Toastmasters - Evaluation

An important part of how you learn at toastmasters is getting feedback from your fellow members. This means that you have to learn to give evaluations to people.
I did my first evaluation on Monday for someone who has completed the first series of 10 speeches (that I am working through) and has gone on to one of the advanced series. The one she is doing is Storytelling.

ADVANCED COMMUNICATION SERIES

STORYTELLING

Assignment #1:

THE FOLK TALE

Objectives

· To tell a folk tale that is entertaining and enjoyable for a specific age group.

· To use vivid imagery and voice to enhance the tale.

· TIME : 7 to 9 minutes

Note to the Evaluator:

The purpose of this talk was for the speaker to tell, not read, a folk tale. The speaker

should not act out the story, but instead interpret it for the audience, using voice and imagery.

I was given the following advice about how to do an evaluation:

Top tips for evaluation

Have a structure.

C - R - C is good.

Commend 

Start with 2 things you liked. Say what you liked about them and how they supported or impacted the speech/audience.

Recommend

One suggestion for next time. 

Explain what they could do differently or instead. 

Final commend

This can be the thing you liked best about the speech.

Other top tips

1.Do the evaluation in the 3rd person. So instead of saying You did xxxx. Say Angela did xxx.

This can be weird at first to get your head around. Doing it in the 3rd person means everyone else will pay more attention.

2. Avoid but and however. Go for more positives like 'and' or 'next time' Angela could try.

3. When you start your evaluation recap the objectives of the speech. If you can try to evaluate against the objectives. It is helpful too if you can include a bit on delivery skills (eye contact voice or body language)

I cannot say I think I deserved this. I think people just found me quite funny and they always vote for humour. I think someone else did a much better evaluation of a harder to evaluate speech - and they hadn't had pre-warning of what the speech was meant to cover which I had... but still...

First ski of the season

Doug went up earlier in the week too. The ski area isn't open yet so the lifts are not running but we walked up a bit and skied down. The dog loves it as she can come too which she cannot when the lifts are running. She is amazed at how fast we can go on skis!

I knitted the hat (including the natty flower) and the scarf - they are not matching wool. But whatever :)

Another new pig processing toy

We have found that cutting bacon is very hard to get good with a knife. Also saucisson and ham. So we have bought ourselves a slicer. It wasn't the most practical thing to do given we live in a building site and there is nowhere for anything to go. But still we have a lot of things like this already with nowhere proper to live and it was super awesome to use (but scary as it is very very sharp)

Bacon

In the slicer

In beautiful neat slices!!

Smooth liver pate recipe

1.2kg pigs liver
450g butter
3 onions chopped
6 garlic cloves
3 tsp salt
4.5 tsp allspice
1 tsp pepper
200ml cream

Fry the onions and garlic in some butter. Gently so they do not brown.
When they are soft add the cream and heat but don't boil for about 10 mins
Strain off the cream and keep it. You can liquidise in the onions if you want but it gives a smoother finish if you don't
Fry the liver slowly in more butter until it is cooked through.
Liquidise the liver in batches with melted butter and the conserved cream (you need some liquid in each batch else they are too gloopy
Put in a bowl and mix in the salt and spices
Line a bread tin with cling film and spoon in the pate mix
Put in the fridge until set hard
At this point you can slice and freeze (I put the waxed discs you get for burger presses between each slice to stop them freezing back together)

Back Bacon and wet cured ham Recipe

Bacon

8kg of pork back boned
4g saltpeter
240g salt
240g sugar

I did this in a box but would have been better with the back cut in to pieces in bags like the belly with the cure applied

Ham

9kg of boned leg (I cut in to 4 pieces as is huge)
16l water
1.6kg salt

Dissolve salt in the water.
Put the pork in there for 24 hours. Move around and turn over occasionally to make sure it is evenly salted

Pancetta and belly bacon recipe

Notes

1.5 kg piece of pork belly
Ziplock bag that the meat just fits in
Salt peter 0.5g per kg
Salt 30-40g per kg (did 45 could do a bit less as is quite salty)

Recipe

Pancetta spice mix

2 cloves garlic

1.5g saltpeter

60g salt
30g sugar

5g Juniper berry

20g black pepper

2g nutmeg

4 bayleaves

Bacon spice mix

1.5g saltpeter

60g salt
30g sugar

3 cloves

20g black pepper

2g nutmeg

1 tsp mustard seeds

Put garlic, juniper and bayleaves in a pestle and grind. Add the other ingredients and mix

Smear all over both sides of the piece of meat.

Put the meat in the bag and seal the end

Place in the fridge 

Leave for 7 days - every day shugle the bag around so you make sure the salt mixture goes all over the piece of meat. Water comes out of the meat so it ends up in liquid.

