Cognitive Cooking: Rewiring the Perfect Meal [Revised Draft]

If you were to choose a perfect meal, it probably wouldn't be making lunch with your recently ex-girlfriend. Even if you were trying to do the “let's still be friends” thing, you could probably think of less emotionally complicated things to do with your Sunday afternoon – but that's kind of the point.

The emotional power of food is well documented, in both scientific and literary realms. Perhaps most famous is the incident the first volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, in which the taste of a madeleine, a small cake, incites in the narrator a rush of emotion, which he eventually traces back to times spent with his aunt when he was a child. I wanted to try to harness this power.

I and my ex (let's call her Maddie, since that's her name) spent six weeks in the summer of 2013 working on an organic farm and living in a cabin that had no running water or electricity. Lacking a microwave or toaster oven, Maddie gave me a crash course in stovetop cooking. By the end our time there, I could light the gas stove without flinching, sauté veggies, and make mostly unburnt pancakes. Helping to cook those meals was incredibly satisfying, and our pride in our culinary creations made them taste that much better.

The experience of working on the farm was a powerful one for both of us, and every time I cook, or even see someone else cooking, memories of that time crop up. Naturally, those memories are a little painful these days. However, Maddie and I have managed to maintain a friendship in the weeks since the breakup. I wondered would happen if we cooked together, not as romantic partners, but as friends? Perhaps I could hijack my emotional associations with cooking, and redirect them to this new experience, this new form of our relationship.

You might think that this experiment was doomed to fail, and you might be right. Still, I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so on Saturday morning I met Maddie at the Kalamazoo Farmer's Market to find ingredients. I knew attempting to recreate a farm meal exactly would be impossible, but I at least wanted to get close, and most of our ingredients then, if they didn't come from the farm itself, came from the farmer's market. 

 

If change was the name of the game, than perhaps it was a good omen that, when we finally found Dennis, the man whose farm we had worked on, he stood under a new sign for a new farm, having moved from Bangor, MI, to Battle Creek just a few months before. On the one hand, it felt like yet another loss. On the other hand, rerouting connections was the whole point of this adventure, so it looked like we were off to a good start.

Still, there was some nostalgia. We bought a bag of salad mix and I mentally reeled off the list: lettuce, mustard greens, mizuna, arugula, and a little round leaf whose name I could never remember. We also bought a bag of baby kale, and I remembered how Russian kale turned silver underwater when we washed it. The bunch of onions reminded me of pulling bulbs from the ground as Dennis's one-and-a-half-year-old ostensibly helped, although really he was just bringing me back dead onions that I had thrown away. Dennis threw in a few bags of spinach for free, as he had a surplus, and I laughed, thinking of all the people who had come to the market in July in August, looking for spinach we didn't have.

We had gotten to the market late, and by this time most of the vendors were packing up, so we grabbed a garlic bulb and called it a day. It was hot, and a long walk back, so we decided we'd wait and cook the next day. This wouldn't have been an option on the farm. Although we were provided a certain number of meals each week, when we on our own for food, we were really on our own, and if we were too tired to cook dinner, then dinner didn't get cooked.

It was nice not to have that kind of pressure when we started cooking on Sunday. This was going to be a semi-improvised meal, using whatever we had – or whatever we had to use up before the end of the school year.

“Can we add chickpeas to whatever we're making?” Maddie asked as we were getting out ingredients. “Because I have them.”

This sort of improvising was common on the farm. We would often start with one thing we wanted to use, and then we'd build the rest of the meal around that.

On this particular day, I had decided I wanted to make an egg scramble. This was what the garlic and onion were for. To those, we added some gouda cheese that I had brought from home and some of Dennis's spinach. Since we had so many greens, we decided on a salad for the side, to which we would add the chickpeas. Maddie also had a couple peaches, so we could each have one those as well.

Since we hadn't cooked together for a while, it took a while for us to settle into a rhythm, but soon I was slicing cheese and chopping onions as Maddie chopped the garlic and washed and cut the spinach. Once all the ingredients were ready, I got down what we jokingly call the 'farm bowl', which we had had on the farm but never used. Maddie cracked the eggs into the bowl, a skill I have yet master, and I mixed in the fixings as she started on the salad.

Then came the actual cooking. Here, the electric stove had a clear advantage over the gas stove we used on the farm, whose only settings were “barely warm” and “blink and you'll be eating char for dinner.” As I cooked the scramble on a relaxing medium heat, Maddie decided to chop up the peaches to add the finishing touches to the salad. Soon, we were ready to eat.

Having had almost no expectations for this meal, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the food was delicious. The ingredients were perfectly balanced, with the sweetness of the cheese perfectly complementing the onion and garlic, and its gooeyness offset by the spinach. The salad was crisp and juicy, and the sweet peaches and nutty chickpeas made a great combination. After the first couple bites, Maddie and I high-fived. This was better than almost anything we had made on the farm, in no small part because the flavors weren't burnt off.

