Process Writing

     I think the biggest structuring element for all of my bigger writing assignments was my notes. They were really what I relied upon to provide the meat and potatoes of my pieces. Without some good note-taking and observation, I would have had a much harder time both structuring and completing my pieces. I think that some of that desire for good note-taking comes from the journalism class I took last quarter. It really taught me to look for details and write down everything that's happening in a situation.

     I think that I was frustrated at first with the review assignment. It just seemed really silly for me to be able to write a thousand words about a place I had never been to before, with no background knowledge about the place and with only Sam Sifton's articles to work from. I guess the scariest thing was sitting down and starting to write from an a position of authority. I certainly didn't feel like one. Once I sat down and started though, the process became much easier. It just took me a little to get in the right writing mindset. Avoiding certain pronouns and abstract words just took a little practice and getting used to.

     I thought that aspects of workshopping were very useful and some other parts weren't as beneficial. Getting comments from other people about my writing was great but I think that having the discussions in smaller groups would have been more beneficial to me and my style or learning and workshopping. Having everyone reiterate exactly what they said on the blog comments seemed redundant to me. I think that getting in a group with three to five other people and going really in depth with whatever we are workshopping would be more effective than doing it with the entire class. It would also take up less class time if we spent four fifteen minute time slots instead of seven.

     I think that through learning and writing about the American industrial food system I also learned a lot about myself. I have always had an inkling that there's something wrong with supermarkets and McDonald's, but until this class I hadn't been exposed to any kind of direct investigative journalism about either of them. I think seeing how processed and homogenized nearly everything in supermarket food is has shown me how easily I can distance myself from what I'm eating. After reading “The Omnivore's Dilemma” and watching Food Inc., I did swear off Kraft Mac and Cheese for a while and am still going strong in my bid to not eat Poptarts. The problem is chicken. I use it for so many delicious meals that are tasty and easy to make. Instead of totally eschewing it and becoming a locavore, I haven't really changed my approach toward it. I still buy it regularly and don't feel bad about it. Is it because I can conveniently forget about all the horrible things that go into Meijer chicken? I guess so. This writing about my own relationship to food and the American industrial food system is making me reflect closely and critically on the place I want certain aspects of food to have in my life. I don't think that I'm a person who changes their lifestyle on a whim or quickly in any sense at all. I do think that thinking critically about our readings by writing about them has influenced the way I think about the world, but I think that any large lifestyle changes will have to come after college when I have a more stable lifestyle. And if I'm making enough money.

     Keeping a blog was an interesting experience for me. I've never really considered putting myself out there on the internet in the form of a blog but my experience keeping one in class made it seem easier or simpler than I had thought it to be. I liked having people talk about things I had written, I felt validated in some way. Of course they had to for the class, but all the same, it was a rewarding feeling to have others talk about my writing. I think that validation is something I need in my writing. I felt more accomplished or better about myself if I saw that lots of other people had commented on my blog. Something feels pretentious about a blog though. I guess there's an assumption that what you're putting out there is good enough to make it on the internet. Or maybe its just the stress of putting your work out there for others to talk about and judge. I'm not sure. I think that overall, keeping a blog for this class was beneficial and exciting.

Part 3 of the Restaurant Review

    I'd say that my biggest concern in writing about La Mexicana was feeling out of place or like an outsider at the market. I just feel very uncomfortable somewhere if I feel like I'm unwelcome or being looked at or judged. I guess my expectations stemmed from whatever conception I have of authenticity or what constitutes an insider/outsider in my mind. All I knew about the market/restaurant was that it served good food and wasn't very expensive. I didn't know anything about what the atmosphere or experience of the market would be like.

