A Wise Lady and Ambience

I have always liked Nigella Lawson as a cook. She combines new and old recipes well and says things how they. You could say she is a traditional cook with a bit of a twist. I believe that traditions are key to cooking agree with a quote that was discussed in Participation One: New technologies are never totally superior to the older technologies they attempt to replace (Sunderland, 2011). This relates to cooking as new tools used within cooking do not necessarily make food taste better, new processed foods are not better for you and old fashioned recipes are likely to produce affordable and long lasting food. Nigella has said many things that have influenced my decisions around cooking but the following i think is very appropriate to my blog

“Cooking has many functions, and only one of them is about feeding people. When we go into a kitchen, indeed when we even just think about going into a kitchen, we are both creating and responding to an idea we hold about ourselves, about what kind of person we are or wish to be. How we eat and what we eat lies at the heart of who we are – as individuals, families, communities”
                                                                                                                          - Nigella Lawson (2004).

I think that this quote sums up how i feel about cooking very well!

This then leads me on to ambience. Ambience is described as a feeling or mood associated with a particular place, person or thing (Sunderland, 2010). After considering this, i view my own ambience as a large part of why i cook. As i have stated in previous posts, i love to cook because i find it relaxing. I now believe this is because of how i feel which is normally associated with a place, person or thing. For example i get more joy and relax more when i am using my great great grandfathers recipes or when i make a meal that i have had in the past on a fun or special occasion. An example of this is i love to make an unusual pizza i had when my family and i were in Fiji. I love making it because it brings back memories of that fun holiday and especially that particular day. It makes me want to return to Fiji and work harder in life so i can do so. I have many examples like this when ambience is a apart of my cooking.

Lawson, N. (2004). Feast:Food that celebrates life. London: Chatto & Windus.(
this quote was also presented in BT127001 lecture notes)

Sunderland, J. (2010). Adaptive living occupation: BT127001 [Lecture notes]. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.

Sunderland, J. (2011). Participation in occupation: BT230001 [Lecture notes]. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic, Department of Occupational Therapy.