Novella Carpenter Book Reading

Tuesday, March 15th I bribed a friend and took them with me to Kalamazoo Central High School to see Novella Carpenter talk about her life as an urban farmer and the new book she wrote about it called Farm City. I was actually surprised by how packed the school's auditorium was with the people who had read her book.
She was introduced to the stage with the title of "hippie" and as soon as she walked on stage I could see that the title fit. Wearing relaxed clothing and odd shoes that I find it hard to describe, even her voice had a mellow sound to it. She made a lot of inside jokes that the audience seemed to find entertaining, but probably because they had actually read the book. I was not too lost, though, as she talked through her first experiences with raising animals and squatting on land in California for 8 years where she started her first garden. 
She had actually decided to raise her own animals spontaneously one day when she realized that she wanted fresh meat, rather than the store bought packaged meat. So she went online and ordered a starter kit of poultry.
When her mail came, a large box full of baby poultry (chickens, turkeys, etc.) was waiting for her. She said she had had just about as much experience raising animals as she had killing them. Which means zero.
Eventually she said she figured it all out and even decided to purchase two hogs at an auction one day to add to her farm of different kinds of poultry,  vegetables, fruit trees, and rabbits. Yes, she ate rabbits, and she admitted that many people think she is weird for doing so.
I found Novella very funny and greatly enjoyed listening to her smooth voice. There were a few (very few) younger kids in the audience, though, and at one point Novella said the "f" word. Immediately after that, she talked about finally butchering her hogs and how it had been "like the mafia" because she had had to cut off their heads, and then proceeded to show us a picture... I think the kids may have started crying.
The whole talk, which was actually surprisingly short, was full of Novella's experiences and advice for other farmers in the audience (yes there were some). For example, one of the ways that Novella saved money on food for her animals was by going to China town and dumpster diving. She would find thrown out food that she thought the animals would like and successfully saved a fortune on pig chow and other such foods. We have talked in class about how much food gets wasted every year, so I thought that relevant connection was pretty cool.

New Tastes

To the left is a picture of my plate filled with almost every piece of food that Saffron's lunch buffet had to offer.

It was a little bit of an adventure trying to actually get to Saffron's first, though. I went with Brooklynn and assumed that I knew more than her GPS (I swear it was trying to get us lost). Eventually we found it, though, and were pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere we found in the restaurant. The decorations and even the waiters' uniforms were appealing to look at, though Brooklynn and I both felt a little under dressed when we looked at some of the other customers.

I found the my first bites of each different piece of food to be equally as interesting as the last. My mouth was not used to the amount of spices that it picked up, but I enjoyed almost all of it. I noticed a large difference between eating some of the food without bread versus with (usually I enjoyed it more with bread - I ate a lot of naan bread).

At the buffet, there were large cauldron-looking pots that each food was in and above them were the names of the food and their ingredients. I am now going to name them off and tell you what I thought of each...

Saffron Rice: Not a big deal. It really just tasted like regular white rice and I enjoyed combining it with some of the other food.
 Began Bhartha: Sounds gross but really was not too bad. It had smoked eggplant in it which I did not really like the texture of, but I liked the rest of the tastes.
Pindi Channa: Other than the bread, this was actually my favorite choice. "Chickpeas simmered in a savory secret blend of fresh herbs and exotic spices". Maybe it's because I have actually had chickpeas before, but I actually really enjoyed the texture and the flavors. Still best with bread
Navrathan Korma: Brooklynn and I were not really sure how to feel about this one. We did not want to dislike it, but it definitely wasn't a favorite. "Mixed vegetables smothered in a yogurt coconut milk sauce with nuts & raisins". Maybe it was the yogurt coconut milk sauce that ruined it... That just sounds weird.
Raita: This was definitely not a favorite at all. Neither of us liked it or even took more than one taste of it. "Low fat home made yogurt with cucumber & fresh mint"
Badami Kheer: Another one that we didn't like. Well, we liked it at first but then we got a chunk of something with a terrible flavor and instantly pushed our bowls away. "Almond nut pudding with raisins & nuts"
Lamb Keema: If I had to describe how this one looked I would say "mush". It wasn't bad. Same spice filled flavor as the rest, but I think it was slightly more plain which, surprisingly, made me like it less. "Ground lamb simmered in spices & fresh herbs topped with fresh cilantro"
Tandoori Chicken: I know that this was Brooklynn's favorite, probably because it was the most recognizable food. The chicken was a shockingly bright red color, which was actually kind of pretty. "Chicken marinated in our special house marinade & yogurt, then baked to perfection in the clay oven". I wonder what their obsession with yogurt is all about...

Other than these foods there was a fruit and vegetable salad. I didn't really try it but Brooklynn did and she didn't spit it back out so I guess it must have been ok.
Overall I really enjoyed Saffron's. I love being risky with my food and am open to trying almost anything, so I had fun with this experience. In the future, I will probably try to drag people along to restaurants with different cultural food more often.

Global Warming & Food

I am sure that everyone has heard of the issue that is global warming at least once or twice before the lecture we heard in class. When I was younger I often heard it debated whether global warming was even a real thing or not. Today, though, there is enough evidence for people to say that the Earth is in fact warming, so now the debate has become: What is causing this warming?

The guest who came in to talk about global warming (I apologize for forgetting his name) stated that some people think the warming is due to natural variation. Our guest was quick to point out, though, that this couldn't be the cause of the current warming. Just because warming happened previously does not mean that this current warming is caused by the same thing.

He said that there are two ways that this current trend of warming is different than any we have had in the past 800,000 years:
1. It's happening 10-20 times faster
2. It's happening while solar input is decreasing - which means that we have actually been receiving less energy/heat from the sun

So, natural variation and increased solar input are both excuses that we can just cross out now. It is far more likely, and I am far more willing to accept, actually, that global warming is caused by us. The humans. The ones who like to use fossil fuels and pollute and waste energy.

We need to wake up and start taking action soon. Some of the charts of the future of our planet that the guest speaker showed us were disturbing. These changes are apparently already starting to affect our crops, with a decrease in global yields of wheat and corn that has been occurring since 1960.

As individuals we can start making a difference by conserving energy through purchasing more fuel efficient cars and investing in triple pane windows to better seal the heat in our homes in the winter. These are only actions that delay the future outcome of our world, though. In order to make a real change we need to start looking more into things like solar and wind energy, but we also need to start voting people into office that support these ideas. We can be the change if we care enough.

