Home Ec
I love what I do! Sharing my passion for food and cooking with the community. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been relishing the time I shared with the Clark College Health 100: “Food and Your Health” students. Oh, what delicious fun we had! The students have been using my cookbook — Shop, Cook, Eat: Outside of the Box for the past several weeks and their time spent with me was to help them step further OUTSIDE of the Box.
As much as I enjoyed our time together, it dawned on me and sadden me to realize that most of these young adults have never cooked much. Yet alone shopped in the grocery store.
I’m a child of the 70s. Probably the last generation before fast food and TV dinners replaced good home cooked meals. I grew up with a mother and grandmother who cooked and grocery shopped religiously. So I got to see first hand how it was done. Thank you mama and grandmama. As a reinforcement to what they taught me, I also took a Home Ec class in 7th grade. What ever happened to Home Ec classes? Have they been replaced with computer technology classes? I wonder.
I have fond memories of my time in the Home Ec classroom. There was a kitchenette were we practiced all sorts of basic cooking skills. Making chocolate chip cookies was always a sweet delight. There was a living space with a sewing machine and sewing items. I wasn’t crazy about this area, but I did learn the very basics: how to stitch, sew on buttons, etc.
I wanna know…What happened to teaching our kids the very basic life skills (cooking, sewing, cleaning) at home? Is grocery shopping for real food a thing of the past? Is cooking from scratch a lost art? And, why did Home Ec get phased out of the curriculum?
For me cooking is an everyday essential skill. Instead of just pondering the questions, I’m doing what I can to help us return to the very basics. I’m on a mission to Bring Cooking Back and help folks step OUTSIDE of the prepared food Box! The responsibility should not fall on only our school systems or on the shoulders of lil ol’ me, but really starts at home.
Chrisetta Mosley
I am a product – and now a survivor – of childhood obesity. As a child, my family always told me that my extra weight was merely baby fat and I’d eventually grow out of it. I never did. Instead, my childhood is filled with memories of not being able to ride a bike, flattening its training wheels from being over the recommended weight, and avoiding P.E. classes by any means necessary. For years, I wore my fatness like a wounded soldier wears a Purple Heart - with pride. I owned the look. I dressed it up. I worked the room. There wasn't a skinny girl who intimidated me. I made sure my hair was laid just right. Nails polished. Outfits coordinated to the tee. Accessories to compliment every outfit. But everyone has a breaking point, and mine came in the spring of 2004 when I tipped the scale at nearly 400 pounds 388 to be exact. I was MISERABLE trapped inside of that body. I no longer wore my Purple Heart with pride. Rather, I was ashamed and frightened. Ashamed that I had allowed food to become my everything – frightened I would die because of it. Drastic times called for drastic measures... Today, I’m bound and determined to live a better, healthier, active lifestyle. I realize I’m no longer a passenger in my life, I’m the driver. I’m overcoming my inhibitions and I’m slowly but surely saying farewell to my old childhood nemesis, obesity. For once and for all, Farewell Fatso!