Mind Map

            I spent the first five minutes brainstorming what idea or problem I wanted to further investigate. Since I no longer have a meal plan and the concept of creating meals or even cooking, had been bugging me, I decided I’d focus my mind map on how to cook, especially for beginners.

            This past winter break began the real test of cooking endurance. It was my first time (alone) I ventured into a grocery story without the company of my mother. Usually I’d rely on her wallet along with her cooking, but with her sailing since September until probably June, I had to whip out my Christmas money and begin food shopping, on a budget and without an idea of what to buy. Luckily for me, I live with a chief (my brother) but unfortunately he’d rather watch me eat pasta five days in a row or attempt to work the oven. I’d like to think I have some cooking skills but after putting plastic into the oven, burning multiple meat products, having things turn out way to raw, and thinking I didn’t need chocolate chips in chocolate chip cookies, I hereby pronounced myself an amateur in the kitchen.

            So, not only did I want to prove to myself I could cook, but I also wanted to stay alive. First I set out asking my father for advice, then I raided my mother’s recipe jar. However, being home for such a short time and visiting friends, I was only able to stir up a pot of chili which required about ten phone calls back to my dad about instructions, like how to cut onions, what a garlic presser looked like, if you can put frozen meat into a pot of broth, and if tomato sauce was the same as tomato paste. Anyways, this mind-map is my way of furthering my experience and knowledge in the world of cooking.

            Step One: To start this project off, I first took time to think of a center piece for the map, in which subjects could work off of. I didn’t want anything too complicated so I decided a cooking pot would be just fine. After drawing a pot, ideas and memories were automatically triggered. I’m thinking this is due to the convergence zone, which is receiving connections from our hippocampus that helps waken our long-term memory and allows us to retrieve stored information. Pictures sometimes can say much more than words can, and by this one single cooking pot, I could easily remember the failed experiences I had and mistakes I knew never to do again. By remembering these, it enhanced my thinking where I could then think of many different categories to jot down.

            Step Two: Each branch I drew off of the pot was some sort of topic that I felt was important to know in order to be efficient in the kitchen. This step is called classification and it is very key when constructing a mind map because it helps us organize all ideas. This can also relate to linguistic interpretations, which is how we chose to label things according to our experience.

            Step Three: After drawing about 13 different branches, I took a break for twenty minutes. I found out that the reason for taking a break is because by relaxing, it helps generate more ideas, almost as if the brain is refueling.

            Step Four: After twenty minutes, I created little branches that where within the bigger branch, which symbolizes a relationship.

            Furthermore, after finishing my map and constructing a mini detailed one, I could see that by creating a mind map, it can really help uncover ideas that I would not have initially thought of.  I also found that by jotting down a few ideas and waiting, new ideas suddenly sprang from previous ideas. Hopefully, my cooking will benefit from this map.