Wave Thai

                                            

     Up my block and across one street there is a Thai restaurant named Wave Thai.  It is located in the center of the block, but since it has been zagot rated for the past four years allot of people know about it.  As you walk up to the restaurant there is floor to ceiling windows .  When you walk into the restaurant there is a faint red dimmed lighting.  There is a Buddha statue sitting on top of a water fountain that greets you as soon as you walk in.  The waitress asks how many? I tell her 3 for dinner, we were seated immediately.  My friends and I walk down the narrow aisle surrounded by wooden tables.    Along the benches of our table are red and blue satin pillows with oriental symbols and writing for you to sit on.  My friends and I order the tea, spring rolls, and curry puffs.  The appetizers all come four to a plate. The spring rolls are about four inches long and two inches wide filled with cabbage, carrots, and lettuce with a plum dipping sauce.  The curry puffs are three inches wide and round,  they are filled with potato mashed up with curry deep fried in a puff pastry shell, this comes with a cucumber dipping sauce.  They were delicious and just enough to keep you wanting more.
     For dinner I ordered Chicken Pad Thai and my two friends ordered Thai Peanut Princess.  The Chicken Pad Thai consists of sauteed rice noodles, bean curd, bean sprouts, scallions, pieces of egg, peanuts, and chicken.  It was absolutely delicious and very filling.  My friends were also very happy with there selection of Thai Peanut Princess, this consisted of steamed broccoli and chicken in a Thai peanut sauce.  It was nice to experience a different culture for a night, and eat food I wouldn't normally eat.  The bill came to about twenty dollars a person, which is a inexpensive night out in the city to embark on a food adventure into a different country.  We all left the restaurant feeling great, completely satisfied and cannot wait to go back.

Prospectus

     In today's food industry, companies handle allot of different produce at one time.  Because of this many different vegetables are being processed at the same time, using the same machines.  If any one of those vegetables happened to be contaminated by an outside source during harvest, that vegetable can bring that bacteria into the factory and transfer it to the other vegetables.  The contaminated vegetables will then be eaten by humans that will then digest it, making them sick.  Same goes for the animals, many of the animals that we eat are herbivores.  If a farmer puts contaminated vegetables into the animals feed, when they are then sent to the slaughter house and sold for consumption, the bacteria that is in the meat can then be transferred to the humans eating it.
    In my research I would like to find what food borne illnesses are out there?  How they can effect the food supply and human race?  and what can be done to prevent this from happening?  I hope to use first hand accounts of people who have suffered from an food-borne illness, how it has effected them or there life?  What areas these illnesses are most common in and why?  and How can these illnesses be transmitted and then cured? 
     What I will be using for my research is:
Balkin, Karen. Food-borne Illnesses. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2004. Print.
Also Internet sources, newspaper, and magazine articles all having to do with my topic of food-borne illnesses.

The Melting Pot

     One of my favorite things about growing up in a very diverse and multicultural neighborhood is that you have so much knowledge, about different cultures, right at your fingertips.  From the moment I leave my house I am surrounded by different culture.  Sitting right at the top of my bock is a row of many different restaurants from any background that you can imagine.  My home town has really developed into a melting pot of culture all stirred up brewing in one little area.
     I live in Astoria, Queens, a neighborhood full of diversity.  The neighborhood first started up mainly as an Irish and Italian neighborhood, with a bakery and a pub located on every corner.  The neighborhood then changed to many Greek restaurants, and the pubs that once thrived there changed to cafes with tables on the sidewalk where you can sit outside with your friends and drink a cup of coffee.  With time a lot of Brazilian, Spanish and Asian families began moving into the area, and with them came great restaurant opportunities for the growing neighborhood.  Now Astoria is known for some of the best restaurants in New York City.  I cannot walk a block in my neighborhood without passing a Thai, Mexican, Italian or Greek restaurant.  There is a restaurant to match your every mood and craving.
     For my project and for the next few weeks I will visit the many different cultural establishments in Astoria.  Every week I will eat from a different cultural restaurant, try the dishes that they are famous for and write a blog about what I learned from the restaurant about the culture, where the restaurant is located,  how the food tasted and what, if anything,  I would recommend.  I thought of this idea while walking around my neighborhood this weekend and realizing how closed off I am to trying new and different things.  I look forward to this project and reporting my findings to you every week.  Now lets eat!! 

Problem Posing Method chapter 3

     The Growing mistreatment of fast food employess has caused the workers to retaliate in a way that does not involve forming unions.  "About two thirds of the robberies at fast food restaurants involve current or former employees. The combination of low pay, high turnover, and ample cash in the restaurants often leads to crime." (Fast Food Nation, pg 84)  The constant disrespect that the employees recieve from their employers, the low pay, long hours, little to no benefits, no rewards for a job well done, and knowing how easily they will replace you, drives the workers to act out againt the company.  When the employees see how much money the restaurant takes in on a daily basis and how little shows up on their paychecks, they build   resentment and this resentment makes them want to steal back all the money they believe they have earned and deserve.
     Everyday people are faced with obstacles at there jobs.  When people do not like there jobs or feel that the are not treated fairly,  they begin to do things that they believe will hurt the company.  It can be stealing office supplies for use at home or making exspensive long distance phone calls on your work telephone.  These little petty practices are ways employees feel they are getting justice.
     The fast food indutries thought that they had come up with a great solution to there theft problems.  "The leading fast food chains have tried to reduce violent crime by spending millions on new security measures-video cameras, panic buttons, drop-safes, burglar alarms, additional lighting" (Fast Food Nation, pg 85)  By installing all these devices, people would be less likely to steal and  they are sure to catch more burgulars.   If the fast food chains just put all that money into their employees alot of thier theft problems would drastically stop.  Happy employees make for a happy workplace and everyone would be win.