There’s a Place For Everyone
I know of a place; more so a kind of place, where you can find every type of person. You witness people that are loud, quiet, outgoing, boring, crazy, normal, lazy, active, funny, weird, or cool. You will spot humans of all different shape, size, ethnicity and gender and age. This location has complete diversity, it has a place for everyone. This drew me in because of how unexpected and different it can be.
My chosen location can sometime be filled with inhabitants and sometimes nearly empty. The environment there can be crazy but sometimes laid back. The place can be at a house at a park or at just about any venue. You go to these places to celebrate things like birthdays graduations and sometimes just to celebrate the end of the week! If you haven't guessed this “place” is a party! So let the fun begin!
I almost always opt to be the DD (designated driver) whenever my friends choose to go out to a party. The past couple times I did this were a little different though, as I hung out with my friends I payed a little closer attention to my surroundings. I noticed a lot of things I had never stopped to think or care about. My observations ended up being quite interesting.
Night one of observation was a saturday night the fourth of September. Everyone hopped on into my car and the night officially began. We started off the night at the “Baseball House”. We walked in and you were instantly hit by an awful scent. As the night went on I thought I would eventually get used to this horrible odor, but unfortunately that never happened. Another observation I made was that in the kitchen of this house there were at least twelve bundles of bananas I’m talking at least a good 40 bananas were in there. I found this to be quite odd. The location of this party was in Golden, Colorado, not a far jaunt from my boyfriends house were our journey began. In walked a girl I recognized, by the look on her face she was as equally unpleased by the awful aroma as I was. I realized this girl was from my math class which came to me as a surprise because this was a School of Mines party. I came to realize that about fifty percent of the girls at this party were not from Mines, most of the ladies came from Metro State or Denver University. There were probably about five guys to every one girl at the party which I have learned is typical of these parties because not many women attend the School of Mines in comparison to men. The baseball parties inhabitants were not very diverse. It was a group of about forty white individuals ranging in ages from 18-23. Almost all of the men there were athletes and all of the females were either athletes from Mines or from a different school. I found this to be typical of the other parties as well. After about thirty minutes the guys luckily had all decided it was time to leave and go to a different party. I grabbed my things and left that smelly place as soon as I could!
Once we left we made our way over to the football house which is called the “Thunder Dome” this is not a joke. The “ Thunder Dome” was pretty crazy on this night because they had played their first game that morning and this was the first party of the new school year there. The whole front yard was crowded with people. We pushed our way through and got into the house the second you walked in you were being shoved into people. Luckily I have a big boyfriend who I can use as a shield to push my way through with. We made our way through the first room and the next room was lit with just a black light and there was very loud music playing and people dancing in a very un-tasteful way. We got out of that room as soon as we could, the last room we had to squeeze through was the kitchen. The kitchen was much more laid back, the people in it were all just hanging out and having fun. This room was well lit, didn’t smell bad and wasn’t full of bananas so it was probably the most normal place I had encountered so far that night. We hung out in there for a bit then the 105 degree temperature of the house became too much to handle so we made our way to the backyard where we remained the rest of the night. It was very nice outside everyone was talking about their summers and reconnecting. There were a lot of familiar faces and the night was finally feeling fun. All of the sudden I hear two football players talking smack to each other than next thing you know a fight breaks out. One of those fights you see in the movies where everyone circles around them and oohs while they pummel each other until two others guys go in and break it up. After the fight the party died down quite a bit and we decided it was time to leave so I gathered my crew and got them all home safe.
My second night of observation was the following saturday the eleventh of September. This weekend some of my girlfriends from High School came to visit so my crew got larger. On this night our first stop was at the “hockey house”. Have you noticed the trend yet? I have at this point come to the conclusion that only athletes at the School of mines throw parties. At least they are the only ones that throw parties people actually want to attend. So we get to the hockey house and there are a large number of girls that don’t attend Mined covered in bright colored paint. Why they were covered in paint is still a mystery to me. We made our way to the “beer pong” table which was elaborately built or more so “engineered” by one of the boys living at this house. Every house we have been to is obviously more for partying than living in. I would never live in any of the houses we went to. Back to the beer pong table we are all standing there everyone is chatting and having a fun time as I make my little notes into my cell phone about the surroundings. We only recognized about 4 people total out of the 100 that were there so we decided this wasn’t where we wanted to be so I gathered up my friends and we left.
My last destination was the “Soccer house”. The soccer house was cool. The soccer players that live there obviously have rich parents. There were quite a few people there but I knew all of them. I looked down and there was a dog at my feet I sat down and played with it a majority of the night. That puppy got a lot of attention that night. The girl to guy ratio at this house was about three guys to every one girl. There was music playing off of someone's mac computer and there was a huge 52’ flat screen on the wall. The house was very old and had a really strange layout. I left my spot on the couch with the dog and made my way into the beer pong room to see what was going on in there. The team that had just won was on a 18 game winning streak which had people very excited. I looked back out into the living room where I had previously been and noticed that everyone had left. They had all went outside and were being very loud. People were running around in the streets dancing and having a jolly ol’ time which was not the greatest idea since it was eleven o’ clock at night and there were under aged people there. We decided it would be in our best interests to go home.

This was were my observations ended. I realized many things from this experience. I noticed the gender gap, I notice most of the girls that go to school of mines parties go to other schools. I also realized about 95 percent of the people at these parties were athletes. Like I thought it would be, each party had a lot of similarities and they each had their differences. At each and every place we went everyone had their own place,there were all sorts of different people and they all had their own niche. My observations also proved that you never know what to expect. I learned that all in all its fun to go out sometimes and celebrate with your friends, but I learned its even more fun to have a calm night at home with your friends just having a good time; thats were I belong, thats my place.

Monkey See Monkey Do (Remix)

It is said that most people have to see or hear something three times before they remember something enough they are able to recall that information later on. This information will begin to stick in one’s head whether or not the message is positive or negative. Such is the case of the media, the specific purpose is to convey messages to the masses; and these messages are everywhere in the world we live. Over the years with the evolution of technology, media has found more ways to get to their target audience. Each day the message varies, but whether you are looking at a magazine, listening to music, watching TV, or searching the web you can trust the media to be broadcasting their message. The most common theme of these advertisements are often not hard to miss, “You are only beautiful if you look like this.”

