Sunday Brunch Struggle

Who does not like Sunday brunch? Well, in our household it is a staple and a great way to ring in a Sunday (last day of the weekend)! This Sunday, we were having homemade biscuits and sausage gravy with soft boiled eggs. Well, I looked up a recipe and it required a cookie cutter. I am no baker so naturally, I have no cookie cutters. After some time of not being able to reach a solution, my boyfriend suggested using a cup, a glass cup that we drink out of. It was immediate insight for him. As for me, a few things stood in my way, such as fixation, function fixedness, and mental set. These three things contributed to my Sunday brunch panic.

“Fixation: people’s tendency to focus in a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution” (Goldstein, 2011). To apply this to my Sunday brunch, I was so concerned with not have a cookie cutter, I was unable to work past it. I spent so much time being focused and digging through old boxes of cooking objects, I did not think outside of the box. I actually did not even think of anything that could imitate a cookie cutter.

My next thinking road block was function fixedness. The last thing crossing my mind was something that is like a cookie cutter, even the same shape. Function fixedness is when you limit the use of an object (Goldstein, 2011). I never looked at a glass I drink out of and thought about the other uses of it, such as a cookie cutter. The function of the glass was for me to drink out of, not make biscuits.

Growing up, I only really baked anything at my Grandma’s. My Grandma had every kitchen gadget you could ever think of. I never had to improvise. I never had to think out of the box for how to achieve a certain look of a dessert. The fact I was so stuck on not having a cookie cutter, I attribute to mental set. Mental set is “a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person’s experience or what has worked for them in the past” (Goldstein, 2011). That fact I never used anything else other than a cookie cutter really inhibited my ability to approach the problem at hand.

Not being able to work outside of what I knew was a solution really made this brunch stressful. I consider myself lucky that my boyfriend was there to provide insight. Insight is ‘the sudden retaliation of a problems solution” (Goldstein, 2011). He provided an immediate solution to my problem at hand. Needless to say, using a cup was perfect and did exactly what was needed of a cookie cutter.

 

References:

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

 

2 thoughts on “Sunday Brunch Struggle

  1. Kassandra Sims

    Hi Rachel. I really enjoyed this post. It reminds me of the show “Cutthroat Kitchen” where chef contestants usually wind up getting their utensils taken away and have to use makeshift tools out of crazy things. I am on the same boat as you. I tend to stress first and become more open-minded as my last resort. For example yesterday I was putting up Christmas decorations with a friend and we desperately needed a hammer. I searched and searched and for the life of me could not find it and because we had already been decorating for hours I was getting increasingly frustrated. After hurting my hand trying to force the push pin into the wall I was about to give up. My friend however then handed me a scissor and said to use the flat end essentially as a hammer. Thank goodness it worked. Most children are never really raised to be innovative. A screwdriver screws things and a hammer hammers things and that’s really all I was taught when in reality a knife can screw things in just as well and anything durable can act as a hammer in time of need. An article written by Tony McCaffrey for the Harvard Business Review stated research he conducted demonstrates that “People overlook about two-thirds of the types of features that an object possesses”. Unfortunately this is really due to our upbringing and is quite common. We can just try and think a bit more outside of the box.

    References:
    McCaffrey, Tony. “Why We Can’t See What’s Right in Front of Us.” Harvard Business Review. N.p., 23 July 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.

  2. Michelle Sada

    My husband is a big Alton Brown fan. If you don’t know who he is, he’s a cooking show host who’s a mixture of Julia Child and Bill Nye. In his show, Good Eats, he always likes to discuss the tools of the trade. He abhors what he calls “uni-taskers,” devices that only have one purpose. Your story about being stuck on needing a “cookie cutter” reminded me about this. The kitchen is a notorious place for single task items and it’s not surprising to hear that some people get hung up on finding the “right” tool. Your explanation as to why was well researched and I’m glad you were able to find something else to use as a cookie cutter.

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