    Despite my own self-reassurances, I couldn't escape some feeling of discomfort or out-of-placeness. I don't think it was whether the food was authentic or not that unsettled me, I think was my perception of the culture associated with it and the role i played or didn't play in it. As soon as I walked into La Mexicana I felt out of place or like I didn't belong there. I don't speak any Spanish and I have next to no knowledge of Mexican or Latino (or whatever term you want to employ) culture. I felt afraid to speak English and I kept catching myself getting stressed out about how loudly me or my dining companions were talking. In the restaurant we all clustered around the drink fridge for around five minutes. I think we were all scared to approach the counter and learn the truth of whether the cashier spoke English. The whole time I was there, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was out of place, that I didn't belong there. I kept imagining the other patrons eying us surreptitiously with scowls. I'm sure nothing of the sort happened, and I kept trying to convince myself to relax and take it easy. I was a paying customer, people would respect me, I'm sure non-Latinos come in all the time. Despite that rationality, I couldn't relax!

    It seems like a large amount of our discomfort came from the things we didn't know about the restaurant and market. We didn't know how to act in this cultural space, we didn't know how much English was spoken and by whom. We had until this point been unexposed to the specific kind of culture we were intruding upon in La Mexicana. We could infer that some English was spoken because of the bi-lingual menus and signs around the restaurant but we didn't know what people thought of us or what the process of ordering and picking up food was. As soon as we sat down to eat, things became easier and we could forget about the tension and enjoy the delicious food.

    All the tension I was feeling seems to be based on the concept of us vs. them. I was so self-conscious because I couldn't help seeing myself as a stereotype; a well-off, white college student. Beyond that, I couldn't see the non-white people at La Mexicana as anything but insular foreigners wary of privileged white people sampling their exotic food. I feel pretty bad that I lost sight of the multifaceted nature of people and reverted to thinking of my experience as an interaction between stereotypes. That reversion just seemed so natural. I was in a place where I didn't know what was happening and my personality is a pretty self-interrogative one. I can see how I got so absorbed in over thinking everything everything about my experience at La Mexicana.

    Overall I think that the experience of breaking through some boundaries to challenge myself to experience a new cuisine in a very new and unique environment was very valuable. Now that I'm thinking about it, I learned a lot about  myself in the process. And had some wonderful food.

La Mexicana Review: Revised

[For the index]

    La Mexicana is a small, unassuming brick building across from a gas station on the corner of Bryant and Portage. This humble building houses three distinct areas. Upon entering, customers are greeted with the first section of the market, fresh produce and rows upon rows of Hispanic food staples. Horchata, Mole, hot sauces, a whole section of bagged spices and a whole deli counter filled with meats are some of the bountiful selections to be explored here.

     Straight back into the market is the second area, the ice cream coolers. La Mexicana offers homemade ice cream and ice cream bars in plenty of interesting flavors. Guava, avocado, chocolate, and egg nog are just a few of the diverse selection. Diners looking for a frozen treat in the cold months are out of luck. The ice cream section is closed during the winter.

     Secluded in the back of La Mexicana is the venue's true treat; the restaurant. The cash register and the grill sit behind a glass sneeze guard in full view of the seating area. Diners order at the counter and pick up their order from the same counter when its ready. Patrons looking to sit and eat have their choice of heavy wooden tables with a few chairs around each, or three plastic booths lining the walls.

     The Spanish and English menu posted on the wall is sparse: burritos, fajitas, tortas, tacos, with your choice of steak, pork, chicken, or chorizo. The prices at La Mexicana are very low and reasonable: no more than $7 for any of the main dishes. Drinks from the refrigerator are $1.50 and can be opened at the bottle opener attached to the wall.

     The burrito is perhaps the most filling item on the menu. It's at least four inches in diameter and absolutely packed with whatever meat you order, beans, sour cream, rice, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. The soft tortilla is wrapped in tin foil and thin paper to make the nonetheless messy process of eating the burrito easier. But don't take these for granted, they still have a habit of dribbling lettuce and beans down your arm or up your sleeve if you aren't careful. The chicken Burrito is a good starting point. No extraordinary flavors but all the different fillings work well together and create a well-textured meal and a half. The only negative in the burrito is the beans. It's hard to get beans to taste like anything but beans, but La Mexicana doesn't seem to want to push their refried beans beyond just mediocre.

