A Quick Note on Fast Food

It’s 3:30 am. As I sip/lick/suck/slurp my chicken flavored Ramen noodles that seem to get softer and mushier as I reach the bottom of my makeshift bowl, I can’t help but think about the impact fast food has on our lives. But what exactly is fast food? After googling the term ‘fast food,’ I can confidently say ‘fast food’ is meant to refer to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. Does this definition still hold true today? 

I’m an Indian American. When I was 13, my parents decided to move to India. After living in California all my life, the sudden change was overwhelming to say the least. Everything was different, from the weather to the way people spoke. One of the more intriguing aspects of the move was the food. Typical of the young adventurous 13 year old that I was, Indian fast food appealed to me immediately. 

I remember my first experience with Indian fast food. It was a popular dish consisting of a few buns and lots of tongue tingling curry. As I popped 5 rupees to the slightly plump, sweaty man behind the counter, I saw him signal a poor subordinate to concoct this delicacy they liked to call Pav Bhaji. I saw the man pull out a few buns from a funny looking plastic cover, slap some butter on them and hurriedly mash a bunch of potatoes and spice together to make the curry. I could smell the inviting aroma as he passed the plate to me. The glistening butter on the buns only increased my want to take a satisfying bite. After weaving through the many people eagerly awaiting their own masterpieces, I finally found a small spot where I thought I could linger awhile and be transported into the world of this Pav Bhaji. I excitedly picked up a bun and put a considerable amount of curry on top of it. Finally, the time had come. I decided to take a big bite. As the aromatic sensations flew up my nostrils, a perfect mix of butter, bread, and curry began to form in my mouth. First, I felt like I was in Heaven. Then, I felt like chewing this bite as fast as I could so I could take the next one. Then, I felt sick. The Pav Bhaji was so spicy I could have sworn my tongue was split in half burning on fire. As I frantically looked around my little corner for a source of water to relieve me of the pain caused by my tongue being cut in half by the Pav Bhaji, a store across the road serving some hot chai caught my eye. I quickly scurried across the street almost getting run over and nearly taking the lives of a few pigeons on the sidewalk. It was only after taking my first sip of chai did I realize that a hot liquid would not rid my tongue of the spicy sensations it was currently suffering from. By the time I returned to my little corner, my burning tongue had subsided, and with it, my Pav Bhaji had disappeared. Some poor kid must have stolen it as he saw me prancing across the street. I didn’t mind too much though, I wasn’t planning on checking in the hospital for spice overdose that day anyway. 

Needless to say, my first experience with Indian fast food was less than desirable. As the years progressed though, I slowly built a tolerance to the spice. By the time I plucked the courage to attempt to consume my second Pav Bhaji, I had come up the ladder from a slightly sweet and sour Sev Puri to a medium spicy slightly crunchy Bhel Puri. Eating at Indian fast food joints/carts started to become a regular thing among my group of friends. We explored all parts of the Indian fast food food chain, from the lowest in the makeshift carts to the highest at the 7 star hotels. Funnily enough, although fast food at the hotels cost as much as the carts the roadside vendors served on, the fast food joint/cart food always tasted a lot better.

As my fascination with Indian fast food grew over the years, I often thought about American fast food. A bunch of fries with a burger and a coke to go with it is my take on an average American fast food meal. What American fast food lacks in spice, it certainly makes up for in grease. Although it was too long ago for me to remember the whole experience, my first experience with American fast food came in the form of chicken nuggets. It became the staple of my Saturday morning diet from the ages of 5 to 9. That was when I graduated from chicken nuggets to greasy burgers and chicken sandwiches, with a side meal of salty and hot french fries and a coke, of course. 

American fast food, it seems, can take many entities. Mexican, for example is one of them. I fell in love with Taco Bell when I was about 10. There’s nothing more enticing to your mouth than a hot soft bean burrito which fills your mouth with oodles of pure pleasure, all topped by a crunchy yet hot cheese quesadilla with fire sauce on the side. This, obviously, precluded with 7 layer nachos and ending with a crunchy taco. Who ever said cold,

fresh lettuce can’t go with steaming hot meat and yellow cheese? 

