Last Post: Final thoughts.

As my WISE project and summer draws to a end I was asked the question, If I could do WISE again would I? My answer is yes, I would do WISE over and make the experience even more worthwhile than it already is. The process of WISE and learning about East Asian food was long and often times difficult due to the trials I faced with maintaining my grades in other classes, issues in my personal life that carried on into my school days and even just trying to kick my bad habit of procrastination. These things however also gave me great insight into how much patients I actually have and I truly believe that without the help of Mrs.Harris I probably would have just given up and not even tried to finish. 

The other question I was asked was how did this affect your decisions for the future ( i.e: Moving to Seoul, South Korea,being an English teacher). This project has given me some insight as to what types of food I'll encounter but has not dissuaded me from moving. In fact it pretty much further solidified my desire to move. 

5/11/15

Last week there was AP exams here in the library so I didn't get to write but I was able to talk to Mrs.H about things like grocery shopping for the presentation/Art show and binding the book together. I am really uncertain about the presentation because I have no clue how to organize it or what to even talk about...I have been feeling like I was wasting my time and that I should have chosen a different project! That's pretty much all that I have to update about.

Update for 4/29/15

  On Monday, I put the first 31 page of my cookbook into one document on Google Docs and was able to finish typing up my interviews. I realized yesterday that I still have to type up my dedication and thank you page, and write up my request for a price chopper gift card so that I can but supplies. I am a little behind on my work because I haven't written the How to guide yet but I am progressing faster than I was last month. One of my biggest challenges with WISE is that I have a lot of ideas that change  come to me  or i try to take on more work than I can handle so I end up losing interest in what I'm doing due to stress. A lot of my ideas aren't possible due to time, budget constraints and lack of transportation. I have to say my biggest disappointment was that I couldn't learn under a trained Professional because I didn't have the money or a license to drive myself to Burlington. I feel like if I could have worked under someone it would have been immensely beneficial to my project and  I would've had more field experiences that I could blog about. I'm honestly feeling a little disheartened because I am not 100% happy with the work that I've done, I know I could've done a better job had I had more resources. Never the less, I am at least satisfied that the work I've done thus far isn't terrible.

My Spring Vacation 4/17-4/26

I left for New York at 6:30 on Friday the 17th, and sat on the Greyhound for 5 hours. While I was on the bus I couldn't help but think about all the work that awaited me while I was being idle with my family. I got to eat a lot of Chinese American food from this cute little restaurant called Hao Wei that was a few blocks from my moms apartment and her Boyfriend Aaron bought me a lot of Sushi. Nikki told me that I may be able to get a $25 Price chopper gift card if I write up a proposal and turn it in, this is awesome news because I've been worried about the cost of supplies.  So when I got back to Vermont, I went to Price Chopper with my grandmother and found that some of the ingredients that I need for my recipes were there. That being said, I still need to go to the 99 Market in Burlington next week so that I can get specific ingredients that I can't seem to find anywhere else, though i'm still not even sure that the Market has the supplies. Yesterday I began to mentally put my schedule together for the weeks leading up to my presentation. I plan to print out a master Cookbook and 5 mini versions for my presentation, then I am going to display my blog for the audience.

Journal update *4/15/15

Today I had a WISE meeting with the coordinators of The program and the rest of the participants. We went over what it takes to present our projecs. We were asked to reflect on the question "Why?". I knew immediately that I chose Wise because it gave me a way to choose what I wanted to learn and explore a medium. My older sister participated in the program and she enjoyed it a lot, so I decided to give it a try.My project is pretty personal to me because I wanted to be a chef when I was a little kid and my favorite type of  food is Chinese. Although my career goal has changed, my passion for cooking has not.

My Interview with the Qiu Yu Xu on 3/29/15

On Monday, I interviewed Qiu Yu Xu ( 坵⽟虛). Qiu Yu Xu is the daughter of the local Chinese restaurant owner, She was amazing and so nice to allow me to interview her during work hours. I got to learn a little more about her and the culture that she was raised in! It was a little hard to communicate but I enjoyed listening to her speak.  I am in the process of conducting another interview with another WISE student, who went to China and Vietnam last week. I am dying with curiosity about the things she did in these Countries!

Now back to my Interview with Qiu Yu, I started by asking her what the differences were between Southern and Northern Chinese food. The answer to that was, the South doesn’t put as much spice in their food and uses a lot more seafood. While in the North their food is spicy and has more meat and Wheat based meals, so things like Dumplings are more prevalent than in the south. Another difference that Qiu Yu pointed out was American Chinese versus authentic Chinese cuisine. The answer I got was actually really interesting, the biggest difference was the preparation of the food-American chinese consists of mostly fried food whereas authentic Chinese food is often steamed.

I began asking some questions about Qiu Yu’s favorite foods and her opinions about Chinese Cuisine.

1)WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE DISH FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD?

Qiu Yu: My favorite food is homemade Mochi!

2) IS THERE A DISH THAT YOU WOULD RECOMMEND TO OTHERS?

Qiu Yu: I would suggest Beef Bone Stew.

I am so grateful that I was able to interview Qiu Yu because it definitely changed my preconceived notion about whether or not the food in china was the same throughout the China!

4/9/15

This past week I have been setting up my Cookbook and putting together my annotated bibliography so I  haven't had time to transcribe the interviews that I did this week and last. Then on Monday, I had to go to the doctors so I wasn't able to get as much done as I wanted. On the other hand I was able to churn out a Table of Contents and organize the order of which the recipes are to be placed into the cookbook.