Passion for Food Technology

Sorry I haven't been able to post much in recent months. My time is taken up these days by completing a teaching degree, to be able to teach Food Technology in Secondary schools! As if that isn't hard enough too, I live in Cambridgeshire, but commute to Leicester for my placement school, and go to university in Birmingham on Fridays!

With driving over 600 miles a week, and the huge amounts of time it takes to plan lessons, teach, mark, and complete my university work, time is very precious these days!

However, with the christmas break coming up, I am hoping to be able to post some nice christmas recipes here for the festive period, so please keep checking out the site ready for the updates that are forthcoming...

One positive thing from my point of view, in terms of being so busy with my teaching degree these days, is that I get to spread my passion for food to hundreds of people every single week! I get to show them my passion every time we do practical lessons, when I demonstrate how to prepare and cook a recipe, or even when we are doing the "boring" theory work (is it sad that I do not find it boring at all?). I hope to inspire as many people as possible, which is why I love doing my food blog too.

Passion will inspire anyone to acomplish anything in life. I remember my gran inspiring me to enjoy food when I was really young, and then my Food teacher inspiring me to study food further when I was being taught at GCSE level. Look at me now! I have a decent degree behind me, and now I am training to be able to pass my skills, knowledge and passion on to people who are there to be inspired to change the world, and maybe even get Masters credits as a result!

I know what you are probably thinking right now! You are probably thinking - "Could he be more cheesy if he tried?" Well, to be honest, my view is probably the Gorgonzola of opinions! However, the people I will teach are tomorrow's generation. They are the people who will take over jobs of people in highly paid executive jobs, people who work in our hospitals, our schools, our prisons, or even just our favourite fast food chains, but they will be the people that make the difference in the world for future generations to come! However, tomorrow's generation is threatened by a serious obesity epidemic due to a lack of knowledge of how to cook healthy food that helps to maintain a nutritionally balanced diet.

Before I go, I want to tell you one reason why teaching is great...

I was having a really rubbish week, and I was feeling really low and extremely tired. There is a new pupil in the school who could not speak a word of English, and he was put into my class as he said he likes food. So he turns up, with the first lesson being a practical on how to make shortcrust pastry. He cannot comprehend a recipe sheet, and cannot understand vocal instructions, so we printed off some pictures of the rubbing in method, and some step by step picture cards, and I worked with him one-on-one.

We are making Jam tarts, with no ability to understand what each other is saying! However, it gave me an opportunity to demonstrate steps through actually doing them with him. At the same time, I was showing him all of the equipment, saying what each piece of equipment was called and actually trying to teach him some English too. By the end of a one hour lesson, he had learned the rules of the kitchen, made some great jam tarts, learned some English, and most importantly, had the biggest smile on his face after tasting one of his jam tarts. As he left the classroom that day, he said thank you, and he still had that huge smile on his face. =D

At a time where I was starting to doubt myself, this gave me the confidence and the inspiration to carry on with my training. It is funny to consider that the people you are trying to inspire, will inadvertently inspire you in a bigger and better way back!

This is my passion now, hopefully those who come across me get inspired as a result!