One text that I really liked that we read in class was the “Consider the Lobster” piece by David Foster Wallace. I like the way that he incorporated humor and entertainment as he sought to illuminate his perspective of an event. This article as well as Pete Wells’s reviews, like “Slurping Solo”, taught me that food writing can be very creative. The author can take a lot of liberties that are surprising, unsettling and refreshing all at once. Before this class I didn’t know much about the rhetoric of food, but I definitely didn’t consider humor being a possible element at all, but fortunately I have been proved wrong. We have read many humorous food writing texts in the class and I read many on my own.

The rhetoric of food is all about sharing experiences. It is about connecting with each other, connecting with other cultures and sharing experiences with one another. Writers express their experiences in a myriad of ways (recipes, annotated bibliographies, reviews, essays, poems, articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts). Another important element to consider in the expansive definition of sharing experiences is that each text has a specific audience it is targeted to. I learned the importance of knowing who your audience is through this class, and making sure that what you are producing is appropriate for your audience.

What makes a restaurant good?

What makes a restaurant good is so much more than the quality of the food. Don’t get me wrong, the food should cause a party in your tummy, but the atmosphere of the restaurant is also very important. The articles that I chose to analyze all look at the atmosphere as a key factor to the enjoyability of a restaurant experience. Through creative writing, the authors are able to convey their experience of the restaurant (complete with their feelings and concerns) to you through their diction.

Formal elements:

• description of atmosphere
• what type of food the restaurant serves
• price range
• recommended dishes
• location of restaurant
• rating
• provides pictures of restaurant and food

Who is reading these reviews? People who like good food and want to try new things, people who want to recommend tasty places when their friends ask them where they want to eat, people who don’t want to waste time or money, people who want to pick the right restaurant the first time.

Functional Purposes:

• help the reader decide if it is a place they would enjoy
• tells a story, provides a snapshot of their experience through the imagery they use in their writing (not all reviews tell a story, but the articles that I chose to emulate provide clear pictures or analogies to help you understand the environment)

Texts:

As Not Seen on TV Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square by Pete Wells (New York Times)

REVIEW:Hillside Farmacy by Chelsea Bucklew (The Infatuation – Austin)

Slurping Solo, in Sweet Isolation, at Ichiran in Brooklyn by Pete Wells (New York Times)

Review: Hart’s by Bryan Kim (The Infatuation – New York)

Where should we go for lunch today? There are so many great restaurants in Austin; sometimes it is hard for me to pick where to eat. When this dilemma occurs, restaurant reviews always save the day. The synthesis of opinion and fact given through the writer’s experience helps me delve into their experience and see whether the restaurant is a good fit for me or not.

My mentor text is a review of a restaurant in NYC called Hart’s. The article is written by Bryan Kim and I found it through a website called “The Infatuation”. Kim’s review gives an overall rating to the Hart’s and gives a rundown of the recommended dishes, which consists of a one-sentence description and an intriguing picture of the dish. The text pulls the audience in by starting with a compelling hypothetical situation that creatively helps the reader understand the interworking of the restaurant more clearly. The author, Bryan Kim, is a prolific food reviewer for “The Infatuation” and the audience he is targeting is the trendy, young New Yorker. His intended purpose is to give his targeted audience a new place to try next time they are eating out with friends. This text’s function is to bring to attention a restaurant that might go under the radar otherwise so that people can know what type of food they serve, what the atmosphere is like and when and with whom is it best to go to this place. This text is a great mentor text for me because the intended audience and the purpose are very similar (though I’ll be targeting the Austinite and not the New Yorker). I would also like to emulate aspects of Kim’s format (the length and concision) and many of the tools he used (the overall rating, recommended dishes, description of atmosphere).

This text is a great example of a restaurant review because it helps the reader delve into the environment for a brief moment in order for them to decide whether that is somewhere they would like to eat.

Kim, Bryan. “Hart’s – Bedford-Stuyvesant – New York.” The Infatuation. The Infatuation, 16 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

I have chosen the topic of coffee for my annotated bibliography.

There are so many directions I could go with that, so here are some that I’m considering:

• The history of coffee, when did people start drinking coffee? What has the evolution been (or bean – if you like puns (sorry))?
• The process of producing and distributing coffee.
• Slavery within the coffee industry, child labor and forced labor. What the effects of slavery are and why it is so prevalent.
• I might focus on one specific region where coffee is produced, but I’m not sure whether I’ll do that or generalize it.
• What Fair Trade is, what it means, what it does, a list of Fair Trade coffee companies

I’m interested to learn more about the process and cost of enjoying our cup(s) of coffee on the morning. I have seen some articles (but haven’t done a lot of research yet) on some of the drawbacks of Fair Trade, so I think that would be important to look into. Hopefully through this assignment I’ll be able to delve into different aspects of the coffee industry, but weave them together in a way that is informative and inspires change. Right now I think there will be complications with figuring out how narrow to go. Do I want to research a specific country? Do I want to focus on child labor? How much of the history do I want to go into/what all is relevant?

