Signing Out

Hi Guys,

So this is my last blog. Nothing to exciting just a reference list and some links to other peoples blogs I have posted on.

Thanks for looking at my blog. Hope you have found it interesting!!

Victoria :)

References:

Crepau, E., Cohn, E., Boyt Schell, B., Willard, H., & Spackman, C. (2007). Willard and Stockman's occupational therapy. USA: Lippencott, Williams & Wilkins.

Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tool's for practice in Occupational Therapy. London: Churchill Livingston.

Meier, J. (2009, August 24). Sources of Insight. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from http://sourcesofinsight.com/time-management-quotes/

Nigella Lawson, (2004) cited in Otago Polytechnic: Year one lecture on food and culture (2009).

Rosen, M. J. (2004). Baking from the Heart. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from Google Books: http://books.google.co.nz

Visser M. (1992). The rituals of dinner. London: Viking, The Penguin Group
(Which I used twice!)

Here are some comments on class mates bloggs:

Lisa W on Participation In Occupation II Blog 12 Affordance Continued:
http://http//lazerlala.blogspot.com/2011/10/participation-in-occupation-ii-blog-12.html

Erin Hancock on Affordances - Lets Communicate:
http://http//erinhancockparticipationinoccupation1.blogspot.com/2011/10/affordances-lets-communicate.html

Anna-Marie on Blog One: Me and Crochet:
http://http//annamareef.blogspot.com/2011/09/me-and-crochet.html

Rachel Rowlands on Blog One
http://http//pio-rowlands.blogspot.com/2011/10/participation-and-occupation-2.html

Blog 6! - Nothing like the smell of Grandmas chocolate cake!

There is nothing like being in a kitchen a midst pots, and dishes, muffin trays and your senses being set alight. Although my baking sessions in my grandmother’s kitchen are less frequent now I am older. The smell of freshly baked goodies is like an imprinted smell, absorbed into the walls, excreted just enough to keep the room smelling so sweet and decadent. My favourite thing to bake as a child was chocolate cake, because you got to lick two chocolaty bowls- the cake and the icing, but still to this day, no one can make a chocolate cake like my grandma can.


Out at Raglan during my week of tech, my family and I spent the day lapping up the sea air and enjoying some vitamin D. We had sat down at the table, and were enjoying some fresh fish for lunch. Out of her bag grandma pulled a thermos for coffees and teas and then a white container. Of came the lid and there it was a delicious, lip licking chocolate cake, no fancy packaging just cake, icing and sprinkles on top. It’s an instant reaction to just lick your lips as your eyes widen. Your taste buds begin to tingle like their jumping for joy, my weakness is sweet treats that’s for sure!


The only way to eat it however, to really savour the taste is to break the cake of the icing and eat that first, saving the sweetest bit – the icing until last, a childhood habit I have never been able to break.


“Baking is about memories: recipes handed down from generation to generation and tastes that conjure childhood—think your mom’s chocolate cake. Sweets are often bound up in our emotional life as adults, too: they’re how we reward ourselves or our children, how we celebrate holidays, birthdays, and special occasions, and how we honour guests” (Rosen, 2004)

Rosen, M. J. (2004). Baking from the Heart. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from Google Books: http://books.google.co.nz

Blog Five! - Independence at last!...

I was at work yesterday and my client and I were popping around to help a friend with her garden. It had become more that of a jungle over winter and with study, work and kids it was at the bottom of her list. Before we left I said I would do some scones to take. In my family we have always been taught not to turn up empty handed, I think it was my great grandmother’s influence as all the woman in my family still abide by this.

Recipe book out, this was the first time I had ever been left to make scones on my own. I started to chat to myself, in my head of course ‘I’m going to put you scones in your place, you will be perfect and you will taste great!”. Although I had never made them before I felt intituled to a sense of mastery, I had watched them being made so many times before in my grandmothers kitchen as a child every Sunday.

Wanting to get going as quick as possible, I took to it like a pro, however, I did notice my thoughts wondering, as they always seem to when I bake. Assignments was all I could think about, I was almost robotic, a loss of consciousness to the present.

Scones in the oven 12 minutes to spare It shocks me every time I have something in the oven, eve for that short amount of time, I kick into over drive and see it as a window of opportunity to get those little niggly jobs done. Load of washing hung out, fresh sheets on the bed, bathroom wiped and mopped, newspaper in and finished at the sink doing the dishes, although that was interrupted by the buzzer going off.

"Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.“ – Charles Caleb Colton (Meier, 2009)

Out came mounds of deliciousness. Although scones are not the prettiest creation, they are always a crowd pleaser and man do they taste good with a bit of jam!


Meier, J. (2009, August 24). Sources of Insight. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from http://sourcesofinsight.com/time-management-quotes/

Blog Four! - My thoughts on Spirituality and Baking...

Nothing is as exciting as the preparation done for a birthday party, but none more so important than a 21st. Mine is still 5 months away and I have already planned and booked my cake maker. It is going to be the focal point of my party. I have always envisioned this amazing themed cake for my 21st ever since my uncle had an orange boat for his 12 years ago. It seems that momentous occasions are often marked by the cutting of a cake. To me baking and spirituality is linked through the times such as birthdays and weddings, cakes are the centre piece.

Crepeau (2007) defines spirituality as “the fundamental orientation of a person’s life; that which inspires and motivates that individual".

Specifically linking to my own experience with spirituality and baking, birthdays in our household are always marked by a family gathering and the cutting of a cake. Although the cakes are nothing to extravagant, they are always homemade and with the person in mind.


