Things to think about for class tomorrow

Is it "just lunch"? Is there a value to Big Organic? How does gender shape work at Polyface Farms? Does Pollan comment on that? How does gender shape Pollan's hunter-gatherer meal? Is he fully aware of the way it operates?

What do you think about the arguments he presents for (and against) vegetarianism and veganism?

Corn Everywhere?

So after reading the first couple of pages after the intro, my mind was already blown, so that's what this is going to be about. You want to know what my first thought was: how much it would suck if you were allergic to corn. Am I right? Apparently they wouldn't be able to eat anything because everything is made of corn, or at one point is touched by corn, or has run across it. Technically, they couldn't even touch anything because all the gloss and coverings were made at some point by corn. CORN, CORN, CORN. Our world is over run by it, and I was unaware, so I know a lot of people my age and around me are unaware. It's so crazy to think about because one of my good friends is allergic to peanuts, and he can't eat anything that's been soaked in peanut oil, or anything that has come across peanuts. He has to bring his epi pen everywhere, just in case. It's just super weird to me that everything that surrounds me is from corn. The only time I think about it is when I have tacos, or Mexican food. Now, it's going to be on my mind, so I'm going to look at everything I eat and see if I can trace it back to corn. I love corn, especially corn on the cob, but I don't really like the idea of it being in other things I eat. (Corn flavored ice cream, what?)

Shoot, the world is a crazy place.

I'll Never Look at Corn The Same Way Again

This book has given me a gift, but like a 5 year old that receives socks for his birthday, I didn't like it. This so called "present" was a slap in the face that opened my eyes to something that I didn't necessarily want to see. Corn. Is. Everywhere. Growing up, corn was those little yellow kernels of deliciousness, on the cob or off, that were buttery, sweet, and delicious. But now, corn seems to be a building block to practically everything. It's in our sodas, on our produce, even in the walls of the buildings in which we buy those products. Even more astounding is how much the farmers have to do, toiling away working their fields, to provide this product to us, and how little they get paid. According to Iowa State University, most farmers spend, on average, $2.50 to produce a bushel, but are only paid $1.45 a bushel by the grain elevators. Farmers are paid this little due to a surplus of corn, but due to the ass-backward way that the corn farming profession is set up by the government, the solution to not making enough money is to simply grow more corn. Now, a surplus isn't always bad, but it is in regards to corn. A surplus should be kept in case there is a year in which a crop can't be grown, however, due to scientific advances, it's almost impossible to be unable to grow a crop of corn. So while farmers keep growing, the elevators are overflowing. Corn is strewn upon the ground because there is no other place to put it.

It's depressing to me to see this kind of waste when world hunger is so prevalent in our world. Not just in other countries, but also in our own. One would assume that the excess corn could just be given away, BUT not all corn can be eaten. Corn today has become so hybridized, or genetically modified, that it literally has to be processed before it can be consumed. Also, some corn can't even be consumed after it's been processed because it has been grown to be put into industrial uses such as building materials.

It's depressing to me that such a fun part of my childhood, eating corn off the cob, has been twisted into a nightmare by corporate America.

Accommodation and Domestication

While reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I was taken aback by Pollan’s depiction of how corn came to domesticate humans, and how successful this plant was at accommodating the people who would help it colonize “virtually every microclimate of North America.” Pollan presents the idea that rather than human’s inventing agriculture, it could just as easily be regarded as an evolutionary process of plants and animals to cater to humans, exhibiting the traits that we humans favored in order to survive. The artificial selection imposed by humans came to be just as important as the natural selection that had allowed corn to thrive, long before the Native Americans had begun to cultivate it.

Another surprising feature that seemed to accommodate humans was the way in which it could be “engineered” and how the companies invested in such engineering would be guaranteed a return, due to the fact that after the first season, the crops would yield anything profitable. The fact that these strategic crops, who had been successful in accommodating the physical desires of humans for centuries, also lent themselves to being sold and patented in our markets, was what shocked me the most.

