Food, Self, and Society

As I braced myself for the “blizzard” that was coming on Friday I couldn’t help myself but to wish that schools would be closed. When I went to bed on Thursday they were open, and then, at 6:30 Friday morning my mom came into my room and just whispered, “Schools are closed!” I turned to her and went “Yessssssssssssssss!!!” This meant that I wouldn’t have to go to student teaching that morning and it was probably too bad to make it into work. I slept until around 11:30 and looked out at the mess on our street. I called work and said I wouldn’t be able to make it in (I wasn’t trudging through that to sit around for a couple of hours!), and they understood. It was wonderful I had the whole day open.

So, what to do first? I was hungry, since I’m trying not to eat after 9pm I woke up with a rumbly tummy. I had plenty of time to actually cook some breakfast and didn’t have to rely on my usual on-the-go bag of mini-muffins. I decided to make pancakes (one of my favorites) and they came out delicious! I forgot to put my usual cinnamon on them, but they were still great. I didn’t use all the batter because I couldn’t possibly eat all those pancakes by myself! After some lounging I was still a little hungry so I thought about making a sandwich. Then I remembered it was a Friday in Lent, and therefore could not have a ham and cheese, or even a grilled cheese with bacon because I couldn’t have meat. So I decided to make some more pancakes. While I was making them my mom was making homemade Rice Krispie treats, so I decided to be somewhat inventive and put some marshmallows in my pancakes. It has promise, but it will take some more development. Pancakes like that are more of a treat, like a dessert than breakfast. Sort of like dessert crepes.

I like to play around with my food, but I tend to focus more on desserts. I have a hugee sweet tooth so when I feel like cooking I usually make cookies, cakes, brownies, cupcakes, etc. Then I put things I like in them, like peanut butter, chocolate, marshmallows – nothing even relatively healthy like fruit. It’s pure sweetness. So this time I substituted marshmallows in place of chocolate chips in my pancakes. I think maybe having both would have made them extra delcious. Maybe for the next snow day

I’m personally a “summer” person and generally do not care much for the winter. However, this past weekend I layered up, packed a duffel bag with warm clothing and on a 4-hour notice went skiing with my friend Yaji and her coworkers. On the car ride there, we stop for food at Wendy’s. I personally try to avoid fast food and haven’t had any in probably over a year. Yet, somehow I convince myself that I shouldn’t make a fuss and just go with the flow and order something. After all, at age 21 I don’t want to be “that” person preaching about health and being uptight. I order a chicken Caesar salad and muse about the fact that none of these salads are any better than the hamburgers as they are loaded with creamy dressings, fried chicken and an assortment of crunchy toppings. Whatever, I eat and drift in and out of sleep for the entire ride. In addition to having eaten rubbery tomatoes and wilted lettuce, I am suddenly struck with the realization that I have become an anticlimax to myself. Usually, I’m the boisterous one on road trips, singing out loud, laughing and being ridiculous and now I find myself fighting the urge to take out my book on Latin American political history and just reading. I’m not sure where and when I starting becoming so lame, I’ve always been a self-professed dork but even this was too much. I blame it on the winter even though its more realistic to assume it’s the combination of school, work, volunteering and extracurricular activities that’s weighing down on me.

I push all my responsibilities to the back of my mind and think of skiing and nothing else. The next morning we set out to the slopes after a hearty breakfast at McDonald’s (haha) and I’m ready to hit the bunny slope! I haven’t gone skiing since high school and I’m even scared of the chair lift (bad experience in the Andes mountains) still when I go down the tiny hill, I gain confidence and soon I’m zooming around small children and sloppy adults. After a few times, I convince my two friends who opted for skiing versus the cooler snowboarding, to join me on an intermediate hill. I asked around and was told there was no intermediate hill but that I could just “take it easy” on an advanced one. I thought sure why not and took the long chair lift ride up, telling Ricardo, a first-timer, that he would do just fine. Well long story short, I went too fast and opted to crash into a tree instead of zooming down the steep hill and into oblivion. I hit the trunk with full force and was mangled in my skis. I just kept saying “OWWWW!!” and a kind stranger came over and helped release me from the scene of the crash. With my thigh bruised and my back feeling dislocated , I chose to walk down the hill which took 45 minutes with Ricardo and Yaji who after watching my accident before their eyes did not feel like taking too much risk.

