Novella Carpenter

I went to the book reading for Farm City. The book is about the urban farm. The talk was quite interesting. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the talk. Novella lives in Oakland, CA aka the ghetto. She started planting a garden on some land she was squatting on. Then she eventually started raising chickens, pigs, and bunnies. She was growing a lot of her own food and providing a lot of her own meat. I found her quite funny because she is really crass and honest about her thoughts. Her stories were funny and really strange. She said because feed was so expensive she started dumpster diving for leftover food. This provided most of her feed. Eventually she bought some pigs to give them the really gross stuff that she and her boyfriend would find. The pigs loved the slop and grew quite fat. She also started raising goats as an animal she didn't have to kill and could use them for milk. Overall, I thought she was very interesting. I have my own personal desires to grow my own food and even small livestock. I am not sure if I will be in the country or in the city when this happens but I look forward to finding out. Urban farming is on the rise apparently so I will not look like a complete weirdo.

Food Traditions

My family does not really have any food traditions. We do the ususal American family stuff like turkey on thanksgiving. My family make great candied sweet potato pie. We make Christmas cookies in December, although they should really just change the name to holiday cookies because they have nothing to do with Christ. My family does love food though. There is food at every family event we have. In fact there is a lot of food at every family event we have. As far as religious food traditions go we have none. To my knowledge there are no Christian food traditions. If anything we should celebrate pass over with our Jewish brothers and sisters. I think the only tradition relating to food in Christianity is communion but that is just crackers and grape juice. Overall, my family does not have any food traditions we just appreciate food and look for any excuse to eat it in excessive amount. 

Shawarma King

I went to Shawarma King for the first time and I must say I was quite pleased. If there is one thing I enjoy about this great country we live in, it is that there is almost any food imaginable. I have never had Lebanese food before so I did not know what to expect. In fact I know nothing about Lebanon. My only knowledge about the country is that I had a mean Lebanese English teacher in middle school and that there was a terrible attack on a Marine Corps barracks in the country a few decades ago. However, I must say the food is pretty good. I did not know what Falafal was but it tasted really good. When I hear chick peas I think hippie food, but they were good especially slathered in garlic sauce. I had the chicken sharma for dinner. It was a chicken wrap with some sort of special sauce. It was supposed to have pickles in it, but I requested there absence because pickles are gross. Overall the food was good and well priced. I will be back there some time I am sure. 

Climate Change

            I thought the professor who gave a presentation on climate change did a good job. I will be honest I am a big sceptic to global warming. That being said I learned a lot about climate change and it made sense to me. I think we are on the path to destroying our planet out of greed and apathy. Look at all the things we learned this semester about how horrible food is. If people will design products/food that will destroy human life slowly but surely than why would the planet be any different. I never really thought about it but the unraveling of our planet's climate makes perfect sense biblicaly. Revelation is very explicit in the warning about the end times and world phenomenons are often mentions. There will be draught, and earthquakes, and storms of great proportion. This was forecasted by the speaker and is forecasted by God as well. Sorry guys not trying to give you the Bible 411 just drawing some interesting parallels. Overall, I enjoyed the presentation and really learned a lot about climate change and clean energy. If we can make clean energy that provides equal to more jobs for the economy and replaces destructive means, I say sign me up. 

Pizza

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/8o83j9/tower-record

The following clip is from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. I think it is a funny clip making fun of Chicago style pizza. What i find interesting is that often we take pride in our food. Food is not just something that we eat but can sometimes be a part of our identity. In this case Jon Stewart is a New Yorker and believes that New York has the best pizza. Furthermore, he rips on Chicago style pizza calling it a bunch of crap. Food is not just sustenance in this country but some foods are a part of America, like pizza, or burgers, or other kinds of food that our country is know for. 

Jesse

Jesse is kind of a sad book. It is mainly about a Mexican boy named Jesse who lives with his brother in an apartment in Fresno. Both boys are real young still in their teens but they moved out really early together because of their alcoholic step father. The book is rather poetic as the author makes a lot of easy comparisons, metaphors and similes. The book is sad in that the boys are very poor. They live off of what they make in the fields on the weekend and their dead fathers social security check. The whole book has an environment of poor, dingy, dirty but with an odd sense of mild happiness. This book is far different than Stir It Up. The boys in this story lead a much less fortunate life than young Anjali. The book seemingly has no plot, or at least not one that is exciting enough to realize but is a very easy read and some how keeps the reader engages. I will be interested to see how the book ends. 

Stir It Up

Stir It Up turned out to be a nice book. Anjali enters the Food Network competition. She is the youngest of the contestants and does really well. She ended up having to lie her parents for a while about the big test that she was supposed to take. Finally she admits that she did not take the test and that she entered into the contest. Her dad gets really mad at her and tells her that cooking turned her into a liar and grounds her from and special cooking aside from working in the restaurant. Much to Anjali's surprise her mom, dad, and grandma ease up on her and realize that they should have supported her passion all along. Anjali finds out that she has become a finalist in the contest. She goes with her grandma to the finale but does not win. She feels really sad about loosing but her family cheers her up. The book as a really good message of life being a journey and failure being the necessary stepping stones to success.