Love and tenderness in the bento: saffron x cubicle vegetable Peng Xianhui

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"Family" is the first learning field after a child is born. through the cultivation of life and the transmission of values, parents not only lay the foundation for their children's future learning and growth, but also cultivate their children's attitude and ability to face the future. at different stages of growth, families continue to play different roles to support their children.

Starting from the daily diet, the cooking on the table is the best place for food education. The value of friendly food farmers is not only related to food safety, but also closely related to the earth's environment and animal well-being. Based on the shared life experience of "bringing bento," the writer Saffron is invited to share with Peng Xianhui, a bookseller in Ilan, to share the education of food farmers and parent-child education from the perspective of being both mothers. I also take this opportunity to get a glimpse of the delicious lunch secrets of the two mothers!

Interviewees' profile

Wang Bizhu, who uses the pseudonym "Saffron", is a parent-child upbringing / green diet writer. Originally working in the advertising and fashion industry, in order to think about the next step in his career, and in order not to be absent in the last stage of his childhood, he chose to leave the nine-to-nine workplace and began to write on the blog. with delicate and sincere writing to record the process and experience of parent-child interaction, become a widely trusted parent-child writer, but also from their own life, share their own green diet practice. Currently specializing in family cuisine research, he is now a consultant to Green Catering Guide, a columnist for Agricultural Media, Okapi and Apple Daily, and the author of "Kitchen Little Love Song", "Vision outside the classroom", "what can I talk to Children" and other books.

Saffron Facebook table. fan page

In 2014, Peng Xianhui and Mr. Jiang Yingde came to Yuanshan in Ilan. Based on a renovated 20-year-old rice milling factory, they set up "cubicles" to sell their own friendly "cubicles". They also sell Ilan-friendly small crops and surrounding food, second-hand book exchange, cultural and creative goods, etc., and even hold agricultural, artistic and literary activities from time to time. In addition to running shops, Peng Xianhui often shares information related to friendly farming, small farmers' cooking and interaction with parents and children on the community platform, which is widely welcomed by the public.

The fan page of the cubicle calligraphy website

Love and tenderness in the bento Q&AQ1: both of you are practitioners of friendly food farmers in life, and promote this value through farming, cooking, writing, etc., can you share their practical experiences along the way, and how do these processes change your lives? Pang Hsien-hui (hereinafter referred to as "Peng"): at first, it was because of the children, because his son, the orcs, had mild Asperger's disease and had some difficulties in expression, communication and emotional control since childhood, so he was rejected by several kindergartens. After transferring to a school under the Waldorf system in Taichung, the school attached great importance to the control of diet, choosing organic ingredients, eating less red meat, and sugar was completely forbidden, along with some more spiritual study, and slowly the orcs' mood became more stable. At that time, we began to follow the school philosophy and adjust our diet in our daily life. My husband also rented a small piece of farmland with the Taichung municipal government and began to grow his own vegetables. Because he wanted to eat, he naturally chose not to add pesticides and fertilizers in the process. In the future, this experience also inspired us to move to Ilan to engage in farming life and continue the original, friendly way of planting, so in the practice of friendly food farmers. It was not a lofty idea at first.

Saffron (hereinafter referred to as "Fan"): like Xianhui, I am also because of my children. I was originally an office worker. At that time, I mainly ate out. More than 20 years ago, the concept of friendly food farmers was not so common. I had no special ideas about diet, and after I became a mother, I began to read and study and think about what kind of diet to give my children. Colostrum can be said to be the mother's first choice for her child's diet. at that time, starting from breast-feeding, she became more and more particular about her diet, and breast-feeding was actually very difficult. But the book wrote about the importance of colostrum and how good the nutrition of breast milk is, and I stuck to it for the sake of the child. As the child grew up and the demand for food varied at each stage, I began to pay more attention to the source of the food, and came into contact with the Housewives' Union, and began to buy organic, non-genetically modified ingredients. At that time, the issue just began to be discussed. People around me think I am very strange, and some people worry that I have been cheated and how to buy such expensive food. By comparison, I think everyone is very happy now. There are many choices in the pursuit of safe and reassuring ingredients.

Q2: from the mother's point of view, what kind of impact do the two expect to bring to their children through the practice of the value of friendly food farmers in their lives? Peng: after coming to Ilan for farming, we have come to know other local farmers who are also practicing the concept of friendliness. There are those who grow vegetables and raise eggs. Usually we eat the ingredients cultivated by ourselves and the farmers, but my mother is very lazy (laughter). Occasionally we still eat out food, and in order to meet the large food intake of the orcs, what we most often eat is small hot pot. Due to the usual habit of eating good ingredients, Orcs are particularly picky about white rice, and do not dare to eat green vegetables and hot pot outside, in fact, because they are afraid of death (laughter). But my daughter's pineapple food preferences are completely different. She likes fried food and biscuits. When eating out, she most often talks about eating French fries, fried chicken and spaghetti. I don't know why I raise two children with completely different personalities. But my own dietary restrictions on children are not so strict. I try to give them good food every day. The monthly "only son / Girl Day" will take them to eat what they want, and I will respect their dietary preferences and choices in the future.

