Cooking 4 Life™

For the past four weeks I have been teaching a cooking class. One of my good friends who works with a company helping people with mental disabilities asked me if I would like to teach cooking for their clients. I thought what a great idea, and came up with a program to help these people be more independent, healthy, and confident by cooking simple meals for themselves. I called the course Cooking 4 Life™. It's not fancy gourmet style cooking, it is meant to demystify the art of cooking and show them that if they can read a recipe, they can cook anything.



We have six (6) students and some carers to help manage any challenges that certain types of disabilities may bring into the kitchen. So far, so good. Every week we cook a recipe for a meal and we eat the finished food together, and then wash up together. The most satisfying thing for me is to watch all these students tuck hungrily into a meal that they have just prepared themselves. Time will tell if they end up preparing the dishes in their own homes.

As an offshoot of the classes, I have been approached by the community centre where we conduct the classes. They needed a casual chef and I begin working for them tomorrow.

Season Return

Indeed it has been a while since the last post. How about we pretend it's like a TV series and now we are on season two:

*Pretend TV voice-over with flashback scenes*

Last time on Michael's Life:
*scene* left work at Sheraton;
*scene* fell in love with Beatriz;
*scene* having a baby together;
*scene* went on holiday to visit his family in the Philippines;
*scene* ... and moved in with Beatriz..

*show opening credits*




Life has once again taken a wonderful and slightly unexpected turn. Last time I wrote, I was feeling some angst at my self-perceived failure to make the grade at the Sheraton. Yet at the same time, I was aglow with the beginning of the relationship that I had always been dreaming of.

Beatriz and I had at the start agreed that if we could, it would be wonderful to have a family together. Back then we did not hold much hope that it would happen because of a number of private reasons that made us think that perhaps our capacity to conceive would be less than optimal. And yet here we are, halfway through the pregnancy.

At times I remember how I felt the first time I was an expectant father. I was a young man with no clue and filled with fear that I may be incapable of meeting the responsibility of parenthood. It was indescribably daunting at twenty-three. Now at forty-five, backed by twenty-one years experience of parenting my first daughter, it has at least become describably daunting.

I do not devalue the struggles of the road ahead, I feel like a soldier who's volunteered for a second tour of duty. I go, not because I have to, but this time because I want to.

The first time around, I was constantly afraid of what trials the future may hold and spend my days preparing for the storm that may never come. These days I come from a place of courage, with excitement in my eyes for what is to come. Enjoying today and embracing the challenges as they come.

I am alive.