When I first set out to make arepa de huevo for my NLP I really didn’t know what I was getting into. As a novice chef, I had no idea how much practice this would actually take. Getting the right combination of ingredients, tinkering with my oil temperature, experimenting with different types of oil, selecting different types of knives and pouring cups, and learning to be patient while the egg inside of the arepa fried were all tasks that took practice in order to perfect.
Before and after each one of my trials I found myself going back to YouTube to watch the experts in action. It looked so easy in their videos that I began to doubt myself. At one point I even tried to convince myself that this type of thing could only be done on the coast of Colombia and that you probably needed the right kind of humidity to pull this type of thing off.
Struggling to learn the ins and outs of making arepas taught me a lot about learning process. For the first time in a long time I was forced to go outside of my element and learn something new. As I ventured through this project I was able to personally experience the different mindsets that a learner goes through. I overcame frustration as I navigated around obstacles, thought creatively as I experimented with new techniques, calculated outcomes as I tried to problem solve, and ultimately gained confidence and achieved mastery after several trials.
Learning to make the perfect arepa using only YouTube and Internet help forums has also brought me to the realization that exploiting these types resources is something that both my personal and professional life could benefit from. Since the onset of this project I have used YouTube tutorials to learn more about Google Docs, teach 6th graders about Popplet, and I’ve even picked up a few pointers about how to credit and cite sources in APA format.
This video demonstrates how to make arepa de huevo. When I made this video I really wanted to make the steps look easy and routine like the experts in the YouTube videos that I learned from did. Please enjoy watching and let me know what you think.
Talbot MAET Blog 