Blogs

 A stocked pantry is the best way to ensure you'll have everything you need to make a healthy and flavorful meal every day. A combination of classic pantry staples such as tin tomatoes, chicken broth and tin beans and flavour-boosting convenience items like herb mixes, soy sauce and jarred pesto are key to keeping your kitchen dinner-ready. 

Plan A Weekly Menu? Are you struggling to manage a busy lifestyle and eat right? Menu planning may be the answer. You’ll find it easier to eat well, save money and get tasty meals to the table faster. Which of these steps can help you to plan better?

Food Hygiene & Safety At Home? Each year millions of people get sick from food born illnesses which can cause you to feel like you have the flu. They can also cause serious health problems and affect the immune-compromised the most. Good personal hygiene can help prevent food poisoning. Bacteria that cause food poisoning can be on everyone, even healthy people. You can spread bacteria from yourself to the food if you touch your nose, mouth, hair or your clothes, and then onto food. Follow these four steps to help keep you and your family safe or you can try out master classes

Otao kitchen has curated a variety of Online Asian Cooking Classes perfect for celebrating home cooking at home with Asian foods beyond Melbourne cooking studio. Guests can choose from a collection of options that allow you to connect with family and friends virtually and find meaningful ways to celebrate the food and people you love from a distance. Regardless of where your friends and families are living, Online Cooking Experiences make it easy to create lasting memories and design a special day just for "cook and connect". 

Cooking is one of life’s most essential skills, and while most of us can wrap our heads around a few basics, more advanced skills require tutelage to truly absorb and master. Unless you have a professional chef who’s eager to teach you in their spare time (something they probably don’t have a lot of to begin with), then your best bet is to enrol in a cooking class.

While there are many apparent benefits to joining a cooking class (learning to cook, learning food-safety practices, etc.), there are also some hidden and lesser-known benefits as well. Let’s take a look at some of the less obvious benefits of joining a professional, group cooking class.

As a city that has more than 300 suburbs, there’s never a shortage of interesting places to explore in Melbourne. If you feel like going to a place that exudes a “melting pot of culture” kind of charm, a drive or a tram trip to Brunswick can give you just that.

Located only 6 kilometres away from the city centre, you can already feel what it’s like to be in significantly different cities all at once.

Brunswick Itinerary: What Can You Do In This Suburb?

Brunswick is a place that will surely be loved by curious tourists. Even locals don’t run out of things to do despite having been there for a long time!

If you’ve decided to put Brunswick in your Melbourne itinerary, here are 9 things that are worth checking out:

Have you ever gone to the supermarket to pick up something and you ended up walking out with other things you think you'll need? If so, keep reading. Supermarkets and groceries have secrets to get us to buy items we weren’t planning to buy. Here are the secrets you should know before your next grocery trip.

#1 Spraying Produce with Water

Once fresh produce is picked, they begin to lose its natural moisture so fruits and vegetables dry out. Spraying water on fresh produce helps keep it hydrated so that it maintains moisture and letting it taste fresher for longer. Plump produce also looks fresh and you are more likely to buy food that looks good.

#2 Milk Fridge In The Back of the Store

Few people said that milk needs to be refrigerated otherwise it goes off so when deliveries are made at the back of grocery stores so having milk fridges there would be the best location. However, the real reason is that people come to the supermarket to buy milk, placing the milk fridge in the back forces visitors to walk through the entire store to find it. The result is that you end up seeing interesting products and likely you will buy more than you planned.

#3 Music Encourages You to Linger

Many supermarket play music with a rhythm that’s slower than the average heartbeat, which encourages you to move slower, making you spend more time in the supermarket. 

#4 Supporting Local Causes

Supermarkets often have budgets laid out for supporting local causes. If the organisation is having a fundraiser, asking your local grocery store for a donation is a great place to start. 

#5 Price at the Unit Pricing

When buying everyday items like rice or pasta sauce, it can be tempting to reach for the item that’s $4.50, instead of the one that’s $5.99. If you look closely at the price tag and you’ll notice the price per unit. Usually, it’s the smaller, lighter and cheaper bags that end up costing you more.

#6 Fresh Produce Entrance

Having flowers, fruits and vegetables be the first thing you see when you enter a grocery store, gives your brain the impression that you’re entering a place that’s natural and fresh. Supermarkets know that this zen entry is not only welcoming but it also makes you feel good about shopping at the store.

#7 Almost Expired Produce Used in Prepared Foods

Ever wondered where all that excess meats and produces goes once it's on its last legs? Many stores give it one last appeal in the prepared foods section - marinaded meats, cooked pies, prepared sausages and so on.