                                     

Casey & Joe Made me watch a Commercial

Unfortunately, I missed class the day that Casey and Joe gave their presentation/information about video games in regards to the role food plays in them. I heard that they did a fantastic job and that it was very interesting though. 

I looked at Casey's blog and found links to two GTA (Grand Theft Auto) commercials. I am not a big gamer so, while I was somewhat aware that GTA tries to seem "realistic," I did not realize that it was to the point where they made commercials for the food in the game.

The first of these commercials was called GTA IV Burger Shot Commercial. "Die with a smile on your face" is a direct quote from this video and pretty much sums up the message of this commercial. Americans seem to thrive on fast food, not necessarily because that would be the first choice most of us would make, but because we are such a fast paced society. A lot of the time people do not have the time, or money, to buy a bunch of ingredients and make a home cooked (healthier) meal.
These "faster" meals, though, have less than appealing ingredients (once you find out what they are) that just happen to taste good to a lot of people. So "die with a smile on your face" really speaks to how these "tasty" ingredients can have a really negative affect on people's healths.

The second commercial was GTA SA: Cluckin' Bell Commercial. This commercial is a little more disturbing and reminds me of a scene from Food Inc. when the chicken farmer was describing how they would crack the chickens' breast bones in order to allow the chicken's breast to grow larger. It always comes back to meat companies wanting to make a larger profit. In this case, I think I remember learning that the companies did this in order to feed our growing population (aka make more for more people to buy). "If you enjoy it, the chicken didn't die in vain." 

It's interesting that they're publicizing some of the problems with our food industry in a way like this. A lot of the population enjoys playing video games, so I think this is a very clever way to make people more aware.

Bone in the Throat

At this point in Bone in the Throat, every character's life is more complicated than ever. 
Tommy is being considered an actual suspect in Freddy's murder and the FBI have sent their agent, Al, out to start questioning all his friends and other mob members.
Tommy has been so stressed out by this, along with the fact that he knows he is being watched, that he gets really drunk one night and cheats on Cheryl (his new girlfriend) while she's gone for a week.  He ends up telling her and, rightly, gets punched in the eye and has a lot of apologizing and explaining to do.
Along with Cheryl, Tommy has also confided in the Chef. 
We find out that the Chef has finally started his treatment program and has been making a lot of progress. When leaving the building one day, though, he finds Al sitting on a bench waiting for him. Al puts pressure on him to convince Tommy to come in and tell his side of the story of what happened to Freddy. 
The Chef ends up talking to Tommy, which is why he confides in him. Coincidentally, though, right before they had this conversation of going and talking to the FBI, Tommy had just gotten picked up by two of the mob members. Danny (mob member) and Skinny took Tommy out by the river. The whole conversation was basically Danny making sure that Tommy did not have any grudges against the mob or his uncle, and that he did not plan on talking to the authorities. He even gave Tommy the name of a lawyer to call in case the authorities forced Tommy to come in. 
Now Tommy is stuck with a difficult decision: either tell the FBI what happened and get his uncle (his "mom's brother") in trouble, or stay silent and risk getting himself and the Chef sent to jail. Keeping silent is a family tradition, but will Tommy break tradition?

105 Pages of Bone in the Throat

The first 50 pages that I read ended with us knowing that Sally Wig (Tommy's mob connected uncle) has asked Tommy to do him a favor. Tommy is really resistant to help his uncle because he wants nothing to do with the mobs dirty business. We catch a glimpse of why this might be in the first chapter of the next 50 pages that I read, with Tommy describing his time with Diane.

Diane was Tommys girlfriend in high school. She mocked the mob openly to Tommy and thought of them as not scary, but irrelevant. This got to the point where Tommy was embarrassed to even be related to anyone connected to the mob. Her thoughts rubbed off on him and stuck, even after she moved to Boston for college.

Tommy thinks that he owes his uncle, for helping out his mom and him so much after his dad died, and decides to help him by letting Sally and a few of his friends into the restaurant. Terrible idea.
Sally, and his friend Skinny, end up gruesomely killing and chopping up a man they brought with them who had "made some people mad."

(If you think that this is the mysterious man who I mentioned in my first blog about this book, notice that I said he was chopped up. The actual mysterious man was found floating... whole.)

After that we kind of get turned in a different direction for the moment. An entire chapter was spent talking about how the head chef has a heroin addiction. In the first 50 pages (I think I forgot to mention this) Michael (that's his name) was stopped during a drug deal by undercover agents who thought he was Tommy. They took him into the station and, after figuring out who he really was, asked him to get close to Tommy and keep them informed. The chef also seems to be realizing that he has a drug addiction, since an entire chapter, like I said before, was spent talking about him going and trying to join a treatment program.

Lots of things can happen in just 50 pages. There were plenty of other smaller things that happened, other than what I have discussed, but I think I will wait to mention them until they play a bigger role in the story.

50 Pages of Bone in the Throat

The book I chose to read is called Bone in the Throat and it is written by Anthony Bourdain.

From the prologue to 53 pages later (because I just had to read a little more), Bourdain had me hooked. The prologue begins with a disturbing description of a mysterious body being pulled out of the river. I already have my prediction as to who this John Doe is.

Let's see if you can figure it out too.

So, after the John Doe is pulled out of the river, the person whose job it is to inspect the body (who is the narrator in the prologue) notices that this is not just a regular "floater." FBI agents and guys from the U.S Attorney's office were flocking around the scene, all looking very serious. Some of them even got into a fight. The narrator described their expressions as looking "...well, guilty."

I bet you think you know who the killers are now, but hang on...
Sally Wig, Tommy, and Harvey are all introduced. Tommy is just a young sous chef trying to move on past his father's mob history, but his uncle is not letting that happen. Tommy works at Harvey's restaurant. We get our first glimpse of what kind of trouble Harvey has gotten himself into when Tommy's sweat suit wearing uncle, Sally Wig, comes to ask for the "weekly payment." Harvey has apparently skipped payment the past 3 weeks on account of the fact that he is putting all "his money" into his restaurant (the questionable quotes around him actually being the owner of the money will be explained momentarily). Sally Wig lets it slide this time but makes sure to bruise Harvey up a little bit before he leaves.

Harvey leans on a man named Al to help him figure out what to do. Al is actually an FBI agent, and Harvey is actually a snitch. The money that Harvey has been incorrectly spending on his restaurant is money that the feds gave him to give to the mob. This is their attempt at getting dirt on them.

