Sex in the Caribbean

One of my favorite drinks is Sex on the Beach. I called this Sex in the Caribbean because the alcohol in the cabinet was rum. Of course, I am also partial to rum. I have been a pirate for a halloween's,the latest being a Zombie pirate this past halloween, taken a pirate class where the last class was spent drinking grog and singing seashanties, and spent hours building a LEGO pirate ship.


1 ounce golden rum
1.5 ounces orange juice
1.5 ounces cranberry juice

1. In shot glass pour first rum then orange juice, then cranberry juice.
2. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Pistachio Crusted Chicken

1 cup crushed pistachios
3 chicken breasts
Cardamom
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil


1. Mix all spices and pistachios in a large bowl.
2. Cover chicken breasts in oil and roll in spices until you are a crust is formed.
3. Grill on medium high heat. Cook on each side respectively until moisture is seen on surface.

The Kitchen hobbit

I'm not sure if the title makes sense, but it should get everyone's attention. Anyway, the kitchen is much more than a place to cook food. If you live in the kitchen, find smart and funny ways to turn your cooking activities into timesavers.


 The gym:

Arms: shaking reps

I made homemade butter! It's easy! Take heavy cream, fill a airtight jar half way up and shake until the butter and buttermilk separate. Knead the butter under cold running water to remove the remaining liquid; or else it will spoil quickly.

This was very fun and I recommend you try it. I only made a few ounces, but you can make as much as you want with different equipment. I'm sure you have heard of butter churning, see it done manually, or have done it yourself. I suggest making homemade honey butter.

Or, if you want the easy way out, pour heavy cream in a bowl and beat with a electric mixer until it separates into butter and buttermilk.

Arms: Weights

Pound out your stress by pounding thicker cuts of meat into cutlets for frying. Yes, yes frying is high-fat. The kitchen isn't a gym ;p

Arms:Stirring reps

Pick a recipe where you have to stir constantly such as caramel. Give the caramel to someone else and don't be tempted to try any!

Arms etc: bench press

Carry groceries without a cart.

Legs: steps

You might not be able to disguise this entirely because it requires reps to get your heart rate up. But to do this, put your spices on the top shelf and perhaps have some ingredients on different levels of your house.

Legs: weights

Get leg weights at a sporting goods store and wear them in the kitchen.

The Therapist's:

Take a big ziploc bag and fill it with nuts. Now find your hammer. While you are putting hammer to bag, repeat the mantra, "Your name SMASH!" This exercise will build your arms strength as well!

The Spa:

Treat yourself to a homemade facial and relax in the steam from the oven!

Universal

We eat, we live. We don't eat, we die. Same for everyone. All cultures. All humanity throughout time and space.
The world has been shrinking at a faster and faster rate. This exponential increase in the interaction between ethnicities is why we have to learn about the food of different cultures, how to eat it, and manners at the table.
We have all developed different food cultures-drawing on the food that is available to us. However, when one studies the cuisines of various cultures, it becomes clear that people all around the globe have developed some of the same tastes. I was speaking with my relative about his growing up in Eastern Europe and business of Bucca de Beppo. He mentioned the astonishing similarities of meals around the globe. He experienced having polenta as a child in Eastern Europe and having the same basic ingredients in the food served in the chain. Rice and beans is popular in the American south and a different rice and bean dish is popular in Spain.

Cocktails At Intermission

Over the past several months an irksome trend in the food served in the theatre today has gradually come to my attention. At one venue my family has season tickets to, you can now bring drinks into the theatre. When this change first occurred, I thought nothing of it. It was only after my experience at the Nutcracker that I reevaluated it.
When I recently went to a production of the Nutcracker, one could buy and eat popcorn during the production and there was a grilled cheese bar. And candy is now as common in theaters as it is in cinemas.
At the risk of sounding WASPish, that is not what one eats in the theatre! I hear tales from those who know first hand that it used to be only the classiest libations and haute cuisine was served at the theatre.
It will be interesting to look at food served in certain venues throughout the centuries. I seem to recall that in the Shakespearian era, anyone could come to his plays, eat anything they wished or could don any attire.

This Morning's eggs

In case you haven't noticed, I am quite the fan of Italy. I love the landscape and the history, but mostly the food. When we went to Switzerland, I was just a little bit too excited about crossing the boarder to Italy, even if just for a brief moment.


 3 large eggs
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper
table salt
1/3 cup milk
1/2 sweet bell pepper finely chopped
2 slices deli sliced ham chopped
1 oz. crumbled goat cheese
Leaves of a sprig of fresh rosemary

1. Whisk eggs, milk, salt and pepper together in small bowl.
2. Scramble eggs in frying pan over medium heat.
3. Add remaining ingredients when eggs are half way done.