My views

What really surprised me was how much money we spend on a farming industry that doesn't function as an efficient economic system. Farmers, especially large family farms, are subsidized by the government to produce too much corn and soy beans, which makes it possible for big corporate purchasers of their products to save money, but then resell it to consumers for bigger profits. As I understand it, American tax payers subsidize farmers, big corporations buy the subsidized product, largely corn or soy beans, which is then sold to food producers, from cattle farmers to cereal and cookie manufacturers, who then sell it to consumers at prices higher than they should be paying because the government subsidized, through their taxes, it in the first place. I want to see family farms stay in business, but this sort of system seems horribly inefficient.

Also surprising was just how trapped the farmers were into growing a particular crop. Amherst, Massachusetts, the town where I grew up, has a plow and a book on its town seal to symbolize it is both an educational community (with Amherst College, Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts within its borders) and an agricultural community. I'm no farmer, but even I would notice that different farms grew different crops from year to year. Sometimes it was corn, sometimes squash, sometimes even flowers. In more rural and larger scale farms, the farmers seem to have no choice but to grow corn or soybeans because if the grew something else they would have no market for their produce, or have to transport over very great distances.

Weaving Corn Into Our Life

Pollan spends a good amount of time talking about carbon and the human body, which surprised me, because the book seems more geared towards the cultural part of food. Yet he makes sure to talk about carbon in a way that makes it simple for the reader to understand. Not only that but he then connects it back to the cultural part of food, so he ties everything together so as to create the big picture for the reader. I noticed that he does that throughout part one which then makes me believe that his whole book has this kind of standard. I appreciate the different parts of history that he weaves together to create the bigger picture of his book which can be argued to be a major idea throughout. Corn is in all aspects of life; as much as we are dependent on corn, corn is dependent on us and over time it has and it will become a detrimental part of our diets.

Elevator

Driving across the prairie to Grandma's house, there is not much to look at out the car window to keep us entertained. So when we pass an elevator on a farm, everyone gets excited and looks in awe at the giant cylinder towering over the fields; Mom points out how small the farmer's truck is in comparison. The Kansas prairie is a part of my life and the farmers are a part of my family.

While reading Michael Pollan's book, I found myself wanting to defend the farmers when he told of the wasted corn falling to the ground as the truck is loaded and commences on its travels. How could he proclaim that the farmers are not bothered by corn that did not stay in the bed of the truck? Of all people, I believe farmers are some of the people who take things granted the least; they have been through hard seasons and work from sun up to sun down.

Yet, I think, of course it must be true. Americans are pressured to complete tasks efficiently and quickly. So while we sit there angrily reading about farmers wasting corn, we should all feel guilty, as we all are constantly wasting and taking things for granted. That is why Pollan's book is understandable to the general public. We can all understand what is going on in these scenes, but many will deny the fact that they take part in wasteful actions as well.

The Amazing History of Corn

I was shocked at how much of the things we surround ourselves with contains corn! All of those things on the nutrition labels that I never knew what they were are derived from corn: lecithin, ascorbic acid, crystalline fructose lactic acid, lysine, and the list goes on. Even things that you would have never imagined have corn in them such as diapers, charcoal, and batteries. We literally are the corn people.
The evolution of corn was another fascinating topic, with its dependence on humans for its survival. With just a few mutations, this new species was formed that came to dominate the world of plants and adapt to make itself even more suitable for what humans, its sole source of survival, wanted it for. It's amazing that it needs something with thumbs in order to reproduce which means that as soon as the mutations took place, a human stumbled across it. Without that one interaction, corn as we know it would not be here to dominate our supermarket shelves.

Corn Industry and PLANTS

In Biology today, we talked about plants, and how they are "SO AWESOME!" according to our professor, Dr. Borden. One of the exercises we did was to list some of the things we used this morning that included plant material, and after reading Pollan's book, I learned so much about corn and how it's in everything, even the things we least expect it to be in. Never really thinking about the food I eat, this news was quite shocking to me, but as I thought about it more, the more sense it made.

Many sciences today are utilized towards profits, especially for the food industry. It's ironic however that even though though all they do is to "benefit" humankind a lot of these ideas actually backlash and cause problems. While nitrogen is beneficial to fertilize fields which in return feeds the world, nitrogen can also be used to make mass weapons of distruction. And in excess to fertilize they evaporate to form gases for global warming and also run off into water supplies of cities making it toxic to drink for some.

Like sweeteners, science can be used for good, however in excess it usually brings harm to humanity and with that comes greed as well.

