Process Writing - Metacognition

I have two typical approaches to writing.  I either word barf and then go back and highlight the useful bits, or I create an intensive harvard outline of what I want to say and then fill in from there.  I know my strength as a writer is intensive details, and my weakness is organization, so these are the formats that help me organize my thoughts.  In this class, I did neither, which may have been part of my struggle.  I often worked in bullet points instead, whether it was for my memoir or my restaurant review, and then relied on workshop to reshape the structure and order of my thoughts.  I used the same bullet point approach to my reading responses, knowing what facts and opinions I wanted to hit, but using a stream of consciousness and connection to string them together.  That was how I wrote commonplace entries for examining text in English in high school, so it was the format I understood for reflective writing.  I'm honestly not sure why I continued this tactic into my formal writing.  After workshops I'd always use the harvard list style on word to create a new outline of what I wanted to say, moving large and small bits of text around until I found a better flow by hacking away excess.  I could never quite figure out how to fix my restaurant review, no matter the effort.
My breakthrough was definitely with my memoir.  I revamped it from it's original hecticness and found a way to create a flow of story that painted a picture that did a lot more showing and telling.  I could have milked it more, but just reading where the saga of chicken breasts started and ended swells my own breast (pun intended) with pride.  Going from the scatter brained approach of "here's everything I might want to possibly tell you about my father and chicken...and belgium pancakes" to the concise "here is a narrative about my father and I shown through chicken" really taught me about using a symbol instead of letting it use you.
My reading responses were the most cathartic for me.  My brain makes so many connections because it's detail happy, so being able to barf it all out into a somewhat tied together theme allowed me to organize my thoughts more before class.  When I got readers responses there were many times they would consider an angle I hadn't seen, or their interest in my passions got me more passionate to share more of my opinions.  Responses lit a fire under me to actually keep mentally digging, which made class discussions all the more diverse.  There was so much to absorb in our texts that I often felt overwhelmed, so having reading responses gave me some personal respite to dig deeper instead of spread further.
My biggest issue before college was not writing about personal experiences.  Since I took Gail Griffin's Telling Secrets, I've tried to be honest with myself in all my classes.  As much as I didn't want to assail the class with my personal struggles and life, the complaints tumbled out anyways.  Having a warm accepting environment where instead of people judging the whining instead offer ways to utilize it is incredibly helpful.  I always have trouble managing emotion in my work, whether it's showing and not telling, or just acknowledging I have emotions in the first place. Food and Travel Writing made me stretch my boundaries and explore subjects from angles I wouldn't normally approach them from, which in the long run is a positive, in my opinion.
This course specifically came at a strange and useful time for me.  I've been fighting with body issues for quite a few years now, and this class coincided with me hitting the mental space of doing the right things for my body and mind instead of the easy things.  Learning about food and social impact also got me to think about what right means, and how to obtain it.  I now have such a visceral reaction to food.  I'm more aware of the choices I'm making, and who and what they impact.  It brings me joy to be more aware, and I plan to continue to learn about my and other's food impact.  Just don't expect any more food reviews from me any time soon.

Final Revision of Restaurant Review: Sushiya

The Sushiya sign features the label “asian fusion” under the black and white title of the restaurant.  The stark contrast of the white “ya” next to the black of “sushi” is reminiscent of the hesitant response one would give when asked, "Sushiya or Sushino?  Should we go?"  

When describing the food and space, the word that comes to mind is "meh".  When entering the multi-business complex a person finds what they'd expect of a standard middle-class asian fusion/sushi restaurant: hues of maroon, mint, and bamboo pattern, black lacquered furniture, silk screen motifs, televisions overlooking a bar, and a bathroom hidden behind a partitioning curtain of the well known woodblock "The great wave at Kanagawa". The assorted fake plants complete the atmosphere.   The Beatles, the Doors, and the Who intermix with the low hum of electronics and patrons.  The sound level is low, not having to compete with the three small families with their children.  The host typically won’t even need to ask “reservation?”, because there will be room.

The Asian fusion between Korean and Japanese offered by Sushiya features dishes ranging from complicated and spicy to simple and familiar, but lack the wow factor.  It is beige, much like the wall color.  From Egg Cake Sushi and Korean Kimchi to Oshinko Roll (pickled Japanese radish) and the standard California Roll, the taste is enjoyable but unimpressionable.  The experience is asian fusion, but the emotional impact is the neutrality of Switzerland.  If it were a paper, it would receive something in the lower B range.   The Egg Cake sushi is sweeter than usual, but still pleasant.   The kimchi leaves that tingle of spice in the corners of a smile, but spice-lovers will find themselves wanting. The vegetable udon has familiar white radishes with pink edges and a plethora of other pleasantries like cabbage and fried noodles, but has nothing that surprises or captivates a customer to fight for the last noodle.  The steamed gyoza may come closer to room-temperature than desired, but still has the craved texture of a dumpling.  The seaweed salad has a light dressing with a hint of chili and lime amid vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds, complete with two lemon slices on the side.   The Kalamazoo Roll combines elements like avocado and eel: a combination that always gives a pleasant reaction purely because the tastes were made for each other.   Everything was as expected, and for the things that weren’t, they still aren’t impressive.

Sushiya’s menu is so heavy with laminated pages and choices it can double as bar-bells, almost to the point of overwhelming.  The best way to navigate it and the over-loaded portions and prices of entrees and specials is to order a surplus of small dishes from the extensive appetizer menu and share with a large group. Order an entree individually and the price will range between $18.95 - $37.95 for just the main dish. Order a series of rolls and they’ll be brought on a wooden boat that is convenient for sharing.  (Order from multiple selections and for multiple people and the portions get cut down and the cost is diverted by splitting the check evenly.)  If a group of five evenly splits the cost it will be closer to $15 per person, whereas in a group of two expect to spend at least $25 per person.

In the menu, there are multiple ice creams offered for dessert.  This is the closest to wow you’re going to find, with flavors ranging from Green Tea, Mango, Sesame, Red Bean and Ginger. The bowl comes with two scoops, which can be mixed and matched if the diner finds they're too indecisive. The joke is if you want a vegan dessert [here], get alcohol; you better like dairy or not be lactose intolerant.   There’s another downside.  Some flavors, like Plum Wine, are in high demand and therefore run out, even as early as six (two hours after they open for dinner) on a Sunday or Monday.  But don’t fret.  Instead, order the Red Bean or Sesame Ice Cream.  The latter is nutty, and almost has a coffee feel to it, whereas the former is a favorite that replaces any craving for the vanilla bean.  For a surprise, go for Ginger.  It is tart but subdued (compared to the generous hunk that comes on the sushi boat), and has a pleasant way of tickling the nasal passages.

Other positives are Sushiya’s waitstaff and tea.  Both bring some warmth to the space.   The tea is the real stuff, complete with the cloud at the bottom indicating the use of a tea acorn instead of a bag.  It comes in a plastic teapot painted with a bamboo stalk, but it is warm and heats both your insides and the standard clay tea cups just-so. The waiters are also as real as they come; genuinely accommodating, friendly, flexible, respectable and prompt, while giving space to a customer’s indecisiveness.  They are fastidious in leaving a water venn diagram on the table to grab free refills of the green tea teapot, but still ask if they should refill it in the first place.  The waitstaff does their best to answer special requests such as how the bill is split, or portions (like the ice cream), and are attentive enough to make good ordering suggestions or noticing a customer leaving their wallet and promptly return it.  

Sushiya isn’t sensational, but it can satisfy a sushi hankering after a four minute drive from Kalamazoo College’s campus through downtown Kalamazoo.  Nothing is atrocious or slimy or outstanding; it doesn’t leave much of an impression other than on your wallet.  The plates are square, the chopsticks are take-out style,  the wait staff is friendly, and the menu has variety.  Its selection is wider than Sakura, a further but similarly priced Japanese Hibachi restaurant in Portage, and can give access to the same type of food with less travel time, for a price.  The quickest way to describe Sushiya’s selection is crisp, convenient, and coin.

