2023 is a big year for my family: my bro and I graduate!
My family finds any event to throw a celebration, from a birthday to Father’s Day. Graduation parties are my favorite because it combines an academic achievement with my birthday.
WHAT WAS ON THE MENU?
As a Neopolitan pizza loving family, I searched all of New Jersey for an authentic pie. Neopolitan pizzas are marked by their very thin center, with dough that puffs up around the sides and provides for a very airy crust. I attended food festivals and scoped out new restaurants for a slice of chewy, soft dough and San marzano pomodoro with the perfect balance of tart and sweet. Then, my mom and I found Culto Italiano, a mobile pizza truck, while strolling around Italian cafe Farinolio in my town. Culto Italiano is run by two Neopolitan and one Roman native – and they brought excitement and laughs to our drive way.
This semester, I took a class called “Cities and Food” as part of my Nutrition minor. An anthropological class at heart, one of our assignments wasto write field notes on a food provisioning experience. Luckily, I had a reservation at one of my favorite restaurants (possibly ever).Enjoy!
A friend’s birthday called for a special celebration – and ethnographic adventure – at the restaurant Sarma. I was going to be not just a consumer, but a diligent observer of the dynamics and atmosphere of what is considered to be one of Boston’s hottest restaurants. Again, the line between Boston and Somerville is rather fuzzy. The first thing that hits you about Sarma is the juxtaposition of its unassuming location and bustling indoor nature; “Despite the fact that Sarma is hidden behind Somerville High School in a nondescript part of Winter Hill, the colorful dining room is packed every night and perpetually booked a week or two in advance,” The Infatuation writes in a review. In fact, my friend Sam’s first remark is: “It’s behind Somerville high school?”. Sarma’s location lends itself to have an under-the-radar, uptown-goes-downtown quality. In fact, due to limited parking, most people seem to have Uber’ed or Lyft’ed there, as recommended by the restaurant’s push notifications. The mere location is an example of urbanization and globalization: behind a high school of a town that used to be known as “Slumville” by locals, exists a high-end restaurant that cooks Middle Eastern inspired dishes. It sounds contradictory. Eater magazine also reveals the Somerville area’s urbanization, stating: “The Oleana [restaurant] empire has expanded to Somerville’s Winter Hill.” As for cuisine, the restaurant’s website highlights how the Head Chef, Cassie Piuma, wanted to cook her version of modern Middle Eastern mezze in a casual, upbeat, neighborhood setting. Sarma does not claim to be explicitly Middle Eastern, as the menu’s complexity (including Italian, Japanese, and Greek ingredients) reveals. Furthermore, while this layered international cuisine is being brought to an unlikely location, it is essentially only for the elite to experience. Despite “casual” being one of the restaurant’s aspirations, the menu’s pricing ends up resembling those of a steakhouse.
The restaurant is packed, even thought it’s 7:45PM on a weekday. The average Sarma-goer is a middle aged professional accompanied by either their significant other or group of friends; Sam and I are certainly the youngest, but everyone is so entranced by the menu and food, so we don’t stick out. While Sarma is a rather expensive restaurant, most people are dressed casually, with men sporting zip up sweatshirts, and women wearing jeans and a simple blouse. Donning jeans, a satin shirt, and a velour blazer, I feel a bit overdressed. Pre-pandemic, certain restaurants would outline a dress code, and I wonder if Sarma ever had one; at the same time, Boston, in comparison to other cities, is more cerebral. After all, millionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s trademark zip up sweatshirt look was debuted in Cambridge. This is quiet wealth, I suppose.
This semester, I took a class called “Cities and Food” as part of my Nutrition minor. An anthropological class at heart, one of our assignments was to do a “thick description” of Boston’s Public Market and Haymarket. This included taking field notes, talking to vendors, and soaking up the scene. Read below for my theatrical take of the two markets!
To an outsider, the neighboring Boston Public Market (BPM) and the Haymarket almost appear to be synonymous. Despite their proximity, the markets are rather different. In the following analysis, I will delve into how the markets emulate a theatrical experience in their own ways to expose the evolving identity of Boston. Considering my habitual food provisioning joint is Stop & Shop, upon entering these different markets, I immediately feel like an actor shapeshifting into two divergent characters. This temporary metamorphosis, along with Jennifer Clapp’s framing of individuals as “actors” in the food system (2014), prompted the questions: how are consumers and vendors passive or active actors in this system? In particular, are there scripts one is expected to follow, which ones are said, and what happens if you don’t follow it?
By virtue of the theater analogy, the Haymarket can be likened to an immersive theater experience, where the audience (customers) become actors, and scripts mesh with improv.
Kayla steps into the market and is jostled into the spiralized jungle of sensory overload.
Vendor A yells (left stage): “2 (cartons) strawberries for $5! $10 at stores!”