Once on solid ground, I buy deep-fried oreos because sugar makes everything better. Besides, after McDonald’s and Wendy’s my food morals have gone out the window. We meet with the rest of the group and since the sun is setting and we’re all starving we head to a diner. We sit at the table and the first thing I notice is that there is literally a flat screen TV on our table! Bewildered, I look around and see that every single booth-style table in the diner is outfitted with a television set. This feels so wrong and yet so American that I am not surprised as much as disappointed. I turn to gauge the public opinion at my table but everyone is too excited yelling out channels and ordering food. I tell Yaji that this is crazy and she says “No, its genius, it’ll keep kids quiet.”

Keeping kids quiet or not, I feel that dinner time should be family time or at least time to talk with the people who are joining you at the table. It’s one thing to watch television while you’re eating alone but quite another to do so when you’re actually in the company of others. I kept stealing glances at the many families dining, eyes glued to the screen while routinely forking food into their mouths. There was no exchanging of jokes or stories about their day, in reality the only talking done was to ask for the salt or another condiment. Maybe, I was so intrigued that I began to over-analyze the situation, but I couldn’t help but wonder about the role of technology in today’s society, whether it was bringing us closer or driving us apart. It’s funny how we think other people’s customs, say taking an hour to prepare an obento-style lunch for a 5-year old is plain crazy, and yet fail to notice the absurdity in our own way of life.

So this weekend was the Metropolitan Swimming Conference championships at Rutgers University. The whole team had a great time together. We left Lehman at around 6 and settled into our Comfort Suit room at around 8. The great thing about this trip was that we all got $80 from the college on food expenses. I roomed with my two friends Chip and Chris at the hotel. When we settled in, the first thing we all wanted to do was eat. Since we were on a budget, we had to be smart about where we ate, and what we ate. I looked out the window of our room and noticed that there was a Wawa conveniently across the street from the hotel! If you don’t know what Wawa is, its a convenience store and gas station, think 7 Eleven minus the gas station. If you haven’t heard of Wawa, that’s because they are mostly located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S, and also operate in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, so you won’t find it anywhere in New York. They seriously had everything in there, but nothing was really that healthy. I found it a bit difficult shopping for food, because usually my mom does that, so i couldn’t distinguish between what i needed and what i wanted. I immediately ran towards the sandwich station. At first, i was just standing there, looking around, waiting for someone to take my order. After about 3 minutes or so i had realized that you don’t even have to talk to the people across the counter to get your sandwich. There are touchscreen panels where you place your order. I thought that was pretty ridiculous. Why is Wawa wasting money on this when customers can just call out their order? I actually like talking to the people across the counter, and now i can’t even do that… The first night i purchased a Philly cheese steak, beef jerky, orange juice, lunchables cheese and crackers, two power bars, and a snickers ice cream bar. As my roommate Chip said, we “pigged out”. That night, i fell in love with Wawa. Unfortunately, nothing they sell is very healthy, but when you are at a swim meet for three days, that no longer matters. That same night, one of our teammates came into our room to use our bathroom to throw up. Apparently, the Philly cheese steak he ate got to his stomach pretty bad. Regardless, i continued to eat my philly cheese steak because it just tasted too good! Fortunately, i didn’t have the same problems as our teammate did, although i remember vividly the woman behind the counter taking the meat out for my sandwich. The meat must have been sitting in the pot on the counter all day, but honestly, when you are as desperate and as hungry and i was, you would probably ignore that and continue eating. Here’s what i’m getting at: fast food is bad, but sometimes when you don’t really have a choice, it may be the only option. I am a big fan of “slow food.” I love a nice home cooked meal, but my guilty pleasure is “pigging out” with fast, unhealthy, greasy food, but who care when it tastes good!

To avoid any confusion as to what this entry may be about, please see the following definition:

Definitions of Bromatology on the Web:

• Bromatology (from Greek βρῶμα, brōma, “food”; and -λογία, -logia) is the study of food (or aliments)

Thank you.

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Up until now, any food-based family memories I’ve talked about have been memories from one side of the family.  This hadn’t occurred to me until I got a package in the mail yesterday, from my grandparents’ synagogue in Brooklyn.  At some point before every Jewish holiday in the year, a women’s organization in the synagogue sends out a care package to all the grandchildren and children of those who belong to this temple, and it usually includes a little something about the holiday and its history, a relevant toy (this time, I got a noisemaker and a mask), and, my favorite part about the packages: food that has something to do with the holiday.  This almost always includes an Israeli candy, or some other sweet somehow related to the day.

