Food, Self, and Society

Dear Fast Food, We’re Through (For Now…)

At some point last week I declared to the world (via this blog) that I would watch “Supersize Me” while eating McDonald’s this weekend with my sister and a few friends.  It was to be a party, and my expectation was that I would not want to eat fast food for a very, very long time after this.  It seems like a logical conclusion to come to, given that the whole point of the movie is to show how excessive intake of fast food will make you sick.  Indeed, after this weekend, I will do my best to avoid such foods as long as possible.  (I say “as long as possible” because I know that I don’t have the willpower to avoid these foods for that long.  I know that eventually, I’ll be unable to resist the temptation of those golden fries, despite knowing how processed and bad for me they are.  I know that eventually, I’ll want crown-shaped chicken nuggets.

It was not, however, Morgan Spurlock and his McDonald’s exposé who turned me away from all this.  I had come to that conclusion a full day earlier in my three-day-long adventure in fast food.

Day 1

The journey began, like so many journeys do, on an absolutely beautiful Thursday morning.  The sun was shining, my stomach felt great (it had hurt me a LOT the night before, though I still am not sure why), my teeth weren’t bothering me (I’ve been delaying calling an oral surgeon to make an appointment to have my wisdom teeth pulled), I had dropped my sister off at school, my girlfriend at her internship, and damnit, I was feeling good.  Not great, mind you – I had to go to school soon and begin four or five straight hours of work on various papers and projects.  In the mean time, however, I was looking forward to parking in the newly-built parking near the ferry (actually, about a ten or fifteen minute walk from the ferry, depending on your pace) garage and taking a nice, leisurely stroll to The Pastry Shoppe, where I’d gotten the best cup of coffee I’d ever had (and still have ever had) in my life last week.  While there, I figured, I would also treat myself to a cookie (their hamentaschens are great, and very big).

Anyway, I was walking along, enjoying the sunshine, and crossed the street to the side of the street where my destination awaited.  However, as I crossed, I saw the Greek restaurant down the block that I had promised myself last week I would go to this week.  I was torn.  Though I really wanted the amazing coffee, I wanted to broaden my food horizons, so to speak… and so I went into the Greek restaurant, Papouli’s (see below for address and directions from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal):

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The first thing to notice about Papouli’s is this amazing mural painted on the right-side wall when you walk in.  It’s beautiful.  The next thing to notice is the service – the owner works right out front and serves you, pays attention to your needs, talks to you when you want to be talked to and leaves you alone when you want to be left alone to eat (somehow he knew the perfect moments for each).  Whether you’re the only person in there (as I was for about ten or fifteen minutes) or one of many, you get the same level of attention from the staff, which is to say, you get incredible service.

But how was the food?  Amazing.  I got Belgian Waffles (the owner was very proud to be newly offering them, and asked me to please comment on their quality as they had created the batter themselves and wanted to improve upon it where necessary).  Realizing full well that getting a familiar breakfast food was not going to broaden my horizons, I asked him what his favorite Greek pastry was, and was given a short lesson about the various different Greek desserts, what season they are usually eaten in, what’s in them, what they’re eaten with, etc.  This was incredible, and I loved it.  I don’t recall the name of the pastry I got, but I remember the flavor.  I remember the flaky crust with a light dusting of powdered sugar, I remember the slight taste of wheat, I remember the dousing of honey… I remember closing my eyes and just basking in the satisfaction that a simple, deliciously crafted pastry could bring.

I didn’t want to leave, but I knew that I had schoolwork to do, and lots of it… so I dragged myself off of my stool by the counter and walked out, beaming from ear to ear, into the sun for the nice, warm stroll to my car (next time, if it’s that nice, I’m parking on the roof of the structure.).  I didn’t do any of this, however, before paying my bill (and leaving a 42% tip – the service/food/atmosphere was that good), having a short conversation to say goodbye with the owner, during which I assured him I’d be back the next week, and having one last sip of coffee (you get a cup of coffee with free refills if you eat breakfast in the restaurant between 7 and 11 am, though they deliver locally too).

Night 1

My friend has been away at school for months, and was back for spring break.  One of the things he looks forward to most in coming to my house is going to KFC for dinner, since it’s a two or three-minute walk from my house.  I was looking forward to that dinner, as I’d been craving fried chicken.  Or maybe I’d subconsciously built up my desire for it, since I knew he was coming over and we’d be having it.  Either way, I wanted it, he wanted it, and my sister (after some convincing) wanted it.  So we went to KFC, my friend (we’ll call him “Ted” in this blog) looking forward to his usual four drumsticks and a small popcorn chicken, with my sister and I eager to try the new filet they’ve been advertising on TV.

The music in the restaurant was great (a song off of Bruce Springsteen’s newest album was the first one we heard, followed by an Aly & AJ song, and a Paul Simon song as we were leaving), and Ted’s food was nicely prepared.  My sister and I, however, had to wait fifteen minutes for our food to be ready, and when we got it, there were literally pools of grease on our chicken fillets.  After taking off as much grease as I could with my napkin, I picked up my fillet with my fork (I wasn’t going to touch it with my hands), and let more grease drip off of it.  This lasted for about fifteen to thirty seconds, after which I commenced eating what I will admit was an absolutely delicious piece of chicken (excepting, of course, the grease).  We got out of there as quickly as possible – we didn’t talk about it; we just wanted to leave.  I was absolutely disgusted, but we’ll talk more about KFC when it comes time for day 3 of my adventure.

Next we went to ShopRite to get some chips and Coke.  The chips were Pringles whole wheat, or something like that, and the soda was just regular ol’ Coca Cola (NOT kosher for Passover Coke like Ted had promised).  We brought all this home and played Mario Party – Teddy once again kicking my ass in it.  I ate way too many chips, and thought I was having an allergic reaction to them.  I wasn’t.