     The atmosphere at La Mexicana is a familiar, humble one. The dining room is ringed with painted frescos of Mexican pueblos. Two TVs are tuned in to Spanish soap operas or the news. The sizzling of the meat on the grill mixes with the Spanish from the television for an energetic and vibrant dining experience. The eating area isn't very attractive in the way one might expect from a more upscale restaurant. There are few decorations apart from the painted walls. Despite its humility, the decor creates a feeling of earthiness and disregard for outside oppinion. One doesn't come to the back of a Mexican market looking for the atmosphere and decor of Food Dance.

     Tortas make for a smaller but no less interesting meal than the burritos. Tortas are a “Mexican Sub” according to the menu. They include avocado, lettuce, tomato, onions, sour cream, and the meat of your choice pressed together between two halves of what looks like a Mexican kaiser roll. Pork works well in these. The smoky and fatty chunks of pork, cut from the cooking leg right in front of you, complement the crunchy lettuce and the crispy roll extremely well. Again, these come wrapped in foil and paper to aid in tidy eating but like the burritos, messiness is unavoidable.

     The steak in the fajitas is a wonderful treat. Beautifully marinated and chewy to the point of ecstasy, their juices release in the mouth with a burst of rich meaty flavor. The fajita plate comes with lettuce, rice, steak, avocado, grilled peppers and onions, and corn tortillas to wrap everything up in. Make sure to eat these fast as the corn tortillas become grainy and dry as they cool.

     An easily overlooked aspect of the restaurant are the sauce trays. Four different sauces, each spicier than the last provide the kick and punch to the entrees. The four sauces are red, vibrant orange, chunky green and smoother green and are increasingly spicy in that order. Make sure to ask for some small cups to spoon the sauces into.

     The drinks at La Mexicana also deserve a special mention of their own. There are no soda fountains or aluminum cans of Coke to be found here. The restaurant's refrigerator is stocked with glass bottles of Squirt, Sprite, and some more eclectic Mexican specialties. There's “Boing,” an uncarbonated mango beverage that's a little watery, and “Schin Guarana,” a carbonated canned beverage with an unidentifiable pseudo-fruit flavor. Finally, there are a multitude of flavors of “Jarritos,” a very popular Mexican soft drink. The stand-out flavor is the orange “Mandarina”. It's refreshing and tangy without being too overwhelming. There's no corn syrup to be found in any of La Mexicana's drinks. Nearly all of the drinks are available for purchase both in the fridge in the restaurant section and the market proper.

     Vegetarians looking for a delicious Mexican meal may find themselves out of luck at La Mexicana. Most of the menu items are only offered with meat. Non meat eaters may find themselves having to settle for a burrito with extra beans instead of any heartier or more complex meal.

     Spanish is above all the language of conversation throughout the entire market and restaurant. Many patrons give of an air of comfortability both with the market and the Spanish interactions within The person taking orders speaks English, as do many of the employees and the menus are all in both English and Spanish, but the overall feeling of the market and clientele is Hispanic and might be alienating for some.

     The proprietors of La Mexicana don't try to hide their culinary skill under paint and reservations. They let their affordably priced, hearty fare stand for what it is, lovingly cooked, “traditional”, and above all else, delicious Mexican food.

La Mexicana

    La Mexicana is a small, unassuming brick building across from a gas station on the corner of Bryant and Portage. This humble building houses three distinct areas. Upon entering, customers are greeted with the first section of the market, fresh produce and rows upon rows of Hispanic food staples. Horchata, Mole, hot sauces, a whole section of bagged spices and a whole deli counter filled with meats are some of the bountiful selections to be explored here.

     Straight back into the market is the second area, the ice cream coolers. La Mexicana offers homemade ice cream and ice cream bars in plenty of interesting flavors. Guava, avocado, chocolate, and egg nog are just a few of the diverse selection. Diners looking for a frozen treat in the cold months are out of luck. The ice cream section is closed during the winter.

