Just for Fun

I don't know about y'all, but I am just done with this semester. The reading (oy), the papers (oof), and the stress of having to have it all in by tomorrow (oops). I am wiped out.

So, what do you do when you're feeling the crunch, when you've worked for 8 hours straight on a Sunday to try and get caught up, and you still aren't caught up? I find that drinking helps. Just kidding. Maybe. Okay, so drinking probably isn't a great idea unless you're absolutely finished with all your school work, so I decided to write a little blog post and share some pictures that I took when researching my gender paper. You know, distract myself in a productive-ish way.

The thesis of my gender paper was that hard liquors like whiskey and bourbon are marketed with men in mind, while wines and sweet drinks are targeted toward women, so I needed to do research, right? I trotted off to City-Wide Liquors downtown to take some pictures of different types of bottles to see if I was right (and also just because I like looking at all the different labels). It turns out, I was semi-correct in my thesis. All of the whiskey bottles were definitely targeted at men, with their plain, monotone, and for the most part, boring labels. I do like the name "Death's Door," though, and Harrison is my nephew's name, so YAY. The wines were in large part marketed for female consumers, with feminine names and colors and artwork that appeals to women, but as I walked through City-Wide's extensive collection, I realized that the drier wines usually had more masculine labels than the sweeter wines.

While I took a ton of pictures, I'll just share some of my favorite wine labels with you. For the most part the ones that were my favorites weren't the most feminine choices.

I love the artwork of the one at the left, it's just so cute! I love the lady's pin-up style, and that the man is stepping on her foot. Adorable. This is a bottle I'd buy just for the label. Admit it, you do that sometimes, too, right?

The one at right caught my eye because it's just so different from any other label I've ever seen on a wine bottle. It's kind of creepy, like maybe if you drink this one, you'll be transported to a scary circus run by half-monsters who breathe fire and eat babies.

The one called "Bitch" really caught my eye. I could picture it filling the shopping cart of a maid of honor who's planning a bridal shower or bachelorette party. I imagine it being drunk out of pink, bedazzled goblets by 22-year-old women wearing penis-shaped earrings. They're laughing and yelling at each other obnoxiously, and of course they're calling each other "bitch" and "whore."

I love, love, love the one at right. The colors are just so vivid, and it looks like a poster one may have seen decades ago, advertising the rodeo that was coming to town. From the font to the image, whoever put together this label did an excellent job.

This one at left I loved for its simplicity. The label tells us that it's rare and special, something reserved for only true fans. The B side is a sweet surprise.

So which one did I take home? This one at right, Phantom. It was one of the first bottles I looked at, and it had a spooky little story on the back. Something about going downstairs into a dark basement all alone and feeling like there was someone there waiting for you. It was fairly good, but had a strange aftertaste...a phantom flavor, if you will.

All in all, a fun trip to the liquor store. Also, just so's ya know, the City-Wide on Jefferson holds free wine (and sometimes beer and mead) tastings every Thursday from 5-7 pm. All you need to bring is your I.D. If you like wine, you won't be disappointed. The labels that share their products are always very knowledgeable about their libations. My estimate is that you'll come away from it with a total of two glasses of wine in your gut, and you'll be sure to try at least one that you really like and can take home (or come back for in the future). Here's my advice: go there, taste everything, maybe buy a bottle, then go home and share dinner with your significant other. Voila! Cheap date.

Edited to add: Nate's comment reminded me that I had one more photo to share, but forgot because I saw it on a different trip to the store. This is maybe the funniest name/label for a type of drink ever. After I saw this, I kept thinking of ways someone might add it into conversation. For example, "We went to the liquor store, then went home and had some delicious Hot Sex," or "Do you sell Hot Sex?" I laughed a lot thinking about this. I wondered what it tastes like, so I looked up how to make Hot Sex - The Drink. It includes grenadine, orange juice, and triple sec. Wonder why it's called Hot Sex? Since it's a sweet drink, I assume it's a "girlie" drink. Does it, then, make women want to have sex? What are your thoughts?

A Food Dictionary (yay!)

Hi again everyone!

Okay, so, I've noticed in class that we've brought up time and time again how it is difficult to follow through with some recipes simply because we are not in the area to buy the food product or the tool to make the meal, or simply because we do not know how to use the tool or specifically what that food item in the ingredients list...is.

I'll openly admit that I am in that boat; I just got married this summer, and prior to that, my mother did not allow me to help out or cook in the kitchen hardly at all (unless it was something very simple like making brownies, toasts or hot dogs) simply because of time constraints. So, since then, I've been trying out with my husband many, many, many recipes that I've always wanted to make or even haven't seen before (and that have, fortunately, turned out). But, there are still many things I would like to cook but avoid because of unfamiliar ingredients and such.

