Julie and Julia

While I typically am a fan of action movies, sports movies, and courtroom dramas, Julia and Julia was surprisingly enjoyable to watch.  Watching Julie go 365 days cooking through ALL of Julia Child's cookbook was inspiring.  Julie's passion was able to carry her through the frustration of balancing a job and the blog, mental breakdowns, and a big fight with her husband.  Apart from Meryl Streep's pretty irritating voice, the movie was good and the way that Julie used food and cooking to escape from her otherwise boring, repetitive life, is what made the movie as fun to watch as it was.

CAN A CHEF BE AN ARTIST?

            There exists a field called the Culinary Arts for a reason.  A chef can most certainly be an artist; not just visually, but conceptually as well.  Artists make creations that are enjoyed by other people.  Paintings are enjoyed by people that view them, films are enjoyed by people that watch them, music is enjoyed by people that listen to them, and food is enjoyed by people that eat it.  A chef is one of the most important kinds of artist actually when you think of it like that, at least for me and many other teenage boys that eat a lot.

            When preparing food, a chef must use creativity, something that is certainly a necessary characteristic of an artist.  They must be innovative in both the ingredients and the recipe, but also in the presentation of the food.  A good chef definitely needs to have artistic qualities in order to be successful.

TRANSFORMATION IN "BABETTE'S FEAST"

            The theme of transformation appears increasingly throughout the course of Babette’s Feast.  The people of Berlevaag are highly religious and they reject the concept of pleasure because of their fundamentalist Puritan-like ways.  They shun luxury and thus, have never really enjoyed the food that they ate, something which Babette values immensely.  Over the course of the meal that Babette prepares, we see a huge transformation in the way Martine and Phillipa look at food, and on the broader scale, life.  The feast leads to interaction among the guests and the well-cooked meal is overwhelmingly enjoyable.  The narrator of the story explains, "Usually in Berlevaag people did not speak much while they were eating.  But somehow this evening tongues were loosened” (page 56).  The transformation that Babette’s 10,000 franc feast brings about is that of realization; the realization that enjoyment is okay and should not be feared/avoided.  

Making a Kugel - An Axelbank Family Tradition

            For as long as I can remember, there has been a kugel present at every one of my family’s holiday gatherings, and it pops up at other random times throughout the year too (when my mom feels like making one).  The kugel’s place of origin is Eastern Europe but today it is mostly eaten in Israel and the US.  It is certainly a traditional Jewish dish that many families make (mine just makes it the best).  The recipe we use is that of my maternal grandmother, but we don’t put apples or raisins in it like she did.  In my family, my mom cooks it, and we are usually the ones to bring the kugel to all our family holiday gatherings.  Not only do I love the taste of kugel but I also have a strong association between kugel and my sense of both Judaism and family.  Kugel makes me think of my extended family and all the awesome times I’ve had with them.

Video of Me Making a Kugel

The recipe

The Axelbank Family Dining Habits

            As I am not usually inclined to make my own food, I am fortunate enough to have a mom that is an EXCELLENT cook.  She does most of the cooking in the Axelbank household but my dad and sister (when she is home) pitch in as well.  Other than breakfast, and when my dad has to eat an early dinner so he can get off to work, it is not usual to find somebody eating alone (except the cat).  But even recently, we’ve been experimenting with putting an extra chair at the dinner table and seating Moonshadow, our cat, up there; he usually stays for at least part of the meal!

            When my dad works evenings (Mondays and Thursdays) my mom and I eat together.  These are usually very simple dinners (omelets, tuna sandwiches, etc.).  My mom works Tuesday evenings, making for a nice father-son dinner, in which we usually capitalize on the absence of the family vegetarian (my mom) and grill burgers, or cook chicken, and just generally make as much meat as we can.  Every Wednesday we eat as a family and my mom usually makes something nicer than our average dinner (see below); my mom likes to make various ethnic foods sometimes for these dinners (for a Jewish mother, she makes a mean chicken tikka masala).  Friday night is Shabbat for us Jews and when we can, we have Shabbat dinner with the whole family around.  When we do get to have Shabbat dinner as a family, this is usually the biggest meal of the week with the most effort put into it.  These dinners can vary anywhere from Mexican lasagna, to homemade soup, home-baked bread, and a big salad bar, to ravioli, garlic bread and roasted veggies.

            My family has some of our best, most important conversations over dinner.  I’d say that 50% of the time, these conversations are politically oriented, and the other 50% are just typical conversations, relevant to our lives. 

