Go Figure

By Judith Garfield

It all started in 2nd grade.

I remember listening to Mrs. Dennis explaining about quarters and dimes and how much did you need to buy that loaf of bread and suddenly there was vomit everywhere. I’ll never forget the horrified yet perplexed look on her face as she gazed down and saw the mess beneath her feet. After that I don’t remember anything. The diagnosis: Math anxiety, pure and simple, and it has only gotten worse since that day.

According to the experts, math anxiety is an emotional reaction to mathematics based on a past unpleasant experience which harms future learning. I’m a textbook case.
That rising feeling of panic that precipitated the incident is fairly common, because what we don’t understand frightens us. And boy, was I frightened. My brain just did not compute what Mrs. Dennis was so patiently trying to explain. I was forever doomed to be overcome with panic, helplessness, and paralysis whenever I was required to solve a math problem. Problem solving is not one of my strengths.

And that of course leads us to the computer, where problem solving is forever coming up. The computer that sits there daring me to find the correct button to push when directed by commands on the screen. With a computer there is always the fear that if I press the wrong button I could cause the breakdown of cyber space. Or worse, I could lose every piece of information that S. has ever stored. We share a computer, so I try to be somewhat cautious with my indiscriminate button pushing. Usually, I commit to the key, strike it, then hold my breath and pray nothing terrible will happen. So far I’ve escaped disaster.

I suppose it all comes down to not wanting to look like a moron. Honestly, there are times when I am utterly humiliated by my inability to navigate simple machines. Even cash machines cause me anxiety. I like to say it’s because I’m right brained. A creative type. That may be partly true. But it just doesn’t explain why I can’t even put the cordless phone back the proper way until someone takes pity and shows me.

In my next life I plan on being a left brain math whiz and computer genius. Until then, I’ll just try to push the right buttons.

Time to Get Your Hands Doughy

By Brianne Harrison

With money tight, gas expensive, and new salmonella scares cropping up every month, it seems, more and more people are going back to growing, making, and preserving their own food. The New York Times recently devoted a considerable amount of space to a story about the recent renaissance of canning and preserving—skills that, until recently, were mostly associated with the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Unsurprisingly, classes have begun cropping up to help modern-day foodies rediscover these skills. A Toute Heure in Cranford, a restaurant devoted to the “locavore” ideals, has started up its own Cooks’ Classes, which are hands-on and designed to help modern-day cooks learn skills like preserving and baking that they can use in their home kitchens. Coming up on June 8 is a class on bread. Bread making is often unfairly thought to be extremely difficult and time-consuming. Yes, it does take several hours to make bread, but most of those hours don’t involve the chef at all. Knead the dough, and leave it to rise for two hours while you run your errands, take the kids to soccer practice, or watch a movie. And the kneading process itself is a great stress relief—something most of us could use these days!

A Toute Heure’s class will cover the basics of breadmaking, and participants will create their own “mother” dough starter and experiment with flavorings and dough types. Everyone will leave with recipes they can try at home. Not bad for a two-hour class.

An upcoming class in July will cover pastry making, and the younger members of your family can check out the kids’ class and farm tour in August. Kids will learn where their food comes from and how a farm works and will help prepare a healthy meal that will be served family style at the end of the class. They, too, will walk away with recipes and ideas for cooking with locally sourced vegetables.

For registration information, contact A Toute Heure, 908.276.6600, atouteheure.com