W8- O'Beaty's Review

On our trip to O'Beaty's I unfortunately did not eat anything. I've had O'Beaty's before and really enjoyed it, but on the day that we went as a class I just wasn't hungry at all; and a hot dog was about the furthest thing away from what I would've wanted to eat. I say that because on the day we went I had to pull a near-all-nighter the night before and had only woke up an hour before we were supposed to eat. So for the basis of this blog I will talk about my prior experiences at O'Beaty's and what I thought of the food.

I remember the first time that I went into O'Beaty's fairly vividly for a few reasons, but I will start off with what I ate and how it was. I'd never been to the Union St. O'Beaty's that we went to and my only two experiences with the restaurant were at the original West State St. venue. The first thing that stood out when I went into O'Beaty's was the same thing that stuck out when we went as a class to the Union St. version.

The decorations at the original restaurant are all autographed pictures of celebrities, pictures of places all over the U.S. with a lot of New Orleans as the focal point, and some Burlesque-style pictures and other decorations fill the restaurant. I really like all of the autographed pictures of celebrities (even if most are of B-list and lower). Both restaurants have a very New Orleans feel to them because of all the peppers on the sign out front and in the restaurant; I guess it's really the Cajun style that I'm picking up on.

Finally to the food though, which is pretty good stuff if I do say so myself. You would think that there's nothing really that special about a hot dog restaurant; I mean it's just such a basic food that's kind of hard to make unique, but there are a few restaurants like O'Beaty's that have been able to do just this. Skyline Chilli in Cincinnati is probably my favorite hot dogs that I could ever get- well and of course Mom's, but O'Beaty's is definitely up there with those two. The first time I went there I had a Cajun Dog and Cajun Fries. You'd think that would be too much spice to be enjoyable, but I just can't get enough spice in my foods so I really enjoyed the food anyway. The bad part though is what happened after I ate.

I'll just start this story by saying that O'Beaty's should have a credit/debit card scanner- they may now, but they didn't when this happened. So, after I ate I tried to pay with my debit card, too which the employee told me I'd have to get cash. He let me go to an ATM at this point without leaving anything behind for collateral. Well it just so happened that I had $19 in my account, so I couldn't withdraw money since it was under $20. And it was at this point that I dine-and-dashed; something that I never thought I would do. I felt so horrible the rest of the day for doing this, but thankfully I was getting paid the next day and returned to pay my debt. So now you know the tale of how I accidentally dine-and-dashed; a tale that my friends still get a kick out of.

W7- Food Inc. & the Persuasive Power of Film

Food Inc. is a great documentary in achieving it's goal. The goal seems to be to persuade the audience into making changes in their diets so that we may change into a society built on more fundamental food thinking that as a society we have forgotten. Joel Salatin's food thinking may seem primitive, but really he is way ahead of all of America in ways of viewing his food. He stands out to me as the smartest, most influential food expert in the film, not that he is a genius scientist finding new ways to make food cheaper, but ironically in the way that he makes his food the way that was done in the past and should be done still today.

Salatin seems to know more about the industrial food complex that America has in place now then any other expert in the film. With all the information that his father and grandpa passed down to him, and his lack of faith in any form of government, he has developed his own way of thinking about the entire American food system. The way that he looks at food has already had a big influence on my own thinking about food. I started buying organic food only days after watching the food- even though Salatin describes what I bought as organic, compared to his superior "beyond organic" food.

There are so many influential cases in Food Inc. that it's hard to pick from which one had the biggest impact, but the mother that had her son die because of bad food at a Jack-in-the-Box was extremely effective because of how sad it was. Any time that a child dies it is an absolutely devastating thing, but the way that the mother went about his dying was very moving. By enacting a law in his honor and constantly working towards having this situation never happening to others, she has made a huge mark on the American food system and therefor her son has too.

One last situation that I found to be intriguing, sad, and an eye opening experience was with the farmer that was being sued by Monsanto. Getting to hear all of the testimonials from people that lost everything because of Monsanto, it really left a mark. I felt incredibly bad for all of these people because they couldn't do anything about the spread of Monsanto soy beans, but yet they still couldn't get out of being sued. After watching this I felt a deep hate for this huge company- a kind of hate that helped me want to change my own way of food thinking.

Most everything that takes place in this film is influential- film just has a way at getting people on board with it's message. Really there is no better way to influence people because of all of the music, effects, edits, etc. that film can do to add emotion. I have always felt that film is about the most powerful motivational tool that a person can use, and this film just reinforces that way of thinking. There have been so many times when I have been down for the count and a film has changed something big or small in my life and this was just another one that changed something in my life for the better.

W6- Organic Food

Since we've started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma I've really been thinking about the things that I put into my body. I've been catching myself reading the back of foods at the grocery store and found that it's true that corn is in everything. I'm trying change my diet now to look more like that of Joel Salatin, but obviously I'm not going to be able to get all of my food at a farm full of fresh food. The plan then is to try and switch to a more organic diet- even if it isn't beyond-organic like Salatin's meals.

So I tried out the organic food section in Kroger and tried to examine closely the ingredients that I want to avoid. What I ended up getting at Kroger were a few organic foods, but what most of my cart was still filled with was the standard food stuffs that I have been eating throughout college. I ended up getting some frozen chicken strips, Dr. Pepper 10, Coke, some fresh crab cakes from the seafood section (which I may say turned out amazing), some sushi, milk, and raisin bran. I felt like a few things from my prior life would have to stay in my new diet, after all it would just be too tough to quit cold turkey. Oh and I also got some fresh deli meat cause I just can't go back to eating the packaged stuff that I grew up eating. I would have gotten everything else organic if I could have gone to some kind of Whole Foods, but this is all I had and I took it, but still some of those things are just way too pricey- $5 for milk- that's absolutely ridiculous. Other then those items though I did get organic food and have tried out all of them.