BLC

One day, my mom was making BLT's for her and my dad. I don't like tomatoes. Therefore, CHEESE. YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH CHEESE (adapted from one of Julia's lines in Julie and Julia) CHEESE IS ALSO A RELIGION (adapted from a Who's Line is it Anyway? Three-headed Broadway star sketch), and (from a t-shirt playing on EurythmicS lyrics)  SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF CHEESE.

4 strips bacon
1 big lettuce leaf
2 oz. cheddar cheese
2 slices of bread

1. Fry bacon.
2. Place cheese on bread, oven on 350 and oven rack near the top.
3. Broil to make grilled cheese.
4. Place bacon horizontally on grilled cheese, then lettuce and top slice of bread.

Italy

Cookies:

5 tablespoons softened butter
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup rum
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Decoration:
Slivered almonds
Sugar


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. To make dough, cream butter and sugar in large bowl.
3. Then add milk, flour, baking powder and salt. Blend well.
4. Once to dough is made, roll out thinly on a floured surface until the dough reaches about 1/8 inch in thickness.  Cut dough with cookie cutters, applying additional flour to cookie cutters when needed so the cookies do not stick. Decorate cookies by sprinkling sugar or arranging slivered almonds on top. I suggest a flour pattern.
5. Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Try serving with whip or ice cream! (See Frozen Treats)

Three Cheese Scalloped Reds

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup Dubliner cheese
1/4 cup Gouda
1/4 cup goat cheese
Sliced potato

1. Prep: Slice Potatoes on the thickest setting of your mandolin and shred cheese.
2. Butter casserole dish and pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
3. On medium heat, melt butter in sauté pan. Add flour and milk and whisk to make a rue.
4. Add un-rinsed potato slices and cheese. Mix.
5. Pour in casserole dish and bake for 30-45 mins.

Italy

One of the best times of my life was in the summer of 2009 when took part in a excavation in the Sangro Valley, Italy. The small town we stayed in for the duration of the month-long excavation, Tornareccio, is about 70 miles east of Rome. There are countless reasons why this excavation was magical and why I felt like it was a dream, but for this blog, I shall save that for the archaeologists and concentrate on the food!

Italian food is one of the world's best cuisines and there are Italian restaurant everywhere in the United States today. So, it can be said the Americans at least somewhat no what to expect. Tornareccio did have some recognizable foods like gelato, which could be found at four different bars in this two-commercial street town, but there were also great local favorites like Rostichini. Rostichni is a local specialty pork kabob. We would have this on special occasions, but could also buy it on Friday nights at the bar. Dance party, beer and rosticini. This small town is also famous in Italy for it's varieties of honey.

 On one field trip, we went to a local honey factory and it was to die for. We got to see how the honey was made and don silly hats. We then we got to buy a honey and by pasta that had been made from grains that have been growling for thousands of years.

When we got to Rome the food was no less excellent. We were only there for a week, and thus my exposure to the food there was limited. However, the gelato was amazing and I remember a wide variety of pizza: what seemed like hot dog pizza and what was shrimp salad pizza. One I loved about Italy was that blood orange juice takes the place of navel orange juice in America.

I have always loved Thai and Vietnamese food. However, if I think about it, as much as I love Asian cuisines, Italy "takes the cake," not only do they have amazing entrées but they have amazing desserts.

Butternut Rav

Not sure how you feel about your veggies, but I love butternut squash. Back in college, I was in a co-op. Thank you for your condolences. My taste for meat grew because, as a separate community who didn't eat in the dining halls, meat was to expensive. Since we would only have meat on very special occasions, ate out a bunch.
Not only could we not afford meat, we did not recklessly spend on good veggies. In my first year though, a gem in the sea or weird vegetarian foods, was the sweet potato. Needless to say, I feel in love and that's about the only thing I ate.
When I got out of college, I discovered more sophisticated veggies, but with the same taste I came to know and love. Butternut squash tastes like sweet potato but feels more grown-up.

Filling:

¼ Butternut squash
1 egg
2 oz. goat cheese

1 teaspoon Orange Juice
Fresh rosemary leaves

Wonton wrapper

‎1. Bake squash in microwave or roast flesh (if rind is on) on baking sheet.
2. Puree filling ingredients in blender.
3. Spoon filling into wonton wrappers. About 1 1/2 teaspoons.
4. Seal wonton wrappers by wetting your fingers and 'painting' water around the edges of the raviolis. Carefully pat down tightly seal, so that the filling does not come out.

