During my first visit with Omar, my mentee from Port Richmond, I was delightfully excited to learn about his food culture. I was surprised how passionate his family and he was about the foods that they eat, and how selective they are about where they get their food from. I learned that Omar is Muslim and cooks primarily with a Muslim influence. He eats a lot of steak, and rice, and teaches other students in his culinary class what he eats and how he makes it. I was surprised at Omar’s enthusiasm and willingness to try different foods out of his food culture. He learned that I was Italian, and shared with me that his Mom cooks spaghetti frequently, although it has a Muslim twist. He shared that his Mom uses unconventional spices (he didn’t say which) that I wouldn’t be accustomed to in my spaghetti. He also shared that would like to own a restaurant after college, and plans on majoring in business in college. I was delighted to hear that he plans on further his education after high school.

I assumed that Omar learned his cooking techniques in his culinary class, but I was wrong.  Omar teaches most of the students in his culinary class his techniques. He talked about making stew and steak in his classes, but prefers to cook outside of class, where he can infuse his Muslim spices, and special ingredients into the food.

Omar is a determined young adult, and I hope he is as successful as he is working towards. I loved hearing about his family, the way his family and he eat, and his cooking techniques. I can not wait to observe him in his culinary class.

Every week I travel to Port Richmond High school, where I meet with my mentee in her cooking class. The class cooks new dishes each week. Friday, the day I usually go is eating day. The children finally get to eat the dish they have been preparing all week. We are allowed to try the foods too but I never do. Last week they made some type of eggplant dish.

I didn’t really know what was in it so i didn’t try it. I don’t usually try foods unless I know everything that was put into it. Like we leaned in class I have neophobia. I just can’t get myself to try new things. I see all my peers trying it and they say it is really good, but for some reason I will not eat it. It doesn’t matter how many people  I see trying it, I cannot get myself to eat it.This has become a big problem because I eat the same almost everyday and I don’t open myself up to the different varieties of food that there are. I hope one day ill become brave enough to try different things and open up my food preferences.

Despite being on the subway every other day in Manhattan, I still haven’t developed that “New Yorker look,” as I like to call it. They’re the people on the subway, looking down at their feet or their phones if on a line that has cell service, not making eye contact with anyone around them. I have a tendency to look around a lot and survey my surroundings, which I believe to be a positive thing, and I constantly read those ads sitting above people’s heads. The other day an ad caught my eye for boxed.com.

Boxed.com is like Costco but online, selling wholesale products for surprisingly similar if not identical prices as Costco’s. They actually buy their products from Costco and are a subsidy of Costco. It was started 2 years ago, and it’s been doing relatively well.

One thing I immediately noticed browsing boxed.com’s website is the absence of fruits and vegetables. There are multiple “aisles” to “walk down” and one thing among these categories is “fruit and nuts,” but it is only filled with fruit cups and dried fruits. This could be a fairly obvious solution to food deserts, since wholesale is the cheapest way to buy food. They also offer cleaning, health, beauty, pet, and office supplies, and a lot more of it, mimicking Amazon’s supermarket.

Boxed.com ships anywhere in the US and costs $5.99-$9.99, depending on the size of your order and where you ship it. And your first order ships free. In part of New York, New Jersey, Boston, and Atlanta Boxed Express is offered, where the user chooses a time and a “shopper” will go to the local Costco for you and bring them. Even better, it’s free for orders over $75, and personally my family never goes to Costco without spending at least $150. Compared to the prices of the Costco membership, these shipping costs are pretty minuscule if you only buy groceries once a month. There’s even a mobile app and SO many Retail Me Not coupons, and reward points that are redeemed for coupons. Although, EBT and food stamps are not offered “at this time,” but that probably means they’re looking into it.

Boxed.com could be a relatively simple solution to food deserts, especially since Boxed Express could expand into more areas soon. Boxed.com would probably do best by offering a membership for free shipping, and we can hope they can accept food stamps soon.

Like every Friday, I visited my mentee at Port Richmond High School this Friday for the cooking class. I always enjoy going to Port Richmond on Fridays because it is their eating day of the food they made that week and it allows me to talk to the students and get to know them. I’ve developed a relationship with my mentees as well as the other students in the class.

This past Friday the students made a dish with eggplant, ground beef, and mozzarella cheese. It was similar to the way eggplant parmagiana is prepared except without sauce. I was skeptical in trying it, considering all the students were telling me the dish is, in their opinions, gross. Nevertheless, we all took a bite and to our surprise it was good. My only issue with the dish was the excessive oil that was layered on the top. I think that it is beneficial that the students are learning cooking skills but they should also teach the students more nutritional recipes and cooking styles.

The New York Ranger game was on, and my boyfriend wanted to go to his family’s favorite place to watch the game: the Molly Wee Pub. Being extremely neophobic, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and join him this weekend.