This month’s holiday is Purim.  For a brief history and discussion on Purim, click here. For a very brief description, keep reading.  Though I’m not certain on the exact details, and if I remember correctly, the story of Purim goes something like this:  Someone in the royal court of a city decided that all the Jews should be eliminated/removed from the city, or some variation of that.  I’m pretty sure he meant for them to be killed, but I’m not certain.  His name was Haman.  Though I don’t know the details in between, somehow he betrayed the Queen’s trust and was therefore punished, and the Jews were saved from elimination.

To commemorate this, there is a tri-cornered cookie with some sort of fruit jam (my favorite is apricot) called a hamantaschen, made in the shape of the hat that Haman supposedly wore.  Forgetting the dressing up in costumes that takes place, forgetting the ever-so-fun noisemakers that children love and parents tolerate, forgetting everything else, the hamantaschen are my favorite part of the holiday.  They are incredibly delicious and I love them.  They bring back a lot of childhood memories, all of which are kinda hard to describe, as they’re from around that same point in time that I went to McDonald’s with my aunt and her boyfriend (now my uncle) – see the entry on blackboard about my first conscious meal.  I remember running around in the upstairs section of the synagogue my grandparents used to belong to, and my mother coming to get me from that upstairs section.  I remember Purim celebrations with my grandparents, and I remember so many meals that I’ve had with them.

The two hamantaschen (I have no idea how to pluralize that word) that my grandparents' synagogue sent me.

Next on the train of memory-triggers: the bagged lunch I made for myself last night (for lunch today).  There wasn’t much on there, just turkey breast, cheese, mayonnaise, and mustard.  For the record, that’s Kraft American Singles, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise (in a squeeze jar with a tip that let’s it out in a way that’s perfect for sandwiches), and French’s Yellow Mustard.  To top it off, it was on Wonder classic white sandwich bread.  To me, that shouts “typical American school child’s bagged lunch.”  Each of those things are essential ingredients to the generic little lunch you ate to prevent yourself from being different in elementary school (unless you didn’t mind kids asking questions and being generally weird about foods you ate that were different – i.e., a Nutella sandwich on sliced home-made Italian bread [the big, round loaf] – but I’ll talk about that later, if I remember to.).

The packed lunch. I don't know why I didn't photograph the actual sandwich.

Aside from making the perfect American child’s sandwich, each one of those ingredients are themselves typically American.  After all, having lived in this country for a significant period of time, when you think Mayonnaise, what else do you picture except the big jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise, with the blue label with white letters?  Then again, maybe I’ve misspoken.  Maybe it’s just if you’re born here, that’s what you think of when you think of mayonnaise.  I haven’t spent enough time overseas to know.  Though I do remember having mayonnaise on my fries (gross-sounding until you try it), and taking that mayonnaise out of a little tiny packet with “Hellmann’s” printed on it.  Yes, we’ve even exported our mayonnaise to Europe.

Then there’s Kraft American Singles.  Is there any other type of cheese?  Yes, obviously there is.  But what else is acceptable on a kid’s sandwich, if the kid goes to the store with you to buy the cheese?  I was always fine with America’s Choice brand cheese, since it was basically the same thing, for much cheaper.  But gosh, I loved those commercials.  The hand-drawn cow jumping over the hand-drawn moon and whatnot… all that was very effective on the impressionable young child that I was.  Am.  Whatever.  So we see the effectiveness of the commercials, or what it’s supposed to be.  But the effect on me was different from what must have been the company’s intent.  I remember the commercials fondly, but they don’t make me crave cheese.  I guess it’s just nostalgia – in the same way that I want Disney to open a fifth park in their Floridian complex where they have all the rides that they’ve taken out over the years to make room for other, newer rides (i.e., getting rid of Alien Encounter for a Lilo & Stitch ride).

