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(05/02/14 2:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington knows The Lotus Education and Arts Foundation for its annual music and arts festival in autumn, but Lotus is out to showcase more than just music.South of campus at nature reserve Deer Park Manor, patrons will be able to sample food and drinks from local restaurants, listen to live music and bid in a silent auction at the 15th annual Edible Lotus, the Lotus Foundation’s yearly benefit event tonight from 6 to 10 p.m.“The purpose of the event is to raise operating costs to provide financial support for Lotus and Lotus Blossoms Educational Outreach,” Lotus Development Director Kristin Varella said.Tickets for the event can be purchased ahead of time at all Bloomingfoods locations for $65 or at the door for $70. Guests must be 21 or older to attend.Once inside, guests are free to eat and drink as they please, where they can sample signature appetizers, beverages and desserts from more than 20 Bloomington restaurants and producers, such as Piccoli Dolci, Restaurant Tallent and the Irish Lion.Two purveyors, the Chocolate Moose and Bloomington Brewing Co., will have special stations where attendees can get ice cream and a signature beer, respectively. Bloomingfoods will also provide an extensive cheese and spread selection.Though many purveyors have been participating for years, the Lotus Foundation also seeks to involve newer locations to not only help raise more money, but also to help bring attention to growing restaurants.Rainbow Bakery, a vegan-friendly bakery that opened last fall, is one of these newer restaurants. Though it is not serving food at the event, it donated two $10 gift cards to be auctioned off.Matt Tobey, co-owner of the bakery, said Edible Lotus “seems like pretty good exposure for new businesses.”But the event has more than just food. Trio Birimbi, a band that performs Colombian and African music, will be performing from 6 to 7:45 p.m., and Lotus Artistic Director Lee Williams will be playing a selection of worldly music afterward. A silent auction will also go on during the event, where guests can bid on local art and gift cards donated from local businesses, such as Hoosier Heights rock climbing gym.For guests who want to use their hands for more than just eating, Lotus staff member and textile artist LuAnne Holladay will guide a station where guests can create a hand printed flag string from Lotus’s Power of Pattern.“Lotus supporters will probably be familiar with those blocks,” Varella said.Just as Lotus Festival shows off the diversity of music all around the world, Edible Lotus seeks to show diversity exists in Bloomington among chefs and restaurateurs. “There’s a diversity that Lotus is known for, like restaurants and music, and this is a celebration of what Lotus is all about,” Varella said. “It’s a really welcoming, free-flowing event to celebrate the diversity of what our foundation is all about.”
(02/07/14 5:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The orchestra laced together a soft melody that reverberated up to the stage, where Mang Ong, alone, called for his daughter.He turned his body and awaited Thi Kinh’s emergence through two panels of bamboo. The composer, various directors and photographers waited, too, at the first full dress rehearsal for “The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh,” the world’s first opera transcribed from a Vietnamese story.When Sarah Ballman, one of two IU doctoral students cast as title role Thi Kinh, weaved through the bamboo panels with her magenta, yellow and olive green dress flowing behind her and an opened fan to her face, composer P.Q. Phan said he saw magic.“When you have the right song, movement and light, it’s almost like you’re putting the two dimensions to the third dimension,” Phan said after her first appearance.But the opera won’t materialize completely for him until its world premiere tonight.With David Effron conducting, students from the Jacobs School of Music will condense hundreds of hours of work into a 115 minute-long piece tonight at the Musical Arts Center. Everyone from opera magazine editors to troupes will be there to see how “The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh” will add to IU Opera Theater’s 66-year-long history. Among the attendees will be Phan, sitting with his wife as he anticipates what he’s bringing into the world.“The moment I see people walk in and the curtain open, I’ll think, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is happening.’ Like when a baby is being born,” Phan said. “At the end, I’ll know if it’s a boy or a girl.”The OvertureWhen Wilfred C. Bain left Denton, Tex., for Bloomington in 1947, his main goal as the new dean of the IU School of Music — now the Jacobs School of Music — was to push opera to the school’s forefront. Bringing in conservatories, orchestras and opera houses from Europe and the United States, Bain spent 26 years garnering international acclaim to the opera program. With the installation of the MAC in 1972, IU Opera Theater served as the only fully-functional company within a 200-mile radius from Bloomington, attracting attention from around the region. Since the program’s inauguration in 1948, it has presented more than 20 world premieres, the last being Bernard Rands’s “Vincent” in 2011. Tonight, Phan’s “The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh” will