Blog Project

I always figured that college would be much more useful than high school as far as real life application goes but I never thought a class could impact my daily life and daily habits so strongly! You could pretty much say I used to eat some form of fast food every day. When I’m not eating fast food I’m stuffing my face with whatever is being cooked in my house. Stuffing my face aimlessly just trying to fill my stomach without ever thinking about how my food came to be. How were my chicken breasts treated before I devoured them, how was my spinach grown before I made it vanish into the black hole that is my stomach? It may sound ignorant, but I had never even questioned if a certain type of food could make me feel better, always searching for great taste and the best bang for my buck I can honestly say I was oblivious to how big of an impact food has on me.

            So for my project I plan to explore the city to try and find new healthy and ethically good places to eat. When I say healthy I mean healthy for the environment, healthy for the eater, and even economically healthy places. To find these places I will go online and generate a list of restaurants and food place and attempt to visit them all. After visiting the restaurant I will take a couple photos and write a brief review of my experience. During the course of my project I plan to interview restaurant owners, try new foods, and gain a better understanding of how important food is and how big of a role it plays in everything we do.

            Through this project I plan to provide myself and my readers with healthy alternatives to the places where we constantly eat. I will share my first hand experiences in an attempt to get my readers to try new things. Every week I will try to visit at least two places on the list, possibly three or four depending on how hungry I am! Eating is one of my top five favorite things to do so I am really looking forward to this project and I expect that my closeness with the subject will surely show in each post. 

Response #2 Problem-Posing Assignment

In chapter three the issue of how dangerous working at a fast food restaurant actually is was brought to light. This troubles me deeply because most of the people that work at fast food restaurants are starting out their working careers in these restaurants. The dangers come in the forms of slips, falls, burns, strains, and in the worst case murders. In an industry that is filled with teenage workers and bright young minds this is clearly a problem. "In 1998, more restaurant workers were murdered on the job in the United States than police officers." A statistic like this doesn't make sense to me, how can people who work to flip burgers be more at risk than the people who put themselves directly in the line of fire? I can relate to this because I have worked in a fast food restaurant but I had never considered how many hidden dangerous were within the industry. Though most of the safety issues can be avoided by paying more attention the issues like having a gun put to your head and your life one in someone else's trigger finger have no easy solution. I can't imagine having to worry about my life everyday while going to work, as young adults we have enough problems as far as school and bills! Some places have tried to keep the amount of money in the cash register as low as possible but its clearly impossible for most places. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has attempted to set guidelines in the workplace but haven't made too much progress. Other measures taken to to reduce violent crime include spending millions on new security measures like video cameras, panic buttons, drop-safes, burglar alarms, and additional lighting. The reason this is such a big problem to me is because there are not many easy solutions. I feel that if a effective safety course was introduced to each worker could tackle the issue of injuries at the workplace. But as far as murders go I feel that greater security systems should be developed. I had in mind a type of floor system that is run by electricity, every restaurant should have a security room where someone controls this floor and can watch the cameras. When a robbery is occurring they should be able to divert many volts of electricity to the place in which the robber is standing in order to subdue them. This seems a little bit far fetched but if we have the technology to blow up our own planet numerous times I feel that its possible.

Meaty Sabrociousness

I'm not sure about the all of my classmates but I know this class has definitely changed the way a few of us are eating food outside our homes! Last night there was an event in Chelsea Market, where I work hosted by the food network called "Chelsea Market After Dark" I was asked to work from 5 until 12. I said yes because I needed the cash but had no idea about the event I was about to be part of! As soon as I arrived at work the market was closed off to the public and interior designers and caterers began to set up. I was pretty confused so I just sat in my store and began to catch on some of Professor Alexanders reading. About an hour later my boss arrives with florescent blue bracelets that labeled me as a staff member, I put mine on and I wont lie I felt pretty cool. My boss described how the night was going to go and I became extremely excited. The event was pretty much a highly exclusive 120 dollar per person charity event where participators went around the market getting completely wasted and stuffing their faces with all the delectable foods the market had to offer!

I began to set up our table and ended up finishing in about 20 minutes. The event started at 9 so I had a couple of hours to walk the market and see all the kegs and thousands of wine glasses being set up thinking that I would definitely see them again later in the night I stroll back to my post. When the event finally began people did indeed come in and get trashed and stuff their faces, it literally only took about an hour before the market was transformed to a calm get together to a full blow fiesta! I was frantically putting out samples for all the guests with the help of my boss but we eventually ran out, everyone loved our nuts! So now it was time for to go and start my weekend early, in the name of charity of course! After intensely sampling the wines, whiskeys and ales it was time for me to have dinner.

After traveling to the Chelsea Thai, Bon Italia, Jaques Torres Chocolate, and One Lucky Duck my nostrils were taken hostage by Dicksons Farmstand Meats and their bite sized pulled pork sandwiches. I grabbed one and began to walk to the whiskey bar without chomping down yet and as soon as I finally decided to take a bite, I walked straight back and waited for them to make another one. They were preparing the sandwiches on the spot taking the freshly cooked pork out of the heating pans and putting some vegetable, I believe pickles in between the buns and impaling them in the center with sharp wooden sticks. I fell in love. Now i'm here still thinking about this sandwich and I decided to look up what I had eaten because this was one of the first times I've eaten meat outside of my house aside from emergency lunches and BEC's(Bacon Egg & Cheese) at LaGuardia. I found the website for Dicksons and browsed threw it when I came across the "Our Farms" tab, before this class I wouldn't have even clicked it but now it seemed to be the most important part of the website to me. I was relieved when I came across these few facts at the bottom of the page.

• The entire supply chain (farm to slaughterhouse to point-of-sale) must be no more than 400 miles long.
• Animal based feeds, prophylactic antibiotics or added hormones are not administered at any point of the animal’s life.
• The animals from which our meat comes must spend their life on the farm – no CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) or feedlots.

The page also contained a lot of other information which can be related to our class but these seemed to stand out to me the most. There is also a "Meat Facts" tab which I found interesting and pretty informative. Though they are on the pricey side I feel that it is definitely worth the extra couple of bucks and I'm glad to say I have a new place to go for my lunch break. I strongly encourage you to visit their website(http://dicksonsfarmstand.com/) and browse through it and if your interested in going its located in very chill and inviting atmosphere so don't be afraid to make the trip to Chelsea. 

Crunchy Wings (descriptive writing revised)

As I dashed out of my apartment without any sort of subtlety and complete disregard for my neighbors who were probably counting sheep. I decided I should relax, slow my role, and take a deep breath for I needed it because of the extreme amount of anticipation for what I was about to devour. I headed down the street full of gum chewed up and spit out forever becoming part of the cement, a smile on my face and my head held high. I was a block away from the restaurant I couldn’t even how to pronounce but I could already recognize the scent of my chicken wings being dipped in scolding dark yellow oil that’s probably been boiling for days. I wasn’t in the mood for general tso’s this afternoon because every time it comes with a couple pieces of chicken that are as hot as an iceberg. By the time my wings were ready to be inhaled, I still had to wait for my rice to finish being fried, as I watched the small Asian lady toss and turn my rice and vegetables with such precision and ferocity I began to salivate and get startled at the same time. I had never seen someone make my food with so much emotion. A tear dropped from my eye but before it hit the floor, I heard a high pitched DING! My order is ready and now I must mutilate these wings with my bear hands for I am a savage hear me roar!