Revisiting the Block of Noodles

College culinary life is notoriously boring. Us students are pegged ramen-scarfing kitchen degenerates. Though some undergraduates may refute this often unfair claim, I wear the stereotype with honor. I love those blocks of dried noodles that make some cringe.

Those orange bags and their contents have become as infamous in our culture as my peers’ nutritional habits. But let’s take another look at the block: With ten cents and the time it takes to boil two cups of water plus three minutes, you have a big bowl of noodles, a canvas on which to build your gastronomic sculpture. I’ll add my own mix of spices in with that ambiguous, salty yellow powder.  Or spinach, celery, cilantro, scallions, chopped onions, corn. Really, people add whatever it takes to make this cheap slop of noodles feel like a full meal. These add-ins are the chromed out spinning rims on my rusted Buick of a banquet. 

In fact, “ramen” doesn’t refer specifically to its manifestation as a bagged, tangled hunk. It’s actually a style of Japanese noodle made from wheat, water, salt, and an alkaline powder called kansui which gives the noodles their color and firmness. People serve the noodles in a fish broth seasoned with soy sauce and soy paste called miso and topped with any number of goods: pork, sea weed, scallions, onions, sometimes even corn. Hmm, sounds familiar. It’s not just food for the over-studied masses. Maybe ramen deserves a little more respect than we afford it.

The Multicultural Progressive

Telling you that I love free food seems as pointless as telling you I love puppies. Of course I do! What student doesn’t? However, it takes a certain suspension of shame to take advantage of free food the way Neva and I do. The mention of a freegan opportunity wrests our eye lids wide open with the same wonder-eyed look that came across my face when I first gazed upon Splash Mountain after getting my picture taken with Goofy.

So when we heard about the Ryle Hall multicultural progressive dinner held this past Sunday, our eyeballs almost fell out of their sockets. The event, put on by Ryle’s Residence Life team, consisted of Asian, Pan-African, and Latin American cuisine, all provided (for free!) along with short cultural presentations and performances. We followed our guide to different lounges in this residence building, where we piled our plates high and suffered through the often underdeveloped presentations.

The Asian station came first. We ate beef dumplings and crab Rangoon, both catered by an American-Chinese restaurant and home-made fried rice. The portion sizes were good, given that we still had two more plates of food awaiting us. “Chinese food is actually nothing like what you have on your plates,” the presenter began. I turned to Neva and chuckled. She leaned in and whispered, “Why don’t they just serve us authentic food.” I smiled, “Because they’re lazy, Neva!” We half-listened to the short presentation on Asian (well, mostly Chinese) culture and continued on to the next station, eager for a second plate-full.

At the Pan-African stop, we experienced home-made African dishes, several of which we had seen earlier at the African Student’s Association cultural show, Sights and Sounds. I filled my plate with scrumptiously spiced grilled chicken drum sticks, tender, moist beef medallions served in a thick, stew-like sauce, and sweet fried plantains. The ASA students then put on a shortened version of a Sights and Sounds sketch as we giddily broke into our second plate of freegan fare.

In our final stop, the Latin American students disappointed us with food catered by a mediocre Tex-Mex joint in town. Not surprisingly, most of the food had been gobbled away by the earlier two groups that had passed through this station. I resorted to make-shift nachos with chips, salsa cold refried beans and guacamole composed solely of avocado, sour cream and salt.

Besides the Pan-African fare, the food in this progressive dinner left much to be desired. However, it was free! And we came out of the event uncomfortably full. In my eyes, that’s the sign of a successful free meal.

The Secret to Quesadillas

Quesadillas are simple. Top Ramen simple. In its most essential form, it’s cheese folded into a tortilla and then melted. Sure, we can get fancy with meets and sauces. Don’t go too crazy with the toppings or you’ll ruin the entire thing! You want tomatoes? You want onions? You want cilantro, a squirt of lime and loads of meaty delight? That’s a Taco, you’ve overshot the goal. Bring it back a little.

Taco bell charges $3.50 for this exercise in basic motor skills. Screw those money-gorging sirens. Avoid their song. I promise you, the creamy jalapeño sauce isn’t worth it.

The perfect quesadilla is built, not born. And if you want your sky scraper to stand, you build with steal.

Lesson 1- Flour tortillas are bullshit: Don’t be deceived by their smooth, white exterior. They’re just oversized communion wafers, unworthy of your quesadilla. Corn’s the only way to ride. These tortillas taste better, but more importantly, they fry better. (Think corn tortilla chips vs. flour tortilla chips; one hoists salsa proudly on the salted savor of the swinging stalks of Iowa and the other tastes like dirt.)

