Adobo and celery

Today I had to bring an item that defined my cultural identity to my Moving Out Moving In class(codeword pointless Interdisciplinary class that turns out might be the only bright spot in my current Emerson life). Last night I paced my room and tried to decide what makes me who I am(you know the lovable Puerto Rican/Pennsylvania Dutch ball of quirk and foodyness). I kept staring at the PR survival kit Rob gave me but somehow just the adobo didn't seem to define me completely. SO I looked for my other side. I looked deep inside and thought to myself if I could bring in the PA Dutch version of adobo what would it be. Thank goodness for Matt being sick last week because I had the perfect thing just sitting in my fridge.

Celery is the Pennsylvania Dutch version of adobo. I don't know why it didn't come to me sooner. My mom's spice cabinet is full of celery seed. What one does with celery seed as a spice is completely a mystery to me, but I am not joking when I say that cleaning out my mom's spice cabinet resulted in at least 3 full containers of celery seed. Celery is added to almost everyone of my mom's best recipes. It really is a cool veggie. It even turns blue if you put it in a container of blue food colored water. You can't say that about many vegetables.

Celery is wholesome. It is chicken noodle soup. It is chicken and dumplings on a cold night. And at the same time celery can be cold and refreshing. I was never a huge celery and peanut butter fan when I was little(the whole lack of bread bothered me), but simply eating a stick of celery can be refreshing and according to Matt you actually burn more calories eating it than are in it. Ugh I totally just contradicted myself right in the middle of a paragraph. If you were reading my comment about celery being wholesome, and then my Matthew fact about celery being pretty much no calories, you might be confused. Celery is in wholesome foods that my mom makes, so I consider it wholesome; the fact that is not wholesome at all is just a cool little perk.

It was obvious that food had to define me and my cultural identity. Adobo is delicious with anything. I make an omelet in the morning and add some cheese and adobo. Ok let me take a step back. Adobo is delicious with almost anything. If Rob were to make me a good chocolate adobo gelato I would not be surprised, but only Rob would be able to actually pull that off. Normally adobo goes good with all savory foods. Salt, pepper, garlic, and a little bit of yellowness(which I really can't explain)all meld together to form a party in my mouth.

Being Puerto Rican is loving the food. Getting together involves lots of food. Family involves who is the best cook and enjoying their food. Being Pennsylvania Dutch is intricate. It is stubborn and frugal and warm and comforting and at times completely standoffish and untrusting. Being both is me. Sassy and somehow still comforting with a skeptical side that does not trust easily. Adobo and celery.

So what are you? If you were one food, what food would you be. Is it a cultural food? I hope you think long and hard and find something completely crazy like I did.

In other news I celebrated a week at Emerson College. I bought the largest Hersheys milk chocolate bar they sold and ate the whole thing on the way home. People looked at me like they've never seen an Emily walking down the road eating a Hersheys bar. I felt bad for them because this experience was new and decided that I should continue the weekly tradition so they were given the opportunity to not think this an abnormal occurrence. Hersheys chocolate puts me in a happy place. I love that happy place.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Frozen burritos with a little stress on the side

Emerson College is a torture chamber that students enter every September hoping they will come out alive. You may think I am overreacting and that every college is rough, but when looking at a syllibi for a class sends me into a panic attack I know that there is something more going on here.

The first week of college at a normal college is spent looking over the material, discussing what you will do in the class, and possibly writing a paper on who you are and what you want to do with your life. Yesterday was my second day of my first week of school. I already had a story due by Sunday. I was assigned 200 pages of reading, a quiz, 20 pages of boring reading(the professor himself called it boring reading), a definition on cultural identity with a source, and the need to answer a discussion question online yesterday. So if you're keeping track that is story assigned day one and "you can now say goodbye to ever doing anything fun" assigned on day 2.