Soon after we started eating, a couple of friends joined us. We talked about about finals, the colleges literary journal and the art of photography, our plans for the summer. It was relaxing. No expectations, no pressure. Just some friends hanging out.

Only time will tell if the experiment worked. I think it did, though. Already, the memory is taking on a certain sheen. The rough parts, the emotional complexities, are being polished over. Soon, I think, it will be just another fond memory of a good meal, with good company. And that's exactly what I wanted.

Cognitive Cooking: Rewiring the Perfect Meal [Workshop Draft]

If you were to choose a perfect meal, it probably wouldn't be making lunch with your recently ex-girlfriend. Even if you were trying to do the “let's still be friends” thing, you could probably think of less emotionally complicated things to do with your Sunday afternoon – but that's kind of the point.

The emotional power of food is well documented, in both scientific and literary realms. Perhaps most famous is the incident the first volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, in which the taste of a madeleine, a small cake, incites in the narrator a rush of emotion, which he eventually traces back to times spent with his aunt when he was a child. I wanted to try to harness this power.

I and my ex (let's call her Maddie, since that's her name) spent six weeks in the summer of 2013 working on an organic farm and living in a cabin that had no running water or electricity. Lacking a microwave or toaster oven, Maddie gave me a crash course in stovetop cooking. By the end our time there, I could light the gas stove without flinching, sauté veggies, and make mostly unburnt pancakes. Helping to cook those meals was incredibly satisfying, and our pride in our culinary creations made them taste that much better.

The experience of working on the farm was a powerful one for both of us, and every time I cook, or even see someone else cooking, memories of that time crop up. Naturally, those memories are a little painful these days. However, Maddie and I have managed to maintain a friendship in the weeks since the breakup. I wondered would happen if we cooked together, not as romantic partners, but as friends? Perhaps I could hijack my emotional associations with cooking, and redirect them to this new experience, this new form of our relationship.

You might think that this experiment was doomed to fail, and you might be right. Still, I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so on Saturday morning I met Maddie at the Kalamazoo Farmer's Market to find ingredients. I knew attempting to recreate a farm meal exactly would be impossible, but I at least wanted to get close, and most of our ingredients then, if they didn't come from the farm itself, came from the farmer's market. 

 

If change was the name of the game, than perhaps it was a good omen that, when we finally found Dennis, the man whose farm we had worked on, he stood under a new sign for a new farm, having moved from Bangor, MI, to Battle Creek just a few months before. On the one hand, it felt like yet another loss. On the other hand, rerouting connections was the whole point of this adventure, so it looked like we were off to a good start.

Still, there was some nostalgia. We bought a bag of salad mix and I mentally reeled off the list: lettuce, mustard greens, mizuna, arugula, and a little round leaf whose name I could never remember. We also bought a bag of baby kale, and I remembered how Russian kale turned silver underwater when we washed it. The bunch of onions reminded me of pulling bulbs from the ground as Dennis's one-and-a-half-year-old ostensibly helped, although really he was just bringing me back dead onions that I had thrown away. Dennis threw in a few bags of spinach for free, as he had a surplus, and I laughed, thinking of all the people who had come to the market in July in August, looking for spinach we didn't have.

We had gotten to the market late, and by this time most of the vendors were packing up, so we grabbed a garlic bulb and called it a day. It was hot, and a long walk back, so we decided we'd wait and cook the next day. This wouldn't have been an option on the farm. Although we were provided a certain number of meals each week, when we on our own for food, we were really on our own, and if we were too tired to cook dinner, then dinner didn't get cooked.

It was nice not to have that kind of pressure when we started cooking on Sunday. This was going to be a semi-improvised meal, using whatever we had – or whatever we had to use up before the end of the school year.

“Can we add chickpeas to whatever we're making?” Maddie asked as we were getting out ingredients. “Because I have them.”

This sort of improvising was common on the farm. We would often start with one thing we wanted to use, and then we'd build the rest of the meal around that.

On this particular day, I had decided I wanted to make an egg scramble. This was what the garlic and onion were for. To those, we added some gouda cheese that I had brought from home and some of Dennis's spinach. Since we had so many greens, we decided on a salad for the side, to which we would add the chickpeas. Maddie also had a couple peaches, so we could each have one those as well.

Since we hadn't cooked together for a while, it took a while for us to settle into a rhythm, but soon I was slicing cheese and chopping onions as Maddie chopped the garlic and washed and cut the spinach. Once all the ingredients were ready, I got down what we jokingly call the 'farm bowl', which we had on the farm but never used. Maddie cracked the eggs into the bowl, a skill I have yet master, and I mixed in the fixings as she started on the salad.

Then came the actual cooking. Here, the electric stove had a clear advantage over the gas stove we used on the farm, whose only settings were “barely warm” and “blink and you'll be eating char for dinner.” As I cooked the scramble on a relaxing medium heat, Maddie decided to chop up the peaches to add the finishing touches to the salad. Soon, we were ready to eat.

