My Kitchen Secrets.

Hey!

After a lot of thinking to myself… I decided that I am going to start my own food blog! It’ll be coming soon to a computer near you ;)(Probably by the end of this week). It’ll be catered to us college folks out there looking to make their experience in the culinary kitchen (or dorm room for some of us) a lot better. But I’m sure anyone else will also be able to get a kick out of what I make.

Most of you may already know that I had to do a research paper on food blogs, and from my research, I noticed that food blogs seem to have the reoccurring theme of a 1950s housewife as the author. SO, my goal for my foodblog is to do something different, something fun, and something that can empower women to have identities outside of being a typical housewife blogger.

I thought a little about myself and what I can do to make my food blog special. Well, first thing I realized was that I LOVE music. And then I thought about how I can incorporate music and food together. I realized there isn’t even much of a connection with food and music. Personally, I always try to cook with music. It just makes it more fun. How I plan to have my food blog set up is by having each recipe with a link to a song that connects to what I’m making. You might totally disagree with my music choice, and you might even dislike my music preference, but, hopefully I can somehow connect my recipes to as many genres as I can! I’m not trying to discriminate here 😛 Although, I do love listening to Beyonce and Drake pretty much all.the.time. 

I’ll post a link to my food blog soon. Until then, enjoy the rest of your week!

XoXo,

Yazzz

Tasting words

Last class we did a fun activity that was also kind of stressful. I had to share with my partner what I plan to write about as well as he/she had to share what they wanted to write about, in only four minutes (which was really not enough time!). Then we had about fifteen seconds to write on a little piece of paper some advice and feedback for their paper, then we switched partners. It was all happening so fast, and we did this for about 30 minutes so it actually ended up being pretty mundane after a while.

Now I have seven little pieces of paper that can help me write my paper. Each person gave me something that I definitely want to touch upon for my research paper. Especially because I want to write a paper that can impact my audience, and since my audience is essentially anyone that is interested in food, I’d like to make sure I include what my classmates are interested in reading about.

As I continue moving forward with my research paper, I’d like to reference more blogs into my paper. Having a variety is going to be key for this paper.  I want to discuss feminism and food blogging in my research paper. I want to argue that food blogging has complicated our views on women in this post-domestic era. From my research, I’m noticing that food blogging is an expressive world that is empowering to females. That being said, I want to explore more about men food blogging and the different genders and sexualities to food blogging. Is the lack of men food blogging due to the stereotype that women are the ones cooking? Is the lack of men food blogging a way of them to give women their personal space? When I discus the male perspective and other perspectives, I might even try to include the LGBT community, perspectives from people other than female bloggers would be considered as the “counter argument” to my paper. I want to also explore why vegans tend to have the most feministic views versus any other blogger. Finally, the feministic approach to food blogging is also linked to having a domestic approach, which I find interesting. What I’ve realized so far is anyone that food blogs is looking to be domestic in one way or another. They want a family (in this case it ends up being the social media) to care for them and be there for them just like how families were able and were obligated to be there for each other in the 1950s. Because blogging is a public interaction between people rather than a personal and private sphere, everyone wantsand needs caring from others in order to be happy and blogging is another way of caring for people through comments and interaction online.

Since I’m writing about food blogs I thought I should include a picture of food in this blog post.. Not any kind of food, but ice cream. My number one favorite food to eat in the world.

Cake Batter Ice Cream 😛

Hungry yet?

My Research Paper

Not yours. Not theirs. But my personal paper.

I talk to my friends about schoolwork piling up, lack of sleep, and how the weather just sucks. We just rant about it all and sympathize to each other’s whining and complaining. It’s also that time of year when all WRT 205 students begin to write their research paper. Most of my friends end up complaining about this unwanted task, but frankly I’m actually excited to do it. I lucked out on having a writing professor that’s more interested in pushing you to think outside of the box rather than following the rules in it. All the rules taught in high school about proper writing…gone. Now it’s about maturing yourself to becoming a distinct writer. What’s going to set you apart from the others? We brainstormed a couple of wild ideas to make a research paper anything but it’s standard stereotype. SO, for my research paper, I want to definitely hand in an audio file along with my hard copy. I also would like to include an academic paragraph along with a personal paragraph below it. I’d consider italicizing it or putting it in a different color. But the “secondary” paragraph would be written as if I’m writing a blog post.

