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?