Fan: in fact, Xianhui lives in such an environment and eats good ingredients that are the envy of urbanites every day. As for my own part, my diet was strictly controlled when my children were in primary school. The sweets given to children would pay great attention to the source of ingredients and factory names, and would try to make their own desserts, so I took them to make Qifeng cakes and macarons since I was a child. And I have observed that some real effects will occur when the children grow up. Now that both of my children are in college, they have more opportunities to eat out, but they are particularly concerned about the friendly and humane feeding of animals. They will eat less meat outside, because meat costs more environmental costs and costs, on the other hand, good meat will not be too cheap, so even as college students do not have much money. Nor do they put CP values as the main consideration when choosing a diet.

In addition, like Xianhui, I don't cook every day, and I occasionally eat fast food. Many people think that my children and I don't eat fast food, and people generally feel unhealthy, but in fact, the fast food industry is quite strict in the control of food safety. It's quite safe, and eating occasionally has a healing effect (laughter).

Peng: yes, our family occasionally eats fast food!

Peng Xianhui discussed the cooking with the child. Q3: this project is based on "bring bento". What are your childhood life experiences about bento? Pan: when we were young, we didn't have a nutritious lunch. My mother was a professional woman. She got up early every day to help us make breakfast and lunch, so after my children started primary school, I also insisted on preparing my children's lunches before going out every morning. I graduated from high school all the way. Even though I am now in college, I am still required to bring my mother's lunches two days a week.

Peng: my bento experience is actually very bad. My father is the cook in our family, because he is an immigrant from other provinces, and the food taste continues the habit of his hometown. It is that kind of "veteran style" dish-stewed beef, Marinated Egg, and stewed bean jerky. One of his favorite dishes is "fried hollow vegetables with sand tea beef", because the taste of sand tea reminds him of a kind of Hubei marinade. In the past, my bento was served for dinner the night before. All kinds of gravy and sandy tea beef fried hollow vegetables were my daily dishes. At that time, the school steamer was not as powerful as it is now. So my bento steamed out is very terrible-soft and rotten white rice, stewed beef into beef jerky, dried bean jerky, hollow vegetables blackened, sand tea spread on it like real sand. In those days, I envied my classmate's lunch, which was beautiful and delicious, while my lunch looked like a smoky battlefield relic that had just been bombed by a bomb (wry smile), so I had a bad experience when I was a child.

The most memorable time was when my father was on a business trip, and my mother, who didn't usually cook, was in charge of our lunch. as a result, she went outside to fry a bag of salty crispy chicken and poured it directly on the freshly cooked rice, and it was also very scary to steam it out the next day. so part of my lunch experience is about how to secretly dump it.

Peng Xianhui (left) and saffron (right). Q4: what are the main design principles when preparing a bento for your child? Pan: the only design principle for me to prepare bento is that there should be a total of three dishes: a piece of meat with the other two vegetables, that because I prepared it that morning, so I hope that the speed of making bento can be very fast, it must be fried and fried. I think bento is delicious and nutritious is the most important. fortunately, there was no such thing as social networking site in the days when I made bento, so there was no pressure to make bento. Now I see that the cuisine in many bento books are very hard-working, and there are a lot of time-consuming dishes that deliberately shape or do a lot of cooking in order to match colors. For me, fast dishes like vegetable eggs and nine-layer tower eggs are the rhythm of our daily lunch. so my bento is very simple, but the children all know it is very delicious!

Peng: agreed! And the lunches taken in books are all made of exquisite Japanese-style bento boxes, which are so small and impractical that they are simply not enough for my children to eat! Like orcs, they don't care whether they look good at all, they just care whether they are delicious or full. I don't have any principles in the part of the design. Basically, I think according to the seasonal vegetables. Of course, they also have dishes they don't like, and I won't force them to eat them, because there are a lot of things I don't like to eat (laughter). Once I was not feeling well and let the orcs cook by themselves. He brought himself "chicken leg covered rice". The lunch box opened a total of ten chicken legs, and there was no food at all. I was also concerned by the teacher that there were no vegetables in the lunchbox. But in part of the pineapple, because she didn't like to be different from her classmates, she also thought the nutritious lunch was delicious, so she didn't ask him to bring the family lunch.