The more I think about fast food and how it’s affected my life, I don’t think about the amount of time I’ve saved eating fast food as compared to a legitimate meal. No, I think about the great taste and how much it’s satisfied me over the years. Sure, it isn’t all that healthy and wholesome, but that’s not what fast food is for. That’s what Subway is for. Fast food today is centered around taste and little else. It can be made and served quickly, but the time taken to prepare it is no longer it’s main purpose. Fast food chains don’t advertise “Can be made in just 40 seconds!” They advertise its delicious factor. And hey, it sells. A lot.

Sources-

http://weblogs.variety.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/15/chickensand.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii29/bhawana_2008/PavBhaji.jpg

http://blog.news-record.com/staff/culture/Big%20Bell%20Box%20Meal%20(theirs).jpg

The Family Style Meal 

Gliding back to the first dinner I spent with my relatives in Kunming (southwest part of China) the past summer, a dinning table was enriched by stewed chicken accommodated by nutritious herbs; edible tree fungus blended with soy sauce, vinegar, pepper and fennel for the final decoration; pepper fish fired up by the most elegant spice from Sichuan province, the slightly salty but sweet sauce balances the dry hot from the spice just enough; dry fried string bean incorporates the crispy texture from the boiling oil as well as the salty and spicy preserved fermented bean, the concentrated flavor expedite the completion of a bowl of rice. My entire family welcomed my return with all these delicately made food and my stomach encountered the most exciting and enjoyable meal in his life. Food strengthens the relationship in my family, and food delivers the most cordial love from my family to my deep heart.

Coming back from an exhausting day of school, my grandma always adore the dark brown wood dinning table full of colorful dishes to energize my body. The stemmed egg, fried pork cake, cold blended cucumber with pepper and soy sauce, and pan fried beef with green pepper, all are my favorite dishes from my grandma. My grandma spoils me the most because I carry the family name, she alternates the food menu for me everyday so I won’t grow bored eating the same food over and over again. Mushroom prospers in the summer season; my grandma always purchase the most fresh GanBa mushroom from the farmers live in the mountain and cook it with green pepper, salt, and vegetable oil for me. The chewy and hard texture of GanBa mushroom accompanies with the dense pepper flavor enhances the appetite of the entire meal. All the flavorful dishes prepared by my grandma spoiled my taste buds, the food she cooked draws me to visit my grandma very often. Chinese culture defines a good child as who possess the quality of obedient to the parents. Carrying the grocery bags for my grandma every Saturday morning becomes my routine. Grandma’s food connects my family together, and the gathering of entire family in the eve of spring festival brings every family member’s heart together to help grandma make the first genuine meal of the year to pray for the family’s fortune. Mean while, emulating grandma’s attentive gesture and swift cooking motions during my leisure always stimulate my memory cells in the brain and stomach to remember the every single meal grandma dedicated to make for me.

Uncle Dong owns the first car Mazda in the family. Almost every weekend, he will drive my half year older cousin WenBo and me to eat various foods in different places he has discovered during his business trips. Remember an extremely hot summer afternoon, we drove 100 kilometers (60 miles) to a city Yuxi to attempt some spicy eel ricenoodle and ice porridge. Freshly made ricenoodle is steamed in boiling water till it looks like a bundle of shinning yarn. Adding the secret ingredient in the eel, hot pepper powder, soy sauce, chives, and bean sprouts conclude the eel ricenoodle. While chewing the slippery and smooth ricenoodle covered in concentrated eel juice that provides the sensation of volcano eruption in the tongue. Sipping the liquid in the ice porridge suddenly alleviate the burden on the tongue to battle with the strong spice. After the cease-fire between the tongue and spice, sitting down and eating the porridge with the brown sugar liquid as the dessert, which draws a conclusion to the end of dinner. Uncle Dong passed away in 2006, left cousin WenBo and aunt Ping alone. Our journey to search for gourmet around the city stopped at the same year. However, every time I come back form America, cousin Wenbo and I will visit the same eel ricenoodle restaurant to commemorate the time with uncle Dong through food.

