Netflix Movie: The Platform

For my third and final review I decided to watch a movie on Netflix titled The Platform. This movie takes place in a unique jail of the future where prisoners are placed in random levels rather than regular cell rooms. They are switched to a different level every 30 days while they sleep. They have no choice on what number they chose to be or who their roommate could be. They could be either really lucky and wake up at one of the top level or have the worst luck of all and end at one of the bottom level. The number of level the prisoners land on is very important because this determines how much food they will be able to receive each day.

In this jail of the future, workers from the prison prepare a big platform filled with all kinds of delicious food and release it at the first level. Prisoners who are situated at the beginning levels are the luckiest because they get first picks of the food they choose and the quantity they want during their fixed time. Most of the time, prisoners at the top levels fill themselves with food without worrying about leaving anything for the rest. This creates unfairness since people at the very bottom levels will sometimes starve since no food was left for them. A month of starving is very torturing. In this movie, the lack of food at the bottom levels led to cannibalism between the level mates.

There were many times where this movie became very unsettling to watch. Not only because it seemed so realistic but also because it was a huge eye opener. I was able to interpret this movie as a negative message towards capitalism. People who are the top, are given all the food they want with no limits. This leads them to overtake without thinking about the people who are below them waiting for their scraps. People who are sadly just placed in the bottom levels due to bad luck have to deal with the lack of food and the violence that comes with it such as cannibalism. This relates to capitalism because in capitalism there are property owners who have excessive amounts of wealth while there are others who lack a lot of wealth due to not having enough resources given to them.

I recommend everyone to watch this movie because although it is very unsettling in some scenes, it makes you question about the fairness in society. If I were to explain the main lesson I gathered from this movie to somebody, I would say it is much easier to understand the struggle of lower class than it is to get someone from the upperclass to care about sharing with everyone.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jJdxKKx1zUpMCCm06DcDLEwsShhm_66eOk0QPX_Dt9k/edit?usp=sharing

Fluffiest Blueberry Pancakes

Since I’ve been at home every morning for the past year, I’ve had more time to focus on breakfast. Before the pandemic, when school was still in person, I’d grab the first thing I’d see in the morning and head out. I never fully put aside some time to make sure what I was eating back then was nutritious or even filling. But, ever since the pandemic started, I got bored with a lot of the things I ate and decided to experiment in my kitchen. I’ve done a lot of research on the best and most delicious things to eat in the mornings.

As I was on my search, I found amazing food blogs with delicious recipes. One of the websites I found was pinchofyum.com. Lindsay, the woman behind the website is a full time blogger who enjoys sharing her delicious recipes on the internet. She reaches over a million people every month while living in Minnesota. Her blog has been featured Buzzfeed, Purewow, PopSugar and many other places. She explores all types of different recipes that can not only be eaten for breakfast but also lunch and dinner. She also offers vegan, sugar free and instant pot recipes.

One recipe I tried was the “Fluffiest Blueberry Pancakes Recipe”. She describes these pancakes as buttery, fluffy, and delicious. She is not wrong. When I made these pancakes myself I instantly fell in love! She was extremely clear with the instructions and ingredients needed which helped a lot. She also provided different scales for the ingredients incase anyone wanted to make bigger servings which was extremely helpful when I made these pancakes for my family of six. Also the prep and cook time where both only 10 minutes each which was amazing for me! 20 minutes out of my morning in exchange for a delicious, filling breakfast sounds like a great deal to me.

I am not a cook, so for these pancakes to come out great the first time I made them was mind blowing. I kept going back to this recipe and kept adding my own twist to it such as chocolate chips and strawberries as she suggested.

Overall, I enjoyed making these pancakes because they easy, simple and delicious. Lindsay did an amazing job at sharing this recipe and providing different scales for different amounts of servings. I highly recommend everyone to try this recipe if they haven’t. This recipe is great for a mother’s day breakfast to impress and show appreciation to all the mothers. ;). This recipe will definitely be a staple in my book that I will continue going back to.

The website offers so many simple and delicious recipes to fit everyones needs. Go check it out!

For this first post I will be reviewing a video I watched on youtube. It was published in VICES’ channel called Munchies. It follows a man who goes by the name Banana as he tries the best fried chicken sandwich in Rome, Italy. This fried chicken sandwich is served in a restaurant called Legs. Legs is a restaurant originally located in Nashville. The owner felt like Legs needed to be brought to Italy and be given an Italian twist to it.

In this video, we were shown how the famous classic burger is made. What makes this classic burger so special is the fried chicken. The fried chicken is made with a special batter created by the chef. The batter consists of a water base, with flour and cornstarch. This batter is much more different than the traditional bread crumbs and eggs many Italian households do. It gives the chicken a much more rich flavor along with the dry rub marinade given to the raw chicken beforehand. The dry rub marinade consists of coriander and black pepper. Once all the ingredients are placed on the chicken, it is then fried for five minutes.

