Process Writing

Just to look at my writing process, it goes something like this:
write in stream of consciousness spurts
stop
come back, write
edit, revise
review, submit

Then my revision process looks like this:
let comments sink in (may take a few days)
go back to piece and reread
then edit bits and pieces
let it sit (a few more days)
go back, review piece, edit some more
review
submit

Overall, I found my writing process to resemble that of a flurry of creativity, though not always good work, and the revision process to be slowing going. I would find myself frustrated at not being able to express myself clearly, so those sections in my work that were confusing got the most editing.

In terms of workshops, feedback is always useful to pinpoint areas in a piece that need strengthening or changing altogether. I sometimes find myself embarrassed by the quality of my work when under scrutiny, but one has to separate the wheat from the chaff somehow. Readers comments are a good way to do so, however, the author has final editorial right. Sometimes I would read a sentence aloud, and change it to my vernacular, rather than a more formal suggestion.

By taking two English classes at the same time, both with workshops, but having a different focuses with either fiction or nonfiction writing challenged me to think outside the box in how these forms of writing are complementary. I would not think a food review, which could be just a telling of the facts, required storytelling to make the piece interesting. Thus, I sometimes tried and failed blending the two types of writing, but sometimes the piece came out better than the part, i.e. my memoir.

The usefulness of the texts for this class was in their structure. Because I haven’t written a lot of non fiction, I used works like the Omnivore’s Dilemma or Stealing Buddha's Dinner to format what good nonfiction should look like. I may have not reached the quality of published writing, though I’m glad I tried.

I guess what I learned about myself is I have perfectionist standards, though that’s not really realistic to hold myself to it. Writing, and learning, is a process that continues with time, much like any good revision.

Have a great summer everyone!

Perfect Meal Revised Draft

Both my mother and father come from large families of five. I am an only child. This creates tension every Christmas or Thanksgiving when large amounts of cooking are involved. To offset said culinary overdose, the extended family would gather at someone’s house, sometimes ours, and there would be at least twenty people, including the children. The best dinner parties were organized by a military wife cum aunt. She would have a whole turkey, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, and three types of pie for dessert. For Christmas, there was sometimes a goose, but always a chocolate cake. The shining achievement of the meal however was not a food item. A fir tree, usually the largest on the lot, sat in the background as an imposing guest in its own right. The grand dinner parties of my youth made me want to throw one of my own, but for college students.

Reality and my expectations however, were on two different planes of existence. A dorm kitchenette cannot compete with a house that has more than three pans to its name. I asked a friend, Clare, if I could borrow her kitchen to cook instead, where she had two refrigerators and enough plates for all the people I wanted to invite. Her one request was to include all her housemates in the final number of guests. Including many of my friends, the total number of people planned for was twenty five. Nonetheless, a good hostess knows that about half the people invited won’t show up. To test the theory I created a Facebook event, where if one didn't RSVP, they didn’t get food. In the end, eleven people came, though not the all of original eleven who said they would, as two guests were friends of friends.

Part of the difficulty of cooking for said college students is my own lack of a car. For this, I needed the help of my friend Emily, and her rusted out mom-esque soccer van. She, and her not so trusty steed, was someone I could count on, as we had been on many theatre adventures together. Because of the number of guests, and my desire to keep the cost of feeding people low, I wanted to go to Meijer. I got a call on Saturday from Emily if I wouldn’t mind going shopping then, instead of Sunday like we planned. Hence for the Monday night meal I had a two day in advance shopping run.

For some reason, Emily and I thought it would be a good idea to share a split tier cart. While she was in the cereal aisle, I would be in the salad dressing aisle. We played a game of text tag, Were R U?, which was more fun for me than her because I had the cart. By the time I had everything I needed, salad packs, fettuccine noodles, alfredo sauce in cans, frozen shrimp and peas, garlic bread, gelato, and milk, and by the time Emily had everything she needed as well, the cart was stuffed to bursting.

“Do you really need a whole gallon of milk?” she had asked while shoving around groceries.

“Of course!” I replied. “It’s for both cooking and drinking.”

Emily had given me the side eye at that, and motioned for us to self check out. In the end the total for everything was fifty three dollars, which wasn’t too bad for eleven people. What I didn't truly think through was how much of a logistic problem cooking would be, for I had invited two vegetarians, one vegan, and and a girl allergic to shellfish, Emily.

On Monday night, I got started at 5:30 for a 7:00pm meal time. In hindsight, that was too early and I was fretting about the food getting cold because I was cooking in stages. I knew I was going to cook the vegan food first, so it wouldn’t get ‘contaminated’ with dairy products everyone else could eat. I used vegan soy ‘butter’ to sauté the onions, and the smell of garlic permeated the kitchen. In the ‘normal’ meal when the onions were clear, I would add one bag of frozen shrimp. At this point, my friend Clare butted in to avoid doing homework. She took over stirring, while I worked on the sauce. I drained the pasta into a colander, and raised it with cold water and put it aside.

Into the pan went two cans of Ragu cream sauce, some milk to thin the sauce, and a helping of paprika and oregano. Meanwhile, Clare was faithfully stirring, and had added another bag of shrimp in the first. I threw the bread in the oven and looked at her. The vegetarian and vegan sauce additions of onions and peas were resting in their own dishes.

“When do I add the peas?” she said.

“Is the butter boiling?” I responded.