Part Three of Restaurant Review - Reflection on Sushiya

When I first set out to write a restaurant review, I planned on going to Fuel to gain perspective on a vegetarian's eating habits.  I found out Fuel was closed, and had to quickly reroute my plans.  Since I had chosen my original subject based off of veganism, I picked my new location while planning to continue with the same mind frame.
This was the second roadblock I encountered.  It's difficult to review a sushi restaurant when you're not allowed to have fish or eggs.  I couldn't eat the majority of the food with vegan restrains.  I had to go back and eat there a second time, and work a few extra hours in preparation for buying a second meal.  The positive was I went with a larger group the second time, so I gained a better perspective on the food itself, and also how to navigate the cost.  Both times I took excellent notes with quotes and my own impressions of the food, but when writing it up I found I couldn't use a lot of it.
In the actual writing of the review, I also found a lot of difficulty, specifically with not being able to use first person, and avoiding second person.  To write an opinion piece as a background voice drove me nuts.  It didn't help that I'm bad at describing tastes, but good with details in spaces.  In trying to play up my skills, I demeaned the focus of the assignment.  When we first started looking at reviews, the review on Kenmare spoke to me, because it used its focus on space to describe feeling.  I think space defines a lot of my personal feeling about food (hence my ideal meal piece), but that got in my way as a reviewer for a restaurant.  It also didn't help that in my expectation writing I described the exact space I walked into when I first entered Sushiya.  It made me want to focus on writing about the space more because of how cliché it felt, while at the same time reminded me of the Sushi places I grew up with.
It would have been easier for me to write a rave or a pan, but being honestly neutral on a space actually made it more difficult.  The "thesis" and "but" and "so what" I normally pride myself on in papers just weren't being conveyed.  Three official drafts later, shuffled paragraphs, and more perspective, and I'm not sure I ever got the hang of translating my writing style and voice to the format required for review writing.  This was by far the most difficult assignment for me, but I have to hold my head high and move forward.

Perfect Meal Final Draft - A Feeling of Home

A Feeling of Home

A kitchen is a kitchen.  Friends are friends.  A house is a house.  My home can still be my home.  These were the breaths I took entering the yellow house of my friends’ after passing the train tracks that delineate the border of Kalamazoo College’s bubble, and Kalamazoo.  The living room was the cleanest I had ever seen it.  The shoes were stacked neatly in a pyramid by the door, the table cleared except for a few coasters and the series of science test tubes that haven’t been broken in with vodka yet.  All the DVD’s were stacked, the chairs were clear of video game controllers and homework, and the mood was set with draped soft Christmas lights.

This is when I knew: my friends cared.  They were going out of their way to make their home a welcoming space, even though all I needed was a kitchen and some chairs for guests to sit on. Within the past week the house went from being my unofficial home to my ex’s house where most of my friends still lived and hung out.  

Many of these friends partook in my unbirthday party on South Haven’s beach back in May.  I had just finished a show, and decided it was time to unwind and relax with friends and finally acknowledge how wonderful life is; hence an unbirthday.  We piled into vans and sedans like clown cars to car pool to the Meijer by the highway, each car in charge of a food subject to help with our cookout, with a budget of ten dollars per person.   One group had fruit, one had buns and condiments, another had paper goods, another had side dishes.  I then crossed my fingers and we were off, hoping to get safely from point A to B on Memorial Day weekend.  It turned out to be a lovely day of cold water and 90 degree weather in South Haven, complete with laughter and sunscreen and excellent food which I still can taste if I try.  It was the beginning to establishing my permanent friendships. It was also the first day I started dating Keeney.  

Now, almost half a year later, I was again organizing a similar get-together, this time within walking distance of the K College bubble.  Hosting in the dorms was not an option.  I wanted a house.  A home.  I wanted people to feel like they were getting a small and cheap convenient getaway, even if they already lived in that same yellow house.  People were so broke and bogged down with life that a potluck wasn’t an option, so instead I figured a Stir-Fry where everyone brought some kind of a vegetable to throw in a large pot would work.  My peers were having trouble even finding the time for grocery shopping, so I did it instead and split the bill later on.  I went the night before the party with some of the house members on their regular grocery trip to the same Meijer I had been to for the South Haven gathering.  This time I spent a little over twenty dollars on some basic vegetables for the expected fifteen guests.  As I threw broccoli, asparagus, sweet onion, and a multi-colored pack of sweet peppers into the cart, I made a point to thank Rachel Horness for “letting me hitch a ride”, to which she said “Thank you for coming along.”  This was still my family.

The organization process was similar:  I used a poll on a Facebook event to figure out available times, and found a happy medium between the friends who could come.  Fifteen was the original count, but I had the aching suspicion that no one was going to show.  With theater auditions and exams and final projects already dwindling numbers in the cafeteria and increasing revenue for Maruchan’s Ramen, I feared the three of us present at the start time of 5:30 would be the only guests.  There was already one person creating intentional space, so my paranoia whispered that more would follow suit.

In South Haven, we had laughed and ran around, the sand almost too hot for our callused feet.  There were tickle fights and stolen hats and borrowed bathing suits and massage trains on bathroom towels acting as makeshift beach towels.  Whether I was clambering onto someone’s back to stay out of the frigid water, or falling off them and squealing with the cold; basking in the sun at the end of a pier while I missed the fact Keeney was trying to flirt and impress me with his experiences in sailing or we all were helping my friend Zac distribute the meat and vegetarian burgers he had grilled; or I was cleaning sand off of a fallen slice of pineapple for my own personal succulent dessert, I was smiling and comfortable.

I was now uncomfortable.  It was thirty minutes to an hour after the original time set for the event.  As my foot tapped, I was afraid that the food I had bought for fifteen wasn’t going to be eaten at all.  But of course, the rest of the crew finally ambled in late, creating a grand total of eleven. Topics ranging from bras and beards to classes and chicano studies comfortably were passed at the same pace as cooking duties.  Knives, pots, and cutting boards were exchanged between scrambling hands, and jokes were interchanged like counter space.  Chicken was cooked in a separate pot for the non-vegetarians, and the rice was slightly burnt in a pleasant smokiness. Garlic brought by a friend was simmered in olive oil and sesame seeds in the wok (also lent), preparing for the items I had already bought at the grocery store. Water chestnuts and pineapple were later contributed and added.  I stole a slice of pineapple from the can, hoping to taste South Haven again, but instead I tasted nothing.

He was everywhere.  When I went to the upstairs kitchen to grab more silverware, he was in the empty space of his room where my toothbrush used to sit on his bookshelf.  He was in the chicken sizzling on the stove that I had thawed that had originally been used to make him Chicken Marsala to celebrate our five months together.   He was in the awkward smiles and "are you okay?"'s I received whenever I was caught looking at the steps to upstairs, even though I knew he had already cleared out before having a chance to bump into me.  It’s hard to plan a perfect meal when the person you ideally want there won’t be.

I loved the melting wok of people who were.  They were from different walks of my life, brought together through cooking.  Some had already overlapped at other points, others were entirely new flavors to each other. I focused on the excitement of introducing circus folk, choir folk, theater folk, and other odds and ends to each other; mixing together like the stir fry: easily and with some saucy conversation.  My original invite list consisted of thirty people, not because I expected them to all come, but because I have at least thirty people on this campus who I consider to be worth celebrating as friends, and in many ways my family. 

