COOKING VS. ORDERING FOOD Which do you prefer?

Give a man a fish and he can live for a day but ask a man to download the GrabFood app and he can live forever. Author: Hilmi

‘Cooking’ is becoming a forgotten skill, Millennials ditching cooking with the ease of Grabfood — They see it more as an art form rather than a survival skill.

If you give a man a fish and he can live for a day but surely he’d be hungry again in an hour but if you teach a man how to fish, he can live forever but after several attempts he’d be lazy to prepare, clean and catch his fish but if you give him the Grabfood app, he’s set for life, no fire to start and no dishes to clean, all he has to do is to just press a few buttons and wait within the comfort of his home. This app is honestly a godsend, blessing us with dishes of vast variety, from your local ‘mamak’ food to a fine Michelin Star of Canard à L’orange, all delivered to your doorstep within just a few minutes. However, have we been too over reliant with it? To determine such a demeaning factor, we here at YOLO magazine have done our research. We have collated surveys from the ages of 18 to 35 years old regarding whether they’d prefer cooking or GrabFood and whether they would be willing to cook on a regular basis. First question sets off with “Do you prefer cooking your own meals over GrabFood?”, the results were very surprising. We have garnered results of 57% of the crowd that said “Yes, GrabFood is my chef”. The other 30% prefer “Guilty, i do a bit of both” and while the remaining 13% chose the “Pots and pans are my weapon of choice”. This shows that there is a demand from the time-hungry and convenience-seeking millennials for food to be served and delivered at home, a bright spot in an otherwise stagnant restaurant industry. With the recent pandemic Covid-19 the need has risen immensely, in favour of the want to eat out, it has also shed its light to smaller less capable restaurants that have been severely affected by the virus. The next set of questions identifies their reason, “What’s so good about GrabFood?”, we have selected the highest votes amongst the other options. The popular reasoning they chose was “It is basically the convenience of an overall kitchen, without having me to do the cooking”, this question has been created by us to perceive the millennials better. The hardpressed time and the fatigue sets in after work, having the need to prepare their meals discourages them. For those who chose purely cooking, the question was “What motivates you to cook throughout the day?”.

The cost seems to be the main factor for those people. For a standard price of Maggie Goreng on the GrabFood app, it costs about $4.50 and to factor in the additional cost for delivery charges which totals the price to about $6.50, that’s pretty steep for a price of fried Maggie. The following answer we got was about having total control of what you want to eat. In the GrabFood app, there is a choice to customise your dish from removing the vegetables or even adding more meats to it but it does not get as ‘customisable’ as compared to preparing it yourself, you can go crazy with the selection ingredients or the spice level. As we dive deeper into the question, we have separated our audiences into their genders, as the results show that cooking at home seems to have won the majority of men that have been embracing the skill rather than the ladies. To further conclude between the gender roles regarding cooking, we have asked the help of our fellow members at YOLO magazine. We have created a voting poll in our office, where voters can vote which gender should be more proactive towards the culinary skills. VS

Cooking your own meals or Grabfood?

COOKING IS A FORM OF ART

We received amazing feedback from our surveyors, most of them chose “Why spend extra, when you can do it yourself” and “Preparing my own meals allows me to customise to my own liking” came in second. After tabulating the results, we have garnered a vote of 25% for the ladies and 75% for the men. It shows that the men are casted to bear the responsibility for cooking or they just simply enjoy doing it. One of our journalists says “I enjoy cooking, it’s a form of stress relief for me”. Bygone are the days where it was deemed that the women should stay at home and be able to cook while the men were out to work and as tides shift, cooking is rather seen as a basic life skill and not a gender role. Somehow within the millennial generation it was more regarded to be an art form rather than your basic skill set. The fact that recent food trends are all mainly about the looks and presentation, it has shunned the usual pot-clanging trait.

he ease of GrabFood has brought out the limelight T towards smaller business owners that are aware of the trend of ordering but the traditional hawker stalls with its former owners since the 1950’s may be lost with the tech savvy crowd.We asked him some questions regarding his approach towards cooking and ordering food online.

“What’s your take between cooking for yourself and ordering in?”

“I have definitely noticed the certain boom within the online food delivery business, It’s a good move to promote the culinary business but I believe it has lost the knack of going out and exploring hidden restaurant or coffee shops to eat”

“In my early days cooking was the only thing I ever wanted to do, copying their techniques, recipes and secrets then modifying it to my own dishes. It’s the gratifying feeling I get when I manage to roughly imitate the flavours at home, usually for my own consumption or either to impress my family” chuckles KF Seetoh.

Food & Travel Let’s Cook...

Author: Hilmi

To finalise the argument between cooking yourself vs ordering in, we have invited a famous local guest behind the works of Makansutra and the creator of World Street Food Congress, KF Seetoh.

Since the millennials are finding it hard to cook due to the lack of time we have also asked KF Seetoh for a few tips and tricks. “Cooking isn’t difficult or time consuming, what most people are doing wrong is that they often don’t plan their meals and would usually start to search and prepare the ingredients at the very last minute.” says KF Seetoh. He shared his golden tip with us “Prepare your basic ingredients like your meats and fish, dice and chop your vegetables and broil your stew all beforehand, preferably on the weekends. This saves you time, it’s just a matter of tossing everything in your pot to cook.” and he also added a final tip “Cooking for yourself will be more affordable in the long run and if you want to save money, buy your ingredients in the Pasar, it’s way cheaper!” laughs KF Seetoh. With that in mind we hoped that you would give cooking a try and limit yourself towards ordering in.