Having had almost no expectations for this meal, I was pleasantly surprised to find that was one of the best meals I'd ever had. The ingredients were perfectly balanced, with the sweetness of the cheese perfectly complimenting the onion and garlic, and its gooeyness offset by the spinach. The salad was crisp and juicy, and the sweet peaches and nutty chickpeas made a great combination. After the first couple bites, Maddie and I high-fived. This was better than almost anything we had made on the farm.

Soon after we started eating, a couple of friends joined us. We talked about about finals, the colleges literary journal and the art of photography, our plans for the summer. It was relaxing. No expectations, no pressure. Just some friends hanging out.

Only time will tell if the experiment worked. I think it did, though. Already, the memory is taking on a certain sheen. The rough parts, the emotional complexities, are being polished over. Soon, I think, it will be just another fond memory of a good meal, with good company. And that's exactly what I wanted.

Review Part III: Post-Review Analysis

I expected Fieldstone Grill to be somewhat fancy, potentially tasty, and a little overpriced. It ended up being not particularly fancy, not particularly tasty, and a little more than a little overpriced. I expected different flavors, gourmet twists, but I got barely any flavor at all, and (upon a recent return visit) not even a metal cup for my fries. I thought that Fieldstone Grill was not my culture. I was right, but not in the way that I expected.

Which, I suppose, was always a possibility. It was a bit of a stretch in the first place to say that visiting Fieldstone was in any way culinary tourism. If anything, Fieldstone is a lack of culture. Sure, they try to associate their foods with various various ethnic cuisines or with the local community. But the "Greek" turkey burger served on ciabatta suggests that they're not really concerned with the authenticity of such associations.

While our reading on culinary tourism focused primarily on ethnic and geographic cultures, it did also talk about connotations of class as a cultural signifier. Perhaps if there's any lesson to take from this experience it's that high price does not necessarily mean authentically fancy food.

Fieldstone Grill Review [Revised Draft]

When the cup of chicken soup arrives, it rests atop a lace doily. Unfortunately, the journey from kitchen to table was not a gentle one, and whatever this presentation was intended to communicate has been lost to a sea of soup that now sits in the saucer, drowning both the doily and the soup spoon handle.

Presentation is a problem here at Fieldstone Grill, a roadside establishment just off of US 131 in Portage. Perhaps its location is one of the factors that make it difficult for Fieldstone Grill to achieve the successful blend of fine dining aesthetic and middle-class occasion destination it seems to be shooting for.

Its red and white exterior looks more like a barn than a restaurant, while the patio could be confused for an outdoor food court / picnic area, not unlike one you might find at a museum or zoo. The interior, however, while somewhat cavernous in the center (the peak of the “barn”), is a warmly lit, quiet space, sparely and tastefully decorated. A large fireplace, built from the titular fieldstones, manages to be impressive without making the place feel like a ski lodge. Windows along the back wall provide a view of the adjacent wetlands.

Back outside, the patio chairs turn out to be more comfortable than they look, and the view, again, makes for a surprisingly enjoyable seating area.

Fieldstone Grill's culinary offerings, however, suggest that the view from the parking lot is, in fact, the more truthful representation. Chef Jason McClellan is described as an “old soul,” which apparently means that he cooks with the deteriorating taste buds of the elderly in mind.

Whatever flavors might be in the chicken soup are overpowered by the uncharacteristic spiciness. The ravioli with vodka cream sauce is certainly ravioli, and the sauce certainly contains cream, but any further deductions as to the ingredients of the dish are difficult, if not impossible.

The salmon and the perch are distinguishable only in that one is dry, lightly seasoned, and the other is slathered in butter, as are the soft, easy to chew green beans that accompany it. One wonders if the cold, flavorless mashed potatoes were added to the plate simply for texture.

Desserts can be comprehensively described as “various forms of sugar.” The triple-berry cobbler tastes like spongy bread pudding whose sweetness is probably from some sort of berry. The tiramisu is both sweeter than tiramisu usually is, and disgracefully bland. What is the point of serving tiramisu that could be easily mistaken for the spongy, grey cobbler?

The flourless chocolate cake is definitely chocolate, but dispel from your mind images of traditional Italian flourless cakes, baked with almonds and perhaps dusted with powdered sugar. This is just melted chocolate, with a consistency somewhere between pudding and fudge.

Admittedly, the vanilla ice cream served with each of the desserts is not disappointing, but, with the exception of the cake, it would have been better on its own.

It should be noted that these foods are from Fieldstone Grill's special Mother's Day menu. Lacking from said menu are many of the appetizers, salads, and entrees from the regular menu, such as the sesame-crusted tuna, grilled salmon salad, and Bell's Oberon Fish-n-Chips. Also missing are all of the burgers, sandwiches, and pizzas.

Meanwhile, the four-cheese ravioli with sausage vodka cream sauce has been downgraded for Mother's Day to three cheeses, sans sausage. The salmon, normally a pan-seared dish hailing from the Mediterranean, is now decidedly American, chargrilled and served with (surprisingly tasty) dumplings. The Mother's Day menu seems less special, more rip-off, especially at $25 per meal plus appetizers and drinks a la carte.

