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.

For my last food media review, I decided to review the Disney comedy short Feast. It tells the story of a Boston Terrier puppy named Winston and his life with his owner. It is a charming story where there is little to no dialogue. Despite this, the short uses food as a storytelling device that smoothly shows the plot rather than telling.

We are introduced to Winston as a stray looking for food in a dumpster. He finds a french fry on the floor and eats it. James, the man who left his fry on the ground, offers a second one to Winston. After accepting the fry, James decides to adopt the puppy as his pet. James begins to feed Winston with kibble but slowly adds food of his own. Most of the food James gives to Winston is junk food, which Winston loves devouring. Over time, we see Winston preferring to eat James’s food and is always ecstatic to have a bite. Whether that be pizza, pasta, or popcorn, Winston is eager for anything and everything James feeds him. Winston is happy with his owner’s food and becomes accustomed to his new life.

One day, James meets a waitress at a restaurant. The two began dating, and the waitress encourages him to start a healthier diet and lifestyle. This change affects Winston’s diet since James starts leaving him with vegetables, which upsets him. However, James and the waitress break up after an argument. This causes James to revert to his old eating habits. Winston is happy to be eating junk food again but then soon realizes James’s feelings of sadness. He comes to this realization when he sees James holding a piece of parsley, looking at the green herb with a long face. Winston decides to take the parsley and bring it to the waitress, leading James back to her. In his chase, Winston is tempted by the food he comes across but overcomes his desires. James follows Winston to the restaurant, where he reconciles with the waitress, and the two marry afterward.

Winston begins to eat regular dog kibble after seeing his owner be happy again. After some time has passed, Winston finds meatballs on the kitchen floor and eats them. He follows the trail of sauce to the couple’s infant child on a high chair. The infant throws him another meatball, much to Winston’s delight. The short ends with Winston getting ready to eat the cupcakes served at the child’s birthday party.

I found this short to be charming and thoughtful. Despite not using any dialogue, the film shows Winston’s personality with his facial expressions and his relationship with food. He is always eager to eat junk food and is put to the test to put it aside for his owner’s issues. It shows how much he cares for his owner and how much James means to him. Overall, Feast was a great film about a dog with an insatiable taste for human food.

https://www.netflix.com/search?q=zumbo&jbv=80204927

For my final food review, I will be reviewing the show Zumbo’s Just Desserts, on Netflix. The show takes place in Australia, where pastry chefs are chosen to compete on the show. In the show, there would be two types of challenges. The first type of challenge was called Sweet Sensation, in which the contestants were given a task in which they had the freedom to make their own dessert based on the theme of the task. They would be given 3 hours to complete this challenge. An example of one of the tasks was that the contestants had to create a unique children’s birthday cake.

The show is hosted by Pastry Chef Adriano Zumbo, his co-host Rachel Khoo, and Gigi Falanga as an assistant. After each round, the competitors brought their desserts to the judging table and they were judged by their dessert’s presentation and taste. The season has 10 episodes and each episode had a different task to complete and different judges to judge. Each judge would have scored the contestants’ desserts out of ten. Going back to the children’s cake task for that specific episode, the judges were kids. Each kid tried a slice of the contestant’s cake and they gave them a rating.

After the points are tallied up, the two contestants with the lowest rating score would face off in the Zumbo Test. This was the second challenge of the show and for this challenge they would have to replicate Pastry Chef’s Zumbo’s complicated pastry. The contestant only had the looks of the pastry and its description to determine the steps they would take to make it. The person who would rate low in this challenge would lose this test. This would result in the low rated contestant leaving the contest. In the last episode, there were 2 contestants left and both had to go through the Sweet sensation round and the Zumbo test to be the winner. The winner of the show got $10,000.

I binge-watched the show in one day and by the end of the season, I was craving sweets. Each episode was 45 minutes long and jam-packed with intensity and color. Whenever the contestants desert would have a mishap, I would start to fidget around. I was feeling their stress through my TV. Whenever they would show their desserts to the judges, I would judge them, too and at times I would guess who I thought would be eliminated by the end of the episode. Sometimes I was right. Personally, I would not do a baking competition because seeing the contestant’s stress made me stress more. However, I will continue watching baking competition shows and also I recommend you watch this show.

VEGANISM IS ‘SINGLE BIGGEST WAY’ TO REDUCE OUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, STUDY FINDS

For this time I decided to review an article that I read related to my research topic which was about veganism. The article portrays that veganism could possibly be the only way on reducing the risks to the environment. Researchers from Oxford University suggested that stopping or decreasing the consumption of meat and dairy would reduce the individual’s carbon footprint percentage. Though, I connected this reading to the creative re-mix that I conducted. My creative re-mix involved me being vegan for the first time. For that project, I was vegan for a single whole day.

