A Snackbar Named Desire

A Snackbar Named Desire

I had a great time at after prom. Lights, prizes, and an all you can eat snackbar.

I really do try, I try not to overindulge or even do much snacking. But there is something within me, within everyone, desire.

There are very few people with the power to resist their favorite foods. I have seen even the strongest fall into a culinary temptation. Something about those foods, the way they sit right outside your vision and call your name. They must be stopped.

Other than when being hungry, people eat when they are bored, socializing, thinking hard, sad, and nervous. Food, because of its availability and simplicty, comes to the mind as a temporary cure. It is only temporary and soon you will be wanting more. Many people nowadays try to watch what they eat and are well aware of the consequenses of overindulgence. They want to stop the food that calls them. These foods, they must be stopped.

I don't have much room to speak on this topic because I am generally a victim, but I can put in my two cents. The desire is all in your mind. The best way to stop it is to say no. Yep thats it, just say no. As an alternative having a healthy snack, like a banana or yogurt, would help too. Its the awareness that helps. Being able to recognize that you are in that situation is the only way out.

So lets rise up and stop this tyrant. Don't let it consume you, don't consume it.

Primitive

Primitive

Believe it or not, there are actually places here on earth without refrigerators, stoves, or even microwaves. Scarier yet, many of these places are nearby by our homes and have been made dangerously accessible to our neighbors and small children. Although I have heard it called names such as "dirty dirt hole," I prefer to call it "the great outdoors."

Through my life I have gone on more than my fair share of camp outs. Therefore I believe I have earned the title of camper.

Contrary to popular belief, campers actually do eat more than just hot dogs and marshmallows. In a matter of fact, if your good enough and you know the right tricks, meals can be one of the most enjoyable parts of camping.

Your best friend while on a camp out, is fire. With fire you can cook almost anything that can be made at home. The two most common tools used to cook above a fire are Dutch ovens and metal grates. These work as the stove and oven. 

When cooking above a fire, make sure that the fire is not smoking too much or your food could taste like smoke. Also make sure that you do not throw any kind of unnatural material, such as trash, into the fire. This can potentially produce a smoke that can be harmful to consume.

Dutch ovens are one of the methods of cooking outdoors that has benifits that are above cooking at home. When cooking in a Dutch oven, use a Dutch oven coal chart (found online) to determine how many coals on the top and bottom will get you the perfect temperature. Before going on a campout check on line for great Dutch Oven recipies such as pollo asado, deep dish pizza, and cobbler.

Of course if you are feeling lazy you can just find yourself a stick and slide a hot dog down it, but with a bit of preperation you can begin cooking like a well paid outdoor chef (if those actually even exist).

Home Grown

Home Grown

  I have always loved to be thrifty. I conserve whatever I can, especially money. Last spring while at the store, my sister and I decided to get some seeds to plant in the backyard. It was one of those "why not" moments. They were only 2$. My sister decided to choose some exotic plants such as watermelons and pumpkins. I choose to get a packet of kale seeds. I figured my bearded dragon, Tempest, would enjoy eating it and then I could get my money back in the long run.

We planted our seeds and after a week or two they started to sprout out of the ground. With a little bit of love and water my kale grew and was soon ready to harvest. My sisters died. She must have been missing an ingredient (and it wasn't water).

It was satisfying picking off the first leaf and giving it to Tempest. Sadly he is a nasty eater and he just snatched it into his mouth and swallowed it. But I am sure, despite his rudeness, that it was enjoyed.

My Kale battled out the winter, grew some tall yellow flowers, and apparently had some offspring and now there is whole garden of Kale in our back yard. The success of this plant has inspired my dad to take up the hobby of gardening. He built an elevated box out of scrap wood, so he doesn't have to bend over, and planted tomatoes, peppers, and even a watermelon. Hopefully these plants will grow to produce their fruits. May the odds be ever in their favor (couldn't help it).

Having a home grown garden is beneficial for everybody.

Seeds are very cheap and even though they require maintenance, it is worth it. A tomato is the same price as tomato seeds which can produce enough tomatoes to open a ketchup factory. Also anybody who is into organic food but concerned about the increased cost, gardening is definitely for you. Even a small garden can produce enough fruits and vegetables for a family to not have to buy any from the store. If you are worried about what mad scientist inject into your food, planting seeds allows you to choose what is, or preferably what isn't, injected into them.

If you don't like to go outside and get a little dirty, you can grow an indoor garden. My grandma grows multiple plants for spices and natural medicines such as basil and aloe, from her windows.