I hovered and fluttered between the living room and kitchen.  In between playing hostess and offering up my chopping expertise to the kitchen dwellers, I caught tidbits of conversation about the Chicano Studies debate at K.  As I set down paper plates, mugs, burger king collectable plastic cups, and a hodgepodge of different silver wear pilfered from the cupboards of the house, I listened to my peers in the living room.  Zac was offended by how support of Chicano studies focused more on skin color rather than cultural differences.  As a person who identifies with latino culture but doesn’t have dark skin, he felt excluded by the way the issue is being communicated in the community.  Others lent their advice and their knowledge of other race studies and hurt identities at Kalamazoo, and I was able to return to the kitchen without fear of the conversation over bubbling.  Just like the mixture of foods in the stir fry was tailored to allergies and food preferences, I was thankful to have friends who could come together under simple circumstances and mesh without leaving themselves at the threshold.  I never had to be tense about things getting to heated, not because my friends are all the same by any means, but because they’re the type of people to have openness to explore all things; and in this case, new people.  I can trust my friends to soothe tempers, or readjust the fire.

Finally, the soy sauce was added and we grabbed servings.  We split the drinks Abby had gotten at Bottom’s Up between plastic burger king glasses and mugs.  People hummed joyful moans through mouthfuls of food, but the only thing I really tasted was my drink. As I requested, no high fructose corn syrup or alcohol was wanted, so varying flavors of nine bottles of Snapple was shared amongst the elleven people.  It was the only thing that I wasn’t in charge of.  

There was the apple that tasted like cider and tea, and then there was the sweet tea that, in the words of Abby “tastes like raisins covered in sugar”, instead of tea made from black and green tea leaves as the label would suggest.  The Arnold Palmer was grabbed the least as seconds and thirds graced paper plates.  Conversation stayed quiet as words couldn’t find their way past the mixture of rice, vegetables, and chicken, being shoveled into hungry maws.  Once the wok was scraped clean, paper plates were discarded, bottles were added to the returnable pile, and silver wear and cups were hand washed and returned to the drawers and cupboards in either the main or second floor kitchens.   Most people trickled out to return to final projects and exam studying while a few stayed to help me quickly put the food away.  The “smokey rice” went in Tupperware, and we bagged the water chestnuts and remaining yellow pepper together in a ziplock for the house to keep.  The asparagus and carrots went up to the second floor fridge, and silverware and cups were washed, dried, and returned.  It got easier to pass his room every trip to the upstairs kitchen.  I kissed my fingers to my lips and then touched them to the door in respect, and left the house.

When I later asked one of my shyer friends “Did you have fun tonight?” she replied, “I did!  It was like the best social interaction I’ve had in a while. I wish I got out more, but I don’t feel like I know anyone well enough to ask people to hang with me.”   These are the moments that remind me what makes an ideal situation.  Now a friend of mine knows a few more faces, of people I really care about, and has a chance to have more social interactions. The space, once familiar, may have rubbed me the wrong way at first, but there I had given my wonderful friends a chance to unwind, and to get to know each other. To have taken this person and bring her into a created safe-space is even more rewarding then a full belly, and helped the space feel safe for even me, even if just in reflection.

In time, home-base will be home-base again.  In the meantime, my home will be wherever I carry my friends with me, and wherever we can find a wok and a shmorgishborg of everything else we could ever want to throw in our melting pot of experiences and overlapping interests and disinterests. At this dinner, I celebrated people.  My people.  The people who move and inspire and care for me, and the people who define home for me.  The people I love for their faults and their experiences and their intellect and for their ignorance and stubbornness.  Anything labeled with perfection or ideal is probably always going to be missing something, but in the temporary moments of my dinner, I feel like I got close.  This meal was never about the food, or the stress of no one coming, or delegating shopping or cooking tasks, or intelligent conversation, or the struggle with who wasn’t there.  I don’t think my perfect or ideal meals ever will truly be about the food.  It is about reminding myself where home really is.

The Perfect Meal: Melting Wok

When I passed the train tracks declaring the border of Kalamazoo College to enter  the yellow second house to the left, it was the cleanest I had ever seen it.  The shoes were neatly in a pyramid by the door, the table cleared except for a few coasters and the series of science test tubes that haven’t been broken in with vodka yet (21^st birthday present for Rachel Horness, a Chemistry major and Spanish Minor).  All the DVD’s were stacked, the chairs were clear of video game controllers and homework, and the ambiance was set with draped soft christmas lights.  This is when I knew: my friends cared.  I had asked for the kitchen space for a small gaggle, and they had gone out of their way to make this a welcoming space. It didn’t, doesn’t help that within the past week the house went from being my unofficial home to my ex’s-house-where-all-my-friend’s-also-live.  A kitchen a kitchen.  Friends are friends.  A house is a house.  My home can still be my home.  These were the breaths I took entering on November eleventh at 5:20, a tight fit after my choir concert ending at 5.

These were a lot of the same friends that back on May twenty seventh had all piled into cars to go out to south haven.  I had arranged a gathering for my unbirthday.  My parents share an anniversary with my actual birthday in October, so celebrating my existance is always an odd thing.  In May, I just had finished a show, and decided it was time to unwind and relax with friends and finally acknowledge how wonderful life is.  I organized a few carpools, gave each car a food related responsibility, and then prayed it would work out.  It turned out to be a lovely day of cold water and 90 degree weather and laughter and sunscreen and cooking out, and also the first day I started dating Keeney.  
It’s hard to plan an perfect meal when the person you ideally want there doesn’t want to be because the wounds are too fresh, so I settled for ideal.  

The process was similar:  I threw out an event on Facebook with a poll for available times, and found a happy medium between those who did want to come.  Fifteen was the original count, but at 5:40 I had the aching suspicion that no one was going to show after a few cancellations due to theater auditions and last minute stress-related cancellations.  With exams and final projects dwindling numbers in the cafeteria and increasing revenue for Maruchan’s Ramen, I expected my 15 to quickly become the three of us preparing food for a Stirfry. Call it paranoia, call it vulnerability but I was afraid of more people creating intentional space.  At 5:45 the only people present were my best friend Rachel and the members of the house, sans my ex.  
Yet, he was everywhere.  He was in the chicken I thawed from the freezer and originally used to make him Chicken Marsala to celebrate five months.   He was in the empty space of his room where my extra toothbrush used to sit as I went to the upstairs kitchen to grab more silverware.  He was in the awkward smiles and "are you okay?"'s I received whenever I was caught looking at the steps to upstairs, even though I knew he had already cleared out before having a chance to bump into me.  Originally, my perfect meal was with everyone I loved at the cheapest and easiest convenience cooking together.  Everyone was a bit too high of an expectation.

What I love about cooking is the people it brings together from different walks of my life.  I focused on the excitement of introducing circus folk, choir folk, theater folk, and other odds and ends to eachother; mixing together like the stir fry I had planned: easily and with some saucy conversation.  My original invite list consisted of thirty people, not because I expected them to all come, but because I have at least thirty people on this campus who I consider to be worth celebrating as friends, and in many ways my family.

As my foot tapped, afraid that the food I had bought for fifteen wasn’t going to be eaten at all, I comforted myself with the process of setting up the event.  The previous night I had been grocery shopping with some of the house members, spending twenty or so dollars for the projected amount of guests.  I made a point to thank Rachel Horness, a senior I met in choir last year.  I said, “Thank you for letting me hitch a ride”, to which she said “Thank you for coming along.”  It had been a week of evaluating the space friendships can have, and such a simple statement let me know I was still wanted, even with all the uncertainty.  Last time I had the gathering of friends in South Haven, it was the beginning to establishing my permanent friendships, and my relationship.  This time, it’s about me reminding myself of their permanence, and of moving on from my ended relationship.  It’s been almost half a year since the unbirthday, and somehow feels like a completed circle and cycle.

Thirty minutes to an hour later the rest of the crew slowly ambled in, and topics ranging from bras and beards to classes and chicano studies comfortably were passed at the same pace as cooking duties.  Knives and cutting boards were exchanged between scrambling hands, and jokes were interchanged like counter space.  Peppers, pineapple, broccoli, asparagus, and sweet onion were tossed into a wok (curtesy of Brie’s Living Learning House) simmering olive oil supplemented with garlic and sesame seeds.  Chicken was cooked by Rachel Horness in a separate pot for the non-vegetarians.  All the Rachels (there were three of them) started to find themselves referred to by their last names to avoid them saying “huh?” in response to their name, receiving the reply “I meant the other Rachel.”