The most memorable cake I have had thus far was a cake my mother made me for my first holy communion when I was 8. It was a fruit cake in the shape of a cross, with white icing and piped icing trim. After the church ceremony, which I had a beautiful white dress made for me also by my mother, we had a family lunch where I cut the cake with everyone important to me present. By having a hobby such as baking, where I feel a spiritual link, I feel I am able to keep a holistic, balanced approach to my life.


This link below is to a blog on spiritual well being and having a balanced life. I found it really interesting and quiet reflective of my own life.

http://www.casapalmera.com/articles/spiritual-well-being/

Crepau, E., Cohn, E., Boyt Schell, B., Willard, H., & Spackman, C. (2007). Willard and Stockman's occupational therapy. USA: Lippencott, Williams & Wilkins.

Blog three! – Grandma's Kitchen

Grandma’s kitchen is like a fine tuned machine, everything had and still has its place, tags facing outwards, things refilled before they run out. Although I no longer live with her and the kitchen is newly renovated (and the draw I used to use is no longer there) I am still able to pin point every last ingredient I may need when I go to bake, which is a regular occurrence. I am her form of a step ladder; I reach the top shelf and bring things forward so she can see them, I guess that’s part of the deal when your 6ft 1.

"...in the context of the person's occupation with the environment in order to restore balance or 'fit'. Competent performance is achieved when the working environment facilitates performance and the worker can meet the task demands" (Hagedorn, 2000)


When we get down to business and ready to bake, I have maintained the role of mixer from when I was young. She makes sure the oven is preheated, that biscuits are evenly spaced, slices are pressed and cakes are cooked right through. She has an eye for detail that could beat out anyone and I often question whether she has a spare set of eyes in the back of her head as she always knows when I pick at the mix.

During our baking sessions it is completely quiet which seems strange, I guess in that sense we both use it as a time to ourselves, I find for me this when I am able to process and plan things I usually don’t have time to think about. Once the baking is done I know take on the clean up role; the worst part of baking, however it’s usually my mess I’m cleaning up anyway. Grandma usually potters around me putting things away and this is when we have our catch ups, usually about me and what I’ve been up to. It really is the little things like this that I have started to appreciate, just spending time doing something we both enjoy.

“We turn the consumption of food, a biological necessity, into a carefully cultured phenomenon. We use eating as a medium for social relationships: satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes the means of creating community” (Visser, 1992)


Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tool's for practice in Occupational Therapy. London: Churchill Livingston.

Visser M. (1992). The rituals of dinner. London: Viking, The Penguin Group

Blog two! – The Kitchen and Me

Everything in my mother’s kitchen has its place. I do jokingly question her sometimes around possibly having OCD when it comes to tidiness and the benches being clear. We have lived in this home now for 8 years or there abouts. Mum had an interior designer help her with the layout, colour and the practical aspects of the kitchen. It seems a little bizarre that, that much effort went into designing this one part of the home, however thinking about it, it is the central hub of our home. With a large breakfast bar, used as a working space whether it be cooking, serving a buffet style dinner, or the place in which many conversations accompanied by coffee and sweet treats are had and large by folding windows above the sink that open onto the deck, used to pass meat and veggies through to the BBQ or as a means to monitor outdoor cricket games spotting the sixes or wide’s.

When I am baking I have an automatic tendency to just get what I need. Half the time I don’t even realise that I do it. Everything is in arms reach of the large working space just to the right of the oven. Measuring cups and whisks are kept in the same draw which is just to my left, mixing bowls are under the sink to the right of me and though I could never understand why, the glass bowls I use for the microwave are in the same draw as the plastic containers under the whisks and measuring cups. Even though to me this is an odd place for them, this is where they have remained and if they are not there when I go to use them; it can send me in to a flurry of panic. It is human nature to develop habits and ways of doing things, even if we may not agree.

“And immediately we start to cloak the proceedings with a system of rules. We insist on special place and times for eating, on specific equipment, on stylized decoration, on predictable sequence among the foods eaten, on limitation of movement, and on body propriety”

VisserM. (1992). The rituals of dinner. London: Viking, The Penguin Group

Blog One! - In the Begining

This morning I decided a fresh batch of muffins would be nice and always a crowd pleaser for the hustle and bustle of our home. Feeling a tad inventive I turned apple muffins into apple and sultana with mixed spice and cinnamon. Although I enjoy life at fast pace and find it hard to relax, baking has always had a soothing affect on me. To me the idea of creating something so tasty and sweet from raw ingredients’ that on their own are so tasteless is so fascinating.

The influence on my love for baking began when I was under bench height, spending time with my grandma. I remember being in her kitchen especially on Sundays, in the middle of winter, standing on the bottom draw, that held her pinnys and tea towels, just so I could see over the bench and into the bowl, where my fingers would wonder into the mix, just so I could sneak a taste and lick it of. She would always let me stir, I think it was just to save time and mess, I still to this day seem to get more flour and sugar on the floor and over the bench when transferring it from the packet to the bowl. Once in the oven, she would always set the timer, it was one you could watch click around as the minutes past by. Standing in orr of the rising mounds, the smell that filled the air, was enough to make the 15 minutes or so seem like a life time, but the melting cream and strawberry jam on top always made it worth the wait.

Cakes, slices, muffins, biscuits, she’s a master at filling the cupboards with irresistible goodies!

The edmonds cook place is where I go to look for most of the recipes that i like to bake. It is a great adition to any kitchen.

“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). P.vii