     Secluded in the back of La Mexicana is the venue's true treat; the restaurant. The cash register and the grill sit behind a glass sneeze guard in full view of the seating area. Diners looking to sit down and eat have their choice of heavy wooden tables with a few chairs around each, or three plastic booths lining the walls.

The Spanish and English menu posted on the wall is sparse: burritos, fajitas, tortas, tacos, with your choice of steak, pork, chicken, or chorizo. The prices at La Mexicana are very low and reasonable: no more than $7 for any of the main dishes. Drinks from the refrigerator are $1.50 and can be opened at the bottle opener attached to the wall.

     The burrito is perhaps the most filling item on the menu. It's At least four inches in diameter and absolutely packed with whatever meat you order, beans, sour cream, rice, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. The soft tortilla is wrapped in tin foil and thin paper to make the nonetheless messy process of eating the burrito easier. But don't take these for granted, they still have a habit of dribbling lettuce and beans down your arm or up your sleeve if you aren't careful. The chicken Burrito is a good starting point. No extraordinary flavors but all the different fillings work well together and create a well-textured meal and a half. The only negative in the burrito is the beans. It's hard to get beans to taste like anything but beans, but La Mexicana doesn't seem to want to push their refried beans beyond just mediocre. I'd expect more attention to be given to this staple but the restaurant dissapoints.

     Consider Tortas for a smaller but no less interesting meal. Tortas are a “Mexican Sub” according to the menu. They are avocado, lettuce, tomato, onions, sour cream, and the meat of your coice pressed together between two halves of what looks like a Mexican kaiser roll. Pork works well in these. The smoky and fatty chunks of pork, cut from the cooking leg right in front of you, compliment the crunchy lettuce and the crispy roll extremely well. Again, these come wrapped in foil and paper to aid in clean eating but like the burritos, messiness is unavoidable.

     The steak in the fajitas is some of the best I've had. Beautifully marinated and chewy to the point of ecstasy, their juices release in the mouth with a burst of flavor. The fajita plate comes with lettuce, rice, steak, avocado, grilled peppers and onions, and corn tortillas to wrap everything up in. Make sure to eat these fast as the corn tortillas become grainy and dry as they cool.

An easily overlooked aspect of the restaurant are the sauce trays. Four different sauces, each spicier than the last provide the kick and punch to the entrees. The four sauces are red, vibrant orange, chunky green and smoother green and are increasingly spicy in that order. Make sure to ask for some small cups to spoon the sauces into.

     The drinks at La Mexicana also deserve a special mention of their own. There are no soda fountains or aluminum cans of Coke to be found here. The restaurant's refrigerator is stocked with glass bottles of Squirt, Sprite, and some more eclectic Hispanic specialties. There's “Boing,” an uncarbonated mango beverage that's a little watery, and “Schin Guarana,” a carbonated canned beverage with an unidentifiable pseudo-fruit flavor. Finally, there are a multitude of flavors of “Jarritos,” a very popular Mexican soft drink. I'd recommend the orange Jarritos. It's refreshing and tangy without being too overwhelming. There's no corn syrup to be found in any of La Mexicana's drinks.

     Vegetarians looking for a delicious Mexican meal may find themselves out of luck at La Mexicana. Most of the menu items are only offered with meat. Non meat eaters may find themselves having to settle for a burrito with extra beans instead of any hardier or more complex meal.

     The atmosphere at La Mexicana is a familiar, humble one. The dining room is ringed with painted frescos of Mexican pueblos. Two TVs are tuned in to Spanish soap operas or the news. The sizzling of the meat on the grill mixes with the Spanish from the television for an energetic and vibrant dining experience. The eating area isn't very attractive in the way one might expect from a more upscale restaurant. There are few decorations apart from the painted walls. But the unassuming decor works. One doesn't come to the back of a Hispanic market looking for the atmosphere and decor of Food Dance.

     This atmosphere might be off-putting for some however. Besides the noise and the humble appearance, Spanish is above all the language of conversation throughout the entire market. The person taking orders speaks English, as do many of the employees and the menus are all in both English and Spanish, but the overall feeling of the market and clientele is Hispanic and might be alienating for some.

