My First Thanksgiving Experience

Well all of you must be home for thanksgiving,but there are some of us international students who cannot travel the distance for the holidays.Well here i am,going to tell you about my first thanksgiving experience ever, an amazing day and the food i had during thanksgiving even though i had to stay in Georgia Tech for the holidays.

On Tuesday night my high school friend from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh flew down to Atlanta for the Thanksgiving break,to spend the break in Tech.Georgia Tech was practically deserted by Wednesday,so my other high school /Tech friend and I decided to show him around the city and give him a taste of the food in Atlanta (obviously a much bigger city than small town Pittsburgh,PA).After sampling all the flavors of coke in the World of Coca Cola,we ate in the Johnny Rockets burger joint,where he had chili fries,i had regular fries and my other friend had a regular cheese burger.We then headed through Centennial Olympic Park to the CNN center where we all had ice cream floats and hung out at the food court while we bought sodas from Arby's.We topped off the day by heading to Atlantic station for dinner.We decided to eat at California Pizza Kitchen.I had a White Pizza (contains spinach and Parmesan cheese) while my other friends had pizzas with 4 different mushroom toppings which were supposed to be absolutely delicious.We finally wen't to the movie theater where we had a small popcorn and soda each while watching 2012 and Ninja Assassin.

On Thursday as you know,all restaurants in Atlanta were closed.We headed to Atlantic Station to catch the show of 'Dead Bodies' and eat at a famous Mexican restaurant 'Rosa Mexicano' there.But Atlanta resembled a ghost town on thanksgiving day.We didn't get to do either since both were closed by the time we arrived there.We headed to The Georgia Aquarium,next on the list(practically the only place open for Thanksgiving) where we ate carrot sticks and mayo in the cafe along with double chocolate chip cookies and subway sandwiches.After seeing the variety of crabs,fish,sharks,turtles,otters and other sea creatures in the world's largest aquarium,we decided to head back to Georgia Tech by MARTA.

While walking back home from the MARTA station we found a small fast food joint called 'Goodfellas' (Our last option on the freezing cold day) where most people who didn't have family or whose family was away for the occasion celebrated the evening with a nice thanksgiving dinner(in our case without the traditional turkey,i'm vegetarian:-D).We cozily sat in one of the benches.I ordered a cheese Calzone while my friend ordered a pizza with pineapple toppings.We enjoyed our food,talking to other people in the restaurant who were also away from their family during the holidays and also to the waitress who was working extra hours during the holiday.We finished our food and left,contented with the day.

My friend left the next day for Chicago,to spend the rest of the break.Now i heave a sigh of relief since the restaurants are back open today and eagerly await the Georgia Tech-UGA game.

GO JACKETS!

Thanksgiving at "The Inn"

My dad is currently working in Louisville, KY; my mom is presently living in Roswell, GA. The fact that my father had to work the day after thanksgiving made it difficult for him to make the six hour drive down to Georgia twice in two days, and there is no homely atmosphere up in Louisville for us to give thanks in, so we compromised and met somewhere close to the halfway point between the two cities, in Tennessee. We met a homely place in Kingston called Whitestone Inn, where we all stayed the night before going our separate ways, but this a food blog, and the food at the inn is what I am writing about.

There, Thanksgiving is a traditional-style Thanksgiving meal: a buffet of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, and anything else turkey day related. It was a great meal, as it should be, and I was quite full when I set out to the dessert bar. That is one area that really made the meal outstanding. The desserts included pecan pie, gingersnap cookies with a pumpkin puree (with a much fancier name than that, I am sure) that complemented each other nicely, and a frozen cream pie (again, a better name probably exists). The pie was exceptional, the cookie dunkers were witty and wonderful, and the pecan pie was, well, perfect. I had a lovely time and would recommend, to the traveler trapped in Tennessee, a stay (with a dinner) in Whitestone Inn.

