Sesame Chickens Anonymous (revised)

Sesame Chickens Anonymous (revised)

I am a Spice Rice Junkie. I order it at least three times a week,  and rarely deviate from my preferred meal of Sesame chicken with fried rice and crab Rangoon. How sad it is that I am in a Food and Travel class, yet I still haven't managed to face my addiction and try very many other things on the menu. American Chinese food and I have a bizarre relationship. It was my first food addiction, at 11 years old I ha my seminal encounter with the ever popular Kung Pao Chicken. when I was out to dinner with my father and brother at a somewhat upscale Chinese restaurant called Gourmet Garden. That meal is well ingrained in my memory due in very large part to the fact that it was the first social interaction that I had with my father for well over 2 years; needless to say, I remember what I ordered and how it tasted. I had the Ma Ma Lamb and it sucked something fierce. It was too spicy, and had the texture of a broken in baseball mitt. It wasn't a complete loss though: my brother ended up ordering Kung Pao chicken, which was delicious. In fact, it was so delicious that I wholesale abandoned my lamb (my dad wasn't thrilled) and mooched off of my brother. 

From then on, Gourmet Garden became my new obsession. Every time my mother opted to order takeout, I would throw my vote in for Gourmet Garden. Sometimes, I would demand it even when the family already ordered takeout from some other place, just to make a point. I was 11 years old and didn't have any real desires towards females at the point in my life, so I guess I just channeled my prepubescents angst towards Chinese food; I was going to rebel against my family, and their choice in food..
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Fast forward a few years, and Gourmet Garden has shut down as well as my obsession with Kung Pao chicken. I am packing my car for K college, and getting ready to start a new chapter in my life. Or something like that.

It's just after 10PM and I am sitting in my room, sad and a little confused. I did everything they told me, but where were the ladies? where were the insane parties? Why was I sitting in my room alone on my first night of college and what was I going to do about it?
 *Ring Ring* "Andres!? Dude, it's Rick, busy?" 

*Looks around his very bland and boring room* "Not really."
*prays that Rick wants to hang out* "You should come over here dude, we're just chilling."
Rick is an old friend from upstate. He was a member at Brookwood (recall one of my earlier pieces on golf, everything is related isn't it?) for a period of time, and he currently employed at Spice Rice and Budda's Belly.
Four and a half hours later, I am sitting in Rick's living room trying to comprehend life, its meaning, free will, and most pressingly, why I am  so hungry. Enter, Sesame Chicken.

I have had two religious experiences in my life. The first one occurred in the back seat of my car on my seventeenth birthday , and the second one occurred the first time that plastic fork disappeared into my cottoned mouth. It really was THAT good. The harmony of the sweet sauce with the saltiness of the chicken, facilitated by the crunchiness of the battered chicken that is juxtaposed with a soggy lair of fried rice has haunted my dreams and waking hours too many times to count. I am perfectly aware of the fact that I was very stoned the first time I had Sesame Chicken, but I don't think that it had much to do with why I liked it so much. The first few weeks of college were kind of lame because I really didn't know anybody, so hanging out with Rick that night was already going to stick out in my mind; why not Sesame Chicken as well? That being said, I have thought long and hard to find some other reasons for why I am so taken with Sesame Chicken. I have recently come to decide that my lifestyle dictates that I have some kind of go-to shot. I need to have something that I go back to time and time again/ When I first had Sesame Chicken, I was just an awkward high-schooler in a college boy's body. Perhaps in my mind, Rick and his chicken were the first sign that I wasn't at home anymore: college was happening before my very taste buds. since I first tasted Spice Rice, I've ordered it at least 3 times a week, and I never get tired of it, ever. The way I see it, it's chicken, rice, and fish (the crab isn't real), which is about as bad as I would do at the Caf. Rick tells me that the chicken is some of the best chicken I can find in the area, so I'm optimistic about having a heart attack.