“Yesss?”

“Now then,” I had said.

I then added the sauce to the pasta, and mixed it together. My friends had the set the table and by then, dinner was ready. There were Christmas lights, but no grand Christmas tree. At a table normally used for studying, we squished two chairs each at the heads of the table, and five chairs on either side and everyone was to serve themselves family style. The concept was one would take a serving of pasta and then add the appropriate topping. The salad and garlic bread were on the table in a free for all. We all settled down to eat and I looked around at the strange conglomeration of people my meal brought together with, Emily on my left and Clare on my right. There were only two men at the table and the avocado green walls seemed to suck the light from the room, creating a darker atmosphere than I would have liked, but it was my dinner party and my fettuccine shrimp alfredo on the table.

The first bite was good, but under salted. The noodles were well done, and had a soft texture, but the sauce tasted of milk. The shrimp had shells that need to be peeled, and left the stink of shellfish on the hands. The best part were the buttery peas and the soft crunch of onions, which lent a strong flavor to a dish that needed a little contrast. I realized by trying to please everyone with dietary restrictions, I had limited my cooking ability by spreading myself too thin. Nonetheless, the choruses of “it’s so good!” served to bolster my flagging spirits. As I looked around the table, I realized it was less about the food, and more about the friends I had. But dinner still needed salt.

The Perfect Meal Draft

The perils of college living in part involve the college cafeteria. The food can vary from weird, buffalo chicken lasagna for example, or inauthentic, like pad thai made with alfredo noodles. Sometimes one longs for food that is different, or cooked by oneself. For a sophomore seminar, I had been giving the task to create the ‘perfect meal’, no simple feat. To begin to understand what’s perfect for me in a meal involves the meals of my childhood.

Both my mother and father come from large families of five. I am an only child. Thus every Christmas or Thanksgiving, the extended family would gather at someone’s house, sometimes ours, and there would be at least twenty people, including the children. These grand dinner parties would have a whole turkey, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, and three types of pie for dessert. For Christmas, there was sometimes a goose, but always a chocolate cake. The meal was crowned with the largest fir tree on the lot in the background, an imposing guest in its own right. The grand dinner parties of my youth made me want to throw one of my own, but for college students.

Thus, I had to cut corners somewhere, because dormitory kitchens are a sad sight to see. One stove, and the pots and pans have to be scrounged up. I asked a friend, Clare, if I could borrow her kitchen instead, where she had two refrigerators and more than three pots. Her one rule was I had to invite all her housemates. Including many of my friends, the guest list was a staggering twenty five. To combat that, I had created a Facebook event, where if one didn't RSVP, they didn’t get food. In the end, eleven people came, where two were friends of friends.

Another friend, Emily, had a car. People with cars on campus are royalty in my mind, and she was someone I could count on. Because of the number of guests, and my desire to keep the cost of feeding people low, I wanted to go to Meijer. Thus, Emily and I had a grocery run on Saturday evening for the Monday night meal. For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to share a split tier cart. While Emily was in the cereal aisle, I would be in the salad dressing aisle. The game of text tag that we played, Were R U?, was more fun for me than her because I had the cart. By the time I had everything I needed, and so did Emily for her Chinese dinner, the cart was stuffed to bursting, and I had to get leverage by pushing the cart forward with one foot stabilized by floor. The looks she and I received were well worth the bickering.

“Do you really need a whole gallon of milk?” she had asked.

“Of course!” I replied. “It’s for both cooking and drinking.”

I then faked a dramatic death scene, and continued to checkout. I think Emily was afraid I would embarrass her further at the conservative Meijer, so she pushed for self check. In the end the total for everything was fifty three dollars, which wasn’t too bad for eleven people.

My menu went something like this: salad starter, fettuccine alfredo with shrimp and peas, garlic bread, gelato for dessert, and milk or water to drink. The shrimp was the big ticket item, but it was part of the grand dinner plan, as chicken would be too boring. What I didn't truly think through was how much of a logistic problem cooking would be, for I had invited two vegetarians, one vegan, and and a girl allergic to shellfish, Emily.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan states “A vice president of marketing at General Mills once painted me a picture of the state of the American family dinner...Mom, perhaps feeling sentimental about the dinners of her childhood, still prepares a dish and a salad that she usually winds up eating by herself. Meanwhile, the kids, and Dad, too, if he’s around each fix something different for themselves,because Dad’s on a low-carb diet, the teenager’s become a vegetarian, and the eight-year-old is on a strict ration of pizza... Families that eat this way are among 47 percent of Americans who report to pollsters that they still sit down to a family meal every night” (302). My perfect meal was becoming the perfect American meal, with dietary restrictions galore.

On Monday night, I got started at 5:30 for a 7:00pm meal time. I pulled the garlic bread from the freezer, and put the water on to boil. I rinsed and washed the salad packs, and put it in a pretty bowl. The salad then went back into the fridge. I knew I was going to cook the vegan food first, so it wouldn’t get ‘contaminated’ with dairy products everyone else could eat. I used vegan soy ‘butter’ and sauteed the onions with garlic, then added the frozen peas. Next, the spices went in, oregano and smoked paprika. After that was done, I put the mix in a bowl to rest, and repeated the process with real butter for the vegetarians. At that time the water had been boiling a while, so in went the fettucine noodles. I also put theveggie mix into a bowl, and put it aside. Now came the hard part, cooking with the shrimp. Onions were sauteed, and the smell of garlic permeated the kitchen. When the onions were clear, I added one bag of frozen shrimp. At this point, my friend Clare butted in to avoid doing homework. She took over stirring, while I worked on the sauce. I drained the pasta into a colander, and raised it with cold water and put it aside.

