Thai Cuisine

Since I had never eaten Thai food, I decided to go to Thai Cuisine on Drake Road near Smoothie King and Colonial Kitchen. The restaurant is close to my home in the Westwood neighborhood.

I was able to talk my boyfriend into going to the restaurant with me. He is a very picky eater and has had very little experience with trying ethnic food. The restaurant is small. There are 20-30 tables inside and set up pretty close to one another. We walked in and didn't know exactly what to do. Should we seat ourselves? Should we wait for a server to seat us? I saw a young man holding a pitcher of water near a table and assumed he must be a server. He made eye contact with us, then continued talking to his table. I assumed that meant he wouldn't be helping us, so we sat ourselves at a table near the door.

The room was decorated with red and gold wall paper featuring some kind of goddess. There were gold fixtures and décor all around, but only a few things hanging on the walls. A china cabinet containing small gold figures stood in the corner and two large gold dragon-like figures sat near the door. Another large gold dragon was near the cash register. A very large gold sunburst-looking piece of art was an eye-catcher.

After a couple of minutes, the young man approached us and asked quietly what we'd like to drink and handed us menus. He brought back our lukewarm waters, no ice, with a small slice of lemon. We hadn't asked for water without ice or with lemon, but that's what was served to us. I was confused why the water wasn't very cold and didn't have ice, but I didn't ask. The menu was very straight forward. There were a few special items listed but most of the menu seemed to be a "create your own" style dish. It said: "Choose your protein" with chicken, beef, pork, tofu or veggies as the options, and then the noodle/rice options were listed underneath.

The young man walked in and out of a door leading to the kitchen, and a young (seemingly Caucasian) girl finally came to our table and said she was our server. She asked if we needed more time and I told her about my project. She suggested I get the Bangkok fried rice, "It's the most basic," she explained. But I wanted something a little more ethnic. My boyfriend exclaimed that he wanted the Bangkok fried rice and I decided on Lad Na with chicken.

Lad Na with Chicken

It was a dish with wide noodles, snap peas, carrots, onion, and chicken sautéed in a light brown garlic sauce. The server asked how spicy I wanted it and she suggested "medium" would be good if I like spicy food. I do, so I agreed to medium. My boyfriend ordered his rice extra spicy. I was scared for him.

The food came out less than 10 minutes later. It looked and smelled delicious. There was a lot of the liquid sauce on my dish so it was hard to scoop up the noodles. The food was spicy! It left my lips and tongue burning. My boyfriend said his was "dragon spitting fire" hot, but I couldn't try it since he got his with beef. Even though the food was spicy, we both really liked it. The server came back to check on us and she was glad that we liked our food. I asked her about the spiciness and she explained that it was dried, ground chili peppers that made it so hot. She said a lot of Thai food is spicy. She didn't seem to have time to talk so I didn't ask her any more questions.

The meal was good and the experience was new and exciting. I'm glad we went there and we both decided that we would go back again. After leaving, we went to get ice cream to cool off our mouths. It was a great date night.

KPL Event: Farm City

I've never read the book, Farm City, but after hearing the presentation about it last night by the author Novella Carpenter, I'm convinced it's something I should read before I die.

 

That's Novella above. She's an urban farmer. Novella live in Oakland California and started a farm in an abandoned lot near her apartment building. Farm City is the story of Novella expanding her farm in the middle of the ghetto by raising animals for meat.

 

Novella studied under Michael Pollan, the author of Omnivore's Dilemma (one of the books we looked at in class). Another book we looked at was featured in KPL's Read Together 2014 event as well - The American Way of Eating, the book I chose to read. I can't believe how perfect the timing was for this class and this KPL series of events!

 

Farm City describes a nearly perfect way of how an omnivore should eat and live. When Novella came on to the stage, the first tings I thought of her was: HIPPY!! She wasn't extremely well put together, but she looked comfortable. Her hair was long and pulled back. She wore orange, cork-bottomed clogs that matched her oversized orange sweater. She looked like a lady that cared little about what others thought of her appearance, and I can totally respect that.