Seconds later, the Vendor B bellows (right stage): “3 (cartons) strawberries for $5!”
Kayla’s head darts left to right.
Both on the vendor and consumer side, this is what the market does: bring out your Darwinian avatar for a chance to win at the survival of the fittest. As such, there is a multi-level competition at play. Firstly, part of the adrenaline rush is navigating swarms of people, whilst maintaining an eagle eye and mental tab of stalls with the best looking and best pricing of each produce. None of the stalls are labeled, so one must condition for the mental acuity of a memory map and precise facial recognition. Secondly, it’s a gritty experience that instigates a desire to score and earn the best deal that intersects a fine balance of freshness with cheapness. As a consumer, I flock to the cheaper priced produce, quickly assess and snatch the best looking of the bunch, and pay with cash without fumbling my physical money; I want to play “the efficient consumer” that vendors expect. Thirdly, the vendors not only compete with themselves, but also supermarkets – perhaps the “Radio City” equivalents of this theater parallel – which reveals an interesting stratification of individual vendors versus corporate ones. Flipping through a town newspaper or even Youtube, consumers can find coupons for the supermarket and even videos of new international imports (like Biscoff). The Haymarket vendors must prove not only to each other, but to the consumers of their uniqueness – all without the formal advertisements, labeled structure, and big bucks that supermarkets have. Intangibly, the words they choose sell.
In my family, Mother’s Days and Father’s Days rival the celebrations of Thanksgiving. And as Thomas Jefferson sings in the musical Hamilton, “I arranged the menu, the venue, the seating.” This Father’s Day was no different.
As always, my biggest culinary inspiration is Ottolenghi. Ever on a mission to expand my family’s palates, Ottolenghi’s recipes seem to hit an undeniable vibration with its tasters. These were the dishes I whipped up:
We’ve heard it quite a few times by now: “This Thanksgiving has been an unusual one.” As I like to put it, this Thanksgiving was both uniquely unusual and special. I’m used to a gathering of 14 family members that fill the dining room with booming laughs, funny conversations, and the clanking of silverware. Each Thanksgiving is initiated by my great uncle, who tells an initially random, but relevant story revealing a beautiful lesson. This year’s timeline of events was certainly different, but at the end of the day I was filled with even more gratitude than I could have expected.
Admist finals season, I decided a break was called for – somewhere away from the libraries and study spaces overflowing with stressed students. Then, something divine came my way: Facebook sent me Vegan Market in Somerville.
I looked up how far it was from Tufts – 40 minute walk – and decided that it was just what I needed. I would walk there, eat a ton, walk back, and then write about it!
I’m usually a planner. But when my family and I decided to take a quick trip from Niagara Falls to Toronto, my spontaneous self emerged. I quickly pulled up Google to search up restaurants and was pleasantly overwhelmed by the number of healthy restaurants in the Canadian city. It was hard to boil it down to one, but I chose Farm’r Eatery & Catering for a bite of lunch and Bunner’s Bakeshop for something sweet. Below, I’ll give you the reviews of the two awesome spots 🙂
Every summer since I was a toddler, my family travels to a small, fisherman village called Pozzallo in Sicily, where my mom’s side of the family originally comes from. And each year, all my cousins, grandparents, aunts/uncles – each from different countries – come together under one roof. With narrow streets and the beautiful Mediterranean sea, it’s difficult not to fall in love with this Italian gem. Aside from it’s unique and lovable appearance, Pozzallo inhabits some quirky (but equally lovable) residents. From the man who howls every day at 12 o’clock on the “corso” (the main street of a town) to the two friendly fishermen brothers who dream of America, Pozzallo almost resembles a story book; the town howler, the adventurers, and so on. Everyone knows each other and each others’ issues, which is both amazing as the community really comes together, but at the same time a little uncomfortable :). As my mom likes to say, “There’s no word for ‘privacy’ in Italian.” Considering everyone knows each other, it’s no surprise that the “Pozzallese”‘s – as they’re called – routines tend to be in sync. In the streets, you hear the light clanking of forks from eating a big plate of spaghetti that nonna prepared for. This, I miss.
I can go on and on about the town, but now it’s time for the food. Let’s go!
New York City is my favorite city in the world. From the cultural food to the amazing architecture, I constantly find myself in awe of New York. Recently, I went on a trip to the Chelsea neighborhood with my friends, and had an amazing time. Later, after going another time with my mom, I knew I had to share the one day trip to Chelsea (and a little bit of Downtown too) with you all. I hope you enjoy it!
This summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to teach English of some children in a small fisherman village in Southeast Sicily called Pozzallo. I wanted to approach this task innovatively, and, as always, food came to mind. How could I weave in English and cooking together, and what are some of the benefits of doing so?