Are the pieces starting to fall together for you too yet? If not, then I guess you will just have to wait in anticipation for my next blog.

The Hunger Games: The End?

27 chapters later and The Hunger Games is over for our heroes... or is it?
I think everyone knows that there is more than one book in the trilogy so obviously this is not the end of Katniss's "adventure" (if that's what you would like to call it). 
Thinking back on what she and the other characters went through throughout the last couple chapters, though, one wonders how any person could handle any more of the Capital's antics. 

After it is announced that there could be more than one winner from the same district, where we left off, Katniss goes in search of Peeta and finds him injured. The "star crossed lovers" act is officially back. But it seems to be an act for only one of them, which leaves the reader aching a little bit for Peeta since he his feelings for Katniss appear to be so real...
Anyways, Katniss helps Peeta heal up in a cave, and even risks her life in order to get him medicine from the Cornucopia (another Capital trick to force everyone together by presenting them something they need). The only reason she is not killed is because Thresh, the guy who came from the same district as Rue, felt a small amount of respect for her for being so kind to Rue.

Another big moment in the final chapters occurred after Peeta was finally well enough to walk around. He is scavenging for berries while Katniss hunts. She starts freaking out when he doesn't respond to her signal (whistle) and when he finds him, scolds him for moving too far away. Peeta tries to soothe her by offering her strange berries and as she is looking at them and realizing that they are nightlock berries (very deadly), they hear a canon. Foxface had apparently been sneaking their food and died after she unknowingly ate the poisonous berries. Katniss keeps some of the berries just in case she finds a way to use them against Cato - her keeping the berries foreshadows the way the games abruptly end.

Fast forward to Katniss, Peeta, and Cato being forced together onto the Cornucopia by the Capital's mutant mutts (which disturbingly resemble the other fallen tributes). A brief struggle leads to Cato falling and landing among the mutts. Katniss is swayed with pity by his screams and shoots him with an arrow from her safe height to put him out of his misery.

When the mutts finally leave, Peeta and Katniss are the only ones left. They won. They're the last two victors and they're from the same district. It should have been over. But the Capital does not play fair and announces that the rules have changed, again, and there can only be one winner. 

Neither of them wants to kill the other. As Peeta is telling Katniss all the reasons he should be the one to die, she realizes that if they both died "the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers' faces.."
So, making it look like a real 'Romeo & Juliet' moment, Katniss hands Peeta some of the nightlock berries and, right as they are both about to eat them, the Games are ended and they are pulled out. 

It's over! Oh Joy! They survived! Or so it seems... President Snow does not like to be outsmarted and he holds grudges. He should really learn to compromise.

The Hunger Games: Chapters 6 - 18

Reading chapters 6 - 18 of The Hunger Games was more review for me. I had almost the exact same thoughts reading it through the second time, though, and here they are chapter by chapter...

Chapter 6: This chapter begins with Effie Trinket bragging about her attempts at getting Katniss and Peeta sponsors. Their chances of having sponsors went up after their stylists job well done at helping them make a grand first appearance (Having sponsors is very important for the tributes in case they need water or medicine or anything else that is not in the arena). As she's telling them this, they are being taken up in a glass elevator to their rooms which are filled with every kind of luxury. "Spoil them before you kill them"
seems to be the Capital's motto. 
Chapter 7: In this chapter Peeta and Katniss get into a little argument at breakfast, which begins as just an argument over their abilities, but then turns onto a topic that really pulls your heart strings for Peeta. We begin seeing signs of who people think the winner might be, and this really comes through when Peeta lets it slip that his mother told him that,"She's a survivor, that one" and that district 12 might finally have a winner. The fact that Peeta's own parents aren't expecting him to come out the winner (which means he would be dead) is just a really upsetting thing to know.
This chapter also includes the first training session for the tributes, where they all begin sizing up their opponents. Even more important than the training session, though, is the private session with the Gamemakers. This is the time for each tribute to show their skills. Katniss definitely shows that her ability to shoot an arrow is up to par when she shoots one, in an act of rage, and it hits the apple (in the mouth of the pig the Gamemakers were eating) spot on.  "Thank you for you consideration"
Chapter 8: After her sassy-ness towards the Gamemakers, Katniss is understandably worried about what they might do to her or her family, etc. The Gamemakers end up giving her a very high score of 11, though. It's disturbing to think that they most likely gave her that high score because they think her temper will make her more entertaining in the games. 
Chapters 9 & 10: Katniss's "spirit" and the power she has by just being herself is shown during the interview that the tributes have to do in this chapter. Whereas, Peeta shows makes himself seem very likeable, at least to everyone except Katniss, when he reveals his crush on her to the entire audience. This is when the "star crossed lovers" plan of survival is revealed to Katniss, which she isn't exactly happy about at first.
The most important moment out of these 3 chapters is the night before the games. Neither Katniss nor Peeta can fall asleep (understandably - knowing you will have to fight to survive not long after you wake makes it a tad difficult to close your eyes) and are up talking. Peeta plants the idea in Katniss's head that whether they die or not, he wants to prove that he's more than just a "piece in their (the Gamemakers) game."
Chapter 11 & 12: The Cornucopia. Blood bath zone. Either get supplies and risk being killed, or run as fast as you can away from it and have no supplies. Katniss manages to get a backpack, but the evidence of how deadly the Cornucopia is is shown with 11 canon shots that night, each signifying another dead tribute. 
Katniss is given a shock when she discovers that same night that Peeta has seemingly teamed up with the "Careers" (arrogant, aggressive, strong tributes). The cameras are everyone, catching all of their movements and reactions to everything. Never forget that these teens being killed is seen as great entertainment.
Chapter 13 & 14: When tributes have been apart for too long (or there hasn't been enough excitement - death - for a while) the Gamemakers force the tributes together. In this chapter, they decide to use fire and fire balls. While running away from this danger, Katniss gets hit in the calf but is proven to have sponsors when she is sent medicine. However, the Careers find her hiding in the tree (I'm sure the Gamemakers are very pleased with themselves). That night when they're sleeping under her tree (on account of the fact that they can't reach her), Rue - the little girl who reminds Katniss of Prim - finds her in the trees & points out a way to get rid of the Careers. Tracker Jackers. 
She manages to kill one of the Careers by dropping the Tracker Jacker nest near them, but injures herself and everyone else with their stings as well. For all this, though, Katniss has earned a bow & arrow (taken from the fallen Career) and a partner. 
Chapters 15 & 16: Katniss and her new friend, Rue, have to decided to hit the Careers where it will hurt them the most. None of them know how to hunt or get food like Katniss does, so getting rid of their supplies (Katniss & Rue decide) is the new plan. Rue's job is to distract the Careers, and Katniss takes out the supplies. Katniss manages to blow it all up by triggering the bombs they had set up to protect it all. 
Chapters 17 & 18: After the explosion, Katniss is temporarily disoriented and a little deaf in one ear from the blast. But they did it. They evened the playing field. They should be celebrating and figuring out their next step. But where is Rue? This is the chapter that killed me. 
Katniss hears Rue screaming and finds her entangled in a net one of the other tributes had thrown on her. Right as Katniss reaches her, the boy from District 1 hits Rue with a spear. Katniss immediately shoots him with an arrow and races over to Rue. 
As Rue slowly dies, Katniss sings to her in an attempt to comfort her in her last moments. 
We all know whose fault her death really is. Not Katniss's late timing. Not the boy from District 1. The Capital. They are the enemy, and Katniss realizes this. So, in another act of defiance, she surrounds Rue's body with flowers and kisses 3 fingers before holding them up to the sky for all the districts, who are being forced to watch this, to see. District 11 (where Rue was from), in return, sends Katniss a gift of bread from their district. Katniss has shown (whether she realizes it or not), for the first time, that the districts are in this together, not alone.

The Hunger Games: Refreshing my memory

I am actually one of the many people in the world who have read Suzanne Collins' book The Hunger Games before. I really enjoyed it the first time, though, so re-reading the first five chapters wasn't a big deal.

If you have not read the book before (or even haven't watched the movie somehow) here's what you should probably know: a while back there was a nuclear war during an uprising of the people against the government. The government won in the end and separated the people into twelve districts. There was a thirteenth but it was destroyed by more nuclear war. Each district has it's own specialty such as grains, coal, weapons, etc. The focus of the story, though, is the games the capital throws each year. Every year, every person between the ages of 12 and 18 from each of the districts gets one slip with their name on it entered into a glass bowl. Then, when reaping time comes around, a representative from the capital goes to each district and draws out one girl name and one boy name. These are the chosen fighters from that district who are sent to the games. "What are the games?" you may be wondering at this point. Well, after the uprising, the capital decided that it needed a way to prevent anything like that from happening ever again. They decided that the best way to do this was to make the districts basically live in a state of severe poverty, and then have these "tributes" fight to the death. There would only be one winner.

To me, this idea sounds like someone in the capital's own Modest Proposal. Instead of eating children, though, they decided to just have them kill each other as entertainment.

This year's reaping was supposed to be Katniss's (the main character) last one since she was 18. However, when her sister's name (Prim) was pulled out of the glass bowl she did not hesitate to volunteer herself as tribute in place of Prim. And so her journey began...

Touring the Slaughterhouse

I was one of the 9 people who went on the slaughterhouse tour. You may be wondering why I'm writing this post on Sunday when we went on Friday. Well, the answer to that, if I'm being honest, is that I just did not want to think about what I had seen too in depth. 

This isn't because they did anything that I would call the police about or anything. In fact, the whole system was very well regulated and organized compared to what I had thought it would be after reading Slaughterhouse.  The people who gave us the tour were very friendly and readily answered all our questions (they literally had an answer for everything). The building itself seemed very up to date. But as soon as we got there and I saw trucks pulling in full of cattle, and thought about where they were going, I started feeling sick. 

There were so many small details that I could share, but I will stick with the biggest portions of the tour for this blog since it's already going to be pretty long. I apologize in advance.  

They told us when we started the tour that we would begin in the cleanest sections of the process and then work our way towards the more "messy" sections. Clean consisted of boxes and packaging of meat, which created a false sense of ease. 

The first room that really shocked me was this HUGE room just full of workers, of all ages, doing every job from cutting fat off meat, to cutting meat off of hanging carcasses. 
Throughout the whole tour the thing that struck me most was how each worker had a job where they did the same little task over and over. I don't know how they could stand doing that day in and day out. Especially not the job which I'm about to tell you about.. 

We walked into a hallway at one point, which I noticed had a little more blood on the floor than the other places, and above our heads there was a pulley system taking the hooves of cattle to a different room. At that point we were all asked if we wanted to see the sticking process. No one said no but there was definitely hesitation. The tour guide took three of us at a time into the room where it happened. As soon I walked in, I was assailed by the sight of freshly knocked cattle and a (this is the only way I could think to describe it) "WATERFALL" of blood streaming out of them into a dark red river below them as the worker cut their throats over and over and over.... While I was recovering from shock, the tour guide pointed out a man in a black hat and explained that his only job was to make sure that there were no conscious cattle coming into this room, otherwise he had to use a knocking gun on them again. So there's that. 

It was surreal seeing all that blood, though. I couldn't believe it.

Then immediately after that was the knocking room. I think this is the room that affected everyone the most, because, again, no one said no to witnessing the process. 

There were two cement walls blocking in the cattle, who were literally face to butt packed walking in, and then there were two workers whose jobs it was to keep the line moving. Moving forward. Straight to the other side...where the end was waiting. That may sound dramatic, but it was hard to not get a little emotional/philosophical as you watch the completely unaware cattle looking around the room...even making eye contact with us... and all I wanted to do was pet them all. Maybe even take them all home with me.. 

When it was our turn to see the knocking, of course something had to go wrong. The tour guide explained the process as we watched one cow after another come through the hole and immediately get knocked in the head by the gun (there is a rod inside it that is pushed by air, like a normal gun, and it's supposed to split the brain in half). Then one cow came through that the worker holding the gun could not reach since it put its head down. The worker immediately pushed a button to stop the process, and the cow started struggling and thrashing around. A burst of air in its face was all it took to get it to look up... and the process continued.

This whole experience is one that I know will stick with me forever. The scent of the slaughterhouse is still lingering in my nose. 

Though this particular company seems to have figured out better ways of doing things, I still feel like there are many flaws to the whole system. Visiting a slaughterhouse, though it may affect you deeply, is something I would recommend that everyone should try at least once. I doubt you would want to go a second time, though.

Chapter 6-13 of The Jungle

I was one of the people who had to read chapters 6 - 13 of The Jungle, which I was kind of happy about since that way I would not have to skip any chapters after our first assignment of reading chapters 2 - 5. 