Media as a whole has three main objectives; advocacy, entertainment, and announcements. Underneath those objectives you can fit many different categories of media such as advertising, marketing, propaganda, music, sports, acting, and the list goes on and on. Americans are told from a very young age, from these many different sources, that if we do not fit what media shows and shares as what “looks right”; what is “pretty” or “handsome”, everyday individuals are ugly and imperfect. Media is, in a sense, shaping what our culture considers handsome or beautiful.

If “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and the beholder sees what the media shows us, isn’t beauty in the eye of the media? Subliminally, we are told from a very young age how we should look and act. A perfect example of this is at your local Wal-Mart, when looking at the toys for young boys and girls. Wander down the girl’s aisle and you will see lots of bright colors, particularly in pink, and the kinds of toys “only girls“ play with--dolls. Often it is Barbie; a blond hair, skinny, big breasted female, whose favorite activity is shopping, and that becomes a young girl’s role model. Walking down the boy’s aisle is a different story, though. All their toys are dark greens, blues and black; their role models super heroes, and G.I. Joe’s figures with large muscles and kung fu grips. When it comes to how we are “supposed” to look and act we are exposed at a young age to what media considers the “norm“, but realistically we are far from that image.

Everyday we see messages that tell us what we should look like, what we should dress like, how we should speak, and a large portion of this information is found on TV and in movies. When watching your favorite TV show or favorite movie, is the leading role played by someone who has an unfit body, bad teeth, and a poor taste in clothing? Or is it that the best things happen to the characters who look the best? While there are exceptions to this, movies and television shows that incorporate everyday people, for the most part what you see portrayed on screen is a very blunt message of the image you should be. For women it is generally blond, with big breasts, full lips, a tiny waist, and curvy hips. For men, it may be less strict, so long as you are a tall man with large muscles. TV shows for example, take the Biggest Loser. It’s a TV show and show dedicated to showing the public over the span of a season of a group of obese people losing wait. Another to take a good look at would be the TV show the Jersey shore, it’s a show fallowing the “life” of a group of adults from with what some people would call the “perfect” body. To these characters it all about GTL, it’s their life. Whether in reality television or the latest box office hit, the idea of portraying perfection is there.

This message that you are not “all you can be” is found almost anywhere, in advertisements all over the place. It can be found in late night TV, selling the latest pill that is not yet FDA approved (and is really just a tape worm eating you from the inside out), advertisements on the One Crunch, Six Pack Abs Machine, in newspaper ads, and advertisement banners at the top of a webpage. The concept that we are told we are not perfect is used to sell these products and ultimately make money. It might be safe to say that everyone has, at one point or another, fallen victim to media’s theme of imperfection. I have even fallen victim of it, and though I recognize it happening, the message is everywhere and hard to avoid at times. A person can be told they’re imperfect so many times that after a while it may stick with them and they want to do something to change it.

No where is this being spoken more loud and clear than on magazine racks. Open up any of the popular magazines, Men‘s Health, Cosmopolitan, or People Magazine, and you‘ll see similar articles all over the place-- “10 Ways to Last Longer in Bed”, “Drop 5 Pounds in a Week“, “Kristen Bell‘s Secret to Great Abs“. All these magazine articles are selling the same point. You are not okay the way you are, but if you buy from us we’ll make you better. When is it ever okay to just be ourselves. While these articles may have been written from a helpful standpoint, their bottom line is still focused on changing who we are. Inspiring change is one thing, but lowering one’s self-esteem in order to do it is the wrong way to go about making change.

It is also vital to mention music, as this theme of body perfection shows up again and again in popular song lyrics. Keeping things clean, “You love my lady lumps (love), my hump, my hump, my hump.” The Black Eyes Peas are a rather popular band, but the song “My Humps” is sending the same message about what men should find attractive in a woman’s body, particularly when talking about Fergie’s looks and why guys love her “lady lumps“. You can find tons of songs that are shaped around this concept. After all, everyone knows that Sir Mix-A-Lot “like[s] big butts and [he] cannot lie”. On top of the explicit music lyrics, the music videos for these songs only continue to show a hard to attain image of what one should look like. The average music video finds plenty of scantily clad women gyrating in the arms of their tough, well dressed, “blinged out” boyfriends; hardly a good message about looks and beauty.

In a medias voice on what is “perfection”, being okay in ones skin is something that is hard to accomplish. We can hope that even with media telling us daily we could be better and that we are not perfect, that people as a whole are able to come to a deeper understanding with one’s self and find what they think is beautiful. Sadly, that’s not always the case. It can be too easy to get wrapphttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3124575992399192770ed up in the media’s portrayal of beauty and perfection, to begin changing ourselves to fit what we think the rest of the world wants us to be. And when we change ourselves to fit someone else’s standard of perfection, we lose ourselves. Whether or not we will ever be able to avoid this message, it’s hard to say. When media influence begins at a young age, when the message that we need to look, act, and do things a certain way shapes something as benign as the toys we play with, can we fully realize we are being molded in someone else images? The real trick is finding yourself when media is
telling you to be someone else. A monkey, when shown an action repeatedly, can learn to imitate that action. A person, when shown an image repeatedly, can learn to imitate that image. Is this monkey see, monkey do behavior beneficial to us? Or is it more beneficial to look beyond the media, and learn from the images we aren’t seeing?