Fieldstone Grill is a series of conflicts: a jaunty menu with less-than-jaunty prices; a barn housing a restaurant; a soup-soaked doily. It is up to them to resolve these conflicts. Much easier to resolve is the conflict of whether or not to eat there.

Omnivore's Dilemma, Part I - Reading Response

I must regretfully but emphatically disagree with my peer on the degree of boredom associated with Michael Pollan's chapter on Zea mays, commonly known now as corn.

First, as someone with a fascination for all things linguistic, I was very interested to learn that corn once referred, not simply to maize, but to any grain, "even a grain of salt" (Pollan 25). Surely I'm not alone in having wondered, at least once, what 'corned beef' had to do corn? I don't see how one could be bored when told that a word which, for their entire life, has been inextricably linked with the image of an ear of corn (or corn-on-the-cob, in my case; what can I say, it's a tastier image), whose fundamental identity is that food, could once have referred to anything from wheat to a grain of salt.

Second, is it not at least mildly interesting to learn that the food which, of all foods, is possibly most responsible for the existence of our country, that this food which is so perfectly suited to human cultivation would in fact have died if not for that relationship? If humans had not started to eat corn at precisely the time that we did, it may very well have drastically changed the course of history.

Third, you know you've always wondered where the term 'corn hole' came from.


Fourth, I would argue that having a farming background should make this sort of thing more interesting. As I've mentioned, I worked on a farm over the summer, and the corn started to come in just before I left. After spending two hours picking corn by myself (at sunset), I'm certainly more interested in it than I was before. But maybe that's just how I am. I also don't get people who use computers everyday but aren't the least bit interested in how work. Experience means little without understanding.

(Also, I would be much more bored hearing a spiel from a state park ranger who's only giving the tourist-friendly, cliff notes version of the history of corn, and is only there because he's being paid to be there, not because he's actually interested in it. Say what you will about Pollan, but he is definitely interested in corn.)

Fieldstone Grill Review [Workshop Draft]

When the cup of chicken soup arrives, it rests atop a lace doily. Unfortunately, the journey from the kitchen to the table was not a gentle one, and whatever this presentation was intended to communicate has been lost to the sea of soup that now sits in the saucer, drowning both the doily and the handle of the soup spoon.

The Fieldstone Grill seems to have a habit of hiding its attempts at a fine-dining aesthetic. The red and white exterior looks more like a barn than a restaurant, while the patio could be confused for an outdoor food court / picnic area, not unlike one you might find at a museum or zoo. The interior, however, while somewhat cavernous in the center (the peak of the “barn”), is a warmly lit, quiet space, sparely and tastefully decorated. The large fireplace, built from the titular fieldstones, manages to be impressive without making the place feel like a ski lodge. The large windows along the back wall provide a pleasant view of the adjacent wetlands. Back outside, the patio chairs turn out to be more comfortable than they look, and the view, again, makes for a surprisingly pleasant seating area.

The food, however, suggests that the view from the parking lot is, in fact, the more truthful representation. Chef Jason McClellan is described as an “old soul,” which apparently means that he cooks with the deteriorating taste buds of the elderly in mind. Whatever flavors might be in the chicken soup are overpowered by the uncharacteristic spiciness. The ravioli with vodka cream sauce is certainly ravioli, and the sauce certainly contains cream, but any further deductions as to the ingredients of the dish are difficult, if not impossible. The salmon and the perch are distinguishable only in that one is dry, lightly seasoned, and the other is slathered in butter, as are the soft, easy to chew green beans that accompany it. One wonders if the cold, flavorless mashed potatoes were added to the plate simply for texture.

The desserts can be comprehensively described simply as “various forms of sugar.” The triple-berry cobbler tastes like spongy bread pudding whose sweetness is probably from some sort of berry. The tiramisu is both sweeter than tiramisu usually is, and disgracefully bland. What is the point of serving tiramisu that's almost indistinguishable from the spongy, grey cobbler? The flourless chocolate cake is certainly chocolate, but dispel from your mind images of traditional Italian flourless cakes, baked with almonds and perhaps dusted with powdered sugar. This is simply melted chocolate, with a consistency somewhere between pudding and fudge. Admittedly, the vanilla ice cream served with each of the desserts is not disappointing, but, with the exception of the cake, it would have been better on its own.

It should be noted that these foods are from Fieldstone Grill's special Mother's Day menu. Lacking from said menu are many of the appetizers, salads, and entrees from the regular menu, as well as all of the burgers, sandwiches, and pizza. Meanwhile, the four-cheese ravioli with sausage vodka cream sauce has been downgraded to three cheeses, sans sausage. The salmon, previously hailing from the Mediterranean, is now decidedly American, chargrilled and served with (surprisingly tasty) dumplings. The Mother's Day menu seems less special, more rip-off, especially at $25 per meal plus appetizers and drinks a la carte.

