Eat Your Lunch!!!

I never thought I would be one to be big in political topics and ideas. But I feel that the older you get, politics do become your life. Yes oddly enough, I took an introductory politics class for one of my liberal studies requirements in college I had a wonderful professor who would say that every class. Sure enough he is right.

The other day Jeff and I were watching John Stewart, he brought up a topic that from personal experience, I thought was getting better which is the National School Lunch Program or at least the food being served. During my internship last year, I had the privilege to work in a school cafeteria with some very hard working individuals and see the new changes to the menu first hand. The breads are now all whole wheat, the fruits and vegetables are fresher and if they come from a can the sodium and syrup content is much lower, the meats tastes better because they are leaner and even the amount of additional sugar to certain items was omitted.  Case in point, when I would go in and help with breakfast, if cinnamon buns were being served, we topped powdered sugar instead of regular frosting, thus cutting back on calories.

Recently the big issue regards student’s likeliness of the new guidelines. For the most part students are throwing away significant amounts of food. If students want seconds they can receive more fruits and vegetables. Not only do students dislike the taste of food, but also the portion sizes as well. From what I had witnessed working behind the line at the school, to prevent waste and create adequate portion sizes, certain spoons and scoops were numbered to indicate the serving size. If kids had the option of choosing a certain fruit at ½ cup per serving, a #8 spoon would be used.

I think what I am most displeased about is the fact that childhood obesity has become such a huge problem, in which many parents and teachers have expressed concern over, and yet they don’t seem to be on board with the changes or even encourage students to eat more lunch. I mean the fact that a teacher helped create the YouTube video, We Are Hungry, is only adding fuel to the fire in regards of getting kids to adjust to the new changes. Geee great way to set by example. Even looking at the calorie content compared to what it was to a few years ago is actually higher now. It used to be 790 calories and now it’s at 850.

In sharing in John Stewart’s frustration, don’t throw out your food out and eat your lunch!!!!! Stop Complaining!!!

Ok that’s my political issue of the day. Now breakfast.

I started off with something rather heart”y” 

 Dude, cereal is totally my weakness.

And coffee of course. In my awesome San Diego mug. 

 Other news, I will be making a job change soon. No more wing serving. I will be at a place over by Raleigh called Fork and Barrel. It’s got that fine dining/tavern style food and atmosphere. Oh boy wine and beer!!! 

Anyone in the Raleigh area needs to come check us out!!! 

This is the Way we Brew our Beer

This past Saturday, Jeff and I traveled to Cary to see our good friend Daniel. That day Daniel was educated on the fine practice of home brewing. To give you a bit of a background info, Daniel and his lovely wife Courtney, who have been married for almost a year now (Congrats!), received a home brewing kit from us as a wedding present. This should be an indicator of the kind of crazy people we are :-P So now that Jeff and I live within the area, we can now officially teach Daniel how to brew his own beer.

A basic amber ale was prepared with a touch of apple. With pride, Daniel has named the beer, get ready for this, Filthy Whore Ale. Why am I not surprised?

A reminder kiddos, when it comes to home brewing it’s just like canning, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Now say it again SANITIZE! Anything that will touch the beer needs to be cleaned with either bleach or preferably iodine.

First take a big pot and fill it to the top with water. Then wait until forever for some boiling action to occur. Next, take your grain and put it in the filtering sack. The next step is very similar to watching tea seep. Place the grain sack in the slowly boiling water. Daniel and Jeff created a little device to make fishing out the bag easier. Let this go on for about 45 minutes or so. The water should be at about 155 degrees. 

Afterwards, place the malt under hot water, remove the label and open the can. Remove the grain sack. Slowly pour the malt in the brew and stir continuously. 

 Bring back to a rolling boil then add the hops. 

Then add the wart chiller to the pot. This is a special piece of equipment Jeff has purchased over the years. The wart chiller helps to cool the beer before it’s placed in the fermenter. If you don’t have a chiller, placing 2 bags of ice in the fermenter before pouring the beer will do just fine. But none the less I have to explain how this next part was done. We continued the rest of this in the laundry room. Hook up one of the spouts of the wart chiller to the cold spigot. The other end will empty in the washer (yes it had no clothes). This took about 20 minutes or until cool to the touch. 

 Finally place your brew in the fermenter. Put the led on tightly. Attach the airlock. Wait for a week and a half until bottling. Patience, the hardest part of the whole thing. 

 So that is the basics of brewing beer. It’s not very hard it’s just the patience.Ugh patience.

Now that I have done my brief tutorial, I need to introduce you to my buddy Daniel. We met at Western when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore. We had a class together in which Daniel brought up the best topic for our argumentative speech, “Why the Drinking age should be changed to 18.” Why yes, do go on. From then on we became the best of friends. We hung out a lot after class, watching movies, taking long drives and he even took me to see Nine Inch Nails live in Greenville. For the longest time people thought we were dating, but no we have always had a plutonic relationship. When Daniel texted me to let me know that his lovely lady, Courtney had excepted his proposal to marriage, I couldn’t stop jumping up and down! I was so happy for him. 

Now Daniel will be part of our wedding day too! Jeff get prepared for one hell of a bachelor party!

I also got the chance to try out a new recipe from the Tupelo Honey Café cookbook. Very simple, pork tenderloin marinated with root beer and molasses. Marinate for one hour and then sear. 

