Julie and Julia

The movie Julie and Julia follows the lives of two characters, Julie and Julia Child, and highlights the parallels in their lives and their journey of finding their passion for food. Although Julie and Julia have never met and were living in different countries in different time periods, their lives are eerily similar in that food has changed both of their lives for the better. When Julia Child was living in France with her husband in the 1940s, she was fascinated with French cuisine and started to take a cooking class. While in the class, she realized that cooking was actually something that she was passionate about, and she had the idea of writing a cookbook that taught French cooking to American housewives. The cookbook became a huge success, and 50 years later it ends up in the household of the movie's other main character, Julie. Julie used cooking as an escape from the stress of her boring and demanding job. One day, her husband gave her the idea of starting a blog, and she decided to make her blog about food. She gave herself a year to cook every recipe from Julia Child's cookbook, and she would describe every detail of her journey on her blog. What started out as a hobby soon began to take over Julie's life, and her obsession with cooking even caused a strain in her marriage. It all became worth it, however, since her blog became popular and it even got featured on the New York times. Both of these women taught us that when you don't know what direction your life is going in, following your passions and staying dedicated to your goals no matter what hardships you will face will take you far. 

Can a chef be an artist?

Though many people don't realize it, cooking is a form of art that has been overlooked and unrecognized. Cooking is a skill that is hard enough to master, but it takes a special kind of chef to transform their food into a type of edible art.  I've watched numerous episodes of Cake Boss, and the way the chefs sculpture their cakes seems to be similar to the procedures used in architecture, and watching them decorate the frosting is almost like watching a painter hard at work. It is also interesting when the chef presents the food in a creative way on your plate. The most talented chefs know that the arrangement of food can somehow affect its taste, since the better the food looks the more appealing it is. Beyond the looks and presentation of the food, the act of cooking itself can even be considered art. Everyone can cook to a certain extent, but not everyone can cook well. There is a sort of precision to cooking, where you need to heat food in the oven for an exact amount of time or add just the right amount of seasoning to get the flavor you want. You need to have enough knowledge of ingredients so that you can know what to use as a substitute when you're out of a certain ingredient, or make a savory concoction out of foods that don't even seem compatible with each other. Anyone can cook using a recipe, but only a true artist can experiment with whatever ingredient they please, create their work of art, and perfect it with enough detail until it becomes a masterpiece.

Babette's Feast

Babette's Feast is a story of religion and the difficulty to give in to the temptations that drive your everyday life. Throughout the story, the two main characters, sisters Martine and Phillipa, are living a life based on their extremely strict Puritan values imposed on them by their father. They believe that giving up things that are pleasurable would benefit them in the afterlife, and their suffering would be rewarded. They dressed in plain clothes everyday, and they even denied their feelings for the men that tried to seduce them. But there was only one thing that was able to cause the girls to temporarily forget their religion and experience pleasure: food. 

When Babette decided to prepare a feast for the congregation, everyone was reluctant to eat the food for fear of being glutenous. To be polite, they agreed that they would eat the food, but not discuss any part of the meal so they don't display any form of excitement. When General Lorens Lowenhielm showed up to the feast, however, he did not know of these plans. As a non-Puritan, he had no hesitations about openly discussing the meal. Though they never admitted it out loud, General Lowenhielm's praises of the food were a reflection of what everyone was feeling, and for a moment the mood was lightened. For the first time in their lives, the girls and the rest of the congregation saw food as a beautiful delicacy rather than just something you needed to survive. Food is a very powerful tool, and a good meal causes people to come together and experience joy and excitement in almost any situation.

The Ultimate Comfort Food

My favorite comfort food is nachos. When I was a child, I used to look forward to having them after school as an afternoon snack. My mom used to use a mango salsa and melt a four cheese shredded blend on top with sour cream on the side. As I got older, I stopped having an afternoon snack everyday, but when I did Tostitos and salsa was always the first option. I don't make nachos as often now, but when I do it's always a treat that reminds me of my childhood.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1 ½ cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons red food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting:

½ pound cream cheese (softened)

1 stick butter (softened)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

Eating dessert is one of my family’s favorite pastimes, and when we have the time and energy we love to bake. We make all kinds of cookies, brownies, and cupcakes, and experiment with different recipes. But the most popular dessert that my family bakes is red velvet cupcakes. My dad found a recipe online a few years ago, and ever since then they became a traditional dessert in my family and an all around symbol of togetherness and celebration. Usually my sister and I bake these cupcakes on special occasions, or sometimes just when we have a taste for them. Sometimes we bring them to the family parties that my aunt and cousin throw on certain holidays, and they are a huge hit. We even got paid once for catering our special cupcakes during a wine tasting that my cousin hosted.
 

Red velvet cupcakes are similar to chocolate cupcakes, except they have a cream cheese frosting on top. Even though I make these cupcakes all the time, putting on the frosting is always the hardest part. I have a cake decorator that allows you to design the icing in the shape of a petal, circle, or star. On the cover of the box it looks easy to use, but whenever I try to do anything too fancy it never works out. Other than that, making the cupcakes isn't too difficult. Though it is a bit time consuming, since the recipe yields about 24 cupcakes, and it always leaves behind a huge mess of powder everywhere, it’s all worth it in the end.        
 

