Random rambling association, food as the theme

[ciroccoj]

Ratatouille is an awesome movie. Don't know if I'd love it as much without a foodie in the house, but watching it with Justin is a real joy.

It's funny, I often feel close to my mom when Justin's talking about food. She loved food so much, and it must have been such a disappointment to her that I really didn't have much interest in it. When Chris came along that was one of the things they had in common - well, that and gardening, and making fun of me for having a black thumb and a complete inability to tell rosemary from garlic even on a good day ;)

Justin would've made her so happy. And the fact that he's got me interested in food too would've amused her to no end, I'm sure ;)

And I am. Somehow in the last nine years he's got me interested in cooking, and experimenting, and figuring out why some things work and others don't. For example, it's because of him that I ended up trying to make home made bagels a few years back, and then turning to my flist (actually, to heathers) to figure out why our bagels kept collapsing.

Justin's latest project is Vegetarian Sundays. They haven't been totally successful, but they're always interesting. This week, for example, we made samosas; took way too long, were too bland & the sauce was gross, but Justin liked them enough that I think I'll probably make them again. They're not bad with mango chutney.

Our main Homeschooling Theme Thing is history. We follow a set of books called The Story of the World, which have simple history lessons matched up with various activities involving arts & crafts, research, games, etc. Every week we set goals to be done by the end of the week for English, French, Spanish, Math, Science, Social Studies, Art and Music. Whenever our SOTW books have activities that look interesting to us, they become our goals for that subject (eg. we're reading about the Battle of Hastings: our English goal is studying the effect of the Norman influence on the English language and our Art is copying part of the Bayeux Tapestry). We've gone through Volume 1 (Ancient Times, up to the fall of Rome) and are working our way through Volume 2 (the Middle Ages) and almost every time a chapter has a food activity connected to it, Justin does that for his Art goal of the week. We've made Phoenician bread, a Roman meal, Greek gyros, latkes, a monk's supper, a Japanese meal, Viking bread, Alfred cakes, (Ashkenazi) charoset - none of which I would've bothered to make had I had a different child on my hands.

Kids are quite amazing. They can drive you up the wall on a regular basis, but they can also make you grow in so many directions you'd never go on your own. Such wonderful little creatures, they are.

Comments

[officerjudy.livejournal.com]

Justin's a good cook. I've tasted his cooking. :)

I bet he becomes a chef when he grows up.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Justin's a good cook. I've tasted his cooking. :)
Big smile from him when I read him this :D :D

I bet he becomes a chef when he grows up.
I hope so. I mean, it would be OK if he found something else he wanted to do instead and just cooked marvelous stuff for his family, but it would be so cool if he ended up following the only career he's ever wanted to follow ever since he learned that it was actually possible to turn his favourite past-time in the world into a lifelong gig.

[naatz.livejournal.com]

CHAROSET. NOM. Will have my mother's version tonight, which is one of the yummiyest things ever. {Am willing to give recipe -- would make an amazing pie filling for dessert, I bet.}

our English goal is studying the effect of the Norman influence on the English language

G'bye, Germanic vocabulary. Hello, veal. In other words, 60% of the vocab and just about no grammar came from the Normans.

|Meduza|

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

{Am willing to give recipe -- would make an amazing pie filling for dessert, I bet.}
Oooh! Yes please!

G'bye, Germanic vocabulary. Hello, veal. In other words, 60% of the vocab and just about no grammar came from the Normans.
We watched The Story of English, "The Mother Tongue," and they loved the part where there's a display of food and the narrator shows that one can use two sets of words to describe the entire thing: sheep, pig, cow, deer v. mutton, pork, veal, venison, depending on whether it's the raw product or the cooked dish.

They also loved how in Mario Pei's sentence "Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief, terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables" the only Anglo-Saxon words are "Anglo" and "Saxon" ;)

[naatz.livejournal.com]

How DO you teach them the languages, by the way?

Suddenly I had the insane idea flash of how you'd all look if you all did Latin at the same time. *snort*



Charoset -- to be coming soon.

|Meduza|

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

How DO you teach them the languages, by the way?
Ugh, painfully.
Lots of different ways. Sometimes we read French or Spanish books together and they translate as we go, so they can work on their vocabulary and pronunciation. Sometimes they do one of their goals in French - we have some French geography workbooks and a French book with various chapters on historical figures. Sometimes we watch a movie in French or Spanish. This is generally pretty useless, because they start to turn off eventually, but it's a treat and gets them at least listening to the sounds and rhythms of the language. It can also be unintentionally funny, as when we watched Goblet of Fire in French and Hermione screamed out to Harry during the First Task, "Ta baguette!! Harry!! Ta baguette!!!"

They also have French and Spanish educational games of varying usefulness. Again, it's more of a break for us than for real education. They also have Spanish class every Saturday morning, part of the Heritage Language Program of the Board of Education and => Free. They often skip, though, if there are Scouting events going on Saturday morning, which happens fairly frequently.

I don't mind teaching Daniel; he's actually fairly good at languages and can translate fairly well. Justin is sheer torture. I'm pretty sure he's got some kind of learning disability, and it's enough to make me beat my head against a wall when, after having been in Spanish class and doing Spanish camp for four years and having me read to him and playing games and and and he can still be completely blank when I ask him what's Spanish for "red" or "three."

Suddenly I had the insane idea flash of how you'd all look if you all did Latin at the same time. *snort*
You know, I would so want to do that if I were just teaching Daniel! A friend of mine has her kid learning Latin and loves it. I think I would want to gut myself on a regular basis if I tried that with Justin.

Charoset -- to be coming soon.
::squeee!!::