For my free inquiry, I am excited to delve into expanding my cooking skills. Cooking is a meditative hobby of mine that really expanded during covid. I was able to explore lots of different food bloggers and found myself falling down rabbit holes of foods from around the world on Instagram. I have always loved foods from around the world, including Greek and Thai. Alongside my aspirations to visit these places one day, I often crave the flavours and the whole ingredients these cultures use to build their meals.

Constantly seeking out these foods to satisfy my cravings is an expensive answer. Like many people, ordering these foods is a special occurrence I greatly look forward to. In the meantime, I often have quick and often unfulfilling meals that some may define as a ‘Western diet.’

Like many, covid was a pivotal time for me to learn a lot about the things I was interested in. I started to look at the chemistry behind cooking and learned a lot about the ingredients that go into different recipes or are in the quick meals I reach for. While I am lucky to live at home, I have discovered many underlying factors about the foods that have been a generational staple in my family’s diets. Especially having two kids who grew up in competitive sports and are highly active, our diet has always been very protein-driven, often from red meat or other foods that would keep us full and maintain us between meals. While I would argue that my mom is my favourite cook, she and I have been looking at the foods we make and are thinking of alternative proteins and more whole foods we can bring into our diet.

This brings me to my Inquiry project. The different foods I enjoy as special treats are perhaps the key to what my mom and I have been looking for, as they are very vegetable and nutrient-rich dishes that are very filling. I want to continue to move away from the Western diet I have been familiar with and inject more culturally and nutrient-rich meals into my week. Therefore, for my inquiry project, I will explore the cultures and dishes from around the world that I can begin to make myself and expand my cooking abilities and diet. I will look at ingredients and nutrients, emphasize the types of food I want to make myself and build a more diverse but healthy diet.

I, however, am one who cannot bring myself to eat something unless it is flavourful. Therefore, I am going to move forward with a critical palette regarding the taste of what I produce while considering the realistic-ness of making these meals weekly, their condition as a meal prep for later in the week, and finally, the cost of ingredients to make these dishes, and if this in itself is sustainable. I will start by defining my current diet and week at a glance before concluding what I want to incorporate more or replace, before moving on to the different cultures and dishes I will delve into.

I have never had a blog before or endeavoured to make a website, so I was incredibly excited as I left our first class. I look forward to continuing to expand my website and my technological knowledge to define how I want technology to exist in my future classroom.