Then, of course, there’s Wonder Bread.  It’s been around since the 50’s, so it’s the typical American bread, and is supposed to make me nostalgic for childhood, right?  It’s supposed to make me happy just to SEE this bread in my kitchen.  And it does do that; it makes me happy to see Wonder Bread in my kitchen.  But once again, it’s not for the reason the company intended.  It does not make me nostalgic for childhood, and it doesn’t really scream “Americana” to me, either.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  It says Americana to me, but it doesn’t scream it.  Anyway, it makes me happy because I like it.  Plain and simple.  They need no advertising tricks to get me to buy it.  And that’s how most food should be – I (and everyone else, too) should buy food because we like it, or need it, and not because of some advertising trick.

But I’m ranting.  The point I’m trying to make is that when it comes to lunch, as a kid I never really had the “typical American sandwich.”  At least, not until I moved to Staten Island.  But the timing of that’s irrelevant.  The point I’m trying to get to is that as a kid, I would have Nutella more than most other kids.  I remember loving Nutella on my grandmother’s homemade bread so much!  There’s one day, one memory, in particular that sticks out with Nutella on home-made bread.  I must have been in the 4th grade, and there was a kid named (for the purposes of this post) Tony who everyone always teased.  I always held back from this for some reason.  For some reason, I felt guilty teasing this kid.  Some sort of camaraderie developed between us, I think, though, when I heard/saw other kids teasing him for eating a “shit sandwich on weird-looking bread.”  I got so angry – what he was eating was something that I had eaten the previous weekend!  How dare they tease him for doing something that I did too?!?!  That day, I told those other kids off, and I sat with him to eat lunch, and talked about Nutella.  I don’t know how, but somehow we talked the rest of the lunch period about Nutella and our grandmothers.  Of course, when the recess portion of lunch came, I went outside and played with my usual friends.  But for the rest of that school year, Tony and I remained friends.  He was a good kid, and I hope he’s doing well.

*

Finally, I’ll leave you with a quote I found this week.  But first (as if you thought I’d just give you the quote without preconditions!) a story.  I ordered a bracelet for my sister from some lady named Jac Vanek.  I don’t know much about her (my sister knows more), but I do know about the bracelet.  It’s a one-inch thick black rubber bracelet with the words “Stay Gold” printed in white font.  It’s a quote from “The Outsiders.”  I don’t know the context, but what I get from it is something along the lines of “be true to yourself, always.”  And that’s that.

But that’s not the quote I meant to give you.  This is:

The quote, on the card it came printed on. If you can't read it, it says "You are what you create."

In case you can’t read the card in the picture, or the caption underneath it, the quote is “you are what you create.”  I think it’s a wonderful idea – you are whatever representative of yourself you have left behind, and after everything else, the things that you create are what people will have to form their image of you.  Sure, you can be remembered as a good person, as a legend with no flaws… but ultimately, it’s what you say, what you do, what you make that determines who and what you are.  That being the case, I hope that all those reading this would create good things and, ultimately, pass that goodness on to others.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

This past weekend my Australian friend, Alex, stayed a couple of nights at my place before she continued her trip through great ‘ol America. I met her over a year ago while studying abroad in Sydney and knew I was in for a weekend of reminiscing. Now looking back, I can see that along with laughing about our crazy antics living in Sydney University Village, there were also plenty of events centered around food as a means of getting her acclimated to New York City. Our weekend went as follows:

Saturday: I took her out to Grey Dog’s Coffee near Union Square so we could sit down, eat and talk. I ordered a Mexican hot chocolate and an amazing sandwich (turkey, brie and apple slices) and she opted for a different sandwich with lemonade. As soon as the cashier handed her beverage over, she looked at me and said “I keep forgetting that ‘small’ really means ‘large’ isn’t it too much to drink?” It’s pretty much true, American portions really are, well, out of proportion. Just a quick google search as I write this and I learn that a study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill concluded that portions in the United States have increased over the last two decades in certain food categories such as soft drinks, salty snacks and strangely Mexican food. It’s really no surprise then that people are literally bigger today than before.

Sunday: It was Valentines day which instantly meant that most restaurants would be crowded. Still, I wanted to take her to Pio Pio in Jackson Heights because the food is AMAZING and CHEAP. I assumed it would be fine because I didn’t consider this place to be particularly romantic. I was so wrong. My friend Danny got there a half hour before us and we still had to wait another half hour before we could be seated. Ironically, it was the most crowded I had ever seen it and I have been going since I was a little kid for every occasion from communions to a friend’s mother’s birthday. Nevertheless, the food was very good and we got a free pitcher of sangria to top it off. On top of that, it was definitely funny watching Alex try dishes such as salchipapa and maduros which aren’t readily available in the land down under. She loved it and was glad we showed her this rowdy local mainstay.