Day 2

The original plan had been to have a day between KFC and our Mickey D’s adventure.  Plans changed, however, and Supersize Me was moved to Day 2.  My girlfriend, her brother and I went to Modell’s so I could buy a bat bag for my baseball bats/gloves/balls etc, so that I could carry it all in my car with me and not have it bang around, damaging things, after which we picked up my sister, went to Blockbuster to rent the movie, and went to the McDonald’s drive-thru across the street.  I wanted to supersize my meal, but forgot to.  I later found out from the movie that this would have been impossible, since shortly after the movie’s release, they eliminated this option.  All in all, the food was great.  I mean, it’s McDonald’s, so it had to be, right?  The funniest thing was a bonus segment entitled “The Smoking Fry.” The nail was in the coffin – I would not eat fast food ever again, for as long as I could possibly maintain that.  We’ll see how long that is (I’ll be sure to let you all know).

Day 3

Day three has barely begun.  I had Peanut Butter Crunch for breakfast.  I am, while writing this (in word, as I have no internet service), in Wagner College waiting for my sister’s SAT Prep course to let out.  I called KFC and complained about the food from Thursday night.  They were extremely helpful and patient, and the wait time was less than a minute, if there was any wait time at all.  I don’t know if I’ll be getting any coupons in the mail, but I really hope I do.  Free food is always, always nice.  Also, we’ll be going to Perkins shortly after getting out of here… I’m not sure if I’ll get pancakes or some other breakfast food or just avoid breakfast altogether and go for a big, juicy cheeseburger (As I typed that, the various images from “Fast Food Nation” came to mind.  Maybe I won’t get a cheeseburger.).  I’ll let you know next time I write for this blog, if I remember to.  Or you can ask me if you talk to me tomorrow or later.

Until then, my friends, I bid you adieu.

Tradition’s Folly

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day, for the very few of you who may not have realized this yet.  Today, we’re supposed to eat corned beef and cabbage, and drink Irish beer (if, of course, you’re of the legal drinking age).  Of course, we don’t physically have to, but it feels as if we’re culturally compelled to, even if we’re not Irish, or of Irish descent, simply because we live in this country (but more specifically, because we live in New York City, and even more specifically, because I (and many of my readers) live on Staten Island).

I have one question regarding all this: why?

Doesn’t it seem a bit ridiculous to anyone else that we are compelled to eat certain foods on certain days?  I know no one is forcing us to eat them, and I don’t want to be accused of being un-American for not supporting the idea of eating what other Americans eat on specific days, but I maintain my position in that it’s more un-American to be compelled to do something that is of such little consequence.  (It’s even more un-American to define what it is to be “American,” other than to consider this country your home.

I should not limit myself to St. Patrick’s Day, however.  Why must we eat fish on Christmas Eve (this is an Italian tradition; I’m not sure if it exists in other cultures, and would be delighted for anyone who is not of Italian descent to tell me what their cultural traditions for this instance are)?  Why must we eat pasta on Sundays?  Why must we eat Turkey on Thanksgiving?  Truth be told, I like most of these foods, so I don’t mind the traditions.  What I do not like is the compulsion that one feels to eat these things on specific days.

And that’s just what food should be – it should be enjoyed, not mandated.  Now I’m off (or will be in a few hours) to have a corned beef and cabbage sandwich, with a side of Irish Soda Bread (with raisins), because I want one, because I like them.

Editorial Sidenote (despite this whole blog being an opinion piece, this is still an editorial side-note): For those of you who will be out partying and drinking today, please do so responsibly.  Thank you.

And with that, dear friends, I bid you adieu.

Fast Dilemmas

It has become increasingly difficult for me to eat fast food since having seen Fast Food Nation the other day.  It’s very hard to get certain images out of your head, and though I’d like to go into detail here, I’m not sure how squeamish each of my readers may be.  Therefore, I will refrain from many details.  That is, any details.  Suffice it to say, however, that it was with a look of disgust that I saw what I had instinctually ordered, without thinking: two cheeseburgers and a McChicken sandwich.  However, the McDouble was on the dollar menu, so they gave me two of those instead, and somehow misunderstood me and gave me two of the chicken sandwiches.  Anyway, I paid for my food and walked away to sit down at the counter by the window.  I had to rush to eat my food because I was going to be late for my LSAT class, so that look of disgust that I mentioned didn’t come until I was three-quarters of the way done with my first cheeseburger.

It was at that moment that I saw that cute little cow (obviously the cow wasn’t little, since it was something like 1100 pounds, but “cute” and “little” just go together) looking up at me from his pen, it was at that moment that I saw the slaughterhouse floor, cleaning the slaughterhouse, what happens to the cow in there… and I continued eating.  Sure, I paused… but ultimately, I had a class to get to, and didn’t really have the time to worry about the cow I was eating.

I hate to disappoint my loyal readers, but unfortunately this entry is going to be a (relatively) short one in comparison to what I’ve written in the past.  I can’t really think further at the moment about it.  I don’t have the luxury of the ability to be a vegetarian, plain and simple.

Moving on, my plans/ideas for the future:

1. This Saturday night, watching Super Size Me with my sister and three or four friends, while eating McDonald’s.  The continuation of this idea would be to watch Fast Food Nation, too, but I don’t want to turn anyone into a vegetarian.
2. I would really like to reconsider America’s farm policy.  Don’t ask me for details here.  I’ll talk about them another time, if I remember to.  Right now, I don’t remember specifically what it was I wanted to do, but the solution seemed easy and like it would fix everything.  I realize it is not that simple in practical reality, but it’s nice to think that it would be.
3. For the duration of my life, I’d like to eat only grass-fed beef, when it’s available.

And that’s it for this week.  If any one of my loyal readers (via Facebook) has a request or something they’d like to see here, please, let me know.

Until next week, then, I bid you adieu.