Finishing chapter 5 left me with a sense that Jurgis and his family would have no more problems with the house and that the rest of the book would be focused on them just struggling with their jobs. This was partly true. Unfortunately, the house situation situation was not to end so easily, which is what I had been scared of. 

Though the housing agent may not have lied to them about not having to rent the house forever, he did leave out many other things. The biggest of these, which the family was most shocked to hear about (from their new friend Grandmother Majauszkiene) was that they had to pay interest. After that revelation, there was no way that Ona and little Stanislovas could avoid getting jobs any longer. The law was that no one under the age of 16 could work, though, so they had to lie and say that Stanislovas was two years older than he actually was. However, the bosses could have cared less about the law anyways. The younger the person, the less they thought they had to pay them. Stanislovas was paid about a third less than the average adult where he worked. This extra income helped Ona and Jurgis to get married in a manner that was acceptable to Elzbieta, who had grown up as a person of importance and, therefore, had certain standards for things of that nature. 

The part of this section of reading that really affected me was when winter time came around. 

Winter is a time that very few people enjoy in the first place. Add in having to work in negative degree conditions, and then coming home to a house that is almost just as cold because you cannot afford heating, and suddenly winter is unbearable. Poor Stanislovas even had to witness another young boy that he worked with have his frozen ears snap off. 

To avoid freezing themselves, many of the workers would try different tactics to warm up. Here is a section from one of the chapters that shows the extremes they would go to:
"Now and then, when the bosses were not looking, you would see them plunging their feet and ankles into the steaming hot carcass of the steer, or darting across the room to the hot-water jets. "

It was especially dangerous for workers who used knives. They could not wear gloves and, therefore, ran the risk of their fingers going numb, which led to accidents. 

Jurgis' father, Antanas, ended up dying from a cough and other ailments that he actually contracted from working in such conditions and around chemicals. However, as the saying goes, the end of one life leads to the beginning of another. Ona gave birth to a strong baby boy and this happy event brightened Jurgis' whole world, but also gave everyone a reason to work harder.  

50 Pages of The Jungle

I read chapters 2- 5 of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. 

These chapters really brought to mind the reading I did of Slaughterhouse by Gail Eisnitz. 

This man named Jurgis brought his family and the family of the woman that he planned on marrying, Ona, from Lithuania to America in search of a better life (about 12 people).
Knowing almost no English, they run into many troubles, including losing much of their small amount of money to swindlers before they finally find a man who was from Lithuania too. This man helps them by telling them about a cheap place for them to stay at while they get their feet on the ground.

This place was not nice in any sense of the word, but it was good enough for them to stay at for the moment. Jurgis wanted his future bride to have every nicety that he thought she deserved and would not even let her try to get a job when the rest of them went out looking. Because he was such a large man, he stood out in the crowd, outside of Brown's, of men trying to find work and within a short time was asked to come back at 7am the next day. Of course Jurgis was excited about finding work at the slaughterhouse, not knowing what the rest of us have learned in class about the terrible things that go on inside them. Jurgis actually went on a tour of the slaughterhouse before his first day on the job, which is what many of us will be doing on Friday. The tour only managed to brighten his thoughts of the factory, of course, because all the tourists were shown the brighter sides of the process. The only part that people seemed to be disturbed by during the tour was the killing of the pigs. The people humanized these pigs, thinking that they looked so innocent and went into their deaths so trustingly. This did not bother Jurgis, as he was so amazed by all the things he was being told about how the whole process made sure to not waste any parts of the animals and other such achievements. He did not even notice when an inspector stopped to tell the group about how his job was to check the animals to make sure they did not have any diseases or other things that would keep them from being edible. And as he spoke to the group, several cattle passed right by him unchecked.

The part of this story that caused me the most anxiety is when the family decided they wanted a house, and decided to go to an agent about a house they saw advertized. In my mind, that whole house sale process was a scam. I wanted to cry with them when they did not believe that first lawyer who told them that the deal was legit. In other classes I have had, we read about how people would take advantage of immigrants in their situation and take every last cent that they had. So when Jurgis, in his rage and fear, ran to another lawyer and was told again that the document was correct I breathed a sigh of relief with him.

Cajas de Carton

The author of Cajas de Carton is award winning Mr. Francisco Jimenez. He wrote this story about one of his experiences working in fields with his family in California. Originally, his family was from Mexico, though. He worked in the fields for many years and his family moved around a lot. 

I felt really sad as he described how he could only attend school contingent upon when he was not needed in the fields picking grapes, strawberries, and other things. It made me wonder, even though he said that he was entering 6th grade, if he should have been in a higher grade. School was an exciting time for him and his siblings because of that simple fact that they did not have to work, though. Also, you can tell by looking ahead in time to his master's degree and Ph.D that he must have really enjoyed learning. I would have been excited to get to take a break from the work he and his family were doing too! I can hardly stand being outside when the temperature is above 90 degrees, yet they were out in a field in 100 degree weather. Along with that, they basically only took a break at lunch in order to pick as many boxes full of products as they could. Then at the end of their long day of work they come back to relax in some guy's garage (living conditions). His mom and the younger kids got the mattress, and everyone else slept under a tree. That sounds great for a short camping trip or something, but this was how they lived their lives. 

Reading about his time in school was great, though. His teacher, Mr. Lema, was exactly what every good teacher should be. He cared about his student and even took extra time out of his day to help Jimenez. Mr. Lema even offered to teach him how to play the trumpet (going above and beyond). That moment when Jimenez comes home excited about the prospect of being able to play the trumpet, just to have his hopes dashed by those packed boxes, was heartbreaking.

My Very Modern Proposal

Recently, I had the opportunity to read Dr. Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal and, while he made very good points, I think that he may have gone a little off track (and a little too extreme) for helping the problems we have in our society. With this in mind, I would like to make my own proposal. Instead of focusing on getting children off the streets and helping our poor (both very honorable causes), though, I am going to center my ideas around food waste and the environment.

Americans throw away about 263 million pounds of food a day, much of that food still edible. Because of this, we end up with giant, unpleasant looking trash mounds that are filled with rotting food.That much food is piling up at an increasingly fast rate, with food taking a long time to decompose as more food is placed on top of it, along with all the packaging they come in. Soon we will start running out of places to put all our trash and we will begin competing for land. So I have thought up an idea to solve this war with our food: Turn all food into liquid.

Every single meal. Every fruit, vegetable, meat product, etc. as soon as they are picked or killed will be sent to a special "grinding house" where they will be pounded and ground down until everything is in its most liquid form.

