Date : 18 July 2020
When I set my schedule to go to the farmer’s market every Saturday as part of my weekly routine, it has also become our family weekly routine. As I shared the last post about my youngest daughter’s flower arrangement experience, last Saturday she picked the flowers and made another stunning flowers arrangement again. I love how she formed her ideas by looking through so many different flowers in the flowers market stalls and was able to decide which flowers and colours to pick, finally working towards her flowers arrangement to her satisfaction at home. This time, she said: “All these different vases at home are my assets from now on!” Wow, I see the determination in this girl, and I can’t wait to see what’s going to unfold in her future, as only God knows. For now, I just know that I will be by her side to support her learning, to encourage her to pursue her dreams and let her creativity flow.
“Life is just a PATH. if you follow your heart IT WILL LEAD YOU in the right direction”
-Author unknown
I did my sourdough experiments many years back, it wasn't a successful experience and I dropped the idea of baking sourdough due to many reasons. Now, I have restarted this “sourdough baking engine" again with Apphia, I am hoping that she can handle the sourdough baking journey pretty easily with me guiding her along and at the same time, she gets to learn more about science with living bacteria and keeping her occupied during school holidays. A great book that I am currently reading is “EAT to beat disease” written by Dr. William Li, a world-renowned doctor, scientist & angiogenesis expert. It is worth mentioning that Dr Li noted that, “One type of sourdough bacteria, there is this Lactobacillus reuteri has remarkable health functions. It has shown to improve immunity and suppress tumour development. It also reduces weight gain and can speed wound healing. The bacteria also help to activate the gut-brain axis by stimulating the brain to release the social hormone oxytocin.”
With that in mind, this is the journey that is worth pursuing with my daughter. Therefore, I encourage Apphia to venture into cultivating a sourdough starter project and baking her first-ever sourdough during this holiday. We had our ups and downs in the process of looking after her sourdough starer but, with perseverance, we had our success after cultivating the starter for 15 days in winter here. Cultivating a starter requires determination, consistency, patience and LOVE towards these living bacteria. It is our little project that we are working together, it is about cooking from scratch and giving each other space to grow own interest into baking whichever type of sourdough bread that we each like to bake. Apphia looked after her sourdough baby and I looked after mine, we compared notes and shared successes and failures - as this is an ongoing learning journey, we celebrate with success and learn from our failure humbly.
As I have always said, every experience that my children gain in the kitchen will not ever go to waste, they are building all their kitchen experience day by day, bit by bit and finally one day, they can put all these experience together becoming their kitchen skills. Then, I will be able to see them spread their wings and fly - after all, if I don't give them a chance to experience kitchen life when they are young, how would I know how far my kids can fly?
So, let your kids start experiencing the kitchen with you and you will never know how far this can take them too!
Note: Photos shown above all are original work by Apphia. Her flowers, her starter (aka her baby) & her first sourdough, pretty impressive work!
In health,
Hui Sydney