Invading Europe, Europe Invading

As I begin writing this memoir, it seems prudent to tell the reader my location – I’m on the first floor of the library at the College of Staten Island.  I spend a lot of my time here, as half the time I’m here, it’s usually the best place on campus to study.  Or, that’s how it used to be, last year.  The situation in the library – that is, the bad behaviors exhibited by other library users – deteriorated somewhat quickly last semester, and as such, I don’t spend as much time in here as I used to, and am instead forced to do my reading, studying, writing, etc, for school elsewhere.  Sometimes, I take refuge in the lounges on the first floor of individual buildings on campus (usually the classroom where my girlfriend’s class at that time is), though the situation there is nearly as annoying as the one in the library.  Indeed, it’s always been worse – it’s just that the library was supposed to be a place of refuge, where we could come and study in peace.

So, what’s the problem, you might ask?  I’ll tell you – a flagrant disregard for any sort of rules or social order.  If you want an example, I’m more than happy to oblige.  Let me describe the situation around me, at a table on the first floor of the library.  There are signs every 10 feet or so reminding students they are not allowed to smoke (duh), eat, or drink in the library.  This seems normal to me, as I’ve gone to libraries nearly my entire life, and these have always been the rules.  No biggie.  Then, of course, there’s the rule on talking.  In a library, you talk in soft voices, lower in volume than the “indoor voice” you used as an elementary school student.  In the CSI library, the rules allow for conversation at about this level, maybe a little louder, on the first floor.  Then there’s the “indoor voice” second floor, and the silent level.  On all three levels, you can find students speaking at higher volumes than they are supposed to.

Allow me to continue to describe my current surroundings, however.  About three feet to my left, there is a girl drinking a cup of coffee, and in the next section of the room I can very clearly see a guy drinking a bottle of Vitamin Water.  Neither of these things really bother me, as every so often I’ll get very thirsty and open a bottle of water to slake that thirst.  Nor is the coffee a big deal – sometimes you just need that jolt of caffeine in the morning to get you going.[1] It does bother me, though, when a girl walking past the security guard with her cup of coffee gets through, and I am forced to either drink mine, dump it, or hide it (and thus break the rules).  I don’t know that there’s really a lesson to learn there, as it’s very only sporadically happened to me that I’ve been told to get rid of it, and that’s only been with one particular security guard, anyway (who, by the way, I have not seen on campus since last semester).

The library situation gets worse, though.  Sitting directly across from me is a student eating a breakfast sandwich from Dunkin Donuts.  At least the coffee cup was closed, and presented little risk of spilling and therefore damaging things in the library.  But this?  No.  This sandwich was producing crumbs.  To the man’s credit, he did keep all crumbs on the wrapper, and promptly threw it out afterwards.  But that’s not the point.  There are a LOT of signs telling people that eating in the library is against the rules.  There’s even a café in the library (or, a section of it) where students can go and eat, whether they buy food there or not.  Or, eat outside!  The weather is finally nice again, why not enjoy it?  But, again, no.  Students persist in their habit of eating indoors.  Not only is this against the rules, but it makes me hungry.  And quite frankly, I don’t like being hungry unless I have a guarantee of a delicious, large meal to come later in the day.

However, I understand the mentality that drives my fellow students to do this.  Despite the reputation that my friends teased me with upon finding out that I’d go to CSI for my undergrad degree (“Victory Boulevard University!” “The College for Stupid Idiots!,” “The College for Stupid Italians,” etc.), CSI is a very good school with world-class professors who, like any good professor, give a great deal of work.  And tests/quizzes that you need to do a lot of studying for.  Also, many students at the college work or have prestigious internships throughout the city.  Given all that, there’s not very much time for food, or to make a special event out of eating.  And so, we do what we can to combine our tasks – eat while we study, and all that.

Seeing and experiencing this myself has supplemented an idea about life that has, most likely, been seeded in my head for years while only coming to the surface when I reached my junior year of high school.  There I realized that life is something to be enjoyed, not fussed over and worried about.  You can stress as much as you want and get good grades for it, but then all your grades get you is an anxiety about doing well that feeds into your stress cycle and eventually causes you to burn out.  Or, you can simply not stress.  Do your best (without killing yourself with stress), and you will be healthy for it (therefore living and enjoying life much longer than some of those around you).

This, like many other aspects of life, can be translated into terms of food.  Here, we’ve learned that you must never skip a meal, whether you are eating by yourself, or (ideally) with other people, nor must you rush food.  First of all, eating is a very intimate process (http://bit.ly/aNJqfR).  Such a process should not be turned into a joyless necessity – a chore, as it were.  Secondly, aside from the mental issues behind food, there’s the basic biological fact – you NEED food to survive, and though I’m no doctor, I can tell you that skipping a meal to study is no good.  Then, you say, why not eat while you study?  That, my friends, brings us back to the first point I just made – it’s hard to have that orgasm-for-your-mouth moment that nearly any food, if eaten in the right social conditions, can have if you have your mind focused on Newton’s laws of physics, or the biochemical composition of a field rat from Brazil, or whatever.

That being the case, I urge anyone reading this to slow down your food.  That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t eat fast food (though I’d argue against that for different reasons that I may not go into here), just that you should give food it’s own time.  Don’t eat while you study.  Don’t do anything but eat – but really, really concentrate on that food.  Concentrate on the flavors, the contrasts, the things that blend together, the texture, and the feeling you get inside while you’re eating this.  Close your eyes the first time you do this, and really concentrate hard.  If you can, do this with a close friend (or spouse/lover/family member, etc) so that you can share this intimate moment you are having with your food with someone else.  I’ll bet that if you do this, not only will even the simplest peanut butter sandwich taste amazing, but you’ll learn something about yourself, too.

And that’s what the purpose of this memoir ultimately is.  Through several of my own journeys and experiences with food on those journeys, I’ve become the person you know and love today.  Not only have I learned so much about myself, but I’ve learned a great deal about my friends and relatives, and countless other people who were around me at any given moment.  In learning about those people, I’ve learned how to interact with the world at large.  Such formative meals deserve to be chronicled, and I’ll do my best to do justice to all the people and places involved.  If, somehow, I don’t, I apologize.  However, their names have been changed for my purposes here, so they should be saved of that embarrassment anyway.  That being said, let’s begin.