An Untouchable Yet Decorative Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is often the time when people look for the huge turkey and make a ton of plates such as mash potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and more.

My Thanksgiving meal was exactly that albeit earlier than usual. Due to my brother being invited to another Thanksgiving annually, my family celebrates it during lunch. However from living away from home for quite some time, I am no longer use to my family's timing for lunch. I woke up an hour before Thanksgiving and was still groggy when the turkey was making its grand entrance to center stage. In addition to my sleepiness, I had begun developing a cold, which often leaves me with little to no appetite.

I still managed to eat a small amount and got to taste my mother and grandmother's cooking. The creamy white mash potatoes with the over-the-top gravy was absolutely to die for. It was definitely a shame to not get to eat more than a few bites. Aside from the mash potatoes, there was cranberry sauce and the turkey. The sauce gave a distinct taste leaving a person to simply ask for more. Sadly I can't say the same about turkey as to me it is just as I remembered from previous years before. I reckon it is a tasty turkey that my grandmother and mother prepared but I guess I'm not quite the turkey fan. The turkey had delicious skin but the inner parts were simply bland or so I thought.

As if my grandmother knew the turkey's lacking taste, she gave another turkey to each of us! The second turkey she gave was no other than a chocolate turkey, which was wrapped in colorful aluminum foil. My grandmother confessed they were really from my aunt on the west coast.

With the chocolate turkey at hand, I quickly excused myself and returned to a long overdue treat -- sleep.

Wow

Wow what a blast. I went out 7:30a.m. in the morning walked to the marta station with my luggage, arrived at the airport at 9a.m. Since I still haven't eaten breakfast I brought a bacon and egg sandwich. Then when I arrived at New York at 1:00p.m. I got a Pho' noodle after that at 6:p.m. I had turkey with my family. Yep today was a blast went from eating a bacon and egg sandwich in Atlanta to eating turkey with my family. Best day ever!!!

Blog Post #4

Health is important. You can hardly deny this viewpoint. Today more and more people begin to care about their health statues. They go to the hospital to check up every year; they do exercise every week; and, they eat so called healthy food every day. They can easily find the nutrition values table on the package and they believe that they can find out how is food by these data. However, no matter how reasonable an opinion is, there are always some one who stand on the opposite to contradict the opinion. In the book “In Defense of Food”, Michael Pollan argued that nutritionism could not improve, or even deteriorate the quality food and human’s life.

Michael Pollan tried to use a great deal of facts and statistics to prove his observation. He successfully persuaded me that nutritionism changes food in the first Chapter of his book. But, when I moved on through the book, I can scarcely agree with him because of the bugs in his logic.

In the book, the author mentioned that people are living an unhealthier life than before. He listed many general diet-related diseases which were not so popular several decades before. But these facts are not credible. In 1900, a diabetic might not be able to know that he is a patient because the medical technology was not well-developed then. We can only say that more people are diagnosed as patients today, but not more people become patient today. What’s more, because of nutritionism, the rate of diseases caused by undernourishment is getting lower and lower. Michael Pollan averted to write about these facts in his book in order to demonstrate his own view.

What’s more, even if it can be confirmed that nowadays the physical situation of human beings is getting worse and worse, is it food that causes this tragedy? In this book, the author didn’t provide enough evidences to show the relationship between food and health. He pointed out that the change of food and the change of health status are happening at the same time. But this might just be a kind of coincidence. We can not always say that one of the two things happened together is the cause while the other is the effect. In addition, he produced some instances, in both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, to elucidate that some compound from which modern food is made might cause some diseases. But, actually, these examples are merely some special cases. The author used some micro study results to explain a macro argument, that it is the change food which makes people unhealthier than before. His logic is approximately the same as “In 2009, all the flu is swine flu because my mother had swine flu this year.” In fact, besides food, many factors can worsen human’s physical condition, such as environmental pollution and high mental pressure. We can not reach the conclusion that it is food which makes people sick.

