoes. Finally, I added some minor spices to the dish and tried to make it as presentable as possible. The best part is after about 30-45 minutes of hard work from our class, we have a wonderful meal to it. It is always great to get a break from the DUC and enjoy some ‘home’ cooked food.
I am so thankful that Professor Muratore incorporates Italian cooking into this class. Both of the cooking classes have been the highlights of the class in my opinion. I especially enjoyed the second cooking class where we made gnocchi and desserts. From the class I learned how simple Italian cooking can be, even though we may think that cooking Italian takes all day. Making the gnocchi was fun—we started off with peeling the skin from the boiled potatoes where we then began to smash them in a bowl. After thoroughly mashing them, we added flour to the bowl and mixed constantly until it began to shape up like a dough. After rolling and cutting little pieces of pasta, we cooked them in boiling water and then dropped them into our sauce. It was such a delicious pasta.
I also enjoyed the tiramisu that the other students prepared as we were making the pasta. I always thought that it was a dessert that took a long time to make, but surprisingly, they were able to finish the whole thing during the class time which was extraordinary. The final product was so delicious.
The cooking class showed me that cooking does not need to be fancy and have a lot of ingredients. I think that cooking should be enjoyable and simple, which is exactly what the cooking class was like.
The two cooking classes we had in class were wonderful and unique experiences. I loved how we didn’t just cook, by how we actually learned about sustainable eating and how we bought the vegetables that we used straight from the farmers market. Furthermore, we then had the chance to go to Oxford Organic Farm (the stand where we bought the vegetables from) and actually “shake the hand that fed us” like Pollan said we should in his book “In Defense of Food”.
These classes showed me that it’s possible to make a simple and healthy meal in a short amount of time, which is something that has been hard to do in college, but now something that I am going to try to do much more frequently. My favorite part was making the gnocchi. I have eaten and enjoyed gnocchi before but it was a whole new experience making it completely from scratch (just like most everything else me made). The final product was so delicious, especially the gnocchi with pesto sauce, that as I write this post I am craving it. I think that making the food made it even more enjoyable. Like the fact that we just spent an hour slaving over our creations allowed us to throughly enjoy and take pleasure in eating, knowing that our hard work was well worth it. I also loved that we set the table and all sat down to eat together. It is so great and different socializing with many of my classmates while relaxed and eating a home cooked meal instead of in a classroom setting. The overall culinary experience was great and I truly hope we get to cook one last time before the semester is over!
I thought the cooking classes were a super fun and relaxed way to engage with each other over cooking. My favorite cooking class was when we made gnocchi, tiramisu, and caprese salad. I loved the fact that the ingredients were simple and fresh. While the gnocchi was a little work intensive, I thought that the act of making it really helped our group bond. We felt like we had accomplished something, and that something turned out to be really delicious! I thought the dishes we chose to prepare were simple enough to recreate from memory; when I went home for Thanksgiving, I made my family gnocchi. We all loved being together and making it together. I thought that these classes really allowed our class to bond over food; I thought it was really nice to be able to all sit at a table and chat while we were eating. Another thing I really liked about our cooking classes was the source of our ingredients; I loved that we shopped for ingredients at Emory’s farmers market and cooked them the next day. It really shows that we can make good, simple meals with ingredients that are locally and sustainably sourced.
I really enjoyed all of the cooking classes, and thought they were a great way to put into practice all that we had learned throughout the course about eating fresh, local, and home-cooked food. Eating together as a class reminded me of the importance of shared meals, something we had discussed in class many times, as it definitely brought us together and allowed us all to connect on a deeper level than we did during class time. For our first cooking class, when we made pasta and peppers and eggplant parmesan, we bought almost all of the ingredients from the Emory farmer’s market. It was amazing to see how easy it was to put together a meal from all local and organic ingredients, and the process was very much reminiscent of the experiences Mayes wrote about in Under the Tuscan Sun, describing how she usually wouldn’t decide what to make for lunch or dinner on any given day until she got to the farmer’s market and saw what was fresh that day. I’m definitely excited to make dishes like gnocchi and tiramisu, which I previously would have assumed were too difficult or time-consuming to make in my own kitchen, when I get home. It was also great to have Professor Muratore there to remind us to check if a dish was salty enough or sweet enough, encouraging us to engage with the meal and trust our own instincts rather than blindly follow a recipe. Our time in the Few hall kitchen was definitely an invaluable experience that reminded me of the importance of knowing exactly where your food comes from and how it was prepared, and of the joy of cooking and sharing a meal with friends or family.