The Truth about the Local Park (Remix)

There are many communities all over America that claim to be integrated and that people are created equal, but in some places it doesn't seem like that is true. Growing up I remember going to the local park to play with friends, play on the swings, play chase around the jungle gym, and hide and go seek in the tunnel; what I don't remember is people who looked different from me. I am Caucasian, and when I was younger I would walk to the park by myself or with friends to play, and from what I recall the park was not very integrated. I don't ever remember seeing African Americans, Hispanics, or any other race for that matter. This made me think of how times have changed or if they really have.
To find out the truth about integrated parks, I of course had to go to one. I thought that it would be interesting to go to the park that I went to when I was a young child. This park was always very special to me and always made me feel safe. There is a lake that is the home to many ducks and frogs, a jungle gym that is a paradise to most children, and a field that seems like it goes on for miles. This park looks the same as it did all those years ago; there is still that slide with all the skid marks from kids trying to climb up it, that swirly slide that is always fun to slide down really fast, and there is still that swing set that makes kids feel like they are flying. While I was there I noticed young children playing chase around the jungle gym and hearing their parents telling them to slow down. I saw that the jungle gym is still a faded blue color which seemed to give the jungle gym its character. There were people running around the lake exercising, while taking the dog for a stroll in the park. The atmosphere that day had a nice warm breeze that was slowly changing from summer to fall. There were even kids fighting over the sand diggers, which was always a popular toy on the play ground even when I was a young child. One thing that seems like it hasn't changed are the people that go there.
Apparently throughout the course of time things haven't changed at this local community park. I was surprised to find on my trips to this park that there wasn't many different types of people. There were not many African Americans, Hispanics, or any other race, and this is shocking to me. Communities always preach about how people are created equal and that they are integrated. From what I saw that is not the case. There were young Caucasian children running around playing chase, sliding on the swirly slide, and playing rocket ship on the swing set, but they were all from the same ethnic background. There were parents who would socialize with the other parents and they would laugh and talk about their kids, but once again those parents were from the same ethnic background. On my first trip to this park I did see a Hispanic woman and her child, but the other kids and parents were not socializing with them, and the next time that I went the Hispanic woman and her child were not there. This made me wonder how people of different races feel when they are not accepted in their community.
When I went to this park as a young child I always felt accepted and safe by the other people that were there. After coming back to the same park years later I see people of a different race who are not accepted, and it makes me wonder what they are thinking and feeling in this situation. The looks on their faces that day said it all; they were uncomfortable and it made me hurt for them. They had this look of complete sadness accompanied by a look of defeat. At that moment it was like the sky went gray and the joy that once filled the park was gone, and in its place was the feeling of great depression. That day some of the people at that park would even look at them like they were from a different planet; it was like the people at the park just saw the woman and her child come to earth in a flying saucer. People who are from different ethnic backgrounds should not have to feel this way in their own community. These people should have felt how everyone else feels when they go to this park and that is safe and welcomed by others.
The local park is a place that people can go to in order to relax, exercise, play with their kids on the play ground, socialize with the people around them, and be able to enjoy themselves. I now see that this is not the case for everyone in a community. People claim that times have changed and that communities are integrated and make everyone in that community feel equal, but from what I saw that is not true. It is not fair for people to feel unimportant, unwelcome, and in some cases unsafe. Through doing this I have learned a lot about my community and it is disappointing. People need to learn more about this and are able to by going to local organizations who try to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Maybe if people were more aware and educated than racial discrimination wouldn't happen. This local park over the years has not changed in appearance and the people who attend it.

Fishing, Be Smart to Eat, (Final)

In the summer, it is very hot and humid in my city , Saihat,. The first thing that you can think of is falling in the sea which is near the house. Second thing is fishing, since the smell of the sea gives the desire to eat seafood. So, that’s why we love fishing in Saihat. In fact, when I was borne, I opened my eyes seeing myself in a boat with my brothers who were trying to catch fish in the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. My city, Saihat, is near the sea. So, Fishing is the best sport there. However it is not just a sport it is a way for the people to fill their stomach by the delicious special types of fish that we have in the Arabian Gulf. Before more than 60 years the people in Saihat ether live by fishing or farming Nakhlah trees. My history with fishing is the most things I’m proud with. Indeed, it is the smartest way to eat. Each type of fish has its own way of challenging the fishermen. In addition, each type characterized by special taste. On the other hand, Shrimp is an important kind of seafood that the people like in Saihat and it needs a spacial instruments to catch it.

I have a huge history of fishing with my brothers that I'm proud with. Since I was nine years old, I started the real fishing with my big brothers. Sometimes we go fishing near our house. But, usually we go by car to other sites that contains spacial types of fish. OmHuwaid is a very good site for fishing that is in Saudi Arabia and very close to Qatar. In There, we have our own wooden Hut called (Barasti) that we stay in for couple of days for fishing in OmHuwaid. I don’t like this site, because there are lots of bugs (big beetles).And, there are some Jin (Jinny). And they are really scarey and can do lots of troubles. Also, we go fishing in RasBuAli. There are lots kind of fish. Besides, RasBuAli is almost in AlJubail city which is very modern, beautiful and contains lots of facilities. I remember once our car was broken in the middle the way between RasBuAli and Saihat. So, we were stuck with the car that we pushed until we found a Gas station that includes an Auto work shop. Fortunately, the fish was in a box filled with iced that keep it fresh. However, it was a funny memory.

In the Arabian Gulf, there are many kinds of spacial fish that the Gulf characterized with. These types may be occurred in other places but for sure its not the same taste. The very hot and humed wather we have gives the fish it's full fat that gives the special taste. Moreover, each sites in the sea contains a spacefic types of fish. For example,in Saihat there is lots of shrimp and very good fish called (Made). Both the shrimp and (Made) grew near the muddy area. Also, in OmHuwaid there is the most famous fish in the Gulf called (Hamor) that lives near the rocky area. In RasBuAli there is a very bad fish that I don't like called (Hagool) has a long sharp mouth. This fish from my boint of view has a bad taste. Moreover, it is crazy, it just like to hit any light it can see. I remember ones we were 6 members fishing togather at night inside the sea. And our fishing tool were stuck in the rocks, so, we used a light. Suddenly a big Hagool with his long sharp teath was swimming too fast in order to jump into our light. As a result we all fall down in the water and drop all the fish that we caught.