Another interesting thing I learned today was that most nutrients a plant takes up is from the air, and it is estimated that it's composed of more than 90 percent of the plants' growth. Cool eh?

This book has funny titles

Upon finishing part one of Pollan's book, I realized something kind of funny. Not just the subject titles... Corn sex? I found that the ongoing theme was that corn and humans are dependant upon each other. The word "dependant" in particular stood out to me. I learned new information about the crop and was exposed to a new, surprisingly accurate point of view. Corn is an American staple and, thanks to the knowledge of old Native Americans, corn is in EVERYTHING, even some of the non-food products we use. It's hard to believe that such a needed crop like corn is unable to be left alone. Corn needs humans in order to grow and be made into products or be used as food. Humans though, need corn to survive, since there is some part of corn in everything we use.
Daniel Tosh (if you don't know who he is already) is a famous comedian. In his stand-up "Completely Serious" Tosh states that it wouldn't matter if all the corn in the mid-west were destroyed because "ethanol is a dream, and a dumb one". It just goes to show that humans actually take corn for granted. The truth is, Daniel Tosh, just as corn needs us to survive, we as humans also depend on the versatile crop we all know as corn.

Thanks Michael Pollan.

America: "Too Many Farms for Her Own Good?"

Whenever I am on a road trip, I always enjoy looking out the window at all of the farms in the middle of nowhere. Growing up, I told my grandmother of how badly I wanted to live on a farm. Having grown up on a farm, my grandmother continuously told me how much work it was and how often people lost their farms in the 1930s. Many of the farms that I see out the window are now old, rundown and dilapidated buildings. It never occurred to me that there might be too many farms in America.
After reading Micheal Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma, I was surprised by the fact that farmers have rivals besides other farmers. The job of "feeding America" was so important in the earlier years of the 20Th century that it would not seem like there would be people advocating against them. Farmers have long been an annoyance to Washington and Wall Street because they have been involved in the labor movement since the late 1800s. They were also disliked by food processors and grain exporters. Food processors and grain exporters basically profited off of the farmers' overproduction and low crop prices. Lower prices and more crops boosted business for these two groups while it depressed the farmers. So less farms producing more groups is advantageous to food processors and grain exporters. Although they are making a profit, it seems to me like their reasoning behind disliking the amount of farmers in America is a little selfish.

Children of the Corn

I was very interested in the passages about farming in Iowa. My family owns a cornfield in Iowa that has been passed down for over a century. It is planted and harvested by an Iowan, in exchange for a share in the profits. Unlike the farmers in the book, Brad alternates each year between corn and soy beans; I do not know what type of fertilizer is used.

I was not surprised to learn that cattle are fed corn. One of my relatives is a rancher (also in Iowa) and once told me the story of buying new cattle to add to his herd, and the difficulty he had in switching them from hay to corn. I was however, shocked to learn that the cattle are also fed meat byproducts. It is hard for me to understand how ranchers can justify what they feed their cattle when it is necessary to employ full time vets to care for the abundance of sick animals.

Pollan Part I

It surprises me a bit that Pollan doesn't elaborate much on both sides of the corn-fed beef issue - mainly he discusses his own opinions. Pollan makes a number of valid arguments, especially concerning the American diet and processed foods in general, but the fact remains that corn-fed beef is America's favorite beef. That isn't likely to change any time soon. Corn, although a cheap ingredient, helps keep ranches and feedlots from facing economic downfall due to its high demand. In the cattle business, optimum health and "organic" quality have to take a back seat to the business side. Ranchers are caught up in an industry much bigger than them. A few ranches here and there do well with grass-fed cattle, but this idea simply isn't applicable everywhere. If grass-fed beef were to become a product people want, instead of a fast food filler, it would succeed as well as corn.

Also, knowing a little about feedlot operation since our ranch's steers are sent there once they are old enough, feedlots are not all as repulsive as Pollan seems to make them out to be. Whether cows are genetically intended to eat grains or not, they have now evolved to prefer them. Sick cows in feedlots or anywhere else usually result from poor care on the part of the owners. Brands of food, inattention to detail, and lack of vaccinations can all be contributing factors. Most feedlot operators want their cattle to be as healthy as possible so that they will produce the best beef possible.