claim that esteem.A pursuer of folktales and fantasy stories since the age of 5, Phan didn’t know he’d one day spend six years of his life bringing one of his favorite stories to life in America. Phan, 52, was born in Da Nang, Vietnam, where he grew up around hat chèo, a style of satirical musical theater that families perform during the off-season of farming to make extra money. One of the performances he loved was of the folktale “Quan Am Thi Kinh.” It tells the story of The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh, a young woman who endures multiple struggles before making an extreme decision that leads her to Nirvana. It wasn’t until he came to the U.S. in 1982 and started studying Western opera that he truly appreciated hat chèo. “The farther you go away, the more you want to look back where you originally came from,” Phan said. He had hesitated to translate “Quan Am The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh” for almost 30 years since the idea came to him, but in April 2008, he finally felt ready.Because of his emotional attachment to and knowledge of the folktale, Phan served as the librettist, even though composers often hire someone else to write the script. Waking up at 3 a.m., 15 days in a row, Phan translated the folktale and added original material to help it better suit an American audience.“When you love something so much in the original form, you have tremendous respect for it,” Phan said of “Quan Am Thi Kinh.” “I waited until I knew I wouldn’t put shame to the original version.”The end result was a 49-page libretto, a more than 300-page music score and a 115 minute-long opera, featuring five minutes of Vietnamese singing.He worked to preserve Vietnam’s hat chèo culture, but also adapt the piece to Western opera traditions, wanting the piece to be appreciated for its universal messages of love, compassion and selfishness—not because of its exoticism. “The story has a universal meaning,” Phan said. “The Vietnamese essence is only a bonus.”The ActsAfter IU approved the production in December 2011 and Phan made his final changes, he could relinquish the lead. But just as he was able to relax, the stage, costume, light and various other directors got to work.Both stage director Vince Liotta and conductor Effron had been to Vietnam before, and because of their admiration for the country’s culture, they were both enthusiastic about the opera from the start.But more than the opera’s story line, Effron said he was excited to work with something new. He has conducted more than 100 operas around the world, including a majority of the classic operas, and to him, the most exciting operas are those that have never before been done.“Conducting something new brings a sense of excitement because it’s a whole different experience,” Effron said. “There’s no tradition behind it.” Just as Effron will be the first conductor to lead the opera, Ballman will become the Western world’s first Thi Kinh.When Ballman emerged through the bamboo panels for the first time at the dress rehearsal, where Phan saw magic, Liotta saw a small error.“Let’s do that again,” Liotta called out in the middle of Ballman’s aria. “Let’s not get lost back there.”She turned around and passed back through the panels to redo the scene, familiar with the drill.Ballman, a mezzo-soprano, received her bachelor of music in voice from South Dakota State University, completed her masters in music and voice at IU and is currently working toward a Ph.D. She has played parts in more than 10 operas and performed a small part in a small-scale world premiere of a children’s opera, but tonight will be her first major premiere.When she got the role in September 2013, she said she was excited at first. But once she started looking into the music, she realized it was very different from that in Western operas. She said she realized the score would be “the most difficult music to learn in her entire life,” especially because the opera has never been done before.“Its daunting to be the first because I don’t have anything from the past to go on,” Ballman said. “You don’t have something solid to grasp on — it’s kinda your own baby. With nine other cast members, four “friends,” 37 choral members and 60 students in IU’s Philharmonic Orchestra, Ballman is among a large group of music students working together on what will be many of their first world premieres.Though IU opera directors today have many talented students from whom to choose, it hasn’t always been this way.When Bain found himself lacking musicians for his first opera production, Jacques Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffman,” in 1948, he commissioned his wife to seek orchestra members and choristers from the local A&P supermarket. During the first few years of the program, it wasn’t uncommon for faculty to play roles.Much has changed in the past 66 years. Ballman is one of 190 students pursuing a degree in voice in the Jacobs School of Music, a school that has sent 35 alumni to the roster of what is considered the most prestigious opera house, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.The most any other institution around the world has sent is about 25.Though Ballman has been singing since her dad started giving her voice lessons at a young age, she said she still gets the jitters before performances. But when the curtain rises tonight, she said she knows she’ll be ready.