So, I did some searching.

I found an online dictionary that is specifically about food and for food preparation. Whether you want to know what that ingredient is or what that tool is used for, you can type it in and read through the results.

I also thought this would be helpful for our food log, because - at least in the cases that I've found - it also lists the origin of the food.

I will admit, however, that I have not compared it yet to other dictionaries to see how consistent the definitions are and am not sure if everything is accurate, but I figured it was a good starting place.

Here's the link: http://www.epicurious.com/tools/fooddictionary

I hope you all find it useful!

A Secret at the McDonald's Headquarters (Rated D for Disturbing)

Hi everyone,

So, I was wandering around online the other day and discovered the link that I have posted below about McDonald's. You remember that little piece of trivia that Coca-Cola can remove rust from a vehicle? This is up there in that disturbing arena; the McDonald's signature burger takes years to decompose (if, in theory, it ever decomposes).

Now, I'll warn you, there are a lot of discrepancies. Some readers bought right in to this woman's story and photo series, but others believe that she took pictures of different burgers over time and that there is no way that food would be sold that's potentially so harmful.

Also, McDonald's stated that they do not use preservatives (which, of course they're going to say that! What else are they going to say? "Yes, we are damaging your liver"?). However, there is a book floating around out there in library/cyberspace somewhere that's dedicated to just how McDonald's food is made (how all the fries are all the same size and color, pretty consistently, etc), which doesn't prove McDonald's as preservative-free at all. . .

I haven't actually read that book yet, and I'll get back to you on the name of the book once I've found it (it was recommended to me a few years ago now), but something I did in place of that was go to Google and type in how "McDonald's cheeseburgers are made" (and then you can factor in french fries or what have you). Again, there are a lot of discrepancies, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting to think about. . .

Finally, here's the link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101012/bs_yblog_upshot/mcdonalds-happy-meal-resists-decomposition-for-six-months

Roland Barthes: Sexiest Man Alive?

I'm obviously not looking for any class credit for this post. I just wanted to let you all know that Roland Barthes looks exactly how I pictured him.

Also, I bet he smells like musk and cognac.

Five Foods I Intend to Never Outgrow

There are some foods that I think we accept as a society for children to eat. Strange combinations that somehow are okay as long as the person creating and/or consuming them is under the age of 15. Sometimes, certain foods seem to be prone to certain generations. This last bit became pretty clear to me today through today's big story in the Dining section the New York Times that I immediately tested its claim of recognition on my nearly 12 year old daughter.

"Syd?" I called.
"What?" she replied.
"Have you ever heard of spaghetti tacos?" I inquired because I certainly hadn't.
"Yeah." she mumbled.
"From where?" I continued.
"iCarly." she responded.

A program that has nothing to do with food, on a channel we don't have that also has nothing to do with food is shaping mealtime for kids across the country. According to the article, blogs and websites galore offer a multitude of variations for spaghetti tacos. Here is a link to the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/dining/06tacos.html?_r=1

In the spirit of this article, I compiled a small list of foods/food combos from my childhood that I just cannot part with:

1. Ketchup on my mac & cheese. Maybe it's because I'm a quarter Canadian, but this combination is a staple for me. Mac & cheese isn't actually ready to be consumed until it is covered in ketchup.

2. Potato chips on a variety of sandwiches. Whether I'm sitting down to a nice PB&J or a deli-type sandwich, it just isn't complete without that extra crunch. (I don't think this deserves an additional category because it just seems to be a variation, but I also put french fries on my burgers as well.)

3. Magic Shell. I'm not sure which of my parents brought this bit of sorcery into my life, but since I was a small child, ice cream (or sherbet) is more exciting with Magic Shell. For those of you not familiar with Magic Shell, it's a chocolate sauce that hardens on your cold ice cream. Magic Shell is also on my list of "Meanest Things Done by an Ex-": #5 She put my Magic Shell in the refrigerator.

4. Dipping Wendy's french fries into Wendy's Frosty's. Once upon a time I used to do that with my chicken nuggets, too, but I've since become allergic to chicken. There really is no point to eating at Wendy's unless you plan to eat your fries and your Frosty together.

5. I love Spaghettio's. Special combinations in my Spaghettio's include, adding crackers, adding cheese, adding hot sauce, adding avocado, or adding all of these things.

I’m sure that all of us have our favorite restaurants, right? How about favorite hangout spots? You know, places where you could stay for hours, just carrying on with friends, or maybe listen to a live band, drinking beer or wine and having a good ol’ time. What if I told you there was a place where you could do all these things?

