Week 09: Orecchiette with Greens

Orecchiette with Greens from Giada De Laurentiis' Giada at Home (Food Network, USA)

Week 9
Mon 8.1
In-class: Presentations, Reading discussion
Due: EDITORIAL ESSAY (FINAL DRAFT; ATTACH DRAFT 1 TO BACK)

Wed 8.3
In-class: Writers workshop; presentations
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (DRAFT 2, BRING IN THREE COPIES OF THE FIRST SIX PAGES OF YOUR RESEARCH PAPER) 
Catering: Group 5—Cheese Course

Fri 8.5
Due: EXTRA CREDIT ESSAY (EMAIL TO ME BY MIDNIGHT ON FRI 8.5)

Week 10 
Mon 8.8
In-class: Final exam preparation; Presentations
Due: REFLECTION 8; SYNTHESIS ESSAY

Wed 8.10
In-class: FINAL EXAM, Course review
Catering: Group 4—Dessert Course

Fri 8.12
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (FINAL DRAFT; EMAIL TO ME BY MIDNIGHT ON FRI 8.12) 

I decided to cancel our field trip so that we could concentrate on finishing up our summer session. Note new due dates for the remaining assignments (including your research paper, which will now be due via email on Aug 12th). 

Here is a roundup:

Mon 8.1: EDITORIAL ESSAY (FINAL DRAFT; ATTACH DRAFT 1 TO BACK)


Wed 8.3: REFLECTION 8; RESEARCH PAPER (DRAFT 2, BRING IN THREE COPIES OF THE FIRST SIX PAGES OF YOUR RESEARCH PAPER) 


Fri 8.5: EXTRA CREDIT ESSAY (EMAIL TO ME BY MIDNIGHT ON FRI 8.5)


Mon 8.8: REFLECTION 8; SYNTHESIS ESSAY 


Fri 8.12: RESEARCH PAPER (FINAL DRAFT; EMAIL TO ME BY MIDNIGHT ON FRI 8.12) 

Reflection 8: Eating with our Eyes—Exploring Food Blogs

Special occasions can go badly in Cake Wrecks.

An increasingly popular segment of blogs has been those centered around food. The topics of these blogs range from amateur cooking to specialty foods to culinary photography. In short, there is a food blog for just about any taste (pardon the pun). For your final reflection, peruse the various food blogs below, find three that pique your interest and write about them. What are they about? What attracted you to them? How do they lure in readers? Finally, can the joy of food be successfully translated onto a computer screen?

• Food Porn Daily
• 80 Breakfasts
• not martha
• Great Food Photos
• Sugar Stacks
• Cooking with Amy
• Tartlette
• Food Goat
• Last Crumb 
• What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat, Anyway?
• Pork Cracklins
• Cake Wrecks
• Chocolate & Zucchini
• BBQ Junkie
• This is Why You're Fat
• Vegalicious
• delicious days 
• Smitten Kitchen
• Chubby Hubby
• Pinch My Salt
• Cupcakes Take the Cake
• Sexy Food
• Extra MSG
• Kitchen Chick
• Men Who Like to Cook
• Sunday Suppers
• Lemonpi
• I'm Basil. I bake.
• Matt Bites
• Dessert First

Required:

• MLA format
• 2 full pages

Due:  Mon 8.8

Assignment: Research Paper, Pt. II

Chinook salmon are amongst the species of fish that are threatened,

Here are the technical requirements for your research paper:

• Length: 10 pages minimum, plus a Works Cited page
• Sources: 8 sources (must include: 3 academic/peer reviewed texts AND 2 books—print or electronic; do not count Wikipedia as a source) 
• Format: MLA Style  
• Citation style: MLA's parenthetical citation 
• No title page or illustrations

McDonald’s Trims Its Happy Meal

By Stephanie Stromm, New York Times
07.26.11

Bowing to pressure from health advocates and parents, McDonald’s is putting the Happy Meal on a diet.

The company announced Tuesday that it would more than halve the amount of French fries and add fruit to its popular children’s meal in an effort to reduce the overall calorie count by 20 percent.

But McDonald’s appeasement only went so far. A toy will still come with each Happy Meal despite criticism that the trinkets, often with tie-ins to movies like “Toy Story,” foster a powerful connection between children and the often calorie-laden meals.

While Happy Meals account for less than 10 percent of all McDonald’s sales, the signature box and its contents — first introduced in 1979 — have become a favorite target in recent years. Lawmakers and consumers have rallied around breaking that childhood link between toys and fast food, with the efforts increasing as Michelle Obama and national public health officials point to the estimated 17 percent rate of obesity among the nation’s youths.