“I’m not going to lie — I’m freaking out about it,” Ballman said a week before the performance. “I’m not ready right now for the curtain to go up, but I know by Friday, I’ll be fine.”The FinaleAt the end of the dress rehearsal, after all 51 cast members laced together a gentle harmony of “Nam Mo A Di Da Phat,” a Vietnamese phrase that roughly translates to “Halleluljah,” Phan stood up.The performers hesitated with uncertainty as to what to do, some bowing and others exiting the stage, but Phan stood still, the only one in a room full of about 50 people, giving his cast a standing ovation.He didn’t sit down until well into the encore.When students, locals and opera critics funnel into the MAC tonight, Phan said he’ll be watching them through the doors — he doesn’t think anything about the experience will feel real to him until then. But he said he feels ecstatic now, and because of his love of the music and story, he thinks he’ll feel equally incredible on opening night.As for what he hopes audience members feel after the event, he said he isn’t asking for a lot — he thinks expecting the audience to admire his work is too much.“I don’t think it’s my job to write an opera to impress people,” Phan said. “I want people to find one character they can root for and to remember one tune. That’s what makes a piece live forever.”Follow reporter Amanda Arnold on Twitter @aMandolinz.
(01/22/14 5:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It starts with the right cut of beef brisket, not eye of round.That’s the first step to making good corned beef said Matt O’Neill, the chef and owner at Bloomington’s Runcible Spoon. The restaurant’s corned beef hash, a traditional English dish served with eggs, is one of its most popular dishes, as well as the one Esquire magazine referenced when it named the Runcible Spoon among the 50 “Best Breakfast Places in America.”But more than its hash or house-roasted coffee, it’s the restaurant’s eccentric customers and warm atmosphere that has made it an iconic Bloomington restaurant for almost 40 years, O’Neill said.“The restaurant has a sense of place — it’s allowed its surroundings to define it,” O’Neill said. “If I opened another restaurant somewhere else, it wouldn’t be another Runcible Spoon.”In a small residential building on East Sixth Street, Jeff Danielson opened the Runcible Spoon in 1976. Serving mostly breakfast and house-roasted coffee, he charmed students and locals alike — one of those being O’Neill.Born in Dublin, O’Neill moved to the United States in 1973 to work as a chef, starting at the Signature Room at the 95th in Chicago. He later transferred to La Tour in Indianapolis, where he worked with Wolfgang Puck, and then the Walden Inn in Greencastle, Ind.After working at the Inn for about 15 years, O’Neill moved to Bloomington with his wife, Regen, with the intention of retiring. But because of Danielson’s persuasion and the Spoon’s “soul and eccentricities,” the O’Neills walked into the restaurant on Dec. 15, 2001, not as customers, but as owners.Today, the restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as house-roasted coffee and loose-leaf tea from local vendors. The only dining room was originally situated in the basement but, since taking ownership, the O’Neills have opened three dining rooms and a deck upstairs.Wooden shelves hold worn-leathered encyclopedias, and whimsical paper collages and paintings by local artists adorn the walls in the rooms upstairs. Over the stairs to the basement hangs a weathered wooden sign with a painted carving of a nuzzling owl and cat, the two characters from Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat.”The poem reads, “They dined on mince, and slices of quince/ which they ate with a runcible spoon,” which Danielson used as inspiration when naming and decorating his restaurant. The owl and cat adorn the coffee bags the restaurant sells, as well as some of the wooden dining tables.Jasmine Bechlem, a returning IU student, has brewed those very bags of coffee and set up those tables at the Runcible Spoon for four years. She worked at the restaurant for two years before leaving Bloomington to enter the workplace, and when she decided to return to Bloomington to continue her studies, she also knew she wanted to return to the Spoon.“As employees, we’re allowed to also be people and have conversations with customers,” Bechlem said, comparing the restaurant to others at which she’s worked. “It’s good to be able to go to work and see familiar faces and ask them what’s going on with the project they’re working on.”She said she’s become close with many customers over the years, as the restaurant draws everyone from IU freshmen to regulars who have been coming in every day for 40 years.Among the familiar faces is retired IU professor Dave Jones.Jones has been frequenting the Runcible Spoon two to three days a week, every week since it opened in 1976. As a graduate student, he walked in at 8 a.m. everyday and sat at his favorite table, where he wrote his dissertation.In the forward to his dissertation is an acknowledgment to the Runcible Spoon.Today, he didn’t sit at his favorite table, though he can see it across the room, and he ordered ravioli — a break from his favorite Bonne Femme Omelet, stuffed with bacon, onion and potato. His day at the restaurant is unlike those he spent as a graduate student, but Jones said the O’Neills have maintained the same warm environment with which he fell in love as a young adult.“Very interesting, hardworking people have turned this into a special place,” Jones said. “It’s exactly the kind of place that really belongs on the edge of a fine university.”Though new customers, unaware of the restaurant’s history, may simply come for the famous corned beef hash, O’Neill said he hopes new faces leave with sentiments similar to those of his employees, regulars and himself.“I want people to leave thinking, ‘that was a nice time,’” he said. “The best compliment I could get is a couple saying, ‘we met at your restaurant.’”Follow reporter Amanda Arnold on Twitter @aMandolinz