Okay so the first food I had out of my organics foods was a honey dipped beef jerky. This jerky only had about 6-8 ingredients and was probably the best jerky I have ever had in my life. I would name the ingredients right now, but it was so good that I already ate it all and threw away the package. The next thing I tried out was my GoLean Crunch cereal this morning. The box has a big logo that proudly reads NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP FOR 25 YEARS. I must say that this cereal was delicious too and even was true to it's claims that it keeps you full longer.

Some other stuff I got were some Blue Tortilla Chips that are really good, but a little bit too pricey for an average size bag. I also picked up some organic nacho cheese sauce that went really good with the blue chips and had a decent price tag to go along with it. Another thing that I got were Spinach Pizza Rolls that for some odd reason were very appealing to me. I haven't had the chance to try them out yet, but I expect that they'll be very good because of how tasty all of the other organic foods have been. Other then the price tags there is nothing I dislike about the taste of these foods, so the plan's going well so far and I plan to keep trying different organic food and hope that I have a change in my overall diet.

W5- Our Fast Food Nation

When I was a kid I loved fast food. Wendy's was where it was at for me, where I would always have my Mom get me 10 nuggets and a frosty. Mom would always let me get this meal once or twice a week, and because I was a very picky eater as a child this was always the "meal" i got. I would never want to venture into vegetable territory and not even touch beef products. Cheese pizza from Pizza Hut was the other kind of restaurant food that I would get, but eventually moved on to pepperoni at about 8-years-old. So in my young years it was all Wendy's and Pizza Hut, but my Mom got in to the Beanie Baby craze in the late 90's so McDonalds became a normal stop when they started to have the toys in the happy meals. Needless to say because of all of this fast food I was kind of a chubby kid, and because of this wanted to get out of the fast food craze of my youth and develop into a healthier eater.

Some time around 16 I wanted to stop eating garbage fast food and began only eating cooked meals that my Mom would make. So, in the time between my Sophomore year of high school until college I rarely ate fast food and it wasn't till some of these poor years of college that I began eating fast food again. I worked at Pizza Hut for awhile in college and began eating there a lot, but when this was happening I started to get a little chubby again and quite eating the pizza there.

Nowadays I eat fast food here and there, but never to an extreme amount. I think I've seen Food Inc. and Supersize Me a couple times a piece, so I really have been taught from those and from personal experience what fast food can do to my body.

As for the second part of the blog, I haven't been to too many different countries, but the one I have been to many times is Canada. In Canada, fast food restaurants are kind of the same as here in America, but they seem to be much more spread out. Obviously Canada doesn't have the same structure as America in terms of urban areas and people per area, so this makes sense that fast food chains would be more spread out throughout the country. One difference that I noticed the last time that I was up north was that many of the McDonalds and Wendy's had healthy alternatives that I've never seen here in America. I can't exactly remember the foods that were on the menus, just the heading of healthy choices at a few places we went to. The only other thing that really is different about Canada compared to America is that there are a ton of Tim Horton's. I'm fairly certain that Tim Horton's started in Canada so it makes sense that it is the most popular chain up there, and I must say I love Tim Horton's, with Ice Cap's & donuts being amazing and even the lunch foods being great. The turkey subs have some kind of sauce on it that is absolutely amazing and I would love to have one for dinner right now.

W4- American Food

Deciding what quintessential American food actually is is a hard task to do. When taking out burgers, fries, and pizza the job becomes even harder to decide. If I were to say there is an "American food" it would have to be a collection of all cultures foods. This may kind of seem like a cop out, but this is the best thing I can think of to symbolize the melting pot that is America. There are far too many different meals and traditions in America to make this the basis for a short post though.

My belief of "American Food" is too large a topic so I will focus on a few dishes that I assume are customs that are only here in America. So if I were opening an American restaurant in Russia I feel it would definitely have to have burgers and fries, but there would be plenty other foods. Seafood I feel like would be a major contribution in the American restaurant. Lobster, shrimp, crab cakes, clam chowder, all those amazing New England type of meals. Of course the restaurant would not have burgers in fries if it were a seafood place because that would cause a strange identity crisis. Seafood I feel would be something that would work well in Russia, I'm not sure why (possible the cold of New England), but I feel a connection between NE and Russia making some weird connection I would feel confident about in opening a seafood restaurant there.

Another American food I think of is very close to the last, but has a major difference in the taste. Seafood from the South, like Cajun still foods from the Louisiana region of the country. Since the base food is the same between the first idea and this one the restaurant could be opened with both Cajun and New England still seafood on the menu. I haven't really got to eat much Southern seafood in my life, but from what I have it is really good and could spice of the Russian people's lives while living in a cold country. I'm thinking about maybe adding foods like gator tail to the menu, but I'm not sure how much it would cost to import this food. I guess the tails could be imported from India, it would be a long distance but well worth the cost's of importing. Wait...are there gators in India or just Croc's...there would need to be research.

Since I've already accounted for 2 major producers of seafood in America I might as well pick up the California species of fish too. After doing some research I've food that they're are many species of fish and crustaceans that only are found in the Pacific ocean and on the California Coast. These fish would be on the menu, but there are other fish that are found in the area that could be included. Salmon, perch, walleye, and other fresh water fish could be on the menu, but I feel like these fish would already be available in Russia. Maybe if they were in Russia these fish species could be something familiar that the people are comfortable with and eventually move toward the American exclusives. Well that would be my restaurant...makes me sound like a slaughterer if fish.