Starbucks

I decided to take a different perspective on the assignment. (I don't know if it will count or not) It isn't a cookbook, but a collection of ideas. Being a Starbucks barista, I decided to go on the Starbucks website to look for recipes (as I know they exist somewhere there). There is a section on the website called, "My Starbucks Idea". It gives customers and just about anybody to throw out a suggestion they have. People occasionally submit recipe ideas on here. I believe this gives coffee/tea drinkers galore a community membership significance. They can share their ideas and likes of what they enjoy. All of them being narratives of their experiences from Starbucks and their experimental drinks they have created, bringing them lots of happiness and excitement.

Examples from the website:

Submitted by smalleen75

"As a former barista who liked to play around w/ recipes, the toffee nut hot cocoa is amazing. If you put in equal amounts of mocha and toffee nut w/ the standard pumps of vanilla, it is delicious. I find the mocha to be rather rich, so sometimes I pump one less pump of mocha and one extra pump of toffee nut.

tall: 1 pump vannilla, 2 pumps toffee nut, 1 pump mocha.

delicious!!"

Submitted by Legacy

Okay, a Barista at my local Starbucks and I worked together and found a really good recipe for a Snickerdoodle Latte and a Snickerdoodle Frap.

Snickerdoodle Latte:

Standard latte base

2 squirts each of Vanilla, Cinnamon, & Toffee Nut syrups.



Snickerdoodle Frap:

"Start with a Cream base, but add a splash of Coffee Base mixed in with it.

1 squirt each of Vanilla, Cinnamon, & Toffee Nut.

Both can be topped with whip cream and Cinnamon Sugar.

Just a warning though... the Frap is SUPER sweet. But they both taste surprisingly like the cookie!"

Term Project

I've decided to do a taste sampling of different teas. There are so many different kinds of tea and it is something that I am interested in. I want to see what kind of different answers people can provide me with.

I have selected 8 types of tea that I will provide an organization on campus (that I'm part of) with and have them fill out my hand outs. The teas I've chosen are chai, black, earl grey, white, green, peppermint, passion, chamomile. I will have printouts of fill in one word answer questions. The questions I've chosen are:

What is the aroma like?

How does it taste?

In addition, I want to research a little background information on tea and see what sorts of lexicon they provide me with. (Especially different types of adjectives they provide for taste and aroma)

Twitter Recipe

Milk Tea

Use 2 black tea bags for 12-20 ounce hot H2O. Seep 4 mins. Add warm or cold ¼-1/3 cup of milk. Sweeten to liking. (Optional)Try with Earl Grey Tea or sweetening with vanilla.

The first one is called, “I love Chocolate! Cookbook,” by Mrs. Fields (1994). The second one is, “Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft,” created by the Culinary Institute of America (2009). I chose these books because they both focus around desserts at one point or another. By choosing these books, I picked out one recipe that they both shared: chocolate soufflés. First and foremost, I want to compare and contrast the lexical items they use in these recipes.

Mrs. Fields CIA

[the ceramic dish used for baking]

Ramekins soufflé dishes

[melting technique using steam]

Double boiler “in a bowl over barely simmering water”

[The different terms for mixing]

stir blend

whisk whip

beat

[Preparing the dishes with butter and sugar]

“Butter and sugar” “coat…with a film of softened butter…dust with sugar”

[Putting in sugar ]

“slowly add sugar” “gradually sprinkle in the sugar”

[mixture of eggs, sugar]

N/A meringue

Other differences? Relevant? Not sure.

-CIA has their recipes in number form, and Mrs. Fields’s is presented in somewhat of a paragraph format.

-Fields’s mentions different bowl sizes (small, large, medium), but CIA does not (just a bowl).

-CIA is more to the point (short and sweet), while Mrs. Fields is more descriptive and breaks each step down.

-CIA's book is in a form of a textbook with their main audience focus on pastry art students, while Mrs. Fields's book is more friendly...towards the general public?

Random and Interesting

So I was walking around the mall during my break, and I happened to come across something interesting. Borders had two books on display that caught my eye...

"What to eat, what not to eat"

"What to cook, what not to cook"

Apparently there are things we're not supposed to eat or cook?

HMm...

Reflection

A Place at the Counter: The Onus of Oneness

Mary Lukanuski

"Consequently food is prepared with the expectation that it will be shared." (113)

"He who eats alone, dies alone" (116)

One of the main points that Lukanuski brings up in her article is about eating alone. How is it that eating alone has become somewhat of a taboo in our culture? From personal experiences, I know that it is nerve wrecking to eat alone in a public place. It feels as though everyone's eyes are on you, judging you for eating by yourself. In her article, she empathizes how food plays a big role in socialization. Food is something you share with friends and family (people you find important to you). Food also revolves around holiday feasts, which again are assembled with those important people. By not having food with others, you become an outcast; assumptions are created about your social background because of your inability to eat with others (when really it could have been something you do once in a while) "That person's eating by himself...he must not have any friends," is a thought that could go through an outsider's mind. In order to avoid these negative connotations, people avoid eating by themselves. Perhaps by not eating...or going out of their way to find a partner to eat with.

SO then, I decided to Google "eat alone", to see what it would come up with. It came up with titles such as,

"Never eat alone" (a book about being successful)

"How not to eat alone, and not be a loser"

"What we eat when we eat alone"

"How to eat alone with confidence"

Interesting.

Cultural Dimensions of Discourse by Johnson

This was a bit of a complex article full of lots of information. It was a little bit hard to read, so I had to go over it twice. Since the article was a little bit long, I'll elaborate on one of the parts I found interesting.

In Johnson's article, he discusses multiple theories about the role of language in culture. Johnson creates a bit of a metaphor in his description on a theory, which was quite interesting to read and analyze. Here is the quote listed below,

Language is essentially a vehicle for transporting information and ideas. Like any vehicle, language in this view is a medium from getting one place to another. And like any vehicle, language can be improved on, made more efficient and effective, and fueled with higher quality material. (Johnson 50)

In this theory, culture is something you can learn and enhance with the help of communication. Each person is "like a vehicle" with the ability to carry information to others, whom can relay that new information to more people. People can learn from other people's experiences and knowledge they possess. Learning from others, it can change a person's perception, culture, and language. (Like Professor Freed said,) People tell stories in order to pass on their culture. People learn new lexicon based on other people's experiences as well as their own.

(The next part will be based upon my own experiences, not empirical data.)
I've noticed that within some of the younger Asian communities, frozen yogurt has become a craze. A lot of places has opened up within the last 5 years. These places serve frozen yogurt with all these toppings lined up that you can put on your dessert. What does this have to do with language? I believe that because of this craze, some terms have evolved in people's lexixon. Examples would be Fro-yo (slang, representing a shortened version of frozen yogurt), and people have used the terms Pink Berry and Red Mango to represent these stores (when really they are just names of corporate stores). Another craze within the younger Asian communities is bubble tea. It is a new thing replacing just getting coffee or tea. I think it gives them a sense of identity of belonging to the Asian community. (As not many of the older generation would know what bubble tea is.)

Again, this is just a thought, not real data.