The Fieldstone Grill is a series of conflicts: a jaunty menu with less-than-jaunty prices; fancy food with basic flavor; a barn housing a restaurant; a soup-soaked doily. It is up to them to resolve these conflicts. Much easier to resolve is the conflict of whether or not eat there.

Fieldstone Grill: Assumptions, Expectations, Anticipation

I'll admit that a restaurant with 'Grill' in the name does not immediately strike me as a “vivid entryway into another culture” or "a kind of travel or border crossing for [me] personally." But I don't usually go to Grills where they tell you who the chef is, or recommend wine pairings on the menu, where one of the appetizers costs the same as an entree. I don't usually go to places that serve ten-dollar burgers on shiny white plates, presented (judging from the pictures) like an artisanal creation, accompanied by french fries arranged like a bouquet of flowers in a metal cup.

In short, this is not my culture.

Expensive restaurants make me deeply uncomfortable. Part of it is that I associate price with fanciness, accompanied by uncomfortable clothes, mysterious etiquette, and more forks and spoons than any one person should need for one meal. The fanciness of the food is also a concern. I have fairly simple tastes; although they've expanded somewhat in the last couple years, looking for something to eat on some menus still feels like reading a Where's Waldo? book.

Value is also an issue. Why should I pay fourteen dollars for three pieces of battered fish and some fries (and some coleslaw that I won't even eat)? For that matter, why should I pay fourteen dollars for cheese ravioli with sausage vodka cream sauce when I'd be perfectly happy boiling some ravioli at home and throwing on some Prego. Why would anyone even want sausage vodka cream sauce? Sausage sauce? Sure. Cream sauce? Sure. Vodka sauce? Maybe, although I don't know what exactly vodka sauce would consist of or whether you would want it anywhere near four-cheese ravioli. But putting them all together seems unnecessary and slightly dangerous.

Then there's the price itself. My older sister has always been the one who spends money and, therefore, gets money spent on her. Starting in my early teens, I decided that I would try to offset my sister. Part of that was, when choosing between two or three things at a restaurant, I would pick the cheapest one. In the short term, it was a difference of a dollar or two. In the long term, I liked to think that, through this and other practices, I was saving my family a significant amount of money. So naturally, expensive restaurants bothered me, because they made my "job" that much harder. I've since stopped doing this as often, for whatever reason, but those feelings stick with me.

Having said all that, Fieldstone grill presents me with some contradictions. Yes, some of their food is expensive, and yes, some it comes with sausage vodka cream sauce. But the fact is, I kind of want to try that ravioli. And they do have burgers, and pizza, and pot roast, and overpriced fish-n-chips. And cheese fondue, which I want to always be a thing everywhere. Their tables don't have white table-cloths, or any table-cloths, for that matter. It actually looks pretty casual. So I guess I don't actually know what to expect.

The price still bothers me, though.

Memoir [Revised Draft] - How to Make A Pizza Bagel, or Better Living Through Toaster Ovens

In the Westgate Shopping Center in Ann Arbor, just a few minutes' drive from my house, is Barry Bagels, or Barry's Bagels, as I've called it since I first went there as a kid. According to their online menu, Barry's Bagels has nineteen bagel flavors, and I'm sure most, maybe even all of them, are quite tasty. They also have an assortment of muffins and cookies, and the types of bagel-based sandwiches one would expect to see, and I'm sure many of these are also fairly appetizing. The truth is, though, that I've only gotten one thing at Barry's that I remember: the Pizza Bagel.

The Pizza Bagel is much as you would expect it to be: a plain bagel topped with pizza sauce and pepperoni, and covered in mozzarella (and I mean covered; I defy you to find an inch of exposed bagel). It was soft and chewy and greasy - and somehow, inexplicably, it was exactly what my taste buds craved. It was not the most high-quality creation. I'm sure if I had one now I would be sorely disappointed. But it was pizza...on a bagel. And that was, for me, the perfect combination.

Besides, the Pizza Bagel was not just food – not at Barry's Bagels, anyway. See, the Pizza Bagel, by its very nature, takes longer to make than other sandwiches. That means a kid ordered a Pizza Bagel at the cost of having to wait that much longer for their food, and kids are not generally fond of waiting. Fortunately, Barry's had a design feature that satisfied both the impatient and the curious, and turned the Pizza Bagel into an experience.

After getting my side and a drink, I would set them down at the table and head towards the back of the restaurant. Here, a couple of wide, shallow steps led up to large window. This window didn't look outside, though. It looked into the kitchen. Sure, I had to wait longer to get my bagel – but I got to watch them make it. Too be honest, I don't remember what exactly that entailed. I think that I was too young at the time to really comprehend what was going on, and so, while I was captivated by the scene, the details escaped me, as they wouldn't have meant much.