Monday: Recovering from the night before was made a whole lot easier with a homemade greasy breakfast sandwich and a stop to the Colombian bakery by my apartment where we shared a guava and cheese pastry. We headed to the MoMA and though the Tim Burton exhibit was sold out, there was still plenty to see. After walking around the museum for two or three hours we were tired and, of course, ready to eat. Since a hamburger seems to be a pretty basic American staple, I took Alex to Lucky’s Famous Burger for our last meal. The bright orange interior instantly energized us and though we wimped out and got veggie burgers we compensated by ordering an order of chili fries topped with suspiciously too-yellow cheese.

Before we knew it our weekend was over and she was heading to Boston. I recommended my favorite pizza place (Regina’s) and thrift store (Garment District) and then she was off into the cold. It’s funny how I recommended a place to eat instead of telling her to visit the Paul Revere House or something of the sort. I guess food is universal and something I just love to share with others. Food is also one, if not the best way, to get to know a new city or even rediscover a familiar one. Until the day I go back to Sydney to drink a flat white with friends, I can still be thankful that in a city like New York I can find anything from a bottle of Tooheys (really bad Aussie beer) to a box of Tim Tams (really good Aussie cookies) pretty easily.

Whenever I reflect on my days in elementary school thru to high school, cafeteria food sticks out to me. Especially the lunch plates that they served us on. There was always a little spot for a carton of milk, an entrée, creamed spinach or some other untouchable vegetable, and a roll. Everything had a neat little spot and this first struck me as strange when I was at one of my parents’ dinner parties.

I was piling my mom’s delicious food onto a disposable Dixie plate and I realized that the sections were not accommodated to fit this Indian meal. I had salad but I also had raita, a yogurt dish that you eat to dull down the spice, with nowhere to be put. I was at a loss as to where to place the dal, which is to be used as a kind of gravy for the chicken birayni. Oh! And then there was some naan.

After my neurotic food episode at my parents dinner party, I went back to school and noticed the way all of the food items fit into the empty lunch plate slots as neatly as they were able to be broken up into the food groups. I noticed similar patterns when I went to restaurants such as Boston Market that fitted take out food into sectioned plates along with a corn muffin. And, then there was nutrition class where they taught us that food ought to be consumed in portions allotted by the food pyramid, another solid food organization figure that contained sections.

I can’t say that I’ve consciously felt ill at ease about my discovery all these years, but after reading the excerpt from Joel Denker’s book The World on a Plate that was assigned for class, it is good to know that someone else noticed. Denker relates the need to pigeonhole food items as an American concept reminiscent of the early nineteenth century when immigrant homes in the United States habitually held cooking classes to educate the foreign women on how to cook an American meal. The classes were all a part of the paternal behavior that instructed the new arrivals that the best way to conduct their lives was the American way. The cooking rules taught the immigrants that many of their native dishes (i.e. mixed dishes such as chicken biryani, which is a combination of rice and chicken!) were not conducive to proper digestion. In fact the best way to serve a meal was to separate the contents out into a starch, protein, and vegetable (i.e. mashed potatoes, a piece of chicken, and boiled broccoli).

After 18 years of school cafeteria food I can tell you that the menu has not changed much. Considering the amount of cross acculturation in New York City you would expect the school food to have reformed. And speaking of change, it is difficult to section off most non-nineteenth century American dishes. If that is not a convincing enough reason to get rid of those lunch trays, over the years we have learned that the food pyramid is not nutritionally sound. This is ominous of other forms of solid food organization figures breaking down.