In the end, a great reason for growing your own plants is the simple satisfaction of eating a dish that was prepared with plants that you raised like they were your own children. Except when these children grow up, you rip off their limbs, just enough for them to survive, and satisfyingly eat them.

Been there, Done that

Been there, Done that

The other month I visited the city of Philadelphia. While in Philly we saw the Liberty Bell, the USS New Jersey, and hundreds of nostalgic equestrians trotting around the city.

We were able to experience the great city through an overwhelming wave of sights and sounds. The buildings led up to the sky, the angry taxi drivers cursed in their rich Philadelphian accents, and when it was time to eat, we decided to try something new, experiencing the city through taste. We had ourselves a Philly cheese steak.

Food is a great way to experience culture.

After ordering our cheese steaks the guys behind the counters began working on their art. My eyes couldn’t follow the rehearsed speed and precision of their hands. In a quick moving city you have got to have quick hands.

Every culture has their own twist and spins on food.

In New York, pizza has become a specialty through time. They began to make as a cheap way to feed the rising about of workers flocking in. In Japan many times food is served in the most creative ways as an art form. In many countries, such as Germany, food is served in a series of several meals.

Every country does things their own way. These differences in food help to define a culture.

Next time you visit a new and unfamiliar place, ask what the local special is. Try it out. You will never completely experience your destination without it.

Toddlers and Lunch-iaras

Toddlers and lunch-iaras

Look at them smile and laugh like they are so innocent. . .

My grandma has been babysitting kids from before my mom was even born. That means in about 40 years, while working five days a week, she has easily served over 10,000 meals to small children. Over the years she has picked up some tricks to feeding the most demanding of food critics, toddlers.

Small children are the hardest people to please when it comes to food. They don’t like this and they don’t like that, and of course if they don’t like something their natural reaction is to throw it and scream. Also if there are multiple children, they feed off of each other, figuratively speaking of course. If one child decides the lunch table is actually a drum set they all do or if the dreaded “we want lunch” chant begins, everyone wants to join in. Feeding kids can be a nightmare.

There are four things to keep in mind when feeding toddlers: KISS, creativity, cleanliness, and authority.

KISS is an acronym that the engineering students definitely know. It means keep it simple, stupid. Ask any child what their favorite food is and they will most likely say, macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza , or ice cream. Little kids enjoy simple foods. The average foods on the menu at my grandmas are sandwiches, PBJ, bologna and cheese, or grilled cheese, oodles of noodles, pancakes, and macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. The menu is simple yet fulfilling. Sorry to say this but a kid would enjoy a chicken nugget just as much as a chicken that you personally killed and cooked that morning. Therefore, unless you are seeking potentially better health benefits, then you shouldn’t go the extra mile.

Next, as I have previously mentioned from an earlier post is creativity. Children don’t have much of an attention span and tend to wander the second they loose interest in what’s in front of them. Making meals more fun and interesting helps the kids to eat their food. As I have briefly mentioned before serving themed food, especially on the holidays, is a favorite for the kids. The easiest easels for these creations are pancakes. Food coloring can easily be put into pancakes to give effects such as green for saint patties day. Also pancakes can easily be cut into shapes, like a Christmas tree, or stacked to create a birthday cake. Themes can even be made up. You can have astronaut food and even math food. Creativity can also be used for trickery. A perfect example is crust. Most kids, and some teens, claim that bread crust is yucky and will not go anywhere near it. Cutting sandwich slices into little triangles makes the bread appear as if it has less crust. My favorite trick is when my grandma takes a heel piece and flips it upside down so it looks like a normal piece of bread. Even I would admit to not liking heel pieces but have been victimized by this trick many times. I have eaten whole sandwiches without even knowing the two pieces of bread were heel.

Children are messy eaters. If you have ever watched one eat you will most likely have observed that more food ends up on their face than in it. Also a child who believes that their food is actually army men, or that there drinks are actually maracas tend to make even bigger messes. That is why in the photo above you will notice that every child’s drink has a lid on it. Never give kids syrup either. If you serve pancakes put powdered sugar on them instead. When they are done eating make sure to wash their hands, even bread makes their fingers sticky.

The last tip is to maintain authority. Toddlers, even, no, especially the ones who don’t talk are geniuses. They know what they want and how to get it. Whether it be tantrums or beady eyes, kids learn from an early age their specialties. Don’t’ let them be little princes and princesses. Learn to say no. If they have already had their serving and they want more, too bad. If they don’t like a certain food make them try it and wait at least a few minutes before trying something else. Offer rewards for eating all of your food. My grandma has always done pretzels or ice pops. Let them know they cant have it unless they eat what is in front of them. This all may sound tough, but it should be a helpful step in becoming the authority figure.