One of my favorite places to visit for a night out is right here in South Bend. It’s a little Irish pub called Fiddler’s Hearth, and if you’ve never been there, it’s definitely worth giving a try. Not only do they have delicious, traditional Irish food, they also serve burgers, salads, and amazing desserts. That doesn't even include the drinks available…thirty-six different types of beer (including Guinness, of course), and sixty-four different types of whiskey! Not to mention several wines and spirited coffees, and sometimes they have stouts that have been aged in whiskey casks. (Read: STRONG, not for the lightweights!)

My first trip to Fiddler’s was on a second or third date with a fireman. He was younger, and I think he was trying to show off how refined and worldly he was (ha!), but I immediately fell in love with the cozy atmosphere and the Pear and Walnut Salad. The fireman didn’t last very long, but thus began my love for “the Hearth.” It became my place, and one that the man in my life and I visit often; we hung out there together as friends before we started dating. For a while, we were there every week; we’d eat a cheap dinner somewhere else, then go listen to live music and have a drink or two at the pub on Thursday nights - the one night a week that I had a babysitter.

If you decide to give Fiddler’s a try, here are some tips:

• · They get extremely busy during lunch and dinner times (12-1 and about 6:30-9), so it may be a good idea to either call ahead for a reservation or go in at an off-peak hour.

• · Be prepared to sit next to strangers. The seating is family style, so there are long tables and pews to sit on. You most likely won't be seated by a hostess or server, just look for an open spot and grab it. Think of it as an opportunity to meet new friends!

• · Be nice to the waitresses! There are usually only 2 or 3 servers for the entire restaurant, so be patient. Tip well (no less than 15%, and 20% for great service is my motto).

• · The menu can get a bit pricey, especially when you factor in drinks, meal, and dessert, so be prepared. It’s a bit cheaper to just go for lunch and keep the drinks and dessert out, or maybe go out for drinks and dessert after a supper at home.

• · If you see a man with white hair, beard, and newsboy cap, it’s probably the owner.

• · Try and visit on a night when Andyman Hopkins is playing. He’s fun and friendly, and you’ll have a great time. Alligator Blackbird plays there from time to time, as well.

Personal favorite menu items:

• · Whiskey sours. They never skimp on the whiskey here, so I don’t have to spend a lot of money on drinks. No worries - I never, ever drive after drinking! My companions usually have beer, either Guiness or Bells Two-Hearted IPA. There’s always something new to try, and always something on special.

• · Fish and Chips is a must. I have never been disappointed when I ordered this meal, which consists of a salad or soup choice, either 3 or 4 beer battered cod fillets, and chips (French fries). The breading is always crispy and the fillets inside tender and moist. Mouth-watering!

• · The Pear and Walnut Salad is to die for. Dark, leafy greens with sliced pears, walnuts, bleu cheese and grilled chicken topped with vanilla vinaigrette, it’s perfect during warm weather. I love this salad so much that I found a recipe for a version of vanilla vinaigrette online and began making it myself.

• · Their bread pudding is the best I’ve ever tasted. It always comes out warm, with a whiskey cream sauce, and it usually takes 3-4 people to eat it all.

So, if you're looking for a new place to try, why not Fiddler's? They have great food, tons of drink choices, they're family-friendly, and smoke-free. Take a gander at their website, where you'll find lunch and dinner menus, a drink menu, calendar of events, and pictures.

How about you, what are some of YOUR favorite places around here? Yes, I'm looking at YOU. Leave a comment and let us know!

**Disclaimer** Photos taken by camera phone.

Just a few links that might be helpful...

This is about some food myths:

http://food.change.org/blog/view/8_misleading_food_label_terms_every_eater_should_know

This is about fish farmers:

http://http://food.change.org/blog/view/do_fish_farms_offer_sustainable_solutions

And finally, some coffee commercials from the 80's. Apparently, these two people can really sell coffee. The 1st link is an example of the Taster's Choice commercial series that we had here in the States, and the second is what I'm guessing they had over in Great Britain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpOBFELO0Qc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igi9u6X4y-s&NR=1

Have fun!

Nancy Willard's "How to Stuff a Pepper"

"Now, said the cook, I will teach you
how to stuff a pepper with rice.

Take your pepper green, and gently,
for peppers are shy. No matter which side
you approach, it's always the backside.
Perched on green buttocks, the pepper sleeps
In its silk tights, it dreams
of sommersaults and parsley,
 of the days when the sexes were one.

Slash open the sleeve
as if you were cutting a paper lantern,
and enter a moon, spilled like like a melon,
a fever of pearls,
a conversation of glaciers.
It is a temple built to the worship
of morning light.