Saffron and Peng Xianhui discuss dishes and tastes.

"Orcs" Quan you's specialty "lollipop chicken leg". Q5: what kind of mother's taste do you want to convey through the bento? Fan: I think eating is very important. Everyone has some influence from the food background of the original family. I hope that when children eat my food, they can feel their mother's intentions and know that their mother loves them very much. Through the bento, I also hope to make them feel loved, cared for and caught.

Peng: I didn't (laugh)! I don't think much about it when I make a bento, but I think it feels good to me that the bento has been eaten up, or sometimes the child will take the initiative to say that he wants to eat a dish that I haven't cooked for a long time. At the moment, you will feel encouraged, some part of your heart has been satisfied, and you will feel as if you have been remembered by your child.

Q6: what kind of message do you expect to convey to the public on the value of friendly food farmers through your own influence? Pan: we all affect the whole world and this land through diet. I hope you will support organic and friendly agriculture and pay more attention to animal welfare. I think this is very important. When everyone is supporting such a value, when the demand for such products becomes higher, more people will be encouraged to join such industries, and the price will be reduced to a price that most people can and are willing to afford. And then through consumption to form a positive cycle. On the other hand, human beings have never been so easy to cook. It was very inconvenient to buy good ingredients in the past. Now you want to buy the best meat and oil, and everything is easy to get through the Internet, so people are encouraged to cook at home as much as possible!

Peng: that's right! Everyone quickly buy our rice, I want to quickly become a lady (laughter)! When it comes to cooking, I find that there are many cooking programs on TV, and some male chef or some famous chef will teach everyone to cook on TV, but even if there are so many cooking programs, our take-out rate is still very high. don't you think it's contradictory to go home to eat lunch? However, if you really want to support land-friendly agriculture, get into the habit of cooking. I know that office workers are very busy, and it is already eight or nine o'clock after work, but during the holidays, they can cook a good meal for themselves or their families, buy some better materials, and be nice to themselves. at the same time, with actions to support Taiwan's local agricultural products, or animal-friendly meat, there is really no need to be very particular about cooking at home. Sometimes I share photos of orcs cooking, but also to encourage people to cook!

Small books and vegetables produce their own rice. Q7: what abilities or traits do you think your children should possess in the face of an unknown future? How to train children to have the corresponding energy in life?

Peng: the situation of orcs is actually quite special, and it has not been very smooth in interpersonal relations. The teacher also thinks that this child is careless and untaught. When I was a child, I was often commented like this by my teacher, so I know how I feel. This kind of situation is usually just not interested in something, and the more you force him, it will be counterproductive. So after discussing with him, I decided to let him try to teach himself for a semester this year. Orcs have always dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. As long as we will support him as long as we can, the deficiency depends on how he can make up for it when he grows up. So this semester, he took free diving classes and put farming into nature courses. With the attitude and perseverance shown at present, it seems that self-study is quite suitable for him. But my sister pineapple is not suitable at all. Pineapple needs to socialize and interact with people very much, and she also has her own ideas. As a mother, I guide them, but I don't force them to be what they must become in the future. When I was a child, my life was filled with cram schools and talent classes. I found what I really wanted to do very late. Looking back, I felt that these things wasted a lot of time of exploration and study. So when I become a mother, I choose to respect what my children want to do, but I will let them know that they are responsible for their actions and give them the lead in their lives.

Pan: life is very mysterious. Children are really independent individuals. My two children are so close in age, but their personalities, food they like, and their ideas about life in the future are completely different, like the eldest. So far, they are still aiming to become sociologists. The second has always been interested in biology and life sciences, and he thinks that it is too tiring for social sciences to read so many texts. But no matter how different children's personalities and interests are, I always believe that some universal values are classical and immutable when born as a human being. I personally think that empathy, thirst for knowledge and perseverance are very important. if one has empathy, there will be no discrimination, no wrong words, no wrong decisions. If a person has a thirst for knowledge, no matter what field of work he is engaged in, he will be able to keep up with the changes of the world without falling behind, while perseverance is to let the child focus on the things he is passionate about. I hope that children can continue, steady, bear to pursue their ideals lonely. So I encourage my children to read. When they are teenagers, they spend a lot of time making friends, exploring interpersonal relationships and sliding their mobile phones. I still kindly remind them that in any case, it is necessary to maintain the quantity and quality of reading. There is a lot of knowledge in the book to stimulate children's thinking, and I often discuss, chat and exchange ideas and experiences with my children. After all, empathy and perseverance are quite abstract. There is no way one, two, three or SOP to encourage reading, parents' teaching, and respect for their children's sexual development, bit by bit.

Lunch cuisine sharing

Saffron