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I've also spread my addictions to my close friends; what's the point of burning in culinary hell alone? It helps keep the costs down, and it means that sometimes I can order it without my "tired" ass off the couch at 3 am. An order of Sesame Chicken comes with a pint of friend rice and two crab Ragoon, and will run you about $9.87 plus tip. That's usually enough food to feed two people fairly comfortably, but an extra order of crab Rangoon is another $4 and will make the meal even better.
Above all the money saving and buck passing, I take the most pleasure in the pause my friends and I take when we pose ourselves with the age old question "what should we order?" In my mind, I see a quick film reel of late night drunken tree climbing, or daytime "cruises" through the surrounding neighborhoods before I tell myself fuck it, and respond "Spice Rice?"

Process Writing Time!!

I've always kind of done my own thing with writing. I've been known to simply ignore the parameters of certain assignments simply because I get distracted when I start writing. When I am writing about a piece or an experience, my first draft will include a lot more of my own impulsive kind of writing. It will likely include lots of jokes, and chances are good some of them aren't really relevant or even that funny in the first place. When I revise, I like to make sure that everything in my piece is related by looking over the  writing style, my voice, what tenses (unless I'm trying to do something with it) and if I am connect all my support or body with my overall thesis or point. Often times, the content of my writing was shaped by what kind of mood I was in. When I was writing my review for Food Dance, I was in a particularly jaunty mood and I decided to make long, flowing sentences that required the reader to pay close attention to the piece. When I was writing Spice Rice anonymous, I was just trying to be funny. It all depends.
I think my favorite piece is my review of Food Dance just because the writing is so damn good  (ahem). I did a pretty solid job during the initial submission, but I spent a good amount of time on the revision and as a result, the final product is very polished. I felt like I covered everything I could have to the best of my abilities. Whatever I left out I simply didn't care about or didn't think to put it.
Readers comments were useful, but sometimes they seemed like they were just for validation or busy work even. When people told me what was wrong with my piece, I felt like I was actually getting feedback. If every piece was so good (according to all the comments) how come I didn't like them all? I know we are all nice people, so we don't say mean things. I just wonder if there is over a way to circumvent that problem? It was very rewarding to have people respond to my work though.
Revision really is the best way to improve writing skills. Good revision should make the writer cut and edit stuff that they actually like, that's the whole point, making the good better, and making the bad good.
I never really had any problems coming up with ideas for this class. Food is all around me, and there was not shortage of class material to ponder. Discussions were good, if occasionally a little stale. I will be honest, two hours is a very long time to talk about food sometimes. Maybe using class time to write (people don't even have to leave the class room, they can just write from their laptops or use the labs) or revise or do some writing exercise would work? And the blog got to be very irritating, although I did like the posting, commenting aspect of it. I think if the whole class had had to comment on everyone's piece at 3 different times, that would have been sufficient enough. Having to post and comment on it twice a week is kind of frustrating.

