Cooking with a non-cook – Millenial Influx

I don’t cook. I never really have, I get all my meals from the dining hall at school, and from my parents at home, and on the occasions when I do have to prepare food for myself, I typically just throw something in a microwave. Living in a dorm with 600 people and only one kitchen doesn’t help either, so even if I wanted to cook it would be very difficult for me to do so. You must understand this in order to understand the significance of this article.

Every now and then, its important to try new things in life to broaden your horizons, gain valuable skills and experience and help you escape from your daily grind. In light of this and despite of my lack of skills and experience, I decided to help cook for Thanksgiving. My aunt and uncle hosted this year, and they were in charge of making the turkey, but there were still other dishes to be made, and that’s where I came in. This year, my family was in charge of making some of the side dishes, and I decided to help my mom prepare the sweet potato caramel. This dish is actually fairly simple to make (which in my case is for the best). It involves the following; sweet potatoes (obviously), butter, milk, salt and pepper and maple syrup. Preparation is fairly simple: first peel and mash as many sweet potatoes as you think necessary (I used two for about 20 people), make sure to boil the potatoes to make them easier to mash. Next melt ¼ cup of butter in a pot and mix it with ½ cup of syrup, make sure this get added to the dish last. Next, add milk, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Finally bake it in the oven for 45 minutes at 400 degrees, and add the melted butter and syrup. Once that’s all done, its time to put it in a casserole dish beside your turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing and enjoy it with your friends and family. I shared mine with my extended family Thanksgiving day, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I enjoyed getting the opportunity to catch up with them. I was actually surprised at how simple this dish was to make, it only took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to make, and the recipe is simple enough that I could probably make it again by myself. If I could make this dish with no problem at all, I’m sure you could too.

All in all, I think this was a valuable experience, and an enjoyable one. I think the experience and insights will be helpful to me next year, when I move into an apartment with a kitchen and hopefully begin cooking some of my own food. It also gave me something I haven’t had many opportunities to do lately, spend time with my mom. She helped walk me through the process, and I appreciated our time. This holiday season, I would encourage you all to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. If you normally celebrate Christmas at home with your family, perhaps this year you can volunteer at a soup kitchen, or homeless shelter Christmas day, and if you normally serve at a homeless shelter Christmas day, then maybe this year you can try a more traditional Christmas. And maybe, you can even try making sweet potato caramel.

Homeschooler in the Real World

Emma Folts, a sophomore at Wheaton College, shares her experience about her transition into college and how homeschool has both helped and hindered her.
How has your homeschool experience benefitted you, especially in your transition into college?
I think the one thing that homeschooling did that was really helpful as I entered college was that it taught me time management. As a homeschooler I had the same freedom as a college student has to put things off during the day and go see a friend instead. Since I had that experience, I knew the cost of that.
Also, personal responsibility and accountability with assignments. I feel like a lot of the other students had more expectations for gentler grading and that the professor would give them retakes or extensions, but that wasn’t something that ever happened to me in school. That learning curve wasn’t added because I never had it the other way. I think another thing was that because I was homeschooled, I was familiar with the format of teaching and then studying on my own.
Did you see any issues with your transition socially?
I think that homeschooling had two ramifications for me socially. One was helpful, one was hurtful.
It was really helpful because as a homeschooler, I had spent a lot of time realizing and developing who I was as a person and learning to recognize people who were being themselves, and those were the people I sought out as friends. Friendship as a homeschooler takes a lot more investment. I knew I was choosier with my friends which made me a lot less anxious and a lot more content.
The only real negative impact of the social bit was that I was really used to getting to choose the time I got to spend with people. As a homeschooler I spent a lot of time with people, but that time was controlled by me. As a college student, I found that you can’t really control the time you spend with people and alone time is not really available. Learning to deal with that was a lot harder than anticipated.
Any last comments on homeschool and how it has affected your college experience?
I think homeschooling is really helpful, however it does take a slightly increased amount of advocacy with your peers when you’re entering into college. I think a lot of people come in with certain assumptions about homeschool, especially students. You’re going to get a lot of, ‘oh my gosh, you don’t seem like a homeschooled person!’ [You can’t] take that too personally and explain your experience so that friends can understand it’s an important piece of you, though it might not look like the homeschooling that they’ve seen.
My encouragement to anyone who is a homeschooler transitioning into college is to realize the benefit that you have having been homeschooled, and to realize that the bit of advocacy and explaining that you need to do with your peers is totally normal and that it’s not a big deal. Once they understand your experience, it’s not something I’ve experienced being looked down on for.