Based, on the creative re-mix that I did of being vegan I saw that my body and I missed eating the meat and dairy for that single day. Imagine for the rest of our days!!! I think for some of us it would be hard on avoiding to eat meat or dairy. I feel like the suggestion from the Researchers of Oxford University is complicated to follow for some people. I think that maybe individuals would be able to follow on avoiding eating meat or dairy but like once in a while not often. Though, now the question would be, do we fully have to stop eating meat and dairy food to avoid any risks to the environment?

Moreover, this article and also my research question results showed that many choose to become vegans due to environmental concerns. It is not just about looking healthy nor due to ethical reasons. However, others choose to become vegan because those individuals seek a better environment. To produce the meat we need farmland, and if the meat consumption stops then that land would be available for other resources for the environment.

We’re aware that to eat meat, animals are killed. This is another factor as to why some choose to become vegan. This factor is known as “ethical” reasons. Many would argue that killing an animal or cutting or chopping it off shows an inhumane act. Then, that’s when the concern of “mass wildlife extinction” comes to play along in the environment. When farmers kill the animals then these animals will all of a sudden disappear.

I learned that meat and dairy are held responsible for 60 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. It sort of surprises me how food generally matters a lot of percentage to our environment. This article, it also describes that meat and dairy do not only impact the environment but also climate change emissions, water pollutions, and air pollution.  In the article, Joseph Poore explains that a vegan diet would probably be a great solution to reduce the impact on Earth. It says that if you were to produce like plant food then it would not generally affect a lot the environment.

To take better choices on consumption then it would be great if the consumers become aware of their eating habits. I personally think that not everyone will agree that a vegan diet is a solution to avoid any risk to the environment.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blind-cooks/id932498963?i=1000520356275

For this food media review I heard a podcast from the food chain it was called blined cooks. It is about people who are blind but cook. They are interviewing three people. There’s Simon Mahoney who is an author who wrote first catch your rabbit. Then there’s Payal Kapoor who is a youtuber, her channel focuses on helping people who are blind or partially sighted gain confidence to learn how to cook. Last but not least is Christine Hà, who won master chef, wrote a book called recipe from my home kitchen, and opened the blind goat restaurant.
Christine Hà talks about how she learned to cook. She stated that around the time she was learning how to cook she had also gradually started to lose her vision in her early twenties, she said that she would reteach herself to cook. Since a young age she had to grow up really fast, she wanted to be independent which is why she wanted to cook for herself. Christine has a completely organized kitchen and has apps assisting her. A challenge for her is baking. Christine takes her time in the kitchen to avoid having any accidents. Christine suggests to acknowledge that accidents will happen but to not let fear paralyze you.
Payal Kapoor also lost her vision in her early twenties due to meningitis. It took her 6 years to be able to try to cook again. When asked how she felt to cook again she said that she felt a sense of pride to be able to cook. Payal also has an organized kitchen and uses a sense of smell to find ingredients. Payal started her YouTube channel because many people wanted to learn from her and she made it her goal to teach her viewers how to cook safely and comfortably. Due to her loss of vision she was able to appreciate the small tasks of cooking like. being able to appreciate the certain smells and textures that she had not noticed before.
Simon Mahoney lost vision in early seventies Simon wanted to be able to be independent which is what inspired him to cook. Simon said he did not consider himself disable. To make sure he doesn’t mess up while he cooks he only concentrates on one thing at a time. Due to his blindness he had to become more organized so he would know where everything was, he also has audio labels. The reason he wrote his book is because he wanted to help people to

They all shared some similar experiences. I like how they talked about the barriers in working in the kitchen and eating out. I really enjoyed this podcast. It really made me understand that there’s nothing that can stop us from doing something. It may be difficult but not impossible. I like how they are using their own knowledge and are helping others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOegop0hc48

For my third food media review, I am picking a food podcast from YouTube by Chef Billy Parisi. In his podcast, he shared his favorite restaurant, cookbooks, chefs, etc. To start off his podcast, Parisi talked about his favorite chef, Jordi Cruz. At first I had no idea who this chef was but it was interesting to see all that he has done in Spain as well as his achievements. One thing that I learned about Jordi Cruz was that at age 24, he got his first Michelin star. He was one of the youngest to receive this award. Now Cruz is a head executive chef at a restaurant in Barcelona Spain. The next thing that Parisi talks about is his favorite restaurant. He mentioned that he has recently moved to Northwest Indiana and has been to a restaurant called Provecho. Once again, I have no idea what this restaurant is and I have obviously never heard or been but the way Parisi describes puts an image to my head. Provecho is a restaurant that is Latin infused and serves food such as carnitas, chorizo, yucca fries, woodfire mussels and much more. Although this restaurant is nowhere near New York, I think it’s cool to learn about food places in other states. One food news that Parisi brought up was about restaurants closing down. When this podcast was filmed, it had just been the start of the pandemic and we see now how many restaurants have been impacted. Talking about restaurants closing down due to the pandemic had a really tough impact on the business, business owners, and employees. I think that it was so important for Parisi to talk about this at the time because it helps spread awareness to people out there that if they had the opportunity to do so, they should support small businesses. One thing that I really enjoyed from listening/watching this podcast was when he talked about food books. I feel like I enjoyed this part a lot because no one that I really know of now reads a book about food. In my opinion, in society today no one really reads cookbooks because everyone can just look at recipes online. The books that Parisi mentioned all had to do with some type of cuisine and also stories to go along with them. This made me want to get books about food because I feel that not only are we learning something about each culture and cuisine but we are also looking at each recipe. One good point that Parisi mentioned about having cookbooks was how it gives an insight to the older generations. This definitely opened my eyes because we may not have been alive during these generations but we have information and recipes about those foods that may bring people together. 

