Potatoes & Rice?!

I was so excited when I heard we were finally doing something where our parents could get involved. My mom is constantly asking about BLF and what we are doing so I knew loved actually getting to be a part of it. I think it is important for the people close to us to understand what we are learning in these challenges and how they are shaping our leadership styles and the ways we are growing professionally from them.

For those of you who didn't talk to my mom... my mom and I are essentially the same person; which when working together can cause some problems. (Apparently I can never be satisfied.. I work with people completely different and its difficult, and I work with people exactly the same as me and its difficult.. ?) Anyways, like I said, working together we can sometimes butt heads. Although during this challenge it turned out a little differently. Neither of us are outstanding cooks unless we follow a recipe so from the beginning we both kinda stepped back and had fun figuring out different ways to beat chicken.. My mom and I both took on the same role and worked together to get it accomplished. Although I did see our particular behavior shine through when beating the chicken because she had her way of doing it and I had mine and since we are both stubborn we both wanted to only do it our way; after some time we compromised and I'm pretty sure we had the best flattened chicken there.

Thinking back, I don't think our group actually had a defined vision- which made it really exciting, fun, and  then of course stressful at the end when we had to throw everything together on a plate. I think we were a little worried at first because none of us in the group claimed to be excellent cooks (Joe was clearly lying). So starting off we tried to think of what we knew rather than really thinking outside of the box. I think it would have been more beneficial for our team to have taken a step back and create a vision for our meal rather than diving right into it.

In my perspective I really didn't find this too much different from when we work with just the fellows. I guess the only thing would be was I saw us kind of relying on our parents because we knew they had more experience so we were looking to them for guidance. Whereas when we just work together none of us noticeably the others when it comes to experience in a particular topic. I didn't feel as pressured to make things perfect either just because I knew if I messed up on something, my mom or one of the other parents in my group could help me out. It felt a little more relaxed than when working with the other fellows.

The most challenging part of this challenge would definitely have to be my lack of creative thinking when it comes to cooking. I have no idea what would go well together when it comes to food so I couldn't add much  to that conversation. I am someone who doesn't really branch out when it comes to flavor so it was really a challenge trying to imagine how pretzel breaded shrimp would taste. (Ended up being really good!) The easiest part was letting loose and just having fun with it. No offense to my team, but I really didn't think we would win... We were going against Meaghan the chef for petes sake. So I guess I didn't get extremely competitive from the get go and just wanted to make sure everyone had fun- and that was super easy!

Time Management- Yeah it was difficult but I was always making sure cooking times and such were all taken into account before doing anything.
Communication- After working at Sloopys I completed understand how important communication is in a kitchen. I was always updating people on what I was doing and getting updates in return to make sure we were all on the same page.
Decision Making - I really don't like making decisions. but I think for this challenge I was fine with it. And when we had no idea what we were going to put on what plate, Joe Shelby and I all made quick decisions and while potatoes and rice on the same plate isn't the best decision we've ever made... at least we tried? and, it definitely could have been worse....

 is anyone else confused?

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I would most definitely recommend this challenge again. I had so much fun and I know my mom did too! It was great to incorporate new people into the group. I feel like the fellows, for the most part, are very comfortable with each other  by now and to throw in someone else spices things up a bit. (No pun intended).  Although I do feel like we were all pretty much miniatures of our parents!

Our food, made with lots of love, I actually really enjoyed!

Special thanks to Eddie, Sarah and Ryan for putting this together!

hopefully I'm not violating any copyright policies by using that picture at the top.... (property of ohio union) ?