I played hostess, dashing between both the living room and the kitchen like my mamma taught me how to.  At one point, I get a text from Abby letting me know she’s on the way.  Zach Wood (there’s two Zach’s) heard the comforting tone of the TARDIS from the television show of Doctor Who, and proceeds to show me how his phone case is the TARDIS as well.  I promise to send him the text tone later that night, returning the phone to my cleavage without even worrying about cultural decorum because these are my friends (my choir dress has no pockets).  The TARDIS makes a explosive whirring that is uncomfortable to anyone unless they know and love the show.  Like my ideal meal, it’s all about context and interpretation on whether the house could grow to be a comfortable space again.

As I continued to hover and flutter, I caught tidbits of the conversation.  The subject of Chicano studies dominated.  As I went back and forth between the kitchen and setting down paper plates, burger king collectable plastic cups, and a hodgepodge of different silver wear pilfered from the cupboards of the house lent by my friends, I overheard opinions, such as how some of the arguments focused on skin color rather than cultural differences, and how people who identified with latino/latina culture but don’t have dark skin felt really upset by how people are communicating the issue.  As the mixture of foods tailored to allergies and food preferences, I was thankful to have friends who could come together under simple circumstances and mesh without leaving themselves at the threshold.

We grabbed servings, and split the drinks Abby had gotten at Bottom’s Up between plastic burger king glasses and mugs.  As requested, no high fructose corn syrup or alcohol was wanted, so varying flavors of nine bottles of Snapple was shared amongst the 11 people.  There was the apple that tasted like cider and tea, and then there was the sweet tea that, in the words of Abby “tastes like raisons covered in sugar”, instead of tea made from black and green tea leaves as the label would suggest.  The arnold palmer was grabbed the least as seconds and thirds graced paper plates.  Bottled were added to the returnable pile and paper plates were discarded, and silver wear was hand washed.

When I asked Rachael LaBarbara (another Rachael), “Did you have fun tonight?” she replied, “I did!  It was like the best social interaction I’ve had in a while.  I wish I got out more, but I don’t feel like I know anyone well enough to ask people to hang with me.”  These are the moments that remind me the point of ideal.  Maybe the space I was being given rubbed me the wrong way, but here I had given my wonderful friends a chance to unwind, and to network between eachother. To have taken this person and bring her into a created safe-space is more rewarding then a full belly.  

I love people.  I love them for their faults and their experiences and their intellect and for their ignorance and stubbornness.  What I love about my friends, is their openness to explore all these things, and in this case, eachother.  I never have to worry about two people not meshing, because I can rely on the rest of them to help sooth tempers, if necessary.  When the topic turns to something politically, or Kalamazoo Collegially, charged (chicano studies), I don’t feel the need to tense like I would in other circles.  At this dinner, I celebrated people.  My people.  The people who move and inspire and care for me, and the people who define home for me. As Rachael and Tammer (who hid studying sciency things for most of the evening but came out at the end for a quick study break) helped me cleared up, I felt safe and welcome, just for a little bit.  We put the “smokey rice” (which a seperate Rachel had burned, but we actually liked the taste of) in tupperwear, and bagged the water chestnuts and remaining yellow pepper together for the house to keep.  The asparagus and carrots went up to the second floor fridge, silverware and cups were washed, dried, and returned, and I continued on to leave the house.

In time, home-base will be home-base again.  In the meantime, my safe-space will be wherever I carry my friends with me, and wherever we can find a wok and a shmorgishborg of everything else we could ever want to throw in our melting pot of experiences and overlapping interests and disinterests.  Ideal is probably always going to be missing something, but in the temporary moments, I feel like I got close.

RR: Alaina McConnell

In "Superfoods That Everyone Went Bonkers Over", I heard the reflected voice of my own mother. These are all fads that she and her holistic doctor follows and weighs into, no matter the cost. I myself also have fed into these ideas, like coconut water and goji berries. I love how McConnell's writing made me question these superfoods, while making the reading entertaining. She weaved things together so well, such as "This pointy spear may look aggressive, but studies say that asparagus is a nutritional powerhouse." It's playful, while still getting strait to the point.
In "Decadent Alternatives To Wedding Cakes" I noticed the same style of writing. "Their manageable size and vast array of flavors easily let wedding-goers have their (cup)cake and eat it too." includes wit to get the point across. I found myself smiling a lot during reading her articles, even though they were mostly informative.  The short and sweet (pun intended) descriptions made my mouth water, but also got my mind thinking about how I could apply this information to my own parties or gatherings.  The tidbit on crepes really stuck out to me, mostly because I'm a poor college student who once in a while wants to eat fancy.  Now I can think of a simple dessert (milk, flour, eggs) where I can customize based off of a budget and sweet tooth with syrups and fruit.

As someone who typically doesn't eat at Burger Chains, her "8 'Better Burger' Chains Poised to Conquer America" article made me crave burgers. Again, I blame her ability to not only weave in creativity, but also inform.  After my disappointing second attempt at writing a review for Sushiya, I recognize these two things as my weakest points in my review writing.  I didn't understand how to create flow while informing with fact and enticing with intellect and inovation. When describing Smashburger, she tells the reader, "It was originally named IconBurger, but the management team eventually changed the name to more appropriately describe how they actually create their burgers — smashing them into a grill with a metal plate." This isn't information about the taste itself, but an interesting fact about the process. It pulls the reader in more without boring them away, while phrasing it in such a way that it's pleasant for the mind.  

In reading McConnell's work (besides being excited to meet her) I was better able to understand the weaknesses in my review writing.  Yes, it was helpful to read food reviews beforehand, but I think it was also helpful to me to read more reviews after struggling with my own.  In hindsight I understand what I want to work on in my writing of reviews.

RR (Omnivore's Dilemma Part III): Digging into Roots

My Aunt married into Chippewa traditions when she married my Uncle.  Therefore, I am related to two Chippewa, my Uncle and Grandma Sue, by marriage not blood.  I've always been jealous of the stories of harvesting birch bark and collecting sap to make maple syrup.  My grandma Sue (who is now considering moving into a nursing home) was still harvesting wild rice and creating bead jewelry using a needle and sewing thread and glass beads as of last year.  I have gotten peeks of this culture whenever I have visited my Aunt in Minnesota.  This concept of learning what the land can provide you mystifies me, especially as one who connects with the earth around her.  Like Pollan I too would like to make a meal at some point out of materials I had gathered myself, so I could properly thank their sources.

  The other day after class I was discussing with Katherine about crickets, and it got me to thinking along the same lines of part III of The Omnivore's Dilemma.   Human's adaptability and curiosity at one point not only found that crickets were edible, but how to make it enjoyable.  An experience.  I also love the interconnectedness between science and food.  The passage about how food was more of a drive then sex (take that Freud!) in the chapter titled "The Omnivore's Dilemma", and how brain sizes seem to correlate with it.

