As I mentioned earlier, I had the amazing opportunity to go to Israel on a study abroad program for 8 weeks. I was with other American students from around the country, as well as my 3 Israeli madrachim (counselors,) and my teachers. My home teacher in Gifted, said I could just document the food I eat as my grade. Although it seemed a little bit of an inconvenience at first, looking back and watching those video food vlogs is one of my favorite things to do. I tried so much different food, and would do video vlogs of me and my friends tasting the food, and giving our review of it. While I wouldn't consider the reviews magazine ready, they do mean a lot to me. I love that when watching them back, I can remember the taste and smell of the food. I want to mention my main teacher, Rueven. Rueven was probably my scariest, kindest, most wack, out of pocket, and challenging teacher I have ever had. He was able to challenge me in ways no other teacher has, while still holding such a strong trust among his students.
The reason I am bringing Ruevan up is because for one Shabbat, I stayed at his house for the weekend, along with my friend. With orthodox Shabbat, all food has to be prepared before Shabbat starts, which means all meals from Friday dinner to Saturday dinner need to be prepared before hand. This was already 3 or 4 weeks into my trip, where I had already tasted and documented a lot of food. However, those few meals made me feel so incredibly connected to a place and a people I had never experienced before. From walking into his home and being ordered to be a tortilla roller, to being handed cookies and tea after a long walk, and being urged to eat more of the most delectable Shabbat dinner I had ever tasted (I was so incredibly full); these experiences altered my connection for the rest of my time being, and still to this point.
The reason I bring this up is because it is something I want to incorporate into this book. These recipes are so much more than some ingredients and directions. They are time, love, memories, family, friends, and most of all, they are part of my identity. Each recipe has a story, and a large part of my cookbook is sharing them with the rest of the world.
Since all of this was being done away from class, I didn't use a backwards design, or Kaplan objectives. I didn't really have much planning involved at all. I used all of my resources to get as much done as possible. As the due date was getting fretfully near, my teacher and I came out with the plan of trying to get a really good base line for my book before the year ends, and to publish and publicize this summer. There were many reasons for this. First, there was simply no time. Coming back from Israel, there was a lot of work I had to catch up on, especially in my AP and IB classes. Additionally, I want this book to be representative of the best work I could possibly produce, so if I were to try and shove all of this into one month, the result would not be something that I am proud of.
Okay so what I actually got done this section:
Made some pretty awesome (very not high tech) food vlog videos and posted them for the world to see! (aka a few of my friends who follow my TikTok)
Created the final cover for this book
Found a template, edited it to my liking, and imported all of my recipes into one format, along with the little histories of the recipes, and some pics
Had the best experience of my life, made my new life long friends, and I would never trade it for the world.
I will not be including the pictures of the actual pages of the book, but you can see those when the book is released in Summer 2023!
Since my food vlogs are a bit too long to post on here, I reached out to my friends from my trip, and asked them to send me their favorite food pics. Here is the collection, enjoy!