New Topic - Pollan

When you read Part I of The Omnivore's Dilemma, think about and reflect on what surprises you. Note how he compiles information from so many disciplines and makes it understandable to general readers.

Great Writing, y'all!

These Madeleine mini-essays are terrific. I enjoyed reading every one of them. Notice how often Dads appear in them. Any thoughts about that? It seems to run counter to the assumptions that mothers are associated with food more than fathers.

Oranges at the Whistle

Growing up soccer was a huge part of my life. I began playing at the age of three and instantly fell in love with the sport. I had played for eleven years before I made the mistake of quitting my sophomore year of high school. Although I am now a fan not a player, I still hold the memories of my "glory days" close to my heart. Nothing seems to spark those memories like biting into a quartered orange slice.

My favorite part about youth soccer was halftime. Not only did you get a break from chasing a ball up and down the field, but whenever that whistle was blown... SNACK TIME! At the beginning of every season the parents were given a date in which they were responsible in providing the team with snacks at the half. Some parents were lame and brought stuff like rice cakes and grapes, but my mom knew better. Raising three kids on her, own who all happened to play soccer, she quickly learned that orange slices were the way to go. Not only were they healthy, juicy, sweet, tart, citrusy, and delicious, but after you eat the edible part of a slice you can put the peel in your mouth as a pretend mouth guard. I can't even begin to count the number of times I ran back onto the field with my face sticky, my jersey covered in juice, my stomach painfully full, and my teeth protected by an orange slice.

Years later I find myself on a path I would have never expected. Not only do I no longer play soccer, but now I actually dispose of my orange peels properly. Although so much has changed, I can no longer simply eat an orange slice without going back down memory lane.

Oranges at the

Mama Pat's Christmas Cookies

Every year, one month out of the year ever since I can remember, my dad will take over the kitchen to make his mother’s special sugar cookie recipe for Christmas. As soon as December first, my birthday, rolls around, out comes the wax paper, roller, dough, and sugar. Our entire house smells like nutmeg and sugar, a smell that will instantly get me excited for the coming of Christmas. No amount of Christmas music or ornaments can make me feel the joy of Christmas like my grandmother’s Christmas cookie recipe.

The two special things about these cookies are the history and the preparation. My grandmother would make these cookies with my dad and his siblings when they were were little. Every year they would each have their own job in what looked like an assembly line of Christmas cookies. I was only five years old when Mama Pat passed away, so it is especially important to my dad and the rest of the family that we keep the tradition going in her memory.

What makes the cookies so special to me is the way that they are made. The three of us each have our own job. My dad’s is to make the dough from scratch and roll it out, my job is to spread the sugar evenly over the cookie, and my mom’s job is to make sure the cookies get in and out of the oven on time. The cookies remind me of how lucky I am to have such an amazing family.

The fact that these cookies are covered in sugar definitely makes it a comfort food. Whenever I’m in the kitchen over the next couple months I grab one of the hundreds of cookies that we make. All of our close friends and family look forward to the tin of cookies we bake for them. These cookies also give me a way to remember my grandmother. Even though I was very young I can still remember her face and most of the things we did together. Whenever we make her cookies I know she will never be forgotten.

My Father's "Back to School" Steak

The smell of leaves burning, the last mowing of the yard until the spring, and the magical smell of steaks on the grill; those three smells culminate into the wonderful but bittersweet scent of the end of summer. It’s the scents that tell me that the carefree times of sleeping until 1 in the afternoon and staying out until the most ungodly hours of the morning with friends doing everything and absolutely nothing all at once are, sadly, over. The start of school was barreling toward me and every other student and there was nothing we could do about it. There was a small comfort that accompanied this unfortunate and annual event: steak. Not just any steak either, but a thick cut, heavily marbled, magically marinated, sinfully juicy, New York strip steak cooked to a perfect medium rare.

It was my dad’s gift to my sister and I. Not to say we were ever deprived, but steak like this certainly wasn’t a regular occurrence. It was our father’s way of comforting us as we entered into another year of intellectual development, or at least a year of sitting in class and spitting back all that we were “taught.” He wasn’t the man with the silver tongue who knew what to say when to say it all the time, but what he couldn’t say in words, he said in that steak. That steak said, “No matter what happens at school, or with your friends, or with anything else this year, your mother and I are both here for you to listen to your problems and to help you through them.” And that, to me, was the best thing my father could do for me, because when I did have problems, and believe me, I did have problems, he was always there to listen and provide his insight from when he was in my same position all those many years ago.