I am a sort of masochist when it comes to doing homework and doing well in school. If I like the professor, I will be willing to do anything even if it means no life for 6 months. The problem is that my history professor who is the evil man assigning 200 pages of reading and discussion questions to make sure you did the reading, is an insane nut job that is rumored to be on every drug known to man. I am the primary supporter of this rumor, but in all fairness I have heard it from another more reliable source(roommates are reliable right?). This guy stood up in front of the class and spent an hour calling role while cracking jokes about everyone's chosen career path, making sure to add crude comments wherever he felt it was appropriate. I worked in kitchens. I have heard my fair share of what some may determine to be inappropriate, and I can live with it. I don't however pay $40,000 a year to listen to some guy crack bathroom jokes. Just teach me the damn history so I can get the A and move on with my life.

Yes I am ranting. Yes I am bemoaning my fate and wondering what the next few months will bring. For all of you who are terribly upset and wondering what in the world all of this has to do with food, I had a frozen chimichanga for dinner. Why? Did I not have time for dinner? Was I too busy doing homework? This week has broken my spirit. I know that sounds overly dramatic of me, but I could have made time to make dinner and I got all of my homework that needed to be done tonight done. I just really couldn't bring myself to cook and then clean up.

Cooking is something I love to do. It is something that I wish I could do all day, but cooking is work. It is a necessary work, but it is still work. When I'm watching a rerun of Grey's Anatomy and crying in the dark because I haven't had the energy to turn the lights on yet, I know I won't have the energy to cook. I didn't resort to Ramen. I don't know if a frozen chimichanga is a better option, but it at least has something resembling beef in it.

Emerson is a torture chamber that students enter every day of the week. Entering this chamber may mean that I won't be able to have the perfectly clean room that I wanted or the sinkless sink of dishes every night. But tonight I ate something for dinner. It wasn't Ramen. I also got the list of impossibilities done. One day at a time. One day at a time.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Matt might be a little bit of a wimp when he's sick...

Ok let's be honest he's a total wimp and today he claimed that my allergies made him sick. He did bring my groceries to Boston; so I felt bad, like a good girlfriend, and decided that instead of cleaning all of the chicken I bought I would make him some chicken noodle soup.

My family was a big Campbell's family. If we were sick and needed some soup my mom would probably open a can. Now before you go about judging my wonderful mother understand that she was a very good cook and her chicken corn soup was always life altering. We just left sick food to the professionals; I mean let's be honest can you really taste it anyway?

But back to sniffles. His mom makes chicken noodle soups whenever someone is sick, and it really is a good chicken noodle soup. Not only did I have to make a chicken noodle soup that didn't taste like water, but I also had to live up to Matt's mom's chicken noodle soup. Does that sound impossibly to you, because I was worried just thinking about it.

I had skin-on, bone-in thighs. We went out to buy carrots, an onion, celery, dill, and parsley. I bought the dill at Star Market(my community's version of Shaws) and I paid $2.39 for fresh dill. My Matthew is worth it and fresh ingredients are always worth it, but I was disappointed when we went to Whole Foods to buy the onion and parsley that we had originally forgotten and a giant bunch of dill was $1.69 and looking fresher than the small container we had bought. Now what have we learned? Buy fresh herbs at Whole Foods; it's cheap and fresh, so pretty much a no-brainer.

We chopped and diced all of the ingredients and threw 3 of the thighs into a pot. Actually Matt did most of the chopping and dicing and I cleaned the other thighs while he was doing the soup stuff. We covered the ingredients with water(should have put more water in and had to add more at the end, but that's what I love about cooking you can always adjust). I added a little bit of dehydrated garlic, some adobo(because honestly what does adobo not make better), and a little bit of salt.

Once the chicken was almost done I took it out and cut off the skin and I cut the meat off the bone. Then I threw it back in the pot. We started the water for noodles(you can just throw the noodles in, but Matt wanted to do them separately).

DDay was coming closer. Did I manage to make a good chicken noodle soup? I had been tasting the broth and adjusting the seasoning pretty much every 20 minutes, so I knew it tasted good. The real test came when Matt tried it. "We did good Em, we did good." It really was good. I still say leave sick food to the professionals at Campbells, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to make my own chicken noodle soup every now and then. It definitely is coming on the season for it.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Is this safe to eat and other questions college students ask about food

I have re-entered the world of college and thankfully there is nothing more exciting than the joys of college food.