For my overall project, I want to talk more about feminism and food blogging. And how food is just always gendered in our society and you see that even clearer with food blogs. For example, take a look at this picture:

As seen here, women are the ones that are advertising the meals they cook for the boys.

Also, just for fun since we’re talking about food… I came across this short video that really made me think “wow, that’s some serious food porn”. I’d even say some parts are kind of sexy.

 

Post-Annotated Bibie

For my WRT 205 class, we are now moving forward to writing about “our project”. My goal is to connect food blogging with gender, identity, and power. Instead of proposing an argument prior to gathering research, my professor is a strong believer of gathering research before making an argument. Why hadn’t I thought of it like that before?

After gathering my sources, my assignment was to complete an Annotated Bibliography with an Introduction setting up my issue, five annotated paragraphs, and a conclusion discussion where else might I need to explore and what I have learned thus far.

I thought this assignment was the most enjoyable writing assignment I probably have ever done. I got to spend SO much time looking at food on my computer 🙂

A lot of them were so fun to read because I feel like each blogger has his/her own way of grabbing their audience’s attention with some laughs. It’s almost like the blogger puts on a comedy food show.  One blog I cam across, a pretty popular one actually made me want to share it with all of you! On “the Amateur Gourmet”, Adam Robert’s posted about a time he made savory oatmeal. The use of sarcasm and “unsureness” from his choice of words really stood out to me and quite frankly made him sound really funny. I mean he’s supposed to be confident about his recipe; after all he has been cooking for a while now. His last few words were, “Well, it all worked out in the end, I suppose”…

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2014/03/that-time-i-made-savory-oatmeal-and-it-was-kind-of-weird-but-i-ate-it-anyway.html

 What about you? Would you try savory oatmeal?

 

Cookbook or Food Blogs?

I’m already halfway through spring semester and almost halfway through college. Time is just flying by here!

The next big assignment I have coming up in my WRT 205 class is an annotated bibliography. I wanted my focus to surround food and food blogging because I guess you can say I’m obsessed with food. There’s a lot you can talk about when it comes to food. Food can impact people in certain ways whether it’s positive or negative, and it can be tailored to certain groups of people. These days, people are using food to express themselves. If you watch the Food Newtork, both men and women are cooking things they are proud of. It’s a big part of their lifestyle.

Food used to be a huge part of culture and family, and people would just eat what’s given to them at the dinner table. Now it’s often seen as an individuals choice of what to eat because their busy lifestyles are coming in the way of having typical family dinners. Even though people aren’t sitting down with their family to have dinner, there’s another family waiting for them on their phone-the social media family. A person would sit down, be admired by their meal and take a picture to share it amongst their followers (or family). An article I found on ProQuest Central by Vickie Brown and Shelley Rauch, “Feast Your Eyes on Abundant Food Blogs”, talks about the new obsession to food blogging.

I hope to focus my paper on the idea behind food blogging, and how food is approached in the social media. I’d like to talk about how the rise of food has changed. These days, everyone is touched by food in their own way. It could be a healthful bliss or constant guilty pleasures. Yet, both people at some point admire the aspects behind food. If people are blogging about their constant admiration to food, then should everyone food blog? By just a few searches on the web you can find some bloggers talking about their interests and most likely you may find one  that appeals to you. Food blogs are also like #foodporn because the pictures are likely to make your mouth drop with a little drool coming along the side.

As I explore food blogging I’d like to also talk about the power struggle behind food blogging. Food can be tailored to certain people, and when you’re blogging you need to make a conscious decision for who you want your audience to be. Some general questions food bloggies might think of are: Whether or not they want to blog expensive foods and have a classy and elegant kind of dining or if they want to be a blogger about cheap, fast ways to make a meal? Do I want to keep my meal it simple or enculturate it??

