Making food for a birthday party for the first time
My family says that I could bring disaster with my own hands. I'm not good at making something. I'm not a talented artist. I realize my drawings are not attractive and fancy like other students since I was a little kid. I also didn't like crafts class because crafts class makes me disappointed. I always needed more time to finish my work and what I finally made was easy to break and unstable.
Like all the other things I could make with my hands, I didn't have much sense at cooking. I sometimes tried to help my mother but my pace to cut or peel vegetables were so slow so it didn't help her that much. What I can cook without making it have weird shape and weird taste is ramen and scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs are the only food I could cook with eggs. I even can't make fried eggs because when I try to cook eggs, they always get stuck to the pan and shape of it looks so bad. I often burn it, too. So I was not fond of cooking at all and cooking was my mother's duty in my house.
However, I decide to make food for my father on his birthday this year. 'I am 23 years old now but I didn't cook breakfast or dinner for my parents. What a shame!' I thought. It might be turn into a disaster in the kitchen as usual, but I felt I should try anyway. I wanted to be a good, thoughtful daughter, not a bad one.
When my family was having breakfast together on his birthday I asked him, "Dad, I'm going to cook dinner for you tonight. Tell me what you want to eat. Please don't pick too tricky one." My word shocked all of my family members. My little sister teased me, "Oh my god, will there be any food that we can actually eat tonight?" I ignored her. To tell the truth, I have nothing to say. She was the one who can do magic with her hands while cooking, and I was like an evil witch who spoils everything. "How about spaghetti? I really want to eat it these days." My father answered. I boasted him that he could choose dinner menu by himself, however, I don't know the exact recipe of spaghetti, so I asked my mother, "Is it too difficult for me to make? I watched you made us spaghetti but I'm not sure I could do it well." She eased my mind, "Not that much. It is quite easy one. You can buy spaghetti sauce at the market, that's not enough, but anyway." Aha. Then I decided spaghetti as my very first food that I made on my own.
After I made my mind, I searched recipes on the internet. It was not that helpful, though. We didn't have spices or tools that recipes mentioned. But I could choose a spaghetti sauce I'm going to buy. There was a sauce that 70 percent of it is made of real tomatoes.
The rest of the ingredients I have to prepare needed mother's help. "Mom, can you go to the grocery store with me?" She rejected, "You said you are going to make it and that means you also need to buy you need by yourself." I kept ask her to go, "But you know I'm not god at finding fresh one among lots of vegetables. I really want to make it delicious this time." She smiled, "I can help you with that, but I'm just going to give you some tips about that. That's all. OK, what are you planning to buy?" So I could buy vegetables like tomatoes, onions, and mushroom on my own with her tips. I'm not sure I picked the best one, but still, they were acceptable. I also packed meat and spaghetti sauce.
Now it's time to cook. What I first tried to do is peeling tomatoes and that was not an easy one. My mother was watching me and explained, "Now I'm going to boil the water, you make slits in the tomatoes like cross and then blench those in the water. It'll become soft and easy to peel." Thank god, she was so kind! She helped me until I finished cooking. The fact that she is standing next to me calmed down my mind. I felt like I could cook it properly and I believe that even though I've done something wrong, she could let me know what's wrong and help me fix it. Cooking was not that stressful burden as I thought.
After I finished making spaghetti for the first time, I tried it before my dad came back home, and I almost polished off a dish. It was so delicious! Maybe that was because I made it by myself.
"How is it? Is it OK?" I asked my family and we started to eat dinner. I was a little bit nervous. "It is delicious, I like it. You should make this one again later." My little brother complimented me. "This is one of the greatest birthday presents I've ever had." Dad told me and hugged me. Ah, I finally realized the feeling that cooks feel! Watching family eating my food with joy was so happy. Cooking was not a horrible thing to me anymore. It's love.
To Han Chan yeon
ReplyDeleteFrom Kwang-Jin Lee
Assignment 1st draft
1. What I like about this writing is telling your experience which you had done at the very first time for your dad though it could be very difficult. I could feel your warm-hearted mind to your dad.
2. Your main point seems to be a story of your first cooking at your father's birthday. The procedures are mainly written in this writing.
3. "The fact that she is standing next to me calmed down my mind." struck me as quite powerful because I could feel your belief toward your mom. Also, "Ah, I finally realized the feeling that cooks feel!" was great because it really showed your achievement feeling and happiness.
4. Hm.. I couldn't find somewhere that was not clear to me.. It was great writing, I think.
5. Just Great. I liked your writing.
Like I said in class, there are a few language problems that you need to work on, but this was really charming in the way that you tell us how you learned and got confidence from this experience. It communicates well. Work on what we talked about in class for your final draft.
ReplyDeletethanks!