How Original: The Oreo

Staying up late with my friends for my first late night sleep over (a very long time ago), we would hear a weird noise in the kitchen around 3 am. We all huddled together, and waited to see if we could hear anymore. It was a clanking noise, and we could hear footsteps too. I was the brave one of the group, and it was my house, so I decided I’d go check it out. I snuck downstairs, peering around every corner, and when I reached the spot that was producing the sounds, I saw a big shadow. I gathered up some courage, and got close enough to see what it was…
Turns out it was just my father getting three Oreos and a small glass of milk, so I decided to join him, and do the same while my friends were left thinking I got kidnapped or something.  That was just the start. From then on, every weekend night, my dad would wake me up at three am to have a little snack, and we’d just talk and hang out. Turns out, he’d been doing this years before I found out; I was just never up at that time. We’d try different combinations like with marshmallows heated up, peanut butter, and other crazy ideas.
Now, every single time I eat an Oreo, I miss my dad, which is weird because he’s usually been right down the hall, and I’ve never missed anybody when I left before. Sometimes, I set my alarm for 3am and have a couple that are secretly stashed in my room. (Lauren sleeps through everything ) So, I guess it’s a bittersweet feeling that it gives me because I remember all the fun conversations we used to have, but at the same time I miss them a lot. I’ve showed my friends a couple of the crazy combinations we’ve had, and the stories of misfortunes, and they always get a laugh out of it.
Just the word Oreo brings up the feeling of happiness and love from the times we spent in the wee hours of the morning. The cookies brought me and my dad so much closer, which I never thought could happen. Whenever I start to miss home (which hasn’t happened yet) I’ll probably start the freshmen 15 (or 50) because I’m going to be eating Oreos nonstop: not gonna be good for soccer season. Who would have thought that a food that people buy from the grocery store every day could bring a daughter and father together so easily? Definitely not me, but it happened, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I can’t wait for the summer so the tradition can continue. I hope that even when I visit them when I’m married with kids that he’ll still want to do it. I love it, and I know he does too. Writing this has even made me in a great mood because of the funny memories.
Oreos: America’s cookie, Dad’s tool of getting to know his daughter.

A Purple Frozen Summer

Another summer day had passed, and as the sun began to set, the children were all wrangled in from the trees lining the creek, and we made our way back to the garage, where we would line up for a Fla-vor-ice Freeze Pop.

The senses I associate most with these treats are not borne from their variety of flavors, but are more in relation to the type of day that ended with a cool stick of purple ice in hand. The feel of the sharp morning air cutting through my hair as the neighborhood gang raced through the park; the bitter scent of the broken grass and crushed dandelions as we marched our way through the woods behind the elementary school; the crack of an overturned rock in the creek bed, unearthing a world where two legs seemed several dozen too few.

When we returned home, the trees would be silhouetted against the sky, now orange and red and purple like the treats we were going to receive. The cool, fresh breeze of the refrigerator opening graced the garage, and as I was handed the plastic tube of ice, the frost on the outside would melt into my fingers, and send a relaxing chill up my arm. The ice came packaged in a clear tube, whose edges were sharp and dug into the corners of your mouth, but such a small nuisance would not keep us from the chilled leftover slush at the bottom of the wrapper once all the rest of the ice had been eaten, which always clung to the bottom of the tube. After finishing off several ice pops, the sun would have set, and with sweet, sticky, tie-dyed hands, we would find our parents wander back home.

Luc's Cookies

Each Christmas Eve, for as long as I can recall, my brother, Davis, and I would leave cookies for Santa Claus. We would place them by our hearth along with carrots for the reindeer. And yes, of course, I do realize there is no such thing as Santa Claus. Letting go of childhood fantasies is part of growing up, so my parents made sure to tell me this past summer before I left home for college. But I digress (and kid, though I did have the advantage of pretending to still believe in Santa for many years since Davis is almost six years my junior). The cookies we would leave for Santa were not just any old cookie. Certainly one could not leave Chips Ahoy, or Oreos or even “gourmet” cookies for Santa. They had to come from the heart and from the home.