So that is the beginning of my coffee journey, more to come.

Some potential texts for my bibliography:

http://www.foodispower.org/coffee/ – briefly summarizes the slavery that goes on within the coffee industry and gives recommendations of Fair Trade coffee brands.

http://docplayer.net/24668517-Corporate-social-responsibility-review-risks-of-child-labor-on-select-coffee-farms-in-nicaragua.html – “Risks of Child Labor on Select Coffee Farms in Nicaragua

What all goes into your morning cup of coffee?

I don’t know about you, but coffee is a big deal to me. It has been my constant companion since 9th grade. So when I was contemplating topic ideas, coffee instantly came to mind. I decided that I wanted to learn more about the coffee industry to know about the labor that goes into the beverage I consume on a daily basis. I want to be aware and informed of the slavery and unfair conditions that are going on in the coffee industry so that the decisions I make aren’t contributing to corruption. To begin, I am using Google to get basic information about the coffee industry and what all goes into the production. I am hoping to research more about the different countries where coffee is produced and learn about what kind of labor is going on in each country or I might narrow my focus to one or a few countries. I want to learn more about:

• how much slavery is involved in each country
• what the different types of labor are that are being used (child labor, forced labor)
• what all goes into the process of coffee production
• what does Fair Trade coffee entail (what are the benefits, what are the drawbacks)
• what companies ethically grow and manufacture coffee

http://www.foodispower.org/coffee/

http://campaign.worldvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/7280_DTL_Factsheet_Coffee_Web_Single.pdf

Sweet Potato Hash

Sweet potato hash,

The wonderful mixture of

Savory and sweet.

Makes 2 servings

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time 40 minutes

Cost of all the ingredients except for spices and olive oil: $11.56

Cost for meal based on what you use: $4.42

Equipment needed: potato peeler, foil, large pan, large skillet, sharp knife

Ingredients:

Sweet Potatoes

• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• ½ teaspoon of paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste

Toppings

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• ½ an onion chopped
• 4 ounces sliced mushrooms
• 5 ounces of ground sausage
• ¼ cup of mozzarella cheese
• 2 eggs

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450°F
• Peel and chop sweet potatoes into bite size pieces
• Place sweet potatoes on a foil-covered pan coat in olive top and spices
• Cook potatoes for 30-35 minutes or until crisp

Wait 20 minutes after you put the potatoes in the oven to start cooking the rest of the meal:

• Put onions in skillet with olive oil
• Cook for 2-3 minutes on medium heat and add mushrooms, stir occasionally
• Break sausage up into small pieces, then put sausage in pan
• Cook until sausage is finished cooking and then turn stove off
• In separate pan cook eggs over easy. Crack eggs in pan and cook on medium heat until the egg whites are firm, but the yolks are still runny.
• When potatoes are done combine the potatoes and toppings
• Sprinkle with cheese
• Put one egg on top of each serving
• Enjoy!

Good recipes hook me with a picture that makes me forget all my fears and worries. All I can think about is how soon I can eat all of the food. After the spectacular picture comes a title followed by a description. Whether short or long the description generally relays the significance that the author has to the particular dish. It might be an explanation of what goes well with the dish, the cultural background and history of the dish or a fun, personal anecdote from the author about the recipe. Also near in proximity to the title is generally the amount of servings the recipe makes and the amount of time it takes to make the recipe. After that comes the ingredients and the measurements needed of each ingredient. After the list of ingredients come the directions necessary to make the dish.

Authors write recipes in order to help other people experience food. Whether they are writing to help people on a budget or working class families stay well fed under $4.00 a day (Good and Cheap) or to nostalgically recreate a meal that is has a personal meaning to them (From My Mother’s Kitchen: Birthday Cake). With Good and Cheap, Brown is trying to make healthy food very accessible to people who don’t have time to make a budget for affordable, healthy food. Brown is taking an economic approach to helping people experience food and it is very specific to the context around her. On the other hand you have people who are nostalgically trying to recreate recipes that have a sentimental place in their hearts. The motivations for writing recipes are as vast as the motivation for people to write stories, essays, poems. Recipes and the rhetoric of food can be very personal and cultural and can also be very impersonal and universal. The author through the description communicates the motivation and audience. The directions and ingredients needed can also help to identify the audience that is targeted. If there are many obscure or culture specific ingredients needed then it is more targeted to a specific audience.

The author needs to be a good guide – that is what separates a good recipe from a bad recipe. How do we navigate different cultural foods? How do we navigate the temperature and time needed to make sure the chicken is cooked perfectly? How do we navigate the spice rack? A good recipe is written by a good guide.

http://www.biggirlssmallkitchen.com/2009/10/from-my-mothers-kitchen-birthday-cake.html

https://cookbooks.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf