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Teaching is a gift and not everyone has it. I have had the privilege to teach French to the little ones at my children’s elementary school for seven years until the state funding went dry. However, I know that I couldn’t teach French formally, I have to many bad grammatical habits, it would be a disaster. When I worked in retail and as a waiter, all those years ago, I trained all the new hires. I liked training the new people, it was fun and I found it easy but what I was teaching them wasn’t complicated, it was just a matter of social skill and outgoing nature.
Do I really know any complicated subjects? I wouldn’t call cooking complicated per se, it really depends on the cooking in question. In my experience, cooking revolves around your senses, all five of them. As long as you pay attention to your senses, you are already halfway there. A good example would be cooking a steak. Your eyes tell you when the meat is caramelized, your nose will tell you that the meat is getting there, your finger will tell you the doneness of the meat, when the meat doesn’t spring back to the touch, that is when it is well done and when the sizzle starts to subside, it is close to well done. Cooking is something that needs to be done often for you to get to the point where you are comfortable and at ease. But one of the things that I really love about cooking is that you can always learn something new and always get better despite your level of expertise.
Gardening is something else that I love but I am far and away still a neophyte. I would never presume to teach anything about gardening because I am constantly learning every year and every day of that new year in gardening. I do love talking about gardening with others and sharing experiences and anecdotal stories but that is not teaching, technically, just sharing the wealth of know how in plants.
In my mind sharing knowledge and experience is a great way to make new friends, learn new things and spend a lovely time.