Raising children is something that most everyone does at some point in their life and learning how to feed and interact with them at mealtime is a big step in the process of parenthood.

A lesson from the Wise

A Lesson from the Wise

The past weekend, I stayed at my great grandparents’ house in Pennsylvania to visit family. My Grandma Louise is known for cooking feasts for company whenever they stay over. Normally we would gladly have her cook dinner, but this year we finally noticed her age catching up with her. Since last year, Grandma Louise has gotten gout, a form of arthritis, in her feet and hands and has unwillingly had to resort to using a walker. We decided we would go out and get dinner someplace else so she didn’t have to cook for us (they don’t do much delivery in rural Pennsylvania). This upset my grandma Louise and at the age of 91 she still went ahead and made dinner anyways. She was willing to cook an entire meal with all of her ailments to have us eat together. Even though she didn't eat a single bite she knew from her years the importance of bonding at the dinner table and enjoyed our comany and time spent together.

As I have previously tried to emphasize, mealtime is not just to satisfy your hunger, it is for many other reasons including socialization and fellowship. I believe that families should eat together as often as possible.

In today’s society eating together is declining or nonexistent in too many families. Many families “just don’t feel like it” or of course “just don’t have the time”.

When you have a meal with your family you can increase the relationships and bonds between one another. You find out about how someone’s day was or what their plans are for the day. You can find out how school and work are going. You joke together. You laugh together.

Therefore I know that getting meals in as a family is hard. In my family we only eat dinner together and that is normally only 4 or 5 nights a week. Between all of our activities, there is hardly any time included to eat at all. Generally we will fabricate intricate plans that involve phases of time that people are home to prepare parts of the meal we will have for the window of time that we are home together. It may be hard, but it can be done.

If it wasn’t for dinner time I don’t know when we would talk. My sister is almost always in her room, my dad likes to work on his projects out back and my mom is always cleaning or out running. Dinner is just about the only time on a regular basis that we get to have conversations and be together as a family.

I challenge anyone reading this, if you don’t already, to have dinner with your family. If you need to, find a recipe online and make dinner, invite your family to join. This is an important part of life for any family and will lead to a more positive lifestyle. Go out and make it happen.

Slow Down there Seabiscuit

Slow down there Seabiscuit

Several moments ago I was eating a Rice Krispies Treats, chocolatey drizzle, of course, when I found myself holding the treat upside down. Suddenly I was swept away by a wave of inspiration. I ran to grab a hold of my camera to take a picture of my more than reluctant sister eating a Krispies Treat upside down to use for this weeks blog post.

Your probably thinking upside down Rice Krispies?, Seabiscuit?, a reluctant sister?, but don’t worry this is going somewhere.

The main reason that people in our modern society eat, besides for survival, is for pleasure.

Here’s where everything ties in, except for the sister thing, I just like to bug her. There are ways in which I have discovered to improve pleasure and satisfaction gained through food. Now first off I am not trying to come off from someone who worships food or even that is even slightly obsessed with it, but I do believe we should draw as much pleasure from little things we do, even eating.

Well I will start with the Rice Krispies treat. When you eat foods that are better on one side than on the other, then you should let that part touch your tongue first. It probably sounds silly but it gives you a more pleasant initial reaction to your taste buds. Many foods drizzle chocolate or other sweet substances on the top of the food. Just flip the food around and plan your approach for the greatest tasting experience.

Another way to enjoy your food more is to make it yourself. When you put some work into a meal it will taste better than if someone else made it. Therefore this doesn’t include heating a Hot Pocket, but how about you make your own hot pocket with some toasted flat bread and your fillers of choice. Not only do you get the satisfaction from the hard work, but you can also alter the taste to your preference.

As for Seabiscuit, eating is not a race. If you are eating something you love, like ice cream, slow down and enjoy it. Ice cream is great for improving your mood. You shouldn’t eat too much because its unhealthy but if you are going to do it, you might as well enjoy it. Also eating more slowly is supposed to help you to want less. So go ahead and nibble on your cookie, drink your Frostie through a tea straw, anything to slow you down so that you can last longer in your shrinking window of culinary happiness.

The last idea I will leave you with is to save the best for last. The catchy phrase isn’t only true in encouraging slow and late people, it works in eating too. Unless you are one of those people who think the best meal is the one where you just mix everything together on your plate, then decide what you like the most and then least and start form there. Even with simple foods like peanut butter and jelly, go ahead and eat the boring crust off before getting to essence found in the sandwich’s core.

Don't be scared to take up silly new eating habits, add a little bit of extra happiness to your snacks and meals. I mean who doesn't want more happiness?