In the Arabian Gulf, There are many instruments and tools that are used in fishing. We dont use fishing rod, we uses (Jallah) which is close to the fishing road. However for catching lots of fish in one time we uses spacial type of niloan robbar that are fixed as big network called fishermen net. this can be distributed in the sea in a way that the fish attached to it. But, there is a smart fish in the Arabian Gulf called (Subaiti) that feel the fishermen net and jump. So, In order to catch this fish we need to put the the tripled fishermen net that contains another net directly after the the first misrepresentative net in which (Subaiti) will attached to after jumping. Moreover, we uses a tool called (shakkah) instead of holding the fishing rod. It is just a long transparent thread that contains lots of hocks. For Shrimp, we used tool called (Kofeiah) that catch the shrimp while the boat is moving like filling a spoon.

As a conclusion, I love fishing as I love eat fish. Because, in both you need to be smart. You must be smart to catch fish. However, you need to be smarter in cocking and eating the fish. Many people dont like fish, surly, not because it is bad. But, they dont know how to cock it. Each type of fish has its own way of cocking depending on its percentage of fat, percentage of bones and more. So remember if you want to eat fish you need to think.

fish cocked by my lovely wife: Banana split style :)

Final Draft

Lazy Dining

Everyday when we are out at work or school, we are faced with a decision: What to do for lunch? Do we pack our own lunch? No— that’s too much work. Do we eat out at a nice restaurant? No— that takes too much time and costs too much money, not to mention the long drive to get to one. It seems like getting lunch is becoming a near-impossible task. But right before we abandon all hope, there shines a ray of light at the end of the tunnel: fast food! It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s fast, and there’s a restaurant on every corner. And above all, it tastes delicious! Why wouldn’t we indulge in such a flight of fancy?

I worked at a Mickey D’s all throughout high school. To say the least, it was highly unpleasant. This was for a large variety of reasons, which seemed to get increasingly worse as my time there droned on.The bathroom was almost never cleaned; and why would it be? The people working there were comprised of teenage kids getting paid minimum wage and managers that were only biding their time until they could get out of this aptly deemed “hellhole.” There were constantly flies buzzing around in the kitchen, somehow even in the heart of winter. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy the onions, constantly landing on them and sitting there until someone needed to use them on a double-cheeseburger.

“Put the fly traps up so the customers can’t see them,” my hefty manager Jodie snarled at me, when she was finally forced to address the matter.

Somewhere halfway into my enlightening McDonald’s employment, mice were discovered living in the back room by my fellow crew member, Duane, as he was picking up a fresh box of buns. When he went to throw them out, realizing that the mice had gotten to some of the buns, Jodie stopped him.

“That is worth money!” Jodie snapped. She looked at him like he was a guilty ten-year-old boy caught red-handed trying to hide a precious family heirloom he had just broken.

The mice ended up staying for a few months (Jodie didn’t feel like dealing with them. She even ended up naming a few of them) until an enraged family stormed in, their kid having opened a mouse in his “happy” meal. Of course, being the one working the front counter, I had to be yelled at for this. These people were devastated. A flood of tears and a lot of excess wailing was emitted from their child, while the whole restaurant stared. Eventually, a manager came out. To make up for their confounding and possibly threatening experience, we gave them a free meal! Oddly and to my immense surprise, this was enough to satisfy them, and they left happy.

Why would anyone possibly know that something is bad, unpleasant, or foul, but yet partake in it anyway? Why would we as intelligent beings open the doors to our own torture? Do people pave the way to their own regret?

McDonald’s is already famous for being some of the unhealthiest food in the world. They even show us (very secretively I might add) on the bottom of the little piece of paper that we get on the “eating in” tray, all the nutrition information of everything on the menu. I still can recall by heart to this day, one the healthiest sandwiches on that menu was the McChicken at a "miniscule" 360 calories. This is a whopping 11 percent of our calories for the day. Add a small coke and small fry for a grand total of 990 calories; nearly half of our suggested daily intake for a meal that’s somewhat less than satisfying. For a larger meal, take the number three value meal for example: the mouth-watering Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese. Add a medium fry and a drink and we get roughly 1500 calories. Even the salads contain more calories than the hamburgers if one adds cheese and dressing before consumption. More and more Americans are becoming well aware of this fact. It’s been spelled out in front of many people again and again. People know that McDonald’s is unhealthy, but yet millions of people a day choose McDonald’s for lunch.

The fact of the matter is, McDonald’s food is in no way satisfying. The reason we choose the nearest McDonald’s over packing a lunch or finding a sit down restaurant is simple. It’s cheap, easy, and fast. That’s it. In this respect, we put a price on our own health and even our contentment. Can the few bucks we saved be used to buy us happiness later on? Where will those few dollars be the day we get diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes? They will be paying our health bill as we look with suppressed angst back on what we could have done differently. It is the simple bad choices in the present that lead to regret in the future.

Food as Art (Final)

I remember the first time I tried sushi. My aunt usually takes my siblings and I out on special occasions. This was my 12th birthday. Before this the only sushi I had tasted was Costco’s California rolls, which isn’t “real” sushi. We started off with a bowl of Udon soup with a piece of fried shrim. The soup was the most relaxing thing I’ve ever tasted. The shrimp was a perfect complement to the soup. It was cooked perfectly, making it slightly crunchy on the shell with a delicate inside. The sushi was the best part of the meal.

The sushi plate itself looked like a something by Paul Klee. Each piece of sushi was delicately crafted with vibrant orange and green ingredients, highlighted by the contrast of the pure white rice and darker seaweed. The visual experience was only the beginning. I carefully dipped the corner of a yellowtail roll in a small plate of soysuace-wasabi mixture and took a bite. My entire mouth danced with flavor. There were so many levels of taste and complexity, yet it had a clear dominant flavor which made it simple. It was like looking at a painting for the first time; there was so much to discover in the details. With every bite I felt like I tasted something new.

One of my favorite things to do is try new foods from different cultures, and I don’t mean Chinese takeout. I mean authentic food that was created from a different viewpoint. The art of a culture is like a window into what their life is like. It’s part of human nature to be curious about the way people live, and about people’s ideas that seem foreign to us. To taste what people eat gives us a unique view into the way they think, not just on a cultural level, but also on an individual level. Just like an artist can use different colors and mediums to communicate an idea, a chef uses different flavors and textures to let you taste what the’re thinking.

