'Controversies' of home cooking

A controversy on home cooking would be the question "organic or conventional (non-organic)?"  The word organic refers to the way farmers conduct their farms. For farmers who grow crops such as fruits, vegetables, grains they won't use insecticides to kill the bugs or herbicides to keep weeds at bay, but use alternative non-chemical means to keep bugs and weeds from overpowering their crops. For farmers who manage animals, they would feed them organic foods and let them roam around outside to feed on grass (that haven't been treated with chemicals) instead of giving them antibiotics, medicine and hormones.  The nutritional value of organic and conventional foods aren't any different but people prefer organic foods to limit their own exposure to chemicals like pesticide residue, additives and the fact that organic farming benefits the environment. The downside of choosing organic is that it's more expensive due to the fact that organic farms  cost more to 

manage and because fruits that aren't treated with wax or preservatives often spoil faster than those that were treated. Overall it depends on the individual if they would want to spend the extra amount of money.

Another is "all women [should] know how to cook". Women, have for centuries been the home makers in their families. knowing how to cook and run a household, was expected from women back in the day. Nowadays, both men and women know how to cook but not necessarily  ALL women. My sister doesn't know how to cook an actual meal -- only know how to boil water for ramen whiles her boyfriend knows how to cook a variety of foods. The role, gender based roles, have changed through this century. Traditionally family oriented roles have, to some degree, been abandoned by the younger generation. The roles of wives being at home--  doing the laundry, cooking for their husbands, clean the house and take care of the children and the men go out to work 8+ hours a day to come home with the 'bacon', has been modernized and/or been redefined. Nowadays, we can see the roles being switched or see families eating out at restaurants instead of eating home cooked meals. The job /role of a women no longer limits her in a house/kitchen.

Top Ten Links About Home Cooking

http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/2011-SAVEUR-Best-Food-Blog-Awards-Winners

This site gives you a list of the 2011 best food blog awards. There are 17 different categories with 6 winners each. If you wanted to make some desert you can look under the best baking and deserts blog and check out what the bloggers say. This website can also jumpstart some new recipe ideas as well.

http://homecooking.about.com/

This is one of the most useful online cooking instructions and a great way to find new recipes for certain holidays. It also has cooking 101 for the real beginners who don't know the cooking measurements and the basics. This is useful because if there are similar recipes to the ones I have I could link the viewers from my page to similar recipes or if they did not like the ingredients used in my recipes they could try something that was similar to it.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/

This is probably a must watch/read for all those who love to cook. It features special and popular recipes from famous chefs. The thing I like about this is the detailed outline on the recipes, the total time it would take, the prep time, the cooking time, how many servings and the easiness of that certain recipe.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/

This is a nice site to find recipes, and a little more organized than homecooking.about.com. It has a community/forum section so I can interact with the people who also frequent this site. I'll also able to connect with others and learn new recipes and so on.

http://tasteofhomecooking.blogspot.com/

A blog site about her own home cooking. I really like this blog mainly because the food pictures are delicious looking, and the recipe she types up are very clean and the directions are clear. what I probably like most is her "recipe swap roundup" which she categorized and it basically features other blogger's recipe for this similar dish!

http://www.thekitchn.com/

Not only about cooking and recipes but gives it has a kitchen tour, an F.A.Q. of the person and a recipe! Showing the workspace behind the people who do home cooking is really nice, makes me feel connected as a viewer. I like how it in the left margin it gives you the top 5 recipes, post and tours.

http://simplyrecipes.com/

Similar to all the other sites, it contains recipes. What I like about this one is that the fact that it separates it's recipes not only by the typical breakfast, lunch, dinner, or by beef, chicken, egg, etc but it also has a recipes for people on budget, for vegetarians, low carb, etc. It would be very useful to compare some vegetarian dishes that I have in mind to the ones listed here.

http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/

A fun, easy guide to learn how to cook 'gourmet' food. I like the options he has at the very top, the how to and tools would be helpful. I also like how he incorporates his family into the cooking. When reading one of this appetizers "Chinese Pork Dumplings" I learned that he wanted to do this recipe because he thought his daughters could help out with the prep in making them. 

http://www.homecookingdiary.com/

A bit different than all the rest because it features home cooking from Asian countries. However, it mainly covers dishes from Korea. But what i liked about this most is that it's dishes that Americans probably haven't heard before and i like the sauce option it has. I also liked the step by step with pictures.

http://www.asianhomerecipe.com/

 This is different than the above link because it features recipes from more Asian countries such as the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, etc.  The only thing i don't like about this site is the lack of pictures for the recipes.