Since uncle Dong’s death, a 3 years older cousin, QinYang, a fashion boy, takes the responsibility as the big brother seriously among three of us. The past July, QinYang introduced us to eat a new cooking style of dried hot pot instead of traditional boiling soup. The hot pot we ordered includes duck tongue, crispy skinned sausage, bean sprouts, crispy tofu, tofu skin, and celtuce. We accentuate for insanely spicy! The duck tongue is the protagonist in the hot pot. It has a alphabet “Y” like shape, the top part is two skinny soft bone branches enclosed by rigid skin tissue, the actual tongue connects on the bottom, half of it is soft muscle tastes like squid, and the other half has the same texture as the top two branches. The process of peeling meet off the tongue is the essential aspect rather than devouring enormous chunk of beef. End of the dinner, numerous pieces of bone disseminate on the dinning table, and drops and drops of sweat dripping down everyone’s cheek, we all leaning back on the chair and look at each other with satisfaction and sense of brotherhood. Hold on, that’s not over yet, the Sharp Joy Cup’s cold bubble milk tea and fruit pudding are our dessert for the night. The sticky and slippery bubble leaping around the month like an intense ping-pong game. The fruit pudding offers the vitamin that body needs and also helps to cool down the remaining spice in the esophagus. Before farewell, we always decide the kind of food we are going to enjoy the next time, we all agreed to eat Kantongness seafood when I come back from college.

The origin of life belongs to water, and the continuation of life belongs to diversity of food that the earth offered to human. The significance of food develops beyond the physical needs to the spiritual stage. Grandma’s food delineates the broad love of motherhood, uncle Dong’s enthusiasm of food reminds the importance of the existence of family members, and cousin QinYang’s humor hooks up the friendship with my siblings. The temptation to slip in the kitchen and grab the memory recipe assembled by my family adorns my life. 

When I am in the Brittain Dining Hall (HW#1)

Another end of the world has always been attractive, but like exploring the green land in a desert, underneath curiosity and enthusiasm, there is fear. Life is not easy all the time. On contrary to what scientists say that we are disrupting the environment, we are the one who has to make changes in most case. It’s naive to restrict what’s going on. What we could do is being happy on the way of fitting in the world.

Before coming to the States, I had had conversation with my friends who went to high school here. I was packing at that time so I asked them what I should bring. I felt it was a stupid question as soon as it came out of my mouth. Answers to such questions varied a lot from person to person. However, just few seconds later, they turned to me at the same time and yelled the same word, “food”.

Days later, with a drawer of Chinese snack, I got here. I didn’t know what’s ahead of me, just for preparation. Life is not easy all the time. My upcoming story with the Brittain dining hall proved it.
It was impressive. With neat tables and chairs, soft light and polite food servers, the Brittain dining hall seemed as nice as any luxurious restaurant. So did food there: they were shining, smiling at me, and waiting for me to call their names. Unfortunately, I didn’t know any of them. I wanted to call but didn’t know how. I tried to listen to what others called them, but their names went away so fast like a shy girl saying her name. Even though I heard it many times, I still couldn’t figure what it was. What should I do? If I couldn’t speak, what would they get me?

Nervousness occupied me and I began to look around. Every line was moving forward smoothly with plates full of food. I stood there helplessly, wondering which line to follow. A word from distance abruptly solved the puzzle. “Hamburger” Oh right, it’s America. Of course they had hamburgers. As when Columbus found the new world, I couldn’t wait to find the line for hamburgers. The longest line in the dining hall didn’t seem long to me at the moment because I knew what to say to get the food. The process went more smoothly than I thought. Moments later, mission completed.

Since then, I had hamburger almost every day. “Hamburger, please” became almost all I said to servers. This reminded me of my American English teachers in China. They were having Xiaolongbao (see picture) in the food court all the time. I was wondering how they could possibly love it so much. Now I realized that was the only thing they could get there (You could just pick a pack without any words). I did better than what they did. I learned chicken-pad now and I believe I could eat more food as days went by.

Not only things I couldn’t get bothered me, but also things I had to eat.

