Final Post for class

1. Describe the importance of blogging to modern day journalism. Limit--one paragraph
2. If you are going to continue to blog, why? or why not?1 paragraph
3. If you were going to keep blogging, how will you change your blog in the future? 1 paragraph


I think blogging is both beneficial and detrimental to modern day journalism. Bloggers don't always follow the same rules of diligence to proper reporting and fact finding that people who have taken journalism classes do. Anyone with a blog can post whatever they want, and anyone can make a blog. It is beneficial though because there are so many people out there with different view points and opinions that we might not see otherwise.


I think I will continue to blog but I may switch to a different blog name. I hope to have more time to devote to my blog over the summer when I am not busy with class work. 


In the future I plan to be more diligent with posting on my blog and taking pictures of the things I make so my blog would be more visual. 

Question

What does 'blog' stand for?

Easter Brunch

A pet peeve of mine is people who jack up prices for things like weddings and holidays. You are getting the same service so why is it anymore more expensive on a given day or occasion. Easter is one of those days.

My parents were in town and they wanted to go out to eat. I convinced them that we should just have a brunch at home.

We made waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage and mimosas. It was delicious! After we ate my parents were getting ready to leave town, but the weather began acting up and it was raining really hard. So we stayed in and watched HGTV shows.

It was lovely. I would rather on any given day stay home with loved ones than go out and be served mediocre food that is over priced.

Guest Speaker

On Thursday in class we had Sridhar Krishnaswami come speak to our class. He is a journalist from the Indian equivalent to the New York Times, The Hindu. He has worked in lots of different places as a corespondent for the paper, including Washington D.C. Krishnaswami was in New York City of the time of the 9/11 bombing and was the only Indian journalist there to report. He told us that NSA jammed the phone lines, but won't admit to it, so they could track what people were talking about online.

When asked about blogging he said that he feels that it has made journalists lazy since they don't have ti search as hard when they can just find it online. I agree with this. Looking online, you can find blogs that have just cut and pasted things from other people, sometimes they are attributed, most often not.

When talking about student life he told us "When you travel you learn, sitting here with a text book, you learn nothing."

I have to agree with this also. I will be graduating in two short semesters, and I have no idea what I am going to do. School has not prepared me for the outside world, but in traveling I have done, I feel I have learned things. I also think traveling outside of the US is important so we can appreciate the things we have and also understand life.

Lemon Bars

Last week I found a recipe for lemon bars and I made them on Monday. I made another batch on Wednesday for blogging class. I made a third batch on Friday.

Needless to say, they are amazing. Lemon juice, sweetened condensed milk, sugar, butter, flour, oats and a bit of salt. Ingredients that on their own don't sound the best, but together are amazing.

I made the first batch for a trip to the zoo, the second for blogging class and the third for a bake sale at roller derby.

These have been added to my arsenal of delicious and easy crowd pleasers!

Comfort Food

Bacon. Wrapped. Hotdogs.

Amazing...mind blowing.

Last week was a long and torturous one of epic proportions. I had a lot of running around on campus and in my personal life. School, work and derby take a lot of my time. By the time I got to the weekend I needed some serious relax time. Which for me means a lot of food and cooking.

I started off with baking mint chocolate brownies for a game night in Nompton. I started the brownies on Thursday and finished them up Friday morning. There were lots of steps involved with different layers, but there were amazing. The garden gnome stopped eating them once I told him how much sugar was in them. Then I reminded him that it wasn't high fructose corn syrup and he was all for them again, just as long as I didn't bring anymore to his house. This said gnome also made me supper Friday night because he knew I was plumb tuckered out. He's a pretty good guy.

Saturday consisted of going to thrift stores with the gnome and his roommates. Can you guess what I looked at while there? Cookbooks. I bought 5. And a stack of the little taste of home ones you see at the checkout. The coolest one was a Japanese cookbook from 1969 that has really cool rice paper pages. After thrifting, we went to Super Cao Nguyens, the Asian grocery store off of 23rd. I did manage to keep my total under $20 which hasn't happened there in a LONG time. Then we went across the street to the Saigon sandwich place. The little odd corner building with the Braums milk bottle on top and got sandwiches for a picnic in the park. Supper was an unexciting frozen pizza that gave me heartburn...but it was good enough to be worth it!