So i was bored at home on Monday night. I had just finished dinner, which was this stew my mom made with potatoes, green beans, and pork. I find this stew to be very healthy and filling, as does my mom. The stew is not what i’ll be writing about though. After the stew, i was in the mood for something sweet. The only problem was that we didn’t have much for dessert. I opened my fridge and i saw strawberries, pineapple, and Land O Lakes whipped cream. I immediately took the pineapple out of the equation. I took out the strawberries and whipped cream, and began to eat. I had about 5 strawberries until i was unsatisfied. I started opening drawers up in my kitchen until i stumbled upon a bag of chocolate chips, BOOM! that was it, i was going to have en extravagant dessert filled with chocolate covered strawberries tonight! I went around in my kitchen searching for a glass bowl and a pan. I put water in the pan, and the glass bowl over the pan, and began heating up the water. Pouring in a generous amount of chocolate chips into the bowl was followed by some milk, vanilla extract, and of course, Nutella. So once the chocolate melted i started the dipping. Once the chocolate had cooled down, i started going around my apartment serving my mom and sister some chocolate covered strawberries as well. Even after I ate them, i STILL wasn’t satisfied ( i have an extremely big sweet tooth). The only food i had left to dip into the chocolate was some whole wheat bread. Surprisingly, i liked the bread with the chocolate more than the strawberries. It might be because i usually dont eat chocolate covered strawberries, and that night i got carried away. I love me some Nutella spread over some fresh bread. It is a breakfast that cannot be beat. Ok, that’s a lie, smack some peanut butter on another piece, slice some banana, and you have yourself a masterpiece.

Nutella, or any chocolate spread, or just melty chocolate in general, is a sweet that you can do many things with. You could make brownies, dip, a drizzle over something, or my favorite, a bread spread. Although my chocolate covered strawberries were a success, nothing can beat a fresh piece of bread, or for me, a couple of pieces of bread, with Nutella spread over, VERY generously, alongside an ice cold glass of milk. This was made for the person that is too busy, or lazy, to make anything else in the morning rush, or for the chocolate lover.

My father recently gave me a calendar book (you know the type – where there’s a calendar for each month of the year on a 2-page spread, so that you can write individual appointments and whatnot on the actual day, with a full month view, and a quote in the corner of each page).  Most of the quotes were the usual fare – inspirational quotes, mainly those of the “no one can put you down without your consent” type.  I wasn’t impressed.  Then I came upon a quote that made me stop and think:

“All great change begins at the dinner table.”

And you know what?  That’s exactly right.  To me, the most important part of diplomacy is the food – a well-fed diplomat is a contented diplomat, and a contented diplomat is more likely to produce a lasting peace.  Of course, that’s a relatively simple argument, and I’m sure there are assumptions that I’ve made that people can call me out on.  However, before you do that, I’d point out to you that there are normal-people situations where this applies, too.  (Not that diplomats are not normal people, it’s just that they are an exceptional case and therefore do not apply to the everyday situations that you and I might find ourselves in.)

Consider the following: when I’m hungry, I’m more prone to anger and mood swings.  I don’t think completely clearly, and am more likely to make rash decisions.  To put it somewhat metaphorically, when I’m hungry, I shoot from the hip, and I’m not Wyatt Earp or Billy The Kid or Sheriff Bart or anyone like that.  Therefore, when I shoot from the hip, things get messed up.  What’s more, I know that I’m not the only person this happens to.  While we may try to control it to the best of our ability, we cannot rid ourselves completely of this trait.

This shoot-from-the-hip way of doing things can have one of two consequences:

1. Nothing gets done.  Things stay the same as they are, and as such no change is made.
2. There is anywhere from a low to a high level of regression.  Instead of changing for the better, we move backwards and things ultimately get worse than they are now, and perhaps worse than they’ve ever been.

I will not make a political commentary here, except to say that perhaps it should be a requirement that members of Congress ought to make sure they are well-fed before beginning a session, and that they be allowed, during longer sessions, to eat.  Anyway, that brings me to the point of the quote.  Great change can only be made with a net absence of either of the two negative possibilities I mentioned a second ago, when people are content, and can look to the future with honesty and the best interests of the people in their hearts.

Another way of interpreting the quote is quite a bit more literal.  That is, all changes in America are made at the dinner table when American families sit down to dinner.  While there, family members can talk about their day, can talk about what’s going on in their country, what’s going on in the world, etc.  Through discussions at those tables, parents can pass their values on to their children, and family values are preserved.  But doesn’t that fit the first negative action that I talked about earlier?  Not exactly.  Here we have the preservation of values, but that does not mean that no change can occur.  Indeed, the preservation or reaffirmation of certain family values can change a person’s way of looking at things, and thus how they react to them, and isn’t that change?