(12/10/13 3:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Four months ago, I wrote my first article as the food columnist, leaving you with a request — that you bear with me as I attempt to prove food is more than sustenance.I hope I caught your attention with my writing.If not, I hope you enjoyed the picture of the burrito I published with it.Though I went into the semester with that goal, I didn’t know the extent of how pervasive food is with every aspect of life.Food is what you eat, as we all obviously know, considering it’s one factor in simply keeping yourself alive.However, when you look closely at the food someone eats, you can learn about tradition, culture and social justice. I don’t know if I succeeded in achieving my main goal, but if not, I had the enjoyable opportunity to publish articles about how certain traditional meals help people remember their past and how rappers are putting out cookbooks.Though I’m sad to leave my position as this semester comes to a close, I’m excited to give the position to someone else that can discover more about themselves as they navigate how to connect food and writing.Plus, holiday season is upon us, and as soon as I’m finished with final papers and I’m back home, I’m baking countless pies.While I’ve watched the quality of the food I consume deteriorate as this semester has progressed and I’ve gotten busier, I hope what I’ve written about since the start has remained as appealing as the picture of the perfectly rolled burrito I published with my first column.Keep eating, keep reading and keep cooking, readers. — acarnold@indiana.eduFollow columnist Amanda Arnold on Twitter @aMandolinz.
(12/03/13 5:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Janette Fishell, chair of the organ department at the Jacobs School of Music, will play the last concert in her organ concert series at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 9 in Alumni Hall, the school announced Tuesday.The concert will be free and open to the public. Fishell is a graduate of IU and Northwestern University, and she has had performances around the world, including Tokyo, Cambridge, Berlin and Budapest.In 2008, she was appointed as a professor and chair of the organ department at IU.Fishell started this concert series, “Series of Sebastian,” in October 2010. The series features 21 concerts, with the concert Dec. 9 being her 21st.Together, the concerts present all of J. S. Bach’s solo organ work.Past concerts have also been free, and they have been performed in multiple Bloomington churches and University buildings.Fishell will perform this concert on the new organ in Alumni Hall, and the piece is built around William Shakespeare’s “Seasons of Man.”However, Fishell linked the theme of the piece back to her personal life and the first concert she performed during the series.“The 21st — and final — recital in the ‘Seasons of Sebastian’ cycle is titled ‘My End is My Beginning,’ and, when I think about it, that title is very prescient since I am both looking forward to the completion of this project and realize that it really is just a portal leading to further explorations of this great body of repertoire,” Fishell said in a press release.— Amanda Arnold
(12/02/13 4:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>We’re finally in that cold, gift-giving, fireplace-burning stretch of the year — the time better known as the holiday season.More than any other time of the year, these weeks are associated with the overconsumption of rich foods, which I enjoy.But it’s not simply the season of food — it’s the season of baked goods.Bourbon pecan pies with flaky butter crusts, delicate Christmas tree-shaped cutout cookies and sufganiyot and jelly-filled donuts eaten during Hanukkah have come to occupy permanent places on kitchen counters from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve. As a girl with a mighty sweet tooth, I don’t mind these dishes taking up a little of the counter space that I’d normally use to cook.But as much as I love making desserts, for there’s nothing I enjoy more than surprising someone with a plate of cookies or a loaf of gingerbread, I’ll be the first to admit baking doesn’t come naturally to me.This summer, I worked at a Japanese-French bakery in the heart of my neighborhood in San Francisco, where I learned the skills one must have to be an effective baker. I applied for the job, thinking I’d catch on quickly since I’ve always loved to cook, but I soon found myself in a room where I didn’t understand the language spoken.Eggs had to be tempered, cold butter had to be cut into flour and pasty cream had to be emulsified. Flour was listed in pounds and ounces, not cups. Worst of all, there was no eyeballing ingredients. Everything had to be weighed.Though professional baking can get somewhat of an effeminate reputation in comparison to professional cooking, there’s nothing unmanly about perfectly kneading dough.From the reactions between baking soda and acids, to mixing together ingredients at a certain temperature to emulsify liquids, baking isn’t something everyone can do effectively.It’s more than just cooking. It’s science.Though I’ve finally perfected the technique of cutting cold butter into dry ingredients for scones, pie crusts and croissants, I’ve still got a long way to go.I can make a good pie crust, but don’t expect that crust to be fluted or latticed.So next time you cut yourself a piece of homemade pumpkin pie, before you gorge yourself, thank whoever made it.There are few people in this world who have magical, all-butter pie crust-making hands, and it’s time they get some recognition.