    La Mexicana feels very truthful. They don't try to hide their culinary skill under paint and reservations. They let their affordably priced, hearty fare stand for what it is, lovingly cooked, “traditional”, and above all else, delicious Mexican food.

Preliminary Writing

     When looking for a restaurant to review, I wanted something new, something that I had never had before in Kalamazoo. This was a problem as one of my favorite pastimes is finding new places to eat. After much pondering and debate, I decided to seek out an "authentic" "Mexican" restaurant. My experience with Mexican food is Chipotle. Chipotle and Qdoba. I don't really have a clear idea of what I'm expecting out of eating at "La Mexicana." My current conception of Mexican food is burritos and quesadillas. I love the burritos I get at Chipotle and I've recently taken to making quesadillas for myself pretty often. Oh yeah, I love chips and salsa as well. I'm sure that these three dishes aren't representative at all of "true" Mexican food. I'm used to sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and ground beef. I really have no idea what kind of a food experience I'm in for.

    I've been conscious for a while that Chipotle, Qdoba, and homemade quesadillas aren't a true indicator of food that someone from Mexico or South American would have grown up with. With that knowledge came a desire to try some "authentic" Mexican cuisine. I feel guilty that I refer to Chipotle as "Mexican" food. Unfortunately, that's really the only experience I have with it growing up in the suburbs of Detroit. I'm always on the lookout for new food experiences and places to eat near my house but the "ethnic" selections are often limited or "Americanized". Will the food be spicy? Will it be strongly spiced? I'm really excited to see what kinds of food are available at the market/restaurant. I'm curious about what meat will be offered. My current conception of "Mexican" meat is ground beef in a homemade Taco but I'm sure there are a much larger variety of meats eaten in Mexico.

    I'm not interested in foods different from what I've grown up with because of their inherent "Otherness" or association with some exotic, foreign experience. I'm more interested because they'll (hopefully) be a delicious change from my usual experience of food on an aesthetic level. I eat "foreign" foods because I like their taste, not because I'm trying to consume some "Otherness" or because I'm seeking a truly authentic experience. I don't think it's really possible to recreate a food experience in the same way as its conducted in it's original setting. There are so many variables that are different in the United States. I don't think that my experience at an "ethnic" restaurant is really based on the decor or the apparent "authenticity" of the venue, but I'll be curious to see whether that really applied at "La Mexicana." The restaurant itself is behind the market and I've heard it described as very humble and non-flashy.

    Well, its almost time for my dinner. I'll be watching out for everything I can at the restaurant; the presentation, atmosphere, and most important, the food. I think that, from what I've heard of "La Mexicana" I'll have a great meal. I love cheap, good holes-in-the-wall.

Max: Post-Tourist

"Authentic" Thai decor

    I thought that all the different aspects of the two chapters we read were very applicable to our lives as eaters of food. What really struck me was the depth that "authenticity" works in our daily lives. It's not just that something different from our norms seems strange to us or is an experience in learning something about another culture or food, it's also some reflection on us or on the way we define ourselves. This give and take seems really relevant to me, especially with study abroad coming up. How will I work to understand the culture of wherever I end up? Will I be naive and see everything as foreign and exotic? I hope not. I think that I'm relatively conscious of the way I perceive other people and cultures around me.

    The different kinds of "tourist" aspect of the chapter also intrigued me. I had never really thought about what purpose an experience in a foreign country or culture could serve. I've always had a sense that a tourist in the stereotypical sense is something I wouldn't want to be. I've grown up with a sense that gawking at things different from you is wrong or bad in some way. As far as I can remember, I never really thought about a cuisine being authentic or not. I was always more interested in how the food tasted. This background has made it difficult to place myself on the tourist spectrum. Am I an existential tourist? No, I don't really have a super strict definition of what is or isn't authentic. Am I more of a diversionary tourist then? I don't think so. I guess I associate that end of the spectrum with gawking Americans snapping pictures of everything in sight with blatant disregard for respect and tact.

