See the Servings 2

What scoop to use for adult servings, you wonder? How about a scoop for your eight-year-old? Here is another area for research and experimentation in the home sphere, another topic for Executive Oversight time study, another life responsibility requiring attention and training from this generation for the next generation. Food in the home is a big deal. But it needs to be a big deal away from the dinner table, so every table time is full of conversation.

Food in the Home

Think of all the areas of food expertise every home–even homes of just one–require.

Knowledge of how to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Knowledge of how to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. How to read recipes. Understanding about what various foods do to help the body function well. How to set a table.  Knowledge about various grains. How to work with yeast to make fresh bread. What foods provide protein. Why you need protein. How to shuck corn and peel tomatoes. Reading labels intelligently. Converting ounces and grams into serving sizes for different age family members. Substitutions for the buttermilk you don’t have in the refrigerator. How to roast vegetables. Open a coconut. String beans. Bake a cake. Bone a fish. Know where cuts of meat come from on the animal. What Vitamin C does for your body and why you need a fresh supply each day. Safely handle ground meat. The difference between dice and chop. Food products that are empty calories. Simple flower arranging. How to make broth. How to make chocolate chip cookies. What “from scratch” means. How to ask conversation-producing questions. How to compost. How to recycle. How to poach an egg. The differences and respective benefits between whole milk, skim milk, soy milk.

If you have a Joy of Cooking on your Basic Home Library shelf, you (or your lucky child who gets one for his or her twelfth birthday) has a powerful in-home and on-site knowledge resource. Online information, replete with demonstration videos, comparison charts, recipe blogs by the multi-million, political-economic-philosophic food positions, nutritional information, and weight loss sites abound.

Never has it been easier to acquire professional-grade food preparation equipment for a killer kitchen and still use that WOW space primarily for storing canned soups, frozen meat “products”, and plastic-packaged bakery goods. Or to keep all that equipment looking pristine by eating out, ordering in, or fast-fooding most nights, rather than cooking.

Food comes from God. He has built us to require daily participation with food. Gathering and preparing food economically requires work and investment. Preparing well and serving gracefully are heavenly graces enriching functional food and family life. Nutritional competency and food preparation skills ought be ingrained knowledge banks: life elements no one remembers “learning” but everyone knows from constant thoughtful experience with someone who is constantly learning more about what God has provided for man to benefit from and enjoy. You. A half-cup scoop won’t steer you wrong.