Erica's Exploration 3

Ice cream is a food I always look forward to eating and means a lot to me. I am always willing to eat any kind of ice cream no matter the time of day or temperature. It is something that always makes me happy. My favorite kind of ice cream is from Cold Stone. They have a signature ice cream called "Birthday Cake Remix" and it is my all time favorite. It is their rich cake batter ice cream which then has sprinkles, brownie bits and fudge mixed into it. Needless to say I am a frequent Cold Stone customer.

A special meal that is always important to my family and I is chicken scaloppini. It  is a lemon-garlic dish that is served over pasta that has chicken and mushrooms as well. This is a very detailed meal that takes lots of time to make, so it has always been something that brings my family together to make and spend time together. Everyone knows when its a chicken scaloppini mean everyone needs to be home to help. Which we are all enthusiastic about as it is everyone's favorite meal. There are many steps in preparing this meal of which include cutting chicken, squeezing lemons, cutting mushrooms and chopping garlic. This meals main "purpose" is to bring the family together. It is always something after a long or busy week we all look forward to making together.

Shannon Sundry Exploration Three

My favorite food is fettuccine Alfredo. Although I enjoy all pastas, fettuccine Alfredo will always be my favorite. Not only is fettuccine Alfredo great tasting, but it's also easy to make. All I have to do is boil pasta and then add canned Alfredo sauce. I sometimes even buy the microwavable meal Alfredo which is even easier to make. Making it myself tastes alright but my favorite place to get it is at the restaurant Carrabba's. They have the best pasta and the best tasting Alfredo sauce.

Spaghetti is a food that is special to my family. Throughout the week my family and I never eat dinner together. It's always at different times and usually we don't even eat the same meal. This is why I look forward to Sunday's. Every Sunday my mom cooks pasta and makes her own homemade spaghetti sauce. She makes the sauce in the crock pot and lets it cook all day. Not only do I love pasta but I love the fact that I get to sit down with my family and have a family dinner.Spaghetti is also an important food to my culture. I come from an Italian background where pasta is a very popular food and served before almost every meal. My family always has pasta at our big family gatherings as well.

Exploration 3 Umer Haider

      The food that means the most to me would most likely be a bread like food called the Parata. It is sort of like tortilla bread, but more oily. It is a food that I use to have when I was younger when I lived in Dubai. We use to have a nanny who lived with us, and she would always make it for me. I am a very picky eater, and so I would only eat certain things. The Parata was one of them. When ever I eat that food I think of her, she was special to me because she was the one who was always around. I haven't seen her in 4 years, but she always calls and cries because she misses me. She is sort of like my second mother, and was the one who took care of me when my parents were at work. When I eat this food I feel some sort of connection with her. I want to visit her when I have a little more money, so that I could give her a better life than that of a nanny.

Parata

    My family eats a lot of Pakistani cuisines since my family originates from Pakistan. Choose one food is too hard because my family loves a lot of foods. The food I could think of from the top of my head would most likely be Naan. Now again this is also another bread like substance, but it is a food that we eat with almost anything. There is never a time when my family does not eat Naan. I personally don't eat Pakistani food because I have been more Americanized, but there fascination with it is amazing. The bread can be eaten with meat and rice, and ends up tasting really good. It is also a way for my family to eat with my hands because whenever we were in Pakistan or Dubai that's how we would eat. It brings this sort of rural and local feeling that makes us miss home.

Naan

Chase Exploration Three

 

The specific food I enjoy eating most is spaghetti. It's a pretty basic meal to prepare unless you want to go make it from scratch. How I make it is boil some water in a pot, dump a box of noodles in, and then whether I'm in the mood for red sauce or buttered noodles you can add either on once you strain the water out.

A food that would be considered special to my family would be tacos. On Tuesday of each week we have "Taco Tuesday." Rather than all of us having a love for some tacos it's more just all knowing that on Tuesday we can count on all gathering around making our meal together and eating them around the kitchen. Tacos make Tuesday the day we eat dinner together as family.

It's believed that tacos were first created by Mexican silver miners. The word "taco" described a tool they would use to excavate the ore. It was simply a couple pieces of paper wrapped around gunpowder. I think it's neat that someone could be creative enough to look at a physical object and then create something to eat from that. It was probably convenient to the miners because like the simple excavating tool they used, tacos consist of a simple tortilla with some meat, cheeses, and a few vegetables.

