Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The True Cost of Food, OMS Part 1

Here’s a link to the first part in this series.  I know the follow up has been a long time coming.  The event kicked off with a screening of a cartoon called The True Cost of Food.  The main point was to show viewers that they cannot afford to eat the conventional way.  To me, it way oversimplified the situation.  However, what can you expect from a cartoon.  

My main point of contention is that it touts how cheap local and organic food is, and how farmers markets are affordable.  I have been to farmers markets’ and the produce is not always that affordable.  I get that it may be cheaper in the long run because medical costs would be lower, but how many people can control for that in the present? Especially, in these tumultuous economic times.  I know the issue is more complicated than that but I have issues with such blatant over-statements.

I intended on giving a play-by-play of the most important scenes, but I found the short film on youtube.  Here it is below, you really should check it out and form your own opinions.  It’s only 15 minutes.


Thursday, October 20, 2011

Turkish Delight

Nope, this isn't a  post about the Turkish sweets,but rather my favorite B&W photos I took while in Turkey.  Here is the first installment:






Monday, October 17, 2011

Red Velvet Cake Debate

On Friday, I attended the Red Velvet Cake Debate, which was hosted by Nichelle Stephens of Cupcakes Take The Cake.  I was apprehensive about attending, but boy am I glad I went.  The people were cool, the debate was lively*, there was sparkling wine, I couldn’t stop raving about it to my grandma, and did I mention there was sparkling wine.  Clearly, this event was destined for greatness.

For someone who has never had Red Velvet cake before that night, I certainly had a lot of opinions about how it should taste and what it should be made of.  (Gotta thank hours of watching the Food Network. )  In my mind, the perfect Red Velvet would be a reddish-brown, have cream cheese frosting, pecans, and have a chocolate-y taste.  Participants preferred a redder cake, no nuts, and not necessarily a cream cheese frosting.  Apparently, the original version had a cooked flour frosting.  Who knew there were so many opinions about one cake?

The two cupcakes I liked the best were from New York Sweetest and Billy's Bakery.  The NYS cake was made with butter and had a denser texture.  I’m pretty sure Billy's was made with oil, the cake was a little lighter.  Both I could taste the cocoa and had a distinct cream cheese flavor. Will be going to those bakeries to form my own taste test.  Should be delicious!

Inspired by this event, I think I’ll try my hand at a Red Velvet cake.  My version will have a combo of oil and butter as suggested by Shari Ledgister of LuxSugar.  I love the flavor of butter, but love the lighter texture of oil.  My cream cheese frosting will be on the tarter side, and there will be pecans on the top and the sides – hides a shoddy frosting job.

*Allison Robicelli stole the show with her outspoken ways.  She was the sole Red Velvet naysayer.  To me, she seemed like the female Alton Brown.  I loved hearing her talk about the scientific aspect of baking, not many bakers talk about that.

  

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Apologies

Ah, I've been neglecting this blog and I just started it.  Also, it seems like I've been mainly posting about food, when I promised I would write about my adventures in photography too.  Well, I haven't been taking pictures and exploring this hobby as I should.  I've gotten bogged down with working and sending out job apps.

Things will change this weekend when I hope to take pictures at a Step Show on Saturday.  I will be using my Holga and some color film.  Hopefully, I can capture all of the color and movements. Since this will be film, the photos won't be up immediately after the event.  If I don't make it to the show, I will go visit Occupy Wall Street and take pictures of the growing movement.

Non-food pics will be up soon!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Rice Pudding!

Prep time: 10 min Bake time: 20 min Equipment: 4-oz ramekin, toaster oven

·         ½ pat of butter
·         ¼ cup cooked rice*
·         1/8 cup milk
·         1/8 cup egg, beaten
·         2 tsp brown sugar
·         1/2 tsp nutmeg
·         ½ tsp cinnamon

1.  Butter ramekin, discard extra butter.
2. Combine all ingredients except the cinnamon in a bowl and stir.
3. Pour rice mixture into ramekin. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
4.  Bake in 350 degree toaster oven for 20 minutes or until set.

Happy Baking!

* I used leftover rice from Chinese takeout.  I find that this rice is softer and more conducive to desserts.

**Experiment with different flavor combinations, add fruit if you’d like.  I like rice pudding with raisins but we haven’t had raisins in a while.  Dried papaya sounds awesome in this, might try that tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Organics Made Simple, Intro


As an unemployed person, I became a semi-hermit.  At one point, I noticed I had not left my apartment in over a week.  No bueno.  Deciding that I had to get out of the house for fear of my brain turning to mush, I went to the library.  Why? It’s free, I could walk there, and I wanted to be more active.  Read: I didn’t want to spend $4.50 roundtrip to go twenty blocks. On my way out, I noticed some brightly colored flyers announcing organic food events at the library.  Not doing much with my life, I decided to check them out.  What else was I doing?

All that to get to main topic of this post, I tend to go on tangents so bear with me.  I went to the Organic Food Facts Made Simple with Gary Feldman event after work last Monday.  It was an interesting event with an eclectic crowd. There were nineteen of us in attendance, and many of us were frantically scribbling down notes. I heard some things that I already knew, those that I didn’t, and even a conspiracy theory or two.  At times, I felt that the speaker was bordering on the paternalistic.  But, if anything, he had passion.  He shocked this one woman so much that her eyes seemed to be permanently bugged out. If she had put her hands to her face, she would have looked like this.

