A Hot Dog Cart Experience to Remember

Making food with my mother has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.From the first time we made blueberry muffins, in our tiny third floor apartment kitchen which was more like a closet.  The whole process from cracking the eggs to the final  beautiful muffins. I would be the happiest kid on the planet, mixing and measuring all the ingredients to put in the famous red plastic bowl my mother always used. It was our weekend ritual too make some kind of baked goods that made our apartment smell like heaven on earth. As I got older I spent less and less time in the kitchen, but I seemed to have a natural ability too cook things and make them taste good. I had other things to do besides spending the night baking with my mom and at this point she was working her way up the culinary ladder. She had become an assistant manger at Friednly's and then moved on to becoming a sous chef at Timothy's. What she really wanted was her own restaurant and when i was about twelve she got her wish. I didn't think anything of becoming a chef. That wasn't a dream for me. I wanted to be the next Roger Clemens or Tony Hawk. Cooking was something girls did not a kid like me. I had big dreams and cooking Swedish meatballs was not in the picture but off to work at my mother's first restaurant I went. This was the beginning of my culinary career and where I learned some valuable lessons. 

   I think it was my freshman year of high school and I would work every Saturday and every other Sunday. My mother had rented out a space in the Quality Factory Outlets which had a lot of discount stores and needed a cafeteria style greasy spoon. It was in the late eighties and there weren't all the crazy diets we have today.  My first Saturday on the job was a long one. I didn't much appreciate my mom waking me up at five in the morning to get up to go to work. This day was already off to a great start. I walked into the restaurant and flopped down on the first booth i saw. I was hoping to hide from my mom for a little while but no luck with that. She gave me the job of sweeping and  mopping the floors because the night before the guy had done a horrible job. Me being the FNG or F*#$%**  New Guy I got the job. After that the rest of the day was spent wiping tables,cleaning dishes, and eventually helping to run the  hot dog cart we had on the upper level of the outlet. I really enjoyed this because I got to do something else besides cleaning and i liked dealing with the customers. It really never got that busy so I mostly did it by myself for  most of the day.  Mary Beth, who was  one of the girls working for my mom and was supposed to be helping me. To say she was working would be stretching the truth a little.After a careful inspection from my mom, she said "You still have all your fingers and haven't run away screaming". She decided that I would be able to come back tomorrow and maybe i could get paid. I said to her "If I am not getting paid then she better find a new FNG". We all had a good laugh and day one of my culinary career was a success!

    It was the beginning of a new school year and i went back to working my Saturday and every other Sunday shifts again. This year I got complete control of the hot dog cart. My mother sat me down and had a big talk with me about how it was a big responsibility,well i just stood up and told her bring it on. Now to say I was a little nervous was a slight understatement. I remember getting all the stuff ready for the cart which was upstairs from the restaurant. So all the stuff had to be brought up every morning and brought back down every night. So I started chopping my onions,stacking my soda,filling the mustard and ketchup and all the other prep items I had to do to get the cart ready for the rush. It went along pretty smoothly for the first couple a weeks. I had some rough patches but all in all I thought I was the master of the hot dog cart. It was Christmas time and buses from New York would bring people down to the outlet to shop. shopping. We had stationed the hot dog cart right in front of the entrance where all the buses let the people out.  On average for a Saturday I would sell about three to four hundred hot dogs a day plus the chips and sodas. So when time came for the holiday rush I made sure I was stocked, locked and ready rock when the Greyhounds pulled in. Every day the outlet manager would tell my mother how many buses were coming that day. The most we had ever done was fifty five. George who was the manager told us we had a busy day and that forty one buses were coming but only twenty five would be full. Usually most of the buses would be full but during the holidays they would send extra buses even if they weren't filled. I Set up my stations and got ready for the madness