5. Cook pasta for 8 mins or until they rise. Make sure not to crowd the ravioli or it will stick. Probably about four per pot is the safest.

6. Top with marinara and crumbled goat cheese.
7. Enjoy!

Plea for Culinary Education

Jamie Oliver says we need to teach cooking in elementary school. Yes, yes we do. However, we need to teach kids to cook and value intercontinental food as well. This could be an effective way to open the mind of a child not only to international cooking, but to other international relations.

At least in a certain area, teaching simple cooking to children does lead towards a healthy interest in it that will hopefully last a lifetime. A farmer in California started teaching elementary school kids and-POOF-they started asking for veggies and wanted to eat the stuff they’d learned to make. Thus, kids don’t have to eat this high-fat, prepackaged stuff. It is simply that they are first introduced to these foods through the media and parents who also have not had a chance to receive a sufficient culinary education.

Start preparing them for the world by teaching them how to care for themselves! By the way, cooking also involves time management, chemistry, planning, coordination, and if you teach it correctly history, anthropology, design, psychology. And so on.

Culinary education could potentially also help with international relations. I'm not saying that culinary education will lead to peace….Oh wait, I actually am. In the first few years of school, we are taught to get along with our peers. However, this usually doesn't include the international community, which it should since they are quickly becoming our peers.

So you know cooking cannot solve all our problems, but if we learn and teach our kids how to get along with others- how to eat a meal with people from other cultures- we will definitely and prove relations. Food is the ORIGINAL international language-the universal language. We had food before we had anything else! Think about it, if you have a meal with Japanese businessmen , dothey frown if you use chopsticks and sit down on the floor like they do? No. They are going to feel much more comfortable around you and feel that you understand their culture.

International relations today on more important than they have ever been. For many thousands of years, traveling across the globe was either impossible, dangerous, tedious, or all the above. Thus, culture was internal; it was in isolation to all but what was immediately around it. Today, those cultures are no longer isolated, but are being enveloped in a global culture; one that is still searching for how to handle difficult situations.

"Globalization” was once a far-off dream, but has now become reality, with unforeseen consequences of a new global mindset. This amalgamation of cultures is pulling the riches of the world's eclectic quilt out from under us and replacing it with a homogenized society, eradicating the past. Whatever my views, this push towards androgyny has mixed reactions.

While many ethnographic groups are fighting to preserve their cultures, others seem willing to abandon their collective heritage. For example, a discussion in my anthropological linguistics' class at Oberlin College centered on an initiative in New York designed to preserve dying languages. This project, along with the public library’s Endangered Language Alliance, focuses on languages that have only a handful of speakers left. There is an upsurge in Ireland of teaching Gaelic in schools because the traditional language is quickly fading. In addition, I just heard a podcast about requiring Mexican officials to learn an ancient language.

“Globalization” issues are not black and white, and I am certainly not bashing technology or scientific advancement. I even wanted to be a computer programmer starting in middle school. Of course, this stemmed from an early age when I was a teacher’s assistant in my third-grade computer class. Tangentially related, I am going for a Masters degree to pursue a career as a digitization archivist, a career which would combine science and humanities. I am elated by the ability we now have as a global society to communicate across the globe. However, with mostly all matters, we must walk a tightrope, cautiously placing one foot in front of the other so as not to come to our doom. We must manage it.

Enter "International culture." As the daughter of a Foreign Service officer as well as a trained anthropologist, I feel often much more comfortable than others around foreigners. Not to mention that time spent abroad was during my formative years.

To achieve some of these goals from the ground up, I propose that every student be required to take a minimum of one foreign language though out their schooling. There must also be cultural diversity requirements at all colleges and study abroad should be made mandatory.
For example, Oberlin has a cultural diversity requirement. A student is required to take at least three classes in two universal regions in order to graduate. This idea of being a more cultured and well-rounded person must be implemented more widely; for one is sure to be hindered in this global climate if they are not culturally aware. Being culturally aware is even more crucial in this transition period with such a burgeoning of new technologies promoting interconnectedness.

Interconnectedness is what sets this age apart from other eras of technological growth. However, there must be a balance; we must acknowledge what society is conforming to. Thus, it is a good idea to require that students learn a cultural language. I say cultural to distinguish them from the languages of the future which, depending on your perspective, seem to be computer languages, instead of ethnographic.

It is an enterprising idea that a computer language can count as a foreign language because of the increasing focus on technological innovation starting with our generation. At the same time, this emphasizes globalization over an international culture, a choice that is more than crucial in our current societal climate. Ergo, the idea is a great feat of balance is often difficult to achieve.
I believe that we can avoid to looming inevitability of the cons of globalization though education reform. This education must start with elementary schools and the general public.