Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, Episode 578, Eating a Home-Cooked Meal.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, Episode 578.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. please consider making a donation on our website or becoming an ESL podcast member.
This episode is a dialogue between Luis and Gil.
They are talking about eating a meal at home and talking some of the vocabulary that might be connected to that activity.
Let's get started.
I just got off the phone with my mom.
And she says they're planning a welcome home party for me next week at a restaurant.
What's wrong with that?
After living abroad for a year, I was really looking forward to a home-cooked meal.
Why didn't you just tell your mother that?
I didn't have the heart to do that.
She was so excited about the party.
And who am I to tell her she has to slave over a hot stove to cook me a lavish dinner?
I'm sure she wouldn't mind.
It'd be a labor of love.
You don't know my mother.
She doesn't cut corners and makes everything from scratch.
She uses these recipes that were passed down to her from her mother.
She can make the most intricate dishes, but what I'm craving are the comfort foods she always made for us when we were kids.
It makes my mouth water just thinking about her cooking.
After a year of living on instant noodles and take-out food, I'm not surprised you want something home-cooked.
I tell you what.
After the party, come over to my house and I'll have a home-cooked meal ready for you.
You cook for me?
Thanks, but no thanks.
Luis begins by saying to Gil, what's the matter with you?
Meaning, what is wrong with you?
Gil says I just got off the phone with my mom and she says they're planning a welcome home party for me next week at a restaurant.
So Gil says he just got off the phone, meaning he just finished talking to his mother.
And his mother says that they, his family, is planning a welcome home party.
Welcome home is when someone goes away and then comes back home.
If they've been gone a long time, you might have a welcome home party.
But this party is going to be at a restaurant.
Luis says, what's wrong with that?
Gil says, after living abroad for a year...
I was really looking forward to a home-cooked meal.
To live abroad means to live in another country.
Sometimes people say to live overseas.
That's popular in the United States, meaning you have to cross the ocean, cross the Atlantic or Pacific and live in another place.
But that's not always the case.
You can live abroad by moving to Canada, for example.
Gill says that he was really looking forward, after having been away from his country and his family for a year, to a home-cooked meal a meal, a lunch or a dinner that is prepared at home.
Luis says, why didn't you just tell your mother that?
Gil says, I didn't have the heart to do that.
If someone says they don't have the heart to do something, they mean they don't want to say something or do something themselves.
Because they think it will hurt another person's feelings.
It will make that other person feel bad.
Gil says his mom was so excited about the party.
And who am I to tell her she has to slave over a hot stove to cook me a lavish dinner?
Who am I to tell her means how can I tell her?
What right do I have to tell her?
To slave over a hot stove.
A stove, S-T-O-V-E, is what you have in the kitchen.
You use it to put pans on, and then you light a fire underneath or have some sort of heat coming from below and you cook things inside of the pan.
To slave S-L-A-V-E over something means to work very hard at something.
A slave is a person who is owned by another person.
Fortunately, in the United States, there is no more slavery.
We don't have any slaves, at least not legally.
But the expression to slave over means to work very hard at something.
And this is a common way of using it, to slave over a hot stove.
He doesn't want his mother to slave over a hot stove just to cook him a lavish dinner.
Lavish, L-A-V-I-S-H, is something that is very fancy.
It could be something very expensive.
We could talk about giving your wife a lavish Christmas gift or birthday gift.
Lavish would be expensive.
It would be nice and I would highly recommend it, but here it means a meal that perhaps had many different ingredients.
That was very difficult to make.
Louise says, I'm sure your mother wouldn't mind, meaning it would not bother her.
It would be, she says, a labor of love.
The expression a labor of love means means doing something difficult or that takes a lot of time, but you do it because you love the other person.
You want to show the other person how much you love them by doing this particular thing.
So it's difficult, yes, but you're doing it because you love this person.
Gil says, you don't know my mother.
To cut corners is an expression that means to do something the easy way.
To take shortcuts is another expression that means the same thing.
If you cut corners, usually the final result is not as good as it could have been.
You are not doing everything you're supposed to do.
Well, his mother does not cut corners.
She makes everything from scratch To cook or to make some particular food from scratch.