A more recent experience of mine was when I tried Vietnamese food. The restaurant's speciality was the Pho bowl. The dish consisted of rice noodles, brisket, a large variety of herbs ranging from sprouts to dandelion leaves, and topped with a small dab of Sriracha (a type of Asian hot sauce). I hadn't tried most of the Ingredients before, let alone that combination, so this was a very new experience for me. Despite this, there was something homey and familiar about the taste. It reminded me of something I would eat for lunch on a cold day after shoveling the driveway. I found it interesting that like a carefully written song, this dish could take me to a specific place. Even though I had never tasted it before, I was still able to gain some understanding of where the food came from, and despite it being invented in a distant country, I was able to relate.

Even though art can help us find common ground with other cultures, it still isn't universal. A friend of mine who composes music told me a story about a successful musician in Africa named Salim. Some of Salim’s western friends wanted to show him what a symphony orchestra was like, so they took him to London to watch Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed. He watched with fascination during the course of the symphony. At the end His friends asked him what his favorite part was. “The first song,” Salim replied. At first his friends assumed this meant the first movement, but after further questioning they realized he meant the part where the orchestra was tuning. He liked how all of the sounds blended together. What his western friends thought was chaos, Salim had interpreted as music. The same is true with food. Most of us wouldn’t enjoy some exotic tribal cuisine, and they probably wouldn’t think hot dogs and apple pie are fit for eating.

Giorgio de Chirico, a pre-surrealist painter, said this about art: “To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.” I think food as an art form has a head start. While food cant be as profound as other art forms, it also doesn't have the natural limits that visual arts do. Food doesn’t need to conform to philosophers ideas of what it should or shouldn't be, and it isn't required to imitate reality in some profound way. Because there are no such limitations with food, it just flows out of a culture, unrestricted. This doesn't reduce its importance as a component of humanity, it just means that it's a natural one. Regardless of where you’re from, what you’ve tasted, and what you’d like to taste, the art of food is something that we can all appreciate and enjoy. Bon appetit.

An Unforgettable Thanksgiving (final Draft)


Every Thanksgiving since I could remember my mom and grandma made Red Pork Chili. Since I was a kid a lot has changed. When I was young my family would get together for Thanksgiving my mom and grandma would usually do the cooking. About 15 years ago my grandma moved to New Mexico and my family didn’t get together for Thanksgiving anymore. Everyone was getting older and all of my auntie’s and uncle’s kids were grown up and they had families. So all my mom’s brother’s and sister’s did their own things for Thanksgiving. My mom and dad got divorced so usually it was just my brother, my mom, and me but my mom still cooked and made the Red Chili for Thanksgiving.
Well this past Thanksgiving my mom invited me my nina, nino, auntie, my brother, his lady, her kids, and one of my friends I knew since I was a kid . I was looking forward to this because it was the first time in years that this much of my family got together for Thanksgiving.
Well Thanksgiving morning my brother went to my mom’s to drop off his lady and her kids. My brother came to pick me, my auntie, and friend up to take us to my mom’s. On the way over there we came to a stop sign and my brother came to a complete stop (or at least I think he did) so we made a turn on the next street. Well all of the sudden we seen flashing lights my brother said “are they pulling us over” and sure enough the cop pulled us over. He came to the car and asked us for are Id.’s. Well my brother and I got are Id.’s. We gave them to the cop but my friend and auntie didn’t have their Id.’s plus both of them had warrants out for their arrest.
My auntie said to us “I’m going to jail” and she was mad because out of all the days it had to be Thanksgiving she was going to go to jail. My friend told us “just say I’m Marco” (Marco’s my friends brother) so I don’t go to jail. So the cop went back to his car ran all of a our name’s and called another cop to come. When the other cop got there they both got out of their cars and came to our car, one on the left side of the car, the other on the right side of the car. One of the cops said “Mr. Rodregez please step out of the car” the other cop said “Ms. Montoya please step out of the car” so both of them got out. The cops put handcuffs on both of them, one cop took my auntie to his car put her in it. Then he came to our car and said “she is going to jail”. The other cop told us “Mr. Rodregez has a warrant out of New Mexico so were just waiting for the Albuquerque Police Department to call us back that way we know what to do with him, if they don’t call back in 15 minutes we’ll let him go”. So we waited for the Albuquerque PD. To call back, they never did so the cops let my friend go. So my brother, my friend, and I went to my mom’s and ate dinner. Later on my nino and nina came, so I went with them to get my auntie out of jail. After that we all went to my mom’s and ate diner as a family this time.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. of pork
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. garlic salt
4 tbsp. oil
2 tbsp. flour
8-10 chili pods from ristras
Rinse the chili pods and take the stems and seeds out. Put the chili pods in 4 cups steaming hot water and let sit about 30 min. then blend. Add oil to pan and brown pork. When pork is done add the flour and cook till brown. Then add 4 cups cold water bring to a boil. Then add the blended chili pods, bring back to a boil add salt and garlic salt then simmer about 20 minutes.

Papa

When I think of food, I think of “The Cousins.” Family on my mom side, who are so AWESOME. It makes me think of my papa who was the best person to walk this planet, he may have not been a great cook and could only help with getting drinks or putting sandwich ingredients out on the table for lunch but he was sure always there for the great feasting times with the family!

Thanksgiving is always the best time getting together with my family and not only being happy being together but celebrating my papa. We always make the big turkey and of course after eating take nap time like our papa would in his awesome broke in recliner chair. We would have to have the mashed potatoes with EXTRA gravy with pepper on top just like he would. Corn on the cob swirled in butter, stuffing of course! But even after all of it and the whole sha-bang of thanksgiving dinner, my favorite of his is after our awesome nap and pulling out the dominoes for game time, it was making the cold turkey sandwich! Classic after the nap with just two pieces of bread, mayo, or for him miracle whip and a piece of lettuce, delicious!

As wrong as it is but yet funny because your little and think your such a little rebel, like I did. I took after my papa and his “winning” ways in dominoes, up the sleeve with the extra ones you don’t need. We were a team, an ornery one at that! It was fun and we laughed a lot and specially the time I blew it. My cousin Kati, (who by the way is like dominoes champ, for the real’s) caught our tricks or at least just mine. She bumped into my sleeve. (ha-ha) everyone knew who put me up to it though so I didn’t have to tell!