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to this podcast. This is my first podcast that I have ever listened to and I think that I enjoyed it so much that it’s something that I will do in the future. Listening to this podcast taught me a lot and it was definitely informative. For example, I learned about a chef whom I had no idea about prior to this and different types of cookbooks that Parisi recommended. My favorite thing from this podcast was probably when Parisi talked about the cookbooks because he brought out an interesting point to why cookbooks are so important. I definitely would recommend people to listen to podcasts or even listen to this podcast by Parisi because you just get a lot of information about the food world.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6XHuE32tq0

The video I decided to review was from HiHo Kids, where kids ranging from the age of eight to fifteen, I’m guessing, try lunch food from different countries. The lunch foods they decided to serve to the kids were from China, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, and Nigeria. I personally have never tried food that came from any of these countries. However, I would love to try them because they sure do look better than American lunch food. 

I decided to review this video for two reasons, for starters, because I feel like kids need to be more exposed to different cultures. Especially since we live in America, where diversity isn’t something new, people come into America from all over the world. They should not be afraid to show their cultural food, clothing, and traditions. For people to be accustomed to other’s habits, kids should be taught to respect different cultures first since they are the future. Therefore, there is nothing terrible about disciplining kids when they disrespect someone’s culture, which is done in this video. When the little girl wanted to use a fork instead, the lady said no because they find it rude when people chose to eat with utensils in China. 

Another reason I chose it was because I wanted to compare the other country’s school lunches to American lunches. While watching the video, it shows how the food looks edible and presentable compared to America. When I used to be in High School, we used to get mini hamburgers that smelled horrible and Pizza that was greasy, and other processed foods. While in other countries, the students receive yummy and appealing healthy lunches. Before I mentioned my opinion, I’ll discuss what the kids thought about the lunches when they first saw them. The kids explained how they don’t even get water but instead chocolate milk. This is sad because chocolate milk isn’t going to hydrate kids, nor is it healthy because it contains a lot of sugar. The teenagers then explained how they would get food that is considered junk food and wouldn’t even eat it because it doesn’t look good. I understand I rarely ate the school lunch, and I would be hungry for the rest of the day. The reason I wouldn’t is because it made me feel horrible when I finished it due to its taste and what it contained. Therefore, I feel like the government can definitely do better when serving kids school lunches rather than just giving them food. 

In all, the main objective I got from this video was that school lunches vary worldwide. However, even if they are different, people should be open to trying them because it allows them to discover new cultures and maybe even persuade people to eat healthier by bringing their food. 

For my final and last food media review I will be talking about my all time favorite movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. This movie is dedicated to food. I crave a burger every time I watch it.

This movie starts off with a town that has noting to eat but sardines. I think something interesting to really notice in this is that a lot of times we take food for granted. A lot of countries don’t have the luxury that we have here in the United states. Here there are programs and places that you can go to to get food. In other places it’s not really the same.

Flint Lockwood the main character creates a machine that turns water into food. While watching the very scene that he does this I always wonder whether it is actually possible to turn water into food. I think that the person who created this movie probably had some type of  theory on it. I wonder this because us humans are made 75% made of water and so maybe food is too.

After his invention goes wrong and is launched all the way up into the cloud it starts raining food. This scene where it’s raining cheeseburgers is my favorite because it just looks so good. Something that I always wondered in this movie is how they could eat food from the floor. In reality I would never eat food from New York City streets. I think that this movie is fun to watch just because it’s very hard to picture food falling from the sky. However In the movie It has some Bible references. The food falling from the sky can connect to how manna fell from heaven. So actually I don’t think it’s impossible that food can fall from the sky.

To continue after everyone is enjoying the food from the sky The food ends up getting bigger and the portion sizes get bigger. For Example A hot dog is bigger than a street block. A steak is bigger than a size of a table. This kind of reminds me of how America is the considered to be the fattest country. Our portion sizes are huge. Some fast food places don’t even have size small in drinks. The medium and large drinks don’t have much of a difference either. We eat a lot in the country and we tend to over eat as well. I personally can eat a chick fil a meal at 5:00 and at 7:00 I would be hungry again. Our country has been so used to eating very late and eating in abundance. I think that if we fixed the portion sizes in America. Obesity rates would go down and our eating habits would also change.

Overall Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a great and fun movie and if you’re ever eating a burger that is the movie to watch.

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!