  The first bus rolled in right at eleven and they kept coming until the bay was full. Most of the people wouldn't eat right away and some would head right down to the restaurant. I had my customers who would get right off the bus go to the bathroom and grab a dog, bag a chips, and a Coke soda or Sprite soda. I never really thought about it until I heard it called that. It kinda makes sense, I mean we call it orange soda and grape soda why not call it Coke soda. So around two we had gone through most of the buses.and maybe were waiting on five more. Then i saw George,who was the outlet manager and my mother talking. It didn't look like it was a good conversation. My mom turned towards me and started walking a little to fast for my liking. She finally got close  grabbed  me and said "get ready for some fun because one of the other outlets had a fire and all their buses are coming here in twenty minutes". I didn't know what to say except that I needed more onions.She just gave me a smile and said "Maybe some hot dogs too". I just nodded and mumbled some buns would be good. I got a list of all the stuff I would need and stocked my self for another big rush. I saw the first buses pulling in and got ready to do battle with these people. It was like a parade one after the other they kept coming. I had a line about fifty people deep and it wasn't getting any smaller. By the time I had gone through my first box of a hundred dogs, the second wave of people were getting off the buses. I had to tell the people they had to wait while I cooked their dogs, One after the other I put the dogs in the buns, dug into the ice, grabbed the sodas, offered up some chips and rang them up.By five o'clock I had gone through fifteen hundred hot dogs and a whole bunch of soda. I never thought the line would come to an end.. I just keep going and going until I was able to see the end of the line.When I saw that last person in line, I started thanking God and wondering just how much money we had made on this crazy day. The most the cart had made was one thousand dollars and that had been one of the craziest days or so I had been told by everyone in the outlet. I cleaned up and got ready to go home. I went down to the restaurant and saw my mom in the back doing the books for the day. When it was over, I had made twenty five hundred dollars in six hours. On record it was the busiest day our restaurant, the hot dog cart and the outlet had since the place had been open.

  I just remember on the ride home , sitting in the backseat so tired that I didn't want to move. I kept Remembering the people saying " look at this kid go". I was a machine that day but my body was in need of a full tune up. A hot shower and my bed were the only things in my future. Then my mom told me how proud she was that I had made it through the day without losing my cool or having any major problems. She said to me"You need to be able to do  these things if you are going to be able to make it this business". I think after that day no matter what situation I was in I would be able to handle it. I think that's why when I have interviewed for a head chef position with a new restaurant. I am supremely confident when I tell them anything they throw at me I can handle it. I think back to this day a lot. It gives me a great deal of pride to know that I am able to handle situations like these and learn from them. I think that is the most important thing you can learn. It doesn't matter so much if you succeed  completely, just that you did your best and learned from your triumphs and your failures.

The New Yorker by John Colapinto

                                STRANGE FRUIT: The Rise and Fall of Acai
                   
The main idea of the article is how in a very short time Acai become know as a super food and the just as quickly become something people did not believe in. Until ten years ago it unknown outside Brazil, then two brothers Jeremy ans Ryan Black along with a friend Edmund Nichols began exporting it to America. It is a potent mix of cholesterol reducing fats ans anti-aging antioxidants. It is one of the fastest. growing super foods in history. Recently studies  have shown outrageous health claims and online vendors selling diluted products. Not until the nineteen seventies did it spread past the Amazon river delta, spreading to northern cities and the southern cities of Rio and San Paulo, due in large part to the Gracie family who were martial art legends. In nineteen ninety nine the Black brothers establish Sambazon, importing frozen Acai from Brazilian plants. In two thousand four Dr. Nicholas Perricone appears on Oprah with best selling book  The Perricone Promise, Look Younger, Live Longer, in Three Easy Steps. Sales sky rocketed and Oprah and Dr. Mehmet Oz indorse product. In two thousand five the Black's build plant in Brazil. Dallin Larsen CEO of MonaVie  a health juice concoction implicated many fraudulent internet sales forcing Oprah and Dr. Oz to sue removing their faces from acai based products and sales fell dramatically. The writer used a lot of fact based  ideas and was able to get his point across although his article jumped around a bit. I thought the article was okay but think a little more information on whether Acai is in fact good for you or is it so diluted by the time we get it, that's it not worth it.

Michael Pollan The Nation, September 11, 2011

    How Change is Going to Come in the Food System

 This article by Michale Pollan  was basically about how are current food system is not sustainable and in time will cause our planet and our species great harm. Frances Moore Lappes wrote a book called Diet for a Small Planet about forty years ago and it was the first to point out this fact. Until only recently has the congress passed any legislation committed to this issue. Media has been the biggest platform to get this message out but these reforms could make food more expensive and this will never be popular. The movement is gaining strength due to the fact that in the long run the cost of health care will increase dramatically due to our poor diets. Massachusetts leads in legislation with a tax on soda to lower the rate of type two diabetes and obesity

      The writer used many points between the cost of health care in the tobacco industry and the rising health care cost of our poor diets, which caused the more powerful people in the government to take a tougher stand on smoking. The congress only has a group of five who are committed to the fight. Obama campaign on this platform but realizes there is not enough support, so he may have his wife out beating the drum to get the support. The writers strategy was to point out how our diets have been an all but a forgotten problem until very recently and how big business still has a strangle hold on the legislation passed through congress. I thought this article was very informative and had many good points but until the price isn't an issue i don't see this getting much publicity. It really is to bad because we must understand the life is very fragile and we can only do so much harm to ourselves and our planet before the content are to broken to put back together.