    At the risk of sounding super pretentious, perhaps I'm more of a "post-tourist." Molz writes that the post-tourist is "aware of the social and commercial constraints to authenticity and decides to overlook them."  I think that this definition fits my own perception of "ethnic" and "authentic" dining in America. I can see the shifting nature of pursuing the concept of authenticity in American dining but I still really enjoy eating lots of different kinds of food. I'd agree with McClancy that "inauthenticity is a small price to pay for culinary variety and the spice it adds to everyday life." I don't go to a Thai restaurant to experience an experience of Thailand, I go to eat something that I enjoy the taste of. The authenticity or exoticism of the experience doesn't interest me in the sense that I'm consuming the "Other" as an exoticised construct, but because I love the food that's served at my neighborhood "Thai" restaurant.

Revised Perfect Meal

     A myriad of potential dishes ran through my head. My usual fare of mac and cheese was the first thing that came to mind and the first thing to be rejected. No, I thought, that's too usual, too Kraft for a unique meal. Next was chicken wings, which you know, if you've read my other blog posts, is my culinary shangri-la. Too risky, I told myself. There's no way that anything I could make would measure up to my demanding standards. I had to have something closer to me, something I'd never had in a restaurant, something that was great enough to justify an entire meal with it as its center. Finally, I knew. Chicken piccata.

     Chicken piccata was a staple of my father's cooking and one of the few dishes that I loved and requested as often as I could back at home. Soft chicken with crisp sauted breading and the important part, a lemon juice, white wine, chicken broth and caper sauce. With the chicken, my father always made a plate of sauted green beans and almond slivers in lemon juice. This aspect of the meal could prove more difficult than the chicken. I remember my father either undercooking or burning the almonds at least three times before he managed to get the dish just right. I figured that the delicacy needed to perfect. The almonds along with the green beans would be too much for my novice cooking abilities and so I opted out of the finicky almonds.

     Now that I had my meal, I needed a person (or a few people) to share it with. I thought and thought and, after realizing that the majority of my friends were vegetarian, decided on my close friend Ethan. Ethan and I had spent nine months in Israel together and shared countless teenager-cooked meals together there, the most memorable being a Columbian soup into which an extra hot pepper and another pepper's worth of seeds was accidentally added. I figured Ethan would be the most receptive to my culinary excursion from Kraft noodles and bagels with cream cheese. Another bonus; Ethan will almost never pass up a free meal.

     Procuring the ingredients for my meal was a relatively simple task but one nonetheless fraught with tension. Most of the ingredients were simple; chicken, oil, beans, lemons, eggs. The problems came when I ticked “chicken” off of my grocery list and came to bread crumbs and capers. The amounts of these two ingredients that my recipe called for were miniscule in comparison to the bountiful containers in the supermarket. My brow furrowed when I realized I'd have to pay five dollars to use a tenth of both the container of bread crumbs and capers. What college student uses capers in any kind of meal? Oy vey. Sighing deeply at my frugality, I purchased both and hoped that I'd find some way to enjoy eating breaded capers in the near future.

     I lugged the Meijer bags from my car, up the tortuous stairs and into my house. Surveying the freshly unpacked ingredients arrayed on the kitchen counter, I didn't feel so great about my decision to cook this meal. It was the chicken that got me. I allowed myself an inward wince of disgust, I knew that the chicken came from the worst of factory farms and was injected with a strange brew of antibiotics and chicken flavoring. The only harvest that I could picture the green beans as part of was my own when I grabbed handfuls of them from the plastic bin at Meijer. The core of my meal was unsustainable and a perfect feed-in to the American industrial food system. I had no easy alternative to the cheap accessible Meijer chicken. My rationalization was that my father used the same chicken in his chicken piccata. So, with my cognitive dissonance suppressed for a little while, I launched into the meal.