The combination of the endlessly fascinating bagel-making process and pizza quickly made the Pizza Bagel one of my favorite foods. One day, when I was maybe ten years old and had not yet realized that the Pizza Bagel was largely indistinguishable from the styrofoam container it came in, I requested a trip to Barry's Bagels for lunch. My mom, knowing that Barry's Bagels meant a Pizza Bagel, and apparently not having any errands to covertly add on to the trip to make it worthwhile, let me know that if I wanted a pizza bagel, she could just make one for me. I was somewhat skeptical, but willing to go along with her for the moment.

My mom took a bagel from the freezer (no doubt from the higher-quality Bruegger's Bagels, a legitimately apostrophied chain that started in New York), warmed it up a bit in the microwave, and put on pizza sauce, pepperoni, and pieces of string cheese, which I was amazed to find out was made from mozzarella. She stuck it in the toaster oven for fifteen or twenty minutes, and since the little window on the front of it was decidedly less impressive than the one at Barry's, I grabbed a book and settled down on the couch. When the bagel was cooked, cooled, and ready to eat, not knowing what to expect, I took a bite. It was delicious.

The homemade pizza bagel opened up a whole new world for me. This was a process I could understand. It was so easy that I could even make it myself, and pretty soon I began to wonder what else I could turn into a pizza. Tortilla got cooked in the grease it soaked up from the pepperoni, making it extra crispy. Sandwich rounds were a little smaller, a good snack option. Challa bread added a sweetness to the pizza, while matzoh was made surprisingly edible, if a little messy; both had the added flavor of irony, as pepperoni and cheese is decidedly not kosher. No two pizza creations taste the same, but they all taste good.

In addition to my pizzafication explorations, I discovered that the toaster oven was a much better alternative to the microwave. Hot Pockets, Chinese food leftovers, and of course leftover pizza all tasted at least twice as good. The toaster oven also provided me with new avenues to follow in my quest to prove that anything could be turned into a sandwich. Most importantly, it's small size made the toaster oven not nearly as frightening as the gaping, sweltering maw of the full-sized oven. I even figured out that I could put the food in before pre-heating, which meant that I didn't have to go near the toaster oven while it was on, and had the added benefit of making the food take less time to cook. It's little window might not be as impressive as the one at Barry's Bagels, but the food is better, and I don't just get to watch it being made - I get to make it myself.

CYOA: Cooking With Computers

In 2001, Anthony Bourdain traveled all over the world looking for a perfect meal. Were he to write the same book in 2014, it's likely that one of his first stops would have been Austin, Texas, for the debut of the IBM Food Truck. BBC News reported on the latest venture for IBM's supercomputer, Watson, most famous for winning a game of Jeopardy! against the top two champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Instead of competing against humans, Watson is working with them to create new dishes that a human chef would likely never think of.

We've talk a lot about the intangible qualities that affect a meal: the place, the people, the mood, the amount of sleep you've had. All of these things and more go into the experience. We've especially focused on the way memory affects food. In the video that accompanies the BBC article, chef James Briscione says that "creativity is all about previous experience...it's something we remember that spurs us to create a new dish." Yet the recipes put together by Watson are new even to the chefs cooking from them. In class, we'll discuss whether this is taking away from the humanity of food. We'll also look at the more practical implications discussed in the article, and perhaps some other ways food and technology are coming together.

Memoir Assignment [Workshop Draft] - Barry('s) Pizza Bagels and the Wonders of Toaster Ovens

The Westgate Shopping Center in Ann Arbor, just a few minutes' drive from my house, was an integral part of my childhood. There sits Play It Again Sports, which for most of my childhood was the first (and usually only) place to go to find any piece of equipment for soccer, baseball, and rollerblading. Just a few doors down from that is Learning Express, the kind of toy store that's fun to visit even if you don't buy anything (although it's that much more fun if you do). Nestled in the corner is the branch of the Ann Arbor Public Library where I first discovered Tintin and the works of Garth Nix, and where I learned how a copy machine works. Practically next door is Nicola's Books, a nationally recognized independent bookstore from which much of my own collection is drawn.

Finally, next to Nicola's is Barry Bagels (or Barry's Bagels, as I called (and still call) it, because apparently even as a child I was good at pattern recognition and not so good at reality recognition). According to their online menu, Barry Barry's Bagels (it turns out calling it Barry Bagels makes me physically uncomfortable) has nineteen bagel flavors, and I'm sure most, maybe even all of them, are quite tasty. They also have an assortment of muffins and cookies, and the types of bagel-based sandwiches one would expect to see, and I'm sure many of these are also fairly appetizing. The truth is, though, that I've only gotten one thing at Barry's that I remember: the Pizza Bagel.

The Pizza Bagel is much as you would expect it to be: a plain bagel topped with pizza sauce and pepperoni, and covered in mozzarella (and I mean covered; I defy you to find an inch of exposed bagel). It was not the most high-quality creation. I'm sure if I had one now I would be sorely disappointed. But it was pizza...on a bagel. What's not to love?

Besides, the Pizza Bagel was not just food – not at Barry's Bagels, anyway. See, the Pizza Bagel, by its very nature, takes longer to make than other sandwiches. That means a kid ordered a Pizza Bagel at the cost of having to wait that much longer for their food, and kids are not generally fond of waiting. Fortunately, Barry's had a design feature that satisfied both the impatient and the curious, and turned the Pizza Bagel into an experience.