One side note, I am a fond food user of the concept of cheating. To cheat is to often substitute, when one is one a budget or a lazy chef. Sometimes I am both. For the alfredo I had bought Ragu sauce, a cheap 1.49 a can special I planned to doctor.

Into the pan went two cans of Ragu, some milk to thin the sauce, and a helping of paprika and oregano. Meanwhile, Clare was faithfully stirring, and had added another bag of shrimp. I threw the bread in the oven and looked at her.

“When do I add the peas?” she said.

“Is the butter boiling?” I responded.

“Yesss?”

“Now then,” I had said.

I then added the sauce to the pasta, after removing enough for a serving for the vegan, and mixed it together. My friends had the set the table and by then, dinner was ready, and everyone was to serve themselves family style. The concept was one would take a serving of pasta and then add the appropriate topping. The salad and garlic bread were on the table in a free for all. We settled down to eat and the first bit was good, but under salted. The changing of hands of the salt shaker made my heart sink, but the choruses of “it’s so good!” served to bolster my flagging spirits. As I looked around the table, Emily on my left and Clare on my right I realized it was less about the food, and more about the friends I had. But dinner still needed salt.

Omnivore's Dilemma Part Three

The most beautiful state park I've ever been to is Mount St. Helens, located in the Olympic Mountain Range in Washington State. The volcano erupted in 1980, and changed the landscape significantly. When one visits there, there are now patches of growth and wildlife but the destruction is still clearly visible in the toppled trees and the changes in the shape of the mountain. On pages 381-382, Pollan describes the landscape of Eldorado Nation forest as "the same landscape exhibited a tranquil, almost modernist abstraction that was just beautiful". That kind of natural destruction is a harsh beauty of our natural world. Without fire, there would be little new growth in forests.

Thus, the third section to me, and the foraging of mushrooms in general, was the most beautiful section to me. Pollan also earned my respect when he finally shot his own pig, because for all his talking he finally proved his worth and willingness to see his omnivorousness to the end.

In a quick side note about the smell of mushrooms, there's a perfume about that that's one of the more amazing things I've smelled. One can find it here. Yes, it's hippie-dippie, but it recalled the feeling of section three's writing to me.

Overall, my dissent with parts one and two of the Omnivore's Dilemma was negated by the third sections, and Pollan's reverence towards food. He may not have a solution for the American food industry, by he knows nature is a good place to start looking for a balanced ecosystem and inspiration of life. Corny, I know, but soothing enough.

Recap of Food Reviewing (Part 3 of JGF Review)

Originally I expected Just Good Food to have fresh, delicious, and not too expensive food to eat. Only two of those things are true. The food was fresh and inexpensive, but it didn't meet my high bar of deliciousness. If the highlight of the meal is a dessert, then the rest needs some work. Also, I was worried it might be dead inside. It was. I'm not sure if the nice weather was to blame, or if JGF is a more eat and run kind of place.

The was dissonance between my expectations and assumptions too. I did not expect there to be cool jazz playing in the background. There was, and it fit the mood of the place, but the nature of the music startled me at first. I think of jazz as lounge music, not deli music. I also assumed I would not need to go back twice to get a feel for the place, but I did and it slid my original feelings into a higher bar of positive mixed review.

The view of "authentic" as a claim to fame for restaurants is a complicated one, based on location and inhabitants of that area. For JGF, they are an authentic wedding catering business, though that is not what they claim, it's just a service they offer. In that case, the food I'm eating can be served at a large scale, and be transported easily well. Am I thinking that as a consumer? No, because that's not my focus, maybe I just want a sandwich, not a wedding lunch. In terms of dining in restaurants as a kind of tourism, JGF is a local business. Maybe I want to experience the culture of Kalamazoo through its food. By eating food that comes from the area, an individual can taste the "flavors" of that area.

In the future, experiencing "tourist" like actives, such as eating, I now know not every experience will have "good" food, though it's a learning experience all the same. I also know how distracting pictures can be, and what a crutch they are when writing reviews. Plus, I really dislike cameras at a dinner table, along with cell phones. Technology and food are just a distracting combination. For a review, removing oneself from the experience makes a better written piece about said experience, but it deadens the whole memory making aspect. It becomes a job, and it's not quite so fun anymore. Food reviews, and blogging too, are quite a bit of work.

Just Good Food Revised Review

Eating at Just Good Food can often be overwhelming, as there are multitudes of choices. In fact, one can eat dessert first, as I did. In the dish of Marinated Strawberries, the soft crunch of strawberries was augmented by their pleasing to look at fan shape and vibrant red hue. The marinade was sweet, and tasted as if it was made from brown sugar and honey.  

In terms of entrees, there are sandwiches that be be ordered in half or whole sizes, or anything from the deli case. There is a soup of the day as well and desserts. Vegetarians and vegans will also be pleased by choices catered to them, as half the sandwiches are veg friendly and the deli has an assortment of vegan items.

One such thing was the Health Salad, a relative to coleslaw without the mayo, that had a vinegary tang and was made up of cabbage, carrots, red peppers. On the whole, it was colorful to look at, and low in calories, the reason of my dining champion to order it.