Sunday I had a scrimmage and then went to Remington Park with my sister and the gnome for ostrich and camel racing. We only got to see the camels but that was worth it. I was thirsty for a soda, and the concession stand had mostly Mexican influenced items. I bought a Mexican Cola which is the same thing as a normal coke without high fructose corn syrup. Delicioso! This soda inspired an impromptu trip to el Super Mercado in south OKC. The coolest Hispanic grocery store I have found yet. It is off of Western and South 36th. Way down there, but worth the drive.

Sunday night we made turkey burgers and bacon wrapped hotdogs. I ate mine in a tortilla with guacamole, onions and tomatoes. Ah-maz-ing!

Try it sometime.

Coming soon with be a grilled cheese post, since according to Cody Bromley, it is grilled cheese month!

Warmer Weather

For those of you who know me...which many in this class do not...you would know I despise the hot and sticky summers in Oklahoma. I hate sweating and sweat in general. My old man garden gnome can attest to that. Sweat is icky. So is animal hair, chorizo, and stomach aches.

The best way to get over the gross heat of the summer is to make iced coffee drinks with cold brewed coffee. Who woulda thought you could make coffee cold. Well you can, and it is awesome! I can't drink coffee from a coffee maker straight because my delicate sensibilities find it to be bitter. Cold brew coffee takes out this bitterness though.

My favorite way to do it is to mix it with some cold filtered water, organic half and half and flavored syrup. (Peppermint schnapps and Caramel Bailey's  make it in the mix when I am feeling naughty!)

Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate
1/3 cup course ground coffee
1 1/2 cups filtered water

Mix coffee and water together and let sit out on your counter overnight or for 12 hours. Strain grounds out of the liquid with a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth and enjoy!

You can mix this cold for iced coffee or do half concentrate, half water and heat it in the microwave for a great cup of hot coffee.

Food Flops

Meringue cookies. Chai spiced to be specific.

I tried to make them for the first time last night and they turned out decently well other than the acidic under-bite from the addition of too much cream of tartar. In researching recipes for these seemingly simple Styrofoam-esque puffs I noticed that they were split down the middle on the additions of cream of tartar or not.

Cream of tartar is a byproduct of making wine. The white substance is scraped off of the inside of the casks that wine is fermented in. This white powder is odorless with an acidic taste and is commonly used to help stabilize egg whites to increase their heat tolerance as well as other household uses.

In making my meringue cookies last night, I was inspired by the wrapper I left on my counter from a chai latte. Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, anise. This combination is probably one of my favorites. I took a dash of this, a pinch of that and before long I had a wonderful smelling concoction of spices and sugar. This was where I believe I went wrong. In making meringue the sugar has to bind with the eggs and fluff up, with the additional hand ground spices, I think this was skewed. The eggs wouldn't fluff.

Cream of tartar to the rescue.

I used proportions from another recipe...for lemon meringue cookies. My mistake. Lemon is acidic. Cream of tartar is acidic. They go together. Chai spices? So not acidic.

My cookies suffer from a lemony after taste. Not very pleasant with anise, cardamom and black pepper. But the texture of these little clouds is to die for. They practically melt in your mouth.

Just ignore the aftertaste.

Organic and Homemade food

One question I get a lot from people my age is why I cook so much. They want to know why I don't just get fast food all the time and what is the point of spending more time when it could take 5 minutes at a drive through.

The answer, I simply love cooking and want to take care of my body without putting a bunch of preservatives in it. I have a food philosophy of eating and choosing food that has passed through the least amount of hands possible to get to me. Therefore cooking my own stuff from scratch makes the most sense to me.

In the US right now there is an epidemic of food allergies, asthma and autism in children. These are being linked to food that is genetically altered and engineered and also pesticide use in the growing of crops. Some corn that is being used in food products right now was originally created to feed cows. I am no where near wanting to have children and don't know whether I ever will be, but starting healthy habits is easier sooner rather than later.

The time it takes to make something at home is often quicker and easier for me than it would be to go out and get something. I take forever to decide where I want to go, and then once there I can't decide what I want to eat. If I am at home I can just grab stuff from my pantry and refrigerator and see what happens. Usually the results are tasty, and I am eating cheaper and healthier than I would be out. 