This system will reduce the amount of paper plates, utensils, and even the packaging that is used to accommodate solid foods. You have probably noticed that the use of eco friendly mugs has been advertised a lot more in the past couple years to get people to use them more and cut back on the amount of water bottles they throw away each year. These reusable mugs are key to my plan. Each individual would have several eco friendly mugs. They then would take their mugs to the store, or restaurant, any time they want to get more food. At the stores and restaurants, people will be able to fill their mugs up at the juice stations; beef juice, ham juice, egg juice, and any other food you can think of. This cuts way back on all of the packaging that would be needed to hold these foods.

The best part of all of this is that even if you have leftover food it will not end up in a pile on land, polluting the environment, that we could be using for something else.  Instead you can pour it onto your grass or a body of water to be evaporated later. It is my sincerest belief that this system will work and that we should begin using it as soon as possible.

The Family: Rigoberta Menchu

Rigoberta Menchu grew up in San Miguel Uspantan and is part of the Quiche people. She wrote this testimony about her life at the age of twenty-three, which she notes at the beginning. 

Rigoberta makes it clear from the beginning that her life and the lives of her family members was not an easy one. Hard work and unfair treatment were apart of her life literally from her birth, since her mother basically had to rush home from the fields in order to not give birth to Rigoberta  on the plantation she was working at. Her family was literally always working, whether on a finca or on their own farm. Unlike the fincas, though, they actually enjoyed working on their own farm, which makes complete sense after you look at the way they were treated at the fincas. It made me so so sooo mad hearing some of the things that Rigoberta and her family had to go through. 

Skipping over the landowners and their treatment of their workers for a moment, the transportation that the workers used to actually get to the fincas in the first place really disturbed me. They had to take the lorry to get to town since they lived in the mountains. These vehicles were usually packed with people and their animals and took several days to reach town, so go ahead and imagine that smell. The smell would be overwhelming because on top of the fact that people were packed together with animals, there was also no opening to see outside or get any fresh air. This led to a lot of people puking. On top of that the drivers would drink alcohol and be very drunk during the journey (which is not safe - "don't drink and drive"), and would not stop to let people go to the bathroom during their trip! So sweat, animals, puke, and people wetting their pants. Yay. Roadtrip! No. It brings to mind learning in my history classes about the colonists sailing slaves across the ocean.

So they survive this trip and finally reach the finca (whichever one they're actually working at this time - cotton, coffee bean, etc.). People usually expect to walk away from a hard day of work with extra money in their pockets. However, for many of these people they walked away with much more debt than they came to work with. They are paid so little in the first place that it really is not that hard to spend it all, especially when the landowners are tricking you into spending it. Rigoberta recalls a time when her father, stressed and feeling low, went to the cantina to drink alcohol and forget his troubles for a moment. The overseers charged him for much more rum than he actually drank and put them in so much debt that it took them several work sessions to try and pay it off.

On top of the debt, Rigoberta lost two brothers to the working conditions, too. These people have to pick a certain amount of beans or cotton in order to "earn" their small wages, and that usually requires a long day of working in the heat. Rigoberta's youngest brother got sick from these conditions and malnutrition, and then his mother was forced to watch him die because she could not afford medicine for him. In fact, if it was not for her caring neighbors she would not have even been able to afford to bury him. The sense of community and looking out for one another that Rigoberta's family and neighbors acted with was the main thing that brought back my faith in humanity.

A Modest Proposal: What the heck...

Well, I just read A Modest Proposal and I can assure you I have a very strong opinion about this piece. Here we go...

First of all, I was warned about this piece of writing by our classmate Brooklyn, who had read it before me, with the heartfelt, and accurate, statement, "It was messed up." 

I have to admit that the first couple lines that the author, Dr. Jonathan Swift, wrote had me wondering what she was talking about. It seemed to me that he would just be discussing the poverty rate in his kingdom and how that was affecting the lives of the children. I was partially right. He did discuss something that would definitely have a large affect on their lives... 

The line that slapped me in the face and made me realize how "messed up" Dr. Swift and his ideas for bettering the kingdom were, was, "...a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled..." 

He deceived me. Dr. Swift is a deceiver. I say this because literally right before he sprung this little thought on me, he had been discussing how voluntary abortions were a horrid thing because that was sacrificing "poor innocent babies," and the whole time I was reading that I was just nodding my head, agreeing, and (to be honest) zoning out a little bit. Dr. Swift's brilliant solution to ending these "sacrifices," though, was to wait until the children were one year of age and then to sell them as food. This way they would be nice and plump (perfect size for you to feed your guests). Oh! Then, he points out several of what he believed were the benefits of this plan, one of which was that mothers would treat their children better and be more affectionate to them. He thought that if they knew their children would be worth money then they would be more kind. Same with the husbands. Dr. Swift thought that if they knew that the child their wife was pregnant with would earn them money, then they would beat their wives less so as not to accidentally cause a miscarriage. Brilliant. I am a big mixture of disturbed and angered by this whole piece.

What was even more concerning was when I began relating this to our recent trip to KLF (Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes). I know that that is kind of a weird leap of topics, but just think about it. What if we did not have organizations that fed the hungry like that? Or what if we did not have people who put their minds and talents together to help their community? Would we just say, "Well, I hate seeing people go hungry, so maybe we should just pay them to let us eat their children. I'm sure that will fix everything!" The fact that that thought even enters someone's mind is pretty scary, especially when they take it as far as to propose it to a large amount of people like Dr. Swift did. Also, one more creepy thought: Dr. Swift kept referring to how tasty of a replacement for animals children are... Does this mean he has already tasted/eaten the meat of a child? 

At the end of this whole disturbing proposal, Dr. Swift throws in something very interesting. He makes sure to point out that his daughter is 9 and, therefore, past the eating age and also that his wife can no longer have children. This statement then begs the question, would Dr. Swift sell his own child to be eaten (he seems to mock anyone who thinks doing this would be a bad idea) or is he just a really big (crazy) hypocrite?

UPDATE: I wrote all of this before I read the "historical context" that Dr. Allen provided for us. Let me say that after reading that I feel much better about Dr. Swift. Realizing that he was just using this strong and disturbing proposal for a change in Ireland to shock their leaders (who had ignored all his other ideas) into action really changed my opinion on the whole piece. I still find the whole thing highly unpleasant, but now respect his motives behind writing it and understand his anger towards Ireland's leaders at the time.

Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes: The Website

Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes has a really well set up website which lays out things that you would want to know about them and more. My favorite part of their website is the bottom right side of their home page, which has a section titled "Hunger Stories." This consists of testimonies about KLF from actual people who use their services. Sometimes you need to see more than just numbers to know that something is working (at least in my opinion).
Much of the food that KLF distributes to the hungry in Kalamazoo's community is donated from either the rest of the community or larger food drives.
This whole service was created in 1982 by a group of churches. They were concerned about getting more food out to the hungry in their community, so they combined their resources.
If you need proof of how effective they are, they do provide you with some numbers.
In 2012, they reported getting food to about 127,000 people. That totaled up to about 1.6 million pounds of food distributed out to the Kalamazoo community.
On top of this, KLF also provides "prepared meal support, senior commodity programs, agency food support, food packs for kids, and other community food programs." They do not make feeding people a competition with the other food programs in the area. Instead, they help these other programs by sending them food.
One of their programs is called "Weekend Food Program." This consists of sending participating schoolchildren home each weekend with a food pack. I really liked this program in particular because if you think about it, schools have programs (at least mine did) where they have cheaper lunches for kids who sign up for it because of financial troubles, but as soon as they get home they are stuck with whatever their parents manage to get. With the "Weekend Food Program", though, they do not have to worry about searching for food on the weekends.

The Dinner of Trimachio

I just finished reading The Dinner of Trimalchio which is just a portion of the Satyricon. This was probably one of the most emotion filled, chaotic dinners I think I have ever read about. Everything was extravagant the whole time, too; the house, the food (the amount of food), the slaves, the guests, and the host... especially the host.

In the beginning, I had the impression that the narrator was going into Trimalchio's house as a sort of spy, per se, who had heard of his extreme excess and luxury and was going to report disgust at what he found.

I was pretty off.

The narrator seems to be a guest invited along with many other guests, most of whom apparently are scholarly and even free-men. We learn that Trimalchio is a fellow free-man. This means that he used to be poor and in service, but through different circumstances eventually rose to his current position in society.

There are moments when Trimalchio seems almost likeable. I respected his leniency with his slaves and also his proclamation that he would make all his slaves free-men, even though that would not happen until he died (In those days I'm sure this was a big deal).Trimalchio even went so far as to, to the dismay of the narrator, allow his slaves to sit with his guests during the feast. Something else that he did that I enjoyed was having all of his food made or grown from his own supply instead of shipping things in. I thought this really tied into what our class has been discussing lately. Trimalchio had all of his food made fresh which is, I believe, how we all think our food should be served. However, there did seem to be an over-excess of food, which was actually normal for the wealthy in that time period, but that led to a lot of waste of food. Wasting food is a modern problem as well though. 

My original idea that the narrator was going to be a sensible individual and very unlike the rest of the characters, though, was quickly dashed as I read more through the story. While the whole dinner was odd, things did not really start getting weird until Trimalchio decided to move the dinner party into the bath area.

The narrator initially tries to get out of this by sneaking away but is stopped by the labyrinth that is Trimalchio's doors.

Taking part in the bath festivities meant that he was also privy to Trimalchio's moment of rage toward Fortunata, his wife. She had yelled at him for kissing one of the slave boys for too long and that made him very upset and defensive. He went into a fit of anger towards her, and at one point said he had done nothing wrong because he had kissed the boy because he was smart and not because he was attractive... I don't know. I think if I was her, even though that excuse made so much sense (can you feel the
sarcasm?), I still would have been a bit upset.

The dinner is later broken up when Trimalchio, completely drunk at this point, decides to stage his own funeral and sets one of his slaves into a loud fit of mourning which eventually brings the police and fire men barging in. The narrator finally sees his chance to escape and takes it with his friend Ascyltos and Giton. After that, my understanding of the book's events kind of dwindles. The focus of the story goes from the narrator basically documenting the events of Trimalchio's feast, to, out of nowhere, his strong emotions towards Giton (his 'brother' - *wink wink*) and his own life.

Essay Love

I just finished my essay and let me say that it is a good thing that it was not required for it to have a structure, such as a five paragraph essay. This was definitely more of a ramble about several of my life experiences with food, and I guess a few things I have learned. 
My essay starts off with a brief rant about my "health nut" of a mother. In college my mom had a short stint with body building (yes she is pretty muscular - not freakishly though), and she is currently the Manager of Cardiology at a hospital. 
Health is her job. 
She tried her hardest for a short while to change what my family ate to some pretty, in my opinion, extreme health food. Things like pesto sauce (blah), tofu (please no), and black beans (a.k.a bad beans). After a little while of hearing complaints every time dinner came around my mom was quick to pull back on the extreme foods and gave us more options. She is still pretty strict with what my dad eats though.
A good portion of my essay was centered on my brief period of vegetarianism though. By brief I mean REALLY brief. Say.. 3 months brief. What was weird though, was that when I took my first bite of meat after those three months I actually felt a little sick. The meat I ate was from a chicken salad I bought from McDonald's. After everything I have learned from reading Slaughterhouse, looking back on that sick feeling I had is a little nerve wracking. There have been far too many cases of E.coli for anyone to be ok with feeling sick after eating meat. Luckily, nothing detrimental came from that sore stomach.
I continue with my essay by saying how reading Slaughterhouse and remembering what I learned from watching Food, Inc. my junior year of high school have caused me to have thoughts of trying vegetarianism again. There is one problem with that, though. I love meat. That is the main reason I did not succeed with my first attempt at being vegetarian. 
Recently, though, I watched a TedTalk that a man named Graham Hill did that has re-inspired me. His idea, as a meat loving man, was to be a "weekday vegetarian." Eat no meat during the week, eat whatever you want on the weekend, and decrease your carbon footprint while doing it. 
I am on my second week of trying this plan, and so far it has not been too bad.

An Hour of King Corn

The first thing that was said that really grabbed my attention in King Corn was, "For the first time in American history, our generation was at risk for having a shorter life span than our parents. And it was because of what we ate..."

The two main guys in this film are friends, Ian and Curtis, who set out to Iowa to discover all they could about corn in America.
 
They began by planting their own acre of corn. Before they could start planting though, they had to inform the government, who in turn paid them. For one acre of corn they would make about $28 a month. One of the farmers they talked to made a point of saying that if you are a corn farmer then you have to have a lot of farms, or a very large one, or else you kind of get "squeezed out" of the business all together because there are so many other farmers.These corn fields are basically taking over most other kinds of farms.
 
