Food Event

On Wednesday I went to Campus trends food event. I was really glad I went to this event because I unexpectedly received a great meal. I had a spinach salad with cranberries topped with a tasty red vinaigrette dressing to start off with. The main dish was a potato fritter type thing and flat-dish vegetarians pizza. For desert there was some great chocolate cookies. Limeade and tea was available for drink. Not thinking there would be food there I made the tragic mistake of eating before hand, and doubling down on dinner made me a little drowsy.

I didn't really hear much conversation about the upcoming plans for the Campus trends, but if turnout is any sign things look promising. I asked around a little bit but I am not sure how they are going to get funding for all of these great things, like setting up another cafeteria in the basement of the Bernard center.

For entertainment there was poetry reading, stand-up comedy, and live music (mostly acoustic folk stuff) at the end they had a jazz/rock band that was really good. Don Conney got on stage and asked to people to sign a petition to get western to de invest from oil companies. I found out that many colleges around the country have de invested their money from oil companies and Western is now following the trend.

It was all very entertaining and informative.I am glad I went.

Food traditions

I found Lexi's presentation very enlightening. The Jewish dietary laws seem to make a lot of sense. I going to guess that the average American Jew has lower rates of obesity and diet caused health complications, because of the laws. I assume eating pork in the pre modern era was risky business, and it isn't completely safe now.

One of my favorite restaurants is Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Zingerman's a somewhat traditional Jewish deli in Ann Arbor. Lexi's presentation gave more insight into the Jewish food tradition and perhaps more reasons as to why I like this place so much.

The presentation really seemed to tie together many themes of the class. Tradition and food often go together. I wrote the first paper in this class about how food builds and sustains the social ties that make life so valuable. Families that eat together like i am sure Lexi's does have must get a lot of satisfaction from those regular interactions. Growing up or next door neighborhoods where Jewish and I would celebrate certain things with them (spin the dreidel and stuff like that) I remember eating at their house quite often, but I can't remember exactly what we ate, outside of the food being really good. My own family does not have a food tradition like Lexi's. Most of what my family eat growing up was typical American fare (German, English, and Irish dishes) with the occasional exotic dish thrown in for good measure.

From Lexi's presentation and from visiting the restaurants around town I have become well aware of the many different food traditions that exist right here in little Kalamazoo. Growing up in Kalamazoo I did not realize just how many culture's exist in a town of this size.


 

Climate Change Lecture

I found the Climate Change lecture to be very informative, interesting, and above all scary. My knowledge of the physical sciences is pretty rudimentary so the Dr.'s lecture really helped me out and presented a wealth of material in way I could understand. I left the lecture with mixed feelings. I was somewhat distraught given the challenges we will face in upcoming decades yet there was more than a glimmer of hope, especially given the voice we have in voting. Fred Upton has a powerful voice in Congress and has used that voice to block some legislation regulating climate change. Paul Clements a professor in the political science department right here at WMU is running against Upton.

After the lecture I did a few quick Google searches through the poplar media to find some dissenting opinions on the subject, expecting that most of those opinions would in someway be tied to interests of industries that would be hurt due to carbon emissions legislation. (cap and trade) Most of the articles in the mainstream media that I could find that resisted carbon emission legislation were from the Wall Street Journal. As a reader of the Wall Street Journal I have found the actual reporting content of the WSJ to be fairly balanced, but the editorial page has a pro-business bias. The overall view of climate change from the editorial writers of the WSJ is that climate change is being caused by humans, but that the overall effects are ambiguous an therefore we shouldn't do anything drastic if at all about it. The WSJ recently found 16 accomplished scientists to dissent from the IPCC consensus opinion, but all of those scientists have ties to Petroleum industry think tanks or aren't in the specialty of climate science.The piece has been vigorously attacked, fortunetly.