 

Novella is a very funny lady. She's very crass and has a straight forward, no questions about it sense of humor. Novella talked about her urban farm called, "Ghosttown Farm" where she grows or raises nearly all of the food she needs to eat. Novella read a couple of passages from her book that described her experiences with getting her first meat birds. She bought turkeys, ducks, and chickens to raise for meat. She later raised rabbits and pigs as well. Novella did not spare any details when it came to talking about slaughtering the pigs for meat and using every part of them to make some kind of food. "We boiled down the hog heads to make bologna. Like head cheese. It was so delicious."

 

Novella talked about her interest in bee keeping to harvest honey. She sells it at farmers' markets in her town. She also raised goats for their milk and used that to make cheeses.

 

Novella is living the lifestyle of the perfect omnivore. She eats meats and plants as much as she wants, and she knows it's all healthy because she grew or raised them herself. I am amazed at this concept. She talked about ways she used her surrounding to help sustain her farm. She dumpster dives at a local Chinese restaurant to get the food for her pigs and birds. She finds and reuses wood to build structures for the animals to live in. She is a full blown farmer right in the middle of the ghetto.

 

I admire what Novella is doing and I'm glad she wrote a book to spread the word about it. Something that struck me was said after a question was asked about growing your own food. Novella said, "You know, we all need to learn how to do this. If the world were ending, I could only feed the people around me for like 5 minutes. What will we do then? Everyone needs to learn how to grow their own food so we can all be empowered. We should all be able to be self sufficient."  

My Religion / Food Tradition

I loved Lexie's presentation about Judaism and food. I never realized how much food is incorporated into that religion. I'm very glad she shared her stories. It was very enlightening.

I grew up in a household that called themselves Christians but we never really went to church. I knew the very basic ideas about Jesus and what it meant to be a Christian, but I never felt comfortable talking about my beliefs because I didn't know exactly what they were. My family didn't talk much about God or religion unless someone was dying or people of other religions were doing crazy things. I was uneducated and confused about religion and didn't really have anyone around to ask the questions I was wondering.

In school, some of my friends talked about going to youth group or getting baptized, and I always stood silent. I felt ashamed for not regularly practicing my faith (I didn't exactly know what that faith even was). I felt judged when I told people that I didn't go to church or had never read a bible. These are things that real Christians did. Was I not a real Christian? I didn't really want to be anything different, but I didn't know how to be a Christian either. I never had family members that were dedicated to going to church or reading the bible. My great grandma taught us to say our prayers before bed which I'll never forget:

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. (And I added in these next few lines myself) God, help my family and my friends. Keep me safe from harm. Leave the good dreams in and the bad dreams out. Let tomorrow be better than today. Thank you for my many blessings. In Jesus's name, Amen."

Other than my prayers at night, I only really prayed when I was really scared or when I found out someone was hurt, in trouble, or dying. I'm pretty sure the rest of my family prayed only during those times or when money was short, which was often.

As a child, religion was a very confusing and unfulfilling thing for me. As an adult, I still don't know exactly what I believe. I believe there is a greater power somewhere. I believe there is a reason for the world and our existence. I believe in destiny and I believe that some things are just out of our control. I was raised to believe in Heaven and in Hell but as I think more about this, I wonder if these terms were created to scare people. Or to give people something to look forward to if they lived a good life? I believe in these ideas enough that I'm afraid to not believe in them. What if Heaven and Hell do exist and I'm sent to Hell simply because I don't believe in them enough? What if this questioning blog post is revealing my doubts about religion and I'm damned for eternity because of it. I don't like feeling this way and it's unfortunate that there has to be so much pressure to have a religion, believe in it fully, practice it daily, recruit others, and know all the ins and outs of it. I don't know much about Christianity but I know much less about the other religions that exist in this world, so I feel that it's my most reasonable option.