Furthermore, family values can change at the dinner table, through discussion and interaction with family members who have, in one way or another, interacted and been affected by the outside world.  For those who are at home during the day, interactions with TV, the radio, or the internet can being about new ways of thinking.  Adults interact with other adults at work, and children interact with other children at school (this last part is especially important, as schools serve to give children the basics for interaction with others, and some sort of uniformity comes out of that.  The individual values that kids bring from home can also affect other children in school, and perhaps even eventually change the way schools format social interactions.).  What’s more, these changing values at the dinner table eventually must trickle up to our representatives in Washington, thereby bringing change to Washington, too.

At this point, you must be wondering who gave us that wonderful quote.  Allow me to re-present it to you here, along with its author.

“All great change begins at the dinner table.”  – Ronald Reagan.

That’s right – Ronald Reagan was the great mind behind that quote.  I don’t think that’s particularly important, but there is an interesting tidbit about him and food.  Well, a snack food – Jelly Beans.  Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans, and always had a bowl of them in his office.  Upon first meeting a person, he’d invite them to take jelly beans.  Based on how they reacted, and how they took their sweets from his bowl, he would be able to tell something about them.  For example, a person who took a handful jelly beans indiscriminately was unorganized.  That’s only one example, and that’s the only one I’m going to provide here, but I still find the story as a whole very humorous, and to be honest, it makes me love him even more.

That being said, I’d like to turn for a minute to the title of this post.  We’ve already gone over the diplomacy part, so now let’s talk about comfort foods.  Different people have different comfort foods, but why are they comfort foods?  There can be any number of reasons, but the top two would seem to be either a simple love for the food or a positive memory of an event or experience or feeling that is triggered by that food.  One of my biggest comfort foods (I’m about to give a secret part of me out to the world here) is pasta, usually a shell or curly shape, with eggs, cheese, and a bit of black pepper.  It’s a relatively simple dish that I have as of yet not learned how to make.  It’s a dish from my childhood.  Now that I think of it, most of my comfort foods involve some type of pasta.  I should probably learn how to make them all so that I can cheer myself up when I’m sad.  Comfort Food + a few good Simpsons episodes = cheering me up.

Another comfort food (and one that I know I share with others) is ice cream.  Earlier this week, I had some with my father and my sister.  Friendly’s coffee-flavored.  It was particularly delicious.  Pure and simple, but it was something that we all enjoyed together, and somehow that made it all the more pleasant.  Forgetting the fact that all three of us have pleasant memories of summers past associated with ice cream (whether they were made together or not), sharing the experience that night was something that I’ll remember for quite some time.  The picture below explains most of this reason:

The Joe Jonas cup is my sister's, and the little espresso cup is my father's. Can you guess which one is mine? (Yes, it's a Macaulay mug.)

My sister and I both had large mugs, with three scoops of ice cream each.  My father wanted a small mug, and I jokingly pulled out the espresso cup to put his delicious frozen treat in.  He liked the idea though, and kept it.  I found it particularly hilarious, especially when the mugs were positioned for the picture above – two huge mugs in front of a tiny little one.  The great difference in size, I think, made it funny to me.

As a perusal of my older posts will tell you, however, I’ve recently gone on a health kick.  So what’s an alternative to ice cream?  Frozen yogurt!  While the original flavor is tart, there are several flavors that taste quite delicious.  I’m getting ahead of myself, though.  A self-serve frozen yogurt shop recently opened up five or six minutes’ walking-distance from my front door.  The timing seems questionable to me, as they opened up during the coldest month of the year.  But whatever.  It’s this amazing little place called “Orange Tree Yogurt.”

Orange Leaf Yogurt Business Card

You walk to the back of the store, get a paper cup, and fill it with any of the several flavors they have (or perhaps one of the perfectly paired combinations they have available), and then, even better, you can add almost any topping you can think of.  While it may be the sugar count for the week, it most certainly is worth it.  It’s bliss, man!

And now that my mouth is watering, I will bid you all adieu.

Today is Valentine’s day, the “hallmark holiday.” I personally like Valentine’s Day. Everyone is much nicer and more considerate to one another. Some people do need a holiday to tell their loved ones how they feel. Since all the restaurants are ridiculously crowded on this day, its much easier and sometimes nicer to enjoy a meal at home with your loved ones.

