Cooking is referred to as a basic survival skill and I actually felt that when my mom asked me to cook something for myself whenever she had gone out for any work. I never wanted to try cooking because of laziness but sometimes when the burden of satisfying my hunger on my own, came upon me I was propelled forward to cook for myself so that I do not face any problems due to lack of cooking skills in the future and become independent at it.

LO1: Identify your strengths and develop areas for personal growth

While cooking I obviously discovered a lot of things I could easily do and the areas where I had to improve upon. Initially, I was quite afraid to deal with the gas stove which was the basic and my main fear to start cooking. Moreover, I was also extremely scared that while frying anything, the oil might splatter on me (specifically hands) but I gradually began to cope with my fright by practicing cooking often and the lockdown was the best opportunity for the same. Additionally, another weakness was my habit of not tasting any food item when it’s still on the gas stove due to the fear of it being very hot. My parents many times advised and sometimes rebuked me for not tasting the food item while it was being cooked. To add on, the food items which I had cooked before usually tasted good when I asked my parents to taste them because my mind gets equipped with a certain kind of method which fits me and that I have been following when cooking the same item.

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

As I mentioned earlier, there were many areas of improvement I needed while cooking for which I had to challenge myself so that I could develop those skills in the process. The common challenge I faced was adding the right proportion of ingredients for a particular quantity of food item and not being aware of the time period of letting a food item as it is on the stove or when to continue with the further process. For example, once I was preparing a sabzi and out of impatience, I, again and again, kept checking the sabzi to know if I could move on to the next step of adding other ingredients which resulted in the sabzi being uncooked. Hence, these two challenges significantly impacted the overall taste of my food item and as usual, I overcame these challenges by practice! I feel very glad and self-satisfied for pushing myself to learn the skill of cooking for it is a necessity in order to become independent and learn something creative and useful.

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

Cooking became difficult when I couldn’t stick to it or when I left a huge gap between making a food item I had already prepared. The lack of time management and absence of a keen interest didn’t allow me to stay committed to cooking except for the lockdown period. Thus, a commitment of taking out time and considering cooking as an engaging activity was required to stay persistent in this activity. Commitment and perseverance are really crucial to develop at an activity and cooking are no different because I personally cannot stay consistent in any activity unless it’s in my deep interest but cooking allowed me to learn that there are many areas of improvement that can only be refined and mastered if we commit ourselves towards them.

Final takeaway – I applied the learner profile attribute of being “reflective” because I assessed my own strengths and the challenges I faced in cooking that enabled me to reflect on my own actions. Overall, this experience was fruitful and enthralling regardless of all the laziness and frustration before and while cooking.

Evidence: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jfuBIMbpxCJUg9Wy41C0w-KeygvSC1bS?usp=sharing