Julie Van Rosendaal’s “Starting Out: The Essential Guide to Cooking on Your Own”
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Can you cook a meal for yourself? While this may seem to many as a pointless question, there are many others who have never learned to cook. Take college students for example. While there are still many who can cook at least something, there are also many others who may not know how to use a microwave or any other basic cooking appliance. It is important for people to know how to cook. It saves money, generally makes for a healthier diet, and if done correctly it tastes delicious. Julie Van Rosendaal created a cookbook called âStarting Out: The Essential Guide to Cooking on Your Ownâ to offer a solution to this problem. This cookbook was published in 2006, which makes sense as technology started to really pick up and the upcoming generations would be more interested in other things rather than cooking. Van Rosendaal chose to keep the cookbook simple and use it to reach the generations of younger people who havenât necessarily learned to cook. Additionally, inside the front of the book, she says âFor Aaron, who will have to feed himself soonâ(Van Rosendaal 2006). While it seems that she is writing the cookbook for her son, the only child she has seems to be Willem. It is possible that Aaron was just a random name, but most likely it is her son. Regardless, the audience is clearly any younger people who donât know how to cook.
Julie Van Rosendaal clearly wanted her cookbook to be educational. She starts out by going through the basics of cooking from various cooking techniques, to what ingredients to buy, and everything in between. For example, she starts the entire cookbook off by discussing what types of tools and appliances the reader should buy before getting started. On page 12, she says âYouâll need pots and pansâŚâ(Van Rosendaal 2006, p. 12). She continues to talk about which kind the reader should get, specifying different sizes. Most people would already know that pots and pans are important for cooking, but she included this detail among many other small details, to create a cookbook for any level. She didnât risk leaving out any low to no experience cooks, which is important considering that doing something youâve never done before can be scary for some that lack confidence. She continues with this rhetoric up until the recipes start on page 51. Some more experienced cooks may find her approach demeaning, but it is important to note that it is necessary for her intended audience to read the very basics. While we discuss language usage like this, through a variety of mediums in class, to be an issue, that may not be the case. We cannot overlook intent. In the case of Van Rosendaal, she intended this cookbook to be very user-friendly, and she did a great job accomplishing that. The recipes that she chose to include offer a large variety of meals, and therefore a varied level of difficulty. Most of the recipes seem very easy, which is to be expected. I could see some beginners possibly getting ahead of themselves with certain recipes, so maybe she could have included some sort of a scale to show how difficult each recipe is going to be, but considering that nothing would be considered hard to cook, it isnât too necessary to include.
In class, we have discussed many social issues regarding food. Considering that Van Rosendaalâs cookbook is meant to be educational, social issues are few and far between. One thing that she did touch on later in the cookbook was the use of food in a social setting. As a class, we have spent a substantial amount of time discussing how food plays a major role in our lives. We talked about celebrations that bring families together, you name a special occasion, and food is probably involved. This is because of the unique ability of food to bring people together in a social setting. While it is a small section, the social aspect comes up from page 327 to page 330, where Van Rosendaal bring the cookbook to a close by suggesting different scenarios to cook different foods, even injecting some humor in the scenario of âWhen you want to impress someone(Your date or your mom)â(Van Rosendaal 2006, p. 329). Aside from food, she threw in a brief section on how to do laundry, starting on page 318. This is valuable information for her audience, but as previously mentioned, some people may be offended by it. The detail of her cookbook is very valuable for anyone who is truly a beginner. However, I think it is a valuable asset to anyone to own this cookbook because it offers such a variety of recipes. More talented cooks may use these recipes as a baseline potentially, whereas her intended audience will likely stick to the recipes that she included. Additionally, it is a great tool to help teach others like your own children if you are a parent. Julie Van Rosendaal did a great job writing this cookbook, and it is at very least worth looking through.
Rosendaal, J. V. (2006). Starting out: The essential guide to cooking on your own. Whitecap Books.
Standard, and Julie. âLife in My Kitchen.â Dinner With Julie, 24 Apr. 2021, www.dinnerwithjulie.com/.