There is also a section of Mexican food in the deli, which includes chicken enchiladas. A single enchilada can be ordered for two seventy five, although I had two. They were served hot, with melted cheese on top. The corn tortilla hid the mildly spicy shredded meat, and the cheese came away in strings.

For refreshments, there are assorted soft drinks stored in an upright cooler. They also have water with a suitably cheesy sign, “Just Good Water”. Prices for sandwiches range from five to eight dollars, around five if you get a half sandwich. You can also split a whole sandwich for an extra dollar, which is very economical. Sides are four dollars.On average, the cost for lunch is about thirteen dollars per person. Their hours run from 9am to 9pm, except Saturdays, which are from 9am until 4pm. On Sundays Just Good Food is closed. There is handicapped access by an elevator, and there are kids chairs as well.

To get to Just Good Food, it’s about a fifteen minute walk from K College’s campus. If one is so inclined, it’s a straight shot down Academy and then a left at the end the park. The marker one is looking for is the Radisson, where one goes straight through the intersection at Rose St. until Rose Street Market comes into view. It’s on the left side of the street, about two blocks down from the Radisson.

When inside the building, follow the signs down into the basement, as the first floor is part of Just Good Food’s catering business, which is busy from May until December. What first greets guests in the jazz soundtrack, sometimes salsa or rhythmic. The walls are white with blue trim, and the tables and chairs are wooden and very clean. Looking up, there are ribbed glass domed deli lights that are fluorescent that make the whole place feel retro. The star of the show is the deli case though. It glows white, and the glass front covers all the refrigerated choices you could want. On top of the case are signs for sandwich selections. Meat sandwich signs are on the right, and vegetarian options are on the left. The cash register is to the right of the deli case, and so are the drinks. Just Good Food takes cash or credit, and is willing to split the bill for groups of people, i.e. students.

On a normal day, fellow diners are office workers from businesses downtown. The rush is usually around 12:30 in the afternoon, and when I was there at 11:30 there were maybe three tables full. One can also order and go if it’s nice day outside or if in a hurry. The service is friendly, and willing to wrap up leftovers if there are any. In comparison to their paper serving dishes and plastic containers, Just Good Food recycles the glass bottles drinks come in.

Overall, if one wants someplace to eat downtown that is uncomplicated and not very expensive, and also a local business, Just Good Food is a satisfactory place to do that.

Omnivore's Dilemma Part One

I don't think I've even been so bored reading about corn. Now, I've been to trips to Arizona and gotten the state parks ranger's spiel about how Native American thrived on corn. That was not boring. This was so tedious it became boring. If one sees the title in a book called "corn sex", one has gone too far and needs to pull a u-turn. Maybe because I also have a farm family background, the marvels of corn are not nearly so marvelous. Washington farmers in the 50s still fed their dairy cows grass. I've gone back and seen corn rows in Custer County, but there are still farms that grow alfalfa hay.

I would also like to point out how the author goes from waxing poetic to "oh noes! petroleum!" That kind of gave me whiplash reading that. He also offers no potential solutions, but instead talks about the dismantling of the New Deal programs. I get it, that was important. But why can't something be done? Bemoaning the fate of an industry designed to be highly prolific doesn't do much. Maybe in the scope of the book it's the readers who are being educated.

The section about beef cattle and the author's response made me sneer a little. He's so far removed from the process that his gets easily righteous. I want to tell him to go kill his own cow and to buck up boy.

There was a wave of farmers in the 70s that came from the hippie subculture. They were often called "gentleman farmers" because they didn't want to do any work, only reap profit, or in this case food. My father has stories of people who needed help, and still couldn't make a go of it. Many moved out after two seasons.

But enough about my own history and context. Maybe section two will be better.

CYOA

El Celler de Can Roca is a three star Michelin Spanish restaurant that has combined a novel way to experience fine dining. There's a review of a meal here, to get an idea of the place. Beyond the presentation of the food itself, my focus is on the innovation involved in the creating the dishes themselves.

I would say perfume and food is an unusual connection, no? Smell is important to taste, so to augment it with perfume is an interesting choice. It makes one think of wine tasting, and how it's frowned upon to wear perfume to such an event. In the article, we find that's not the case at all. The experience of smelling a perfume, originally a distillation, designed to go with a dessert is rather novel.


For our discussion on Thursday, I'd like to talk about how smell influences taste. There are experiments one can try at home, so as to analyze these factors before Thursday. You can hold your nose when eating, and see what happens. Or you can smell a spoonful of food thoroughly before each bite. These may seem a little weird, but eating involves more than the tongue.

For a different take on just smell, not involving taste, there's a review of the perfume here.