San Francisco, for example, has banned the inclusion of toys in children’s meals unless certain nutritional requirements are met. A New York City councilman is proposing a similar law.

Other restaurant chains have gone further than McDonald’s in acceding to calls for improving the fare on children’s menus and eliminating marketing appeals. In June, Jack in the Box announced the end of toys in its children’s meals, and this month, Burger King, IHOP and more than a dozen other restaurant chains backed an effort led by the National Restaurant Association to serve and promote healthier options for youngsters.

“McDonald’s is not giving the whole loaf, but it is giving a half or two thirds of a loaf,” said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is representing a woman in California who is suing McDonald’s for including toys in its Happy Meals. “This is an important step in the right direction.”

McDonald’s made it clear that it was changing the composition of Happy Meals in response to parental and consumer pressure. It also pledged to reduce the sodium content in all of its foods by 15 percent, with the exceptions of soda and desserts. It set a deadline of 2015 for limiting salt, and said it would spend the rest of this decade cutting back on sugars, saturated fats and calories and making adjustments to portion sizes.

The new Happy Meals will be introduced in September and rolled out across the company’s 14,000 restaurants by April 2012. They will all include apple slices, but in a smaller amount of three to five slices than the current eight to 10 offered as an alternative. (The Apple Dippers also will be renamed after the company phases out the caramel dipping sauce, according to Tuesday’s announcement.)

“It’s a trade-off between everybody getting a small portion and 10 percent of kids getting a larger portion, which is better than nothing and maybe will accustom kids to eating fresh fruits and vegetables when they go out to eat,” Mr. Jacobson said.

Parents will have the option of requesting more fruit or, possibly at a later date, vegetables instead of fries. McDonald’s will also offer a fat-free chocolate milk option, along with the option of low-fat milk or the traditional soda. The price is not expected to change.

Today’s Happy Meal with chicken nuggets has 520 calories and 26 grams of fat, and the reconstituted version, with 1 percent milk, will total 410 calories and 19 grams of fat, according to the company.

The company said it had experimented with eliminating French fries altogether from the boxes, but that generated a lot of customer complaints. Danya Proud, a spokeswoman for the company, said that McDonald’s tests also found that parents wanted soda among the drinks available, too. “That’s what we’ve really felt all along, that ultimately, it’s a parent decision to make about their child’s well-being,” she said.

McDonald’s has long offered parents the option of asking for fruit rather than fries, although a study by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that only 11 percent took advantage of that option.

While some critics of fast-food and public health officials praised the moves (Mrs. Obama called them “positive steps”), others complained that McDonald’s did not go far enough. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University and an outspoken critic of the food industry, called the changes a “sham,” in part because McDonald’s is not doing more to limit soda with the Happy Meal.

“They’re going to get huge publicity for this — an ounce less of French fries,” Dr. Nestle said. “I’m not impressed.”

In fact, when apples are added to the Happy Meal with a soda, the amount of sugar in the new package increases.

As part of an effort to provide better access to nutritional information about its foods, the company has developed its first mobile application for the public. McDonald’s executives also plan to tour the country to hear directly from consumers about their concerns.

“We are doing what we can,” Ms. Proud said. “We have to evolve with the times, and the times require us and our customers are asking us to offer more options.”

Ms. Proud said that even with the changes, the Happy Meal would not meet San Francisco’s requirements, which demand both a fruit and vegetable serving, among other things, before a company can include a toy with a child’s meal.

Public health experts expect the company to mount a legal challenge to that ordinance before it goes into effect in December, but Ms. Proud said McDonald’s was still evaluating its options.

Week 08: Homemade Egg Tagliatelle

Homemade Egg Tagliatelle from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home (Channel 4, UK)

Week 8 
Mon 7.25
In-class: Reading discussion; Presentations
Due: EDITORIAL ESSAY (DRAFT 1, BRING 3 COPIES)
Catering: Group 4—Main Course

Wed 7.27
In-class: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ESSAY; Writers workshop; Presentations
Due: REFLECTION 7; RESEARCH PAPER (DRAFT 1, BRING IN THREE COPIES OF THE FIRST THREE PAGES OF YOUR RESEARCH PAPER) 
  

Reflection 7: Wasted—College Binge Drinking

Has binge drinking played a role in your college experience?

