https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/magazine/baking-is-all-in-the-hands.html

For my last food review, I decided to look up something that I have always loved and found and interest in ever since I was a child, and that is BAKING.  My mom has always been a very good cook and that has influenced me a lot to try out and do new food recipes and find the love in baking. I at some point hated baking and cooking and I know some of us could relate to that because I used to think it was not my thing. Just like in the article the author talks about his experience with baking not being so well and as well coming from a family that wasn’t too good at baking either, made him feel kind of like that was not his thing. But just like he had his mother-in-law help him out and open up his eyes allowing him to see the beauty in baking. I had my mom when I would try to bake something and it wouldn’t go as planned and that would always discourage me, until one time I was with my mom and we were baking cookies together and they came out good taste wise but in the way, they look not so much and I was kind of disappointed but my mom taught me that things like this should not discourage me from trying more and more.  In the article after having that moment with his mother in law, she gave him the recipe of the biscuits and he went home and tried out the recipe himself.  I was able to relate a lot to this article because the way he describes the feelings he gets from doing its biscuit is a similar feeling that I get when I make, brownies, cakes, cookies. I think as shown in the article baking can give a person a sense of tranquility and joy to be able to do things for yourself and know that delicious treat you just did was made by you after so many trial and errors you were able to do the treats you love the most just like the author did in the article. I found it really interesting that he as well mentions that as he made the biscuits he practiced meditation while doing it and I have not really thought of this while baking. I did think baking brings you at peace in some scenarios if you know what you are doing, in others, it might become a little frustrating because you might feel like things are not going too well but you need to always keep in mind that baking is a fun experience for you and whoever you make it with. I really enjoyed reading this article because there were many parts I was able to connect to.

YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FqNEx17crMI

For my second media review, I decided to go on YouTube and explore what would come up when I would search for “trying out new foods” and I actually ended up coming across this very interesting video. This video really caught my attention because it involved children and prison foods. I believe that the name of the video would just catch anyone’s attention overall because children tend to be very honest with their opinion and especially getting their opinion on foods that are given in prisons all over the world. This sounded like something very interesting and entertaining to see. This video comes from a youtube channel called HiHo Kids which from what I got to see from a few of their videos they are mainly focused on children’s opinions on different foods.

I really enjoyed watching their reactions when they ate the foods and were asked where they would think the foods would come from because they would try to make the best guess but their guesses were not even close to the place where the foods were coming from. Being able to get children’s perspective on these types of foods was interesting because it gives them a viewpoint that in prison they won’t get to eat what they like nor eat how they are accustomed to eating because depending on the place that they are in things like table, spoons, forks, or just simple things like that, at some point are not so important to someone in another part of the world because it would not have much significance to them. But to us it does and those are very important things we need when it comes to eating, they are essentially significant to us.

I found it really cool as well to see different children of different ages get a view of what prisoners eat on their regular basis. They were able to get their different opinions of the foods and what they thought of them. They were able to speak their mind about these foods for example the foods that inmates are served in Australia they felt as if they were getting a good, real meal, that they actually liked. They considered that in Australia they serve inmates good foods and they are treated right so they can see that inmates deserve the right to be treated correctly and give them a second chance. But overall besides the Australian food, the other foods from other places they tried were very nasty to them.

Something that I found funny was the ending of the video because as children they will give their honest opinion in the way they feel about these foods and the last thing one of the children mentioned was going to a certain place in the world just for their jail foods. After all, he is a child and he did not mean what he said. He meant it in such an innocent way not like actually meant that he will be going to jail.

• I am planning to do a photo collage of posts that I see on Instagram or TikTok that show foods, and diets.
• This connects to my research question because it will be giving a demonstration of what I tend to see on my newsfeed that influences food choices.
• I will be saving and/or screenshotting posts, hashtags, and pages that are food-related and as well have an influence on a lot of our food choices.
• Something I am concern about is probably not finding the right way to put them together and as well finding it hard to get things that will be relevant to my research questions.
• Something that might be helpful to me is like getting some of your ideas of the post that you see in pages that you follow that have had an impact on the way you think when it comes to eating certain things.

For my first food media review, I will be talking about a show that is streamed on Netflix called  Nailed It! This show has had two other versions of it, Nailed It! Mexico and Nailed It! Spain but I have never gone out my way to watch them Nailed It has five sessions to keep you very occupied. This show is presented by Nicole Byer, a television host, and Jacques Torres, a French pastry chef. On the show every episode they have as well a guest judge. Who helps them judge the masterpieces that are recreated by the contestants. Byer and Torres are very funny together as judges/hosts, they try to interact with the contestants and as well with each other trying to show a good time during this hard competition that it may be for the contestants. 

Nailed It! is about home bakers who don’t have good baking experiences in the kitchen and are very inexperienced when it comes to pastries. They go to this competition to seek redemption and cash on this series. In each episode, three contestants try their skills at re-creating edible masterpieces that have been done before. The re-creations do not always turn out great, but whichever amateur baker comes closest to a successful dessert by the end of the episode takes home the $10,000 price, which they might want to use on baking lessons or do other dessert related things. For each recreation, all the judges taste the masterpieces created and that is how they decide who wins or not, is not a lot about looks it is about the taste and which one is better and closest to the original one. 