Beer and UFC

I was reading an interview the other day of Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather if you don't know is in the opinion of many the best pound for pound boxers in the world, and perhaps one of the greatest of all time. Floyd was asked his opinions about mixed martial arts and UFC, which is booming in popularity especially among young males. Floyd said something along the lines of "UFC is for caveman and beer drinkers, civilized people should't do things like that." The statement got me thinking. Beer drinking is associated with rough rowdy behavior while other alcohol drinks are associated with sophistication. Just imagine if somebody said "UFC is for wine drinkers," I doubt that quote has ever left anybody's mouth.

So why is beer drinking often associated with two men rolling around the ground beating the crap out of each other; an activity even boxers find barbaric?

I can't answer that, but it does seem that drinks at times reflects on one's lifestyle. Wine drinking is associated with having a discriminating palate and higher socioeconomic status. Beer is what Homer Simpson likes.

But does an appreciation of wine really mean one has a more developed taste buds than somebody who drinks beer? I have a tough time believing that especially after reading this article.

Malaysian Food

I did a little more research on Malaysian Food. Because Malaysia's population can be divided into Malaya's, Chinese and Indian the cuisine is a mixture of those food traditions. This explains why the dish I ordered at Raza Ria seemed so similar to a Chinese dish you could get at any number of Chinese restaurants around town. From the customer service person at Raza Ria I found out that the place has been in business fro 10 years and is family owned. I assume many of the ethnic restaurants around town are family owned, or many different families get together and pool their resources to start a restaurant.

Raza Ria

I went with my dad to Raza Ria, a Malaysian and Indonesian restaurant on West Main yesterday. Raza Ria is in the midst of semi-strip mall type buildings that dot West Main after you have traveled out of downtown and past the Henderson castle. The inside was nothing fancy, little more than cafeteria table and chairs like most cheap Chinese restaurants. The place had a unique smell that is hard to describe. The room was loud as the chatter from the kitchen overflowed into where the customers eat. A teenager of Malaysian or Indonesian descent but fully Americanized took our order and we sat down. I ordered shrimp and chicken mixed with vegetables and my dad ordered rice and beef. My order looked and tasted like a a typical order from any Asian restaurant. I was somewhat disappointed because I was hoping for something a tad more exotic. My dads order looked like dog food, one can't judge food by what it looks like but in this case you could, it was sort sort of beef dish. My dad got sick a day after the meal but I am not sure it's because of the food he ate; it's a mystery. If I go back to Raza Ria again I think I will make sure to order something more exotic, I enjoyed the vibe of the restaurant but the food I received but the food  was a tad too generic compared to what I had hoped for. Just by talking to the customer service person I learned a lot about Malaysia. If you ever do go to Malaysia don't bring any drugs because the punishment for that is death, also don't order the beef.

A movable feast part 2

In Page 50 - 100 Hemingway writes about bicycle racing, horse races meeting other great writers and daily life in Europe. It seems like their is a aimlessness to Hemingway's life outside of his craft of writing. Gertrude Stein dubbed Hemingway's generation the "lost generation" and I can see why. One of the most striking lines in the book I have read to far was Hemingway's claim that he doesn't trust anybody who wasn't in the war. Although not specially described in the book the reader does get the sense that World War I loomed large in Paris of the 1920's. While reading "The movable feast" I often wondered how Hemingway got the money pursue all those activities and interests on a starving artists wages. It seems Hemingway drank at a lot of bars and cafe's, he was sort of a drunk and later in life succumbed to alcoholism leading to a suicidal end. "A Movable Feast" so far as painted a picture of a vibrant artistic community of Americans in Paris, the type of artistic scene that was romanticized and de-romanticized in the Woody Allen film "Midnight in Paris" where Hemingway's character is certainly intriguing. Hemingway mentions writing the story "Up in Michigan" He had a cottage on Walloon Lake which is a very beautiful place. My family took a vacation up their one summer. The perch fishing is excellent.

I think it's interesting that young people of the 1920's were refereed to as the lost generation as our generation has also been referred to as a lost generation.