That’s what I call a simple meal. 

DIVE!

I do believe it is true that the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival has something for everyone. Last year, while literally chilling in the movie tent, my friends and I watched a documentary called DIVE! You would think this would be in tone with some abundance of water. But no on the contrary, this is a film about dumpster diving.

During college I had heard of students partaking in this excursion after dorm move out, to procure unwanted items. Yet the items in this film revolved around dumpster diving outside of grocery stores and not just any grocery stores, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and other branches in the California region. It is quite surprising the amount of food that we as Americans throw out each year, month, week and day.

While you may think, “why would anyone eat food from the trash?” the premise of it is simple. When rummaging, most of the food is in big, plastic trash bags in which the food inside is still in the original container or individual plastic bags. Some of the food which has been thrown out is either past the expiration date or one item in a container is bruised, such as one bruised tomato in a cart of 4, these are grounds for being thrown out. Although these terms seem reasonable for a grocery store to still keep in business, there are many people who go hungry many, many nights because they do not have the money to spend on food. The shame is most of the food which is disposed is still very much usable.

When I lived in Sylva, we had a local community restaurant that would cook and serve food to the local patrons in need of a cooked meal. If you are wondering, yes it was a soup kitchen. Most of the food had been donated by the community garden, food-drives, Manna food bank and surprisingly enough, Wal-Mart.

There are rules that dumpster divers follow:

·         Leave it cleaner than you found it!

·         Only take what you can use, leave plenty for everyone.

·         Look for dumpsters which are not locked.

My thoughts on dumpster diving are simple. As long as you plan to use the food you find or have some proper way of storing it (freezer space) then knock yourself out. I have yet to try this activity but I feel that if businesses are going to get rid of foods which are still useful, then it makes sense for those who want the “scraps” to make something of them. This prevents those that would go hungry, a sense of satiety.

The term “freegan” is the practice of minimizing consumerism and practicing ethical issues. While not all dumpster diving can be practiced by those who are food insecure, some actually can afford to shop in a grocery store. Some critics believe that this practice is somewhat hypocritical or selfish. One of the practices freegans try to attain is living off the grid. Even in this day and age, this is still quite difficult to do with having to pay for utility bills and even rent. Yet, given the common rules for dumpster diving, “take only what you can use” does that really seem selfish? Especially with people wasting so much food in the US?

Just take a moment to think and possibly do some research on this topic. I will leave you with this statement from the EPA:

“Every year in America we throw away 96 billion pounds of food. One half of all food prepared in the US and Europe never gets eaten. The Department of Agriculture estimated in 1996 that recovering just 5% of the food that is wasted could feed four million people a day; recovering 25% would feed 20 million people. Today we recover less than 2.5%.”

 "Times they are a Changin"- Bob Dylan

Sushi Time

 If there is one weakness I have, it’s sushi. I can’t get enough of it! On Sunday I realized the intensity of Sunday football at work. Lunch was oddly quite lucrative. Once work had been completed, Jeff and I headed over to Raleigh to see my crazy friend Daniel.  I was more than thrilled when Daniel recommended sushi for dinner.  Having worked in the past at Spring Street Café in Sylva, we would have sushi night every Wednesday. It always amazed me how creative our chefs got with these rolls.  When I mean creative I mean dessert rolls with strawberries and mango with balsamic reduction.  Trout was even incorporated in a roll known as the Appalachian roll. Um good idea, yes? One thing I have heard in the past from people who go to sushi restaurants is the concern for the low sanitation score. For those who are unfamiliar with sanitation scores, every restaurant receives a grade based on cleanliness and safe food practices. The highest is 102, at sushi restaurants this score might be lower based on the fact that raw food is served and has to be thoroughly documented in regards to temperatures. I promise I have never gotten sick from sushi.

A nice cold beer to get started with, I suppose this one will do. Very crisp, very refreshing after a busy day at work. 

 Sushi Nine, located in Raleigh, shows both school spirit for NC State as well as eastern elegance for patrons consisting of the college crowd as well as Raleigh locals. As for the rolls, just a heads up, I was very hungry after work and almost devoured this whole thing before I remembered to take a picture. I had the Hurricane roll and the Sunset roll. Both were very basic in my opinion and nothing too crazy. The hurricane roll consisted of spicy tuna, tempura flakes with slices of avocado and just a drop of rooster sauce. What can I say, I’m a sucker for avocado.  

 As for the Sunset roll, I have never tried raw salmon with lemon, but to my surprise this was a complimentary combination. Using a classic California roll consisting of crab, cucumber and avocado on the inside of the roll wrapped with salmon and lemon on the outside, this truly lived up to its namesake. 

 In other news, I did follow through with one of my projects. I just got finished making homemade chocolate peanut butter bars, like Mama Pea's. The good news, really easy to make:

• ½ cup of unsalted butter, melted
• ½ cup finely ground oats
• ½ cup crushed corn flakes
• ½ cup peanut butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Combine all these ingredients together. It will look peanut buttery and crunchy. Spread the mixture on an 8 x 8 shallow pan. Next melt 2/3 cup of chocolate chips and 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter in a double boiler. Spread the melted chocolate on the peanut butter mixture.

Now the bad news, waiting. Place the pan in the refrigerator for an hour and a half. 

 I’ll give updates tomorrow.

“Sitting, Waiting, Wishing”-Jack Johnson