It was about dinner time. Surrounded by all kinds of noises, I sat by myself at a corner of a long table. Nobody was talking to me and I didn’t really hear anything, either. My mind stopped working. My body was like floating at the middle of nowhere, with hands and mouth mechanically moving up and down. Five bowls, filled with raw vegetables, woke me out of my quiet and stationary world. I felt someone I knew sat around me. I lifted up my head, but only saw five rabbits…

For me, salad usually is pretty much the only thing that is considered vegetable and doesn’t taste strange. Other cooked vegetables simply extended my imagination and reversed my definition of food. When they first came into my sight, their perfect appearance, freshness revealed by bright colors, attracted me a lot. I was fooled. The taste was another story which had absolutely no relationship with their looking whatsoever. I thought it was unusual and hoped it would be better the next time. It was better when I tried again, but only because I had prepared for it. The worse thing was that you could not just use “it tastes bad” to describe them because they usually had no taste. No salt, no pepper, no sauce, they tasted like colorful solid purified water, even without taste of vegetable. It might sound impossible, but apparently, someone made it. Moreover, I bet someone was trying to reproduce that unbelievable job every day.

After several disappointments, I tried on salad. At least, I had had it in China and it didn’t seem much different here. It did a good job as vegetables, as I hoped. The most important thing was that it had taste consistently due to Thousand Island sauce that I put in. After few transitional days, I managed to swallow one bowl of it every day with the idea that perhaps it would become the essential of my diet. Every time I got to dining hall, salad came first. I did not realize what I was doing until some day I was talking about our pets with my Chinese friends. All of a sudden, green leaves and carrots looked so familiar to me. That’s exactly what I feed to my rabbit. The differences between me and my rabbit remained only that Thousand Island sauce.

I thought it was just me. I was wrong. Walking around the dining hall, almost all my Chinese friends ran out of choices but to become rabbits and that’s only the beginning. Actually, more and more of them had overcome the struggle of being rabbits. I thought they were doing this unconsciously, but when I asked “don’t you feel like a rabbit”, the answer was “what’s wrong with being a rabbit? If being a rabbit is the only way to survive, be a rabbit.” That’s true. I had to accept the new role and I would make all efforts to be a happy one.

Life is not easy all the time. Whatever the goal is, however isolated the hero is, external support is provided on most occasions in movies. Thankfully, I am not alone, either. I have a group of friends facing the thorn-like road together as well as people eager to help me. Maybe the next time I would bother you to teach me names of dishes; maybe someday I would show you Chinese ways to cook vegetables. I am just trying, with smile on my face.

Picture:
http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=%D0%A1%C1%FD%B0%FC%CD%BC%C6%AC&in=6483&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=10&rn=1&di=1907271324&ln=2000&fr=

Dubai's Culinary Downturn.

Being born and raised in Dubai exposed me to a plethora of cuisines, all distinct yet delicious. Dubai’s exponential growth rate has made it a household name worldwide and a tourist paradise. Dubai had its growth spurt around the same time as I did, except Dubai ended up growing much more than I. With the growth spurt came a mass influx of people from all over the world attracted to the luxurious lifestyle that Dubai has to offer. With the people came the food and the rest is history. From Afghani to Vietnamese, Dubai has it all. All this came with a price tag; as more restaurants opened, the quality of the food of these restaurants declined. The restaurants lost their tradition and began to place emphasis on the catering to the masses. In the process, it was the people of Dubai who suffered as they lost the joy of having a simple meal. In this article, we will look into the factors which lead to the decline and how it affected, a resident of Dubai, me.



Before Dubai exploded it on the global scene, it was a simple place, with a few buildings. The tallest building stood at fifteen storeys, today the tallest building stands at over two thousand feet. When Dubai was still in its infancy, the food was simple; one could only get shawarma, falafel, and hummus and fruit juice. (These dishes are very similar to Greek food; the shawarma is the equivalent of the gyros, just prepared differently) Basically traditional Arabic food, which was available at every cafeteria, outside every mosque (in Dubai there are mosques every mile).These were the dishes that everyone would thrive on. There was no competition, people took their time to make the food, and it tasted delicious. As a child I remember impatiently gawking at the “shawarma guy,” the person in charge of making the sandwich, there was a modest pleasure in watching your food being made right in front of your eyes.






