Coming Back

I promise, today, that I will be back. I've been looking at this blog all semester, daunted by a 5th class I took on as an "overload." (Why didn't I think that if the UNIVERSITY calls it an OVERLOAD, that somehow I wouldn't feel OVERLOAD-ED?)



Anywho, I've got some new ideas "proofing" (yes, that's a self-aggrandizing metaphor), related to gardening (I've got a teeny one!) and recipes in line with seasonal items available at the farmer's market. In fact, I think I'm going to move quite closer to the food aspect of this blog, at least for awhile, and insert whatever "Teachable Moments" I can find--whether business, communication, or life-skills. I'm constantly discovering and wanting to share, and quite frankly I think that's the whole impetus for teaching, right? Just looking to convey what we know and love to those who care to listen...

Marketing Tools - Restaurant Menus

I recently had the opportunity to redesign the entire set of menus for the Coronado Cafe, a restaurant near Downtown Phoenix. I love this place so much, I work here a few days a week. It's a great spot for dinner and cocktails, and the staff is amazingly fun and courteous.

Some of the revised design elements were an integrated lunch/dinner/brunch/drink layout; landscape orientation for a more appealing table-presentation; more modern/retro feel to go with the funky personality of the cafe itself.

I think the final product turned out quite nicely.

If you've got feedback, especially from a customer's point of view, please leave comments, as I'm always up for a critique toward a revision!

Food, Inc., Lesson Plans, & Special Offers

I had the opportunity this weekend to see the new film Food, Inc.

While I have to say the "cast" involves many of my favorite "major players" in the local, non-industrialized food movement, I can't say the movie was much more than, well, preaching to the choir.



The movie brings up this issue, that the viewers of the film are people who are worried about our food supply. The viewers are NOT like the limited-income family shown in the film, who buy from the McDonald's Dollar Menu since you can get a burger for the price of a pear or two. I'm afraid of my food. That's why I try to frequent the Phoenix Farmer's Market, actually telling my restaurant employer I don't want to work Saturdays so I can visit the market. (Not surprisingly, they continue to buy, oh, 99% of their offerings from distant, commercial, and thus industrialized sources. This is not uncommon, even among restaurants of the highest quality and price point.

I don't want to watch a movie with questions. I want one with answers. About as close as it got was the final, word based call-to-action about "what you can do to support this movement." The rest was more shots of sad animals in slaughter houses, contrasted with Joel Salatin's happy little pigs in rural Virginia. I grew up near rural Virginia. I saw "free-range cows" that my uncle raised. Also not surprisingly, he farmed tobacco, too, but now these fancy cows are worth more than the former cash crop.

I was very interested in this movie, though, as a possible teaching tool. I've really considered trying to put together a freshman composition course about food. Not as in, "I want to teach you about food writing," but as in "I want to teach your about food, and I want you to write about what you learn." I think that this film could be an interesting entree into some of the "key players" I discuss. I also think it can give the graphic imagery that, were I to show on slides, would look like proselytizing. Something about the fact that it's a mass media movie makes it so much more believable. Geez. (Yeah. That's what I'm up against in comp class!)



Assignment Idea #1

Pick a processed food you love. It can be from the grocery store or fast food chain. Just make sure you didn't make it, and that it came to you ready to eat (i.e., no heating necessary). Find the list of ingredients on the packaging or at the chain's website. Make a numbered list of these ingredients, in order of appearance. For each ingredient give a brief 100 word description of what the ingredient is, what it does, where it comes from, and additional information that shocks or delights you. After creating this "annotated ingredients list," write a short introduction (1st paragraph) that describes the product as you FIRST saw it as just a consumer (literally, an eater) and a short conclusion (last paragraph) that describes the produce as you NOW see it, based on what it's ACTUALLY made of as an "informed consumer" (what the label is SUPPOSED to communicate to you, but probably didn't, since you had to look up most of the ingredients). You will need to do outside research for this assignment for any terminology/ingredient that is unfamiliar to you.

Try this with your favorite guilty pleasure and get back to me. Anyone who posts a response, I'll trade you a handmade baked good of your choosing, made with ingredients you can recognize, many of which will be locally produced.

What's in a Name? - Note on the title of this blog

As a developing writer and poet, I was obsessed with metaphors. And etymologies. But most especially homophones.

Trying to name a blog is like trying to name a new puppy. What can I imagine saying out loud that won't make me gag in 2 years time. Or alternatively, what doesn't sound like a generic dog-name, or in this case, blog-name, but still works as a functional title.

I ran the gamut of boring titles and overly-syrupy metaphors. Why? Because I have a thing for threes. I built a collaborative arts project around the number three, and I realized my blog needs to cover three near-and-dear topics:

1) Composition
2) Marketing
3) Food

Now, pick any two (like a lunch-counter combo) and you're fine for titles. But "adding on" makes the title buffet get awfully picked-over, awfully fast. Food metaphors aside, I've spent a lot of time working over the title in my mind, like dough, and I finally turned to an old standby--the Wikipedia disambiguation pages--and stumbled upon what is the linguistic equivalent to a slap in the face: PROOF.

I teach students to do this, I've made a living fixing colleagues' errors on junk mail, and I've had a hankering to learn how to make a really good artisan loaf. Let's face it, my past, present, and future are all based on this little word. PROOF, to save you the lengthy definition, serves my blog in, let's see, three ways.

3) It's the process of leavening, it's the "rising" that makes bread a food of texture, not just taste.
2) It's the process of copyediting and of revision, it's half of the time you spend creating a written piece.
1) It's the process of establishing of the truth of anything, it's the demonstration that leads others to knowledge.

It's the PROOF, the action, that gives meaning and fullness to the SHAPE, the original form and the idea(l).