If I am not reading about teaching, I am reading about food. I find an incredible amount of overlap between people who care about food and people who care about education. The food world and the teaching world both require an unreasonable amount of care for ingredients/content, a constant need to try new things, and sometimes require great efforts of convincing people (patrons/students) that what they are doing, though maybe foreign, is valuable. I recently finished 3 books about food
Eat a Peach – David Chang
Brief synopsis – Chang is an unlikely chef and restaurateur. He was groomed to be a professional golfer and his parents, Korean Immigrants, did their best to talk him out of this profession. He is the owner of the Momofuku Restaurant Company and has been featured in Mind of a Chef on PBS & has his own show Ugly Delicious on Netflix.
- Culture/Thoughts on being an outsider – David Chang calls himself a Twinkie “yellow on the outside, white on the inside” and talks about what it is like being an Asian American, not embraced as “white,” but also shunned by many of his more traditional Korean family members. On top of that cooking is inherently a Eurocentric career field as most chefs are trained in a French focused way. Though very much owning up to being a part of the “boys club” in the food world David Chang spent a lot of his career feeling like an outsider because of his ethnicity.
- This summer I spent a lot of time scrolling through Twitter and reading about what former students said were missing in their education at Carondelet. Many of their sentiments echoed Chang’s experience in the food world. In history we have a lot of control in how we curate a unit and I am reminded of the times that I have focused on content that was easy to create because it is part of the “cannon of world history” that is to say mostly white and European. I know a lot of us are thinking about these issues right now and I found his take on things really thought provoking.
- Access – When David Chang opened his first restaurant he did not want a wait staff or anything remotely formal. He admired Chipotle (recently opened as he was getting into the business himself) more than he admired the French Laundry because while both organizations had a goal of serving quality food, Chipotle was able to do this in a way that reached far more people than the exclusiveness of the French Laundry. His goal was to create Michiliean Star worthy food in a fast food environment.
- Sometimes in education I think people are “too inside” meaning that they forget what it is like to feel like an outsider because they are so steeped in the language of education. Working with our freshmen this year I am reminded of this on a daily basis. The things I just think everyone should be able to do and understand is not working. All of our students were impacted by school closures, many of them are dealing with the social-emotional issues of starting high school online, some of them are not at grade level and are dealing with heavy things at home, I few I just worry will not make it up to speed this year. Reimagining what quality teaching looks like right now is really important and something that I do not always feel like I am doing on a day to day basis which feels daunting.
- Mental Health/Work Life Balance – David Chang is a workaholic who spent a majority of his time in the kitchen to avoid his own thoughts and demons (relatable). When opening Noodle Bar he signed a short lease because he so often thought about ending his life that he didn’t see himself being around in 5 years to run the restaurant. He attributes a lot of his early success to his poor mental health, until finally needing to confront those feelings in order to become a more whole person.
- I think work life balance (though most of us are not this extreme) is a really challenging thing right now being that since March the line between our homes and our classrooms are really blurred. This has been personally hard for me and I am sure many other people. I think just talking to other people about it and reading about how other people experience it has been really helpful in not feeling so alone in it.
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Always Home – Fanny Singer
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Singer is the daughter of Alice Waters (foundress of Chez Panisse) and Stehpen Singer (well known wine maker on the Sonoma Coast). This memoir covers her childhood through young adulthood, her travels in Europe with her mother, and the legacy of Chez Panisse.
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Burn the Place – Iliana Regan
Regan grew up on a farm in rural Indiana. She came to cooking in a roundabout way and never went to culinary school. Her restaurant, Elizabeth (Chicago), earned a Michelin star for the past 6 years straight, she recently left the restaurant and opened the Milkweed Inn. The inn is actually a rural plot of land where people stay in tents for the weekend and eat food foraged and harvested from the land. This memoir covers her childhood and her break out into the food world and is free if you have an Audible account!
My takeaway from my years in the food industry can also relate to teaching. The best chefs can create recipes out of available ingredients and know exactly how they will taste even before cooking them. This is like a master teacher who can create lessons that will consistently resonate with students.
People can learn to be a good chef or a good teacher. The great ones bring something with them that is out of the reach for the rest of us. The great chef brings an amazing palate and an amazing knowledge of how to blend ingredients to make incredible meals. The great teacher brings the ability to engage students in learning about subjects they did not know they would like.
I enjoy cooking, but I cannot even imagine having the talent of Jeremiah Tower, Mark Franz or Alice Waters. I love teaching. So far no one has asked me to do a TED talk or write a book, but as long as I can get students excited about learning social studies, I will be satisfied.