There was also a parallel food culture of the working class in Dubai (those who worked in construction and docks); their food was simple, authentic home-cooked meals from the sub-continent. One could find cuisines from all across India in that food culture. I remember visiting Ravi Restaurant, a small run down Pakistani restaurant. The food there tantalizes your taste buds; somehow you always managed to find space for one more bite. The kebabs would be marinated all day and then grilled to perfection. This was just one facet of working class, blue collar Dubai. This phase of Dubai was short lived as the happy meal made its debut in the Middle East.

In the late 1990’s McDonald’s golden arches became a quintessential part of Dubai. It was the new thing in town and it was the anti-thesis to what was available in Dubai until that point. The locals of Dubai hold food sacred. It was prepared with care and embodied many humanistic values.Mcdolands on the other hand manufactured food like a factory, stuffing as many mouths as possible. The contrast was such that a Shawarma stand would cook its food for hours and McDonalds would feed a hundred mouths in the same time. American fast food culture was quickly diluting the rich culinary traditions of Dubai. People no longer took the time to prepare their food and enjoy each bite. By this time, several fast food chains had infiltrated Dubai: Burger King, KFC, and Pizza Hut. Dubai slowly lost its food culture. As Dubai started to grow even bigger, more fine dining restaurants opened as the Dubai gained in stature.


In the following years, Dubai’s property and hotel industry started booming and there were new restaurants opening up daily. These restaurants were unlike the ones, the people of Dubai had ever seen. There was a cover charge just to be in the restaurant. People went to these restaurants just to be seen and to rub shoulders with Dubai’s elite. The menus had names which were written in some exotic foreign language and required a comprehensive explanation after which one understood nothing. Every celebrity chef who has a TV show is guaranteed to have a restaurant in Dubai. You ask people about what they thought about the food, they were clueless. The main dish comes out on pastry size servings leaving patrons unsure if they had actually consumed a meal. A meal for two in one of these fancy restaurants could end up costing several hundred dollars.

Another trend in Dubai was the food courts in the shopping malls. Some of Dubai’s major attractions are its shopping malls. Dubai has the biggest shopping mall in the world which also boasts the largest indoor aquarium. These malls also have some of the biggest food courts in the world offering the consumer a variety of choices. Similar to fast food, the main aim of these food courts was to entice all the tourists visiting Dubai for a quick meal. I am guilty of falling prey to these food courts given the size of Dubai’s malls. After walking inside them for a couple of hours I get hungry. At that point, it is hard to resist over fifty different types of restaurants all eagerly waiting to serve you.


With Dubai’s expansion, the food business boomed as several thousand people flocked to it. Each of them needed to be fed well. With these people came their culture and cuisine. People in Dubai find themselves in a very unique situation as it strives to find a balance between the old culinary traditions and the new traditions that have infiltrated the city with urban sprawl. People no longer take the time to sit down and enjoy a meal prepared with love and care and instead are treating food as the fuel which we need to run and filling themselves up as quickly as possible. At the end of the day, we are what we eat regardless of where you find yourself in the world.




Word Count:1001
 
Works Cited
oobwoodman. Flickr. 06 28, 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/86813892@N00/2617382517/ (accessed 09 04, 2009).
pjf@cpan. Flickr. 06 23, 2009. (accessed 09 04, 2009).
Toyhora. Flickr. 06 28, 2005. http://www.flickr.com/photos/toyohara/21705993/in/set-150509/ (accessed 09 4, 2009).

Chunk of my life (Blog HW 1)

Many people believe that the only purpose that food serves is nourishment. But my opinion differs from theirs. That’s because I know something they don’t. Food is the catalyst that brings people together and the glue that binds them. Even food that is less than perfect can be more satisfying and fulfilling than food that is prepared according to exact specifications.

Food preferences and mannerisms are expected to be learned at the dining table or at family functions. Mine began on a window sill. It could well have been my dining table. Eating there gave me immense joy. It was there that I learned about the kind of food I liked. In my formative years I had a very bland taste in food, but that changed later on. Preference was always given to the food that finished the fastest and didn’t require too much chewing. On the window sill, itself, I knew my favorites and the ones I detested. I ate there until I had no choice but to grow out of it but I still love to sit and eat on my window sill occasionally.