Childhood Adventures

My first conscious meal took place approximately 17 years ago, when I was three years old.  I had been staying with my grandparents at their home in Brooklyn.  My aunt Sophia also lived with her parents at that point, as she was only dating my now-uncle John.  Anyway, they both had the day off, and wanted to go out for lunch.  Aunt Sophia, who was watching me that day, took me to meet John, and together the three of us walked up and down 86^th street in Bay Ridge, doing some shopping and just generally browsing.  Somehow, the three of us decided on McDonald’s for lunch.  Maybe it was the cheapest thing available.  Maybe it was the easiest, or maybe I was just a very fussy child and not willing to eat anywhere else (I’ve since learned to love the little Greek restaurant across the street from that McDonald’s – home of a very excellent gyro.).  Whatever the reason was, that’s where we ended up.

My aunt ordered her food, and John ordered his, then the lady at the counter was nice enough to ask ME what I wanted.  I was really proud of that moment – for the first time I could remember, I got to order food for myself!  This was a big step for a three-year-old, no?  After thinking for a very short amount of time, I ordered the same thing I always got in those years – a Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal!  After we got our food, we moved upstairs, as there were no seats on the first floor, and there were plenty up on the second.  My aunt, enforcing my mother’s (and her own, too, I suspect) rule, made sure that I finished my nuggets before moving on to my fries.  I dutifully obeyed.  When I got to my fries, however, I saw John eating his in a way that I had never conceived possible before – he ate two at a time!  My child’s mind had told me that you could only eat one at a time for my entire life up until that moment, so I was incredibly amazed.

I learned that people could eat things in a way different than I did.  I had to accept other people’s habits, and embrace them, and even allow them to transform the way I did things myself.  That is, you must keep an open mind to things different from your own way of doing them.  As it happens, this was only within my own culture, with a food that was familiar to me, so perhaps it didn’t open my eyes as much as later events in my life would.  But this was a first step (a three-year-old’s great leap) forward, and set a great foundation for a life of tolerance.  Hell, it set me up for a life of adventure with food.  My experiences and experiments up to the fourth grade will testify to this, but my love for trying the food of every culture I come into contact with has been, perhaps, the greatest manifestation of this experiential mindset.  And to think, all of this began with my uncle John eating his McDonald’s fries two at a time.

*

Earlier that year (all stories regarding this part of my life will have taken place during “that year,” as I’m not sure as to the exact sequence of events, though they all happened around that time.), I was staying at my grandparents’ house for Saint Patrick’s Day.  It had to have been a weekday, as neither of my parents was able to watch me, and those were the only days they had me spend the day in Bay Ridge.  Or maybe it was a weekend.  I don’t know.  (I just checked a calendar.  It was a Tuesday.)  It doesn’t really matter what day it was, though, as that doesn’t really change the story.  My aunt was enrolled in NYU at that time, and was a very serious student, dedicated to her studies.  She even got one of the first computers I’d ever seen, so that she could type her work and submit it via an ultra-primitive form of the Internet (or so I’m told) to her professors.  (Does anyone else remember Windows 3.1?)  Anyway, she was very busy that day with her schoolwork, but she came out of her room to watch TV with me after breakfast (which was, inevitably, a small bit of Nutella on toast, or maybe an egg).  The news anchor said something about a recipe for making Irish Soda Bread, since it was St. Patrick’s Day.  I begged my aunt to do this with me, as she was the chef of the family (at least, the one that was home).  She said yes, taking a great deal of care to write down the recipe as the chef on TV was telling what it was (this was long before the days of DVR), and going to the store to get the ingredients.  I wasn’t really very much help in the kitchen, but my aunt Sophia made one of the best soda bread’s I’ve ever had.  Maybe it’s nostalgia that adds the taste to it, or maybe she’s a great baker.  Either way, looking back now, it just goes to show me the sacrifices that family members sometimes make to keep children of the family happy.

*

Then, of course, there’s the infamous-within-my-family dumpling story.  I don’t know why it’s so well known, because it’s really just a simple memory.  But nonetheless, it’s a memory that must be told!

My entire family (on my father’s side) was gathered at my grandparents’ house in Bay Ridge.  Though I believe it had to have been a weekend, as logic dictates that we would not have gone to their house on a school/work night, I’m not sure of the exact day of the week it was.  Perhaps at that point it would have been a Saturday, as we all lived within ten minutes’ driving of each other and Saturday-night gatherings were not hard to come by.  Anyway, all the adults except my aunt Sophia were in a different part of the house (probably the basement, now that I think about it, or the living room), while my aunt, my cousin Theresa (Sophia’s sister’s daughter) and I were in the kitchen.  My aunt was treating us all to her world-famous Chinese dumplings!  At least, that’s what my cousin and I called them; we were little, and it hadn’t occurred to us to just call them “dumplings.”  Anyway, my cousin and I were helping my aunt with dampening the dumpling shells and putting the meat in the center, and were insisting on being pains in the ass about making our own little shapes of them.  If that hadn’t been testing our aunt’s patience, then the simple fact that as soon as they were done cooking, we ate them, did.  She didn’t yell at us, though, only asked us to slow down, and we did (but not much).

This, looking back, is one of the first instances in which I learned the value of patience, especially when dealing with little kids.  They don’t really know what they’re doing wrong, but if you explain it to them, most will stop.  What’s more, I think I also learned to not let kids help me in the kitchen unless I’ve explained what NOT to do to them. J

*

Finally, later that year in that very same kitchen, my cousin Theresa and I were awaiting slices of my grandmother’s fresh-out-of-the-oven bread.  However, after she cut the first slice for me and my cousin got a larger slice (as it was a round piece of bread, this was bound to happen), I demanded a larger slice, and was given one.  Then my cousin got one.  Then I got one.  And so on.  My grandmother was laughing about it, but we really were being little jerks.  Eventually, one of our mothers came in and told us to stop, that we were being ridiculous and that we were making nonna work more than she should have to.  Since that day, I’ve felt bad about making my grandmother do anything.  I’ve felt bad and apologetic in asking for anything from most people, but specifically older people and other family members.  What’s more, I’ve learned to just take a piece of bread, and not complain about the size of it – I can always get a second piece later if I really want it.