Vintage

Author: Hilmi

There has been a certain hype with the younger generation that vintage is the new old. From clothes to technology, it has all made its way back to the 21st century but surprisingly it’s the millennials that encompass the art of yesteryear. Vintage fashion has been crazy lately, almost every fashion retailer has its form of ‘Vintage’ inspired clothes. Neon bright windbreakers, plaid design pants and floral shirts are all clothing that was once really popular through the decades but why are they returning to shelves? How could something from 50-30 years ago be the new thing? Millennials embracing all things vintage, a fad or poser?

Cafe hopping plague, double cuffed jeans, lumberjack beards & fedoras, the starter pack of hipsterism

Well, we could blame part of it from celebrities and runway models bringing in the new trend or the act of ‘Timeless Classics’ but it’s mostly part of nostalgia that makes this new movement a lifestyle really. Anything vintage brings an energy of character and nostalgia to it but first what is nostalgia you say? It’s the “Sentimental of longing or wistful affection for a period in the past”, that is the secret ingredient that something of auld lang syne brings to the individuals. I’ve got to admit, when I was young, I couldn’t wait to reach adulthood, the foresight of being an adult they say would be better but that was all a whole load of crap. Growing up was a hazy path, it isn’t always sunshine and butterflies but it was more like paying the bills and accepting that you’re getting older never younger, that is hard to take in.

Lifestyle We always overlook the things of our youth, the Yes, it’s much slower, expensive and troublesimplicity and freeness of being a kid that’s what some but there is something about film that the yearns the adults these days. It is not just clothing lensman gets out of an old 35mm. Truly anythat the youngins are embracing, the art of buying thing vintage is considered artsy, what I believe a physical vinyl record and to play it on a turn- this phenomenon or trend is very popular is table, a technology that was once deemed to be because it gives the individuals the space and obsolete has also made its return. The adolescents time of those eras, the eras they never got to knows that there is a sentimental value to own- experience or live through, only seen in phoing their favourite artist’s work of art be it in the tos and movies. Things were much slower and album art or music that they are offering to their less demanding compared to the current times, listeners. although the convenience of modern technolThere’s something about listening digitally ogy was imminent, everything had an ‘extra that doesn’t cut the whole pie for them, you could step’ needed to be carried out before executing say that I’m your biggest fan but are you actually something. a fan if you don’t own their vinyl record? With I think this is why those golden eras of that in mind buying a vinyl record gives you the the past were much more vibrant and colourpiece of your artist’s masterpiece and of course ful, they might have focused more of their time the bragging rights. With the art of retro tech, diligently to produce anything from designs photographers these days are going back to the to packaging simply because it was just the cumbersome film cameras to produce stellar pho- slower process of manufacturing and demand tos. What do you say? back then as that gives them the time to compose thoughtfully of what makes it look and feel ‘groovy’. So, if your best mate was to sport a cool vintage Champion hoodie and a 35mm camera, they might just be trying to emulate the carefree vibe of the former times or they might just be the usual poser who likes to jump into the bandwagon of what was once already “trendy”.

MANUAL VS. AUTOMATIC

Which is best?

Author: Hilmi

onvenient or laziness? It seems so primitive where you have to step on a pedal with your left foot, select your gear C You will undoubtedly lose that man and machine factor, having the full control of its gears and the engine brake. As you the and slowly release your clutch whilst hav- driver, trying to develop a bond together and ing to accelerate without having people be- no, I’m not asking you to have a steamy rehind you to honk their horns or showing lationship with your Camry but driving manyou the ‘infamous finger’ because it took ual transmission is like trying to date Miley you a century to execute it and if you Cyrus it’s very complicated a first but as you stalled on a junction, they deemed that you soldier on, the relationship gets sweeter and are a terrorist. That requires skill and dedi- more enjoyable (that’s my point of view If I cation, I mean everyone can drive a manual was Liam Hemsworth) and I bet Liam could but to drive it ably takes a few practice, nu- drive stick. merous stalls and probably a lot of cursed Anyways, that is the reason why some words to get you through. people I know still drive the primitive way What if I told you that you started with the clutch and a stick, they seek the doing manual shifting when you’re a kid? thrill factor and sadly the numbers have You know how you would make car noises dropped significantly. I can say it’s an endanwith your mouth; you’ll drag the gear then gered species like how Sir David Attenborstop because you ran out of air, breathe ough would express a species of mollusks in then pretend to change gears and do a which nobody cares about. Some car makers faster revolution engine noise. That right now don’t offer manual transmission as an there, is just pure instinct portraying how alternative option. As more learners ditch cars are meant to be driven. Now the tables manual shifting in favor of the automatic, it have turned, people now just want the sake will soon be a forgotten art form for its drivof convenience, an Automatic Transmis- ing pleasures but rather be remembered for sion. its cumbersome techniques to operate one.