            During the average week, my family eats approximately $150 dollars worth of food made/prepared in the house and $75-$100 worth of food from take-out/delivery or eating out.  I have broken the total price of home made/prepared food down into percentage of total price as follows:

Fruits and Vegetables – 40%

Wheat/Grain – 20%

Dairy – 10%

Meat – 10%

Snacks and Desserts – 10%

Beverages – 5%

Condiments – 5%

            As my mom, the main cook, is a vegetarian, and my dad will eat whatever my mom makes, the meat consumption is low; the 10% meat comes from times when my mom makes me chicken (she won’t have red meat in the house so when my dad and I grill burgers we have to do it outside).  All meat is kosher.  At every meal there is some form (usually forms) of vegetable, and the most common dessert is fruit.  As for wheat/grain, we go through probably a dozen bagels a week, a ton of cereal, and when my dad eats an early dinner before working nights, he almost always has pasta.  Our dairy consumption consists mostly of milk, butter, cheese, and yogurt.  On our designated snack shelf, we have a variety of cookies, chips, and most importantly Pop-Tarts.  We drink predominantly water but my mom often has seltzer.  We drink coffee and OJ in the morning and keep pomegranate and mango juice around too.  Our condiments consist of various sauces and spices that we use to accompany our meals.

             Not just food, but meals themselves play an important role in my family’s life.  We eat together as often as we can, and we use meals as opportunities to stay connected as a family.  My dad has said multiple times that he loves nothing more than when the whole family is home for dinner, especially on Shabbat.

The Axelbank kitchen

Typical dessert of fresh fruit

Wednesday night meal of Mexican style fajitas

The Madsens of Cap Hope, Greenland

            The Madsen Family consists of Emil Madsen, 40, Erika Madsen, 26 (not sure if that’s really true), Abraham, 12, Martin, 9, and Belissa, 6.  Residing in Cap Hope, Greenland, the family sticks to a traditional Greenlandic diet consisting of A LOT of meat, breads, pastas, various prepared foods, fruits and vegetables, and quite a bit of fruit drinks.

Grains and Other Starchy Foods à $34.07

Dairy à $4.87

Meat, Fish, and Eggs à $53.97

Fruits, Vegetables, and Nuts à $8.67

Condiments à $25.66

Snacks and Desserts à $54.25

Prepared Food à $35.66

Beverages à $36.40

Miscellaneous à $23.49

Total à $277.04 (1928.80 Danish Krone)

            The Madsen family consumed 60.8 pounds of meat in the May week in which they recorded their diet.  This would ordinarily be extremely expensive but because the Madsens hunted 47.4 pounds of that meat themselves (a $221.26 local value), the weekly meat price is manageable.  Their most eaten meats are ox, walrus, geese, and polar bears, all four of which fall under the hunted-themselves category.

            The Madsens spent the most amount of money per pound of food ($35.66/8.64 lb) on prepared foods (no surprise).  They used chicken bouillon, Cup o’ Noodles, spring rolls, sausage, and dried soup bases to supplement their home-cooked/prepared meals.  They had three full loaves of bread and 12 dinner rolls throughout the week and they all stuffed biscuits into their pockets for quick snacks throughout the days.  The family ate cold cereal in the morning, and had two types of both pasta and rice.  All this for $34.07

            As for fruits and vegetables, the Madsens didn’t appear to be fans.  The extent to which they had fruits and vegetables were canned oranges and “fruit cocktail,” yellow onions, and preserved mushrooms.  The family spent three times as much on Condiments as they did on fruits veggies.  They had multiple different sauces, both sweet and not, along with salt, pepper, sugar, and of course, narwhal oil.

            The family had many traditional American snacks such as Pringles, Ritz crackers, and Milky Way bars.  Interestingly, the family spent the most money out of all the category breakdowns on Snacks and Desserts ($54.25).  The Madsens’ only dairy products consisted of milk and butter.  They drank quite a bit of fruit-based drinks throughout the week (11 qt).  They also drank 40 teabags worth of tea and instant coffee.  The family spent some extra money on Prince cigarettes (three packs) to “compliment” their diet.

            Each family member has different favorites: Emil’s favorite food is polar bear, Erika’s is narwhal skin, Abraham and Belissa like traditional Greenlandic food and Martin loves Danish food.

For a full lineup of the Madsen family’s one-week diet see the pictures below.

The Madsen Family (from left to right, Emil, Erika, Martin, Belissa, and Abraham)

One's week worth of food eaten by the Madsen family