Revised: My Own Meal

                                                                   My Own Meal (Revised)
The plan is to make a guilt free dish. What that means to me is pretty subjective, but I don't really see any other way of making a dish that I can refer to as mine. Guilt free means no mutated chickens, no cows fed with corn, and, consequently, no cow-shit ridden ecol. Guilt free means not contributing to agricultural industrial complex that is Monsanto, Tyson, or any other faceless vendor; I want to buy my ingredients from a person; even better, I want to buy my ingredients from a person who lives in Kalamazoo. Having said all this, I still want my meal to be a reflection of me and hence, be full of contradictions: that is why I am making dishes that are normally found on the menus of America's favorite restaurant chains. I settled on Red Lobster's amazing Cheddar Biscuits, Big Boy's famous Slim Jim sandwich, and the Egg McMuffin, which wants no adjectival validation. (I would make a funny joke about heart disease but frankly, I think it's implied.)
In the name of general accommodation, allow me to explain my dishes. The Silm Jim is a smoked ham sandwich with Swiss, lettuce, and something that could be described as Thousand Isles dressing. The thing about Slim Jim's is, they're not really that special, they just taste good. Ham and Swiss is a delicious combination, and Thousand Isles dressing is quite frankly, the shit. To that same degree,  Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits are little more than buttery biscuits mixed with cheddar, however, they have a very distinct taste because they are made with Bisquick, which makes them  sweet to the taste. This means they go well before dinner because they are good, and well with dinner because they are sweet while dinner is almost always salty. (sweet and salty being my favorite food related sensation on earth). The Egg McMuffin (praise be) is a simple combination of an English muffin, a slice of ham, piece of cheese, and an egg. It is simple, but has a soft chew texture that I find immensely appealing. I have an idea of how to replicate that texture, but I will leave that alone for the moment.
 I also chose these meals because of their simplicity, these meals are accessible to everybody and that's how I want them to be. I am a man born of the Internet, and as such, I believe in the sharing (ability to acquire without paying for intellectual rights) in all things; a good idea must be shared with everybody. That spirit of sharing is what led me the recipe of the Cheddar Biscuits, which I found on Reddit.
Having well established the concept of my meal I would like to take the time explain the kitchen in which it will be cooked. Rick Burks, the swashbuckling Accounting major at Western University, opted to lend me his kitchen so that I could get off campus for a change. Rick is the same person who fed me Spice Rice for the first time. I had never cooked at Rick's house, so I really didn't know what to expect; nonetheless, I'm sure it will be fun.
As it turns out, things went wrong before I even started cooking. Upon actually looking at the recipe for the Cheddar Biscuits I was confronted with two terrible truths.
1: The recipe called for Bisquick and hence, processed foods.
2: The recipe called for onion powder and hence, processed foods.
Thankfully, I found out that Bisquick is little more than flower, salt, and shortening; that would be a simple fix. The second problem proved to be the one reality I would have to face in making this meal.  Although I could make my own Bisquick easily enough, I hadn't the slightest idea how to make non-processed onion powder, and I wasn't going to leave it out because I wanted to make these fast food dishes taste every bit as good as their counterparts. In light of that, I decided to break down and use the regular Meijir brand onion powder. The rest of my ingredients were blissfully simple to acquire: eggs, cheese, bread, ham, butter, and a few other odds and ends could all be found at, Park St. Market, Food Dance (the cheese), Quality Meat Inc, and Great Harvest Bread. Now all I had to do was cook this mother. Bring it on.
      I will not try and sugar coat this. Rick's kitchen is useless. It is small, dirty, and very cluttered. While I may be ill-designed for cooking (I am prone to knocking things over, and forgetting about them altogether) I had hoped that the kitchen I was cooking in wouldn't be. Also, the location of the kitchen in relation to the back door meant there was always traffic traveling in and out of the already hectic kitchen. This meant that while I searched- frequently in the wrong places- for pots and pans (that may or may not have existed in the first place) I had to worry about getting in the way of the people who actually owned the kitchen. With up to 10 people in the house at any given time, this made for a very dynamic cooking experience. Nonetheless, I dug my heels in and  preheated the Soviet-era oven to 375. All I needed to do for the Cheddar biscuits was bake the cheesy dough and garnish it once it was done cooking so I figured that I could cook them while I cooked the ham. I was  pleasantly surprised to find out that Rick owns a big, beautiful, cast-iron skillet that was given to him by his Grandpa; this was be perfect for cooking the smoked ham that I got from Quality Meat due to it's large size and cast iron's knack for absorbing oil. While the smoked ham cooked, I sliced the baguette that I got from Great Harvest in half. Then, I cut that in half vertically, and then sliced them into muffin-sized portions before I soaked the bejesus out of them in salted butter; that is my secret ingredient, and that is also why I know better. I am a visionary. I cooked the eggs in a pan (duh) but confined them in a circle that I created out of some leftover aluminum from a house renovation project. The result was a condescending look from Rick that quickly disappeared when he saw that my eggs that perfectly imitated the consistency and thickness of those found on the Egg McMuffin (we are not worthy). Screw you, Rick. I spent the next 2 hours cooking all of the food I had bought. This was also part of my shtick: I wanted all of my food cooked and eaten, that goes along with my belief in sharing things.
      The meal was great fun: Rick set up the long tables that were normally reserved for Beer Pong in the living room so everybody could eat together, and he placed the keg he had purchased the night before right next to them. Before I served myself, I took a second to watch everybody eat the food that I had prepared. I took a lot of satisfaction in this meal, I cooked it, I planned it out, and I was proud of it. I had fed myself without contributing to American Imperialism or global warming. Once I noticed that the Cheddar Biscuits were almost gone, I stopped thinking about the philosophical implications of cooking my own meal and scurried over to grab some breakfast before those assholes ate it all without me.

My Own Meal

                                                              My Own Meal (Revised)
The plan is to make a guilt free dish. What that means to me is pretty subjective, but I don't really see any other way of making a dish that I can refer to as mine. Guilt free means no mutated chickens, no cows fed with corn, and, consequently, no cow-shit ridden ecol. Guilt free means not contributing to agricultural industrial complex that is Monsanto, Tyson, or any other faceless vendor; I want to buy my ingredients from a person; even better, I want to buy my ingredients from a person who lives in Kalamazoo. Having said all this, I still want my meal to be a reflection of me and hence, be full of contradictions: that is why I am making dishes that are normally found on the menus of America's favorite restaurant chains. I settled on Red Lobster's amazing Cheddar Biscuits, Big Boy's famous Slim Jim sandwich, and the Egg McMuffin, which wants no adjectival validation. (I would make a funny joke about heart disease but frankly, I think it's implied.)
In the name of general accommodation, allow me to explain my dishes. The Silm Jim is a smoked ham sandwich with Swiss, lettuce, and something that could be described as Thousand Isles dressing. The thing about Slim Jim's is, they're not really that special, they just taste good. Ham and Swiss is a delicious combination, and Thousand Isles dressing is quite frankly, the shit. To that same degree,  Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits are little more than buttery biscuits mixed with cheddar, however, they have a very distinct taste because they are made with Bisquick, which makes them  sweet to the taste. This means they go well before dinner because they are good, and well with dinner because they are sweet while dinner is almost always salty. (sweet and salty being my favorite food related sensation on earth). The Egg McMuffin (praise be) is a simple combination of an English muffin, a slice of ham, piece of cheese, and an egg. It is simple, but has a soft chew texture that I find immensely appealing. I have an idea of how to replicate that texture, but I will leave that alone for the moment.
I also chose these meals because of their simplicity, these meals are accessible to everybody and that's how I want them to be. I am a man born of the Internet, and as such, I believe in the sharing (ability to acquire without paying for intellectual rights) in all things; a good idea must be shared with everybody. That spirit of sharing is what led me the recipe of the Cheddar Biscuits, which I found on Reddit.
Having well established the concept of my meal I would like to take the time explain the kitchen in which it will be cooked. Rick Burks, the swashbuckling Accounting major at Western University, opted to lend me his kitchen so that I could get off campus for a change. Rick is the same person who fed me Spice Rice for the first time. I had never cooked at Rick's house, so I really didn't know what to expect; nonetheless, I'm sure it will be fun.
As it turns out, things went wrong before I even started cooking. Upon actually looking at the recipe for the Cheddar Biscuits I was confronted with two terrible truths.
1: The recipe called for Bisquick and hence, processed foods.
2: The recipe called for onion powder and hence, processed foods.
Thankfully, I found out that Bisquick is little more than flower, salt, and shortening; that would be a simple fix. The second problem proved to be the one reality I would have to face in making this meal.  Although I could make my own Bisquick easily enough, I hadn't the slightest idea how to make non-processed onion powder, and I wasn't going to leave it out because I wanted to make these fast food dishes taste every bit as good as their counterparts. In light of that, I decided to break down and use the regular Meijir brand onion powder. The rest of my ingredients were blissfully simple to acquire: eggs, cheese, bread, ham, butter, and a few other odds and ends could all be found at, Park St. Market, Food Dance (the cheese), Quality Meat Inc, and Great Harvest Bread. Now all I had to do was cook this mother. Bring it on.
      I will not try and sugar coat this. Rick's kitchen is useless. It is small, dirty, and very cluttered. While I may be ill-designed for cooking (I am prone to knocking things over, and forgetting about them altogether) I had hoped that the kitchen I was cooking in wouldn't be. Also, the location of the kitchen in relation to the back door meant there was always traffic traveling in and out of the already hectic kitchen. This meant that while I searched- frequently in the wrong places- for pots and pans (that may or may not have existed in the first place) I had to worry about getting in the way of the people who actually owned the kitchen. With up to 10 people in the house at any given time, this made for a very dynamic cooking experience. Nonetheless, I dug my heels in and  preheated the Soviet-era oven to 375. All I needed to do for the Cheddar biscuits was bake the cheesy dough and garnish it once it was done cooking so I figured that I could cook them while I cooked the ham. I was  pleasantly surprised to find out that Rick owns a big, beautiful, cast-iron skillet that was given to him by his Grandpa; this was be perfect for cooking the smoked ham that I got from Quality Meat due to it's large size and cast iron's knack for absorbing oil. While the smoked ham cooked, I sliced the baguette that I got from Great Harvest in half. Then, I cut that in half vertically, and then sliced them into muffin-sized portions before I soaked the bejesus out of them in salted butter; that is my secret ingredient, and that is also why I know better. I am a visionary. I cooked the eggs in a pan (duh) but confined them in a circle that I created out of some leftover aluminum from a house renovation project. The result was a condescending look from Rick that quickly disappeared when he saw that my eggs that perfectly imitated the consistency and thickness of those found on the Egg McMuffin (we are not worthy). Screw you, Rick. I spent the next 2 hours cooking all of the food I had bought. This was also part of my shtick: I wanted all of my food cooked and eaten, that goes along with my belief in sharing things.
      The meal was great fun: Rick set up the long tables that were normally reserved for Beer Pong in the living room so everybody could eat together, and he placed the keg he had purchased the night before right next to them. Before I served myself, I took a second to watch everybody eat the food that I had prepared. I took a lot of satisfaction in this meal, I cooked it, I planned it out, and I was proud of it. I had fed myself without contributing to American Imperialism or global warming. Once I noticed that the Cheddar Biscuits were almost gone, I stopped thinking about the philosophical implications of cooking my own meal and scurried over to grab some breakfast before those assholes ate it all without me.