Killing Chickens http://meredithhall.org/map/excerpt/

      A newly divorced mother of two is coming to terms with having to run a farm and handle everyday life on new terms. She must kill chickens for the first time and really doesn't have her heart into it because her heart has recently been torn apart. Her kids Alex, ten and Benjamin who is seven  wonder what is going to happen but do their very best to keep mom in high spirits. It is her thirty eighth  birthday and her once beautiful home in Maine now becomes somewhat dismal. She must take the lives of her once beloved chickens but can't do it without breaking down each time. She wants to be alone with her kids, so no calls to family or friends on this birthday, just the three of them because that is how it is going to be from now on. She feels like someone else, her hands have become a killers. Tomorrow is a new day and she knows she must and will make this work but the solitude must end. 

Television Advertising Favorite Medium

                              The Message 24/7 Tuned to your Home


    The T.V. tuned to his favorite station. His favorite show has just taken a break. He doesn't get up or change the channel, nope his favorite part of the show is up now. The commercials, he sits in mesmerize attention , ready to be told what he wants for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They show him  all the goodies mom is going to get at the super market next time she goes. The greatest  medium ever invented to install  the sellers product deep into our brains. In no other way can they get such a focused group, where the audience is so suggestible, a child . They know to get them while they are young and then they will be consumers for whatever product is being sold. Ad agencies have a constant and captive audience all day and night, they are ready to become consumers. The commercials are almost as exciting and fun filled as the T.V. shows we watch. As it shows he is so into the T.V. Teddy is almost a distant memory. Notice how the television is in the dominant position. It's high up on the entertainment stand so the child has to look up to it. There are also no other objects in the picture that would take your focus away from the main point of view, the television. The frozen pops are at the front of the crowd calling for the boy to reach out and grab them. Not much of any dinner products either, mostly snacks, cereals, and a drink or two. Most of the boxes are red  or some other bright color as well making them standout even more.Where is the family in this picture? No other brothers or sisters just the one child alone to make his decisions. I believe it means that more and more a television is in charge of raising our kids and they learn what to eat, and how to walk and talk from a thing we label the idiot box. There is no adult to tell him to turn off the T.V.  He only has his best friend with him, like this is the best thing to be doing with his teddy bear and it appears Teddy is just as into the commercial as the child. Just the two of them watching all the bright colored advertisements pass by their eyes. One by one he wants them more and more, not much he can do about it. The carousel  of the fruity cereals and that delicious frozen dinner with the desert included of course come on  to fill his mind . It appears he would not move even if he wanted too. There is to much on the T.V. for him to miss! Most of the advertisements have cartoon characters to appeal to a child. It commands his complete attention it even seems like  he has forgotten about every thing else. The colors are bright and more often than not a prize is included or some kind offer. If you buy it you can win a trip to Disney or a free BMX. I also look and see how all the products are jammed together like it's just one after the other. His shoulders are slumped over as though he is lost in the world of advertisements . He is facing away from the camera, so that he could be any boy in this picture. There are some good foods in the picture to, like the apple all the way in the back. That way it represents the small percentage of advertisements for the healthy foods during his television time. The message is loud and clear our children are being over stimulated with ads from mostly food companies selling our kids bad eating habits in a colorful box with a Toucan Sam or Dora on the front. Think about it, from the time we are born the television becomes more and more a part of our lives. From the time it's on to the time we shut it off our brains are conditioned by the Ad companies on what we should buy. They have armies of people working to make sure the products they are selling come on at the best time to catch the attention of our children and therefor we as parents consume for them.  They know if they see it enough that the next time at the super market he or she is going to be reaching for the box of cereal with the cool cartoon character or the prize at the bottom. Most of the time it  gets tried once maybe twice then it's stuffed deep in the cabinet, fridge, or freezer until it goes bad, but that was the thing they wanted that week. It is also what the advertisement agencies want because it is time for the next great box of sugar disguised as a healthy fruity breakfast. To much time in front of the T.V. it goes in one ear stays in there a while until the decision is made to try something new. What can be said about the article mostly is that no matter what your kids watch, they will be exposed to a massive amount of advertisements for mostly food that will in the long run cause them to have health issues. So what do we do, it's hard to constantly keep an eye on what our children watch. The best thing to do is limit the amount they watch and then try to get them to watch shows where the amount of commercials are limited or they aren't all junk food related. The fact of the matter is that why you have control over most of what your child eats, make the healthy choices for them. I don't mean never let them get something they see on the T.V. but you can always find something that doesn't have sugar as the first or second ingredient. It is a fact that we as a nation our more over weight or obese  than any other nation. That is something we can change, if we don't protect our kids from themselves who will? I know those guys on Madison Avenue are counting on us to continue to let our kids become consumers of all the garbage they push on us.If we show them the right way then hopefully the message will be passed on from one generation to the next. Only time will tell and if we continue to allow our children's minds to be made up by cartoon characters and prizes that they will never see, then are path is chosen. If we can even walk down that path, because we might not all make it!
                                         

