When I graduated from college and moved to Washington, D.C., in 2017, I left all of my friends behind. Treating new associates with home-cooked meals was my best attempt at making new friends and curing my loneliness. Soon enough, everyone was asking me for the recipes(食谱), which is how Bun Bo Bae, my Vietnamese cooking blog, came into being in 2019.

I’ve probably been destined(注定的) to start a food blog. I spent most of my childhood in the kitchen with my mom. As a child, I’d sit and watch her cook. My duties started with just passing her the ingredients(配料). Soon, I was measuring, steaming and stir-frying my way toward kitchen mastery. I left for college before I could learn my mom’s best dishes.

Studying abroad, I was desperately homesick in the beginning. So, I started calling my mom and asking for the recipes for my favorite dishes. It turns out that my mom doesn’t have any recipes. She grew up in the kitchen with her mom too, and my grandma passed on her knowledge orally(口头地).

Bun Bo Bae was initially a space for me to put what I learned into writing. I didn’t want all of the secret knowledge behind dishes like my mom’s bún bò hué (a spicy beef and pork noodle soup that inspired the blog’s name) or my dad’s thit bǎm sôt cà chua (a pork-based tomato sauce) to vanish one day if the oral tradition ended. I wanted to write down every piece of advice I was given in detail to make sure people could keep creating these dishes as authentically as possible. As my food blog and follower count grew, so did my confidence in the kitchen.

Bun Bo Bae also promoted my confidence at work. I taught myself social media and web building, and the skills helped me land my job at NPR (National Public Radio), where one of my recipes was served in Sound Bites. I even hosted a cooking class for my colleagues to celebrate AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Heritage Month.

What comes into your mind when you think of British food? Probably fish and chips, or a Sunday dinner of meat and two vegetables. But is British food really so uninteresting? Even though Britain has a reputation for less-than-impressive cuisine, it is producing more top class chefs who appear frequently on our television screens and whose recipe books frequently top the best seller lists.

It’s thanks to these TV chefs rather than any advertising campaign that Britons are turning away from meat-and-two-veg and ready-made meals and becoming more adventurous in their cooking habits. It is recently reported that the number of those sticking to a traditional diet is slowly declining and around half of Britain’s consumers would like to change or improve their cooking in some way. There has been a rise in the number of students applying for food courses at UK universities and colleges. It seems that TV programmes have helped change what people think about cooking.

According to a new study from market analysts, 1 in 5 Britons say that watching cookery programmes on TV has encouraged them to try different food. Almost one third say they now use a wider variety of ingredients than they used to, and just under 1 in 4 say they now buy better quality ingredients than before. One in four adults say that TV chefs have made them much more confident about expanding their cookery knowledge and skills, and young people are also getting more interested in cooking. The UK’s obsession (痴迷) with food is reflected through television scheduling. Cookery shows and documentaries about food are broadcast more often than before. With an increasing number of male chefs on TV, it’s no longer “uncool” for boys to like cooking.

Baking Is Good For Mental Health

As the novel coronavirus spreads,the panic shoppers buy everything off supermarket shelves in preparation for the days to come.Bread is often among the first products to disappear. So,if you have never made bread,now may be good time to learn.Baking is not just a useful survival skill.【小题1】 In fact,baking and cooking have been used to treat people with mental health issues on many levels.

【小题2】

So when you’re in the kitchen,especially when you’re baking,you will really get the full benefit of being present in the moment and being able to put aside all the other thoughts and just focus on the here-and-now.

Baking is a labor of love.

【小题3】It not only makes you feel good,but it produces something that you can touch and eat!With very few simple things-such as flour,salt and yeast-you can bake a fresh loaf of bread for your family,neighbors or coworkers.

Baking is emotional.

We remember meals our grandmothers made.We teach our children important recipes for family favorites【小题4】

All bakers know that giving delicious,baked goods makes the giver feel as good as the receiver.【小题5】To be able to pass bread on to someone else certainly can make the day for the person receiving it.But it’s also just as powerful for the giver.