You might stress out of finding something to do on Valentine day? Going out or staying at home? For sure, you might find more romantic than going out to eat on Valentine’s Day and that is cooking for someone at home. Whether you cook together or create a culinary masterpiece to surprise your love, step out of your comfort zone and try your hand at these Asian recipes to really set the mood for love.

#1 Vietnamese Spring Rolls 

It's really easy to make restaurant-quality spring rolls at home. This little spring rolls can be frozen and cook straight from frozen in the oven or better at home to shallow fry them!

Check out the recipe here 

#2 Thai Glass Noodle

Glass noodle salad belonged to my favourites. Like in the majority of Thai salads, it is a great mix of flavours like spicy, sweet and sour. You can garnish with peanuts however in the class we may not provide peanut as someone might have an allergy. 

Check out the recipe here 

#3 Green Papaya Salad

If you visit Thailand on the streets of Bangkok, food vendors pound together this combination of green papaya, chillies, fish sauce and lime. Make this salad as tradition dictates with a large mortar and pestle to create the unique flavours of Thailand. More Green Curry and Red Curry Making as a base for your dishes.

Check out the recipe here

#4 Making dumplings 

 It's easy to prepare, budget-friendly and great-tasting, so what's not to love about dumplings! We've got chicken, pork, beef, vegetarian and more dumplings to make. You can use the ready-made wrapper.

Check out the recipe here

#5 Chinese Custard Tart

Egg tart made with Chinese puff pastry is one of the best Chinese desserts among the dim sum spread in Cantonese cuisine

Check out the recipe here

If your team is experienced and hard-working but its performance has been "hit and miss". You may find the team has lost some of its energy and motivation and morale is beginning to drop. You can get people back on track by exploring some team-building strategies and activities. Team building is about providing bonding time that your people need so that they can work in harmony. But, to be truly effective, it needs to be a continual process, embedded in your team and business culture.

There's a place for one-off team-building exercises, but they need to have a clear purpose, such as improving a particular skill and must be well designed to avoid conflict. In this article, you can explore how to use team-building activities and exercises as part of an ongoing strategy for developing a strong and effective team.

Getting Started with Identifying Your Team’s Needs

The first and most important step when planning team building activities is to identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Start by asking questions to identify the root of any problems. 

• Are there any conflicts within the team?
• Do they need to know one another better?
• Is poor communication affecting the team progress?
• Do people need to learn to work together, instead of individually?
• Does the group need a morale boost?

Making Team Building Part of Your Business

Regular team-building sessions are one way to strengthen the bonds within your team, but they are not a shortcut to success. Instead, you need to make team-building part of your team thinking. Think about the team-building potential of routine workplace activities. You can use the four strategies to develop your team’s strength, cohesiveness and effectiveness:

1. Get to Know Your Team

Your team is made up of people with different needs, ambitions and personalities. Getting to know your team, and helping them to get to know each other, can build a happy, trusting team.

Hosting an evening drink is an easy way to start to get your team members mixing and mingling. Attending social events such as cooking classes is a great way to build relationships. People will more likely to open up and reveal more of their personalities in a relaxed setting. We think sharing aspects of your personal life increases your likability, as it shows others that you can be an empathic, compassionate and authentic manager.

2. Work Toward a Common Goal

You can unite your team by inspiring them to get behind a shared vision or goal. Having an identified destination can prevent individuals from pulling in different directions, which is frustrating and ineffective. Creating a plan can provide your people with a written definition of the team’s purpose and goals. You can find strategies for bringing a team together to achieve a particular goal.

3. Develop Strong Team Skills

Your team needs to develop the right skills and competencies to achieve its goals. Developing stronger skill sets, and matching your people to the roles best suited to them, can result in a more able, more motivated team. Chances are, as more and more people work from home or remotely, you could find yourself managing a virtual workplace. It can be hard to get to know team members who have limited meeting face-to-face. Time zones and cultural differences can present challenges when considering team building activities or strategies for virtual teams. It is possible to stay in regular and effective communication with virtual team members, given the wide range of available online tools. However, the key to building an effective team lies more in how its members to meet face-to-face than in the technology they use.

TEAM BUILDING AT OTAO KITCHEN

Team building can only occur when relevant and timely activities that address specific needs are part of your business. One-off exercises can help with this, but they are not a shortcut to success. The purpose of team building activities is to motivate your people to work together, to develop their strengths, and to address any weaknesses. So, any team-building exercise should encourage collaboration rather than competition.

Be sure to incorporate team building into your workplace. For example, get to know your people better, work toward common goals, develop their skills, and make the extra effort to connect with your virtual team. In this way, you'll build a firm foundation of purpose and trust that you can add challenging events appropriately.