My kitchen counter after adding in the flour

Food and Culture in the Smith Household

Every day, my dad, my mom, my sister and I eat breakfast and dinner together at our kitchen table, a tradition that occurred in my household since I was a child. Dinner time is our time to talk about how our day went, reminisce on past memories, or have heated arguments, usually sparked by my dad, that almost always end in a lecture. Typically my dad cooks a big meal on Sundays, and we continue eating the leftovers throughout the week. During the week, my mom cooks, or occasionally I will make something simple. On Fridays we always have pizza, and on Saturdays we either go out to eat or stay at home and make burgers or other foods that take little effort to make.

The total amount of money spent on food each week is typically around $230. However, only $99 is spent on groceries while the other $131 is spent on outside food, including the estimated $90 spent each week in the RPS dining commons. In my semi-health conscious family, snacks aren’t too big a part of our diet, and when we do buy snacks, as with certain beverages and meats, we sometimes make sure to purchase the low calorie or fat free version. Our diet revolves around meat, which we eat with almost every meal, and eggs, since we eat breakfast every day. We also buy a lot of bread and grains, most of which is breakfast food.

Food is one of the most important aspects of my family life. It’s what keeps us all grounded and helps us to stay close. No matter how stressed out we are and how busy our schedules are, we can always depend on our daily dinner bonding sessions and a fresh home cooked meal to get us through the week.


Grains and other starchy foods: $28.67

Whole Wheat Bread, $4.69

Kaiser rolls, $2.79

Bran Muffins, $3.49

Blueberry Muffins, $2.49

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels, $4.69

Minute Rice $1.99

Spaghetti Noodles, $1.25

Cinnamon Toast Crunch $4.29

Nature’s Path Pumpkin Flax Cereal, $2.99

Diary: $8.50

Land o’Lakes Yellow American cheese, ½ lb, $3.50

Yogurt, 5, $2.50

Cream Cheese, $2.50

Snacks: $9.47

Tostitos Chips $2.99

Chocolate Chip Cookies $2.99

Lindt Dark Chocolate Truffles, $3.49

Meat, Fish, and Eggs: $20.21

Eggs, 18 $3.49

Chicken Legs, $4.95

Turkey Bacon $3.49

Turkey Sausage $4.29

Ground Turkey, $3.99

Fruits, Vegetables, and Nuts: $9.83

Kale $2.50

Canned Green Beans, 3 $0.49

Gala Apples $1.79

Bananas $1.57

Applesauce $2.50

Beverages: $22.04

Cherry Coke Zero, 2 Liter $1.50

Bottled Water, 24 pack $4.49

Orange Juice, 2 $5.98

1% milk, 1 gallon $3.29

Vanilla Almond Milk, 1 gallon, $4.29

Crystal Light, $2.49

Fast food/Restaurant food: $40.98

Pizza, ½ Cheese ½ Meatball, $14.98

Chipoltle burritos, 4, $26

Dining Commons food: $90

Total: 229.70

Meet the Mendozas

The Mendoza family. From left: Susana (47), Ignacio (15), Cristolina (19), a family friend (standing in for Marcelucia, 9, who ran off to play), Fortunado Pablo (50), and Sandra Ramos, live-in helper (11). Not pictured: Xtila (17) and Juan (12).

Deep in the rural town of Todos Santos in Cuchumatan, Guatemala lives the Mendozas, a family of eight. For the Mendozas, the center of family life revolves around the kitchen. This is the typical week's worth of food for the Mendozas, and it all comes to the cost of 573 Quetzales, or about  $75.70 in U.S. dollars.

The majority of the family's diet consists of fresh fruits and vegetables, which cost the family around $34.75 a week. Most popular are dried black beans (13.2 lbs), green squash (12 lbs), tomatoes (10 lbs) and bananas (7.4 lbs). Also important in the Mendoza family's diet are grains and other starches, which the family spends $11.49 on each week. 48 lbs of homegrown corn are eaten every week, as well as 20 lbs of potatoes. $8.85 each week is spent on condiments such as salt, pepper, oil, and cinnamon, and $7.93 is spent on 4.4 lbs of chicken and 30 eggs. The drink of choice is water, as 5 gallons of bottled water are consumed each week. Not much is spent on snacks, dairy, or prepared foods, which have a combined total of $7. 

The Mendozas seem to have a very healthy lifestyle, since almost all of their weekly foods are fresh and virtually none of it is processed. Their foods are prepared using a gas stovetop and a wooden stove, and they are preserved in a refrigerator. Cooking and eating in the Mendoza house helps to bring the family closer together, and according to Fortunado Pablo Mendoza, he is "happiest when I'm eating [my wife] Susana's rice and beans, her homemade tortillas, and her turkey soup."

Food and Culture at RPS

From being on the Rutgers Prep campus for a week and studying the students’ eating habits, I have come to the conclusion that the diet for these adolescents is mostly unhealthy. It is not completely their fault though, since they can only eat what the cafeteria serves them. Every day there is a kind of pasta drowned in oil, and when there isn’t pasta there are tacos, burritos, and burgers. If the students don’t want pasta, they usually make a sandwich or a salad drenched in dressing, and the seniors go out to eat some fried, processed foods at McDonalds or Taco Bell. There is always a dessert served, usually chocolate chip cookies or ice cream. When they aren’t in the cafeteria, the only other option is to go to the vending machine and eat chips or chocolate.

As I walked onto the RPS campus, the first thing that I noticed was that although the school was an area for learning, the most important thing to the students seemed to be food. No matter how different the students were and which social group they belonged to, their shared love for food gives each one something in common. Whether they are anxiously waiting until morning meeting is over so they can walk to the vending machine, complaining about how hungry they are during their long band class, or criticizing how bad the school lunch is that day, there is nothing else that could bring the students closer together.