Another important part to the classic burger is the coleslaw sauce. In Legs, coleslaw is very simple. It consists of white cabbage, apple cider vinegar, carrots, salt and a bit of sugar. It also consists of their classic Legs dressing which is just mayonnaise with rosemary oil. Once the fried chicken is cooked, it is placed in between a Brioche bread. Brioche is very similar to Pandoro, an Italian sweet bread. Then, the classic Legs sauce is placed on the other bun along with the coleslaw that was just made. The final touches of these sandwich include more classic Legs sauce, pickles and red cabbage. Once all of these ingredients are placed, it’s time to eat.

Banana tries this sandwich and amazed by the rich flavor. He describes it as his favorite sandwich. Although I am not there to physically try the sandwich, I can taste the rich flavor by the video I just watched. I enjoyed watching Banana and Franchesca the chef, because they were able to take their audience step by step through the process of creating the delicious sandwich. They mentioned all ingredients and how the ingredients build on one another to create the overall rich taste. I wish this video existed back when I went to Italy in 2019, I would have loved to go to Legs and try their classic sandwich.

Although I am no where near Rome, Italy, the chef Franchesca, made the making of this sandwich so easy that I felt like I could recreate this myself at home. I can’t wait to have some free time so I can recreate this sandwich and see what all the hype is about.

1. Treatment of migrant farm workers
2. Food deserts in America
3. Veganism

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I have to say, Ice cream never fails to be by my side when I need it the most. From heartbreaks, to accomplishments and overload of homework, Ice cream has always been there to comfort me. Something about the overload of sugar gives me an adrenaline rush, it brings me back to life and lifts my mood. There have been far too many times where icecream has been the only push to keep me going and for that, I owe it my life. 

Ice cream has been a reward for me my whole life. In elementary school, whenever it was a parent teacher conference and my parents were happy and satisfied with my grades, I would be treated with three scoops on Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream. I was never able to finish it but just looking at the worker scoop up three huge scoops onto my cup made my mouth water and I couldn’t wait to devour the ice cream. Whenever it was my birthday, I would always get an ice cream cake that day and I couldn’t wait to hide the left overs in my fridge so I could be able to eat it the next day for breakfast, an act my mother only allowed me once a year to do, which was on my birthday week. Whenever I was sad over something or just genuinely had a bad day, my mom would be so understanding and bring me ice cream to lift up my mood and make me feel better. To me, eating ice cream is more of a comfort to brighten up my best and worst days. 

I have always been on top of my classes in school and school has always been pretty easy for me. The first time I ever had difficulty was in the first semester of my freshman year in college. I was genuinely struggling with learning online and adapting to the changes that come with transitioning from high school to college. I was especially struggling in math. 

Every time I had to take a test for my pre-calculus class, I would study every single day prior to the test. What motivated me to continue doing this was that I always treated myself with some ice cream at the end of the day. I wasn’t the healthiest choice but it kept me going. Knowing that at night I was able to treat myself to a soft, creamy, cold vanilla ice cream made me want to keep studying. 

I could never understand those who say they don’t like ice cream. How could they not?! They say it’s too cold, but don’t realize  how much ice cream can warm up someone’s life. What is so amazing about ice cream is the fact that it is not seasonal, and comes in all different types of flavors.  It is never a bad day to have some ice cream. Ice cream may be a bit unhealthy and high in calories but the amount of happiness it brings makes it all worth it.

1. Embalmed – preserve something in an unaltered state.
2.  “when people gathered in sports stadiums, filled concert halls, touched one another’s faces, high-fived, passed around bottles and joints and phones and cash.” A part of this essay that made me smile was when the author mentioned the times before the pandemic, how people would gather up in small places and interact. It made me miss times before Covid and at the same time I couldn’t believe how close I used to be with strangers. 
3. It would be ice cream. I love eating ice cream and whenever I’m sad, stressed, happy or just plain bored, the first thing I want to do is eat is ice cream.

As a first generation American daughter to immigrant parents, any milestone is important and celebrated in our home. Especially graduation. My high school graduation just happened to fall in 2020, during a global pandemic which led the world to shut down. Since I was only going to have a virtual graduation, my mother decided that she was going to do the most she could in our home, she decorated our home so beautifully and cooked a feast with all of my favorite food. While she was planning she asked me to tell her all I wanted to eat at my graduation celebration and to be very honest, I’m a picky eater. I couldn’t really think of anything else but lasagna from my favorite restaurant FUMOS. Due to a worker having covid, the restaurant shut down during the whole month of June, leaving us without the option of ordering take out. Instead of my mom viewing this situation as an obstacle she took it as a challenge and told me she was about to make me the best lasagna I had ever had. 

The day of my graduation comes and I hear my mom up and early in the kitchen. The sweet smell of blueberry muffins woke me up. My mom had baked muffins as I was sleeping so I could wake up and have my favorite breakfast. That day my mother acted as a wonder woman, she cooked, and decorated our home so beautifully and made me feel like the most special girl in the world. Once it was time to eat, my mom served everyone and told me she hoped I liked what she made. I tried it and it was the most delicious lasagna I have ever had. It was amazing. It was so cheesy, so stuffed and well done I’ll choose my mother’s lasagna over FUMOS’ any day.