My semester in English 1B reflected a high “C” letter grade for the most part. I didn’t readily volunteer to discuss readings very often, even though I was well-informed on them. Dr. Harris said that participation would kill me in this class if I didn’t start speaking up and expressing my own ideas. A little more than halfway through the semester, I started to supply some good topics of discussion for maybe two weeks. It didn’t last for very long and i fell back into my old habits of speaking maybe once during a class meeting. I’m not proud of them, but I won’t deny the shortcomings I had this semester that reflect a mediocre participation score.
I enjoy learning of the diversity and complexity of food to the people it interacts with, which is everyone. Whether it be a metropolis or a single individual, food is one discerning factor in the path to success or utter chaos.
We’ve studied a lot in this class this semester. I always enjoyed reading articles about how some aspect of food affected entire populations. Like in Detroit’s Quiet Revolution and Mississippi Growing, the population of each respective community gravitated around their community gardens. I definitely want to include these two in my final essay because of how powerful they appear to the reader. An entire city banded together to help cleanse their streets of violence; all of that was accomplished by re-purposing their old lots.
-“Rampant violence use to rule Detroit and echoes of the Civil War haunt the still divided South. And even though the future’s of each community looked grim, a community movement proved to be the catalyst for turning each society to a brighter tomorrow. ”
-“These ‘Gardening Angels’ (Boggs) flipped the empty lots across the city from wasted space to land with a purpose and strong message.”
Sometimes it can have the same effect on a single person. The “My Week as a Waiter” excerpt from the ER was intriguing. Even though he was only one man, the aspect of food could have easily overflowed into the lives of others. In this excerpt, instead of bringing balance, food enabled chaos. This food critic had no idea what he was in for when he agreed to be a waiter.
-“To work in the food industry, some commitment is necessary, but four and five star restaurants specializing in the culinary arts have sometimes turned an employee’s life upside down. Employees at these high-class establishments are devoted to their culinary practice because it is likely their passion.”
Curtis Stone Works Cited
Here’s a work-in-progress of my works cited for my paper on Curtis Stone:
-“About Curtis”. http://www.curtisstone.com/About-Curtis.aspx. nd. Web. 28 Oct. 2013
-N/A. Top Chef Masters. Bravo. Burbank. 10 June 2009
Curtis Stone
An admirable fact about Curtis Stone is that he resembles a locavore chef. “His philosophy is to cook as Mother Nature intended—buy local, seasonal and organic ingredients, keep recipes simple and allow the food to speak for itself,” This was taken off his own webpage at http://www.curtisstone.com/About-Curtis.aspx. Going into Stone’s history, we find that he was born in Melbourne, Australia and first became a food professional at the Savoy Hotel in central Melbourne. After some time at the Savoy Hotel, Stone relocated to London to work under the legendary Marco Pierre White. Along with his television program in Australia “Surfing the Menu”, Stone can also be recognized from the 2006 TLC program “Take Home Chef” and as the host of “Top Chef” in the United States.To add to his already impressive accomplishments, Stone was the first chef to strike a deal with Williams-Sonoma to create his own product line that is known for its “sleek, eco-driven” quality.
Group Research from 10/24/13
1. We used the library catalog on the library homepage (more specifically, we searched for articles).
2. Our research topic was soup kitchens.
3. We used the search term(s) “soup kitchen”.
4. Two appealing articles came to our attention. One described soup kitchen history dating back to Israel and making its way to the present. the second source was an article that described a soup kitchen in South Korea that provided a children’s area, study room and small library for their patrons.
5. Personally, I found that “soup kitchens” was a little broad, but we did find credible and appealing sources. I’ll have to be more specific when I do my own research.
6. Hak-soon, Kim. “A Soup Kitchen Where Love Blooms.”
Koreana Vol. 26 Issue 4 (2012) : 68-71. King Library Catalog. Web. 24 October 2013
I’m hoping to find contrasting views in the required magazine, newspaper and book sources. With book chapter, I really would like to get something with a narrative feel. The excerpt from the Eater Reader titled “My Week as a Waiter” piqued my interest, so hopefully I can find something similar to that to use in my argument that fast food and fine dining servers are drastically different. The newspaper, I thought, could be my source of a counterargument. I’m sure an expose of poor service at a famed restaurant would make headlines on a newspaper one way or another. It would be really great if in this fictitious article that the author compared the service staff to that of a fast food restaurant to dampen the credibility. That would be juicy. A magazine source is what really stumped me. Depeding on what I’m looking for, I could find something to cast some angelic spotlight back on high-class servers to refute the newspaper article in the previous body paragraph. I want something that can also prove how much harder servers work in the headlining restaurant rather than the Burger King around the corner. My points are very directed I don’t want to waste any time tomorrow during research. I’d really like it if I could get this out of the way soon.
Tasting Day
I was puking up dinner from the night before while everyone was enjoying tasting day. Hope you all had fun. I sure didn’t.
Out of the Kitchen Onto the Couch
Cooking shows have gradually changed from teaching people how to cook to being a mere form of entertainment. With the rise of cooking shows as a form of entertainment, the general populous has demonstrated that they would prefer to eat microwavable dinner shown on a cooking show as opposed to preparing the home cooked meal themselves. Pollan utilizes both Julia Child and modern day cooking shows to show the differences.
Group Members:
http://preston1bfoodie.wordpress.com
Food Prep Interview
This interview is with my high school friend, Alessandro. I asked him to try and be completely professional even though we’ve known each other for a few years.
Q: What is your name?
A: Alessandro Tognacchini
Q:What’s your occupation?
A: I worked at the In-N-Out franchise in Morgan Hill.
Q: Why did you take this job?
A: It was an option that I took during high school. My parents were pushing for me to get a job, so I did.
Q: How much do you get paid?
A: The baseline was ten dollars an hour.
Q: How long did you work at In-N-Out?
A: I started at the end of my junior year, so a little over a year before I put in my notice to stop working.
Q: What are your hours usually like?
A: Because I was a student, I usually worked on weekends. Sometimes I was there during the night shift, and other times I worked in the mornings.
Q: What’s your uniform situation?
A: We all wear a franchise t-shirt. Females wear this funny hat with their hair tied back and guys can choose to wear a similar hat or a disposable paper one.
Q: Would you eat from here? And what would you eat?
A: Of course I would! And I’d have to say a Double-Double with well-done fries and a milkshake is my favorite meal.
Q: What’s a pet peeve that you developed while working there?
A: I hated it when customers asked for ingredients to be taken out of their burger at the last second. Some people would even send their whole burger back because they forget to tell me how they wanted their food when they ordered. It drove me crazy.
Q: Have you ever done anything to a customer’s food?
A: I accidentally burned a batch of new fries once. But I never tried anything like that on purpose. I thought about it, but I really liked my job so I never did.
Q: Could you see yourself working in the food industry again?
A: Maybe. I’d like to get away from fast food, but it was simple and I really enjoyed learning about it.
A sandwich made simple (literally)
1. Gather your ingredients: bread, cheese and meat are essesntial. Add whatever else makes you happy.
2. Lay out your bread.
3. Add your meat in preferred quantity.
4. Add cheese to overlap in center of the sandwich.
5. Assemble your sandwich and enjoy.
meritt1bfoodie 