Another line that caught my attention as I was watching the friends plant their acre and spray it with anhydrous ammonia, is that because of the ammonia apparently farmers can grow about 4 times more corn than before. It is concerning to me that we are spraying chemicals on our food in order to make more of it. This ties back into the whole "shorter life span than our parents" thing. I highly doubt that adding chemicals to our bodies will help us live longer lives. If our grandparents did not need it to grow their food, then why do we?
Even more chemicals are sprayed on the genetically modified corn (modified to be immune to the chemicals) in order to kill weeds. 

Today Iowa is proud to claim that they produce the most corn, which happens to be enough to feed the whole country by itself. Most of this corn is not immediately edible though. Corn has to be processed before anyone can eat it, which means that farmers cannot feed themselves anymore.
A large percentage of corn is turned into either sweeteners or is fed to animals who will one day be sold as food. I remember watching Food Inc. my junior year of high school and learning about these animals being fed corn. The problem with that is that many of these animals are built to eat grass and not the large amount of corn they are fed each year. Feeding the animals corn is intended to make them fatter faster, but it just is not natural. 
In fact, very little about our food system seems to be anymore.

200 Pages

Slaughterhouse is a book that holds back very little. Once you get over the shock of the first 100 pages and start taking in all the continuing gore and disturbing aspects of this book, though, you begin to notice a few patterns.

The first is that whether the slaughterhouse is killing sheep, horses, cows, pigs, etc. does not matter. They all have the same likelihood of letting the animals be conscious when they are killed because of one reason... The speed the workers do their job at. Everyday the workers' main goal is to get through as many animals as possible; which means always, no matter what, keep. production. moving.

This adrenaline pumping desire for speed is caused by a second pattern that I have noticed. All the owners and managers of these slaughterhouses care about is getting as many animals cut up in order to get as much money as they can, no matter the cost to their workers or the actual animals.

Money is very important to these people. A side fact that I noted from this book is that workers even sell meat on the streets to restaurants and other places sometimes. This fact was told by a former worker, Steve Parrish, who was in jail when Eisnitz interviewed him. He had worked at a horse slaughterhouse and let it slip that they would sell horse meat on the streets disguised as beef. Or, even worse, the places knew it was horse meat and gave it to their customers as some other meat. But I digress. 

My main point was that management would purposely turn down the power of the head knocker, which is supposed to knock the animals unconscious. They push their workers to speed up knocking speed to get more animals through, which also leaves more room for error in knocking them out. Then they change nothing about this system, even after it proves to leave their workers injured and the animals abused; by iron rods, boiling water, hooks in the mouth, freezing temperatures, etc. Even worse, the workers are too afraid to speak out to authorities once they realize their bosses are not willing to listen, because those same bosses make it very clear that their jobs can be easily replaced.  

A final pattern linked to the speed of line production, which one would think would concern the people who run these slaughterhouses, is food contamination. The author of this book, Gail Eisnitz, writes that according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) approximately 40,000 cases of E. coli 0157:H7 poisoning occur every year. Many animals are not properly checked before they are sent through the line of production just because more animals = more money, no matter what condition they are in. We all know by now, though, that usually that condition is "awake".

A Disturbing Process

2 Parts. 8 chapters. 105 pages. That's how far into Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz I am at the moment. 

I can already tell that I am not going to enjoy this book. 

While the author has a style of writing that is both blunt and intriguing, her subject is extremely unpleasant. She does not try to hide this fact from the reader by sensitively approaching the subject, but instead begins the book by describing a horrific case (which she had to go undercover for) of dog training using live rabbits. 

Of course this case had nothing to do with the food industry, but a case she was given at the same time as this one led her to discover a somehow even more disturbing crime that was taking place in a cattle slaughterhouse.

By the second chapter - only 28 pages in - Eisnitz already had two witnesses who claimed that the slaughterhouse, called Kaplan, had been making its workers skin living, conscious cattle. Not only is this clearly a form of animal cruelty, but it also made for a dangerous work environment for the people who actually had to skin the cattle.  

If you are wondering why this might be, try thinking about if someone tried skinning you while you were aware of it. Would you simply relax and let it happen? Or would you start kicking and fighting for your life, and then trying to run from anyone who came near you; even if that meant trampling anyone in your path? 

I would hope most of you would have enough "life preservation" instinct to do the latter.

The worst part, to me, is that even if the cow does not get loose it still gets passed down the line, only to be stabbed in the spinal cord once it reaches the skinners. According to Eisnitz, severing the spinal cord only paralyzes the cattle so they can not move. It does not, however, rid them of the pain of being skinned.

Conditions in this slaughterhouse were not only gruesome for the cattle, of course, but also extremely dangerous for the workers, and not just because of scared cattle.

At this point my main interest in finishing this book is being able to see Eisnitz get the owners of this slaughterhouse in just as much trouble as they deserve.

The Random Location

In every town there is at least one place where teenagers like go to hang out with their friends. The city I grew up in, Grand Blanc, was fairly small but there were still plenty of ice cream shops, coffee shops, and restaurants to go to meet up with people at. Conversations are best over a nice cup of coffee from Tim Horton's in the winter, or while meeting up at Ziggy's, the local, popular ice cream shop as soon as they open in the spring. There are many places in town that are fun to go to, but my best friend Emily and I liked to be a little bit different. We would still go to the majority of these places when the desire to arose; however, there was one place in town that we went to the most. Kroger.
 The way I remember this tradition starting is I was with Emily at her house when she pulled some sushi out of the fridge. I had only tried sushi once before and was curious about it, so Emily shared some with me. (It is important to note that in our friendship we bond over food a lot.) The next time we hung out we were trying to figure out what to do for lunch. I remembered liking the sushi and suggested that. Really the only place in town, at the time, to get sushi was Kroger. So we hopped in Emily's beat up, red mini van (which we had named the "swagga wagon") and made going to Kroger the event for the day. 
When we got there the sushi was located at the front of the store so it was not hard to find. We had not planned anything else for the day, so we decided to waste some time and stroll around Kroger. I am a self-proclaimed "bread-aholic" so naturally I steered us toward the bakery section. Both of us had taken French in high school, so we nearly overflowed with excitement when we found some "fresh" baguette bread. We ended up purchasing the bread, the sushi, and (still feeling the French excitement) some cheese and made it a meal. Ever since that day, Emily and I have often returned to that Kroger and it has now become part of the memories I hold of our friendship.