Kerrygold Moments

The kitchen.  Just a place where we prepare and cook meals for family, friends and guests? Or is it more than that? 

When professional and home cooks were asked what they felt they had learned through the process of preparing and cooking food, their answers were revealing.

The humble kitchen is much more than just a place where meals are cooked and dishes are washed. 

Here we learn stuff about life that goes beyond just the culinary.

In the kitchen, while planning, preparing and cooking meals, we are subconsciously learning some tough and valuable lessons.

Lessons that help us to navigate our way through life.  

And although answers obviously differed, there were some things that were mentioned repeatedly in a survey. 

Below are those that were mentioned most often.

7 Valuable Life Lessons to Learn from Food and Cooking

1. Life is a challenge. It’s hard and it can be messy. There are going to be disappointments and failures and it doesn’t always turn out the way you would like it to – even when you follow the recipe. How you choose to respond to these challenges is what will ultimately shape your character.
2. It’s OK to make mistakes. One of the best ways to become better at something is to make mistakes – and learn from them. When you give yourself permission to make mistakes, your learning capacity increases tenfold. In the kitchen no one ever gets it all right first-time round. Every perfect recipe is the result of a long line of flops.
3. Nothing can replace experience.  Head knowledge is great but practical experience is better.  Someone can show you or tell you how to do something, but, doing it yourself, repeatedly, is the only way to truly master a skill.  Google makes everything look easy – until you try doing it yourself!
4. Success is a journey, not a destination and the value of success lies in the experiences one has along that journey – both the good and the bad. Many of our greatest achievements are born out of our toughest times.
5. Little things make a big difference. That pinch of salt. That squeeze of lemon. That sprinkling of nuts.  It’s the little things that can sometimes make the biggest difference – both in food and in life. Don’t forget to send that message or make that call.
6. Balance is a must. Both on a plate and in life. Everything in life requires balance and learning to create options to achieve that balance is critical. 
7. The last in line, but perhaps the most important lesson of all. Eating together and sharing our food gives us the opportunity to connect with others in a way that no other activity does. Food always tastes better when you have someone to share it with.  No other activity unites people the way sitting down for a meal does.