— acarnold@indiana.eduFollow columnist Amanda Arnold on Twitter @Amanda_Arnold14.
(12/02/13 12:51am)
One day when I was studying abroad, other students and I got the opportunity to go into the basement of a patisserie down the street from the study abroad center. We watched a man make pain aux raisins, which is a croissant dough with folded in almond cream and raisins.
(12/02/13 12:51am)
I took a macaron-making class when I studied abroad in Paris. Macarons are one of the hardest baked goods to make, as everything has to be mixed together at specific temperatures to achieve a light, crunchy exterior and chewy interior.
(11/22/13 2:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Michael Nesmith, a former band member of the Monkees, will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.The event, “An Evening with Michael Nesmith,” is sponsored by Indianapolis-based concert promoter MOKB Presents.Though Nesmith originally found fame in the 1960s as one of the four founding members of the Monkees, he has remained popular through his extensive solo work.Over the years, he has released more than 15 solo albums, his most recent being “Rays,” which he released in 2006.Along with performing, Nesmith has also dabbled in writing, producing and acting.In 1980, he even helped launch the television channel MTV.Tickets for the event can be purchased online, by phone or in person at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater Box Office.Prices for tickets range from $40 for upper balcony to $65 for pit.— Amanda Arnold
(11/22/13 2:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU Cinema will screen three films in honor of Howard Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael’s 114th birthday Nov. 22-24.Carmichael was an actor and a songwriter, but before he launched his career, he was an IU student.He was born and raised in Bloomington, and he is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.Starting off the film celebration is “Hoagy,” a documentary about Carmichael by Peter Davis. Davis will deliver a Jorgensen Guest Film Lecture at 3 p.m. Nov. 22 at the cinema, and the film will screen at 7 p.m.The two other films, “The Best Years of Our Lives” and “Topper,” feature Carmichael’s acting. They will screen at the cinema Nov. 23 and Nov. 24 respectively, and both films will start at 3 p.m.All screenings are free but ticketed, and tickets may be picked up at the IU Auditorium Box Office, one hour before screening at the cinema, or by phone at 812-855-1103 with a $10 service fee.— Amanda Arnold
(11/22/13 2:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Belly dancers will shimmy and swivel their hips to live music at 8 p.m. Nov. 23 at the Player’s Pub for Hatije Hafla, an annual benefit event that raises money for Middle Way House.The event is free, but attendees are encouraged to donate money at the door, as all funds will go toward Middle Way House, Bloomington’s domestic violence and rape crisis shelter.Eight years ago, when Bloomington resident Peggy Squires was planning her birthday celebration, she decided she wanted the event to support the shelter.As a psychotherapist, Squires was aware of the damage domestic violence causes victims.She wanted to dance with friends on her birthday, but she also wanted to support a good cause.After almost 70 people came out the first year, Squires knew it was an event she wanted to become annual.“It was such fun, we’ve been doing it ever since,” she said.This year’s “hafla,” which is the Arabic word referring to belly dance parties, will feature dance performances from local dancers Angela AuBuchon, Donna Barbrick Carlton, Dark Side Tribal, Katie Derloshon, Ashley Donaldson, Eiko, Eszter Edl, Indy Tribal, Stacie Michele Jones, Margaret Radke, Laura McCain Reed and Carmela Senior.But dance wouldn’t be anything without music.Five members of Salaam, a band that specializes in Middle Eastern and North African music, play for the performers and audience members who join in on the dance floor.Squires first heard Salaam during one of its performances at Borders bookstore in the 1990s. “Having lived in both India and Turkey, I was interested in world music,” Squires said. “I’ve been a fan of Salaam’s ever since.”Today, Dena El Saffar, the founder of Salaam, helps Squires organize Hatije Hafla.“I feel really proud of what we’ve done over the years,” Saffar said.Though Squires said attendance was down last year, she said she thinks the event is one worth people’s time.“People can see some exquisite dancing to fascinating music while supporting a good cause,” Squires said.Follow reporter Amanda Arnold on Twitter@aMandolinz.
(11/19/13 4:52am)
Food columnist Amanda Arnold made pumpkin shaped rolls for Thanksgiving last year, but she plans on trying out a new roll recipe this year.
(11/19/13 4:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Once a year, in-laws come together and college students venture home to gather with family for Thanksgiving.It’s a holiday centered on food that requires no teeth to eat, foreseeable fights between distant relatives and a fabricated story about pilgrims and Indians peacefully gathering for dinner.More than that, Thanksgiving is focused on America’s attempt to preserve what we see as a custom through traditional foods that have a long, untraceable connection to the holiday.But the oxymoron is that tradition, which is defined as the passing down of culture from generation to generation, is inevitably invented. This disjoints our belief that we’re celebrating Thanksgiving as it has always been done.We often think of Thanksgiving dishes — turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole — as holiday traditions that have been celebrated for ages, but I’m fairly certain pilgrims in colonial America didn’t feast on your grandmother’s green bean casserole.And though Thanksgiving dishes can be traditional to your family, either from your mom using different ingredient brands or leaving the pie in the oven too long, the dish will inevitably be different every year.When your great grandmother passes down a recipe to you grandmother, the two women will not prepare identical dishes, even if the recipe stays the same.Therefore, tradition has less to do with physical objects.Instead, it has to do with the act of remembering a part of your past and making it relevant to your present life.It just so happens food has this miraculous way of making you feel as if you’re doing that.Last weekend, I went to an up-and-coming holiday, “Friendsgiving,” or a gathering in which friends prematurely celebrate Thanksgiving with copious amounts of “traditional” foods.Though I ended up toward the end of the line, sadly encountering many empty dishes by the time I reached the food, I was able to try more than my fair share of my friends’ interpretations of Thanksgiving dishes.Between multiple variations of cornbread and green bean casserole that guests said they had prepared using a family recipe, I was able to taste a little bit of dishes fulfilling their desire to preserve a part of the past.To me, regardless of how much I liked it, it was still just food.But to the one who made it — if it had a personal tie to his or her life — it was a small representation of his or her past.This year, as I attempt to cook the majority of my family’s dinner, I’m bringing new dishes to the lineup for the sake of trying something new and maybe inventing new traditional dishes for my family’s dinner.But I only offered to cook half of the dishes on one condition: that my mom makes her sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and walnuts.I’m okay with breaking the occasional tradition, but there’s still a 10-year-old girl in me that needs her mom’s sweet potatoes.— acarnold@indiana.eduFollow food columnist Amanda Arnold on Twitter @aMandolinz.