Wow, where was I going with that? Basically, I don't have enough of a religious background to say that I have any food traditions that mean something to my family's religious history. I do, however, have many food traditions. We make deviled eggs for almost every major holiday. My sister and I argue about who will be making them each time and battle about whose turn out the best. My MawMaw makes her famous potato salad for all of our major family events. My mom makes some of the best cornbread dressing known to man and brings it to every Christmas and Thanksgiving feast.

That's about it. I love food and especially love celebrating with it during holidays or special occasions. I loved learning about how Lexie's family values food and thinks about it differently than I do each and everyday (like only being able to eat Kosher). They also have special food traditions for holidays. Maybe one day I'll be able to say I have those too, but for now, religion and food aren't really connected for me.

Global Warming

Global Warming.

It's a topic that's flooded the headlines for over a decade. The term has been tossed around so many times that many people have doubted its severity or validity, and even further, lost interest in the topic all together. To be honest, I was someone who swept the idea of global warming under the rug.
There were too many differing opinions. It was too controversial. I didn't know who or what to believe and I didn't understand half of what I read or heard. I tried to understand, but I was young and uneducated. I tried to make sense of the information given to me, but I wasn't sure how much of what I was reading or hearing I should trust. I gave up on trying to figure out global warming. "Someone else can deal with it," I thought, "It's not like I can do anything about it anyway."

Many of my family members disagreed with the idea of global warming, saying it was just made up to scare people or make certain people earn more money. I went along with their statements because I didn't know any better. There were scientists that were providing evidence against the reality of global warming. They said the earth experiences periods of heating and cooling all this time, that this situation is no different and nothing to be concerned about. I believed that was enough to convince me.

I'm older now. I'm more educated and have the ability to look at evidence and decided what to believe or not to believe. I'm less easily swayed by opinion and persuasion. I no longer agree with someone just because I like that person or because they're someone I'm related to. I know longer assume a statement is correct simply because it came from the mouth of a "scientist." I have my own opinions and I have the ability to base those opinions on facts and hard evidence. After the presentation on Monday, I believe I was provided with enough real, specific data and evidence to form an educated opinion on global warming.

It's a real problem and it needs to be addressed now. Global warming will have negative effects on agriculture and the sustainability of the planet. The earth could increase 2-5 degrees Celsius by 2100. This would cause a tremendous amount of problems.

Burning fossil fuels and deforestation are the main causes of global warming. The solutions to this problem are somewhat simple. The technologies are developed and available for use. Why are they not being used? Why are they not being used? WHY ARE THEY NOT BEING USED? This question rang through my mind when the professor talked about solar and wind powered energy sources. If these technologies are available are proven to be able to provide us with more than enough energy to sustain us, WHY IN THE HELL ARE THEY NOT BEING USED?

I don't have a real answer to this question, but I have an idea. Greed. The people in charge of making these decisions are being persuaded by fossil fuel burning, tree-slashing, smoke puffing, animal killing, pocket stuffing jerks who keep their own interests at large with campaign dollars and sponsorships. The representatives chosen to protect us and vote in our honor is being swayed by money. It all comes down to money, after all.

"Farmed and Dangerous"

Chipotle is in the midst of creating an online series focused around the horrors of the food industry, especially in relation to the infiltration of petroleum and other harmful chemicals into the food we eat.


"'They wanted something that could be scripted and fun but at the same time deal with serious issues and help drive people to Chipotle,' said Piper. 'We cracked this idea in an early meeting, wrote a 30-minute pilot, did a reading for them, and they fell in love with it.'"


They came up with the webseries called "Farmed and Dangerous." It's about a big, heartless corporation that has created a food pellet for cows that's made of petroleum. The petroleum pellet causes a cow to explode and the footage leaks onto the internet. The head of the company, called "Animoil," is concerned because he doesn't want this bad publicity to decrease profitability or raise awareness to the dangers of his product.


This idea is absolutely great. I think it brings attention to the realities of the food industry and will appeal to people through satire.