My Grandmother named different types of Christmas sweets she prepared after family members. These particular cookies were named for me: Luc's cookies. They were sugar cookies, but to call them that is a bit like calling a well-prepared risotto “rice.” These sugar cookies are not for health freaks or dieters; no Splenda or honey, no whole wheat flour, no egg substitute and certainly no skimping on real, quality, unsalted butter. Horrible, dangerous things – or so the dieticians seem to want to tell us – comprise that’s only part of what makes them so delicious. The sweet, buttery aroma of these freshly baked cookies, followed by the sight of them emerging from the oven, perfectly golden discs like the sun on a bright, snow covered December's day, made me want to attack them like Joey Chestnut eating hot dogs on the Fourth of July. (Though washing the cookies down with milk, rather than water, is the preferred plan of attack). I would try to restrain myself because Luc's cookies demanded to be savored, not devoured. Sometimes I even succeeded.

Culinary experts say we eat with all our senses, but Proust would tell us we eat with our memories. And though my mother now makes Luc's cookies, the memory of my late grandmother baking my cookies makes these sugar cookies all the more special to me. And another tradition continues as well. The anticipation of Santa Claus coming every Christmas Eve, and knowing he would love those special cookies, has not stopped in the years since we learned that Santa didn't live on the North Pole but in our house. The cookies were and are gratefully consumed (which may or may not be related to the fact that my father likes to get up in the middle of the night and eat a cookie). “Santa” would invariably write a letter to us, thanking us for the delicious cookies and encouraging us to continue to be kind and loving brothers. Having the satisfaction of knowing that I pleased Santa Claus, earlier the mythical and later the one that lived with us, did, and does, bring a smile to my families faces.

Fantastic Foreign Food For Me

Walking out of the doctors’ office right after getting a shot, it’s about 6 pm and the sun is starting to come down. I remember my arm hurting and feeling as if I had been in there for days, this thought made me hungry. I reminded my mom to get me the tamales de elote, what I always got after going to the doctors’ office; it was my portal back to El Salvador.

My grandparents live in El Salvador, a place where the culture is great and the food is even better. Sweet corn tamales are a must whenever my family and I go visit, but when I couldn’t go there I brought the memories back with these corn tamales. When I eat a tamal my memories race back to the days that I went to the doctors’ office for a checkup, back then the tamales would carry me to El Salvador. It’s like a memory within a memory. I love the sweet taste that is combined with the saltiness of the crema agria, these can be eaten fried or boiled. The sweetness reminds me of my grandmother and her cooking while the saltiness brings back the humid/hot feeling of the country. The strange thing about this food is that the taste of those sweet tamales from the shop next to the clinic isn’t the same; it’s a memory that I can’t fulfill again a craving that can’t be satisfied. Yet I always find myself looking for that specific sweetness and unconsciously comparing it back to the little shop. It makes me wonder whether when I use to eat them after a doctor visit if I was looking for a taste I had when I ate them at grandmas’ house.

The best part of the tamales now is making them with my mom, homemade tamales. Once I get older and I make a tamal I will probably try to reconstruct the taste of the tamales from my childhood. It is like a cycle, where the daughter tries to recreate that special taste she found in her mother’s tamales. We are always chasing after a memory that brought us happiness, whether it is a snack or a dinner. Taking time and money to make, these tamales aren’t around very often. Here it is considered a special food, while in El Salvador it can be considered a more accessible plate. This food carries many memories for me and it’s a part of my culture, I’ll always cherish my fantastic foreign food.

My Dad’s Oatmeal: “You could hang paper with that stuff.”

On the first morning of college, I headed for the McComb’s center for breakfast with my FYS. Breakfast is buffet style so we grabbed plates and got in line. After filling my plate with bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash browns, I just happened to look down and see that oatmeal was also an option for breakfast. I walked away, remembering that I am not very fond of oatmeal. For me, oatmeal always brings up bittersweet memories of my high school soccer days at Sandia High School.

When I was a freshman in high school, I badly wanted to make the c-team. In order to ensure that the coaches knew your name and that you were in shape for tryouts, attending the conditioning was a must. These practices were intense and often times girls would vomit because they ate too heavy of a breakfast or they got very light-headed because they did not eat breakfast at all.