(11/12/13 3:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Time magazine published an article in its Nov. 18 issue about the “Gods of Food” with chefs David Chang, René Redzepi and Alex Atala on the front cover.The article went on to list the 13 modern gods of the food world, including restaurant owners and sustainability leaders. However, one subgroup was noticeably absent.Female chefs.“It’s still a boys club,” Time editor Howard Chua-Eoan said in an interview with Eater, a national restaurant, bar and nightlife blog.The list of gods included four women, such as environmental activist Vandana Shiva and U.N. World Food Programme leader Ertharin Cousin, but no female chefs were apparently worthy of goddess status.Alice Waters, owner of world-renowned restaurant Chez Panisse, vice president of Slow Food International and spokeswoman for healthy lunches in schools, is widely considered to be one of the most influential women chefs in the entire world.However, she didn’t make the list.Chua-Eoan said the reason behind this was because the number of influential chefs who gained fame after working at her restaurant was “sort of thin.”Stephanie Izard, chef at the Chicago restaurant Girl & the Goat, won the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes this year, but she failed to be mentioned in Time as well.I agree with one statement Chua-Eoan made in his Eater interview — that female chefs shouldn’t be included on such lists solely because of their sex.But if I could sit down with Mr. Chua-Eoan, I’d like to enlighten him with how many female chefs are changing the modern food world, and how they should’ve been named among the food gods.As much as I admire top chefs Atala, Redzepi and Chang, especially after having the opportunity to attend an inspirational lecture and meet Chang this summer, I don’t think their success necessarily outdoes that of Waters, Izard or the other female chefs changing the way consumers eat.I’ll give Chua-Eoan the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s not well-informed of the food world. I’ll assume he’s just an editor trying to push out content readers want to read.But if there’s one thing Chua-Eoan has learned from all the backlash about his article, I hope it’s that kitchen staffs are no longer “boys clubs.”James Brown said it best. This world “wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.”— acarnold@indiana.eduFollow columnist Amanda Arnold on Twitter @Amanda_Arnold14.
(11/11/13 1:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Black Film Center/Archive will present a conference regarding early black films Nov. 15 at the IU Cinema.At the conference, the Regeneration in Digital Contexts: Early Black Film conference, attendees will be able to learn about and discuss the preservation of these films.According to an IU Newsroom press release, only a small percentage of the films made before 1950 for black audiences still exist. Many of the existing films are only in fragments.Shola Lynch, filmmaker and curator of the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, will give the keynote speech.Along with the conference, the IU Cinema will show two Library of Congress restorations of black-cast silent films, accompanied with live pianist Philip Carli on Nov. 15 and 16.— Amanda Arnold
(11/05/13 3:39am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Roy Choi is a 43-year-old Korean American who was raised in Koreatown in Los Angeles. His forearms are heavily tattooed, he openly speaks about the debauchery of his 20s and looking at him, you wouldn’t think he’s a polished chef.But he uses his past to drive his pursuit to change how America treats food.“In the ghettos of America, we feed our children corrosive, chemical waste,” Choi said at the food event MAD Symposium. “As chefs, how do you feel about that? I’ve made my decisions, but I’m just one dude.”In 2008, Choi launched the Korean taco truck Kogi BBQ, which marked the beginning of America’s food-truck craze.He gave the masses short rib tacos with caramelized Korean barbecue sauce, cilantro-lime relish, and chili-soy vinaigrette between homemade corn tortillas for a mere $2 each.This summer, he opened 3 Worlds Cafe with students at Jefferson High School as a way to teach them about healthy foods.The cafe serves fresh fruit smoothies and other healthy options in an area where such options weren’t always available. And today, Choi releases “L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food,” his memoir that pays homage to L.A., from his parent’s Korean restaurant to casinos were gamblers get giant bowls of Vietnamese pho.In a time where the USDA estimates more than 13.5 million low-income U.S. citizens live in food deserts, areas defined by their lack of healthy, affordable food, it’s time we ask ourselves why we make inventive, fresh foods solely available to an elite crowd.Beyond the bad-boy image is a chef who’s working to change this.But like he says, he’s “just one dude” and can’t do it alone.— acarnold@indiana.eduFollow arts editor Amanda Arnold on Twitter @aMandolinz.