Kati and I were ornery little girls and quite creative when it came to little simple food to make. We got our papa addicted to butter, with honey and sliced up banana’s on a piece of toast! So good! It was a little slice of baby jesus in my mind these days and back then well I could eat anything with banana’s and honey! It was our favorite snack with our papa!

When I visited Holyoke back east in Colorado where they had moved when I was, gosh in 2nd grade. It was my favorite place running wild and eating endless amounts of homemade ice cream! I remember helping turn the handle to make it because it wasn’t electric! It was so much fun just being around all the family and goofing around! Like my cousin Joe would always come up behind me and pick me up over his shoulder and twirl me around.

My papa loved crushed up snickers in his ice cream. He was the one who got me addicted to snickers, being my favorite candy bar! He now has his very own place on my body with a snickers bar tattoo to represent him. He will always be my favorite person to think about and how awesomely rad he was and the food he ate which is very fried, greasy, creamy, meaty, candy yumminess. He didn’t care how crappy it was for his body, as long as it tasted good he was all for it!

I wish I had been older to get to know him on a different level then just a little girl But being little and the innocents of a child it was always fun and never a dual moment, we kept him young having to chase us little ornery ones around. And for him he always had a smile at the end of the table with his pile of mashed potates.

Around the World

When I was about 9 years old I tried a piece of sushi, not sure what kind of roll it was, but I took a bite and unpleasantly put it down not to touch it again for a great five years. I'm not sure what it was about that roll but it didn't meet my expectations for the kinds of food I'd likely eat when I was younger. I later have learned that I love to try out different kinds of foods, that come from around the world. It was until a couple years ago, that I savored the taste of the Vegas roll at Happy Sumo, a marvelous sushi place near Westminster, in which I had discovered my days of not-eating sushi were over.
I went around many sushi bars and restaurants, one specifically, Hibachi, even held a very entertaining show. The chef amused us with his talented cooking skills and tricked some of the people at the table with his rubber squirts of ketchup. I tried out all the different kinds of sushi; california roll, spicy tuna roll, spider roll, and many other types of sushi. The rolls are made in numerous shapes and sizes, some square, and most of them circles. All of them rolled with a variety of types of fish, vegetables and spices. My love to sushi grew as much as my families love to sushi grew. My brother started making sushi and preparing it for birthday parties or other events. A couple asked him to make sushi for some of their events, they loved having the great tasting sushi at the parties. Otherwise all of the guests impatiently wait for he sushi whenever they come over for dinner. He has earned his title as "The Sushi Master" from my family and friends for his tremendous sushi preparing skills. He even got to unwrap a sushi making kit one of his friends gave him for Christmas. It included a rolling mat, some sushi making utensils, and most importantly a chef hat. He has been able to make delicious California, spicy tuna, as well as smoked salmon with caviar rolls.
The best part of making sushi is obviously eating it, which I do a great deal of help with. preparing the sushi is just as interesting though. The piece of dried seaweed is where everything goes onto, after the rice is smothered onto the seaweed, leaving a one inch line without rice so the roll could be wrapped. Your hands have to always have moisture when dealing with the rice, or else it will stick to you fingers like glue. Next, the meat is layered down; steak, crab, or shrimp. Followed by spices and vegetables sprinkled down the meat. Sauces next if you want them. Finally, the sushi is rolled and wrapped with a bamboo mat. One of the toughest part preparing the sushi is the cutting. The knife always has to be wet so it doesn't collect the residue from the rice. Otherwise, the rice will fall apart and stick to the knife which will create non-clean cuts. Try to prevent having big knifes too get the cleanest cuts of the sushi. That's the end of it though, you got yourself some sushi. You can make many different kinds of sushi, with a variety of ingredients. Put whatever "floats your boat" inside the sushi, make it as personalized as you want. The sushi can be very healthy for you; the protein omega 3 the fish contains, and the vitamins from the good ole vegetables in the sushi as well. I enjoy plain rolls and non-fried ones to stay on the healthy side.
My family has built the tradition of eating different types of foods and definitely don't mind adding more valuable foods to my families traditions. I think it is very interesting that we could eat the same kind of food that people eat thousands and thousands of miles from us, enjoy the fun of making the food and preparing delicious meals the same as if we were in there country or other region of the world. I was born in Russia, raised here in America, for my whole life but my parents still to this day, cook Russian foods almost on a daily basis. My mother passes on the tradition by teaching my sister some of the scrumptious recipes shes been taught by her mother like peroshki. They can be served sweet or salty, whatever you desire and are delicious. Living here in America, I have always been trying out different foods than what I am use to eating at home even basic everyday meals like mac n cheese. It has always been important to my family to try out different cultures of food, understanding that we would love to have someone try our types of food that is cooked in my house. I cherish my family's traditions and love to eat the kinds of foods that are cooked by my mother. I think it is very necessary to try foods that come from across the world. You will appreciate the savory meals and will be back begging for more when you find the the mouth watering meal that you enjoy eating in or out. So get out there and if you haven't already, go out there and try a food that is not on your shopping list and you'll be surprised with what kind of foods you can fall in love with.

Changing Tradition (final)

Every year we have a family tradition during Christmas time where we pick a day to make strudel. There are dozens of ways you could possibly make strudel, but ours has become a staple during the holiday season. It’s type of pastry, but bigger, filled with fruits, sugar, and nuts. In ours we put sliced apples and pears, cherries, white raisins, chopped up walnuts, sugar, cinnamon sugar, and melted butter. Everything gets added layer after layer onto the Filo dough and then rolled up and shaped into a horseshoe. We place it in the oven, baste it with butter every ten minutes and let it cook for an hour until golden brown and lightly crisp. It is very big and it easily becomes breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next few days!