After getting my side (Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips) and a drink (Crush or root beer in a glass bottle), I would set them down at the table and head towards the back of the restaurant. Here, a couple of wide, shallow steps led up to large window. This window didn't look outside, though. It looked into the kitchen. Sure, I had to wait longer to get my bagel – but I got to watch them make it.

The combination of the (at the time) endlessly fascinating bagel-making process and pizza quickly made the Pizza Bagel one of my favorite foods. One day, when I was maybe ten years old and had not yet realized that the Pizza Bagel was largely indistinguishable from the styrofoam container it came in, I requested a trip to Barry's Bagels for lunch. My mom, knowing that Barry's Bagels meant a Pizza Bagel, and apparently not having any errands to covertly add on to the trip to make it worthwhile, let me know that if I wanted a pizza bagel, she could just make one for me. I was somewhat skeptical, but willing to go along with her for the moment.

My mom took a bagel from the freezer (no doubt from the higher-quality Bruegger's Bagels, a legitimately apostrophied chain that started in New York), warmed it up a bit in the microwave, put on pizza sauce and pepperoni, and pieces of string cheese, which I was amazed to find out was made from mozzarella. She stuck it in the toaster oven for fifteen or twenty minutes, and since the little window on the front of it was decidedly less impressive than the one at Barry's, I grabbed a book and settled down on the couch. When the bagel was cooked, cooled, and ready to eat, not knowing what to expect, I took a bite. It was delicious.

The homemade pizza bagel opened up a whole new world for me. It was so easy that I could make it myself, and pretty soon I began to wonder what else I could turn into a pizza. Tortilla got cooked in the grease it soaked up from the pepperoni, making it extra crispy. Sandwich rounds were a little smaller, a good snack option. Challa bread added a sweetness to the pizza, while matzoh was made surprisingly edible, if a little messy; both had the added flavor of irony, as pepperoni and cheese is decidedly not kosher.

In addition to my pizzafication explorations, I discovered that the toaster oven was a much better alternative to the microwave. Hot Pockets, Chinese food leftovers, and of course leftover pizza all tasted at least twice as good coming from the toaster oven than they did from the microwave. This new affinity for the toaster oven also provided me with new avenues to follow in my quest to prove that anything could be turned into a sandwich (which is, perhaps, the subject of another essay). Most importantly, the small toaster oven was not nearly as frightening as the gaping, sweltering maw of the full-sized oven, and I figured out that I could put the food in even before pre-heating, which, while it meant that I didn't have to go near the toaster oven while it was on, had the added benefit of making the food take less time to cook.

I have since expanded my culinary abilities beyond the small realm of the toaster oven. I've cooked (and over cooked) eggs and burgers, pasta and pancakes, sausage and even oatmeal that doesn't come in a package. Having spent seven weeks over the summer in  a cabin without electricity (or running water), I am now proficient at cooking with a gas stove, even if I feel like it's going to explode every time I use it. But I'm still too scared of ovens to go anywhere near them when their on, and whenever I want to make some kind of pizza, I go to the toaster oven, and watch through the little window as one of the most delicious foods imaginable comes into being.

Oreo Ice Cream

There are a few foods I will always associate with my first visit to Boston. On the first day, my dad convinced me to try yogurt and granola, a combination which immediately had me hooked. Later in the week, we stood in line outside Fenway Park for about an hour before they finally ran out of tickets. For our consolation meal we went to California Pizza Kitchen, which had yet to move into the Briarwood Mall back in Ann Arbor, and I established a positive association with it that lasted years before I realized that I didn't particularly like any of their food (another example of the corrupting influence of inexperienced taste buds - or, I suppose, of experienced taste buds, depending on how you look at it).

But the highlight of the visit was J.P. Licks, where I discovered the work of genius that is Oreo Ice Cream. Let me stress that this is not just an officially sponsored version of Cookies 'n' Cream. Cookies 'n' Cream could in no way prepare you for this. Oreo Ice Cream is literally Oreo-based ice cream. With Oreos stuck in it. You might be thinking of Dairy Queen's Oreo Blizzard. Don't. While they share a similar greyish color, J.P. Licks's Oreo Ice Cream is such a rich grey that it's almost purple. It is also softer than any ice cream has the right to be. If someone slammed an open tub of Oreo Ice Cream down on your head, you would sink smoothly in without any pain whatsoever, and then have the pleasure of eating your way out. It's like if a giant plate of Oreos and a glass of milk got in a fight, and the Oreos won. Trying to enjoy Cookies 'n' Cream or an Oreo Blizzard after eating Oreo Ice Cream is like chasing the dragon. It's like -

Sorry. Got a little carried away there. Anyway, although I've been to Boston two more times, I have never again had Oreo Ice Cream. J.P. Licks rotates their menu from month to month, so I have no idea if they would have had it had I stopped in to look. Even if they did though, I don't think I would have gotten it. Oreo Ice Cream has been added to the list foods of whom I'd rather have the glorious memory than the potentially (almost inevitably) disappointing reality. For the record, that list includes Choco Tacos (which is another story altogether), so you may want to take my rhapsodizing with a grain of salt. Or a Choco Taco.