Whenever I think of food blogs I automatically think of a women expressing their foods and there will probably be a bunch of dessert recipes on there as well. I plan to use this other article I found on ProQuest Central entitled “Dishing It Out: Food Blogs and Post-Feminist Domesticity” by  Paula M. Salvio. It discusses themes in which you will commonly find with a woman narrative versus a male. Eatocracy.cnn.com highlighted a male food blogger and it’s interesting to hear his reasons he started to food blog and why he kept on doing it. He’s blogging because he loves the idea of being able to connect all the things in his life and then be able to express it with food so that others may be able to enjoy it. He also uses blogging as a form of therapy. Normally, you would hear women using food to express their feelings (like that yummy Ben & Jerry’s Icecream after your boyfriend broke up with you).  So now we’re seeing men becoming just as expressive as woman.

When thinking about food it’s a world full of endless oppurtunities. That’s why food bloging is so personal beause you get to choose what you want to do with it.

With all the food blogs out there, please make sure to check some out! Maybe pay attention to the kinds of people they might be targeting.

And feel free to comment below with some food bloggers that appeal to you and let me know what you think of them!

Stay happy! 🙂

-Yasmine

Aroused by Food.

You must’ve heard it before. Or seen it as a hashtag somewhere online.

#foodporn.

These days everyone is obsessed with food. At first, hearing the word porn takes me back a little, and then you add food to it…I can only imagine what I’m seeing. I guess food is just as capable as sex to arouse someone.

For my WRT 205 class, we have to write an annotated bibliography and I plan to relate it to our identities around food and food blogging. After doing some research with keywords such as “food and gender” or “food blogging”I came across an article from the JSTOR database entitled “Food Porn” from Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies. I obviously wanted to click this article right away and read about it.

The author of the journal, Anne e. Mcbride, explored what does food porn mean and why does it really appeal to everyone. The idea behind using the term “food porn” was first used to describe food that was so sensationally out of bounds of what it should really be and might as well be deserved to be considered pornography. It’s essentially as if we enjoy watching our fantasies (i.e. seeing your dream food being made-mmmm tasty). The journal uses an interview amongst five people and these people were asked questions about their opinion on food porn. They all discuss and explore their interpretation of food porn and they also mentioned their opinions on why food can invite such voyeurism. All of their responses were essentially around the idea that food porn is a false term to use if taken literally and that food does not really invite voyeurism. If it were to invite voyeurism that’s provoking the idea of wanting to be in private, but viewing food on television or online, through your phone, or any social media encourages community involvement and sharing your experience with food amongst others. The two kinds of people who are involved with food porn are the ones that either cook or don’t cook. Most of the Food Network shows are designed to encourage people to buy things to cook and hopefully cook. Thus, the food on television doesn’t take away the desire to cook from those who have it, but it does make people who don’t cook want to buy food. It’s always a net gain, not a net loss to both sides (i.e.person presenting the food and the person watching it). The concept of food porn through social media, such as television, exists only for people who don’t have any relation to food in preparing, cooking, or serving it—they’re only interested in analyzing it. That’s the tradeoff of the real with the abstract. The people analyzing cooking are watching food porn. They are the ones who have replaced the act of cooking with the act of watching. And if you’re not into cooking, watching food on TV allows you to live through other people’s actions. Many people would love to feel the same passion that chefs have when they cook and TV might be the closet way to attaining that sensation.

Now I’m off to watch some food porn…who has time to cook those meals in college anyways? They always look really good and the chefs make it look really easy. Maybe I can squeeze in some time for an attempt.

Dear Freshman, Orange Is the Happiest Color…

Dear Soon-To-Be Freshman,

Helloooo there! This is Yasmine and Caroline and we are writing to advise you about how to squeeze the most out of your very Orange experience. (LOL) Welcome to Syracuse!!!  Welcome to College!!!