I have sat under the great globe
of seeds on the roof of that chamber,
too dazzled to gather the taste I came for.
I have taken the pepper in hand,
smooth and blind, a runt in the rich
evolution of roses and ferns.
You say I have not yet taught you

to stuff a pepper?
Cooking takes time.

Next time we'll consider the rice."

Nancy Willard

From "Confessions of an Eater"

"I remember the first time I ate compulsively. I was seventeen years old, not yet an introspective person. I had no language or vocabulary for what was happening to me. The issue of compulsive eating had not yet become a matter of public confession. Looking back I can say: 'That was the day my neurosis began.' But at the time, if I knew the word at all, I would not have known to apply it to myself.

I was in Berlin, sitting at the breakfast table with my American roommate and our German landlords. I remember the day vividly, the wind blows, the curtain lifts on the window, a beam of sunlight crosses the room and stops just at the spout of the teapot. A single, amber drop becomes luminous at the tip of the spout. I feel that I am about to remember something and then, unaccountably, I am moved to tears. But I do not cry. I say nothing. I look furtively around me, hoping this wave of strong feeling has not been observed. And then, I am eating. My hand is reaching out. And the movement, even in the first few moments, seems driven and compulsive. I am not hungry. I had pushed away my plate moments beofre. But my hand is reaching and I know that I am reaching for something that has been lost. I hope for much from the food that is on the table before me but suddenly it seems to me that nothing will ever still this hunger--an immense implacable craving that I do not remember having felt before.

Suddenly, I realize that I am putting too much butter on my breakfast roll. I am convinced that everyone is looking at me. I put down the butter knife. I break off a piece of the roll and put it in my mouth. But it seem to me that I am wolfing it down. That I am devouring it.

I notice, with alarm, that Olga is beginning to clear the table. Unable to control myself, I lurch forward, reach out for another roll and pull the butter plate closer to myself. Everyone laughs and I am mortified. I am blushing the way I have not blushed since I was twelve or thirteen years old. I feel trapped and I want to go on eating. I must go on eating. An yet I feel an acute and terrible self-consciousness."

                                                                     Kim Chernin from "Confessions of an Eater"

The Apron

The Apron

By Stephanie C. Merryfield

Four cups of flour…four tablespoons of natural sugar cane… one and a half cups of butter milk… two tablespoons of Clabber Girl baking powder & half a cup of soft, real butter.

This was the start of Nana’s biscuit bread. The buttermilk was one of the ugliest sights the eye could conceive in a kitchen¾clotted and slightly yellow. The smell could tumble a horse. It was only a little less sickening than flies lighting on runny, decaying road kill under the mid-day sun of July. Yet to her it was familiar. She kneaded the dough across the countertop of this small southern home, ignoring the smell.

It was the last small modular to be put in place on Rochelle Road, since the departure of eight of the children for the city. Some, mostly the boys, went to Gary, Indiana. But the girls, they stayed closer to home. Jackson, Tennessee had been home to the Chism’s since the emancipation. To her, the three hundred, thirty acres represented a legacy. Her mind wandered to recessed areas, still covered with evergreens. She kneaded more intently. This home was a gift. What exactly had she received?

This rural place was unlike the home on the farm. She wiped her hands feverishly on the apron. She wiped off of her fingers the loss that culminated in the bank’s foreclosure on the acreage. She wiped from underneath her fingernails the memories of her vegetable garden that had helped to feed thirteen children. She wiped onto the apron flesh that had soothed her husband’s weary brow for over sixty years. Hubert always wanted to be touched. That was his love language; of course the eight girls and five boys she birthed at home evidenced that.

Hubert was a very determined man. He convinced her at nineteen that he would love her always. Savera consented. He purchased the acreage with sobriety and ambition. He wasn’t contented to be a sharecropper. During the winter’s to supplement his income, he left for the city.

“Savera, you’re a good woman.” Those words were of little comfort now.

“Slam,” sounded the oven door, threatening to come off the hinge and burn her ankle. She winced at the thought of the casket door being closed over him during the funeral services. She thought this time he would come home, too, but no. Many times before, he had been in the hospital and had always come home.

“Pneumonia,” the doctor concluded sternly. She said this without compassion, almost blankly before leaving the hospital room.

Savera attempted to encourage the children and their children who had all gathered anxiously in the tiny sterile space. She, however, received little comfort that evening as she watched him slip from this life to another unceremoniously. The two were as they had been before they started a family, alone.

The bread would bake for fifty minutes. This bread has always been comfort food for her children, her grandchildren and her husband. Now, perhaps it would be of comfort to her as well. She removed the old apron and placed it, for the first time in many years, into a drawer¾out of the way. She knew she would not use it as often now. The bread’s fragrance filled the nearly empty house with memories.