The video for Thursday:

Culinary Tourism Response

The anthropology perspective on tourism and food rituals we read for today's reading expanded my scope of the food "science".  Most of the things we've read for this class involve the exotic, and whether or not they taste good. Culinary Tourism instead focuses on what is exotic, and what is authentic. The dense text may at first seems like a hindrance, but is packed with a lot of information to savor. I wish the account of folklore and how it relates to food was explored more, although the use of "foodways" was broad enough for me to get a general sense of food traditions. It's also interesting to note that some Thai restaurants would not serve dishes to those if they were "other". The underlying critique on racism in this text, and perceived racism, is also interesting in how it affects self. The view that tourists go abroad to define themselves reflects back to colonialism and the interactions between host and visiting country. I'd also like to mention the types of tourists mentioned, and the high praise given the those looking for a faux-real experience. By having a more related attitude to what is vs. what's not authentic, the author suggests a tourist is able to experience more. I would argue these tourist trap like places are not the ideal they seem to be. I can think of Azteca, a tex mex restaurant, or Disneyland as two such examples. They are not "athentic" and the tourists who flock to them ignore the false fronts they put up. Maybe because I'm a person who wants to know how things work, I dislike such stage magic and illusionism about a culture. I'm also strongly dislike being seen as a country bumpkin who can be taken for a ride.

Just Good Food Review

To sandwich, or to not sandwich, that is the question. If you're willing to take a hop skip downstairs to a basement, you can sandwich. Just Good Food is nestled on Rose Street, just two blocks from downtown. If you're coming from Kalamazoo College, your land marker is the Radisson where you turn left. Next, you keep your eyes peeled for Rose Street Market, which is one the left side of the street. There is a sign for Just Good Food, and if you walk inside the building, you'll see a ballroom. This is not what you want. What you want is the flight of stairs going to the basement, where you will find the deli. There are more signs if you get confused.

Once inside, you'll look up and see the lovely florescent lights that have a half glass bowl on top of them. It's very retro. If you look left, there are wooden tables and chairs. To the right, where you avoid a blue trimmed white pillar-because basements need support, you'll see the deli. It glows white, and the glass dome covers all the refrigerated "sides" you could want. The sandwiches are out of sight, because they're prepared fresh. To choose what you want, you look at the row of black signs atop the deli case and choose a sandwich. That is a harder task then said, because it looked like there were more than twenty four signs. The ones on the left side had meat, and the ones on the right were vegetarian. My two companions and I stared at the choices until we threw our up and hands and guessed. Each of us got a whole sandwich, one side, and a drink. My side I had was the Curry Chicken, which had a thick layer of mayonnaise on both the chicken and cashews. There was a faint curry taste, but nothing I would recommend. One poor friend had the Pesto Chicken, which had softer chicken chunks and green peppers, but only tasted of mayo. The best side was the Green Beans Gruyere, which tasted of lemon vinegar that covered the almonds, green beans and cheese in a sparkling combination. Finnegan's Choice was a different combo of coleslaw, cheese and ham on rye bread. It reminded me of a Ruben and was served hot. The Secret Dan's Ham had the softest sourdough bread I've ever encountered, and on the inside the sandwich the ham was layered with mustard and the soft crunch of tomato and lettuce provided contrast to an otherwise okay, but fresh, sandwich. Lincoln's Walk in the Woods was sliced chicken breasts covered with melted cheese and lettuce, also on sourdough. I thought it was rather plain, but the friend who had it is a huge cheese snob and loved it. In the background to this meal was smooth jazz coming from the speakers, and the place had emptied out by the time we finished.

Nonetheless, Just Good Food is a place to go during your downtown lunch break, grab a sandwich and eat somewhere else. But I wouldn't make the trek down town for a sandwich, I would only go if I was in the vicinity. It's not a pilgrimage kind of place. Everything was fresh, and the leftovers where just as good on the second day. A bit of advice, don't order a whole sandwich- it's enough for two people. The service is very friendly and helpful when you have to wrap up your seconds though.

The basement has handicapped access by an elevator, and there are kids chairs. For drinks, there are assorted soft drinks stored in an upright standing cooler. They also have coffee. I had a Stewart's Cream Soda, all vanilla fizzy bubbles in glass, that contrasted well with the ham sandwich I ate. Prices for sandwich range from five to eight dollars, around five if you get a half sandwich. You can also split a whole sandwich for an extra dollar, which is very economical. Sides are four dollars. For three people who ordered whole sandwiches, one side and a drink each, the total came to just under fifty dollars. You could also just order the "sides" by the pound from the deli, and it ranged from Thai cucumber salad to a homemade fruit salad, which looked pretty good. Their hours run from 9am to 9pm, except Saturdays, which are from 9am until 4pm. On Sundays Just Good Food is closed.

If I was an office worker who wanted a healthy place to eat lunch for not very much money, Just Good Food would be a great place to do it. As a Kalamazoo student though, I could always make myself a sandwich. If you're bringing your parents to town, don't eat here. It's not that kinda place.

Curry Chicken and Secret Dan's Ham

Pesto Chicken and Finnegan's Choice

 

Lincoln's Walk in the Woods and Green Beans Gruyere

Hopes and Dreams for Just Good Food

I'm not a huge fan of eating out. Every time I do so, it's usually on vacation under duress as my family is hungry and wants to eat NOW. I've become good at using my phone and websites like Urban Spoon. It used to be my mom used the Triple A book of reviews, an American car trip/glove box staple, to find someplace to eat. For tomorrow, the 'restaurant' I'm planning to review is Just Good Food, unless some random act of God gets in my way. Just Good Food is a combination deli/cafeteria, which I usually encounter only in grocery stores. I have memories of Safeways and faux Asian food sitting inside steel trays under glass. I hoping from the photos I've seen of green interiors and wooden tables the place will be homely, but that's a tad better than chain store squeaky clean. I'm also hoping the place won't be dead around lunch time, because that would kill the ambiance. A empty restaurant is a worrisome restaurant. However, I've also only heard good things about JGF from friends. Some reviews from a few years ago on Urban Spoon said service was slow, but I take most reviews with a grain of salt. I trust word of mouth more, and having two or three people I know tell me about a place is enough to convince me to at least check it out. Also, I've got two friends coming with me so we can try lots of food. I'm concerned we may be let down, but good company usually makes up for a bad meal. I am an anxious eater, and if the food or ambiance isn't up to my standards, the control freak side of me will mutter it would have been better to eat in, where I can control everything.  I often like to say I have a plan A, B, and C so if JGF isn't what we want to eat and instead have to walk out, I have other restaurants in mind, like Tap House. Nonetheless, I'm sure the meal will be fresh, delicious, and most of all, not too expensive for three people.

