Cooking with Students

Episode 41: Food & Meals for Your Students

How do you meal prep for your students? What do you incorporate into your meal plans for them? Food is a big factor when it comes to homestay experiences. Not only the culture of different foods to eat and explore, but also how we eat and when.

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Episode 27: Homestay Family Mindset with Jodi Johl

Being a homestay parent comes with many challenges and rewards. If you are new to hosting or considering taking on this gratifying experience, you’ll want to listen to our chat with seasoned host parent, Jodi Johl.

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Episode 25: Food Culture and Improving Your Food Relationship with Carla Beer-Carpenter

Food brings people together, but what if food becomes a barrier? Eating disorders are mental health issues and some students arrive with a negative dependency on food, without you even noticing. So what are the clues? Today, we chat with Carla Beer-Carpenter, a registered dietitian for almost 30 years with a passion for helping people improve their relationship with food while working towards their health and nutrition goals.

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Episode 24: Financial Reality of Hosting Homestay Students

Okay let’s get real. One of the top or main reasons families participate in a homestay program is so that they can make some money or at least they think they can. Heck, it’s why we both started looking into the opportunity for our own families. However, over time it becomes more than that.

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Episode 19: Creativity and Curiosity for Learning English with Greg Demmons From Real English Victoria

What happens when you open up your curiosity as a student or as a homestay parent? Education is essentially curiosity. We love this perspective from our guest on the show today. We really enjoyed our chat with Greg Demmons, who currently serves as the Vice-President of the Co-op Board and the original founder of Real English Victoria.

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Episode 16: Chinese Food Culture and Cooking with Students for Chinese New Year

In this episode, we are celebrating Chinese New Year. This year for 2019, CNY lands on February 5th and it’s the Year of the Pig. In Mary’s family, her big thing is her family’s New Year’s Eve dinner and since Erin has a Chinese student, we celebrated a pre-New Year’s dinner at her house.

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Episode 8: Building Your Network of People in the World with Veteran Host Parent Mel Kilpatrick

In this episode, we chat with our dear friend Mel Kilpatrick. Mel was one of Mary’s first inspirations to become a homestay parent. We scratch the surface on some of the amazing stories with her past students and explore how these experiences enhance our network of people in the world… not just for us as hosts, but for the students as well. These experiences are what makes your household grow and learn from each other to extend our connection to the world.
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Episode 5: Canadian Student Life, Parental Pressure Studying Abroad, and a Passion for Music with Jenny

In this episode, we dive in with Erin’s student from China, Jenny. She’s here on a high school program for a couple years and at the time of the recording, is one of two students in Erin’s home. Jenny has a love of music that we explore and hear samples of during the show. She truly is talented and has a passion for life, which we’ll hear about as she describes her student lifestyle in Canada, the pressures of studying abroad away from her parents, and what her dreams are for the future after completing her Canadian high school education.

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Episode 4: Weaving Birthday Traditions with Cross Cultural Experiences

In this episode, we dive into birthdays! Jon and Blake’s birthdays are one day apart, so we talk birthday plans and what Erin’s students have up their sleeves for Blake… while Mary reveals her one big mistake in communication about birthdays with her first ever student.

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Episode 1: The One About Mary

In this episode, Erin interviews Mary. We talk about how Mary got started hosting international homestay students. Mary shares some of her experiences with hosting, her love of cooking, crafting, and how she includes her students in her home life.

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