To avoid having this problem my dad suggested that I eat oatmeal every morning before practice. He further suggested his special recipe for “700 year-old oatmeal.” He claimed his recipe was handed down through generations of Scots on his mother’s side. (Yes, the Kincaid’s have their own tartan). The recipe was simple: half and half, water, and steel cut oats cooked in a crock-pot for 3 hours. At the end of the cooking time, my father would stir the oatmeal with his spurtle and gleefully announce, “You could hang paper with that stuff.” I ate a bowl each morning, Monday through Friday, for 5 weeks of preseason soccer, every August, every summer for 4 years. I never liked my dad’s oatmeal, but I never got sick or lightheaded during practice. I have asked my grandmother and she says she knows nothing about a “Kincaid family oatmeal recipe.”

Dad

How many children's birthdays pass before a mother runs out of clever birthday cake ideas? Looking back at my family's photo albums, a picture of a special birthday cake marks each passing year. Teddy bears, baseball caps, ladybugs, a deck of cards, all transformed by my mother into a delicious dessert topped with homemade icing.

As my siblings and I grew older, the cakes became less personalized and spectacular as our lives became more hectic. My mother spent so much time driving us around town for all our activities, therefore we could not blame her for this shift. My birthday had proven to be an especially busy time of year for my family, occurring in the middle of October with my younger brother's birthday the following day, and I remember one year in particular when my father decided to help out by making my cake. He chose to make his famous marble cheesecake, never to be forgotten by myself.

I should add that my father is extremely proud of his cheesecake; he loves the shower of compliments he receives from all who try it. He deserves this pride, though, as it won him first place in a cheesecake- baking contest at our neighborhood park when we were young. And what man would not be excited to have his cheesecake chosen over those cheesecakes of many mothers from the area?

When I grew old enough to be trusted alone in the kitchen, I surprised him by making a cheesecake for his birthday. By using his popular recipe, I wanted to impress him and return the favor of making my birthday cakes for the past couple years. Just as I had hoped, as I pulled the cheesecake out of the oven, my father wandered into the kitchen, drawn by that smell he loved so much.

I will never forget my father's reaction to cheesecake; the child-like grin, big eyes, and instant reach for a fork will always remain in my memory. His reaction reveals true happiness and excitement, brought to mind every time I eat cheesecake. If anyone should decide to eat a slice of cheesecake in his presence, I should warn him/her to protect their slice from the sudden attack of his fork. I speak from experience; many times my own cheesecake has been unwillingly shared with him!

It's Not What You Think

It has almost become a family tradition over the years that my family ventures to Whataburger when mom is stressed. However, money has been made scarce as her stress levels rise; the opposite of what anyone would hope for. Before I left for college, my brother and I have helped my mom out by cooking at home and making meals that contained love rather than processed gunk. We'd throw a mess of ingredients together and try to make it pretty afterward, making new flavors and family dinner meals. It was quite a success for a while. One night, my brother and I were tired, stressed, and unwilling to be productive, so our dinner consisted of cooked macaroni noodles with butter topped with shredded Colby-Jack cheese. It was a simple yet surprisingly delicious dish which has become a regular meal for my family. When I describe this meal to others, they try to correct me by claiming that what I had described was mac-n-cheese. And I tell them that I'm not that poor.
Noodles and cheese is my "Madeleine". It brings memories of a stressed family convening to share a simple home-cooked tradition. It is a family tradition and an original recipe. This meal is not mac-n-cheese. It is a Walters family symbol.

Grandma's bread.

We have it on holidays, birthdays, and plenty of perfectly normal days when someone says, "Grandma, can you PLEASE make some bread today?" She doesn't mind, and we'd probably all be quite content eating it every day. See, this is not normal bread. It's a loaf (or two, or three) of soft white bread that tastes about ninety thousand times better than any bread you can buy, or that you can make. It's unique, somehow, and even when my mom and I attempt to duplicate it, we can never get it just right.

But what Grandma's bread really reminds me of, every time I eat it, is working cattle; a concept foreign to most of you, I imagine. My mom's side of the family has run a cattle ranch in New Mexico for over seventy-five years. I've been spending nearly every holiday of my life there since I was born, and I've been riding horses since I was two. Horseback riding at the ranch isn't a leisurely sport - it's work, and serious work at that. Most days involve my mom (when she's there, which is often) and/or her hired hand gathering cattle and moving them from pasture to pasture. It can take anywhere between an hour and all day, depending on how many pastures we need to gather and how difficult the cows are to control. Gathering is necessary so the cows can be in a greener pasture with more water. It grows continuously difficult, however, as we have been thrust into one of the worst droughts in the ranch's history.