(my mom near my window sill)
Hot tempered people usually delve on sweet dishes or very spicy stuff- the extremes, frugal ones eat what’s available and what is the most basic food, calm and composed people eat with a sense of peace on their face no matter what they eat, and the ones with the naughty look on their face, they play more with their food than eat it; atleast this is what I have noticed. My personality lies somewhere in between or a mix of all these. Being hot tempered I started preferring the sweet, sour and spicy dishes nothing in between. The Indian cuisine been well known for its spicy dishes made it easier to expand my taste buds and I did later on.

Being a working mother, my mom wasn’t able to prepare the finest meals or give the most nutritious food in my tiffin daily but, whenever she had the time, she more than made up for it. Being extremely attached to my mother, I noticed certain innate qualities. For example, one of the maxims she followed was “while cooking for guests cook with perfection but while cooking for family cook with care and pleasure”. Some people think that it doesn’t matter who cooks it as long as it’s cooked appropriately with the right ingredients but if love is one of those ingredients, it definitely makes itself known in the end.

During my exams, she always served my favorite dishes in colorful plates with beautiful designs despite the availability and convenience of simple metal plates. At that time, I just took this for granted and it was only later that I understood what an immense mood lifter those plates had been. It’s these simple details that actually matter and that make a difference.

(the colourful dishes)

During my school years, the weekends were always eagerly anticipated (not that it is any different now). The weekend was usually when my mother was free and was able to gather enough enthusiasm to experiment with her cooking. It is during one such weekend that this story takes place. It was a bright and sunny Friday morning (that is equivalent to Sundays in the Middle East). My mother had woken up early in the morning (being a doctor kind of puts you in the routine of getting up no later than 7). She sat in the living room sipping her morning coffee waiting for the rest of the family to wake up. It was past 9. My sisters and my father had decided to sleep in and, being the week after exams, I, too, felt no urge to get up before twelve. It was then at those lonely early hours (well at least for us) of the morning that my mom made an impromptu decision; to cook something extravagant. She went to the grocery store (open 24/7; don’t know why!) and brought all the necessary ingredients. My mother had been talking about this dish for weeks. After tasting it in her friend’s house(Navratan korma and makkai roti), she had been dying to try it out herself. The noise of banging pots and the spicy aroma of her cooking woke us all up with the curiosity of what was being brewed in the kitchen. One by one we all checked whether it was something for lunch or just a false alarm to wake us all up! After shaking of the sleepiness and checking out what was going on, my sisters and I decided that the day was destined to be dull and eventless so the three of us decided to chip in and do our parts in the kitchen. My dad, knowing that helping in the kitchen wasn’t his forte and having failed miserably in earlier tries, decided to relax on the couch and read the paper rather than helping. I had the easy job (of course) of chopping while my sisters got the tough task of making sure that all the ingredients were kept ready in the right quantities. As the number of dishes increased exponentially with the number of helping hands, the family luncheon turned into a veritable feast.
Finally, after what seemed like ages, we laid the table and sat down to eat. Looking at each other we tried our creation.
Ugghh…..what a disaster.
Some dishes were too sour, some were too sweet and some even had a weird taste to them! Now I understand why they say too many cooks spoil the broth. But even after such a fiasco, we enjoyed the “feast” because we had spent the morning with each other cracking hilarious jokes (probably the reason why it turned out the way it did) and that was worth much more than the food itself. With my parents working into the wee hours of the morning and us being busy with school and exams, a family day seemed unrealistic but that simple morning was much better than any party or outing. It gave me the sense of being a part of a true family.
If such small items can have the power to bring people closer and then it’s aptly named to be the source of life.

