Saturday, October 27, 2012

Food in Film

By far the most surprising reaction to my food in film lecture was to the raw egg scene in Tampopo.  I could not resist giving you another image from that interesting Japanese movie.  Enjoy your breakfast!




Shatto Dairy Trip

The class traveled to Shatto Dairy - a local dairy farm which bottles their own milk and also makes cheese, butters, and ice cream products.  Leroy Shatto, one of the owners of Shatto (along with his wife - an AVILA alum!) gave us a tour of the farm.  Students saw the milking operation, the calf barn, and the bottling plant.  Mr. Shatto was a wonderful host who patiently answered the students' many questions.  It was a real lesson in locally owned, small scale farming.  Leroy's obvious passion, dedication to his job, and wonderful sense of humor made the day.  We taste tested Shatto's flavored milks (banana, strawberry, chocolate, root beer, coffee, and pumpkin spice eggnog) together with a sampling of butters and great cheeses.  Some of the students even tried their hand at milking a cow by hand.  Professor Winter had given us an overview of Shatto's award winning product packaging which Mr. Shatto discussed with the students.

My favorite photo - a future Avila student
And a few shots from the trip.

A New Edition to Shatto Dairy

Wow - the class got more than we bargained for when one of the cows at the dairy went into labor, allowing us to witness the birth of a calf.  Leroy Shatto, one of the owners, said they will name the new edition to Shatto  "Avila"  Welcome to the world Avila.

Here's a great photo from Tina of the mom and her newborn calf.

Food Packaging

Professor Winter gave the class lots to think about in his lecture on food packaging design.  Fonts, colors, shapes - unfortunately, it will now take me twice as long to shop at the grocery store, as I peruse the packages.  Here are two interesting ones.  I'm a sucker for the beautiful packages.  Good thing I do most of my shopping at the farmer's market -not much packaging there.
Can you guess what it is?

Cute Baby Food Jars - it's the mouth and eyes that got me

Food HIstory Presentations - Fri night

From the exotic Balut to the mundane potato, students presented a history of their chosen food.  Special shout out to Summar's father who took the time to make Knafeh for the entire class.  This is an Arabic dessert that combines a shredded pastry, special cheese, honey syrup and ground pistashios - here's a look after we tore into it.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Tasty Vegan Food

Eric and I ventured to Fud on 17th and Summit with Michelle, Marcus and Susan.  No animal products are used in this food, so things like cheese and ice cream are made from nuts.  The reuben sandwich looked just like corned beef, but was made from jackfruit.  The food was pretty tasty - some items more popular than others.  Notice the presentation of the food.  We'll learn in class that taste is heavily influenced by sight, making food design important to the eating experience.   Here are some photos - with a surprise.

Says alot about my partner that he can handle this surprise so graciously.