Traveling into Manhattan, taking the X1 to Madison Square Garden, I was extremely nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. All I could think about was: “What would  I eat? Would the smells make me nauseous? Would there be salad there? Chicken? I despise red meat!”  All I could think about was my trip to Astoria, and how I almost passed out from the site of the meat hanging in the BZGrill! I was terrified that something of the sort would be hanging in the Irish Pub! We arrived, and to my liking, the pub had no meat hanging from it’s ceilings! Completely decorated with Ranger’s plaques, and every single person there had a Ranger’s jersey on. I immediately knew I would love this place (I wasn’t sure yet about the food). The atmosphere was great, everyone was cheerful, and welcoming. We stepped inside and a women with an Irish Brogue met us at the door and showed us to our table. I had never heard an authentic brogue before so I was mind blown.  Following that, our waitress came to our table, and what do you know, SHE HAD AN IRISH BROGUE TOO!  I later found out that every employee is actually an Irish immigrant, therefore all had Irish brogues.  I immediately knew this place would be great, like my family’s deli and catering business, we are actually Italian from Italy and cook authentic Italian food, so I knew this place emphasized the same values in their business as we did.

The menu seemed average to me, about the same you could get anywhere, but once we received our food my thoughts changed completely. All of the food, although they seemed American, had an Irish twist! For example the Caesar said dressing had an Irish influence to it, so, the salad didn’t taste like your average salad, it tasted better! Besides the dressing, he chicken on top was moist and extremely fresh. The croutons were home made and the tomatoes and cucumbers were  ripe! The food was great!

I found connections from both our History, and Physcology classes to my experience this weekend! I am slowly overcoming my neophobic ways, and I ventured out to a restaurant that was founded by Irish Immigrants (once not accepted in society, as we learned from the Moore family). It is amazing to see the progress Irish-America’s made from being frowned upon, and their food looked at to disgusting, to successfully owning restaurants!

Chicken Pot Pie

When arriving at  Main street, Flushing,it was a whole new world. Every where you looked you either saw a new Chinese food place, an unreadable Chinese sign, or millions of people scrambling to get to where they needed to be. This part of town was predominately Asian. While trying to find a dumping place White Bear, my group and I had gotten lost. The one and only person there who understood us guided us to the place. When we walked in it wasn’t your everyday Chinese food place. It was a little hole in the wall that people could just walk right by. To be honest, walking in there I didn’t know how the food was going to be. When we order the women didn’t really understand us so she kinda just gave their most popular dish. This was dumplings with hot sauces and some type of brown power.

When the members of my group tried them they said they were really good but for me looking at them was the farthest I would go. Relating to class, you can say that I had neophobia. I don’t really like tasting new things especially if idk what they are giving me. The women just gave us what she thought was the most popular and even though they might have been really good, I couldn’t bring myself to try them. Seeing that nothing was in english it was a lot harder to find things to eat because we didn’t know what anything was.Hopefully next time I can get over it and try one the of the foods.

During our visit to Astoria Queens, we very delightfully surprised as to how vibrant, and busy the neighborhood was. We saw young children playing in the streets, and adults of all ages walking around the neighborhood (mostly ranging from 25-35 or senior citizens). Among all the different shops, within a span of two blocks, we saw an Italian bakery, a French bakery, multiple Greek restaurants (fast food, and sit down), and multiple Mexican restaurants. When it was time to eat dinner, we had too many options we did not know where to go! We decided on the BZGrill, a New York Times top rated authentic Greek restaurant! It was a small shop, and everything was cooked right in front of us! It was absolutely delicious! Never having eaten a gyro before, I was delightfully surprised as to how fresh, and delicious the food was!

Besides eating, we drove around the neighborhood looking for possible flaws the neighborhood may have. A few things that may be problematic is the large power plant located on 20th Avenue, a sanitation problem (build up of trash bags, and trash on the street), and perhaps heavy traffic problems. Although we all left our trip with feelings that this city was running quite efficiently, we still have some more investigating to do.

Besides looking for the problems in Astoria, we focused a lot on the good. The city was thriving! All of the shops were filled with costumers, the large recreational center was located very close to the homes, apartments, and town center. There were practically no homeless people sitting on the streets, a large super market was located within walking distance of the lower income area of Astoria, and the power plant did not let off any bad odors! I am very happy we chose to study Astoria, because I just found a new neighborhood I would like to visit!

Lamb and chicken being cut up right in front of you!

Greek french fries – Feta cheese, oregano, oi

Chicken Gyro

This past weekend was the first weekend not having soccer. Now that soccer season is over, I have more time to do my school work and hangout with my friends and go back home to see my family. When I went home on Friday, the first thing I did was go out to eat with my friends. We were all hungry and wanted something that would taste sweet. We all agreed to go to Brother Bruno’s Pizza in Wayne New Jersey. We ordered a dessert pizza that consisted of peanut butter and jelly slices, nutella birthday cake slices, dirt slices and smore’s slices. We all split the slices and got a slice of each flavor. They all tasted sweet and sugary, but delicious at the same time. I bought a bottle of milk to drink along with the dessert pizza. This may sound very unusual, but it was a cool experience to get to eat such a unique food. We decided not to order regular pizza before the dessert pizza because we knew we were going to be full.

On Saturday, my family and I went to my cousins engagement party at The Rosewood only thirty minutes from my house. The party provided all types of foods like chicken, steak, pasta, salad, vegetables and more. I decided to take a little bit of everything to have a variety of tastes. The rest of my family did the same as me, and we all cleared our plates because it as so good. Considering I haven’t been home for a couple of weeks, it was great to have food that wasn’t from the dinning hall at college. Also it was nice to have dinner with my family and catch up with them.

Being able to go home on the weekends now is extremely relaxing because I get to see my family and be back in my home town. I like going home so I could eat foods that I don’t get to eat at college and also get away from the college atmosphere.