As a Wiccan  my only religious creed is "harm none."  Some ask me then how can I justify eating meat?  I believe in the cycle and purpose of things.  If I come back as a steer, then my purpose is to be eaten.  And then there is something my soul has to learn from that process.  After reading this book, I'm starting to wonder if I need to adjust the source of my food, so that I know it's as humane as possible, such as the Grassfeilds farm Rachel talked about in her Moo-se Your Own Adventure.  The biggest problem is budget.  I can't afford to eat with a global consciousness.  I'm a student living off caf-food.  At this point it's hard to know what to do that is morally and physically right for me.  Vegan or Vegetarianism isn't an option, although I have been cutting out meat more lately.  I can try to get involved in gathering more information or supporting individuals in crusades, such as Temple Grandin's work or watching more TED talks, but in reality it feels like an impossible task to tackle.  In a movie based off of Grandin's story, her character says, "Of course they're gonna get slaughtered. You think we'd have cattle if people didn't eat 'em everyday? They'd just be funny-lookin' animals in zoos. But we raise them for us. That means we owe them some respect. Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be. I wouldn't want to have my guts ripped out by a lion, I'd much rather die in a slaughterhouse if it was done right. In Omnivore's Dilemma in Pollan's exploration of Singer's Animal Liberation, Pollan references the argument "Why should we treat animals any more ethically then they treat one another?"  From my understanding, Grandin discovered that making cows feel comfortable and secure actually saved time and cow's lives (less drowning in the dip that protects their coats).  Even as a poor college student, if presented with the option of more cost with kindness I would take it.  The problem is this isn't an easily accessed option.

It's the little things I suppose.   Whether it's connecting to a smaller culture who gives and takes from the earth healthily, or being a part of a larger culture which I desire to do the same, the only solution I can currently think of is to take it one step at a time, much like the woman at Grassfields suggested when starting the process to get organic.

Sushiya Review - Intended Audience: The Index

The fuschia clash of the Sushiya sign behind rust-colored supporting beams and glass panel windows features the label “asian fusion” under the black and white title of the restaurant.  The stark contrast of the white “ya” is reminiscent of the ambivalent statement one would give when asked, "Sushiya.  Should we go?"  

Entering the multi-business complex, a person would skirt to the left of a set of floating steps to enter the space and be greeted by a friendly waiter in blacks.  They typically won’t even need to ask “reservation?”, because there will be room.  Sushiya looks like the standard middle-class asian fusion/sushi restaurant: it has color hues of maroon, mint, and bamboo wallpaper, black lacquered furniture, silk screen motifs of Geishas, a box display of Japanese themed figurines, three televisions by a bar with a solitary figure looking over his work notes, and a bathroom hidden behind a partitioning curtain of the well known woodblock "The great wave at Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai. The assorted fake plants complete the un-impressionable atmosphere.   Music from the ilk of The Beatles, The Doors, and The Who intermix with the low hum of electronics and patrons, so low you will barely notice the other three small gaggles of families with their children and the lack of couples.  

Sushiya’s menu can double as bar-bells for the sheer amount of pages.  The best way to navigate them and the over-loaded portions and prices of entrees and specials is to order a surplus of small dishes from the extensive appetizer menu and share with a large group. Order an entree individually and you’re looking at the price-range of 18.95-37.95 for just the main dish.  Order from multiple selections and for multiple people and you help cut down the portions and divert the cost by splitting the check evenly. Another tip: order a series of rolls and they’ll bring it to you on a wooden boat which is incredibly convenient for sharing.  If you’re in a group of 5 split evenly the cost will be closer to 15 per person, where in a group of two expect to spend around 25+ per.

One man tried to compensate for portions and cost by ordering off the children’s menu, but found out that Sushiya is not supposed to sell children bowl sizes to people that aren't of that age demographic.  With a smile the waiter then parried "but we don't have managers here on Sundays", and soon the customer received a Children's Menu Teriyaki Chicken.  It was deemed "actually a good size for what [he] wanted", and also "quite tasty".  This is one of many examples of the waiter’s personality.  Accommodating, giving space for customer’s indecisiveness,  and prompt.  They are fastidious in leaving a water venn diagram on the table to refill the green tea teapot.  Order one cup, and it’s free refills of the real stuff, complete with the cloud at the bottom that tells you they used a tea acorn instead of a bag.  It may come in a plastic teapot with a bamboo stalk painted on, but it's warm, and heats your insides and the standard clay tea-cups just-so in the ambivalent temperature of the space.  That being said, some patrons have experienced courteous staff that was too friendly, chatting so long with customers at the expense of a dishes’ heat.  Sushiya seems to be all about costs.

The asian fusion assortment  between Korean and Japanese features dishes ranging from  complicated and spicy to simple and familiar, from Egg Cake Sushi and Korean Kimchi to Oshinko Roll (pickled japanese radish) and the standard California Roll.  Each selection is wonderful to the tastebuds but a negative nelly can discern something to complain about.  The Egg Cake sushi is sweeter than usual, but still pleasant.  One order of two pieces of it costs three dollars, roughly the same as prices in New York City.   The kimchi leaves that twitch of spice in the corners of your smile, but spice-lovers will find themselves wanting. The vegetable udon has white radishes with dyed pink edges and a plethora of other pleasantries like cabbage and fried noodles.  The steamed gyoza may come closer to room-temperature then desired, but still have the desired texture for a dumpling.  The seaweed salad has a light dressing, with a hint of chili and lime amidst vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds, complete with two lemon slices on the side.   The Kalamazoo Roll brilliantly combines elements like avocado and eel: a combination that always gives a pleasant reaction.   Most other things are tasty, but as expected.  They lack the wow factor. 

In the same menu, under dessert you can find multiple ice creams.  This is the closest to wow you’re going to find, with flavors ranging from Green Tea, Mango, Sesame, Red Bean and Ginger. The bowl comes with two scoops, which you can mix and match when you can’t decide. The joke is “if you want a Vegan dessert [here], you get alcohol", so you better like dairy or not be lactose intolerant.   There’s another downside.  Some flavors, like Plum Wine, are in high demand and therefore run out, even as early as 6 (two hours after they open for dinner) on a Sunday or Monday.  But don’t fret, instead order the Red Bean or Sesame Ice Cream.  The latter is nutty, and almost has a coffee feel to it, whereas the former is a favorite that replaces any craving for the vanilla bean.  If you really want a surprise, go for Ginger.  It is tart but subdued compared to the generous hunk that comes on the sushi boat, and has a pleasant way of tickling your nose.

Sushiya isn’t sensational, but it can satisfy the palate after a 4 minute drive through downtown from Kalamazoo College’s campus.  Nothing is atrocious or slimy or outstanding; it doesn’t leave much of an impression other than in your wallet.  The plates are square, the chopsticks are take-out style,  the wait staff is friendly, and the menu has variety.  Its selection is wider than Sakura, a farther but similarly priced Japanese Hibachi restaurant in Portage, and can help fix your sushi hankering with less travel time, for a price.  The quickest way to describe Sushiya’s selection is crisp, convenient, and coin.