     With all the ingredients assembled, it was time to start cooking. A few days earlier I had asked my dad to send me the recipe for his chicken piccata and he obliged, sending me the scanned page of “Dad's Own Cookbook,” complete with his written notes about variations on the dish and when to pound the chicken. Thinking ahead, I had defrosted the chicken in the fridge for about half a day before I started cooking my meal. When it came time to pull it out of the fridge and begin the long process of readying it for cooking, it was still a little frosted. I ended up letting it sit out for another couple of hours before undertaking the first step in creating chicken piccata, pounding. After wrapping the chicken in cellophane, I laid into it with a rolling pin, flattening it to about half its former thickness. According to my father, this was so that it cooked faster. I just had fun taking some of my sixth-week blues out on a piece of inanimate meat. Next, I dredged the pieces of chicken in beaten eggs and then breadcrumbs. At this point the chicken seemed pretty gross. Just slimy pink meat with crust of bread crumbs. Well, I thought, the only thing to do is throw them in the pan and see what happens. As the breasts sizzled in the frying pan, a wonderful cooked chicken aroma mixed with the heartiness of frying bread crumbs and olive oil filled the air. Things were going according to plan.

     When both breasts had turned a golden brown, I took them out of the pan and poured my pre-prepared mixture of capers, chicken broth, white wine, and lemon juice into the same pan to cook down for around ten minutes. From my experience, this sauce is what really makes the whole dish come together. The sourness and cooked down chicken flavor work amazingly with the soft yet crunchy chicken breasts. The best part is near the end of the meal when all the sauce has been absorbed by the breadcrumbs and your last few bites of chicken have the whole shebang together inside them.

     I did hit a snag with the sauce. The directions say that you're only supposed to cook the mixture down for 45 seconds, but after those 45 seconds my sauce hadn't achieved the strongly-scented brown thickness that I remembered from my father's piccata. I decided to cook it down for another five minutes but I had to add more of all the ingredients in the sauce so that I'd still have enough sauce after everything cooked down.

     Where have the green beans been this whole time you ask? Boiling in a pot that I had prepared at the beginning of the meal. After they boiled for around five minutes I took them out, and delegated the rest of their process to Ethan because I was busy with the sauce. He strained them, washed them in cold water, and cooked them in a pan with butter. As the sauce finished, we juiced half a lemon on top of them and moved the whole meal out to the living room to finally be consumed.

     This whole process made me realize just how much practice goes into perfecting just one recipe. My father must have cooked this dish multiple times before it attained the stature that motivated me to cook it myself. He passed a few tips down to me in the email he sent with the scanned page of “Dad's Own Cookbook”. They weren't anything incredibly secret or amazing, just a couple of recommendations for objects to pound the chicken with and a warning to not overheat the oil. There wasn't a secret spice I was supposed to throw in at an exact right time or a trick to breading the chicken that would make the recipe larger than life. The dish and my father's notes were perfect for “Dad's Own Cookbook;” not too difficult, down to earth, and unassuming.

     Despite the humble tradition behind it, the chicken was wonderful despite. There were some slight differences from what I was used too. My father either bought smaller breasts than I did or cut the ones he had in half, but our servings were gigantic. I'm not sure how, but the chicken was cooked perfectly through even though I wasn't watching them very carefully when I was dashing around the kitchen. The sauce was great too, very lemony. It really deepened my enjoyment of the chicken. The green beans' sweetness and crunch was a perfect compliment to the soft chicken and the tart lemon in the sauce and the beans. I couldn't get many specifics out of Ethan but he said that he really enjoyed the whole meal.

     The only problems we had were slight. The sauce could have been thicker and less lemony, the breasts could have been thinner or more manageable, and the chicken had cooled by the time we had finished cooking our green beans and sauce. Also, there was a lot of lemon in our meal. I'm totally fine with this and even enjoyed all the tartness, but I'm not sure how the whole meal would go over with someone who doesn't love lemon as much as I do.

     With the chicken safely in our bellies, we turned to the monumental task of doing the mountain of dishes that amassed during the frantic scramble to cook one of my favorite meals. My dad's notes written on the recipe page and the texture and appearance of the breaded chicken brought me back home again, at least for one night.