"A Cook's Tour" (Ch. 1-6) Response

Last week, Marie shared Julian Baggini's article, "The Madeleine Effect," in which Baggini discusses, among other things, the difference between memory and recollection. Baggini (paraphrasing Søren Kierkegaard), says memory is about "factual recollection," while recollection is about "the creation and maintenance of emotional links with the past." This distinction seems to explain Baggini's disappointment with the food of his childhood - the emotions attached to the food are stronger than its flavor.

Baggini's experience is strikingly similar to Anthony Bourdain's description of his return to the French sea-side village where he spent summers with his family as a child. Bourdain and his brother visit the same bakery they used to go to, and find that "the baked goods...[are] identical in taste and appearance" to the ones they use to eat (35). The bakery even "smell[s] just as it [did] twenty-eight years ago. But something [is] missing" (35). As with Baggini, the food satisfies Bourdain's memory, but disappoints his recollection. Likewise, he is disappointed by the soup de poisson he gets which, though unchanged and still "delicious," is not as good as the soup he makes himself (35). His tastes have changed, and so he finds his old favorites lacking, just as Baggini's childhood comfort food is bland to his now-experienced taste buds.

In Bourdain's writing we see Baggini's experiment duplicated with almost scientific precision, and his theory is clearly borne out by the results. The difference is where they go from there. Baggini's take is largely philosophical, which is hardly surprising given that he is drawing from Kierkegaard. Bourdain, on the other hand, makes it personal: "I hadn't," he says, "returned to France, to this beach, my old town, for the oysters.... I'd come to find my father. And he wasn't there" (46). Had I read this before last week, it probably would have tugged at my heartstrings just as it's intended to (I say 'probably' because I'm unpredictably cynical). Based on Baggini's theory, however, his meals would likely have been just as disappointing had his father been right there with him. Just in the previous paragraph, Bourdain hits the proverbial nail on the equally proverbial head: "[Y]ou can never be ten years old again - or even truly feel like ten years old" (45). Yes, it makes sense that he would miss his father more in a place primarily associated with him. But that has less to do with the food, and more to do with death.

This isn't to say I don't understand the temptation to try a culinary resurrection. On the last day of spring break, I asked my mom to make the stuffed shells recipe she inherited from my aunt. I don't know what I expected to get from the meal, emotionally. It tasted good - better, maybe, since my mom added a little spinach, giving it a less fluffy, empty texture; just the idea of spinach would have appalled me as a kid. And maybe that's why we shouldn't attach people to food. Our taste in food changes, but our taste in people, if we truly care about them, shouldn't.

"Stealing Buddha's Dinner" (Ch. 1-9) Response

The first thing that struck me about Bich Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner was how different it was from our first reading, Jane Kramer's essay, "The Reporter's Kitchen." Kramer makes the exotic seem commonplace, and in the context of her essay, it works. The point, we are led to believe, isn't to show off all the places and people and foods she's encountered; the point is to talk about what all of that has to do with writing. When I compared the two readings, however, Kramer's narrative came off as the rarefied gourmet creation to Nguyen's home-cooked meal. Like the woman in David Sedaris's "The Ship Shape" who says, "My home - well, one of my homes," Kramer's normalization of her experiences, both journalistic and culinary, feels like an act put on for our benefit.

Nguyen, by contrast, successfully raises an apple to treasure status, and makes what might seem commonplace to us, such as Nestle's Toll House cookies, seem as exotic as any Parisian haute cuisine or traditional Moroccan dish. The way she savors (both literally and figuratively) every meal makes me think, somewhat guiltily, about my own wolfish eating habits. She confronts us with our gluttony while simultaneously praising it as the greatest goal her younger self could hope to achieve. In her writing, food becomes flavored with otherness, with belonging, with poverty, and with privilege. The poet Adam Falkner defines privilege, in part, as "the option of silence;" I think of the American obsession with diets, and of every time I've decided not to eat some treat or other, and then I think of Nguyen hiding in her grandmother's closet with her stolen desserts, and I wonder if perhaps another definition of privilege is "the option of going without."

This disparity also speaks to the high expectations American society tends to have of immigrants. Often, they'll be expected (if not explicitly then implicitly) to be able to read, write, and speak perfect English as soon as they arrive. Meanwhile, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy from 2003, 43% of U.S. adults read at a basic or below-basic level, including 11% of graduate students and those with graduate degrees. We also expect them to obey stricter laws (or may strictly obey the law), and they can be deported for almost any reason due to the lack of oversight for administrative departments. Then, to become a citizen, they have to pass a test which most people born in the U.S. would likely fail (as I and many of my classmates did when we took it in a high school U.S. Government class).