Food brings us together

Inspire Your Kids to Learn with Food

The kids are back at school and parents out there are trying to encourage them to do their best, to learn and grow.

Sometimes this isn’t obvious, though.

Often you hear kids saying:

• “How will I ever use this information?
• "Why do I need to learn this?”

In an age of auto-correct, spelling seems inconsequential, and technology takes care of many fine details in most jobs. But there are basic skills we still need to have.

In my scanning of the internet for some stellar examples of how important reading, writing and arithmetic still are, I came upon a blog post with a sense of humour. Cake Wrecks showcases mostly professionally made cakes that have been decorated with something lost in translation between the client and the bakery.

It has been around since 2008, so obviously there is still work to be done in raising the bar for understanding.

I remember some of my efforts at fancier cakes and the first time I tried to write on a cake, and a wave of empathy poured over me. The cakes shown on the blog were made by professionals, so I envisioned things like odd names being misconstrued.

There was some of that, but I did not imagine anything quite so creatively wrong as the sample that started the collection.

Best Wishes Suzanne
Under Neat that
We will Miss you

I had to read it twice to take in the full effect of the blunder. The beautiful marzipan fruit and icing roses couldn’t hide the bluntness of this overly literal sentiment.

The incorrect spelling was, dare I say, more icing on the cake.

Of course, there are all kinds of spelling mistakes recounted, and decorators who were perhaps not quite as good at replicating an object or creature as they thought.

Colour is important too, it was mentioned, as in the example of the cake that used brown swirls of icing around a farm full of animals.

Even neglecting something as simple as punctuation and symbols can make a difference, and the author is keen to point out the humour and irony using a bit of commentary.

In an example sent in that had “1 Dad” written boldly on the cake, she comments, “Of all the Dads out there, you are one of them.”  

That might have been what Dad was thinking, if only for a moment, but let’s hope he also smiled and remembered the idea of the thought being what counts.

I don’t mean to make light of someone else’s disaster. What I loved about the article, and the blog, was that the theme was more about reminding us all we are human, and that laughter is really the best medicine.

When I made my first attempt at something like a black forest cake and the cherry pie-filling, I put in the middle made the top layer slide halfway off, my friend laughed heartily and said that the cake had started the party without us.

I was relieved; it really was the thought that counted. Once we finally got the mess onto plates, it was pretty darn tasty, after all.

It all goes back to a common theme of mine: food brings us together. Even if it’s bad food, or bad-looking food, we still come together, and we still celebrate.

To add a little laughter into the mix can’t possibly be bad. Just remember that the next time you pick up a cake you order over the phone.

It seemed this was a great topic for the start of school, when we want to try and encourage youngsters to get past their mistakes. Even adults can make some doozies, we all have to move forward and try again.

I hope you can share some of these blunders with any aspiring students as inspiration to keep on learning.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.