On "Because the Fat Lady Has to Eat", i.e. my thoughts

The readings for this week were varied in style, tone, and cuisine of food review. Some were scathing, and some were a run down of the experience. My favorite was Sam Sifton's Because the Fat Lady Has to Eat. Because we've read A Cook's Tour, we know the importance of the head chef being Jonathan Benno, and Thomas Keller's second in command. For the reader then understands the high praise of the food, and Sifton extrapolates: "His rigati, a hollow ridged noodle that he offers with Dungeness crab, sea urchin, peperoncini, a few sea beans and quite a few pats of butter, is similarly charged with excess, tasting of open ocean and marsh, and the milk of the cow standing upon the shore".  I can almost taste it, and the heavy use of butter in the menu sounds fantastical. It's disappointing to hear the service is lacking with such great food behind it, but it's been four years since the review, and I assume they're improved some. This of course brings up relevancy of reviews, as one ok review did not hurt Lincoln Ristrorante. It seems that reviews themselves become time dated, and only good for one year or so. Now if the food reviewer said it was absolutely terrible, that review might have more of a negative effect. People dislike paying for bad food, so a warning from a food writer is probably a death knell for a bad one. One relevancy though, I wonder if in thirty years the writing could stand on it's own, or if this format will become so much dust in the wind, like outdated scientific knowledge.

Secret Ingredients Reading for Thursday

The theme for today's reading was the strong use of the past as a setting. Whether the story is set in France, or in New York, place in time is the most important charter. In All You Can Hold for Five Bucks, the beefsteak all you can eat is dependent on which part of New York you choose to eat in.  The politicians help too. Also the argument of whether or not it should be bread or toast the beefsteak is served upon provided interesting conflict on authenticity. In Is There a Crisis in French Cooking, the readers are introduced to an old man who represents how the world used to eat in France, richly, of course. The author contemplates the taking away of such richness is what makes his friend fall ill, even though today, we know it was probably a preexisting problem with his digestive track. The crisis of course is the question of what is healthy eating, or what is acceptable eating. Those questions are not always mutually inclusive. I want to ask how does culture affect the idea of food and health. What do you think, dear reader?

Revised Memoir Draft

Food Memories

Peeking over the counter top, I watched my father’s hands as he flipped through a cookbook and kneaded dough absentmindedly. The dry chalk of the flour coated his hands and the counter, rising into the air when slight breeze came through. My childhood is filled with many memories like these. My father worked nights and would babysit me during the day when my mother was at her job. A joke often told between my parents was, “Baby, baby, who's got baby?”. I was the tag along to all grocery store trips and to Half Price Books, conveniently located close to each other in the same strip of shopping mall. Inside, the shelves of the bookstore leaned up like giants. The colorful spines filling the spaces looked like teeth and the vanilla scent of old books pervaded the space.

My father collects cookbooks. Each one speaks of its own era, and good ones have thick pages and added notations like “needs more milk”. The ones now are new and slick with big photos, and never have food stains on them. Instead his favorites are local ones composed by women’s clubs with plastic spiral spines. A chocolate smudge on a favorite recipe, turned oily with time, will catch his attention faster than a hungry bloodhound. His favorite era of Joy of Cooking is the 60’s, and he will scour Amazon by ISBN number to get exactly what he’s looking for. The market for old cookbooks is growing again, part of the slow food revival movement in America.

No matter what anyone tell you, a lot of cookbook combing goes on in Goodwills. The dirtier and the nastier, the better. My mother has an inherent dislike of any thrift stores because of the perceived germs on every surface. Notice the conflict of interests already? When my mom was unfortunate enough to be kidnapped on trips like this, say on vacation, she would humor my father but never touch everything. My own love for cheap vintage clothes amused her, but I believe that was because clothes could be washed. A book was a bit harder to disinfect. Her breaking point hit one day, when it was so humid outside the interior widows of the store had condensation on them. She hid in the car with the A/C, and never really went treasure hunting with us again.

My parents continued their work schedules, his at night and hers during the day, but their hours got a lot longer. My mom would come home when it was dark, and my father would come back at eight in the morning sometimes. We had moved, and their commute increased, which left me to my own devices quite a bit during summer break. If I wanted to be fed, I had to do it myself. If I wanted my mom to eat, I had to make dinner as both parents were too tired to cook, though my dad could scrape together a breakfast for himself. I began digging through my dad’s library and sorted through cookbooks.