To sum up, though Michael Pollan provided plenty of convincing theories and facts to prove the seeming truth of nutritionism makes food become unhealthier, his argument still can not be accepted by me since his logic is coherent and credible enough. An ancient proverb states: Every coin has two sides. It seems such an obvious wisdom now. Michael Pollan’s contention is unilateral and subjective. He should study an object from different aspects, but not focuses on only one dimension by using all the positive illustrations and ignoring all the adverse ones.

Fine, I will take Herman's advise

{It is a poem that I wrote in Chinese and then Herman saw it and told me that I should translate it and post it here. Well, so I did, after a little bit editing.}

From today, I am going to be happy

Waking up in the morning, seeing through the curtians, no matter rain or sunshine, I will smile

Telling myself it is a good weather

From today, I am going to be happy

Feeling the unfair side of the world, wanting to complain, telling myself a joke

Telling myself that my life is not acomplished unless I experience it

From today, I am going to be happy

Facing difficulties, willing to give up, I will try my best to forget about it, and cheer myself up

Telling myself that I can and will make it through

Escape? Fruit！

Sad? Chocolate！

Tired? Meat！

From today, I am going to be happy

If I want to cry, I will smile,

and go eat！！！！！！！！

ps. picture taken at M&M store, time square, NYC

Returning to the basics.

By Adrian Simonis

Michael Pollan’s manifesto, “In defense of Food”, is a detailed work that stresses the insufficiencies of our diet and how to correct the unhealthy additions we’ve added to it over the years. Pollan’s main argument is that we should return to eating the basic substances we used to, and not the food like substances we currently consume day in and day out. He lays down many simple rules to easily do so, such as not eating things that your grandmother wouldn’t recognize and avoiding foods that boast healthiness. He continues on to explain the American paradox: the more time we spend worrying about food and trying to correct our diets, the less healthy we actually become.

Pollan continues to explain where the title of his book comes from, including the odd concept of defending food and why something so commonplace would need defending. The reason Pollan feels the need to defend food is because we have taken home grown produce and injected so many unnecessary additives that they can barely be considered “food”. Pollan argues that we should return to the original foods that we produce and consume them without the artificial ingredients as opposed to our current fake foods. Pollan also feels the need to defend food from the industry that creates these fraudulent foods and advertises them as “healthy”.

In order to correct these problems, Pollan promotes an idea that’s been around for centuries, yet is rarely followed: eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By following these seven simple words, we agree to abide by Pollan’s idea of nutritionism, which includes returning to eat what is truly food and only food that is completely free of detrimental preservatives. Pollan encourages us to escape the western diet confronted in a majority of supermarkets, compacted into packages that don’t carry food, but rather an unhealthy substation of food. We can create a healthy diet by avoiding these mock foods and returning to sensible food consumed in proper context.

Pollan does an effective job of presenting the harms of our current food industry and the unnecessary additives that are so commonplace in our current food markets. He brings up the point that people won’t be reading his ideas on how to stay healthy if they don’t want to change their eating habits, and uses multiple examples on how we can efficiently do so. Pollan shows us how to clean up our increasingly unhealthy diet and the consequences we will suffer if we don’t do so.

One of the main drawbacks in Pollan’s argument is his assumption that all foods claiming to be “healthy” aren’t always the opposite of what they claim to be. Foods that are composed of basic organic substances and have little to no added ingredients are allowed to bear the title “healthy” and may choose to do so. Although most of these products don’t need to do so, they still reserve the right and can claim to be healthy while being completely accurate with their statement. While it may not be a big shortcoming in his argument, it’s still unfair for Pollan to advertise a general rule of thumb that any product bragging to be “healthy” is automatically the opposite. Aside from small setbacks like these, Pollan combines multiple arguments with countless examples to both explain and show the western culture why it is beneficial to return to eating plants and how easy it is to do so.