My First European (Italian) Vacation

I spent the entire month of July 2005 in Italy with members of my family that live there.  I ate a lot of food, and had a lot of fun in a lot of different places, and many of them have been mixed up in my mind.  Some of them, however, have remained distinct, and it’s those that I’ve put into this memoir.  Hell, I could probably write a whole book or at least a chapter in a book about these memories… but for now, I’ll give you the greatest hits.

*

The first memory that comes to mind is of the meals we ate on the beach.  The family unit I stayed with has a beach house in a certain Italian beach town, where we spent approximately 2 of the 4 weeks that I was in Italy.  Before leaving for the day, we’d eat a smallish breakfast, and then my aunt (though she wasn’t my aunt, per se) would make us all cold cut sandwiches and pack them into a cooler along with drinks and fruits.  The sandwiches were delicious, but it’s the fruit that sticks out the most in my mind.  There were yellow plums, which I had never seen before.  Being adventurous, I tried them, and loved them.  I didn’t know what to do with the pit, however, and was a little shocked when my uncle (not his actual relation to me) told me to just bury it six inches deep in the sand.  But that’s what we did.  I later learned that this did not harm the environment, as the pits were biodegradable and would eventually help the earth in some way.

Then, of course, there’s the ice cream.  My cousin Didi and I would walk down the beach to the clubhouse every day, and every day I would order a pre-packaged ice cream cone with a solid block of chocolate at the bottom.  I loved this, and it only cost me a Euro a day.  It was a sweet taste on my tongue, made all the more sweet by its cool temperature in the hot Mediterranean sun.  While we were there, a fat man who worked at the clubhouse would ask Didi a question every time, and attempt to talk to me, too (we’d trade a few words in English and Italian, neither of us really understanding the other) before he’d go away.  It was explained to me that no one really liked him, but he was nice, so everyone was nice to him.

Finally, there was the Coca-Cola.  It was delicious, and in the original contour-shaped glass bottles of America’s yesteryear.

*

Speaking of Coca-Cola, I went to eat at a restaurant in Italy with the family unit I was staying with and some of their friends (who may or may not have been relatives [I can’t really recall]), where we ordered a 1-liter bottle of Coke.  It was a very large version of the glass bottle that we all know and love.  I was amazed, as I’d never seen something like this before, and I considered myself somewhat of a Coke aficionado.  I kept the bottle when we finished it, and carefully wrapped it in a sweatshirt in my suitcase when I came back to the United States.

*

As any discussion of culture eventually leads to, the discussions between my cousin Didi and I eventually turned to Italian food customs.  I was shocked to hear that she “could not imagine a day where [she] did not have pasta.”  I knew that we had it every Sunday (in America), but the reality of eating pasta every day had just not hit me.  Sure, we had learned about it in Italian class in middle school, but I had never come face to face with this fact until I visited the country.  Different cultures, different practices, I know.  But there’s a difference between knowing something about a culture and experiencing that culture firsthand.  I think that this is the first time I really realized that, and have since been motivated to visit every country on earth.  I’m nowhere near completing that goal, but the journey’s been started, and I can’t turn back now.

Another culture shock, along the same lines?  I was told that they don’t use salt in Florentine bread, but didn’t really think that this would make a huge difference in taste.  I was wrong.  If I wanted to eat the bread by itself, I had to put a small bit of salt on it.  Otherwise, it was GREAT for dipping in things, or mopping up the leftover sauce in a bowl of pasta – “scarpetta,” or “little shoe,” as they call it in Italian.

*

Finally, as any visitor to a foreign country will attest to, a journey of any significant amount of time will lead to certain misunderstandings, whether they be cultural or simply due to the language barrier.

The first of these that comes to mind is an experience in a restaurant in some Italian city.  We were looking at a menu, and the names of everything looked somewhat familiar to me, but I didn’t know what I was really looking at, and was very fearful of what might happen to me when the waitress came over to take our order.  I think that my uncle could see, somewhat, my embarrassment, as when the waitress came over and looked at me to take my order, he ordered for me.  I don’t remember what I had, but I remember loving it.  The food wasn’t that important, though, except in that it represented a family member I had hardly talked to a month previously saving me from embarrassment, saving me from being culturally lost in a country I had thought I knew.

I did not have my uncle with me, however, at another restaurant a week later.  My cousin Flora had decided to take me out with all of her friends, to go see her boyfriend (at that time)’s soccer game.  After the game, we went to a pizza place (there were other things on the menu, but pizza was the main attraction.  Real, Napoli pizza. [Which is so, so much better than even the best New York pizza]) and had a great, large dinner.  I had to go to the bathroom, however, and was only able to find it because I knew two words – “Dove bagno?”  I found the bathroom, took care of business and washed my hands, but as I was leaving, a man walked into the bathroom and tried talking to me.  I didn’t understand a word he said, and seeing me so visibly embarrassed, a more patient look came over the man’s face, to which I had to apologetically tell him, “Mi dispiace, ma sono Americano, e non buono capisco l’Italiano.”  My grammar was off a bit, as I now know, but the point had gotten across.  I feel bad now that I had given America such a bad representation, but what else could I do?  That was what I knew how to say.

Looking back, I think that this may have fueled my desire to gain at least a very basic, working knowledge of as many languages as I possibly can.  Yes, my maternal grandfather’s vast lingual knowledge was some inspiration, but it never really occurred to me that such skills could be useful until I was in a situation where I needed them and did not have them.