I had never really payed his collection any sort of attention before, because I was part of the online age of convenience and was used to pulling up what I wanted instantly.  The theme, I noticed in retrospect, was dessert cookbooks. I had to throw up my hands then, because there was nothing I wanted to make unless I smothered myself with sweets. So I scraped together my memories of cooking classes my father made me go to as a child and taste memories of good meals. Fresh red snapper? Sure, with a raspberry vinaigrette sauce. Or chicken alfredo with once frozen green beans. American food. Easy to remember and make food. Things that could be added to a grocery list and be quickly bought.

Some nights my mom worked so late, and my dad had left for his job before dinner was made, I would put the leftovers into plastic tupperware. Part of cooking for another person is knowing their likes and dislikes. My mom hated mushrooms, and if I was feeling somewhat malicious about being left home all day, I would use cream of mushroom soup in the base ingredients.The best meal I made though was white wine braised pork chops, which took the least amount of attention because everything was left in the oven for two hours. Not that I was bitter about that, but effort did not always correlate to quality of meal.

When I went back to college, my cooking dropped off a cliff and my mother switched to frozen dinners. Wonder why American have large refrigerators? Convenience. My father has a Kenmore lay down one in the garage. Most families believe in having a few frozen emergency meals around as a time saver. If not meals, then out of season fruits, or large quantities of meat. We freeze bread in my house so it doesn't go stale or mold before we finish a loaf. The only other person I know to do this is my bachelor uncle. I’m sure there are jokes about times of famine somewhere in there and the use of stale bread.

I haven’t cooked in more than six months, and I know from experience my skills tend to deteriorate. Why make something terrible if you can buy something better? Money, which tends to be the universal answer. If you can’t make a cake, Duncan Hines is a good place to start. Yet look at America’s foodscape. We have everything from Chinese to Jamaican to Greek. Everyone is this culture is learning, whether about buying, eating or selling. The supply chain of consumerism rests on our stomachs and the choices we make. Dine out or eat in?

Secret Ingredients Reading for Tuesday

I noticed the overarching theme of the readings all involved saving time. In The Secret Ingredient, the author regrets the lack of recipes people are willing to follow if they don't cut time, even if it sacrifices taste. In Nor Censure Nor Disdain, the casserole as American phenomena seems to come about because of lack of servants. The author bemoans the bad quality of food put into a casserole as its main detractor, and instead wishes to champion the food of harried housewives. This, of course, is a dated dialog, and is even funnier for it. The story of the dinosaur meat heart compounds her effort to be cheap in lieu of her father, and gives the piece an absurdist feel. In terms of narration, the author in Good Cooking feels distant and almost clinical. Julia Child becomes a figure, not a person. What's even more jarring is the use of "spoke recently" etc. when Julia Child has been dead for ten years. Nonetheless, the autobiography style is informative and paints a journalist view of the whole event. In An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing, a somewhat true autobiography of the chicken wing, the author struggles with oral history and subjective truth. He cannot distinguish what the real history is, and instead give three that may be true. The reader must then decide which history of the buffalo wing is most to their taste. 

Memoir Assignment First Draft- Family Relationships, or What I Learned About Cooking

Cookbooks speak of a different era. Good ones have thick pages and added notations like “needs more milk”. The ones now are new and slick with big photos, and never have food stains on them. Most recipes have been uploaded online, all one needs is to go to epicurious.com. There’s still a market for old cookbooks though, in which Amazon reigns supreme. Need a James Beard cookbook? It’s one penny and three ninety nine for shipping.

Where I’m going with this is that my father collects cookbooks. Local ones composed by women’s clubs with plastic spiral spines are his favorite. He often tells me a good chef can look at a recipe and know what it will taste like. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I can remember the way meals taste years later. He’s told me which Joy of Cooking's are the best years, i.e. look for the 60s, and to not laugh so hard at Jello salad recipes.

If you’re looking for a chocolate chip cookie recipe, he would advise to look on the back of a bag of Hershey's special dark, but you have to “fix” the brown sugar. For dishes requiring wine, top shelf is not necessary. Any five dollar plonk will do, as long as it’s not drinkable. Citrus goes with fish, and cream is for both pasta and chicken. With Asian food, he’s terrible and will defer to me for advice. Not that I’m an expert, but I've eaten more Pho than he has. Salmon does well with a mustard and teriyaki glaze, and that’s about as exotic as he gets.

A lot of cookbook combing goes on in Goodwills. One time on vacation, we were scouring a Goodwill from top to bottom when my mother was about ready to explode from perceived germs. It was so humid outside, there was condensation on the interior windows and she had had enough. “I’m leaving,” she hissed and went to hide inside the car with A/C. And that was that.

The more books my dad acquired on his library shelves, the quieter my mom got. If anything, there was barely a side eye to behold at the office door. When we moved, however, that was a whole different story. Forty two boxes of books did not endear my father to my mother, though the moving guys almost rubbed their hands together with glee. 

At the new house, the boxes sat and moldered in the garage while “new” books were strewn on the coffee table. It seemed the cycle would be unbroken. When I came back from college for summer break I had to fend for myself each dinnertime. I sorted through cookbooks and threw up my hands, because there was nothing I wanted to make unless I smothered myself with desserts. So I improv-ed it. Fresh red snapper? Sure, with a raspberry vinaigrette sauce. Or chicken alfredo with once frozen green beans. American food. Easy to remember and make food. After awhile I got bored with my own cooking and turned to online recipes. I made a killer cinnamon banana bread, that was poured into cupcake tins, because a loaf was too fragile. I also consumed copious amounts of tea. Tea drinking is a great indication of mood, because it has less caffeine, thus I had more sleep to make me less grumpy.