The Social Network

While Dr. Clark was out gallivanting on Naval Aircraft Carriers, we were stuck in class with Dr. Hickman. The professor who stood us up before spring break.

This time he was on time and so we watched the Social Network.

This movie made me feel smart and like I knew something about technology, which is a feat in and of its self. If you know me you know I know nothing about computers!Sorry for all the 'knows' in that sentence.  By the end of the movie I hated pretty much everyone in it, but bad boys are always sexy and I love me some Justin Timberlake so that was worth every bit of it.

 I would recommend this movie for people who like JT and want to see Jesse Eisenberg in the same role of a douche bag that he always plays.

English muffins

Last month during the snow storms I spent three days stuck in my apartment with no hopes of survival. That is, until old man garden gnome came and rescued me to go to Target.

The first day of the snow storm, I made homemade english muffins.

The process was really therapeutic. From the mixing and the heating to the rolling and cutting. I like making homemade bread but had yet to attempt English Muffins.

I used a mixture of half white and half wheat flour. The texture of these were softer than that of store bought ones. They almost seemed to melt in your mouth, even more so when toasted and topped with butter and my Grandpas sand plum jam.

An interesting thing about these is that you let them rise and then cook them in a skillet instead of the oven.

This recipe has now been added to my arsenal of things I can make when zombies take over and there are no more grocery stores.

Jaegerbombs

So the title should really be singular because I did one of them, but I feel cooler this way.


Sunday was my 21st birthday. It was awesome. Probably the best birthday yet. Not because I can buy vodka for pie crust and wine for risotto, although that will be awesome. And it is not because I can now go to roller derby after parties and bars.

It is because my parents gave me a kitchenaid stand mixer!!!

Who else in college would be excited about that? I have been asking for one for three years now, wanting one almost my entire life.

It is ice blue and has a stainless steel and glass bowl for it. Or at least it will. They technically just gave me a card that said I could pick one out. It took me approximately 2.5 seconds to decide which color I wanted.

Isn't it beautiful? This will be the reason everyone in my office will be overweight in the months to come.

Clark is a geezer...

...but not according to me. That came straight from the mouth of Kurt Hochenauer, an English professor here at UCO and an award winning blogger.

Hochenauer was a journalist for multiple publication for quite a few years but got out of it because he felt it was a shallow profession. He worked at the Kansas City Star and the Oklahoman and then decided he needed to blog because the Oklahoman veered too much to the right side of thinking.

In 2004, Okie Funk was born on the interwebs under the idea of making it liberal progressive framing.

When asked if he thought blogs would be around forever he replied that he doesn't ever see them not being used by newspapers and people in school need to learn different tips and tricks with technology so they can stay ahead of the game.

Hochenauer has been threatened because of his blog and the views within not being in accordance with those reading it, but he has still been writing on the same subject for the last six years.He said that keeping a blog has forced him to write on a consistent basis and even led to him to writing for the Gazette.

Even though Hochenauer is no longer working for a newspaper he still considers himself to be a journalist with the writing for the Gazette and blogging.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chips cookies suck.

Not the cookies themselves, I love them. Making them sucks. I still haven't found a good recipe that turns out consistently good results. They either spread to much or don't turn the right color or become too crispy.

So I frequently turn to the break and bakes when I need a chocolate chip cookie fix. They are good, I can eat the dough and people almost never know.

I will be baking chocolate chip cookies tonight for my derby sugar baby. Don't ask. It might take more explaining than it's worth. Wait, that's a lie. I have a sugar baby because I made her cookies once, and we've been tight ever since. The end.

(Not really)Homemade Bownies

Last night I had a single ladies Valentines Day party. A friend was wanting to have a get together in her dorm room and I offered my apartment for the shindig since I had more room. I enjoy entertaining and having people over but don't do it often because I also like my alone time in my sweats on the sofa with a good book or foreign film.

The night before the party, I decided I wanted to make brownies but did not want to spend the 45 minutes on prep work that my homemade brownies take. So I grabbed a box of mix from my pantry. Some of the people who know me well would be shocked I used a box mix. I make homemade bread and english muffins and cookies, why in the world would I use a mix. For one it is easy.