Lesson 2- If it says “Kraft” it’s not good enough: I don’t care about the enticing labels the makers of American cheese singles place on their products to convince you of their authentic ethnicity. The “Mexican” in “Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese” is a filthy lie. Buy queso chihuahua instead. This is a Mexican style cheese specifically made for its melting powers. So it’s perfect for making queso dip or perhaps for liquefying within the confines of a tortilla pocket.

Lesson 3- Grate your shit: Large slices of cheese take longer to melt, which means you’re more likely to end up with a burnt shell. Be smart with your cheese. Whether you use a little or whether you like your ‘dillas fat and oozy, always grate.

Lesson 4- Did you really just say microwave? No, you didn’t. Because you know better. And don’t you dare dry-pan that sucker either. Frying is the only way to go. See, what you’re quesadilla needs is a nice hot oil bath. Don’t be afraid to put on the moves. If you take care of it, it’ll take very good care of your taste buds. Cook until your shell is evenly golden-brown.

Lesson 5- Get spicy: I like to add a little chili powder and I’d never forget the onion salt. Get creative to find your spice happy place.

Lesson 6- Never settle for one: This is America. Gluttony is essentially a requirement for citizenship.

Lesson 7- Always…ALWAYS! Remember to enjoy!

Guacamole Temper Tantrum

Last year, I taught my roommate, Jared, how to make Guacamole. Which isn’t to say that I taught him much at all. Really, I just should him how easy it is to mash 6 ingredients together. The hardest part is picking avocados at the right level of maturity. After that, if you can use a knife and you know how to mix and mash, Guacamole’s a snap.

Now Jared makes this dip for every occasion. Every potluck dinner (and there are plenty end-of-semester potlucks), he goes to the store, buys four avocados, two tomatoes, a lime, a jalapeño, and a white onion and a bundle of cilantro. He cuts up his veggies, adds lime juice, salt, a little pepper, and a few shakes of chili powder. Then, he mushes the mix together with his hands (just as I do it) and he’s off.  He’ll come back with a smile on his face and he’ll brag to me, “Everyone loved the guacamole.” Of course they did! Who doesn’t love fresh guac?!

Jared’s mother once jokingly reproached me, “why’d you teach him how to make guacamole? Now every time he’s home he has to make some. It’s expensive to buy all of those ingredients!” I laughed and looked over at Jared, his head turned down smiling.

“Well,” I responded, “There’s nothing like home-made guacamole!”

So what’s the problem? It’s a selfish one: I never get to see much of the guac! Sure, he bought the ingredients, he cut them up (usually with a steak knife, just to up the challenge) and he stained his fingers green with avo slime. Regardless, my sense of entitlement out-competes logic. I taught him, right? Don’t I deserve some amount of guac royalties, owed to me for the rest of my life plus 70 years? If he makes the green dip for his wedding, I want a Tupperware full of the goods and a bag of tortilla chips with my invitation. If his geriatric friends invite him over for a game of bridge and he decides to mash some avocadoes up for the occasion, he better send me some in the mail so I can spoon the slop up before eating my pudding. That’s that.

I love that he’s turned my recipe into his specialty, but I want it to mean more guac for me, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. It’s the toddler in me still lingering around.

It’s Definitely Delivery

Ordering in will be my down-fall. What convenience, I call a number, recite another number off of a piece of plastic and within half an hour, a blank expression hands my food to me through my own front door with another hand extended out expecting a tip. I never have to leave my home. Let me ride this couch to the end of time! Let the crevice in the couch grow until I can no longer stand! Delivery has made the ultimate sedentary life-style possible.

But wait! I’ve devised a way to improve this system further. Why do I have to get off the couch at all? I don’t want to walk across the sauce-stained carpet and mess with pesky dead bolts to pick up my pizza. My fingers are far too greasy to get any sort of grip on the doorknob. It’s too hard! I’m already willing to give Jimmy John’s full access to my checking account. Amazon saves all of the information necessary to feed from my line of credit. Advertisements invade our homes to the point that they’re quoted more than books over the dinner table. So what does it matter if I give Domino’s a copy of my house key? 

Walk right up to my door and step right in.

What? You say you bring me a disk of processed white carbs drenched in preservative-laced tomato sauce and globs of milk fat? Bring that shit over here! I’m probably watching through every season of King of the Hill on Netflix. I’ve forgotten what “fresh air” means and my goal is to never see my knees again. Frankly, that bendy joint does nothing useful for me anymore. This couch is it for me, delivery boy. Slap that $5.99 feast on my belly tray and I’ll have it in me by the end of this episode!

Don’t forget to lock the door on your way out!