It’s a cold world here in Syracuse, but don’t let it get to you.  Take this literally, or figuratively, or both.  Yes, yes, you need a very warm coat.  Maybe some hand warmers.  And if you don’t have hand warmers, Starbucks on Marshall Street may become your go-to because a hot latte does the trick too.  It’s a big campus with lots of people so make sure that you figure out who will have your back.  Don’t worry about making friends because everyone needs someone and soon enough you’ll meet up with the people who have the same interests and values as you.  Speaking of friends, Greek life is pretty big here, but don’t stress about it.  Hey! How about walking on to the rowing team???!! (We are both on the rowing team!! Join!!)  …But seriously.  Okay well no matter what group you become part of, the amazing thing about Syracuse is the ENORMOUS Alumni base, and all of us who bleed Orange will be on your side when it comes to you finding opportunities as an undergrad and beyond.  Make sure you get to head over to a basketball game every once in a while and just soak in the passion and excitement and love we all have for our school.  You’ll get the picture, we’re just one big team.       

You’re at ‘Cuse! You’ve worked so hard to get here, but you can’t stop now! (#cantstopwontstop )  Classes are definitely more challenging than high school and wining to your teacher about your grades or an assignment will never work out.  If you are not a braniac with a photographic memory and you’d like to get high grades, you have to spend a fairly significant portion of your time studying.  Another thing, leave the phrases “I will prove that…” and “In conclusion…” in high school, to pass writing. 

You may also find that many people call getting good grades “being a successful student”.  Just remember success is more than what looks good.  You can’t just go to college and get good grades and then be “good to go”.  What is the purpose of all of this for you?   These four years at Syracuse are yours, not your parents’, not your friends’.  What does all of this mean to YOU?  It’s not always going to be easy, but you have to be in love with what you’re learning in your own way. You will have to take a few classes that, shall we say, won’t be your “favorite”.  There will be some classes that are a drag, but those “drudge” classes aren’t worth dropping your major or throwing your dream out the window.  This is a massively endowed research university with resources that many people only dream of and if you play your cards right, with a ton of hard work on your part and the magic touch of just the right alumn., the possibilities are endless for you.  The semesters fly by (we are a sophomore and a junior! Holy cow!) and soon college and your time at Syracuse will be over…so make all the time and all the hard work worth it for yourself.

Here you’ll be introduced to the great balancing act of life and you’ll learn by doing. GET SLEEP. Don’t think that you can’t sleep.  People say that you can do without, but that’s complete bogus.  Also, you need to bank up hours of sleep throughout the semester because during finals week sleep is a luxury that is afforded by nobody.  There are gyms at every corner of campus, so work out when you can.  (“Just do it.”)   Eat something green every once in a while.  Even if it’s the lettuce in your Chipotle burrito bowl or the matcha green tea in your Strong Hearts smoothie.  Green food-colored peppermint froyo at Yogurtland doesn’t count.  Be considerate of your health because all the myths about college campuses being incubators for colds and viruses and freshman fifteen are absolutely true.  Find your friends, make those grades, have your fun.  There’s no shaking those documented slip ups and accomplishments, and many of the friends you make here will be forever.  Use your common sense. (We know you have it, because you decided to come to ‘Cuse!!) Remember that it is important to enjoy yourself in the now and know that what you do now will impact the rest of your life.

According to S.U. students and also apparently Frank Sinatra “Orange is the happiest color”.  It’s true. You’ll have a blast here, you’ll make amazing friends and you’ll astound yourself with all the things you will accomplish!!      

Best wishes!!! We’ll run in to each other soon at Life Sci or Bird or Schine or Starbs or Chipotle!!!

Much Love,

Caro and Yaz

xxxxx     

 

http://cahabjan.wordpress.com

Research Papers are for the Big Leagues.

In Keep the ‘Research,’ Ditch the ‘Paper’, by Marc Bousquet, the main point he is trying to address makes sense and I never really thought about it until now. The idea of ‘thoughtless writing’ for a research paper is what’s happening when most students are assigned to write a research paper. Ask your typical undergrad:

 “What do you think of research papers?”

 “Oh, you know, they’re okay. Just a lot of work”.