The mix was a Betty Crocker dark chocolate brownie something or other. I also added dark and milk chocolate chips to it...the expensive kind. When it was good and cooled off, i made a chocolate glaze to pour on the top. Today, I brought the leftovers to my office on my way to class. When I got back a lady from the office over came by and proclaimed they were the best brownies she had ever eaten. The best brownies? They were from a box!

When people hear about the things I make and claim that they can't cook, I often see it as a crock. I made brownies from a box and they were promptly labeled"the best brownies ever." The inability to cook is often a crutch people use to not take the time to do so. The same crutch people use to get out of most things in life. If you take the time and try, and put your hear into something, you will usually come out with a half decent result. And if you don't, you can learn from the experience.

AOL and Huffington Post

The Huffington Post was recently bought by AOL for $315 million. I am not sure what to thin about this other than I hope that The Huffington Post doesn't change much because of it! Businesses buying each other has been around for centuries and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 

AOL has been buying a lot recently in hopes of saving their own business by getting traffic to the site up. I personally have never used AOL but am sad they don't send free discs in the mail anymore...they were great for craft projects! 

Ever evolving journalism...

We had a speaker in class the other day, and she was full of knowledge on the importance of blogging in journalism. Working in different cities for lots of newspapers, she gathered a lot of information on how to best deliver information to readers. When she came to Oklahoma in 2006 to work at The Oklahoman, she also brought with her the idea to begin blogging. And that is how the paper got its first blog.

Also discussed was the idea that blogs are a more personal way of expressing and delivering news and information to the audience. Journalists can have blogs that show their personal beliefs and aren't as restrictive on opinions like a newspaper would be.

Sometimes though, the line is forgotten and people get all bent out of shape over what they see and read in blogs. For example, one of my favorite blogs that I keep up with is Vixen Vintage. Recently she posted about how she doesn't like to see people wearing dirty pajamas to the grocery store. This opinion of hers was blasted by most people who commented on the post, a portion of them with the reason that the people who do so might in a hard time of life and might not have money to buy real clothes.

The blog is Solanah's and she is allowed to say whatever she pleases, but in doing so people get angry and don't remember this. Anytime you say something that is against someone else's thought process they can get bent out of shape and forget that not everyone thinks the same way they do. People can also get deterred from something when people voice negatively about it, but I hope Solanah continues to post because having an opinion is a lot more interesting to read than being a Barbie.

Snow day version 2.1

A snowpocalypse has descended on parts of Oklahoma today. Northwestern Oklahoma City is part of it.

Currently I am writing this from the sofa, while curled up under my comforter. The smell of baked goods wafting through the air. 

What baked good you may be asking? Cinnamon rolls with almond cream cheese icing and english muffins. 

Doubled yolked egg

I've been wanting to make lemon matcha swirled pound cake for a few weeks now, and decided yesterday was the perfect day to do so with the promise of beautiful weather over the weekend. So, after I got home from getting my oil changed I decided to do just that.

The ingredients I had on hand, the recipe was simple. As I gathered what was needed, I listened to the Avett Brothers, the Secret Sisters, and other artists that Pandora thought I would like according to bluegrass and acoustic folk influences.

I measured flour, baking soda and salt and sifted them together. I was mesmerized by the soft, silky flour as it fell in sheets to the mixing bowl below. The sugar was then added to a separate bowl. As it sat on the counter, I retrieved the eggs from the fridge, and thought to myself, "I've never cracked a double yolked egg."

The eggs were cold as I broke the shell against the side of my sink. The hard calcium build-up splintering with each hit on the hard stainless steel edge. I needed six eggs for this particular recipe, and as each one split open, the chilled yolk and white came plopping out of the shell. I broke open five eggs, all the same in size, weight and color. The sixth one was no different. It was no bigger than the rest nor did it crack differently. But as the crack became a spiderweb design across the middle of the shell and opened up, it was not like the others. Two yolks slid out from the hard mineral shell, but I was not looking closely at this time.

I gazed at the side of the bowl as the yolks and whites and sugar were slowing sinking in with one another, and as the sixth one slid out something caught my attention. I looked in the bowl and counted the yolks. One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six...Seven? I knew I only cracked six, my egg carton was divided down the middle.  Two of the yolks looked different, they were smaller, a little more vivid than their comrades, and joined in the middle. It was a double yolked egg.