In the spring we brand - one of the most important events of the year. For both branding and fall work, which I won't elaborate on just now, my mom hires a much larger number of cowboys and girls to help with the workload. There are usually around thirty people - people are needed to ride, gather, drive, rope, and flank. Gathering a few hundred cattle is definitely easier with thirty people than with three. But anyway, back to the bread! On days like these, Grandma and my younger sister always have "the cowboy meal" waiting for us when we arrive after working. This meal may include a variety of meats, vegetables, and desserts, but the staple is always the bread. It's the "glue" of the entire meal, which changes daily. The bread always remains, and tends to disappear before you can even consider picking up a second slice. Some butter it, some put Ketchup on it, some use it for sandwiches. Personally, I love the bread just the way it is. Fluffy, warm, and neither too sweet nor too salty. Since becoming active in theatre during the last few years, I haven't been able to visit the ranch as much as I used to. But I still see Grandma plenty, and she has an uncanny ability to sense when the family wants her bread. Eating it reminds me of all the hours I've put into helping at the ranch, but most of all it makes me appreciate all that both my mom and grandma do to keep it the wonderful place that it is.

Ferris Wheels and Sticky Fingers

There is nothing nutritionally redeeming about cotton candy. To be perfectly honest, there are few redeeming qualities about cotton candy at all, except for the memories of sweetness and summer that are summoned by nothing more than the exquisite melting of colored sugar on the expectant tongue.

I have only to breathe in the cloud of baby pink cotton to be swept back to childhood summers spent at boardwalks, on carousels and Ferris wheels. The moment the woven sugar begins to crystalize I can almost see the vendors, crying their wares of contrived concoctions; I can almost hear the cacophony of gulls and shouting children, the music of arcade games and street performers.

I also remember sticky hands and unhappy stomachs. The time of day when fun becomes too much, feet begin to hurt, and the rides are no longer worth the wait. I am ushered back to the times of throwing up in parking lots, as Mom and Dad arguing over where they left the car, and big sister rolls her eyes.

The ride home is long and quiet. Dad huffs as he drives the car, mumbling obscenities at the endless row of cars moving at a snail’s pace. The carnival is a distant memory; my only reminder the spider web of pink confection clinging stubbornly to my finger tips.

Chili for the chilly

Beef, beans, and spices. These simple ingredients slow cooked together bring about a certain nostalgia to me. It brings me back to my childhood days. When my mom would bring my cousins and me to Tim Horton's after swim practice. Our ears and noses would be red from the biting wind outside and our boots wet from the slush of dirty snow. The smell of coffee, chicken noodle soup, donuts, freshly baked bread, butter, and chili welcoming us into the restaurant. These all come rushing back, memories I have of the now familiar restaurant where I had my first experience of my favorite chili in a bread bowl.

My first taste of this particular chili was not through my mouth, but rather by inhaling the aroma of it and allowing the warmth to spread throughout my body. Then I would take several small spoonfuls of the bean and eat them off the top first. Once the inside of the bread bowl was visible, I would take tear off some of the crisp crust with some sauce infused into the white fluffy part of the bread. Taking some cold butter I would chop them into little blocks and smash one onto my scoopy piece of bread. The textures, temperatures, tastes, all of these are painted vividly in my mind. The flaky crust, the chewiness of the inside, the savory sauce, the cold and creamy butter can seem to contrast one another but this does not compare to the bitter taste of fear that I am reminded of whenever I eat this simple meal with my sister.

Essentially eating chili reminds me of the good moments I've had with my cousins in Canada when I was younger, however one incident can change entirely how one views the experience. Whenever I have hot chili and buttered bread with my sister I am reminded of the day when we rushed to the emergency room with her hands full of glass shards. It's conflicting to me as we had chili before and after these series of events. I don't know whether it reminds me more of my fear or relief, however chili will always be a comfort food for me as it reminds me what it's like to be young, and what it's like to be an older sister.