JBH
Yong Sun Hwang
ReplyDelete1. What I like about your writing is that your expressions are quite fun. An I liked that you used a lot of quatation marks-I think it makes your writing more vivid
2 Your main point seems to be that your first experience of cooking for birthday party. Even your not good at it.
3 I could bring disaster with my own hands : this sentence seems very creative but intensive to me. With this one sentence, I could catch the point of the wrting.
4 What I cook without making it have weird shape : I'm not sure what "it" indicates
5 I think the flow of your story is too general. If you put some episodes or more detail information into some parts, your writing will be more fun, I think
Cooking Love
ReplyDeleteMy family says that I could bring disaster with my own hands. I'm not good at making something. I realized my drawings are not as attractive and fancy as other students’ since I was a little kid. I also didn't like crafts class because I always needed more time to finish my work and what I finally made was easy to break and unstable. That made me disappointed a lot.
Like all the other things I could make with my hands, I didn't have much sense at cooking. I sometimes tried to help my mother but my pace to cut or peel vegetables were so slow that it didn't help her that much. What I can cook are ramen and scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs are the only food I could cook with eggs because I don’t have to think about its shape and just focus on whether it’s burning or not. Other foods I tried to make always had weird shape or weird taste. I can't even make fried eggs because when I try to cook, they always get stuck to the pan and shape of it looks so bad. I often burn foods, too. So I was not fond of cooking at all and cooking was my mother's duty in my house.
However, few months ago, I decide to make food for my father on his birthday. I wanted to give something special for his birthday so I was keep thinking about the present but nothing awesome came up to my mind. ‘I am 23 years old now but I didn't cook breakfast or dinner for my parents,’ then I suddenly realized, ‘What a shame!’ It might be turned into a disaster in the kitchen as usual, but I felt I should try anyway. I wanted to be a good, thoughtful daughter, not a bad one.
“Dad, I'm going to cook dinner for you tonight.” I told him when my family was having breakfast together on his birthday. “Tell me what you want to eat,” I said, “Please don't pick too tricky one.” My word shocked all of my family members.
“Oh my god,” said my sister, “Are you going to kill us or something? Can we actually eat tonight?” But I ignored her because I had nothing to say. She was the one who can do magic with her hands while cooking, and I was like an evil witch who spoils everything.
"How about spaghetti?” my father answered, “I really want to eat it these days."
I boasted him that he could choose the menu by himself; however, I didn’t know the exact recipe of spaghetti so I asked my mother, "Is it too difficult? I watched you making us spaghetti but I'm not sure I could do it well.”
“Not that much,” she said, “It is quite easy one. You can buy spaghetti sauce at the market. You need more than that of course, but anyway."
Aha. Then I decided spaghetti as my very first food that I made on my own.
After I made my mind, I searched recipes on the internet. It was not that helpful, though. Recipes I found were for experts, not for beginners like me. I needed more explanation but most recipes I got only had ingredients lists. We also didn't have spices or tools that recipes mentioned. However, I could choose the type of the spaghetti I’ll make and the spaghetti sauce I'm going to buy.
Preparing rest of the ingredients, especially vegetables, needed mom's help. “Mom,” I said, “can you go to the grocery store with me?”
“You said you’re going to make it on your own,” she said, “and that means you also need to buy what you need by yourself.”
"But you know I'm not god at finding fresh one among lots of vegetables,” I kept asked, “I really want to make it. I don’t want to spoil the birthday present.”
ReplyDelete“I can help you with that,” she smiled, “but I’ll just give you some tips about that. That's all. OK, what are you planning to buy?” So I could buy vegetables like tomatoes, onions, and mushroom on my own with her tips. I can’t say I picked the best one, but they were acceptable. It wasn’t bad for the first try. I also packed meat and spaghetti sauce.
Then I began to cook. I tried to peel tomatoes first but that wasn’t easy. My mother was watching me. “OK,” she said, “I’ll boil the water, you make slits in the tomatoes into a cross and then blench those in the water. It'll become soft and easy to peel." Thank god, she was so kind! She helped me until I finished cooking. The fact that she’s standing next to me calmed down my mind. I believed that even though I've done something wrong, she could let me know what's wrong and help me fix it. She gave me confident that I could cook it properly. Cooking was not that stressful burden as I thought.
After I finished making spaghetti for the first time, I tasted it before my dad came back home and I almost polished off a dish. It was so delicious! That might be because I made it by myself. I was so excited and couldn’t wait for the dinner time.
"How is it? Is it OK?" I asked my family as we started to eat dinner. I was a little bit nervous.
“It’s delicious,” said my little brother, “I like it. Make this one again next time.”
"This is one of the greatest birthday presents I've ever had," dad told me. And he gave me a hug.
Ah, I finally realized the feeling that cooks feel! Watching family eating my food with joy was so happy. Cooking is not a horrible thing to me anymore. It's love.