Is this safe to eat? Can you smell this milk for me? How do you know if eggs are still good? Can I make a meal out of noodles and a package of lentil soup mix? Food tends to be a mystery to most overworked undernapped overly hungry college students.

I think this mystery partly comes from the fact that college is really the first time that most people are responsible for feeding themselves. Some people still manage to avoid the inevitable by living on campus all 4 years and choking down the dining room slop, or by living with their parents and enjoying their mom's cooking. Eventually all of us have to face this time in our lives when food becomes a personal responsibility, and that experience is normally a comical one.

I shared with you my first "what happened to my life" moment last fall when I started my bad Ramen habit. Last summer my boyfriend called me frantically begging for recipes, because he had been eating pasta for a solid month. He went into his whole moving out experience so proud and sure of the fact that he would be a perfectly happy typical bachelor, and a month later he was so tired of eating pasta he was avoiding the aisle in the supermarket so he didn't even have to look at it.

Coming of age with food can be awkward. I know I've made a lot of mistakes. I've also learned some amazing short cuts. Thin steak meat is not only cheap; but it is also quick to fry up, tasty sprinkled with a little bit of adobo, and can be made into a complete meal if you add a side of rice and broccoli. Chicken is cheaper if you buy it with the bone in and skin on. I promise you that it will take you possibly an hour to cut off the skin and to cut the meat off the bone and the dollars per pound you'll save will bring a smile back to your face while you watch meat prices go up and up and up and your pay check go down and down and down.

Once you've figured out where your food journey is going to take you, it is time to show off a little. I don't know about you all, but I really enjoy bringing people to my apartment and making a meal for them. It makes me feel like I really have grown up. *standing on soapbox in pigtails and overalls(yes I own overalls, don't judge)* Hey all you who think I look like I'm 12, I'm an adult and I can make you a really great meal if you come to visit me!!!*stepping off of soapbox* Maybe you don't feel that urge to prove yourself like I do, but I am sure you have friends in food puberty like yourself who would love to enjoy your new recipe for beef stew.

Tonight I am eating questionable stuffed shells. I say questionable because none of my roommates remember buying them and they were in our freezer. Frozen food is safe right? I think we're hungry enough that it doesn't matter, and school doesn't even start till tomorrow. Food puberty is so much fun isn't it? If you are beyond mature in your food life and don't understand a word of what I am talking about, I apologize and hope that you will forgive my imperfection.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Papa Gino's Time

Tonight I tried my Matt's favorite pizza chain and for a chain I must say it was good pizza for a chain. It wasn't overly greasy like Pizza Hut(ok we all know I secretly like the grease, but there are moments when your stomach isn't up for it and the thought of the heartburn is just more than you can handle). It wasn't overly topped like Dominos(I love my cheese and peperoni, but where's the sauce?). The sauce wasn't terribly sweet like Papa John's(love that garlic butter; I think they should just sell the crust). The crust was crunchy and fresh like real bread(think back really far to Chuckie Cheese's cardboard crust pizza, yeah this was like 100 million times better).

We got a large peperoni pizza, and I was slightly regretting the peperoni choice because of the grease on the pizza. The flavor did make it worth it though, and I am not sure if I would have liked the pizza as much without a topping. The sauce was a little bit sweet for me. It wasn't Papa John's sweet, but it didn't have that nice salty spiced base I like in my pizza sauce. The crust was gorgeous. It had the crust of a baguette and the soft center a slice of white bread that when made into peanut butter and jelly and left to sit till lunchtime could be squished to a paper thin.

Honestly I felt like Papa Gino's pizza was the closet thing to a NY style pizza to be found north of CT. If you do not live in New England you might not understand the search for a nice large slice of New York style pizza. It is a terribly hard challenge. I never really thought it would be hard to find a nice large slice of pizza, until I went to school in RI. I grew up in the tri-state area; deep dish or not-sure-what-kind-of-pizza-we-make New England pizza just doesn't cut it for me.