Much to the chagrin of universities and parents everywhere, binge drinking—drinking excessively with the intent of becoming highly intoxicated—is now a common part of college life in America. In fact, binge drinking is now so ingrained into the fabric of contemporary college life that some universities have even begun including information about the dangers of the excessive consumption of alcohol into their freshman orientations. It is difficult to argue that we are not in an era when many young people drink only to get drunk, but is it, as some suggest, an epidemic? How has binge drinking affected your own college experience? What do you believe will be the long-term effects of such practices on students? Finally, what do you believe universities can do to curb this practice?

Include in your discussion at least two of the following:

• "Survey: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans Binge-Drink" (USA Today)
  
• "'Just Say Yes': Millennials and Alcohol" (The Oregonian)
  
• "Drinking Too Much: Women and Alcohol" (Women's Health)
• "Half of College Students Have Blackouts" (UPI)

Above located in the eR.

Required:

• MLA format
• 2 full pages

Due:  07.27.11

Grocery Store Financing Program to be Announced

The $200-million California FreshWorks Fund is designed to encourage grocers to expand into underserved communities to improve access to healthful, affordable food. 

By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times
07.20.11 

In a bid to fight childhood obesity and change eating habits on the local level, First Lady Michelle Obama is expected to announce a healthful food financing initiative Wednesday that aims to draw grocery stores into so-called food desert areas in California.

The $200-million program, dubbed the California FreshWorks Fund, is a joint effort by the California Endowment and a team of grocery industry groups, healthcare organizations and leading Wall Street banks.
Modeled after similar funds launched in New York City and Pennsylvania, the idea for the California fund was hatched about 18 months ago by the California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation. Starting with a $3-million grant and $30 million in seed capital, the organization recruited partners to grow the loan pool, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kaiser Permanente, savings bank NCB, the Unified Grocers wholesale cooperative and the California Grocers Assn.

The goal, said organizers, is to provide financing at or below market rates to encourage grocers to set up shop in underserved communities such as South Los Angeles to increase consumers' access to healthful, affordable food.

"It's key to getting developers to realize they can operate in these areas profitably, to get past some of the myths of operating in these communities," said Dudley Benoit, senior vice president of JPMorgan Chase's community development banking.

Fund organizers said they also hope the fund will spur economic development in these areas at a time when bank lending remains tight. The financing should be enough, said fund officials, to create or retain about 6,000 jobs in California.

The loans will be available to food retailers big and small. Fund organizers expect that a portion of the lending will help mom-and-pop grocers and small, independently owned chains expand existing retail space and install new equipment such as refrigerated displays for fresh produce, eggs and meat, or build new stores in underserved communities.

The money could also be used by grocers to develop new distribution models, such as mobile produce trucks, to bring healthful foods into these neighborhoods. Or it could be used to finance collaborative, wholesale purchasing to help small retailers lower their costs. Details are still being worked out, but organizers are planning outreach efforts to advertise the loan program.

"When we started down this road, we were trying to figure this out for South L.A.," said Tina Castro, director of mission-related investments for the California Endowment. "Then, we realized that if we were going to put together the pieces of the puzzle for one area, why couldn't we expand and look statewide."

The fund comes at a time when the grocery store landscape has become increasingly competitive, particularly in Southern California. The region's three largest unionized supermarket chains — Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons — are embroiled in tense labor contract negotiations with area United Food and Commercial Workers locals.

At the same time, big-box competitors are ramping up efforts to sell fresh foods to consumers.

Still, there are nearly 4.4 million people in California who live in areas with limited or no access to healthful food options, according to an analysis of grocery availability in California conducted by Social Compact, a nonprofit organization that works to draw financial investment into inner-city communities.

Access to healthful groceries has long been a struggle in low-income areas. After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, four major grocery chains promised to build at least 30 supermarkets in affected neighborhoods. But nearly three decades later, these neighborhoods still lack many full-service supermarkets.

The problem is also seen in some rural areas across the state and nation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released an online map highlighting thousands of areas where families have little or no access to fresh food. According to the agency, up to 10% of the country is considered a food desert.

Although access to supermarkets has become a public policy issue and part of Obama's campaign to battle childhood obesity, a recent study found that grocery store availability doesn't necessarily mean consumers make more healthful choices.

The study, by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Nutrition Transition Program, tracked the diets of more than 5,000 people in low-income communities in four U.S. cities with high obesity rates for a 15-year period.

Published by the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study found that income and close proximity to fast-food restaurants were leading factors in food choice. It also found that building a supermarket wasn't enough to get people to eat more healthfully. Other factors included food costs and cooking skills, the study said.