After finishing dinner, we moved on to a nice little café in the middle of the town.  It was late (around 11 pm, I believe), and the night was approaching it’s close.  Everyone ordered his or her espressos, but I wanted a taste of home, so I ordered a Caffe Americano (simply an American coffee, not the drink two or three shots of espresso that is sold at Starbucks here in the states).  The waiter got a pained look on his face, and when he walked away, it was explained to me that only an American would order an American coffee, and this was seen as something like an ugly-Americanism.  I was very embarrassed, but I let it go, and enjoyed my coffee very much.  Of course, I’ve since learned that that coffee was nothing different than what I can make in my coffee maker here at home (as opposed to something with the machines like baristas use), but I loved it.  It tasted, a little bit, like home.

That night has also taught me that the purpose of going to another country is not to get something that you could otherwise get at home, but to go and experience their culture, to eat their food, to drink their drinks.  And once again, the seeds of who I am had been planted – never again would I be the ugly American.  I would be a cultured man of the world, who happened to live in, be a citizen of, and love America.

And so…

And now that my childhood and first European food adventures have been (incompletely, I’m sure) detailed, I realize that I’ve far exceeded the page limit for this memoir.  I guess I’m just really passionate about my food, and my experiences.  Regardless, I think that the experiences I’ve shared with you here help to show a great deal of who I am, or at the very least, how I became the person that I am.  Realizing that they are not complete, however, I will promise the reader this: eventually, I will flush out the details even more with regards to the stories given here, and I will tell further stories with just as much detail.  For those, I’d look at some point to http://jonrossi.wordpress.com.

Until then, my friends, I bid you adieu.

---

[1] A short side note – I recently learned that an apple in the morning gives you more and fresher energy than a cup of coffee does. I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s worth a try at some point in the future

Eating Peter Rabbit

Something about the idea of eating rabbit makes me sad.

http://nyti.ms/8Yv9Qi

Tea Parties, Coffee & Home Runs

This is not my video.  I did not create it, nor did I post it.  I’m merely providing a link to what is probably (or so I’m told) the best part of a classic Disney movie.  ”But Jon,” you may ask, “why did you post a video from Alice In Wonderland?  Isn’t that movie old?”  Yes, it is.  But, as seems to be the trend nowadays, there’s going to be a remake.  Of course, that’s not really a fair description.  It’s NOT a remake of the original Alice.  Instead, you have Tim Burton and Johnny Depp coming together again (a masterful pair, those two), creating a movie that is a revisitation, if you will.  Here, we find Mr. Depp as a very… distinguished, shall we say? looking Mad Hatter in Wonderland ten years after Alice has left.

But this isn’t about the movie coming out this Friday (March 5th).  Nor is it about the original Alice movie.  I am, however, going to the midnight showing at my local theater, and that’s about the most second most exciting thing this week.  We’ll talk about the second later.

So, other than tea parties, what other purpose could I have to talking about Alice In Wonderland?  The food that I’ll be eating there.  Movie Food!!!  (I don’t know why I felt the need to put three exclamation points there, but I did it anyway.)  Movie food has such an incredible array of choices, none of them cheap.  There’s the $6 popcorn, which, to the theater’s credit, comes with free refills for the night (but who, I ask, would leave a movie they paid $15 to see in the middle of it?  Isn’t that a bit too much like wasting money?).  Then there’s the $6 drink (also with free refills), or the $5 nachos, the $7 hot dog combo, etc, etc, etc.  That’s not to say, of course, that I don’t give in to the desire to buy these foods.  Indeed, quite the opposite – I almost always try to go get food (though I know it’s wrong), while relying on my friend or sister to remind me that I don’t really want the food there, that I don’t want to pay that much for snacks that I don’t really want or need.  And so lately, I’ve avoided that stuff.

This week will be different, however.  I fully intend to buy the large popcorn as soon as we get to the theater.  The four of us in our group will eat it, and enjoy it, and get the free refill, all in the time it takes for us to get on the line into the theater itself.  At least, that’s my plan.  We’ll see if it actually happens.  Maybe I’ll end up having to go during the movie itself, though I won’t be very happy about that.

Of course, there are many other options to movie food, none of which I plan to do this week (for time’s sake).

1. Buy food at a fast food restaurant nearby, keeping it in its wrapper, in your pockets.  So long as it’s not obnoxiously huge and conspicuous, I don’t think they really care.  Just don’t make a lot of noise, and don’t be annoying to all the other people in the theater while you eat it.  This is much cheaper than buying food in the theaters.  Having done this once (when I went to see 2012), I’ve found that it is indeed the most brilliant method out there.  For the price of half a soda, or less than half the price of the hot dog combo, you can get a more filling amount of food.  Yes, it’s fast food and it’s not good for you, but hey, if you’re eating movie food anyway, is that really that good for you?  I didn’t think so.

   (For the record, I cannot take credit for the creation of that method.   That honor belongs solely to my friend; he knows who he is.)

2. Make your popcorn at home, and bring it in your bag.  This, of course, works only if you could legitimately be coming straight from school (in which case everyone would have a bag anyway), or if you have a girl in your party (or if you are a girl) and she is (you are) carrying a particularly large purse, since it’s not uncommon for you to have one, anyway.

   This method also includes bringing candy from home.  Ultimately, this is your cheapest method, though it’s the most inconvenient.

3. Finally, you can buy candy from nearby stores.  Two stores that I can think of next to the closest movie theater to my house (in a shopping center) specifically sell “movie candy” – the exact same candy we could buy in the theater – for less, or less than half the price.  Sounds good to me.

Of course, the easiest, best thing to do is just to buy your food and candy at the theater.  Yes, it’s more expensive, but you’re avoiding the hassle that would otherwise be involved.

Now that we’ve figured out movie food, let’s talk about coffee.  Nearly every morning, I go to Dunkin Donuts to get myself my daily energy blast.  I know it’s bad for me to be hooked already, and I don’t really need it, but it’s very pleasing to me in the morning, after having been rudely awoken by my alarm clock at such an ungodly hour, to have that nice, hot, sweet cup of coffee handed to me with a smile.  Of course, that’s if Person A is there.  Person B usually jokes with my sister and I (we go together in the morning, on the way to me dropping her off at school), but almost never laughs.  Person B smiles, but never laughs.

Anyway, the point is not Person A or Person B.  The point is Dunkin Donuts.  Occasionally, I’ll get a sausage egg and cheese on a toasted croissant, but more often than not, if I get anything with my coffee, it’s a chocolate donut.  Being that I go so often, it’s only natural that I would seek to obtain coupons and try to save myself some money.  (I know what you’re thinking.  Why not save money by not going to Dunkin Donuts every day, and just make the coffee at home?  My answer is simple – their coffee is better.)  That’s why I bought, for a dollar, a DD calendar with 2 coupons attached to every month.  I used January’s coupons, and decided to wait until the end of the month to use February’s, because I would treat myself at the end of the month.  Then February 28th comes around, and I realize that day’s the end of the month.  Being busy all day, I had my sister bring me the coupons so I could use them on the way home.

Want to know the funny thing?  I didn’t use the coupons.  I didn’t buy anything, even though I wanted to; I was buying donuts just to use the coupons, and that’s bad.  If I didn’t really want what I was buying, what was the point?  I guess that applies to everything, and not just food.  If you have a coupon for something (and will thus save money on it if you buy it), but don’t want the product, don’t buy it!  Ultimately, you’re saving more money by not buying the item in question than if you buy it with a coupon.

“There is no love more sincere than the love of food.”  Truer words have never been spoken.  Think about any person that you really, truly love.  You’ve shared a meal with them, and chances are that you’ve shared more than one meal with them at your home, or their home, or out with that person at a restaurant.  To take that a step further, there’s almost nothing more intimate than to share a meal with a person.  There’s a story behind this night’s eating out, but there’s nothing exceptional about it except that it’s a meal after a long day of being snowed in.  Nothing special – I shoveled for hours, that’s it.

And, finally, the MOST exciting thing happening this week!  Ladies and gentlemen, baseball’s back!  The first Spring Training game happened today.  For those of you not familiar with baseball, this is the preseason.  For those of you not familiar with sports at all, that means that these games are practice games amongst teams who will play each other for points when regular games begin.  Yes, this is a very, very simplified way of putting it.  But that’ll suffice for anyone who doesn’t know a thing about sports.

So yes, ladies and gentlemen, baseball is back.  That being the case, it’s time to talk about stadium food.  That is, food memories at the various baseball stadiums in the NYC area.  First and foremost, there’s Shea Stadium.  Yes, I know it’s not there anymore, but I miss it, a lot.  I had the best hot dog I’ve had in my life there.  It wasn’t at a Mets game (it was a Springsteen concert in the stadium, in October of 2003).  My father had been away for a year with the military, but on that day, the day he had come back, we went to the Bruce concert.  It was freezing, but my dad got me two hotdogs (we each had two), and they were absolutely fantastic.  I’d go into more detail, but this entry’s approaching the point where it’s too long.

Next, of course, comes CitiField, the new home of the New York Mets.  There’s a much, much larger food selection.  I’m not going to go into detail here (mainly because I haven’t actually bought food, as far as I can remember), but I can assure you that later in the year I will be going to games, and I will eat there.  They have sushi.  I’m not getting it, because there’s something inherently wrong with eating sushi at a baseball game (in the United States).  But they have it.

Of all the odd foods I’ve ever had at a stadium, though, the best by far was at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.  I was in California, and the Mets were in town.  I was staying about 30 minutes by train from San Francisco… how could I resist going to the game?  Again, there was a great selection of food, but I chose Garlic Fries.  Essentially, they’re potato wedge-type fries, cooked with garlic.  The flavor permeates the fries, and the garlic smell permeates your body for days.  But gosh, were they good.  The hot dogs there weren’t bad, either.  Hell, I think it’s probably impossible to get a bad hot dog at a baseball game – the two just seem to go together – baseball and hot dogs!

That being the case, let’s talk about the Brooklyn Cyclones.  The food in the stadium is really good, but the best food anywhere near there is about a two to five-minute walk away.  That’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs!  After the ones that were at Shea Stadium, these may be the best hot dogs in the world.  Add to that the Cyclones are the Mets minor league affiliate, the stadium is really, really beautiful, and it’s on the water so that you have a beautiful view when watching the game (or, really, when you’re not watching the action of the game), and it’s an amazing little baseball experience.

Sticking with the minor leagues, let’s go over to the Staten Island Yankees.  As a partial-season ticket holder, I was entitled to all-you-can-eat hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, soda and water.  This was great.  The food was average for a baseball stadium (which, in other words, means that they were fantastic – though maybe I’m biased by my love for baseball), but it was unlimited until the end of the 7th inning.  Add to that that it’s my hometown team, the beautiful stadium, the beautiful view of the New York harbor and Manhattan skyline, and the general minor-league baseball atmosphere that I love, and it’s amazing.

And, to finish tonight’s tour de baseball, we’ll turn to Yankee Stadium.  Concerning the old Yankee Stadium, I’ve had a hot dog there, that I can remember.  It was great, but nothing particularly noteworthy.  At new Yankee Stadium, however, I had the delight of having buffalo chicken sliders, and soda in a collectible cup.  The food was an interesting choice, and it was definitely delicious, but the price is somewhat of a hindrance – $10 for three little sliders, and there might have been fries.  Actually, if there were fries included, that’s a really good deal.  The food, however, was not as important that night – among the most exciting things in baseball, one of the best is when the Yankees beat the Red Sox at home (and that’s what happened that night).

And now that this entry has reached over 2,000 words, I bid you adieu.

Maternal Bromatology & Corporatized Memories

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.

***

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.

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.).

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:

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.

The Diplomacy of Comfort Foods

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:

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.”

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.