I have watched every season of the series and for this assignment, I decided to focus on the last season that came out, season 5. This season is called Double Trouble it is within the same concept as the previous ones but the thing that changes is that instead of three single contestants there are due contestants. They could either be siblings, friends, or somehow related or connected, they both go into the competition to prove their pastries skills. For me, in a way, this season has been more interesting to watch because you see the connection between the contestants together and how well or not they work with each other.  I think this show is very entertaining and fun to watch with your family. I usually watch it with my family or alone in our free time. The episodes are not too long they are about 34 minutes long and every season has about 6-8 episodes, which you can probably binge-watch. But I do have to say that as entertaining as it is as you continue to watch it, it will continue to feel a little repetitive and you will get kind of bored of it. But as you continue to watch the show it will get better because the theme and the masterpieces change every episode and the pieces the contestants try to re-create keep getting more and more interesting. The show has this different and original concept because is not about perfection and being the greatest is mostly about effort and trying to do a good job to win and learn from this experience.

1.Fast food

2.Media effects on diet

3.Food desserts

If you are looking for something that will accompany you through good and bad days, I recommend eating cookies and cream ice cream. When you walk through the freezer aisle at the supermarket and have no idea you will be buying it is the best feeling. You just get the urge of getting something sweet and cold that goes well with pretty much anything, waffles, cookies, cake, fried ice cream, you name it and it will 99% of the time go well with ice cream. 

Knowing you can take such an amazing sweet home and just have it a few steps away from you is incredible. Just being able to walk to your refrigerator, open the fridge and have the smoke of the fridge fill up your area and cool down your arms and face. The hot summer days are always well rewarded  with your favorite ice cream. Having so many problems revolve you but one sweet moment will indeed put a smile on your face. You forget everything that worries you once you take that first cold bite. You are more worried about how sensitive your teeth are to the ice cream but do not care to stop eating it. The satisfaction that you receive when you finally get to taste the cookie after so many bites because the cookie is always to far into the ice cream feels like heaven. You had been anticipating that moment for quit some bites until you got there. 

The first time I tried cookies and cream ice cream was my first summer in New York. I barely knew english, all I knew how to say was please and thank you. My father has always been a person who doesn’t get intimidated by a person or situation. Just like me he has a huge love for ice cream but in his case he loves rum raisin ice cream. One summer afternoon like about two weeks after school had ended. He decided to take me to the supermarket and buy a bucket of ice cream. To our luck we found a worker there that spoke spanish and guided us to the part where the ice creams were, he mentioned to us that there was an offer of two ice creams for about $7 with a brand of ice cream called Turkey Hill. So since we wanted to please our craving we both decided to go with that ice cream and try it out. At the end we got what we wanted even though it was a new brand for us. 

As much as I love ice cream I first saw the true special meaning for ice cream when I was around 14. Its sweetness brought me comfort and stress relief. It has become my best friend when I am going through a hard time in my life, it is my comfort sweet to go to at all times. It has a smooth, creamy texture, that allows anyone to eat it, and a fun fact about ice cream is that it has seaweed as an ingredient of ice cream. 

One word that I looked up from Anderson’s essay was frazzled. When I looked up this word I saw that it was meant for showing effects of exhaustion or strain.

A line that made me smile was “That is the great virtue of chips: They are here for us to eat them. So that is what we will do.”

If I was assigned an essay like this I would write it to my favorite ice cream because it gives me a feeling of comfort, safety and as well sweetness. Which is something we all want and crave sometimes during this hard times that we are going through. 

One word from Hamilton’s essay that I had to look up was “silhouetted”. This word means to cast or show someone or something as a dark shape and outline against a lighter background. This stuck out to me because the first part of the sentence and last part of the sentence alone made sense to me and in between the sentence there were these extra words “,silhouetted agaisnt the dusk,” that are what bring a vivid view to the reader of what she meant and is trying to get the reader to imagen. But it was hard for me to understand it since I didn’t have a clear understanding of what it meant. 

Something that struck me as I read was in the second paragraph the first two sentences “But when I killed my first chicken I was only seventeen and unaccustomed. I had dropped out of school and was staying in the basement of my father’s house…”. This struck me because it took me by surprise when she said she killed her first chicken when she was just seventeen. I don’t think just any seventeen year old would do that. What I could infer is that she had to do that to either help out or find a way to make her dad feel proud of her somehow. Since she tells us that she had dropped out not exactly knowing why. She might have taken this action of killing her first chicken as an opportunity to show her dad that she is able to do something and accomplish it. Which made me wonder why she might have dropped out of school?

A question about this essay that I have is why might she have decided to shared this  story?

Every christmas since I could remember my family has always gathered together at the table around 11:30pm on Christmas eve and said a prayer to thank god for the food we are able to have that night, any other day before and after that, for our health, and just the fact that we are able to have everyone there. My family is pretty big and somehow we manage to have everyone to have a space at the table even my grandfather even though he passed away almost two years ago we always leave a spot free for him and put the plates in his place. After we prayed we ate, I still remember how loud we all are, the laughter and smiles are seen and heard everywhere at the dining table. The different conversations happening, trying to hear each other over one another and over the background music. A traditional food for Christmas that my family has always been cooking is rice with corn, turkey and relleno navideño. My grandma used to always cook this, it’s a traditional plate we have done for over 19 years. My grandfather’s favorite part of Christmas gatherings was having all of us together and eating the sweets, because of him we started the tradition of drinking hot chocolate with pan de pascua, he loved that. My grandma also made flan and jello for us to have. But now that she is older and can’t do much, the cooking duty has been passed on to my mom, she is the one that wakes up 5-6am on christmas eve to start cooking so that everything could be ready by the night. She has this tradition of seasoning the turkey three days early and leaves it in the refrigerator so it can marinate better and when the day comes all she needs to do is put it in the oven. I love waking to the smell of turkey baking, I think that is the best part of the traditions, being together enjoying every part of the food and knowing we always have those there by our side no matter the situation.