Family United by Food

Source: Microsoft clip art

Dinner has always had a significant importance in my life, growing up in a household where everybody seemed to divide and go on their own each day; dinner was the much anticipated force that brought all members of the family back together each evening. With an older brother 7 years my elder and a younger brother 11 years my minor, there wasn’t much interaction between the three of us throughout the day. Each night through a glorious feast of tender juicy medium rare steak, fresh delicious seared tuna, sizzling steak and chickens fajitas, or a traditional meal of corn beef and cabbage, my siblings and I were able to reconnect and share our daily events; My older brothers chemical research progress, my first day of high school, and my little brothers exhilarating day at the sand box. Despite are vast age differences and daily obligations each day we could join together in the one thing we all enjoyed, Food!
It was not merely the need of food; it was also my mother’s planning and culinary perfection to our specific taste that we met each day at the dinner table. As I later came to realize, my mother would often plan her meals around the person that was least likely to show up for dinner that night. If my brother had a lab session later in the evening she would make his favorite meal for dinner that night and let him know, with the promise that we would wait for him. It was often in this way that my brothers and I were kept from picking up fast food or stopping somewhere convenient if we had any chance of getting home at a decent hour. This often seemed like a cruel and unusual trick, after working or going to school all day and having to wait an extra 30-45 minutes fighting through Atlanta traffic with a McDonalds offering instant hunger gratification every ten feet. But then my brother or I would get home and realize that the wait was well worth the food and conversation that would have been missed otherwise.
The consumption of dinner that my mother cooked was not the only way my family was united by food, often times when my brothers and I were home early or didn’t have anything to do that afternoon we would assist my mother in the kitchen. She would assign us different task or parts of the meal and we would add are own touch or preference to the dish assigned. Meanwhile, we would exchange dish preferences/ ideas, current events, and our daily lives while working together in our cramped kitchen. Our mother’ kitchen would become a melting pot of food, culinary suggestions, and general small talk as we all slowly grew closer and more connected to each other’s life with each experimentation we shared in the kitchen.
Quickly my brother and I developed are own specialty or genre of cooking that would designate us as the family specialist in that cuisine, whenever we were lucky enough to have time to help out in the kitchen. My brother was adept at appetizers and side dishes, but was recognized as the family weekend breakfast chef. A job which he entitled for both his proficiency with any dish in which eggs were the main ingredient, from simply cheesy scrambled eggs with ham and green onions to eggs Benedict, and also because of my mother’s habit of sleeping in late on weekends (a luxury not allowed to my brothers or me by our father). My brother’s exquisite breakfasts’ not only allowed him to show off his culinary expertise and standing in the family (which may have lost some credibility the night before, by burning some elegant side dish, one of the trademarks of my brothers cooking that we often teased him about) and a way for him to get out of some of the early morning task my father assigned, but also offered another family meal in which we could further increase our family bonding before the day picked up and we would scatter about like ants heading out to our separate tasks and jobs for the day, until the light of day would end and we would meet back once again to devour on the life source that would ultimately bring us closer together.

source:http://pesto.art.pl/kuchnia/dania/pfane/Eggs_Benedict.jpg

While my brother gained family fame in morning dishes, I partook in the creation of desserts, another area which had not had much significance during the monarchial period of our kitchen in which my mother was the sole representative. It all began, when my mother presented me with a William Sonoma children’s cook book when I was 11. Despite containing the word children and being laid out quite simply and having many pictures, the recipes were rather complicated for a beginning cook, who had to stand on a stool to reach most of the ingredients. Yet I went at each of the recipes, mainly as an experimental form of lunch for myself. Needless to say, more times than not lunch would end and I would have nothing edible to eat but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I made as backup. After months of preparing the primary, lunch and entrée, foods with little success, I ventured toward the back of the book, the section that had intrigued my attention the most since I had first received the book, but I had not attempted any recipes from, the dessert section. Flipping through this wondrous array of sweets, my eyes quickly fell on a recipe that would have immediately caught Matt Mcallester eyes too, strawberry ice cream. Immediately, I grabbed the brand new ice cream maker my mother had received for Christmas that year, a pint of strawberries, heavy whipping cream, and the other little necessities needed for this intriguing frozen culinary delight and began the delicate process described in the book. When the frozen delight was finally completed, it was one of the best ice creams I had ever tasted, and it was from there, just as my older brother was the family breakfast chef, I became the family dessert chef.

Source: http://www.americanlife-traditions.com/issues/16/images/strawberry-ice-cream.jpg

Food not only helped unite are family separated by age, but also helped set are identity within one of the most important contributors of life, in our family.

I Scream For.....No Ice Cream???

Oh how I can remember that wonderful taste of good ole, natural homemade tasting, creamy, Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream. I remember the taste. . .unfortunately not the last time I had it.