Some nights my mom worked so late I would put the leftovers into plastic tupperware. Part of cooking for another person is knowing their likes and dislikes. My mom hated mushrooms, and if I was feeling somewhat malicious, I would use cream of mushroom soup in the base ingredients. Most often though, I would make a baked potato,some sort of beef- usually skillet cooked, and have a wild experiment with the vegetable. The only one who would eat garlic and soy braised bok choy was me though. My most successful dinner was white wine baked pork chops, which took the least amount of attention because everything was left in the oven for two hours.

When I went back to college, my cooking dropped off a cliff and my mother switched to frozen dinners. I haven’t cooked in more than three months, and I know from experience my skills tend to deteriorate. When I’m on my own for study abroad in Rome, I figure I’ll have a month learning curve to recalibrate myself to cooking, but the abundance of good restaurants will probably be a hindrance to my skills. Why make something terrible if you can buy something better? Money, which tends to be the universal answer. If you can’t make a cake, Duncan Hines is a good place to start. Also, let’s talk about refrigeration. Americans have large freezers, we know this. My father has a Kenmore laydown one in the garage. Most families believe in having a few frozen emergency meals around as a time saver. If not meals, then out of season fruits, or large quantities of meat. We freeze bread in my house so it doesn't go stale or mold before we finish a loaf. The only other person I know to do this is my bachelor uncle. I’m sure there are jokes about the atomic age somewhere in there.

Food is a large part of home life, whether good, bad or in between. To travel is to expand those experiences. To go to Italy, to Canada, to anywhere really that’s outside one’s culture and then attempt to carve out a place through food is about belonging. Look, for example, at America’s foodscape. We have everything from Chinese to Jamaican to Greek. People who have come here have brought their food with them. Food is about memory too, so don’t be afraid to throw big dinner parties. Make everyone you know bring a dish that’s special to their family. And if you have to resort to a cookbook? I won’t tell a soul.

Food That Changed My Life

There are some food you cannot recreate. I have a memory of one that has stuck with me for forever.

I was 14 and my middle school was going to Italy. On the plane from London to Milan, the businessman next to me flirted with me until he asked my grade. Mortified, he stayed silent the rest of the trip. Once we landed down in the dusky twilight, it was tourist locations all over the map. In a village outside Cinque Terre we where shuttled inside our hotel, where later two girls would blow the fuse trying to straighten their hair. That meal was served in the hotel dining room, all beiges and red with formal wooden chairs and a veranda overlooking the ocean, the food served family style. The first dish settled in front of us was pesto pasta. The green oil stained the white china with swirling drops, and the first bite into my mouth was like a supernova in my mouth. It sparkled upon the taste buds, and left not flavor but sensation. Every last bit was devoured, and I don't remember the other parts of the meal. I cannot tell you was the pasta tasted like, only I will never have something that good again.

Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour Chapter 1-6

What is the perfect meal, Bourdain asks himself, and by extension his readers. We follow his highs and lows, and the crushing sense of disappointment with being forced to eat for an audience. His trip to Vietnam is filled with bright colors and strange tastes and wonderful people. There are times though, when Bourdain uses a flurry of French based lingo, so deep only an insider would understand the nuances. I, as a straight female reader, am also ejected from the story when he writes "Your first taste of champagne on a woman's lips...". Mentally, I'm going sure okay, wait what? That's not an experience we will share, much like his French background in cooking.  Being a good reader requires empathy and the suspension of disbelief-although A Cook's Tour often challenges me. It reminds me in Stealing Buddha's Dinner, Bich refuses to go to church with the Van der Wals because she knows she will be the outsider. In this sense, there's a generation gap because Bourdian remembers the Vietnam War and has memories that to me are a part of history. Nevertheless, the exchange with Sonya is so real she leaps right off the pages in her rabbit fur jacket.

A farmer's market is a direct reflection of the farm land that surrounds it and the produce that's in season. Washington farmer's markets burst with apples and pumpkins in the fall, turnips and lettuce in the spring.  Boxes and bushels trucked over the mountains from dusty farm land harvested by migrant Mexican workers. The Cascade Mountain range is a dividing line. The left is liberal, wet and city-like. The right is flat, more Republican, and probably wants to be a part of Idaho. Kalamazoo's farmers market, from the one I've been to, had more Mexican food and Mennonite bread and jellies. It was a small affair, but everything I bought I treasured. Good food speaks all languages, though not every country has refrigeration. This brings up the contrast of the necessity of farmer's markets versus the luxury of them.

We, as Americans can go shopping in grocery stores and enjoy the low prices of subsidized food. Others, like Russia,  have daily markets filled with more meat, and more mean haggling. Food is part of a struggle for them, for both buyers and producers. The culture of borscht is grounded in the idea of lacking food, when winter is cold and only cabbage is cheap. In comparison, the food culture of the US is rather lacking.  The slow food movement, with its pomp and circumstance, was the direct rebellion to Betty Crocker cake mixes. One generation wanted fast, and one wanted slow. What then, is the perfect meal? Is it a birthday cake from Costco? Is it a seven course meal at NYC restaurant? Whatever it is, we'll have to keep reading to find out.

First Meal Memories