Post-Birthday Cooking

Dark chocolate toasted marshmallow smores cake

On Wednesday, the calendar once again marked yet another year of my life and quite naturally food just had to be a part of it. However, this year I found myself in the unusual (but necessary) mode of fort builder as I've been lately dealing with pesky rodents (#firsttimehomeownerproblems) and coupled with the unusual (but not surprisingly) hectic start to the school year, I eventually decided to save the cooking experiences to after my birthday. And so on Thursday--yeah, it didn't take that long to move onward--I started off my day pairing my fermented cabbage with bratwurst and ending the day with glee (literally) and a chocolate cake I'm definitely ready to make again in the near future!

FCC: To Be (or Not to Be) Informed about GMOs

As Natural Sciences Liaison Moriana Garcia of the Denison Library prefaced at the start of the fourth in this year's Food and Culture Colloquium, she approached her presentation and personal study of genetically modified organisms from the point of view of an informed consumer. Indeed, knowledge of the pros, cons, success and challenges as they pertain to GMOs aids in helping us all to make the most rational decisions possible when it comes to what we support and what we choose to eat and feed others. So, to be (or not to be) informed about GMOs? That's our question.. what's your answer?

ITKP: "Courageous Cooking Class: Fermented Foods"

With the autumn equinox upon us, the reality of cooler temperatures and gusty winds became evident as folks made their way to our second In the Kitchen Practicum. Co-sponsored by and related to our Spectrum Series's "Courage & Creativity" campus-wide theme, and with support from both the Office of Sustainability and The Open House, our "Courageous Cooking Class: Fermented Foods" program drew in about 25 participants eager to learn and inquisitive enough to try their hand at (and challenge their palates to) the world of fermentation. In actuality, as we learned throughout the practicum, we're already quite familiar with (and some perhaps arguably addicted to) fermented foods-- certainly tea, cheese, chocolate and/or coffee are known to most? But what about such traditionally prepared "staples" as kefir, kombucha and kvass? Teresa Peters, co-owner of The Going Green Store, and Erin Harvey (owner of The Kale Yard and the Going Green Store's first employee) were on site to share their own experiences with fermented foods and then to lead us in the preparation of our own jars of sauerkraut.

First Res Hall Food and Culture Programme (for the Academic Year): De-Stressing Tortillas

About an hour or so after the second In Kitchen Practicum of the academic year ("Courageous Cooking Class: Fermented Foods"), Saturday's foodie day continued with my first residential hall food and culture program of the year. Working with two resident assistants, we aimed for an interactive program that could focus on easily replicable recipes for students (in this case, seniors), and settled on making tortillas by hand-- a rather therapeutic and de-stressing process that requires nothing more than flour, fat, salt and water.

A Wednesday Foodie Kind of Evening

After this past Wednesday's Food and Culture Colloquium, colloquium participant and Denison colleague Maureen and I went to the Charity Happy Hour at the Veranda of The Hills Market which we had learned about at the tail end of Bear Braumoeller's presentation on Slow Food. Every Wednesday, a special guest serves as bartender (in this case, Bear) while a portion of the pizza sales goes to the group raising money (in this case, Central Ohio's support of its nine Terra Madre delegates).

FCC: Community Food Enterprises in Central Ohio

This week's colloquium presentation also included a sampling, courtesy of Aimée's Blue Ribbon Spices.

This week's Food and Culture Colloquium session brought together a diverse array of experiences and interests in the form of a panel organised by Stephanie Hunt-Theophilus, Program Coordinator of the Burton D. Morgan Liberal Arts & Entrepreneurship Education Program. The panel, which followed a brief overview of this week's readings (linked toward the end of this post), circled back to many consistent themes, of which a very common one is the fact that here in central Ohio, it's all about lifting everyone up wherever they are in the process. These are very pertinent words indeed as we witnessed the convergence of entrepreneurs who had much to share about their trials and successes, lessons learned and wisdom gained, and dreams and hopes, in the shared story of community food enterprises.

ITKP: "From Scratch Recipes from Farm to Table"

This past Saturday, three students joined me for easily the longest pre-planned In the Kitchen practicum program of the entire Food and Culture Colloquium, the length of time--3.5 hours, which eventually stretched to 4--being attributed to the fact that the first major component of the program was spent at the Granville Farmers Market. Transferred to the parking lot of St. Edward's Catholic Church in Granville (as opposed to its usual location in relatively much closer proximity to The Open House, there seemed to be something magical (and arguably larger) about this farmers market more than any other I've been to in the village. Perhaps it was because all of the vendors were centralized into two compact rows as opposed to the more spread out layout of previous markets, or maybe it was the fact that we came to the market with a heightened sense of purpose: a menu, roughly pre-planned, but entirely at the mercy of whatever was being sold that day. In many respects, our second FCC module set the stage for what will also be the closest we could come to replicating a "Slow Food"-style meal within the structure of the colloquium. Following our voyage to the market (in which we could have been willingly lost were it not for the fact that we were getting hungry just thinking about our menu), we drove back to The Open House to create, from scratch, truly hands-on dishes. For this week's practicum, and armed with a strict market budget of $20 (though prepared for as much as $27) our menu included: homemade whole wheat pasta with kale pesto; potato pancakes with microwave apple sauce; baked onion with roasted bell pepper, roma tomato, thyme and balsamic; and pawpaw chocolate chip bread.