It wasn’t very long after I had been a part of this family tradition, until we had to alter its recipe. I was just 4 years old when something in my mouth wouldn’t stop bothering me. I kept going to the dentist because of it and they drilled and refilled it every time I went in, until they realized it was a bigger problem than they thought. I had a tooth that grew in yellow with no enamel and it slowly started decaying; explained to me as a tooth that grows inside out. That’s why it kept giving me trouble. I was too young to have the novacain shot, so I was told the only way to numb me was to use the laughing gas, which was cherry flavored. I thought, “Well this is better than getting a shot, right?” Wrong. The experience was horrible. I just hear drilling and grinding, and I feel objects being forced into my mouth that was obviously too small to fit their 8 different tools all at the same time. An hour or so went by, my lip was hanging there, still numb from the laughing gas, and I had a very sore mouth. This whole dentist experience has made me completely hate cherries.

Cherry flavored candy, cherry flavored popsicles, cherry pie, cherry soda, cherry chip cookies, cherry medicine, cherry licorice, cherry chapstick, and even, you guessed it, cherries themselves are an automatic flashback the memory of a bad experience. I can’t be around the smell of them and I can’t eat anything that even tastes remotely like them because all it does it bring back those memories. So what does this mean for our family tradition? I didn’t know what to do. I thought, “Do I just skip out on eating strudel every Christmas?” “Do I suffer through it and eat it to make my family happy?” I felt bad wanting to change the recipe just because I had a bad experience, but there was nothing I could really do. I didn’t want to miss out on it, it’s tradition.
That year I asked if we could skip the cherries on the strudel. There were people in the family who were a bit sad because, well, they like cherries. Even though some of them were not really too fond of the idea, they were nice enough to say yes to my question. A few years went by just making the strudel with sugar, pears, apples, butter, raisins, and walnuts; no cherries. It started to make me feel bad, so I asked if we could start making two every Christmas; one with cherries, one without. That worked well at first, until it ended up being way too much food for everyone to eat before it went bad. Then I finally had an idea. I don’t know why no one thought of it, or why it somehow never came up, but I told them we can do cherries on half of the strudel, that way we all can have what we want. The recipe didn’t alter too much, but it took a while to get a new family tradition compromised.

All because I had a bad experience, I had to alter our family recipe just a little bit so I can still be a part of enjoying it. For the past eight years strudel has been made the exact same way it started out, but cherries now only make room for half of it. I never expected it to be so difficult, but family is family, and at least they still love me. I hope!

Nerd Night (final draft)

Staying up late is a very common occurrence with me and several of my friends. Sometimes it’s going out to bars but other times it’s staying home and punishing some anonymous individuals hiding behind an alias. On those nights we speak a whole different language, shouting phrases that would make no sense to anyone unfamiliar with this phenomenon. The transformation to our vocabulary isn’t the only change that occurs on these nerdy nights of competition, our diet becomes a lot less healthy. We chow down on some of the unhealthiest food, but it is extremely delicious. As much as I love our feast of junk, it might be beneficial to us all if we can find a healthier substitute, if even only a little.

Snacks are one of the most essential parts of nerd night. Other than the hardware and software, they’re all we need! The most common snacks chosen for these events include, but are definitely not limited to: Cheetos, Mountain Dew, pizza rolls, and of course the all mighty mozzarella sticks. It is well known this is probably one of the most unwholesome activities we can participate in, and we do not care. We do not choose these foods with health in mind though. Our nights consist of very little break time; we want to get back at it as soon as possible. We grab what we can in minutes and chow down. All there is to care about is having fun with some friends and trying our hardest to come out on top.

From time to time I do wonder if there was a way for us to enjoy our nerd nights in a slightly less fattening way. I’ve thought of checking for some easy ways to make different foods that taste just as good. I search in hopes of finding some rare and unbelievable recipes that are relatively easy to make. Not only need they be easy to make, but these dishes should contain some nutrients, rather than none. As of now, it has been to no avail. I hope that if I look hard enough eventually I will have to find something out there that meets these criteria.

Staying awake until the sun is peaking though the window, caffeine coursing through our veins we feel the rush of victory and the crush of defeat. Cramming down snacks, chugging soda, blistering our thumbs, or breaking another keyboard; this is how we spend those nights we’re out of cash. Health doesn’t even cross our minds, just the fun and company of the night. To some it may not seem like any fun at all, but to us it is a blast.

Kotopoulo (Final)

For the past five month or so now, by best friend (Chloe) and I have been making dinner at one another’s house every Sunday night. The idea of us doing this actually came to us months before we ever started doing it and for awhile each one of us would randomly find a recipe somewhere and either one of us would it think it was a good one and would want to try it. The only problem was coming up with a good time to make it. After a while recipes were piling up, and neither one of us were finding a good time that worked for both of us to make them. One night we just decided that every Sunday we would make dinner. Why Sunday? I’m really not sure, but it just seemed to work. We usually would make whatever recipe we thought both would be the best, go out buy the stuff we needed for it and make it at my house.

The things we made varied week to week and generally there was no relation week to week with what we made. The first week I remember we made this macaroni and cheese recipe I found online that was made with eggs, I hated it which was odd considering macaroni and cheese is my all time favorite food, but everyone else loved it. Another week Chloe found a recipe for mango salmon, two of my favorite things both of us loved that one, but I remember that one being a pain in the butt to make and a real big mess to clean up after we were done. Chloe and I have no real name for this weekly dinner making thing and we have no real rules or restrictions on what we can make and eat, other then we can’t have coconut in the food, I’m allergic and don’t want to ruin our weekly meals by a trip to the emergency room.

Usually Chloe and I get stuck in this pattern of what kind of foods we will make on Sunday, one month we were making a lot of Italian and another week we found ourselves making Cajun food and then Greek food the next month. There was a good reason for this three month kick. The month we made only Italian food was because for the most part it was pretty easy, the month we did a lot of Cajun was because Chloe family has a lot of Cajun recipes saved from her grandmother and the Greek month was because I’m Greek and Chloe thought that one factor made me a master chef of Greek food, which sadly I am no wear close to a master chef at anything. Each one of those months had their good and bad meals, more good than bad. There was one recipe that I remember no one liked, this one I knew would be bad from the get go but we still made it anyway.

Chicken(Kotopoulo)with pasta and walnuts with garlic hummus and pita chips, sounds like it would be tasty, sounds like it would be easy to make right? The hummus and pita chips were great (not brag, but I do have those two things down I have made them several time before), but the pasta… not so much. The recipe called for as eight item total. We altered just one thing, rather than buy one “big chicken” we bought a few breast, other than that we kept to the recipe and what it told us to do.

So Chloe and I had gone to the store to get all the stuff to make our dinner. We stopped at King Soopers; we tend to always go there when we buy our food-eating-stuff. We found everything rather easy, other than the Walnuts. They were a pain to find and rather than just add a different nut like I suggested Chloe insisted we find Walnuts which meant going to two other stores to find them. After we had finally found our walnuts at a Wholefoods (which for this one bag of nuts was almost $10) we made our way back to my house to make dinner. At this point I really didn’t think this would turn out well, to tell you the truth why I had this feeling is beyond me, but I did. It could have been this wild adventure for the walnuts.


We made the pita chips and hummus first, which if I had a recipe for it I would give it to you, but whenever I make it I kind of just eyeball everything and put it whatever I feel will work. That night I’m pretty sure I just put in a few things in, I roasted fresh garlic, and blended them with the chickpeas, a little lemon juice, salt pepper, extra virgin olive oil and some red peppers I had left over from my lunch the day before. The chips I sort of cheated on that night, we had bought pre made pitas and all I did was cut them into small little triangle and broiled them with a little feta cheese on top of them till they were golden brown. Hummus is different from person to person how they are made and what they put in it. Everyone thinks of it differently, for instance Brena thinks the word itself is weird and might not ever try it because of that and other will eat it with everything. I find that the recipes for hummus vary as much as people do, but generally have the same basis to it.

We brought some water to a boil for the pasta, which was angel hair in case you were wondering, not my favorite, but the recipe called for thin, small pasta. Chloe cut the chicken into small cubes, I was on onions and tomatoes duty, I cut the two of them up which then went into a sauce pan with the salt, pepper, butter, olive oil spearmint mix. Everything is cooking, Chloe and I are trying to clean up the mess we have going from everything we just cut up. The chick juices manages to leak off the cutting board onto the table, and I had made a rather big mess cutting the tomatoes, I came to the conclusion the knife I was using for the tomatoes was just a little too dull to cut something like a tomato, I ended up squishing most of the tomatoes as I cut them. Things are getting close to being done. We drained the pasta and put the walnuts in right away just like the directions said to. Then came what they called the sauce, we mixed it all in one big bowl and served it to everyone in the house that night, which was Chloe, myself, my mom and sister. The directions for the “sauce” didn’t have much of an explanation to it, for the most part put everything in a pan and let it all cook together. It didn’t say for how long, or what the heat should be set at for the pan. But we just went with it, hoping for the best.

We all were pretty excited to try it. I remember serving my bowl last and sitting down and taking a bite and it having no flavor. Not to be gross, but I couldn’t even swallow it, if there was a word to describe it I would just call it blah. It was so bland; I maybe got through two bites after the first one and was done. Why I kept eating after the first bite, maybe I thought the taste would be different. Chloe and my mom tried adding more salt and pepper, which according to them didn’t help much, who knows how much salt or pepper they added my guess would be a handful. After everyone had finished eating, which only about ten minutes after we served, each one of us had only taken about three- five bites and then threw in the towel.

Why was the pasta so bad? I have no clue, it just was. I personally don’t want to take another crack at this recipe, every now and then when we make something pasta related I try to think of things we could have added to make it better and nothing ever comes to mind. I like to cook, but I’m not all that great at it. Who knows maybe one day I’ll become a master chef and will perfect the Chicken with pasta and walnuts, but until that day comes the night we made Chicken with pasta and walnuts will be a semi bad food memory.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (Final)

Every family has its own traditions that create many memories. Most of these family traditions are about food. Some families have a secret recipe, or make certain foods for the holidays. With all family traditions comes memories and feelings about them too. People always remember the way the atmosphere felt, the smells that were in the air and the people that surrounded them. Even though some family traditions I experienced when I was younger were simple they were just as remember able.

When I was younger my family was no exception to having family traditions. Some of those traditions were more fun and interesting than others but they always brought memories. One family tradition my family had that was most memorable for me was about my Grandmother. When my siblings and I were younger we would always spend our holiday brakes at my Grandmothers house. She was the typical Grandma; she was very nice, caring, had short white hair, called me sweetheart, had glasses, and loved to bake. Every time I walked into her house I always felt like I was stepping back in time, especially when I walked into the kitchen; everything looked like it was from the forties or fifties. While I was over at her house we would make many amazing deserts like banana bread, sugar cookies, and fudge but my favorite was simply chocolate chip cookies.

Making all kinds of different deserts for the holidays was very important to my Grandmother. She always thought that people should enjoy the food they were eating so she always put her heart and soul into what she was making. By helping her she gave me the same outlook on food. Whenever it was time to start making chocolate chip cookies I would get very excited and start getting all of the ingredients together. My Grandma would have me stir, which I thought was the best part of making the cookies. I will always remember how no matter how hard I tried I would always make a mess when stirring the flour and how Grandma never got mad. While the cookies were baking I would sit on a stool and watch the cookies bake through the window. After the cookies were made my Grandma and I would get creative; sometimes we would make ice cream cookie sandwiches, and clown cookies which were always fun to make. Then there were times that my Grandma and I would just sit at the table with our cookies and milk and watch the snow fall. I will always remember the warm loving feeling I felt on those days.

Now that I am older I don't get to have baking days with my Grandma as much as I would like to but we will always have memories of our fun times together. I will never forget the smell of the freshly baked cookies, how much fun we had making the cookies, and how much we loved spending time together. The sound of Christmas music that played in the background while we were baking still plays in my head, along with the mental picture of how happy my Grandmother looked when we were baking. Through having this tradition with my Grandma I hope to carry on my own memorable traditions with my family.

Traditions are important to have with family, no matter what those traditions might be. having traditions with family bring a strong bond between family members. I loved my tradition of making cookies with my Grandmother and it was something that brought us closer together. Some traditions are more creative than others, some are more interesting than others, and some are simple but it doesn't matter as long as they create life long memories like mine did.