I catch myself saying that for mostly every research paper I have written, especially history papers. Students are constantly looking at the assignment as a burden, rather than something that is supposed to help them in the long run.  Somehow the main goal of research papers was lost and it isn’t really about teaching the student how to think anymore. And their commitment to be ‘thinking’ about a particular idea as a long-term assignment ends up being done by an all-nighter. Bousquet brings up the point of research papers needing to be more “meaningful opportunities for the students”. However, writing a research paper that Bousquet is asking for requires skills that not many intro or general writing students will know how to do. Some students are probably just taking the writing class to fulfill a requirement and asking them for such a proactive task is demanding with all their other classes and things going on in with their life. Maybe that’s why research papers have led to being so bland and repetitive, because the assignment is for the general population of undergraduate students. Unless they’re planning on pursuing writing as a major, asking undergrads to write an 8-10 page research paper on a topic they might not even be too thrilled about is already a hefty task. Yes, Bousquet’s method of using the research paper will actually challenge the writer and they can walk away having learned more than just re-wording their research. But, having to be very concise and focused for almost 10 pages is going to require a whole lot of effort and brainpower.

I completely agree with Bousquet and I think the main point of a research paper is to comprehend the research and develop analytical skills that they can eventually apply to the outside world. Asking, “Why does this matter?” can help the process. However, it would be even more helpful if research papers can be more of a project or a presentation to the class. This can really allow the student to develop and talk out their thought processes about their research and findings. Then, if there is time, they can connect all of what they found onto paper. 

Response to “Rhetoric and the Stoning of Rachel Jeantel”

Kevin Browne’s response, “Rhetoric and the Stoning of Rachel Jeantel” discusses what our society refers to as ‘black language’. He first talks about his identity and his struggles with being considered different from being black. Or in other words, being marked as different by default. The main focus of Browne’s response is around the case that most of us already know- the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin. During the prosecution of George Zimmerman (shooter of Trayvon Martin), Rachel Jeantel was a key ear witness. She’s a friend of Trayvon and she’s also a woman that “talks black” and even though she knows she’s different she most certainly does not let that get the best of her. Browne uses sources from our social media and demonstrates that social media stoning has such a key role in discrimination and what attitudes to have. The social media demonstrated that during the case, jurors and lawyers would try to make her twist her answers and they would repeat her previous statements to place confusion on her dialectical choices. Thus, implying an issue about her word choices that are common to social strata.  But, amongst all this Browne and even me now, are considering her shameless and confident about where she stands in our culture. I’m not to say I was prejudice to people using ebonics or Black English (as Browne puts it), but I never bothered to look at the case the way Browne did. Anyone can really get a sense of his tone and strong opinions being illustrated throughout his text, and it’s also really convincing. A small excerpt from the reading shows his tone and his way of communicating with the reader:

Let me be clear that I think Rachel Jeantel’s composure was commendable, especially so given the context, and I challenge anyone to maintain such composure while being harrassed, as Jeantel was by defense attorney Don West (as is his, or any defense attorney’s, prerogative), about what you really heard on the phone the night your friend was followed, interrogated, wrestled with, shot, and killed. Maintain your composure then.

He gives us a scenario backing up his opinion that is almost impossible to disagree with. However, even though Browne is able to articulate his opinions in his response really well, he still considers himself a speaker of black language. In his response, he’ll say “we speakers of black language…” showing how he identifies himself with our culture. He uses Rachel Jeantel as someone that influences how he can stand in society. She inspired him and also me, by being self-confident and self-loving even when society is prejudice upon you.

After reading Bowne’s text, I’m thinking, “wow, something (i.e.- speaking black language) and being considered low in society can also be something that is powerful and impactful”.

First Post-

So I’m supposed to use this thing called a pen when I write, right?

Hmm… I think I’m becoming more adept to blogging and I no longer need a pen. And hey, this is pretty eco-friendly!

Ever since I created this blog (it’s only been a few hours ago, lets not get too excited), I decided to browse through most of the bloggers I already know. A lot of them are food bloggers and people who love to exercise (who would have thought I’d be interested in those things?). I took some time to really analyze their personalities through their blog and they all expose their identity really well. Hopefully, with this blog I can start to learn a lot about myself and my identity. I guess that’s supposed to happen at some point in college…