Honey Mustard

            Honey mustard: Its peculiarity doesn’t lie in the melding of sweet and spicy or in its designation as a dipping sauce, spread, AND salad dressing. It’s in this sauce’s sheer variety. Different ranch dressings differ slightly in taste and consistency, but in the end, ranch is just ranch. It’s white, specked with spices and it tastes like only ranch can. Hidden Valley tastes cheep while home-made ranch can be a cathartic experience. However, it’s still frickin’ ranch! Honey mustard, on the other hand, can seem to make up its mind about who exactly she is. Sometimes, the sauce is vaguely sweet, with a nice, toned down mustard kick, other times the thick, sticky mess would hold the name, “mustard honey” much more appropriately. Still, in other instances, what’s called “honey mustard” resembles neither part of its composite name (wtf?). No one seems to agree. What parts mustard and honey constitutes the right ratio? What exactly makes honey mustard?

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs with a Puerto Rican family. That means rice and beans. Lots of rice and beans. And being embarrassed when my mom would talk to me in Spanish as I peered through Captain Underpants in the gym on my elementary school book fair days. And riding my bike by the ticky tacky homes on a blistering summer day, chasing down the sound of “Do Your Ears Hang Low” ringing in the air. And lots of ignorant Mexican jokes that didn’t apply to my heritage at all. Once, a good friend’s mother asked me if Puerto Ricans ate tacos and burritos. I had to keep myself from screaming at this otherwise kind woman (mainly because I was sitting next to her daughter in the back of her van. “No, tacos and burritos are more boarder food. Its Tex-Mex. Puerto Rican food is very different.”  

Being Latino in a well-off, predominantly white suburb parallels being an 18^th century time-traveler working management at Best Buy. I learned that my home culture and my school culture were very different, but who the hell was I? Where did I actually fit? My mom would often bash American cuisine and cultural idiosyncrasies. “We aren’t Irish, why would we celebrate St. Patrick’s day?” She’d question when March came around. “These Americans don’t know anything about dinner parties. They play board games all night and everyone’s out the door by 10:00.” But her “us and them” dialogue conflicted strongly with my grade school kid desires to fit in with my peers, whose home lives seemed so foreign to me.

Throughout High School, I played around with the recipe. I’d listen to Reggaeton to feel in touch with my roots. I learned the basic steps of merengue and salsa at quinceañeras by reluctantly dancing with the older women whose husbands would rather sit and converse. These steps became a way to impress my friends with my ethnic-ness, convincing the skeptics about my roots despite my pale skin. Puerto Rican culture became my honey. I spent my four years and Naperville Central High School testing how much of it to mix into the mustard seed suburban culture I’d learned in school. Other students went all out. They became their home cultures fully, wearing flags on their clothing, spackling their vocabulary with Spanish phrases, or working comments about their exotic escapades into every conversation. As high school trudged on I realized that I only need a dab of honey. Representing my family’s culture is important and simply sharing my knowledge with others at appropriate times is sufficient. After all, my culture, the culture of my peers and the people who’ve surrounded me for most of my life, is that of the middle suburban class. I’m honey mustard. Mostly mustard (with a dab of something different).

The Perfect Grilled Cheese

The perfect grilled cheese is easy to achieve. The secret? Heirloom tomatoes! These non-commercial variations of the fruit tend to be a little sweater, which contrasts well with the salty sliced cheese. Heirlooms vary in flavor between strains, so get ready for a taste adventure! If you don’t have access to a farmer’s market or specialty supermarket that carries these coveted fruits, slice up some Roma tomatoes instead.

Nestle the tomato wheels between two slices of your favorite cheddar cheese on two slices of wheat bread. Why wheat? Am I suddenly health conscious? Of course not. Wheat bread tastes better when steeped and fried in oil. But wait! Don’t close that ‘wich up yet. Sprinkle some onion salt and cumin powder over the tomatoes for a tasty twist.

Cover the bottom of a pan in a thin layer of your desired frying oil. Canola is a nice, fairly healthy option, but coconut oil provides a nicer flavor. Set the range to medium and heat the oil with one minced clove of garlic and a pinch or two of cumin seed. Watch the pan carefully. You don’t want the garlic to burn, leaving your sandwich with a resiny bite. Heat for five minutes and remove the garlic and seeds from your pan to the best of your abilities. To make your life a little easier, you could use garlic pounder and ground cumin instead.  Place your sandwich in the pan and turn the heat up to medium-high. Cover the pan to insure that the tomatoes warm sufficiently and that the cheese melts fully before your bread turns into a hunk of oil-sodden charcoal.

From here, continue as you would with any old, Kaft American slice-tainted grilled cheese. Fry each side of the sandwich until its golden brown, plop it on your plate, and enjoy it’s delightful simplicity.