At the age of only 4 months, my Grandma Frazier fed me ice cream. And the mayhem started. I craved ice cream, like a child craves candy (odd how that works out huh? :) ). At family meals, I would practically beg, pestering my parents, almost to the point of annoyance, if I had eaten enough "good food" to go to the ice cream. This "good food" was what most people would love. Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, the whole sha-bang. But NOT for me. I could eat ice cream all day long!

There is a particular brand of ice cream, that just leaves that light, fluffy feeling in your mouth. Almost as if nothing is actually there but purely flavor. This brand, known as Blue Bell, is the Ice Cream King in Texas, and other southern states. This is the brand I crave above all others. Especially the flavor Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream. Ah. . .just thinking about it makes me drool.

Well this continued for many years, and my craving for this magnificent, fantabulous ice cream never went away. I would persist in eating a bowl or two of Blue Bell every night forever it seemed. However, that was not my destiny...

When I was about to start the 3rd grade my dad started having a really hard time keeping his cholesterol down. When he went to the doctor, he was given a list. Not a good list. A bad, bad, naughty list. A list that I wish had never existed. Because, as I'm sure you guessed, this list contained items which the doctor instructed my father not to eat. And on this list, to my despise, was ice cream. So from that moment on, Blue Bell was not known to be around the Frazier Family household.

My father followed most of the prescribed instructions from the doctor, but his cholesterol was consistently coming out high. It just refused to come down. He had trouble for many years, desperately fighting to gain control over his cholesterol.

Finally, after many years, his cholesterol begins to drop. It needs to be lower, but the doctor tells my dad he can start eating a little of what he used to, but not much of it, and in small portions. I'm excited. I think I'm going to get my Homemade Vanilla ice cream back. I do, but not what I was hoping for...we have to buy the light version. "Healthier" they say. It's okay, though, I have my Blue Bell again.

This continues for a couple of years, but it still wasn't back to the way I would love to have it. I was not getting to eat it every night, because my parents slacked off, not buying it as much. I was at a loss, I didn't know what to do, and there wasn't much I could do. I felt helpless, like a squirrel trapped in an empty trashcan, nowhere to run, and nothing to eat, and no clue how to get back out.

Then, out of the blue, my father's cholesterol spikes again. He'd been eating good, healthy food, and yet it still rose. I could not believe it. We were back to no ice cream again!

But this time, the spike came with a price. My father was having trouble. He couldn't do much without getting extremely tired. So he went back to the doctor again. The doctor runs a stress test, making my dad run, and do other activities. He didn't do well on the test at all, and when the results come back, they weren't good. His stress levels were all off for his age and weight. So the doctor decides to go in a look at my dad's heart, see if the problem lies there.

The results terrified me. The arteries in the dad's heart were clogging up. In fact, one was 100% clogged, and another was about 80%. My dad could've had a heart attack at any moment.

The doctor's performed triple by-pass surgery on my dad in March of last year, 2008, during the week of spring break. Time just seemed to slow while he was in surgery, turning seconds into minutes, minutes into hours. The waiting room was completely silent. No one spoke a word. No one could. We felt like our voices would somehow carry all the way to the surgery room, somehow making the doctor mess up. So we sat there, silent, doing whatever it was we could think of to do in a waiting room, during spring break.

Relied struck us all, when the doctor came out to let us know how the surgery went. The doctor seemed very pleased, and told us that all of the by-passes were done, and everything ran great. He was off of the ventilator, and breathing on his own again.

The next few days of visiting my father in the hospital really had an influence on my life. I know realize just how harmful not eating right, keeping an eye on your cholesterol can be. To see the life and energy return to my dad, that hadn't been there before was extraordinary.

So even though I still have my massive craving for Blue Bell Ice Cream, a craving that will never go away, and hope never does, I have learned that moderation is a good thing. Perhaps not eating this wonderful creation from the heavens every day isn't such a bad thing, but maybe a good thing. And also, I've found out that, if you let yourself crave something for long enough, the satisfaction when you finally get it, is well worth the wait!!

(Blue Bell Ice Cream 2008 <http://store.bluebell.com/store/product/3203/Book-Blue-Bell-Ice-Cream/>.)