How to Bone a Duck: A Digital Short

This is a video I made summarizing How to Bone a Duck, my home cooking ethnography. Bon Appetit!

Storyboard

This is a rough storyboard for my digital short.

Home Cooking Update - Where I am

To complete my home cooking ethnography I need to:

- Perform a few more interviews

- Write findings section and conclusion

- Complete Glossary

- Assemble all important documents in binder

- Write Digital Short Script

- Shoot Digital Short and assemble

How to Bone a Duck: Methodology

It’s not like we’re born with the ability to know exactly when a cake is done in the middle, or how to make noodles from scratch. But, we get there. We learn over time. So, I talked to people about their lives. The interviews were intensive, going in to family life, pocket books and spiritual views. I talked to people who have a reputation for their cooking passion. To truly find out why cooking at home is what it is I had to have voices of people who knew what they’re doing. I judged whether or not they knew what they were doing by how they talked about food before the interview, what they were making at home, or prior advice on meals. I tried to focus on men and women. I believe it’s a stereotype to see women in the kitchen and men not caring about what they eat at all. This isn’t true. Men can and do like to cook at home, so they’re a part of the research as well.

I don’t consider myself an expert, but I’m at least enthusiastic enough to know the difference between someone who can measure a tablespoon and someone who knows what whipping egg whites means. Because of this knowledge base I also used personal experience. I’ve cooked many things and know for a fact I feel differently about cooking than lots of other people I’ve talked to. Some people would rather have their food handed to them and prepared. I wouldn’t mind if I were stuck in my kitchen day in and day out making meals for my future children and anyone else who walked through my door. My blog was used heavily for voice in the research. You learn a lot about how a person views food by how they talk about it. I, as you’ve seen, get a little bit of an ego and think all my jokes are funny all while oohing and aahing over the flavors in my filet mignon.

Since I wanted to hear everyone else’s’ voice as well I read other people’s blogs. This not only gave me a feel for why people cook but how. It’s an important aspect. Anyone can microwave something, but can you cook it? It was all fun and no work when it came to this. I got so many recipe ideas! There are so many ways to describe putting your meal together. There are different ingredients, and substitutes for those as well. I know my knowledge is no where near as extensive as necessary to write on this topic alone, so as often as possible I read articles about different foods or tried out different recipes. It’s important to read other people’s work because it allows for new perspectives to be shown. Without personally knowing these people I still had the chance to see why they cook at home.

With all of my new recipe ideas I definitely had some meals to try out. This was integral to my research. What if I used someone’s idea for an example but the food was totally crappy? I needed to have quality standards and a deeper understanding of what ingredients go in to certain dishes. I believe this research only gives me a tighter grasp on home cooking and makes it easier to write about in the end. I want to be completely immersed in this culture, so all of these research methods were needed.

Because I was so surrounded all the time by food and people who love it I also wrote a glossary. It is by no means extensive to what cooking at home looks like. That could be a book in itself. But, it is a guideline of archival materials that play a repeating role in most people’s home cooking experience, or at least with the people I talked to. This will be helpful to the non-informed reader as a reference. I don’t expect all of you to know what boning a duck even refers to. That’s ok. That’s why I’m writing about this.

How to Bone a Duck - Revised Intro

This is my revised introduction. I addressed the topics discussed in peer reviews and worked towards having more concise writing.

Sometimes when I eat alone, sitting at my bar height kitchen table, in my just cheap enough to be comfortable IKEA chair, browsing the Internet while chewing my food, I feel like I’m a really good writer. I feel like I have something extremely important to say and the whole digital audience is sitting on the edge of their slightly uncomfortable chairs with me waiting for my next tidbit of cooking wisdom, coffee enlightenment or the funniest status update they’ll read all day.

For example, a post from March 6, 2011, “I have a guilty pleasure of loving Diane Keaton movies. I think she plays some really classy ladies. There's just something about her in Something's Gotta Give, with her house in The Hamptons and how her clothes match her interior decorating. I love it!

In Because I Said So she's a mom and she loves to cook. There's one scene where she's had a particularly stressful day so she makes herself this delicious looking pasta dinner and eats it all by herself in the kitchen. This isn't to say I've had a particularly stressful day, quite the opposite, but I am saying there are moments when I make myself pasta and I'm home alone that I feel like I too could be the next great playwright (Maybe I should write plays first?). But now I'm mixing up my movies. The point is there's an extremely satisfying feeling in making elegant pasta all for myself.

On this chilly afternoon the elegant dish was Romano Pasta - a fettuccini noodle sautéed in a marsala, garlic, shallot reduction and topped with grated Romano cheese.”

It’s the confidence that stirs in me when I write about my kitchen adventures that leads me to study home cooking. Everyone eats, but how and why? While living in a generation of eating out every night there remain families with children, single dudes and ladies rooming together that take the time to cook at home. What is the draw? Why do they do it? Do they really get anything out of it? All because of my cheeky Internet ego the pleasant world of home cooking will be discovered through these questions for you, the reader, to savor.

The reasons range. Home cooking has health benefits. It can be budget sensitive and experimental. It brings community. Trying it out, or at least reading about it can really only be beneficial. Unless, of course, you fall in love with it and end up spending every night after work sweating over the stovetop, dreaming up ways to bone a duck and then blogging about it. Was that a “Julie and Julia” reference? Continue reading at your own risk.

I cook at home for all of these reasons. I’m not the healthiest person alive. I love sweets, but at least I know what’s going in to my meals. And when it comes to money I’m all over the sales at the grocery store. I can spend $31 and save $38 at the same time. You can’t do that when you eat out. But, why I’m most passionate about cooking at home is because I love having people over. I see food as a huge part of quality time and when it’s in a relaxed environment it’s even better. Another reason to study this topic – to find out if other people feel the same way about home cooking.

And this is where the story goes beyond cheeky.

My friend Kristin says it so well, “ It’s fun because you’re enjoying things God has given us. You’re enjoying that together.”

Dwell on that, as this feast is prepared. The reason for home cooking goes far beyond nourishment, price point or hobby. It is a thanksgiving to God. Food is already one of my favorite things, and when I realized that God also loves food, because he created it, my curiosity exploded. If He created the Platypus then what kinds of fruits and vegetables did he place on this Earth for us to be perplexed by? Taste and see!