S-C-R-A-T-C-H means that you don't use any canned goods.
You don't use any food that has already been prepared.
You just start with the basic ingredients and you mix them together and you cook them or prepare them for the meal.
There's no going to the grocery store and buying something in a bottle or a can.
Everything is done from the original ingredients.
That's making something from scratch.
Scratch has a couple of other meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for this episode that will give you some additional explanations.
Gill says that his mother uses these recipes that were passed down to her from her mother.
Gill's grandmother.
A recipe is a written set of instructions, of steps, that tells you how to make a certain kind of food, what we would call a certain dish, which is the thing that you are preparing, made from other ingredients, from other things.
His mother got these recipes that she uses from her mother.
They were passed down to her.
To pass down is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to give something to someone in the next generation.
So when a father gives his son his wedding ring or gives his daughter some gift, important book that has been part of the family for many years,
That's to pass something down.
Usually it's something valuable, at least to the family.
Gil says his mother can make the most intricate dishes, but what I'm craving are the comfort foods she always made for us when we were kids.
Something that is intricate, I-N-T-R-I-C-A-T-E, is very complicated, very complex.
A lot of details, a lot of ingredients in order to make that particular kind of food, that dish.
But Gil doesn't want an intricate dish.
He's craving, meaning he has a very strong sense of wanting, particularly food.
He's craving comfort food.
Comfort food is food that is very familiar to you.
Often it's the kind of food that you ate as a child.
And so eating it again makes you feel comfortable.
It makes you feel like you're a child, innocent and protected things that would make you feel comfortable.
Chicken noodle soup is for some people comfort food.
For me, comfort food would probably be a jelly sandwich.
Yes, that's a comfort food.
Gil says that it makes my mouth water just thinking about her cooking.
To make your mouth water means that when you think of a particular food, it starts to make you feel hungry.
And when you start to feel hungry, your mouth begins to what we call salivate.
It fills with water.
So something that makes your mouth water is something that is very good tasting, something that is delicious.
Louis says that, Instant means immediate.
When we talk about instant with food, we're talking about food that can be prepared in a very short period of time.
For example, A food that's very popular, especially among college students because it's cheap, is ramen noodles, at least here in Los Angeles.
Ramen noodles is a Japanese food, but it can be prepared very quickly if you buy the noodles already prepared in a package at the store.
So instant noodles would be that kind of food.
You pour hot water in it and you can eat it.
Takeout food is food that you buy from a restaurant and bring back to your home.
You don't eat it at the restaurant.
In the U.S., that's called takeout food.
Luis says, I tell you what.
I tell you what is a phrase you use when you are proposing or suggesting an idea to another person.
You can also say, I'll tell you what.
Both of those are possible.
Luis says after the party, the coming home party, the welcome home party, Come over to my house and I'll have a home-cooked meal ready for you.
Gil says, You cook for me?
Thanks, but no thanks.
Thanks, but no thanks means you appreciate the person offering or suggesting to do something for you, but you don't want to do it.
It's often used somewhat sarcastically or humorously to say, I don't really want to do that at all.
That's not a good thing that you are offering me.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's the matter with you?
I just got off the phone with my mom and she says they're planning a welcome home party for me next week.
At a restaurant.
What's wrong with that?
After living abroad for a year, I was really looking forward to a home-cooked meal.
Why didn't you just tell your mother that?
I didn't have the heart to do that.
She was so excited about the party.
And who am I to tell her she has to slave over a hot stove to cook me a lavish dinner?
I'm sure she wouldn't mind.
It'd be a lever of love.
You don't know my mother.
She doesn't cut corners and makes everything from scratch.
She uses these recipes that were passed down to her from her mother.
She can make the most intricate dishes.
But what I'm craving are the comfort foods she always made for us when we were kids.
It makes my mouth water just thinking about her cooking.
After a year of living on instant noodles and takeout food, I'm not surprised you want something home-cooked.
I tell you what after the party, come over to my house and I'll have a home-cooked meal ready for you.
You cook for me?
Thanks, but no thanks.
We have such great scripts on ESL Podcast because our script writer never cuts corners.
That's Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