What's Under That Bun and Can I Give It Back!!!!

  This ad is the perfect example of why you shouldn't eat at MC Burger Wendy and all the other places we go for our fast food fixes. I mean why would you continually go to a place when you know the food is crap. Most of the time the food goes in your mouth with out a second look, but beware whats under the bun! It's not that juicy burger from the commercial or even the one on the menu behind the cash registers. It's a burger ,chicken sandwich, or fish fillet from an hour ago.I mean honestly would you make a burger at home and then wrap it up keep it hot for god knows how long and then decide let me eat it now! No, right you would cook it and then eat it because that's  when it is hot, fresh and tastes the best. The only thing i know that tastes better a day later is soup and I don't see any soup on the menu here! Yet the lines are there and every day a new fast food junkie is born. I just wish they would serve a quality product, they have the money and the man power. I know that it would cut into there profit margin and honestly, why stop when you have customers who love it! As long there is a Burger King ,we shall be his loyal subjects ,even though he is kinda creepy!

   I wanted to find a picture of the real food we are served, not that fake,plastic, or dipped in oil to make it look shinny and so many other things that are done to food in commercials to make them look oh sooo good! I mean you and I both know that what you see is rarely what you get but the images on television and in magazines make the food look almost perfect.The cheese is melted just right the lettuce is crisp and green the tomatoes are red as can be and look just great. This ad shows how different things are ,look at the buns, they are not even the same color.The cheese is melted perfectly on the left and the right it's like they put it on after it was microwaved.Flame broiled, when have you ever seen a burger you ordered flame broiled,if you consider hitting some buttons flame broiled then I guess their right. I can't say I have never eaten at Mac Donald's or any of the other fast food chains because for a time in my life I thought they actually served good food. The fact is they make millions of dollars each year because  a lot of people like to eat it and are generally happy with what they get. For me being a chef I live on both sides of the counter. I know what its like when you have fifty burgers to make and no time to do it, you take shortcuts and get the food out, but what it looks and tastes like does matters. It's cheap somewhat and it will fill you up for the most part.I am sure that even if every person who eats fast food regularly saw this ad it would not stop them from going out and getting that Big Mac tomorrow for lunch. We have been trained since we were very young to associate these places with something pleasurable.I remember every time driving by Mac Donald's when I was younger, just hoping and praying that my mom would take me there. Now some of them have play lands and all kinds of things to make our little kids want it more than ever. I know that Mac Donald's helps out a lot of kids with serious illnesses and that is great. They are also responsible for clear cutting down large parts of the Amazon jungle to breed Brahma Cattle for all those Big Macs. Did they ever stop to think that so many cures have possibly been extinguished forever because of this? So what do we do to stop it? The solution is quite easy, just don't go and the more you don't, the less you will find it enjoyable. It has been proven that if you eat nothing but Mac Donald's for a month you do serious damage to your internal organs. I am not sure but I think if you eat at least somewhat healthy for a month, you will feel better. Food is something I think we take for granted because we have a lot of it. So why waste your time with this when there are so many better things out there, waiting to be eaten and are so much better for you. Think about it the next time your at the drive thru or in line.Turn around and do something for yourself and make your own  Big Mac. I know the recipe for the secret sauce, just don't tell anyone!