RR: The Omnivore's Dilemma (Part I): NYT ~ The Island Where People Forget to Die

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?hp&_r=2&


The other night I was eating dinner with Kalamazoo College's professor Leslie Tung.  Over our school-provided dinner of chicken, zucchini  and pasta salad, we discussed the meal and how much better it made our bodies feel then the typical processed foods I had been grabbing lately for conveniences sake.  Dr. Tung referenced a New York Times Article called "The Island Where People Forgot To Die", in which a man miraculously manages to beat cancer and live a long and fruitful life.  Studies at the University of Athens show that people on Ikaria where setting records such as "reaching the age of 90 at two and a half times the rate Americans do... [and] were also living about 8 to 10 years longer before succumbing to cancers and cardiovascular disease, and they suffered less depression and about a quarter the rate of dementia. "  Whether it's the air, the soil, the more relaxed style, or as Dr. Tung speculated "all those good oils" in the food, there's something about Ikaria that helps peoples health.  
In the Omnivore's dilemma the introduction talks about how americans experienced "a collective spasm of what can only be described as carbophobia" as bread became the villan and meat once again became an amicable friend.  There always seems to be a new diet or lifestyle choice or set of standards and rules, all promising thinner waistlines and healthier mentalities.  Personally, I think instead of focusing on what we eat, how we eat should be the focus.  In Food and Travel Writing we've read many texts such as Stealing Buddha's Dinner and essays which reference the "buffet" or America's tendency to overeat for the sake of bang vs. buck, such as beefsteaks.  Food becomes a substance abuse.  "there are other countries, such as Italy and France, that decide their dinner questions on the basis of such quaint and unscientific criteria as pleasure and tradition, eat all manner of "unhealthy" foods, and, lo and behold, wind up actually healthier and happier in their eating then we are." [3]  If instead of calories we focused on the quality of our food, I honestly think we'd come out better on the other end.
As someone who in the past has had difficulty with self-image and weight, and is still fighting to balance chemicals in my brain, I'm finding that my new eating habits are impacting my personal battle in a positive way.  Instead of calories, I focus on nutrients and food groups.  I feel better, mentally and physically, when I eat things that are filling and make me happy.  Happy is key.  I've been cooking with butter instead of less-caloric substitutes, because frankly my body feels better afterwards, even if it means I need to burn off more later.  Instead of skipping dessert completely or loading up on processed cookies, I make a small mix of nuts and bitter dark chocolate and butterscotch drops.  In some ways, this new approach to food reminds me of the New York Times Article.  I love eating, and I now love what I eat.
 That being said, once in a while I want processed foods like chicken nuggets.  McDonalds, like for Michael Pollan's son, becomes a treat.  It's true that a lot of these chains "[deny] the denier" [110] by putting in a "salad or veggie burger", which I'm guessing has its own processed chemical concoction in the mix.  After reading Part I of The Omnivore's Dilemma and corn's impact, I'm now more skeptic of everything processed.  From my calorie counting days (and Pollan's narrative), I know corn packs a punch.  But it's more than that.  I don't know where my food comes from.  I'm now jealous of my friends who take the time to know exactly where their produce and meat come from before they consume it, because they know what chemicals are or aren't possibly affecting their system.  Everything super-marketed now feels like a secret toxin.  Like the discussion during Colin's CYOA, I have to pick my poison on a budget.

Chicken Marsala

I cooked this weekend. It was lovely.

Review (draft): Sushiya. Intended Audience: The Index

After popping onto I-94-BR E for a 4 minute drive from Kalamazoo's Campus, one is greeted by the fuschia clash of a Sushiya sign behind rust-colored supporting beams and glass panel windows.  The cheery white "ya" of the title pops out at you in juxtaposition to the black of "sushi", as if foreshadowing to a skeptic how enthusiastic you should actually be. It cheerfully comments in the same white color that it is an asian fusion cuisine, even if the modern-styling of the multi-business building doesn't seem to agree.  Entering the building you skirt to the left of hovered carpeted steps to maneuver to the entrance door to Sushiya.  

Entering, the first impression of the glassed-in restaurant is Japanese themed highlights of black lacquered furniture, silk screen motifs of Geisha's and bamboo (with the occasional fake canvas painting) in the expected tan, red, and natural toned hues, displays of Japanese themed figurines in a boxed display case near the kitchen, the bathroom hidden behind a partitioning curtain of the well known woodblock "The great wave at Kanagawa" by Katsushika HOKUSAI, and fake blossoming plants.  Lots of fake plants.  Seeing as it is near to Halloween there is also a few chintzy decorations of ghouls and fall leaves in the front near the check-in station.  The walls have similar themes to the artwork of yellows, greens, and maroon accents.  The three televisions over the bar to the left of the entrance sport the NFL recap of the Ohio State and MSU football game,  TBS featuring Faceoff with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage, and the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.  The room is near empty at 5:00 pm, and we're greeted by a relaxed waiter.  "Three?" he asks, picking up the same number of menues and ushering us towards the best tables close to the open glass windows.  My counterpart notes the Bill and Ted movie, and the waiter changes his trajectory to make sure to seat us where my friend can watch and talk to the group comfortably at the same time, while the rest of the group still has a pleasant view of outside.  The sound levels of both electronics and patrons were low enough I hardly even noticed the other three small groups like our own.  The space was large enough for reservation-less groups, but relaxed enough for children. The soft toned colors of the space and Japanese-Korean infusion food seem to almost absorb all negative energies, leaving you sated and warm like the free refills of green tea: the real stuff, with the cloud at the bottom that tells you they used a tea acorn instead of a bag.  It may come in a plastic teapot with a bamboo stalk painted on, but it's warm, and heats the standard clay tea-cups just-so in the ambivalent temperature of the space.

We talk, taking our time to pick out entrees, the vegan of the group hunting for something compatible with her dietary restrictions.  "Secret to ordering vegan?  Don't necessarily look at the entrees."  The waiter came back a comfortable three times to take our order, and was patient with our indecisiveness.   When one of us tried to order from the children's menue, we found out that Sushiya is not supposed to sell children bowl sizes to people that aren't children, but the customer's friendly argument was "but it's my money" and with a returned smile the waiter parried "we don't have managers here on Sundays", and that was that.  When the Children's Menue Teriyaki Chicken came, it was deemed "actually a good size for what I wanted", and also "quite tasty".

We started with an appetizer of Edamame  in the shells on a square plate.  Often considered "Vegan bar food", these beans easily pop into your mouth with the tangy seasoning of salt that makes you want to re-lick your fingers.  The waiter came back to calmly check if se had asked for tempura Udon (an appetizer) or Vegetable Udon.  With a reassured "Vegetable", muttering about how tempura has egg in it, that was yet another "and that ways that" moment.  Our main courses came, and we did our best with take-out style chopsticks that came complete with paper wrapping featuring their separate locations at 242 East Kalamazoo Ave. #101, and their second location in East Lansing at 529 East Grand River Ave.   The seaweed salad had a light dressing, with a hint of chili and lime amidst vinegar  soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds, with 2 lemon slices on the side.  It wasn't slimy, but with a crunch to it, just like the cucumber rolls.  There came a point where we got tired at unsuccessfully stabbing at fried tofu in broth with scallions.  After joking "We are civilized, we do not carve our meat at the table", we caved and asked for soup spoons.  We received smaller table spoons, and continued to carve and wiggle away.  Difficult, but delicious.  As music from The Beatles, The Doors, and The Who, tied the dishes together, we joyfully slurped away at our vegetable udon (sans tempura) with fried noodles, udon noodles, cabbage, celery, onion, carrot, more scallions, and large slices of white radish in unpickled form with expected dyed pink edges.    My favorite roll was the pickled radish.  It came presented on the same plate as the cucumber rolls, with fresh ginger and a leafy garnish.  The yellow of the radish looked almost like mango, but had the texture of boiled carrots with a little crunchiness left in them.  Crisp was the theme of that plate.

As the waiter set down the same menues, now open to the dessert section featuring multiple ice creams, he left a ven-diagram of water on the table to refill our tea-pot yet again.  My companion joked, "If you want a Vegan dessert [here], you get alcohol".  After skimming, the other two at the table made up our minds.  Our tight schedule helped us to discover you can get takeout, even if it's dessert.  You can even order half of one type and half of the other, that is if Sushiya keeps themselves stocked.  So at 6 in the evening, without a crowd, my order of half plum red wine and half red bean ice cream became just a full serving of red bean in a styrofoam container with a spoon for the road.  After leaving a 20% tip of 5 dollars, my grand total of cost reaching 31.24, I re-entered the car.   We hit the highway for another four minutes to return to campus, my tastebuds experiencing the red-bean ice cream as the period to the meal that would end the agreeable "ya" statement when someone would ask me, "Sushiya.  Should we go?"

The expectation and anticipation: Sushiya

I am someone who sees the skies as only a partial limit when it comes to eating food.  I like trying everything, and make it a habit to push my comfort zones or order whatever I can't pronounce.  Therefore, for my "border crossing" I was going to go to Fuel and eat with a vegan's set of rules, but seeing as Fuel is closed until the beginning of November, I've since replanned.
I have a lot of history with Sushi.  When I was growing up I had a Japanese AuPair for a year who introduced my Mom and I to the sushi she knew from back at home.  After she returned, sushi became that favorite meal when we wanted to do something special.  And it wasn't just sushi, but chirashi and sashimi, and other things like like to tickle my tongue when I say them.  I extensively knew what I liked and didn't like from the menu at Yotsuba, our favorite Japanese restaurant back in Ann Arbor, MI.
When I asked my Vegan friend where she could easily eat in Kalamazoo with her vegan dietary restrictions, she said Zoorona, Saffron, Fuel, and Sushiya.  Seeing as I had already been to the other two, Sushiya is the new game plan.  When looking it up online to find out its hours, it described itself as a korean and japanese sushi bar.  The korean threw me for a bit.  It's called Sushiya, which makes me think of sushi.  I had no idea that there was such a thing in Korea.

When I try to picture the space, I think of low warm tones of noise with black lacquered furniture and velvety cushions, warm orche walls with silk-screen images of bamboo and red tategaki characters, and little tea lights accenting the center of the table, and no televisions tucked in corners making white noise.  The sushi culture I know has always been intimate, calm, relaxing, with a cup of green tea to the upper right of my plate and a soup course happily slurped before the main meal.  

As someone whose favorite cuts are octopus, eel, salmon roe, and squid, It will be an interesting night of ordering vegetable sushi, which I know nothing about.  I'm afraid of being severely disappointed, not in the food, but in what wont be on my plate.  I will miss the hunk of tuna embellished by vegetables wrapped together in a taste medley of seaweed and rice.  How much can you do with cucumber and carrots by themselves?  I suppose I will be finding out.  Any dietary limitation is scary to me.  I can't imagine what some of the people in our class goes through, having to check every little last item to make sure it doesn't impede on dietary limitations.  I take my allergy-and-restriction-less body for granted.

CYOA: Water Crisises and Culture

Water.  It's the simplist drink out there.  We don't need an ID to purchase it, and there's nothing evil like "calories" in it.  Except, there's a lot more to water than meets the eye.  There's the rumors that pregnant women shouldn't drink water in Kalamazoo because of the high levels of metal, and we've all heard of water that smells like eggs or is funny colors because of rust content, or have seen spots on plates because the salt level isn't high enough in someone's well water.  In my adventure, we're going to explore the benefits of water consumption, examine the difference between tap and bottled water (besides checking the number on the underside of your plastic bottle), and focus on the global scare for water's scarcity, and how it affects the global scale.  Here are two short videos pertinent to American and Global water, and some basic links with facts you can skim if you're curious. 




Bottled Versus Tap for dummies: 
http://www.wisegeek.com/should-i-drink-bottled-water-or-tap-water.htm#

How much you should drink and why (according to the Mayo Clinic): 
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283

Global Statistics (Center for Disease Control and Prevention):
http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global

Water Changes Everything Campaign: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCHhwxvQqxg

 

The Great Bacon Hoax: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPLJP84xL9A&list=UUZYTClx2T1of7BRZ86-8fow&index=10&feature=plcp

RRb: Culinary Tourism

"While the industries associated with tourism... have been made possible by the availability of leisure time and expendable cash, the phenomenon of individuals exploring other cultures out of curiosity is neither postmodern nor peculiarly Western.  I see tourism as a universal human impulse--curiosity and an adventurous spirit are facets of personality that are shaped in their expression by the ethos and institutions of specific cultures, but the impulse itself is not dependent upon particular historical circumstances.  Food is an arena in which that impulse can be exercised regardless of the institutionalized practices of tourism."  [7]  ~ Lucy M. Long - Culinary Tourism


Indian was a cuisine that my Mom and I would indulge in when my Stepfather wasn't around (he doesn't like curry).  When going to India the food wasn't anything like I expected, but I embraced it.  "consuming, or at least tasting, exotic foods can be the goal of a touristic experience, but food can also be a means by which a tourist experiences another culture, an entree, so to speak, into an unfamiliar way of life." [2] The desserts were more sweet in a natural way, the taste of food cleaner, and the stickiness and licking of my fingers enjoyable.  I felt like what was going in was healthier, that the things I was eating and the way I was eating was right, even though it was mostly Naan, rice, and spices every day.  The chai tea there, made of old tea leaves boiled in the sugar and milk and water mixture (as apposed to adding it afterwards), tasted better to me, even though State-side I prefer tea heavily steeped, strong, and with honey.  I've tried making chai since and it's just not the same.  "ethnography rests on context, on observing the immediate setting and surroundings of an event as well as the historical, social, cultural, and personal background of the event and participants.  People react to all these forces, so that context shapes their action." [12]  In the same way, Indian food wasn't just different between it's Americanized counterpart, but the experience of sitting with the cooks in the kitchen, eating a meal with my castmates, and preparing to perform a piece set in India, in it's actual setting, all primed my tastebuds.
When Lucy Long says, " "The culinary tourist anticipates a change in the foodways experience of the sake of experiencing that change, not merely to satisfy hunger." [21]   in Culinary Tourism, I think of a few things.  Anthony Bourdain in the Cook's tour mentiones in his reaccounting of France that the crabs just don't feel right, even though is Brother is there, and they're in the same location. I can look back at the turtle I tried in the Cayman Islands or the Goat I tried at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Michigan (where I'm from) and look fondly on both experiences, even if one was next to an ocean and one was next to a busy intersection.  I'm sure my peers who got sick from trying pan they bought off the street (beetle nut wrapped in a leaf with tabacco and such) might have enjoyed the initial flavor and experience, but will never want to try it again, even if it's not questionable street food.  That being said, they would have regretted not trying it, purely because it was a trait of Indian culture.  It's all about situation.  Like Long, I think food in tourism is determined just as much by location and culture as it is by the context. 

RRa: Culinary Tourism

"Smaller portions, bigger pricetag" ~ Anonymous Food Advice

I've had the most exposure to different cultures, and food cultures, in living with my Mom.  Between adjusting to my step-father's tastes, establishing Mother-Daughter food traditions, and exposure to literal other cultures.  Mom's house was a constant, even with it's instabilities and fluctuations, not to mention gender roles.  In Lucy Long's Culinary Tourism, she mentions how at thanksgiving some women carve turkey or grill "out of the curiosity to experience what are usually considered male activities."  At home, Ma almost always grill's, and she definitely carves the turkey so she can present it her way on the platter.  Already, I've experienced a different culture between my home life and the standard.  "The tourist gaze can be turned inward to look at the familiar and everyday, recognizing them as potential offering a different kind of experience." [12]  Sometimes home feels like an entirely different continent, depending on what's for dinner.

This past week I have been internally celebrating my birthday with food.  When I went to Food Dance in Kalamazoo I treated myself to stuffed squid and Thai chicken lettuce wraps, and I requested Lamb Shanks from my mother.  The other meal I requested of her is called slop, which is pretty much a cowboy's meal of beans and meat.  Comfort food.  My tastes range from the exotic to the mundane.  Maybe it's because as a child I was really well fed.  Mom, being a starving actress for a while (pun intended), wanted to give me the best food culture possible.  Instead of plum baby food (her favorite from her broke days), she'd throw her and my father's dinner in the blender.  In some ways, like Lucy Long, "standard American foods - steak and baked potatoes, fast food hamburgers - were an exotic treat for me, offering me an experience of what was to most Americans the culinary mainstream." [2]  As a child my mom and I had Friday nights to ourselves.  Fishsticks and katchup and mayo in splotches appeared on a serving plate, or just the cookie sheet they were made on.  The sauces were swirled together in the middle to a nice pink, and we'd watch old black and white films.  Mamma could have cooked anything, but our special meal was the easy junk food like chicken nuggets and some kind of green.  In Secret Ingredients, in a few of the essays, cooks discussed that even with their advanced knowledge of "fancy dishes" they still preferred the standards at home with their family.  As much as Mom laughs when I request Hamburger Helper, there are certain comforts in it.

"Folklore as an academic discipline has a long history of including food...  Folklore scholarship has addressed the aesthetic and sensory nature of food, the use of food in expressing and constructing cultural identitites and social relationships, as well as the emergence and imposition of meaning in relation to food."  [8]  For me, food can define the difference between Mom and Dad, Mom and Stepdad, Me and friends, me and school, me and home, and other pairings. "Culture, which includes ethnicity and national identity, is one of the most obvious ways of distinguishing food systems as other." [24], even though my culture isn't about ethnicity and national identity.  I can find culture in just my immediate surroundings.  When I went home I missed my grandmother's canned jam and jelly, and to this day am disappointed by any pickle that wasn't made by her.  My mom made up for it by making applesauce to put on waffles (the waffle-maker was my Christmas present when I was a Junior in high school).  But what really oriented me was the requested lamb shanks, which were delicious by the way.  Then there was the red velvet cake with candles that got glitter all over our faces.  Like Long says, "foodways set aside for holiday celebrations" [28].  Sometimes my birthday foodway is sushi, sometimes lamb, sometimes another craving, and the dessert is typically red velvet cake, but they give me a direction which distinguishes the difference between my birthday at home, and my birthday with friends.  When I came back to school I went over to the house where a lot of my friends live.  There was many hugs, and one of my friends gave me a blue kool-aid in one of those plastic bottles with the face.  Like Lucy Long with her grape Popsicles or soda pop, I consummed it with the hope to "recapture the intensity of flavor they seemed to hold for me as a child," [32], but as expected, it wasn't the same.  As much as my friends define a different home for me, it is a different culture that can never replace the one I developed at a young age.

Chicken Gypsy - Final Memoir Draft

Chicken Gypsy - McKenna Kring

“Dadikins,”  I admonish.  I lick my thumb to wipe away a stray mark of my father’s super secret flour mix from his brow.  I’m roughly a Sophomore in Highschool, and I still refer to my father as Daddy.  It’s what fits.  It’s the first time we’ve seen each other in 4 months, and he’s teaching me how to make the standard chicken dish that pinpricks that moment of “I’m home”.  Between the simmering of poultry parts in red wine sauce and the salsa-ing to old records, we’ve already had a conversation on my change in bra-size, advice on clothes to better suit my self-proclaimed thunder-thighs, and how I want Kelly Hu’s boots from The Scorpion King while he just wants her legs. These three body parts were few of many never-sore subjects between us, even with the constant flow of them on our plates. 

On this particular night, I’m learning Chicken Normandy.  For the squeamish, breast, thighs, and legs will do, but we want organs for this special occasion.  For the first time, we’re in my father’s third apartment in Sleepy Hollow, New York, and we have five days before I have to return to my permanent residence in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  We need to be able to digest as much lost information together as possible over chicken gizzards and hearts. After he shows me how to use the rest of the red wine to transfer the contents of cast iron into clay cookery, the top goes on the gourmet-topf and the oven door is closed.  A timer is set, and I fumble a different record onto the turntable so we can sing, play trumpet and piano, and dance while almost breaking furniture he fashioned out of pieces found in garbage bins.  The timer goes off, and the dish is gently laid on a bed of mashed potatoes.  Plates are carried upstairs and set on t.v. trays from my childhood of married parents.  Now it’s episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer until we descend into more personal conversations around 2 am over ice cubes wrapped in paper towel for dessert.

Four more days, a silent car ride to the airport punctuated by the occasional sigh, an unaccompanied minor pass to travel on the plane, and a bumpy landing in DTW.   The break is over, and I’m back in Michigan.  Mom calls me down from homework to set the table.  It’s 7:30.  I still have at least three more hours ahead of me, but family dinner time is a requirement.  I go down and set the three placemats on the one bar that loiters over the “Man Cave” which makes downstairs, setting two on the back bar for the serving dishes.  I turn on the television to the HD Channel version of 4.  My fingers punch 2 3 2, and my stepfather’s fingers make a similar pounding on the light switch above the bar.  The switch I always forget.  I carry the remote and place it to the left of Joe’s placemat, as far away from everyone else as possible.  That’s where he likes the control.  I go back up to help Mom carry food down, because she hasn’t had her two hip replacements yet.  It’s close to the end of the school year, so Michigan corn and tomatoes are making the first of many appearances on our plates accompanied with hunks of meat: a full steak for Joe, and one split in half between my mother and I.  I hit the top step, and Mom’s using tongs to transfer the corn that I shucked earlier from the boiling pot to a presentation plate.  There’s one cob for me, two for her, and five for Joe.  There’s also a pint of ice cream in the freezer for his dessert, and an iced mug of beer next to his placemat.  I learned the right angle a while ago to get the least amount of foam in the glass.  Mom has a scotch and a water.  I have milk.  We all come down, spoon up, and eat, America’s Got Talent shooting a red, white, and blue theme song of stars to cover our static noise.

Dad intimately knows three dishes: Chicken Normandy, Chicken Marsala, and Chicken Tikki.  In his carefully budgeted house, it’s almost always chicken.  At my Mom and Joe’s house, the meat is always red and medium-rare.  Definitely not chicken, and if so, only dark meat.  Before I ever went to visit my father in New York, in whatever city he happened to be in at the time, my mother back in Michigan would ask me, "What would you like for your last dinner before you go?" and I'd always reply "anything but chicken!" before we burst into a fit of giggles.

In my most recent visit in December of 2011, I learned Chicken Marsala in his ex-girlfriend’s house.  My Dad had just moved to Nyack from Suffern, and I had yet to see his place, because we were staying at hers.  Here I was in someone else’s house, someone new, but then there was chicken (as always), and I knew it was all right.  Chicken means home.  Flour, salt, pepper, oregano, mushrooms, butter, olive oil, and Marsala and Sherry, were lined up and introduced to me as a concoction that would test if a relationship was worthy or not.  I was then handed a meat pounder, and told to have a go.  At the time, I was a new college student, and we both knew that meant that our 4 month intervals were going to become longer.  Much longer.  That chicken became very flat very quickly.

Here’s the potion: first you heat the pan.  The way to tell if the pan is hot enough is if the "water dances".  If when you flick water accusingly at the pot and it beads and runs around, then it's ready.  You caress the flattened chicken in the mix of flour, oregano, and seasonings, mixed together in a bowl (Dad’s super secret flour mix is preferable), and get your hands as involved as you would making a sand castle.  Then you carefully plop them into the pan that already has butter and olive oil in it.  Then you let them become golden like marshmallows, adding the mushrooms (optional) in on the flip, then rinse it all into a larger pot, or keep it in the same pot, using Marsala and Sherry (both can be either the alcoholic or cooking type, depending on who's going grocery shopping).  Then, also like Chicken Normandy, put a top on it, and let time, magic, and the oven do its work.  Then put over a starch, grab a green, and enjoy.

A month later I return to college, and sit on an unsanitary tiled floor whacking a piece of chicken on paper towel with the back of a frying pan.  My friend-to-be-Mike’s table is too rickety and he doesn’t have a meat pounder or a cutting board. "More pounding!" and "FLIP IT FLIP IT NOW" accentuate the evening and end up on a plate of rice Mike purchased to remember his time in Japan.  Needless to say he passed the friendship test, and even through graduation he’s another pinprick of home. 

In both the dishes I learned, there’s patience, collecting all stray morsels, and a willingness to put a cover over and let time do its work.  The flavors need to bubble and boil before being laid down on something gentle, the same way Daddy did while singing and rocking me out of nightmares, or when our 2 AM talks found me in his arms.  It’s been ten months since I’ve been there. Ten months of hurried phone calls, emailed exchanges, and too high plane fares.  He’s told me of his new garden, and how he loves to use his fresh herbs.  This is why he found his new favorite dish, Chicken Tiki.  “I can’t wait to teach it to you.” “Dadikins,” I admonish, neither of us being able to explain the ache between our own complicated culture of father daughter, and me struggling with the fact I can’t learn it from him in person any time soon.  Some days it feels like I’m surrounded by anything but chicken.