This year, that is what my boyfriend and I decided to do. We both spent a lot of money on Christmas presents so we decided not to get each other anything big for Valentine’s day and we would have a nice day together just hanging out. I told him I had an idea for a little present for him and he could just do something nice like cook dinner. So he was going to cook dinner and I said I would make dessert.

Last week we were talking about what to make. I asked him he wanted and we decided on an Oreo cheesecake. yumm. So since I told him what I was going to make he decided to run his dinner idea by me. And this wonderful idea was………………………… Potato Skins. I was stunned. That was it. I went off – what was he thinking? Just potato skins? That’s not a meal! The discussion then ensued. He felt it was acceptable because they have a somewhat sentimental meaning for us and the last time we ate them we filled up on them and other appetizers and didn’t eat our meal. I understood, but just potato skins is not enough. When I thought dinner, I thought a meal, and to me a meal consists of a meat, and at least one side dish. There could be a meal consisting of just appetizers, but this was just one piece of bar food.

We then discussed why I didn’t think the meal of potato skins was appropriate for Valentine’s day. I wanted something romantic, something special. I could have bar food any other night of the week. I didn’t want just potato skins. I wanted a thought out meal. He thought it was stupid that I wanted all these things just because it’s Valentine’s Day. “Girls would rather have okay food that is romantic than delicious food.” I made the point that “romantic” food could also be delicious.

This argument just wasn’t worth it, so we wound up going out for breakfast, and I made dinner. That’s what I get for trying to make him do something he didn’t want to do.

I came home Friday night feeling awfully tired. I just swam three events at the CUNY championships and now it was time to go out and eat. Now, our family doesn’t usually go out to eat, but this was a very special occasion. It was my mother’s birthday. She had just turned 49, and there was no way i was staying home on her birthday. My mother and sister have been telling me about this small hole in the wall restaurant on 8th street and avenue C. They say that you could hear the music coming from it even if you were a block away. I was born into a traditional Serbian household, where most of our diet consisted of meat, meat, and, you guessed it, meat. However, the longer we stayed in the U.S. the more we have assimilated, so now my dinners consist of Pasta, and pie for desert. I was thrilled, maybe even ecstatic, to finally be going to a restaurant that cooked traditional Serbian cuisine. Much to my surprise, we could hear the music a block away and each step i took i felt as though i was getting closer to home. The restaurant is fairly small, cozy, and cute. There are photos, mirrors, and signs that are all in Cyrillic. You could smell the food coming out of the kitchen. Out waitress sat us at our table, which we reserved a couple of days before (You really need ot is you plan on going, its a very small place and the chances that you will get any table when you come in without a reservation are slim to none.) The first thing we got from the waitress was the menu. All of the dishes are written in Serbian, but because this is America they give a small description in English. I was looking around, and observed a table that was getting their food. Their faces lit up when the waitress brought out the food and placed it on the small yet sturdy wooden table. They looked like lower east side hipsters who have never ate Serbian cuisine before- it was very funny. I ordered my favorite dish, the one i usually get when i go out to eat in Serbia for two reasons. One, it was my favorite dish and it never failed to satify my hunger and taste buds. Two, I wanted to see if at all the food here had assimilated to American culture in any way. What i mean is substituting Serbian ingredients for American ingredients. I am currently reading this wonderful book called Gastropolis and in one chapter the author talks about fusion of culture in NYC. One way cultures fuse is if you have food that is a combination of different ethnic backgrounds. for example, pizza with falafel on the top, or Vietnamese sandwiches. Another kind of fusion is the fusion between the outside culture and the American culture. Anyway, i ordered the food and while we were all waiting three plump men came into the restaurant. Two of them were holding guitars and the other was hold an accordion. This is exactly what i was waiting for, the product of which this restaurant was famous for. Once they started playing these beautiful Serbian songs, I was sold. I had ordered “punjene pljeskavice” which basically means a beef patty filled with ham and cheese, with fries and a salad. The first bite i took i felt as though i was home. That, combined with the music REALLY made me forget i was in New York. It was midnight, the restaurant was crowded, and people were eating, singing along, and the ones that had enough to drink started dancing, giving money to the accordion player requesting songs. The funny thing was, almost everybody knew the words to the songs! I have never had more fun in a restaurant eating food. This restaurant makes eating an interactive experience. The combination of the food with the music, the singing and dancing really reminds me of home.