Cooking

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Topic 8 of 60

Discussion picture Discussion questions Key words

Discussion picture

Hands chopping vegetables on a cutting board in a home kitchen with pots on the stove.

Find a free photo: Unsplash | Pexels

Picture warm-up

  1. What do you see in this picture?
  2. Who are these people, and what are they doing?
  3. Does this look like your life here, or in your home country? How is it the same or different?

Discussion questions

  1. Do you enjoy cooking? Why or why not?
  2. Who taught you how to cook?
  3. What dish do you cook best?
  4. How often do you cook at home instead of eating out?
  5. Is it hard to find the ingredients you need in the U.S.?
  6. Do you follow recipes or cook by feeling?
  7. What kitchen tool can you not live without?
  8. In your family, who usually cooks? Is that the same in your home country?
  9. Have you learned to cook any American dishes?
  10. What was your biggest cooking disaster?
  11. Do you think cooking at home saves money? How much?
  12. How do you find new recipes: books, family, or online videos?
  13. What would you cook for a guest from another country?
  14. Should schools teach students how to cook?
  15. Do you prefer baking or cooking? Why?

Key words

Say the word, then read the example sentence out loud.

  • recipe
    This is my grandmother’s recipe for soup.
  • chop
    Chop the onions into small pieces.
  • boil
    Boil the water before you add the pasta.
  • fry
    We fry the fish in olive oil.
  • bake
    I bake bread every weekend.
  • stir
    Stir the sauce so it doesn’t burn.
  • measure
    Measure two cups of flour.
  • season
    Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
  • oven
    Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • stove
    Be careful; the stove is hot.
  • microwave
    I heat my lunch in the microwave.
  • taste
    Taste the soup and add more salt if needed.
  • burn
    I burned the rice because I forgot about it.
  • meal prep
    I do meal prep on Sunday for the whole week.
  • from scratch
    She makes pizza dough from scratch.

Next topic: 9. Restaurants & Eating Out

Topic chosen by comparing popular ESL conversation resources (see How these topics were chosen). Questions and example sentences are original to this collection. Translations are a guide and should be reviewed by a fluent speaker.