Inspiration

I love reading blogs and spend a great deal of time each time at work finding new blogs and also keeping up with favorites I have found already. One of my favorite blogs for a while has been Joy the Baker. She is a blogger from LA with a sarcastic yet friendly prose that I can relate to. I love reading her posts and her pictures are also gorgeous. I find the starkness of the pages and how she doesn't add unnecessary flourish to her words or use crazy fonts or colors to get people. She tells you like it is, but does it in a way to get you to come back for more.

How the times have changed

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/nyregion/24gerritsen.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

If bloggers are not allowed to share truth in what they see in the world around them then what use is it have a blog. Protecting people from dangers in your neighborhood is a common courtesy thing to do, and if people are all up in arms because they are mad they have kids that can't behave, then they need to take a look around. Since when was it acceptable for kids to throw a solid chunk of ice at a pregnant women with her one-year old son? (From the Gerritsen Beach Blog, not the article) There has to be a point in time when people look at this information and see that something has to be done about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/business/media/24latimes.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1296069417-ZwJeICUyiv4NGQEjGSmtgw

Glamorous aspects of life have dramatically gone down hill in recent years. Now days we consider the Jersey Shore, TMZ, and Facebook to be more interesting ways to spend our time. I can't point any fingers because I would much rather watch How I Met Your Mother or Netflix than CNN. Newspapers aren't dead, yet, and I don't think they will die completely, but when we start filling them with garbage like who is knocked up by who and the latest to enter rehab then we can also expect serious readership to go down. Interests of people change all the time and maybe in few decades people will want to get good, hard news, but for now it doesn't seem to be what the people are looking for.

Thursday's homework

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/technology/personaltech/20basics.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=todayspaper

I am glad that social sharing applications on phones and other media devices are making it easier for technically challenged people to decide who they do and don't want to share things with. I find it to be a great annoyance when people on my Facebook "friends" list post pictures of their babies first dirty diaper and how cute they are when they spit up...well maybe it isn't that extreme, but keep the sharing of that to the beaming grandparents and doting relatives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/fashion/20close.html?ref=todayspaper

If only this had been my idea, but alas, I wouldn't have been able to be as a person as he is to celebrities and their constant drama. I would go up to them, talk to them, and try to get them to use common sense to figure out their lives and get things together. But I applaud Mr. Eng for being able to rise above that and create a successful  blog that gives people a better look at the lives of famous celebrities instead of the paparazzi and tabloid fiddle-faddle we read on a daily basis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/garden/20Domestic.html?pagewanted=2&sq=secret%20spaces&st=cse&scp=1

Some of my favorite things to read are those that magically take you to the location where they are taking place without having to actively using your imagination. While reading this story, I could feel the coldness of the wind, smell the earthy branches, and hear the muffled arguments. I understood the emotions the boys were going through without ever having gone through them myself.  

Now I'm learnin'...(about blogging)

Blogging has always seemed like an unobtainable goal for myself. I don't have the determination to keep things going for long periods of time and I didn't think my thoughts would be interesting enough for others to read. Then I found food blogging, and knew that was something I could do! Thus far I have learned that with blogging all you need is a subject, an idea, a computer and a blog. You don't need to be the worlds best or wittiest prose writer, nor do you need to be a technology junkie to share your thoughts.

I will be cooking...(and baking)

I am a socially inspired, media networked, roller derby referee, but in my heart a hard core foodie.
I cook for friends, family and coworkers.
If you are in anyway close to me, I have probably forced you to eat a food product I have made.

With this blog I hope to chronicle the foods I cook and the treats I bake and hope to inspire others along the way with pictures, recipes and cooking anecdotes of past, present and future. The first anecdote I will share with you is my earliest memory of being in a kitchen.

I was probably two years old and I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen of my parents first house in Alva. My mother had a child sized set of Tupperware that I was playing with and I managed to get eggs out of the refrigerator and crack them all over the floor. 

Since then, I have always found comfort in a kitchen, especially in my grandparents kitchen, and some of my favorite memories are from around the family table at my parents or grandparents house. I cook for relaxation and love. I bake for meditation and solitude. And I date so I don't have to do my dishes.