(10/29/13 2:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Ja Rule proved in 2001 he was “Livin’ It Up” in “Pain Is Love,” the album that simultaneously dismayed my parents and captured my elementary-school-aged heart.Since then, he fell off the radar for me, except for when I’d reminisce and put “Always On Time” on a party playlist.But Ja Rule has been in the news lately and has once again captured my interest — not for his music, but for his supposed new project — a microwave cookbook.At first I wondered whether Ashanti would feature in any of the recipes. Upon further research, it appears this cookbook may simply be a joke. But during this research, I stumbled across links to other rappers’ cookbooks, because apparently, this is à la mode these days.Rappers are freestyling more than just lyrics.This September, 2 Chainz released a 30-page digital cookbook with “B.O.A.T.S. II: Me Time” that features "fancy" dishes, like pan-seared sea bass with heirloom tomato salsa.Aside from the “Me Time sauce” recipe, which includes instructions to “Go to the mall, spend a handful of racks on a new outfit for the night,” I was impressed with this book of his supposed on-tour meals.I can’t imagine he or any rapper normally eats like this while on tour, but maybe he really is different like he says.But 2 Chainz didn’t start this trend.In 2009, Coolio introduced the world to “ghetto gourmet” cuisine, which features delicacies like Chicken Lettuce Blunts (lettuce wraps).Personally, I’m waiting for Action Bronson to dish out some recipes, because if all his cooking is as good as the lamb burgers he made for his VICE video, he’d please my palate.I view these cookbooks more as a funny trend than books with real panache, but it’s one I hope will continue for my personal entertainment. Kanye West, I’m looking at you — I know the Association of French Bakers says one must be patient to enjoy a flaky, buttery croissant, but if you’re really Yeezus, hurry up and come up with a fast croissant recipe.— acarnold@indiana.eduFollow columnist Amanda Arnold on Twitter @aMandolinz.
(10/22/13 3:12am)
If you're carving a pumpkin this fall, don't be so quick to throw away the seeds. Amanda suggests oven-roasting them with salt and olive oil for a quick, healthy snack.
(10/22/13 2:24am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Art Museum is welcoming a collection of puppets from Java that will be on display on the second floor of the Museum in the Gallery of the Art of Asia and the Ancient Western World.Today is the first day the collection will be on display, and it will remain open to the public through Dec. 2013.The exhibit is presented in conjunction with “Stories With Shadowy Figures,” a puppet show that will occur Sunday, Oct. 27, from 2-4 p.m., in the Thomas T. Solley Atrium in the Art Museum.Assistant professor of theatre and shadow puppet performer Jennifer Goodlander will present a Balinese shadow puppet performance and an art-making activity inspired by the Indonesian puppets in the gallery. Goodlander’s dissertation, with funding from a Fullbright Fellowship took her to Indonesia, where she studied women and the performing arts in Bali.She ended up focusing on wayang kulit, which is more commonly known as shadow puppetry.Currently, Goodlander is reworking her dissertation into a book that is tentatively called “Women in the Shadows: Gender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali.”In her dissertation and tentative novel, Goodlander argues that puppetry and gender are linked. Goodlander’s demonstration and performance Sunday is free and open to the public, and all materials for art-making activities will be provided.Light refreshments will also be available.— Amanda Arnold
(10/22/13 2:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Roasted beets are delicious with sweet vinaigrette, walnuts, arugula and goat cheese.To prepare such a salad, cut off the leaves and roast the beets in the oven until the skins are tender enough to peel off easily with your fingers.But don’t be so quick to throw away the beet leaves you removed earlier — they’ll make a lovely salad.According to a study by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, consumers worldwide waste 1.3 billion tons of food every year.It’s time we start appreciating all the parts of foods we’ve previously assumed to be nothing more than scraps.One third of the global supply of food produced goes to waste, and this behavior is the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.To bring down these statistics, start at the top with vegetable leaves. Going back to beets, their greens can be treated like any dark leafy green such as kale or chard. Sauté them with turnip greens, another oft-discarded leaf, in olive oil with garlic or lemon juice.Eating an orange or using fresh lemon or lime juice in a drink?If you grate the peel for zest, which can be frozen, you’ll save yourself time and money in the future when you’re baking muffins and lemon zest unexpectedly shows up in the recipe.Now move your way down and look at the bottoms of foods. Though shiitake mushroom stems and the woody ends of asparagus are probably more at home in your compost bin than on your dinner plate, these ingredients can be slow-cooked to make a homemade vegetable stock.If you can’t motivate yourself to get behind the fight against food waste because you’re among the “one person can’t change the world” believers, do it with the thought that you can save yourself money by utilizing foods to their full potentials.Remember, some of the $750 billion lost every year from food waste is coming from your wallet.— acarnold@indiana.eduFollow food columnist Amanda Arnold on Twitter @Amanda_Arnold14.