Foodinc Expectations.

I am of the opinion that Food Inc is going to be nothing more than really graphic imagery masquerading as a documentary on American eating habits. That being said, I am also open to being impressed if I learn something. I guess I am just a little skeptical of a movie documentary, but I guess that's on me. I just don't see how I could possibly be any more surprised than after reading Omnivore's Dilemma.

Dance Food Dance! V2

Dance Food Dance!

With its high unfinished ceilings, earthy paint-job, and minimalist modern furniture, Food Dance, Kalamazoo's top-rated restaurant, is as hip(ster) as it comes. According to Food Dance's website, their menu is entirely local, and entirely free-ranged: this will clearly be a meal with a conscience.

Housed in a large red brick building, Food Dance is located towards the more industrial southeastern end of downtown Kalamazoo: don't worry though, there's plenty of parking within the immediate area. The inside is well-lit, and boasts a small waiting area, a sleek and well stocked bar, and a small store where eaters and non-eaters alike can shop for cheese, wine, olive oil, sweetmeats, and Kalamazoo paraphernalia. Shopping at Food Dance's general store on an empty stomach is not advisable: it is much safer to survey a $15 dollar pint of ice-cream after a well-proportioned meal. 

My initial impression of Food Dance is that it is not a quiet place. The bright paint and open interior   means raised voices well before sitting down, though the constant buzz did facilitate energetic and animated conversation for the duration of the meal. The atmosphere has a classy sort of vibe to it: immaculately clean and professional, yet far from the stuffy, quiet, and overly formal settings of traditional upscale restaurants.