Maggie's Exploration 3

Homemade Mac and cheese was the first meal I learned to make from scratch. My cousin Julie taught me how and now it's something I enjoy making, not only because it is so good, but because I have perfected it.The ingredients include:10oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, or other strong cheese grated Tabasco or cayenne pepper, 1 box short cut pasta preferably whole grain penne or macaroni. ½ cup of bread crumbs or oatmeal or quinoa flakes 2 Tbls butter 1 batch of low-fat béchamel recipe below. Don’t walk away from your béchamel. Stir often but not constantly. Once the béchamel is done put the grated cheddar into the sauce a little at a time stirring after each addition till it’s melted and smooth add a dash of Tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper. Boil the pasta drain then toss with the cheese sauce. Pour into a casserole. Combine the bread crumbs or alternative with 2 Tbls melted butter and sprinkle on the top of the mac and cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven till golden on top.  

 A bechamel sauce, is a white sauce. It includes Ingredients • 6 tablespoons all purpose flour • 3 cups low-fat (1%) milk • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg • 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese • 1 large egg, beaten to blend • 1 teaspoon butter Preparation Whisk flour in heavy medium saucepan to remove any lumps. Gradually add 1 cup milk, whisking until smooth. Add remaining 2 cups milk and nutmeg; whisk over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Whisk in Parmesan, egg and butter. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Rewarm over low heat until heated through before using; do not boil.)

In my family it's my grandma's pineapple upside down cake that everyone looks forward to.We know at any and every occasion where our family will get together, it will be there. Her mother use to make it when she was still alive and so she has just kept the recipe alive. I'm not the biggest fan of pineapple upside down cake, mainly because my grandma has started cheating as she has gotten older and uses canned cherries and pineapple, but I still very much appreciate where the idea of making the cake comes from.

Tyler Hedge Exploration two

1.
     The person that I admire the most so far in this book is "Steam Train" Mury Graham. There are a few reasons why I admire him. The first reason is that he became a hobo at such a young age and just simply adjusted to becoming a hobo instead of some of the many bad alternatives such as becoming a bum. According to his story, a bum is much different and worse than a hobo. It really interested me to see where the term "hobo" came from. I also admire that he wanted to be a hobo and work for things versus being a bum. When I read the passage that discussed what a hobo would do for work and he mentioned work ethic it really stuck out to me. He had been astray since he was thirteen and yet cares about work ethic and the way he goes about his life. That truly shows that he is a great person. Mury truly demonstrates his creativity through the way he lives and goes place to place while caring so much about who he is. Mury knows so much about the hobo life and he truly cares about it.

2.
      What surprised me the most in this story was how open the author is with everything that has happened in his life. Most people in his position usually put all that stuff behind them and try to just move on. Instead, Russell tries to use his and his fathers mistakes to justify the need for change with his son. Russell sees his son having similar feelings as he says on the last page, "that crushing sense of responsibility is exactly what I felt at the age of ten in the face of my father's drinking. My son wonders if I, too, am possessed." I learned the importance of always trying to ease the life of the young that way they do not have to learn the hard way you did.




3.
     How are the hobos of today like Mury Graham and do they still have the integrity that he does? Are there still communities like the ones he found?

Exploration 2 Umer Haider

       Moreese  Bickham was a man who never gave up no matter how bleak his future looked. I admire him because even though he was sent to jail for a wrongful charge he still had hope that one day he would be free. At the mercy of racism, Moreese never had the opportunity to go to court to oppose his sentence. He was someone who guided the younger generation of prisoners to the right path, and was the only one who seemed to care for the dead prisoners. He showed sympathy to the lost souls of the prison that would get nothing more than a tombstone for remembrance. The thing I found most creative about this story was the connection Moreese had with god that led to his freedom. Moreese recounted that a spirit of God would help guide him out of this prison to freedom. That spirit turned out to be David Isay who brought the case of Moreese Bickham to the limelight of the public. He became the hero who not only got Moreese a lawyer, but was able to bring Moreese to freedom and to his family.

      The thing that surprised me the most in Scott Russell Sanders story was that he was overcome with guilt rather than anger. In paragraph 52 he says "Guilt burns like acid in my veins" (pg.191). This struck a cored with me caught me off guard. It caught me of guard because he felt like it was his fault his father was the way he was, and he was guilty of hiding the fact that his father was a drunk. I expected him to feel enraged or angry at his father, but he was actually frustrated with himself. It was sad knowing that someone who was not the person who was drinking would feel such an emotion. He had no part in causing his father to go to the bottle yet he felt bad as if it was his doing. So what did I learn from this? I learnt that there are many more emotions one feels when confronted with alcoholism, and to me the only emotion I could ever think of was anger. I understand now that people in such situations blame themselves because they feel they could have done something to fix it. I mean sure alcoholism can be fixed if the people who care really tried and did something, but it is also up to the person who is an alcoholic to put forth an effort to be treated.  


Did Moreese Bickham get some sort of compensation for the time he had spent in prison? I understand that he would be satisfied by being out, but that is still time spent away from his family. I hope the best for Moreese and hope he would get some sort of settlement.