After 7 days take out of the bag and rinse under the tap.

You can now slice and freeze the bacon or for the pancetta hang it up to dry for either a couple of weeks in which case you need to freeze it and cook before eating, or for a month or more, in which case you can eat it raw like dried ham

Black pudding and Morcilla recipe

This recipe is mostly for me to remember what I did for next time

Black Pudding

3l Blood
2tsp white pepper (I have adjusted for it being too much)
2 tsp black pepper
3tsp nutmeg
2tsp thyme
200g breadcrumbs
200g wholemeal flour
2 tbsp salt
2 tsp chilli
100ml brandy
300g minced pork belly or back fat

Mix everything together and put in to skins.
Heat water to 70 C and cook puddings for about 25 mins until nothing comes out when stuck with a pin

Morcilla

3l Blood

300g cooked rice

6tsp pepper

5tsp nutmeg

8 tsp smoked paprika

7 cloves ground up

2 tbsp salt

3tsp chilli

3tsp cumin

350 ml sherry

2 onions

2 apples or two big handfuls raisins 

300g minced pork belly or backlit

1tsp ginger

200ml cream

Fry the onions. Mix everything together and put in to the skins

Cook same as Black Pudding

Pig processing weekend

Last weekend we spent processing the pig. One of the pigs belonged to a friend, but lived with us so that ours and theirs had company. So we only had one pig to do. Thankfully as it took long enough!

This is the butcher at the abattoir. He is very helpful. Now we have done it a couple of times we know what instructions to leave to get what we want.

This is the one that went to our friend. Just cut in half as he is going to cut it all up himself

This is our pig all nicely cut up and shrink wrapped by the butcher. We had the belly and one side of the back left whole so we could make bacon. The other side of the back was cut in to chops. One back leg is whole with the bone in for dried ham, the other whole but boned to make wet cure ham. He boned the shoulders and made one in to roasts and left the other whole so we could mince for sausage and saucisson.

The leg for dry curing. It weighed 11.3 kg. This means it will be in the salt for 29 days (is 3 days per kg but I have shortened slightly so the end of curing is a weekend day again)

With salt

Lots of nicely cut up bits

Shrink wrapped head

Let me in! I want to help!

The head was cut in half to make it easier to boil up so the meat can be taken off for pork pie. We made stock for Japanese noodle soup with the water from doing this. I didn't quite cover it with water and boiled for 4 hours. I cut of the ears before boiling so the dog could have them (after boiling so they added to the stock flavour)

Spice mix for belly bacon

Spread on the belly. We did similar for pancetta which will be hung to dry after curing (bacon will go in the freezer)

 The blood with spices and minced fat in it for black pudding

Tasting the blood mix to see if it is salty enough. Eeeugh!

Pork chops for lunch (we ate nothing but pig products the whole weekend)

Skins for the black pudding - soaking to get the salt out

Making black pudding

Testing whether they are done - you prick with a pin and if blood comes out in a dot like this then they are not done. When they are done a little bit of clear fat comes out

Lots of cooked black pudding. They came out well. I am normally not very pleased with the black pudding I make as it doesn't have as much flavour as some I have had and is often a bit dry seeming. This had a spot too much pepper but v moist and tasty

Roast ham hock for dinner

We have a shrink wrapper and did the black pudding to stop them drying out

Yet more cooked ones

Filling the skins with a funnel. It is tricky and messy. I got blood in my eye. Not nice as it was the spicy Marcella (spanish blood sausage) mix

Huge liver for pate

Pork scratchings - they came out very well! Often hard to get them to puff up

Course pate mix

In the tin

Hearts and tongue (hearts dog will eat and tongue will go in pork pie)

Other gross bits like lungs

The skull after the head was boiled and everything removed to make pork pies

The course liver pate now cooked. The recipe for this came from the 'Le Charcutier Anglais' by Berry Marc-Fredrique. It came out really well and I would certainly do this again.

Stuffing the chorizo and saucisson

Pork pie tin with pastry in it

Not cooked yet

Mini pork pies

Cooked pork pie

Inside of the pork pie. The meat is from the head which I minced. Some of the skin I kept to give to the dog so that it was a bit more meaty. They I added about 25% of that weight of fresh minced pork and two minced pig tongues plus some minced sundries tomatoes.

Saucisson hanging up to dry. This was about 2kg of minced pork. I minced the meat on a medium setting and the fat bigger then mixed in the spice and stuffed. I marked one of them as a control with a piece of string. The control weighed 347g. The ideas is I can weigh them later and see how much moisture has been lost (it helps decide when they are done - in theory)

Chorizo hanging up to dry. This was also about 2kg of pork. The control weighed 355g.

Rinsing a sausage skin

Sausages for dinner