Eating Unhealthy for Mental Survival

During the winter intersession, I took a course called “Fitness for Life.”  It was supposed to be a physical education class, where we’d be doing a different physical activity every day.  Instead, I had the one professor who took the name of the course literally.  He took a holistic approach to it, trying to increase our fitness to every aspect of life.  I can understand the reasoning behind it, too.  Eventually, problems in different areas of life can lead to incredible amounts of stress, which, ultimately, will take a physical toll on you.

That being the case, my friend and I decided to improve our fitness.  We began to play racquetball every day.  Even if we haven’t improved our skills that much since then, we’ve enjoyed ourselves and spent hour-long blocks of time exercising.  It’s been wonderful, and has made me happy.

Then there’s the dieting part of fitness.  No more junk food!  No more overeating!  No more fatty foods!  No more greasy foods!  No more salty foods!  No more sugar!  No more fast food!  Most of these changes seemed acceptable when I began my journey into fitness.  Of course, I wasn’t really happy about most of them.  After all, for the entire 20 years of my life thus far, I haven’t been on any significant diets, I haven’t really been careful with what I’ve eaten (in fact, my eating habits have been somewhat unhealthy, according to the rules of healthy eating.) and I have not suffered any consequences for it.  Hell, I haven’t even gained weight since I was 15 or 16!  Why should my diet be limited?

However, I did see the logic in such dietary restrictions.  I’m getting close to that point in my life where everything I do will catch up to my body very quickly.  That is, at some point within the next few years, I will no longer have the metabolism of the teenage boy I once was.  So I have to be careful with what I eat now, or the habits will be impossible to lose in the future.

Imagine how happy I was, then, to find out that I did not have to leave some of my favorite parts of my diet behind!  Yes, I will have to start eating slightly smaller portions, but I won’t have to give up my copious amounts of hot sauce! (The sweating and clearing of the sinuses caused by hot sauce is good for you.)  Almost as good is the fact that I don’t have to give up my love for salt – assuming that I use non-iodized sea salt, of course.

Having found all that out, I came to a very important conclusion – I must eat unhealthy foods to maintain my mental health.  Now, that doesn’t mean I want to go out of my way to eat things that are bad for me, nor does it mean that I would even eat them all the time.  I just mean to say that I don’t want the option taken away from me.  If I want a bacon double cheeseburger, I’m going to have it, and that’s that.  If I don’t eat foods that I want to eat once in while (including those that are bad for me), I will go crazy, and that, ultimately, is what’s most important; who are we, and what do we have, if we aren’t happy with our lives?  I refuse to be unhappy with my life, no matter the situation.

It is with that mindset that I stumbled upon This is why you’re fat – a food blog dedicated to collecting recipes (and pictures of the final products of those recipes) that would serve as the caloric intake of a small country for an entire year.  Nearly everything on the site seems tantalizingly and awesomely delicious, albeit deadly.  I will be attempting to make several of the things from this site, for they will make me happy.  After all, who could resist a sausage-egg-and-cheese sandwich on a glazed cinnamon roll?:

It is with respect to this mindset that I’ve chosen today’s non-Springsteen song of the day: “It’s My Life,” by Bon Jovi. Although I realize he’s probably not talking about food, he is talking about choosing his own path when he says “It’s my life / it’s now or never / I ain’t gonna live forever / I just wanna live while I’m alive.”  And that’s exactly what I mean to say with this post – we aren’t going to live forever, and we certainly will not be able to enjoy food forever, so let’s enjoy it while we can.  And even for those of who are serious dieters for one reason or another – you can let go once in a while; it’s ok!  (PS – it’s an awesome music video.)

Today’s Springsteen song of the day has a similar relation to my mindset, in that it’s got an almost “I’m going to do whatever I want to do to make me happy, and I want to share it with you!” attitude.  Aside from that, it’s a really awesome song, and you can tell how incredible a performer he really is from watching the video I’ve provided a link to.  Having said that, the song in question is “Out In The Street,” off of The River.  The specific lyric I’m thinking of:  ”when I’m out in the street / I walk the way I wanna walk / when I’m out in the street / I talk the way I wanna talk / Baby, out in the street I don’t feel sad or blue / Baby, out in the street, I’ll be waiting for you!”  Well, world, like I said before – I’m going to eat what I want to eat, and that’s the end of the story.

***

Having said what I needed to say for the day, I bid you adieu.  Good night, world.

On Hiatuses, New Beginnings (Again), & Food

Alright, here’s the thing.  I started this blog with the intention of writing every day.  I wanted to expose the world (who hadn’t been exposed yet) to Bruce Springsteen through a song a day, and through other artists, too.  I wanted a brief summary of noteworthy things that have happened in my life.  I wanted to make commentaries on other things, too – everything that annoyed me, really.  I’ve come to the realization, though, that writing every day was a very unrealistic goal for me; now that I’ve started school, it seems nearly impossible.  Frankly, I’d given up on blogging at all.

So that’s the first hiatus I’m talking about today.  It’s over now, thanks to Professor Cho’s Food, Self & Society class.  For those of you reading this who are not in that class, it’s a sociological, anthropological, psychological, etc way of looking at food and it’s function as to society and to the individual.  For those of you who are in that class with me and are reading this, my having made such a distinction may seem odd.  Allow me to explain – I’m writing this in my blog that I’ve already established and have entries imported via an RSS feed of some sort to the class page.  It’s a bit more convenient that way.

The new point of this blog, then (at least for the next few months), is to document my life around food in some way or another.  Posts will not be uniform in style, nor will they be uniform in frequency.  One week, I may post only once.  Another, I may post several times.  Most likely, it will be the former.  We shall see.

Right now, I haven’t figured out how exactly to bring food into this, though that’s just as well – this is merely a re-introduction of sorts.  You can look forward to a new entry soon, with the new format (we will be retaining the Springsteen song of the day!).

For now, I bid you adieu.

PS – the second hiatus?  Fall Out Boy, and how they’ve seemingly broken up.  They’ve had a nice run, and I won’t pretend I’m not just a little bit disappointed.  At least I got to see them live once before.  All I can do at this point is wish each member the best of luck.

Good night, world.