His main point = Cancers and other maladies are linked to the herbicides and pesticides used in conventional agriculture.  Therefore, organic food will save your life.  Definitely a little over-simplistic, but that was the main gist of his lecture.

As my posts tend to veer on the long side, I’ve decided to turn my review of this event into a series of blog posts. 

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A Fish-Eye View of the Bronx Zoo

In August, I went to a workshop at the Lomography store on W 8th.  As a group, we’d borrow cameras and trek up to the Bronx Zoo and take pictures.  It wasn’t exactly the workshop I was expecting, in fact it wasn’t really a workshop at all. Everyone congregated in the main room to pick their cameras, and once everyone bought film and loaded their cameras, we were on our way. 

My camera of choice was a fisheye camera, which was the essence of a point and shoot. Very rudimentary but I’m pleased with how things turned out. A bit of the lens blocked the viewfinder, but after a while, I got used to it.   There wasn’t a way to focus, check lighting, or zoom, all of which were frustrating.  All I could do was hope for the best.  Most pictures came out; here are a few of the better ones:









Confession, I bought a roll of color and a roll of black and white that I used on that Wednesday.  If you noticed, there aren’t any B&W photographs. Why? Because I have too much hubris.  I  decided I was going to process the film myself, I booked a darkroom in a studio and everything.  I haven’t been in a darkroom in ages but was sure that I remembered all of the steps. 

Yeah, I didn’t.  I left the safe light on.  The film came out all black.  It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I was trying to show off to a friend who never did this before. 

What even made it worse was when the dude working there asked about our experience.  I wasn’t going to say a thing, all I wanted to do was pay and run out, keeping my shame to myself.  Of course, that didn’t happen.  The look on his face was a combo of amusement and disdain. I could’ve went through the floor. Won’t be going back there again. 

Lesson learned: leave film processing to the professionals.  

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Chocolate Walnut Bread Pudding + Irish Creme Whipped Cream Cheese

Prep time: 20 min Bake time: 25 min Serving size: 1 Equipment: Mini Bundt pan, toaster oven

·         1 cake donut, torn into pieces
·         ½ egg, beaten
·         1 tbsp cocoa powder
·         ½ tbsp brown sugar
·         1/3 cup milk, can be any type you wish
·         1 tbsp Irish Crème coffee creamer
·         1 tsp instant coffee granules
·         8 walnuts, chopped
·         1 pat of butter
Irish Crème Whipped Cream Cheese
·         2 tbsp cream cheese, softened
·         ½ tbsp Irish Crème coffee creamer


1.  In a small pot, heat the milk, coffee, creamer, cocoa, and sugar until the sugar dissolves. In the mean time, beat 1 egg and measure out half. 
 2. Once sugar dissolves, remove pot from heat and let cool.  While cooling, butter Bundt Pan.
3.  Sprinkle chopped walnuts in Bundt pan.  Layer donut pieces on top.  Alternate layers of walnuts and the donut until the pan is full.
4. Whisk egg into milk mixture.  Pour into Bundt pan, slowly so that there isn’t any overflow.
5.  Place pan into toaster oven.  Set the temperature to 350° and the timer to 25 minutes. 
6.  While the bread pudding is baking, whip together the cream cheese and the creamer.  Place in refrigerator to set up.
7. After the bread pudding cools, flip onto a saucer.  Dollop the cream cheese mixture into the center.
Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011


What is this?
This is a space for me to share my passion for food and photography with others.  There will be recipes, restaurant reviews, my take on events, and chronicles of my attempts at photography.

Why Lina’s Loves?
Honestly, I couldn’t think of a creative name that adequately described what I want to accomplish here and although a little too cutesy for my tastes, it’s fitting. Besides, alliteration is always a good thing.

 Lina Well, it’s my nickname. I must stress that only family and family friends call me this.  I remember when a girl who knew me through my grandparents called me Lina at the playground, and my elementary school friends told her that that wasn’t my name. Friends, gotta love them.  

Loves Have you ever taken a bite of something and your mouth came alive in the best of ways?  Has your body broken out into an involuntary dance because some morsel made your soul happy?  Yes, I have a food dance and yes, I trend toward the melodramatic.  However dramatic, those who know me know this to be true.  Does everything I eat evoke such emotion? Of course not, but when they do, I savor the moment.  In my opinion, meals should be more than just staving off hunger.  

Art class was always a painful experience for me.  I think I even dreaded it more than I did PE, especially the art show where your work was put up for the entire school and parents to see.  The work I produced never looked the way I wanted, and in my eyes always came up painfully short.  I decided that I hated art and nothing could convince me otherwise. Until… (ha-ha, it seems like stories such as this always include a change of heart). ..Photography with Ms. Webster! I immediately fell in love with taking pictures and the darkroom, where all the magic happened.  Ms. Webster is the reason why my love of all things B&W photography is 11 years strong.  I will always thank her for this.