In the name of keeping the prices down, me and my dining companion opted to steer clear of the drinks menu, and explore an appetizer salad instead. We settled on the Fruited Chicken Salad, which arrived promptly. Let it be said, Food Dance makes one hell of a Fruited Chicken Salad. The dish is huge, with mountains of crunchy, watery spinach that support well-sliced chicken strips seasoned with a tiny hint of lemon and topped with a tangy red wine vinaigrette. By no means an afterthought, the  strawberries, oranges, pecans, and crumbled blue-cheese, gave the dish a perfect blend of sweetness and saltiness. From a visual standpoint, the salad's presentation was just as appealing as its taste: lots of colors, and a good mixture of chicken, fruits, nuts and cheese to balance the look of the dish. Best salad I've ever had, no exaggeration.

Having had such an incredible salad, I was understandably excited to try Food Dance's staple dish, the Ultimate Macaroni. Although I had been advised to try the Ultimate Macaroni by one of friends, I will say that the dinner sells itself well enough on paper: pasta with caramelized onions, bacon, and fresh spinach, in a rich aged-cheddar sauce, topped with toasted bread crumbs.

As great as the fruited chicken salad is, the Ultimate Macaroni ($16) falls short of Food Dance's stellar reputation. Every spoonful was saturated with grease, and did not sit well in the stomach.  To be fair, each individual ingredient was fairly tasty. The bacon was perfectly sweetened by the onions, and it had a nice, solid texture that went well with the soft macaroni. Although the sharp cheddar provided all the necessary flavor for the dish, it was too oily and left a sticky feeling in the mouth. The most telling failure of this dish is that when left in a refrigerator, the grease from the dish solidified into pure fat. Imagine a soup cup full of noodles, suspended in grease. When reheated, the top half of the container looked like cancerous chicken noodle soup, and managed to clog the drain of a certain dormitory when poured down the sink, much to the author's chagrin. 

Thankfully, a well cooked Alaskan Salmon ($17), textured with spinach and accented with a citrus based dressing can do wonders for clearing the macaroni out of the mouth. I only had a few bites, as my dining companion expressed, in no uncertain terms, her desire to finish the dish herself. The Fruited Salad left more of an impression, but the Alaskan Salmon is a fine choice for those looking for a less-than-heavy dining experience.

Having surveyed the stores, eaten the food, the only thing left to do is pay the bill. Verdict?

1 Alaskan Salmon $17

1 Ultimate Macaroni $16

1 Fruited Chicken Salad $14

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Dinner                        $47

Tip                             $15 (cheapskates, please take note)

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Total                          $62

While the prices aren't unfathomably steep, a casual eating habit at Food Dance could prove fatal to the average bank account. Two people can eat very well and keep the damage to around $60 bucks, but cocktails, desserts, and appetizers, can complicate the situation.

With so many good things going for it, and such a solid reputation (often referred to as one of Kalamazoo's finest restaurants) Food Dance should be held to the highest of standards. The building, the service, and the meals are all indicative of Food Dance's potential for being a truly special place to eat, but it falls short of being excellent simply by having such a bad dish featured so prominently on the menu ( the Ultimate Mac is listed under Great Plates on their menu). While this stance may seem harsh, this restaurant deserves to be taken seriously by merit of its amazing food. This, coupled with a commitment to local economy in a market swamped with faceless corporations, propels Food Dance to standard of which it falls just short.   B+

Organic whaaa?

Organic is a pretty tricky word to nail down. Small scale, local- more farms, less industry. Having said that, I pose a question to you-my beloved food and travel class-why in the hell is there such a thing as organic ice cream? It's not that organic ice cream is necessarily referenced in the book, so much as ice cream is just a useful example.  Something as fatty, and sugar loaded as ice cream needs to be sustainable and "free range" why exactly? Seems to me that it's more of a marketing ploy (something Pollan mentions about organic foods) than a lifestyle. The same thing can be said for virtually any dessert or pie: if it's fatty and unhealthy, what's the point of organic anything? I'm not saying that having fresh cherries is a bad thing-far from it-but there seems to be some kind of contradiction between organic cherries and the and butter laden crust on the cherry pie that will be served after dinner. Just some...food for thought.