I of course prefer my pizza from the tiny place down the street. Chains are ok, but there is nothing like calling Tony's pizza and hearing "numba 24" and then discussing if he really did say 24 or if it was 34 or maybe 44(fresh off the boat Italians in PA Dutch country, such a funny combination). It's almost midnight, and what would be a better end to your Saturday night than pizza. I'm almost hungry again, almost.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Gas Stove oh how I love you

I just ate dinner(chicken pot stickers from Trader Joes, because I needed something easy on my first night here) and I got to use my gas stove again. I wanted to kiss it after I was done.

The ability to be home and turning a switch for a real fire to heat my food and not just a hot coil. What is it about a fire that makes me happier? Oh come on, that's like asking why my dad feels that spraying hairspray in a fire to watch it get bigger is fun. It just is.

Not only can you make your own smores by toasting marshmallows inside on a freezing cold night. But you can also broil a pork chop to perfection.

The other thing I love about gas stoves is that the cleaning is a breeze. Whoever thought of putting those silly tin things under the heat coils was probably on drugs. Have you ever tried to clean one of those things? Some people cover them in aluminum foil so when they get dirty they can just throw away the aluminum foil and there is no scrubbing involved, but that just looks kind of icky. Other people, like me, grab an S.O.S pad and scrub their little hearts out. Normally this will get most of the gunk off, but your fingers might hate you. Still other people just buy new ones every time they get dirty. I was never in a family privileged enough to feel that when you dirty something you just throw it away. Oh how my parents ruined me(said with the utmost facetiousness).

I am still rather sad about the fact that home seems so far away right now, but food really does cover a multitude of sadnesses. If you don't believe me please go out and buy Boursin garlic cheese and a package of water crackers. Sit in front of the TV or turn on your favorite cd and just dig in. It will be gone before you know it and you won't even feel bad. It's that good.

I know you all aren't feeling the sadness I am right now from lack of family and home, or maybe you are and you just don't have a public way of announcing it. The picture is one of my puppy who has nothing to do with food, but is right now sitting in a kennel wondering where her family went. She's going to get so big while I'm gone. Please humor me just this once and appreciate her adorableness.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Toto we're not in Kansas anymore

Well I'm finally back at school and away from home and my mom's meals. I went shopping at Trader Joes with my mom this morning as my sister and dad waited at the apartment for the Comcast guy. It was kind of sad walking to a store where I get my weekly dose of bread and chili and potstickers with my mom, who will not be there during all of the rest of those weekly trips. Ugh it was so sad that I actually started tearing up just typing that.

I would love to be able to eat something warm, homey, and salty right now; but I am not going to ruin my "no ramen" campaign on the first night. Some tea and potato chips will have to do the trick. I also have some hummus and snacky things, so I should be able to survive till Matt brings up my groceries on Monday.

Shopping in Boston is expensive. When I say expensive, I mean that I have looked at Shaw's adds with their sale items on them from Providence and Boston, and the Boston adds have the same food for at least 20 cents more. Shaws is of course more expensive than other grocery stores; the difference between the food I buy at the grocery store Matt and I go to compared to the Shaws in Boston is probably close to $1 difference for most things. Times are tough. I am a college student who saved all of my summer salary just to survive in Boston for the school year, so every dollar needs to go far. I love food and I love to splurge on food, but why splurge because of a high cost of living in the city that I live; I'd rather splurge because the food I'm buying is really good. I travel an hour to go grocery shopping and I save a lot of money(thankfully my wonderful boyfriend drives my food up to the apartment, so I don't ever have to travel on a train with all of those groceries).

Here I go into the crazy world of Boston and school and apartment life. The ramen will be avoided and the drama will most likely be rampant. Tomorrow I'll be in Providence for groceries and supposedly I am missing out on life because I have never had Papa Gino's pizza. I'll let you know if I have really been missing anything or if this New England chain is just as disappointing as the fact that my family is driving back home and I won't get to see them till November.

Well enough sadness. I'm hopeful that Papa Gino's is as mind-blowing as Matt keeps telling me. I'll be letting you all know very soon.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily