The Communicator, v. 51, Ed. 2

THE COMMUNICATOR MAGAZINE VOL. 51, EDITION 2, DECEMBER 2023

Students share stories deeply entwined with specific recipes, revealing the power of food to create lasting memories and important connections with family and friends.

Page 42

About the Cover Food has always brought many walks of life together to sit down beside one another and share the wealth of their culture. Fruits, vegetables and all the rest, share the amazing chemistry of turning crumbs into proteins and energy into life.

Just like the coined phrase quotes, “You are what you eat,” without the food we consume and develop on a daily basis, we wouldn’t be the people we are today.

Ann Arbor is a city well known for its food culture. Local restaurants and chefs are experts at cooking up the perfect family recipe that can bring a group of people together, by offering a variety of classic cultural dishes, serving fresh fruits and vegetables, and maintaining a strong sense of community within their service.

We are what we eat — and by sharing who we are, we’re able to lift others up through our own individual experiences.

ART BY BEE WHALEN 3

Dear Readers, What did you eat for breakfast today? Yesterday? The day before? Food is an oft neglected but hugely important aspect of our lives. Think of how much time you spend eating: a slice of cake at a birthday party, a juicy peach while hunched over the sink, meals at the dinner table. It pales in comparison to our aptly named hunter-gatherer ancestors, who spent the vast majority of their days hunting and gathering. Evidently, times have changed.

Now, food, widely available to those who can afford it, has become more than mere sustenance, extending beyond necessity to become a means of finding identity and creating ties within communities. Food connects people, reflecting shared history, geography and experiences.

We chose this theme over pizza, sitting in the third floor hallway as production for Edition 1 meandered to a close and connected by our love for banana pepper and feta pizza — an unorthodox but excellent topping combination.

Food is a key component of our own community. Friends and peers from other schools are often shocked by Community’s lack of a cafeteria, but this notable absence is an integral part of the Community experience.

During lunch hour our student body pours out of the school into the surrounding community, buying sandwiches from Zingerman’s, curries from No Thai and French fries from Monahan’s. This freedom forces students out of their comfort zones and enables them to meet new people. Without the complicated social dynamic of set “tables” in the cafeteria, Community fosters an inclusive eating environment. Don’t know where to eat? Countless lunch clubs meet regularly, allowing students with shared interests to come together for a meal. This is not to mention lunch forum, which ties students across grade levels together into family-like bonds.

Our journalists have explored this topic in manifold ways, from diving into tumultuous relationships with food to analyzing the role of food in popular media. They have considered how the passing down of recipes through generations forms deep familiar bonds and the way that certain recipes hold enduring memories.

As you read, we invite you to consider how food impacts your everyday life. Whom do you break bread with? What meals do you choose to prepare for yourself? For others? What would your life be like if food wasn’t easily accessible to you? What if it was accessible, but anxiety-inducing? You will always have a seat at our table, but who can you make room for at yours?

Your Editors,

PRINT EDITORS-IN-CHIEF ISABELLA JACOB SERENA O’BRIEN RUTH SHIKANOV WEB EDITORS-IN-CHIEF ADDI HINESMAN ANJALI KAKARLA AILISH KILBRIDE SANA SCHADEN SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS-IN-CHIEF CLARA FREETH MORGAN MCCLEASE LUCIA PAGE SANDER ART DIRECTOR BEE WHALEN PHOTO DIRECTOR DANIEL GING ADVISER TRACY ANDERSON SECTION EDITORS LYDIA DEBORD LEILA DURRIE AIDAN HSIA VEDHA KAKARLA BRIDGETTE KELLY CHARLIE LAMAN ISABELLA MALDONADO EDDIE MOBILIO BRECK MAHIR SOOFI CLAIRE STEIGELMAN ANTHONY WANG SPECIALIST JOURNALISTS EVAN OCHOA HANNAH RUBENSTEIN

STAFF KLAVA ALICEA MARISA ANDONI-SAVAS ALLEGRA BLACKWOOD LILAH BURDINE JONATHAN CARTER LEO CASTILHO EMMY CHUNG PIPER COOKE CECE COSTELLO-SAILE GABE DEEDLER CARLOS FINKS MIA FLETCHER JASPER FORGEY KAYLEE GADEPALLI KYRIE GARWOOD EMMA GOBLIRSCH KATE GROVES STEPHANIE HADLEY MOLLY HAMALAINEN EDISON HANNAHS LUCA HINESMAN ANNABELLE HOARD EILIDH HUTCHINGS JONAH KLEIN VIOLET KNYAL FINA KUTCHER CLAIRE LEWIS JACK LEWIS REAGAN MASEK ELLE MCCREADIE IVY MILLER JANAKI NALLAMOTHU GREY PHILLIPS MEGHAN PILLOTE PAIGE PLAVNICK MIA RUBENSTEIN PAYTON SLY IONIE STEUDLE ELAINE STEVENSON LYDIA STRASZEWSKI ZANE SWERDLOW NINA TINNEY MALLORY TOWERS MARIAH ZEIGLER WILSON ZHENG

Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown Finalist 2022; Gold Crown Finalist and Winner 2021-2022, 2020-2021 and 2019-2020 National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker Finalist and Winner 2022, Online Pacemaker 2021-2022, Pacemaker Finalist and Winner 2020 Pacemaker Finalist and Winner 2019 The Communicator Policy The Communicator is a open forum for student expression created by Community High School students. The Communicator does not represent the views of Ann Arbor Public Schools. The Communicator staff seeks to recognize the individuals, events and ideas relevant to readers.

The Communicator is committed to fair reporting, providing a platform for student voices and equitable coverage.

For our complete Guidelines & Policy, please go to www.chscommunicator.com

4

www.chscommunicator.com PLAYLISTS

PODCASTS

CONSTANTS

MULTIMEDIA

Over 10,000 Page Views Last Month THE COMMUNICATOR ONLINE

TINY STORIES

5

Table of Contents VOLUME 51, EDITION 2 | DECEMBER 2023

Story Package

News

42 Food Stories Students reflect on recipes that have deep personal significance to them, exploring how food creates lasting memories and connections.

14

16

Food Gatherers’s Fundraising

Boston Trip

This November marked another annual Food Gatherer’s Fundraiser, as forums competed to raise money for food insecurity in Washtenaw County.

Journalism and yearbook students, led by Tracy Anderson, traveled to Boston for the NSPA conference, exploring the city and battling public transportation.

BY SERENA O’BRIEN

BY AIDAN HSIA AND LEO CASTILHO

Photography by Daniel Ging

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Features

Opinion

Arts & Entertainment

24

54

72

Restaurant Profiles

More Than a Meal

Iconic Foods in Movies

The beginnings and progressions of local restaurants to where they are today, from the perspective of owners and staff.

A look at Michigan’s free and reduced lunch program and an argument for the importance of affordable school lunch nationwide.

A highlight of five iconic foods that have made their appearance on the big screen.

BY VEDHA KAKARLA, JANAKI NALLAMOTHU, AILISH KILBRIDE, ANJALI KAKARLA AND CLAIRE STEIGELMAN

30 The Craving Conundrum What are food cravings? What causes them?

What can be done to address them? This article holds the answers to these questions and more.

BY RUTH SHIKANOV

BY ISABELLA MALDONADO

BY BRIDGETTE KELLY AND KAYLEE GADEPALLI

62

82

Readers Write Students reflect on the influence food has had on their connections with those around them.

BY STAFF

Restaurant Tour Guide of Ann Arbor Four can’t-miss restaurants in Ann Arbor for a range of tastes and price ranges.

BY EMMY CHUNG

32 Passing it Down Maneesha Mankad and Janaki Nallamothu reflect on how learning to cook from older family members has preserved traditional cultural recipes.

BY SANA SCHADEN

34 A New Kind of Fresh The CHS cafeteria expands free lunch offering, and collaborates with Chartwell’s to source fresh food from local partners.

BY ANJALI KAKARLA AND AILISH KILBRIDE

36 Baobab Fare Mamba Hamissi and Nadia Nijembere arrived as asylees in Detroit. They created Baobab Fare, a hugely successful and nationally recognized restaurant that brought their traditional cuisine to thier new home.

BY ISABELLA JACOB

7

NEWS

Photography by Daniel Ging Elias Kirschenmann crowd-surfs at the Halloween Dance. This behavior was quickly shut down for safety reasons, as Dean Marci directed students to keep their feet in contact with the floor. “It definitely caught me off guard,” Ruth Shikanov said. “But it was funny while it lasted.”

A Halloween Tradition Returns Due to COVID-19, the tradition of a Halloween Dance ended in 2019.

But with advocacy from Forum Council, the dance made its return after four years.

BY AIDAN HSIA

Gummy Ochoa (GVMMY) knew just what to play. Taylor Swift thundered into the crowd as the disco lights ignited the Craft Theater in red, blue and green. Soon, all Thomas Reed could hear were people — dressed up as characters from Batman to Oppenheimer — shouting the lyrics to “Love Story.”

It was truly something to experience for Reed. Even though it was his senior year at Community High School, Reed had never gotten the chance to attend the Halloween Dance until the night of Oct. 27. Spiderwebs, pumpkins and spooky animatronics 8

adorned the hallways all made an appearance, along with hundreds of costumes.

The night provided fun for everyone, even those not into dancing: in the library, students could watch “A Nightmare Before Christmas”; students could play board and card games; across the school, students could play or watch a Mario Kart Tournament; and cider and donuts could be exchanged in the hallway.

But just before the doors opened, the school Wi-Fi went out and GVMMY, had no way to play his music. With the official start time bearing down, it was all hands on

Photography by Daniel Ging Students dance in the Craft Theater. In order to make the dance more fun for students who might not want to dance, the Halloween Dance also offered other activities, from arts and crafts to Mario Kart.

“We focused on really making the dance more of an extravaganza than just a dance,” Silvester said.

NEWS

deck to get the Wi-Fi back and his playlist playable.

“That was definitely a scary moment for me because I didn’t know what was gonna happen,” GVMMY said.

But with the help of Dean Marci, GVMMY was able to get his set ready and students came for the return of the Halloween Dance. GVMMY DJed all night with the help of his father. After years of experience being a DJ — from weddings to other school events — he knew what to do. Reading the room is one of the most important things to GVMMY when DJing. He played a mix of songs, some that many would know, like “Love Story,” by Taylor Swift to songs that he simply wanted to see if the crowd would vibe with, like “La Mamá de la Mamá” by El Alfa.

“I played the entire song and people were vibing out the entire time,” GVMMY said.

“Even if they didn’t know the lyrics because they were in Spanish, it was just great.”

Dressed as a vampire, Guikema moved through the dark, loud disco of the Craft Theater to the excitement on the other side of the school where students battled it out in Mario Kart. He enjoyed the spread of rooms at the dance, feeling it gave more freedom than at another dance like prom.

Sophomore Alex Schwartz also enjoyed the night’s activities, from getting hyped over the Mario Kart Tournament to getting to see movies that were shown.

“This dance only having CHS students really made it more fun because I knew the people and the school better,” Schwartz said.

Ryan Silvester, Forum Council advisor, wouldn’t have changed anything from the night. Silvester feels high school dances are typically common across high schools in the U.S.: a big room, lots of students and loud music.

“I remember being like, ‘Yeah, this is fun.

This is exciting,’” Silvester said. “But if you didn’t love dancing, if you didn’t want to be in the mix of it all, there wasn’t really that much to do.”

Silvester wanted to change it up. With the addition of extra rooms, Forum Council completed two goals with one idea. Silvester saw all the rooms filled and people enjoying dancing, watching movies, doing crafts and eating food.

“We focused on really making the dance more of an extravaganza than just the dance,” Silvester said. “I think you can say what you will about dances but they’re a fun way to get to know classmates to get to know each other outside of the normal school environments. A ton of kids took it up so I was really glad to see that.”

Photography by Daniel Ging Students sing along to the music in the Craft Theater, which ranged from mainstream artists like Taylor Swift to lesser known artists like El Alfa, a Dominican rapper. CHS senior GVMMY DJed the event. “I played [La Mamá de la Mamá” by El Alfa] and people were vibing out the entire time,” GVMMY said. “Even if they didn’t know the lyrics because they were in Spanish, it was just great.”

Photography by Daniel Ging Addi Hinesman and Morgan McClease on the dance floor, hands entwined. Hinesman and some of her friends dressed as fairies, while McClease attended the dance as Canadian singer and songwriter “The Weeknd.”

“Dancing with my friends was the highlight of my night,” McClease said. “I love Addi so much, so hanging out with her is always a good time.”

THE COMMUNICATOR

9

Fo-Co Column

Counselor’s Corner Counselor Brian Williams shares his thoughts on the future of Community High.

BY KYRIE GARWOOD AND FINA KUTCHER

For counselor Brian Williams, this school year will continue to be one of renewal and redefinition for CHS. Not only are we in the midst of a recertification year for teachers — meaning they get to learn new teaching techniques and identify areas in our school to change and improve — but we are introducing new Not School As Usual (NSAU) days to the calendar, prioritizing forum more and starting to redefine the culture at Community.

However, this exciting time of change can be stressful for members of our school, staff and students alike. Although change can be scary, the way we manage it is more important and a step in the process that the counselors are eager to help with.

“If we just fall out of balance one way or another and we’re stuck there for a while, that’s when we need to kind of readjust again,” Williams said. “But it’s okay to teeter totter back and forth in there — that’s pretty normal.”

One major change students are looking forward to this time of year is making plans about what they are going to do after high school. With the passing of the early application deadline a couple of weeks ago, the stress of next steps is ramping up. Although CHS students are known by colleges to be hardworking and high-achieving, it’s bound to happen that students get rejected.

“If you hear ‘no’ from somebody, it’s not a reflection of you as a human being,” Williams said. “It’s just part of this process.”

For students who are looking to get a head start on the college admissions process, Williams advises going for it, taking chances, but to not take 10

Photography by Eddie Mobilio Breck This is Brian Williams’ ninth year at CHS and he is hopeful for the path the school is on. In years prior, Williams has struggled to put a finger on what Community’s identity is. “I’m excited to redefine what Community is,” Williams said. “I still love that term ‘the alternative’ but what does that mean these days?”

it too seriously. He encourages all students to go to our school sponsored college visits even if they aren’t sure they want to go to the school being represented or feel nervous about attending.

“The best way to start learning is just to go talk to these people who are at these institutions and just get a sense of what it feels like to talk to somebody about that,” Williams said.

“Even if you just want to go check in on one or two colleges just to get your mind thinking: is this right, is going to college a possible option for me? And start thinking about what types of schools you might be interested in.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Williams thinks that this is a perfect opportunity to seize this change and redefine CHS. “Things have changed quite a bit,” Williams said, “What are we now? Where do we want to be? This process will hopefully help us kind of re-imagine or redefine what we want to do. I

am hopeful that we can start to implement some new structures and some new ideas within the building as a whole.”

But just how do we do that?

Williams hopes we can emphasize and solidify CHS’s identity within the district.

“I still love that term ‘the alternative’ but what does that mean these days?” Williams said. “What’s different from what those other schools are?”

All the schools in our district seem to have their niche, with Skyline’s Magnet programs, Huron’s IB program and Pioneer’s robust music program.

In all of this, Community can sometimes feel like we’re still searching for our defining features.

“I love the idea of us being that creative, interesting school.

We do things in a very creative way,” Williams said. “I think if we really dive into that, and be that creative, funky alternative that’s still academically rigorous, I love that idea.”

The past month has been a busy month for Forum Council, with both the Halloween Dance and fall Spirit Week.

Now that both events have passed, the events subcommittee has been disbanded.

In recent meetings, Forum Council has been directing its focus towards middle school outreach, which is headed by Isabella Jacob. One of our main goals for the year is to develop a new system that will allow us to reach out to more of the Ann Arbor middle schools. Forum Council put out a form to recruit more students to go to different middle schools as representatives of the school.

Recently, Forum Council held a meeting focused exclusively on middle school outreach. The council divided into three different groups to finalize the new outreach system, which will reach every middle school in the district.

Ebie Lamb and I reviewed the slide deck that is to be presented across the district. Jacob worked alongside vice president Addi Hinesman to prepare a script for representatives and a CHS brochure to distribute to middle school students.

Along with these new materials, an outreach video created last year by Forum Council treasurer Parker Haymart will be sent to the inboxes of every advisory leader in the district.

Within the next month, CHS representatives and Forum Council members will present at every middle school in the district, spreading the word about the opportunities at CHS.

NEWS

Back to Foundations with Ecology Ecology students visited three forests — and revisited an old, missed opportunity.

BY AIDAN HSIA

They finally spotted it. High in a tree across the water, a bald eagle was perched.

The CHS Ecology class was ecstatic.

“It felt so patriotic,” Mo Arendall said.

The Ecology students hurried to take photos. In the years that Courtney Kiley’s Ecology class visited Crosswinds Marsh, an eagle had been spotted all but two times.

The class had nearly missed it, but even from far away its white head and large brown body were unmistakable.

With the sun out, it was the perfect weather for the Ecology class’s third field trip in three weeks. The trip was part of the Ecosystems and Forests unit, with a focus on identifying local trees and how they interact with their ecosystems.

Kiley treasures outdoor learning, feeling that it’s a great way to learn about science.

In the previous weeks, the class had learned all about trees in Ann Arbor through the classroom, and then through a guided tour of the Arb, a notable area for its diversity and proximity to humans, as large, natural areas are rare in urban environments.

Anya Knoepp was glad for the chance to actually learn about life in the Arb. Though she’s visited it before, she was able to learn more about the diversity of the area and how the land is managed.

“I feel like when you go there recreationally, you don’t really pay attention to that stuff,” Knoepp said.

Toward the end of their ecosystems and forests unit, the Ecology class visited Crosswinds Marsh, an expansive wetland teem-

Photography Courtesy of Courtney Kiley Students finish their hike around Crosswinds Marsh. Courtney Kiley took the trip many years, feeling it better lets students understand what goes into ecosystems. “Crosswinds Marsh is really interesting because it was created by humans and is a successful wetland,” Kiley said. “Learning about a human created ecosystem and seeing if it’s healthy, and thinking about what goes into making that sort of ecosystem is important.”

ing with wildlife and plants. The class’s hike through the marsh took them over tiny islands and through forests. They were able to utilize their knowledge of local life and trees to better understand the region.

For Knoepp, the highlight wasn’t the hike through the wetland or the eagle sighting, but rather something they should have done during their freshman year three years ago: benthic insect identification.

“Seeing students collect benthic insects and knowing that they didn’t get to do that during freshman year because we were online, and seeing how giddy people were to find a water scorpion or dragonfly larva was really fun,” Kiley said.

Arendall and Knoepp were both excited to finally collect benthic insects. Knoepp liked it because she feels insects are overlooked and enjoys learning about them; Arendall was excited for the opportunity to collect insects after missing his chance three years ago.

Finally having the opportunity to complete the activity from the very first unit of FOS I rounded out the class’s third field trip. True to Kiley’s ideals of learning in nature, the Ecology class had an eventful few weeks during their ecosystems and forests unit.

THE COMMUNICATOR

Photography Courtesy of Courtney Kiley Anya Knoepp nets benthic insects from the water.

With each catch, students typically caught many insects, ranging from tiny insects to even little small salamanders. “I didn’t expect to be able to see so many different little bugs in there,” Mo Arendall said. “It was a lot of fun to finally get to do that.”

11

Photography by Serena O’Brien Ryan Silvester sports his pjs on “Pajama Day.“ He chose his University of Michigan pajama pants and sweatshirt. “I had a lot of fun during spirit week, especially the dress up days,“ Silvester said.

“My favorite was decades day because I loved seeing students attempt to hit all of the different styles of the 1980s and 1990s. I also enjoyed getting to go back to the 1970s.“

Photography by Isabella Jacob CHS seniors, Abbi Bachman (left) and Poppy Magee (right), put on costumes for “Barbie Vs. Ken Day.“ Bachman dressed up as the original Barbie while Magee dressed up as cowboy Ken. “I borrowed the dress from my friend, which reminded me of what Barbie means to me,“ Bachman said. “I don’t think it was the biggest feminist message ever but it has created a culture of finding the small sweet things in supporting each other and overall girlhood, like sharing clothes.”

Embracing School Spirit Spirit Week makes a comeback at CHS as a lead up to the Halloween Dance. CHS students followed various themes for each day of the week to get into the Halloween Spirit.

BY ISABELLA JACOB, BRIDGETTE KELLY AND MORGAN MCCLEASE

Creative costumes filled the hallways throughout the week of Oct. 23-27, which marked CHS student’s calendars as the annual fall Spirit Week. The event, which typically leads up to Halloween, was moved 12

so that its last day coincided with the Halloween Dance.

This year Spirit Week and the Halloween Dance were organized by Forum Council.

Morgan McClease, co-president of Forum Council, helped plan the event.

“There was a whole committee dedicated to spirit week,” McClease said. “The spirit week committee created a list of a bunch of possible spirit week days and then all of forum council voted on it.”

Addi Hinesman, vice president of Forum Council, led the spirit week committee and organized google forms for the entirety of Forum Council to fill out.

After the vote, leadership, which is composed of Forum Council’s co-presidents, vice president, secretary and treasurer, analyzed the results of the form and chose the five most popular themes, which were then assigned to each day of the week.

Photography by Isabella Jacob Hannah Crabtree puts on their wig for “Barbie Vs. Ken Day.” They dressed up “Malibu Business Barbie.” “I like to go hard for spirit week because it helps shake things up in a fun way,“ Crabtree said. “I really like how many people participate at Community“

The final line up had students swaddled up in pajamas on Monday, slinging “Anything But A Backpack” on Tuesday, dressed as Barbie or Ken on Wednesday, costumed

by Forum on Thursday and wearing clothes from a certain decade by grade on Friday. The following Tuesday, Halloween, students wore their own costumes to show off their holiday spirit.

Parker Haymart, CHS senior, participated in all of spirit week but was especially excited to dress as “Beach Ken” on Wednesday. He wore a flower patterned shirt, striped shorts and sunglasses to emulate the character.

NEWS

Photography by Vedha Kakarla Maggie Lamb, CHS sophomore, on “Anything But A Backpack Day.” Throughout the day, a stroller (supplemented by a tote bag) housed her school supplies. “Spirit Week days are always really silly,” Morgan McClease said.

Photography by Daniel Ging Ali O’Brien on “Anything But A Backpack” Day. A CHS senior and member of the Skyline High School golf team, O’Brien represented both schools, toting a golf bag throughout the day. “A big quote in golf people use is ‘let’s hit the links’ so for me instead of that I thought ‘let’s hit the books‘ to relate to school.”

Haymart has tried to participate and soak in each day since this will be his last spirit week at CHS. For anything but a backpack day, Haymart stuffed his notebooks and school supplies into a treasure chest which he carried around from class to class. He and his peers in the Brent Forum decided to collectively dress up as pirates for Forum Costume Day. On Thursday, he showed up to school with an eye patch and bandana similar to his fellow forumettes.

“As a senior it’s a really fun last hurrah to do these things and dress up and show your silly side in our school,” Haymart said.

As Haymart realized that it could be his last Spirit Week ever, he began to feel sad that his time at CHS is gradually coming to a close. Nevertheless, he is excited for the possibility of a senior Spirit Week that Forum Council could potentially host in the Spring.

“It would be a really fun, nice way to end the year with the second spirit week like Forum Council did last year, so fingers crossed for that,” Haymart said.

Forum Council co-presidents considered this year’s fall Spirit Week to be a success.

They hope that the tradition is continued in the future as a way to promote bonding THE COMMUNICATOR

Photography by Serena O’Brien A trio of CHS freshmen dress up for Pajama Day. Lee Greenberg (right), wore matching patterned pajama pants with her friends. “Though not nearly enough people participated in Decades Day it was amazing for the people who did participate,” Greenberg said.

across forums, grades and the school in its entirety.

“It’s a really fun way to bond as a school,” McClease said. “Spirit Week days are always really silly and I think that being silly together is what makes it the most fun and an experience you remember throughout high school.”

13

Tech Week Meals CET students find time to socialize and enjoy meals together during Tech Week, one of the busiest weeks of the year for them.

BY KAYLEE GADEPALLI, PAIGE PLAVNICK, MIA RUBENSTEIN AND MALLORY TOWERS

Tech week only happens twice a year for CET, but it remains one of the most pivotal parts of the theater experience. Food plays a huge role in this, from the bonding and camaraderie to the friendships that can develop simply from sharing a meal.

During tech week, cast and crew meet every day after school, and stay late into the evening, breaking at 4:30 p.m. to have dinner. Seniors are called to eat first, then juniors, sophomores and finally, freshmen. When the upperclassmen leave the theater to go get food, the underclassmen get a taste of what things will be like once the seniors have graduated.

Typically, it is an upperclassman who leads cast warm-ups before dinner. However, once juniors and seniors are called to eat, an underclassmen must step up into that role. Freshman Rosie Matish assumed the position of leader after the grades above them had left for food.

“It’s kind of stressful, but it is also really fun,” Matish said.

“I feel like you have a lot more freedom, and you can do what you want to do. It’s kind of chaotic, because there’s not a lot of us, but the underclassmen get a lot more confident because we all know each other.”

Ebie Lamb, president of the CET student board, finds that mealtime during tech week allows her to have a break from the usual anxiety before a performance.

“When the shows actually happen, everyone’s stressed,” Lamb said. “But during tech week there are still hints of fun every once in a while, and it’s really nice to have that.”

For Lamb, the best part of tech week is getting to choose 14

who to sit with. She tries to eat with a different group of people every night, as a way of welcoming new members into CET. Lamb hopes that CET will create a community of people that act as one big friend group. By having meals together, everyone on cast and crew is given that opportunity to bond.

Lamb remembers what dinners were like last year during tech week for “Cabaret.” There were so many kids involved with theater, that they didn’t all fit around the tables at dinnertime. Many students resorted to eating on the floor in groups.

This “habit” held true throughout tech week for “Museum.”

Seniors and freshmen alike sat in circles on the floor, laughing over the smallest things while stuffing their faces with delicious food.

At CET, dinner is not just a time to get nourishment before a show, but also a time to come together and try new foods. Bee Whalen, a member of props crew, strongly believes that people in CET can learn more about each other through what meals they provide.

“Tech week pulls in sharing parts of people’s home cultures through the dishes they bring in, since everything’s homemade,” Whalen said. “I think it gives a nice insight into what people do everyday with their meals, and what people might do on special occasions.”

No matter the show, tech week meals have proven to be an essential part of the CET experience. They provide bonding opportunities, stress relief and a chance to discover something new about fellow cast and crew mates. While homework piles up and anxiety levels mount, tech week dinner offers a moment of peace.

Photography by Kaylee Gadepalli Maia Genisio, junior, and Leila Bank, senior, laugh over their meal.

Although tech week can be stressful, the cast and crew found time to unwind with each other.

“During tech week there are still hints of fun every once in a while, and it’s really nice to have that,” Ebie Lamb said.

Photography by Kaylee Gadepalli CET members eat dinner on the floor alongside Emily Wilson-Tobin, their director.

Cast, crew and adult leaders alike gathered for dinner every night in the week proceeding their first performance of “Museum.” “We had so many kids we didn’t even fit at the tables,” Ebie Lamb said.

Photography by Kaylee Gadepalli Mindy Magee, president of the parent board, serves food to students. The Tech week meals were homemade for the most part. “Tech week pulls in sharing parts of people’s home cultures through the dishes they bring in,” Bee Whalen said.

NEWS

A Drastic Change Heads to CET Community Ensemble Theatre recently obtained headsets that were donated to them. CET was the last theater program out of the five Ann Arbor high schools to receive headsets.

BY HANNAH RUBENSTEIN

During Stella Valentino’s four years at Community Ensemble Theatre, the goal was always to purchase headsets. That never happened. She only ever used walkie talkies to communicate with lights and sound during the three shows that she stage managed.

“The walkies had a lot of things wrong with them,” Valentino said, “ They made your voice fuzzy and often cut off the first part of what you said after you clicked the button. This was problematic for whoever was manning the lighting board needed to

know the cue number that we were on.”

CET’s current stage manager, Parker Haymart, has been using the walkie talkies for the past two years while on lights crew and as a stage manager.

A stage manager is in charge of calling the shows meaning that they are the one telling the lights and sound when to go.

This all used to be communicated in CET over walkie-talkies.

“I remember doing ‘Pippin’ when I was on lights crew,” Haymart said, “I was doing the lights board for Pippin. And Stella was calling the show. And for a whole song I didn’t hear any cues called from Stella.

So the lights just stayed the same and we missed doing lights because her walkie died and she didn’t realize that and I didn’t realize it. It creates this extra stress and this moment of imperfection within the show.”

In October of 2023, a box was dropped off in the booth. Inside, it contained eight Clear-Com headsets. CET was the last theater program out of the five Ann Arbor high schools to receive headsets. An anonymous donor donated it to CET’s program.

Allan Authier, the current CET co-sound crew head, has used ClearComs and other headset brands in the past.

THE COMMUNICATOR

Photography by Hannah Rubenstein CET’s new headsets are displayed in booth, the old walkie-talkies are behind them for backup. The headsets came just in time for their production of “Museum.” “My thoughts about the headsets are very convenient,” Allan Authier said, “I’m really excited because it’s just gonna be so much better than our old walkie talkies.”

“I have participated in a couple of theater programs that use Clear-Com headsets,” Authier said, “So, I’ve really enjoyed the functionality of them. I personally love Clear-Com headsets and I am excited to use them at CHS.” Due to the very few people in CET that have used Clear-Coms in the past, this will be a learning curve.

Clear-Coms are easier to use and are more effective than the walkie talkies. Although they have some downsides. They can be clunky depending on the style you use.

Haymart is ready to jump in and call “Museum” with hopefully no technical difficulties happening in his ears.

“Museum” opened on Nov. 16 Alumnus were in the audience at some point during the five shows.

Many tech members were excited to show them the headsets after the show.

15

Unleashing the Power of Community: Fundraising Beyond Boundaries Over a decade after its creation, the annual Food Gatherers fundraiser stays strong.

BY AIDAN HSIA AND LEO CASTILHO

Gathering in the late Fall dark, Cody DeVee would scour his neighborhood and any others that he could reach. Going door-to-door, looking for any donation from anyone who was feeling charitable, by late November, DeVee would have mustered thousands of dollars in total.

“It was honestly a blast,” said DeVee in a speech at the end of his high school career. “It was a game I played against myself, to see how much I could do.”

Over a decade later, DeVee’s work still inspires those at Community High School during the annual Food Gatherers fundraiser. Tracy Anderson, one of the fundraiser organizers, attributes the modern success of the campaign back to DeVee, feeling he was one of the backbones that pushed the initial $3,000 total into what it has been in recent years — $80,000 per year.

“It’s been different people along the way that have made the fundraisers into what it is,” Anderson said. “Along the way, there have been so many different teachers who have done things to get their forum engaged.”

This year, many Forums were ready to get the fundraiser started by establishing goals for each money point — piercings, mullet hairstyles and tattoos were all on the table. In the Mankad Forum, students were excited to bring back past challenges that they missed from previous years.

Maneesha Mankad, along with one of her seniors, would get a tattoo; a student, with the title of “Cake Queen,” would bake a cake for the Forum; a 16

freshman wanted to jump into the Huron River — to which Mankad had to lessen into just the Ice Bucket Challenge; and a senior photo shoot with outfits picked by the Forum.

“I’m excited about all of the goals because each one reflects the uniqueness of the individual which is super cool,” Mankad said. “Even if you don’t meet them, the goal is what generates the enthusiasm.”

With only a few weeks in the fundraiser, Mankad hopes the goals inspire students to reach the goals consistently, rather than cramming in money in the last week. Throughout her classroom and on her door, signs with the goals are placed to encourage students to keep in mind the goals.

Similarly, the Hunscher-Young Forum established goals from piercings to cutting hair. However, Joslyn Hunscher-Young was most excited about the bonding that her students would do during the fundraiser. With enthusiasm from seniors, they were able to inspire students all the way down to freshmen. Hunscher-Young was excited to see the ninth graders establish bonds and identities together as they pledged to jump into the Huron River. However, with exciting goals like jumping in the river or getting to pie someone in the face, Hunscher-Young also wants students to realize the true importance of Food Gatherers — helping others.

“I would love to see our school and our students do more to really think about what hunger looks like in our area, why that exists,” Hunscher-Young said. “And how

1,600,000

meals provided through Community High School donations

$545,457 raised since 2009

15.2% increase in grocery prices

38,470 Washtenaw County residents experiencing food insecurity

NEWS

“

IT WAS LIKE I KNEW WHAT I WAS GOING TO DO WITH THE REST OF MY LIFE AT THAT MOMENT.

that’s reflective of a larger issue in the U.S. and the world and what they can do about it.”

Hunscher-Young realizes that in this time, getting students inspired to fundraise may just require letting them pie someone else. But senior Nick Idzikowski doesn’t need goals to convince him to fundraise — to help others has been his life goal. After a long conversation with a friend about the world, they finally came to the conversation’s conclusion: “What can we do about it?”

They were just kids facing a huge topic. That’s when Idzikowski knew what he wanted to do with his life.

“It was fantastic,” Idzikowski said. “It was like I knew what I was going to do with the rest of my life at that moment. I want people to live freely and money can prevent that. This [fundraiser] is going against poverty.

It’s part of my dream.”

Last year, while fundraising for the Jones School plaque, Idzikowski went door-to-door gathering money. He found inspiration in seeing joy because it’s exactly the goal.

“This is gonna sound cheesy, but if you find a passion within yourself, for Food Gatherers or whatever, and you extend that to other people it’ll feel better, it’ll be easier, it’ll be fun,” Idzikowski said.

This November, Idzikowski hoped to go door-to-door again, feeling it was a great experience.

Being able to explain the problems — whether it’s food insecurity or raising awareness of Jones School — was a great way to fundraise. Even if a donation wasn’t received, raising awareness is a part of the goal.

Photography by Aidan Hsia Nick Idzikowski next to the Root Forum’s poster. As an avid artist, he drew the faces of his fellow forum members. “I think this is often a once in a lifetime chance to have a large group of people dedicated to a cause that you can participate in easily,” Idzikowski said. “I feel really grateful for being able to help them in this way. Being directly supported by Food Gatherers.”

Photography by Aidan Hsia Throughout her classroom and just outside her door, Maneesha Mankad posts reminders of her forum’s goals. To ensure her forum meets consistent goals, Mankad thinks having what they’re moving towards is clear. “It’s going to be really important to have these because that’s what keeps people going,” Mankad said.

“Otherwise, we have everybody contributing towards the end. It doesn’t have the same feeling as us hitting each goal consistently.”

THE COMMUNICATOR

17

The Communicator travels to Boston for the biannual NSPA journalism conference.

BY SERENA O’BRIEN

The plane touches down in Boston right on schedule. Excited murmuring and laughter echo down the aisle as 21 CHS journalists disembark, eager to make their way to the Back Bay area for the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Conference (NHSJC). Thanks to a quick pace set by Tracy Anderson, the journalism advisor, and the help of a few moving walkways, the group made it to their stop just as the bus pulled alongside the curb. Sighs of relief as students caught their breath were quickly silenced when the doors opened to reveal that the bus was already close to bursting at the seams.

“They were packed in there like sardines,” said Morgan 18

McClease, social media editor.

“There was no way we were going to make it on.”

As the students exchanged concerned glances and worried about astronomical Uber charges, Anderson came to the rescue. Flagging down another — and significantly emptier — bus, she herded the students on. Some were dubious of the solution as the bus pulled away from the airport, seeming to head in the completely wrong direction. They took that bus all the way to the end of the line, where they boarded the metro. After transferring lines underneath the streets of Boston, they were finally en route to the hotel.

Despite the deviation from

the plan, and a perilous trek along a busy road on a single-file sidewalk (which might be more aptly described as a curb), the group arrived at their hotel. From there, through the efforts of the chaperones, the trip went off without a hitch.

The three chaperones were Tracy Anderson, CHS Journalism advisor; Judith DeWoskin, former CHS teacher; and Cody Harrell, a Journalism and English teacher at East Lansing High School.

The conference opened with a keynote address from the Spotlight team, a group of journalists from the Boston Globe who were responsible for uncovering systemic child abuse and its cover-up within the Catholic church. The story had so much impact that a biographical movie covering their investigation, called “Spotlight,” was released in 2015.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL GING AND MORGAN MCCLEASE

Once the conference had kicked off, the group spent the next few days attending small sessions alongside over 2,000 student journalists and advisors from across the country. Sessions covered topics from storytelling to design trends.

“It was really interesting to break down how you get successful journalists in your program,” said Lucia Page Sander, social media editor, about a session focused on staff retention. “And how you keep them on that grind and pumping out articles.”

Along with providing opportunities to develop individual skills, the conference also offered an important part of developing publications as a whole: critiques. Print Editors, Web Editors and Social Media Editors all benefited from the feedback of other advisors on their respective publications.

NEWS

Critiques aren’t always available for social media branches, so the social media editors were grateful for an outside perspective. “[The advisor] had a lot of good things to say,” McClease said. “Even the bad things that she said we agreed with, so it was nice to have the validation of another perspective.”

Not all their time was spent in the conference hall; Moments of free time were used to

explore Boston. On Wednesday night, they explored Harvard Square, indulging in milkshakes, pizza and pastries, then attended a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Central Square Theater, which was met with mixed reviews. The following day, they walked a section of the Freedom Trail, meandered through the Boston Public Garden and bought highly-anticipated lobster rolls at Faneuil Hall.

Even after the sun had set over the Charles River, the fun didn’t stop. The group made the most of every moment together, whether that was crowding into one hotel room for chip-and-dip-and-movie nights, heading down to the pool for a riotous game of Marco Polo, filling baskets with grapes at the market across the street or pulling on coats to window-shop along Newbury Street. The after-hours activities allowed the

THE COMMUNICATOR

staff to get to know each other better, and form bonds.

“We really are always just looking out for each other,” said Clara Freeth, social media editor. “Coming out of this trip I feel like we’re all so much closer as a group, and I’m just so excited to make more memories with Room 300.”

The students left Boston with new memories, new friendships, and, thanks to Anderson, fast-passes through security.

19

Head of the Charles 2023 CHS rowers competed against elite youth rowers from across the world in Charles River in Boston.

BY ANTHONY WANG AND MAHIR SOOFI

20

NEWS

“We got that 0.2 seconds behind,” CHS junior Eloise MacDougald said. “I think we could have pushed a little bit more of the front. I think we could have pushed a little bit harder if we’d known.” Macdougald reflected on her race at the Charles River after missing qualification for the Head of the Charles, one of the most competitive and renowned regattas in the world, by 0.2 seconds.

The Head of the Charles is a renowned international Regatta hosted annually for two days at the Charles River, which separates Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Watching the Head of the Charles is a unique experience; more than ten thousand talented rowers from around the world across all ages row in over 1,900 boats in 61 events. Youth, Collegiate, Master and Olympic rowers participate in the event.

Three members of the Cambridge Boat Club, D’Arcy MacMahon, Howard McIntyre, and Jack Vincent, organized the Head of the Charles Regatta for the first time in 1965. A fall Regatta, according to the boat club members, would be a fun way to mix up the routine of the training season for nearby colleges and boat clubs. Three seasons prior, D’Arcy MacMahon captained the lightweight varsity team at the University of Pennsylvania. At first, they weren’t sure if the regatta would be successful because it happened at the wrong time of year and they weren’t expecting anybody to watch.

Ernest Arlett, a Harvard University sculling instructor, came up with the concept for the head race - a time trial race held over longer courses than typical regattas. Since only “gentlemen” may race in England, George Ernest Arlett came to the United States. The rowing team from Northeastern University was brought by Arlett to the Henley Royal Regatta, and although the team members were invited, Arlett was still required to enter through the rear or servants door. Pedigree or class prejudice was still in force in the British rowing community.

The Regatta’s founders, despite their doubts, were committed to seeing it through to success. According to MacMahon and Jerry Olrich in an interview with the New York Times, this Regatta was “destined to become a classic.”

Frederick V. Schoch was named the Regatta’s Executive Director in 1991, and he Photography by Porter Batzdorter Huron Rowing Association (HRA) Youth Women 4+ racing down the Charles on Oct. 22, 2023. They didn’t qualify by a small margin.“We got there 0.2 seconds behind,” Eloise MacDougald said. “I think we could have pushed a little bit more at the front.”

still serves in that capacity.

In 1997, the Head of the Charles Regatta was extended to a two-day occasion. It is now the largest three-day regatta in the world.

Eloise MacDougald, a CHS junior, rowed for the Huron Rowing Association this year. “It’s my first time and I’m really excited,” MacDougald said. “I’m most looking forward to seeing the course, the competition, and all the really old boat houses.”

To qualify for the Head of the Charles next year, rowers need to be in the top 50% of their specific event. The other 50% of entrance depends on a lottery and their previous results at the Charles. It’s not easy to get into every year, and even more challenging for teams to re-qualify.

In terms of competitiveness, MacDougald believes that the Head of Charles is one of the most competitive Regattas in the world with an illustrious reputation. “It’s such a competitive regatta,” MacDougald said. “I don’t think we’re expecting that we’ll do as well as we would have at a less competitive regatta. But I do think that the level that we’re competing at is inspiring for our future regattas.”

MacDougald still believes it was an inspirational and enjoyable experience that bonded her team. She enjoyed the trip with her teammates and acquired valuable takeaways from her unique experience.

“I enjoy doing it together and I enjoy pushing myself with my teammates,” MacDougald said. “I think it’s easier to push yourself when you’re doing it with other people. I don’t really like rowing alone because I think it’s hard to do and motivate yourself. This race is a ten out of ten.

I thought it was just really fun to run with everyone and it was also really fun to see the crowd.”

The Head of the Charles is not just for the youth. It’s open to all categories. Andrew Todd is making waves both on and off the water. From Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, Todd is a proud member of the Canadian Para National team, representing the Northstar Rowing Club.

His journey to success reached new heights in 2016 when he earned a bronze medal during the Rio Paralympics. The following years saw him excel in the PR3 para category, claiming victory at the World Rowing Championships in both 2018 and 2019. Todd aims to raise awareness for para-rowing and its significance.

“I think, you know, it’s making people aware that pair rowing exists and that it’s a thing,” Todd said. “So just helping to bring athletes to the pool and make sure we got people to row with.”

THE COMMUNICATOR

Recently, Todd participated in the classic Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While he had previously taken the race seriously and had achieved success, this year he approached it with a ‘for fun’ attitude. His highest achievement in the Charles is when he won the para-double and finished second place in the lightweight single.

“This is a ‘for fun’ event, I’ve come in and raced the Charles seriously quite a few times in the past,” Todd said. “This year was just for fun.”

When asked about his training regimen, Todd stresses the significance of consistency. He believes maintaining a steady training routine rather than sporadic bursts of intense effort is the key to success.

“The biggest key to training is consistency,” Todd said. “You get some people who will kind of go crazy for one or two or three weeks and they fall off. It’s better to start slow and just make sure you’re showing up every day and doing a little bit every day.”

Todd’s motivation is rooted in the people around him. He sees his progress as a means to inspire and elevate those in his crew.

“It’s those around me, I want to make sure that I’m pushing myself hard enough that it helps to boost those around me and I expect the same thing of my crew to make sure that they’re pushing themselves hard enough that they’re, it’s helping give me a boost,” Todd said.

Reflecting on his youth, Todd acknowledges the challenge of balancing rigorous training with academics. Starting rowing at 19, he understands the importance of time management in achieving one’s goals.

“I didn’t start rowing until I was 19,” Todd said. “But I would say the biggest challenge is just trying to figure out how to balance training with life. I was a fulltime student. It’s definitely possible but you really have to be on top of your time management.”

Trusting your training and adhering to your race plan are his sage words of wisdom for budding rowers.

“Just stick to your race plan,” Todd said.

“Trust your training, a lot of times people will show up at a regatta and think ‘Oh, I need to make this change’ or do this thing differently or what have you, but I would say just trust that you know, and put in the work on it.”

Andrew Todd’s remarkable journey in para-rowing is a testament to the power of determination and consistent effort. He is not only a paragon of excellence in the world of rowing but also a source of inspiration for the next generation of athletes.

21

Not Just Picky Food anxiety comes in many different forms, whether you’re a student going through the struggle or a professional working to help others.

BY ALLEGRA BLACKWOOD

22

FEATURE

Bug Denomme still remembers being a child and sneaking handfuls of marshmallows from a brand new bag. By the end of the day, it was empty.

After discovering the empty marshmallow bag, Denomme’s mother divulged her own experiences around food and warned her child about the possibility of becoming sick from overeating.

“I just remember I was 8 years old, and I was so freaked out to think about the fact that my mom, who is just an awesome person, has a weakness,” Denomme said.

On the other hand, Denomme can still recall moments of fear when it didn’t know when it would find a safe food, nor when it was going to eat again. That fear became all-consuming. Denomme experienced the urge to overeat and then, subsequently, made itself sick.

“The first time I overate, I was in Alabama,” Denomme said. “Everything just tasted so good. I was eating a lot, and I didn’t understand my hunger signals. I remember waking up at 2 a.m., running to the bathroom, throwing up a little bit on the floor and it was just a mess.

I remember being embarrassed that I had thrown up, and that I wasn’t actually sick. I had just made myself sick.”

Denomme can still recall its mom’s comfort, but couldn’t help but picture its mother shaking her head in disappointment, fearing the path that Denomme could go down.

According to Resource to Recover, a gateway to mental health services, “overeating and anxiety share a common association. There are a number of different reasons why people overate when they experience anxiety-in particular, many people tend to find themselves binging for ‘comfort food’ when they feel worried, stressed, or anxious.”

From there anxiety followed and led to Denomme not eating enough.

“Not really eating enough started around fifth grade,” Denomme said. “I started taking medication that suppresses my appetite. When

I was in fourth grade, I remember my brother not eating lunch so I was like, ‘Oh, it’s normal to not eat lunch.’”

Ilona Phillips, a Licensed Master of Social Work (LMSW), is the founder of Lotus Consulting, an organization that specializes in addressing eating disorders and regularly meets with clients who have food anxiety and other sensitivities.

After beginning her clinical journey at The Ohio State University Counseling Center, Phillips’ work focused on addiction and substance use. Phillips has also designed an online program that teaches skills and shares resources for families and caregivers of children, teens and adults with eating disorders.

“My supervisor was an eating disorder specialist and expert,” Phillips said. “And the areas of addiction and substance use and eating disorders overlap to a great degree, so I was pretty drawn to it. Also, my sister developed anorexia many, many years ago after a trauma in the family. So, I also have a personal sort of investment in it.”

For food anxiety, Phillips suggests exposing a client to a variety of foods that they fear. In regards to treating a patient with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), Phillips would expose someone to a variety of different foods.

Phillips often meets with patients who may avoid restaurants and certain foods. This can severely affect a person’s social life.

In Denomme’s case, it is used to going to a restaurant and always ordering the same exact thing: a cheeseburger with fries. And ts family noticed this pattern.

“That has resulted in my family saying, ‘Oh, you’re just going to get the same thing every single time?’”

Denomme said. “But I don’t think they understand that I get it because, for me, it’s always safe. It’s always been safe, and always will be, hopefully.”

Denomme also expressed that restaurants feel a much more comfortable place to hang out with THE COMMUNICATOR

friends as opposed to their houses because it could usually find a cheeseburger and fries on the menu or something it’s comfortable with.

“Something that typically happens is that I can’t find anything to eat at my friend’s house because I just don’t feel comfortable enough saying no, I can’t eat steamed green beans,” Denomme said. “Not because I don’t like vegetables, but because it hurts. So I find it harder at friends’ houses than at restaurants.”

According to Phillips, research has proven that having three professionals involved in a person’s treatment is beneficial. That group of people consists of a physician who is familiar with eating issues, a dietitian, and a therapist.

Denomme feels that having support from family and friends would help it when going through a tough time.

“I really wish that when I’m really struggling with going through the fridge, and I feel like there’s nothing I can eat, I wish my parents would see that I’m super stressed, and my brother or someone would just say ‘Here you go, sit down, tell me what foods you think are safe right now and we’ll see what we can do,” Denomme said. “Another one of my safe foods is chicken salad, so we always have chicken in the house.”

But Denomme has had unconditional support from friends. A friend, Pluto Meisler, came up as someone who just had an understanding of when Denomme was uncomfortable. Denomme expressed feeling a sense of relief when talking to Meisler because it didn’t have to constantly explain that it’s “not just picky”.

“Now I’m hopeful,” Denomme said, “What I’ve said today paints such a hopeful picture in my mind that people will understand what food anxiety is and learn to accept it.”

For help, please call or text (800) 931-2237 For additional resources: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org 23

The

FEAR FACTOR

Food anxiety can be enigmatic, taking many forms and varying greatly in severity from person to person.

Allison Mayer, CHS student, and Dr. Amy Drayton, feeding disorder specialist, offer insight into the intricacies of food anxiety.

BY SERENA O’BRIEN

Swish and spit. Swish and spit. Swish and spit. Allison Mayer stands over the sink, repeatedly rinsing out her mouth, attempting to flush away any trace of the offending rice from her tongue. The stakes are high: she’s terrified that the contamination will poison her. A family member had forced her to try the rice, shoving it into her mouth and leaving Mayer rushing to the bathroom.

Rice is one of several foods that incite this response for Mayer, along with pasta and applesauce. For most people, the seemingly innocuous foods pose no threat, but for Mayer they incite a panic response. Although she knows logically that the foods don’t pose any risk to her, her brain is convinced that these foods will make her sick, preventing her from eating them or anything they’ve come in contact with.

“There’s not really a real reason as to why those certain foods are a problem for me,” Mayer said. “It’s just that my brain has picked a few and they just really scare me.”

Until seventh grade, Mayer thought she was just an extremely picky eater. Around that time, she was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. Because Tourette’s syndrome is often linked to OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), her doctors administered further tests, eventually diagnosing her with OCD. Following these diagnoses, pieces began to fall into place for Mayer.

“I could start to connect other things,” Mayer said. She realized that thinking certain foods were going to poison her wasn’t normal, but rather a facet of her OCD. Although Mayer’s food anxiety stems from OCD, feeding disorders are often the result of a combination of factors.

24

“There is some evidence that the more foods you’re exposed to when you’re young play a role, or even if you’re fed breast milk versus formula, because formula tastes exactly the same every time,” said Dr. Amy Drayton, the director of the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Department at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Since the flavor of breast milk is determined by what the parent eats, children can be exposed to new flavors at a very young age.

There is also a strong genetic component, as some people are genetically predisposed to anxiety or neophobia, the fear of new things.

“Evolutionarily, our brains are poised to blame food for us not feeling well,” Drayton said. The adaptation, intended to quickly teach people not to eat things that make them sick, has backfired in a sense.

An interesting example of this is conditioned taste aversion, in which someone eats something, especially something with a strong flavor, while sick and subsequently develops an aversion to that food.

In people already prone to anxiety, this can be exacerbated to the point that they will never return to that food, which can have a snowball effect. Although food related anxiety cannot be easily attributed to one factor, nearly all feeding disorders are driven by anxiety in some way. How that food related anxiety presents itself can differ. In some cases, individuals are unable to eat certain foods without going through a certain ritual. In the case of OCD, these rituals often have to do with cleanliness. Mayer, for example, is unable to eat food that has been touched by someone else.

“It can be that if a food is not ART BY JONAH KLEIN

served in a certain way, or if it touches something it shouldn’t touch, or if it looks a certain way then a patient might think it’s going to cause some harm to them,” Drayton said.

Many of her patients are hypersensitive to differences in their food.

“If there’s even a small discoloration in the food they might think it’s gross or infected or whatever their anxiety is, and then they won’t eat it,” Drayton said. “Some of them will never eat it again.”

Severe food anxiety can be isolating, as Mayer often faces limitations when eating outside of her home.

“Sometimes I’ll have friends who want to go out to eat,” Mayer said.

“I usually just say I’m busy because I don’t want to make everyone work around my eating habits.”

When away from home, she struggles to find foods that she feels safe eating. She has several weeks at various summer camps relying on dry cereal and the occasional peanut butter sandwich to fuel her.

Beyond the social impact of food related anxiety, feeding disorders can result in nutritional deficiency or unchecked weight loss, requiring professional intervention. Fortunately, Mayer has enough safe foods that she is still able to meet her nutritional needs, but this isn’t always the case. Even individuals with “safe” foods often continue to experience some anxiety when eating

FEATURE

“

I THINK THAT IF I PUT IT INTO MY MOUTH IT’S GOING TO POISON ME.

those foods.

“A lot of people who have food related anxiety, not all of them, but some of them, have safe foods and they’re completely comfortable with those foods,” Drayton said. “But some of them even have anxiety about the foods that they do eat reasonably well and anxiety wears on you, it exhausts you.”

Two years after her diagnosis, Mayer met with an occupational therapist, who recommended exposure therapy, the primary treatment for food related anxiety.

“I don’t think she really understood me,” Mayer said. “Because she would say, ‘We’re going to put it in your mouth for two seconds and then take it out, and then the next time we’ll put it in for like 30 seconds and then take it out.’ I was telling her that the minute it touches me I think that it’s already contaminated me or that I’ve been exposed and she just didn’t know how to do anything, so I stopped seeing her.”

Although the method proved unsuccessful for Mayer, exposure therapy is an important tool for treatment specialists like Drayton.

Exposure therapy for food related anxiety follows the same basic pattern: a hierarchy of fears building up to the anxiety being addressed, whether that’s trying a new food, eating a food after it’s touched another food, or eating from a utensil after someone else has touched it.

Depending on the age of patients, either their parents or the patients themselves help create that hierarchy. The top of the hierarchy is the highest level of anxiety they could imagine. The bottom would be foods that feel safe, or comfortable.

From there, it’s all about finding a starting point between those two things, which might be eating a relatively low-anxiety food, or a low step of interaction with a fear food, like smelling or touching it.

“You fill in the hierarchy from there,” Drayton said. Another important aspect of exposure therapy is preventing ritualistic behaviors that patients might engage in to assuage their anxieties.

“For OCD especially, if there’s a ritual that the person engages in after eating something that gives them anxiety that helps bring their anxiety down, you try to prevent that THE COMMUNICATOR

from happening so that the anxiety can extinguish naturally,” Drayton said.

In her experience in the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Department, Drayton has worked with countless kids across the spectrum of feeding disorders. Families come from across the country to the center, which is one of just three of its kind in the United States.

“We kind of get them at the end of the road, where they’ve tried everything else,” Drayton said. And there’s a reason the center’s waitlist is over a year long. The clinic’s unique interdisciplinary approach allows the clinicians to analyze the problem from different angles, allowing their team to catch things that others might miss. They also have an intensive treatment option, where they see patients for five meals a day five days a week for up to eight weeks.

Their goal is to help their patients reach a point where their aversions no longer significantly impact them physically or socially.

“We don’t aspire to make kids foodies,” Drayton said. “We want them to be able to eat a nutritious diet, get enough calories, eat quickly enough without needing to inspect it or pick it apart, but we really just want them to eat what their parents or their friends eat. It doesn’t need to go beyond that.”

To that end, Drayton has found exposure therapy to be extremely successful in treating food related anxiety.

“It’s worked for every kid,” Drayton said.

Drayton and her team also equip their patients and their parents with tools to continue to address their food aversions. This allows them to explore new foods in the future without necessarily having to return to the clinic.

“Say they start to date, and they want to be able to eat some foods that their significant other is cooking,” Drayton said. “They can go ahead and try to address that themselves, or come back in for more treatment.”

Drayton believes that with the proper care, food anxiety doesn’t have to be debilitating, and that everyone should be able to feel comfortable eating.

25

Restaurant Profile: The Detroit Filling Station The Detroit Filling Station was opened in 2015 by owner Phillis Engelbert.

Years later, it has become a safe and welcoming place for everyone in Ann Arbor to come and enjoy completely vegan and plant-based foods.

BY VEDHA KAKARLA AND JANAKI NALLAMOTHU

Starting a restaurant from the ground up never crossed Phillis Engelbert’s mind. But when the opportunity arose, Engelbert was there to take it.

Engelbert’s restaurant journey began in 2010 when she and her neighbor started cooking and selling vegan food at a series of small pop-ups in Detroit. A year later the duo opened a food cart, but soon realized they wanted to take their business to the next level. In 2017, Engelbert opened the Detroit Street Filling Station, a fully vegan restaurant in Ann Arbor.

Making the Detroit Street Filling Station completely vegan stems from both Engelbert’s personal values and environmental reasons. Engelbert — a vegan herself — reflects her nonviolent principles by not eating any animal products and choosing a completely plant-based diet. Beyond personal reasons, Engelbert strives to offer people in the community a way to eat that doesn’t involve the animal cruelty that exists in the meat and dairy industries.

26

The Detroit Street Filling Station is decorated in a way that reflects Engelbert’s own personality. The many artworks, posters and plants contribute to a colorful and cozy environment filled with supportive employees and delicious food.

“I like to create spaces that produce joy in some way or another,” Engelbert said.

In order to achieve this, Engelbert added various elements, colors and textures that she thought represented joy in its many forms.

A crucial part of Engelbert’s goal for the Detroit Street Filling Station is making it as welcoming and open-minded as possible. One way she does this is through her hiring practices.

Engelbert was unaware of recovery culture until a stranger came into her restaurant one day and asked for a job. This conversation opened the door for many in the same boat to come work at the Detroit Street Filling Station.

“Half of our staff are people in recovery from substance use disorders

and a lot of people have done time behind bars as well,” Engelbert said.

“So this is a place of healing and a deliberately safe place for everyone to come regardless of who they are.”

Her employment process is simple: applicants must be over 18 and have a desire to work hard. The candidates sit through an hour long interview for Engelbert to learn more about them. Engelbert always asks candidates if there’s any task beneath them.

“If anybody says they won’t scrub the toilets or take out the trash, they aren’t coming on board,” Engelbert said. “I’m looking for humility, gratitude and respect.”

Some cooks come in with zero experience, starting as dishwashers, but with training, they eventually transition into cooks. Engelbert would rather focus on values, inclusivity and respect for each other rather than skill level or accomplishments.

Engelbert grew up in suburban Detroit in the 1960s. At the time, it was a predominantly white area with very few people of color. She

Photography by Anjali Kakarla The DEL Burger is a popular menu item. It consists of a tempeh patty, grilled onions, olives, poblano peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and melted vegan cheese on a housebaked oat-wheat bun. “The Detroit Street Filling Station is 100% vegan,” owner Phyllis Engelbert said. “I’m vegan myself, so I like to offer a place for people to eat that doesn’t include meat or dairy.”

FEATURE

saw a lot of racism around her and it bothered her that people were being treated differently. Her own parents wouldn’t let anyone who wasn’t white into their home.

“I got into a lot of fights with my parents over it,” Engelbert said. “I felt very alienated as a kid.”

When she moved to Ann Arbor at 16, she was introduced to a life beyond the suburbs filled with those who cared enough to fight for substantial change. She discovered a rich diversity and soaked up this new life like a sponge.

“A very basic elementary understanding of how people should treat each other can form the basis of how societies function,” Engelbert said.

As a child, Engelbert was surrounded by homophobic ideologies.

“I don’t know what it was in me that felt like it was wrong when so many people around me didn’t feel that way,” Engelbert said. “I didn’t want to see anybody suffer or be mistreated. It made me feel bad on a human level.”

Today, Engelbert sees those from

many different communities such as the LGBTQ+ community; come into the Detroit Filling Station every day to eat, enjoy and make memories. She also proudly flies the “Black Lives Matter’’ flag right outside of her restaurant.

Engelbert looks back at her childhood as a learning experience. She believes that the power of a bad example shouldn’t be questioned because it can teach you so much and make you grow as a being.

“You can learn a lot from what you don’t want to be,” Engelbert said.

Before owning and operating the Detroit Street Filling Station, Engelbert was a present member in her community but never imagined she would someday run her own restaurant that would become a community staple.

“My plan has always been to be open to opportunities that present themselves,” Engelbert said. “If you have too much of a plan, you close yourself off to possibilities. If you go through life with your eyes wide open, are curious, take chances and THE COMMUNICATOR

say yes as much as possible, then things happen. And for me, I just kept saying yes.”

Engelbert formed her core values at a young age and these values have stuck with her ever since. These values include wanting to help people – especially those who have been dealt a bad hand in the game of life — and giving people opportunities to help themselves.

“I want to give a chance to people who maybe never really had a chance in life,” Engelbert said. “I always take the side of those who are struggling in some way or another.”

With these values and ideas, Engelbert enjoys helping people in any way possible. She believes her restaurant accomplishes this and encourages others to support people in their community as well.

“There’s a lot of good people,” Engelbert said. “I can look around at all the wonderful people who work for me and who eat here and are a part of our larger community and feel a little better about the world knowing that there’s hope.”

Photography by Anjali Kakarla Light shines down on Detroit Street Filling Station’s tables and chairs.

The restaurant is filled with colorful chairs and vibrant plants along its windowsill. “I like to create spaces that produce joy,” owner Phyllis Engelbert said. “I think of the colors and textures of joy and try to put that into physical things.”

27

Restaurant Profile: Miss Kim From creating her own curriculum to now owning her own restaurant, Ji Hye Kim has created a name for herself in the Ann Arbor Community.

BY AILISH KILBRIDE AND ANJALI KAKARLA

Ji Hye Kim was working in a hospital when she came across a study that stated that a person’s level of happiness is determined by who they work with, rather than their family because they actually spend more time with the people at work than with their family. This idea changed the trajectory of Kim’s career.

“I was working 10 to 12 hours a day in hospital management,” Kim said. “I was beginning to realize that if I am going to spend half of my life doing something, I didn’t want it to be something I didn’t enjoy and I didn’t think it was worthwhile. And food gave me joy.”

Kim’s road to the food industry was long and spanned many countries. Learning how to cook was an expensive feat. With the high cost of culinary school, Kim had to seek out opportunities to learn on her own.

She started at Zingerman’s working in the prep kitchen; there she learned 28

Photography by Ailish Kilbride and Anjali Kakarla A steaming hot bowl of Pork Belly Bibimbap sits on the table at Miss Kim. The restaurant was opened by Ji Hye Kim because she saw a void in the Korean cuisine in Ann Arbor. Ji Hye Kim was working in a hospital when she came across a study that stated that a person’s level of happiness is determined by who they work with, rather than their family because they actually spend more time with the people at work than with their family. This idea changed the trajectory of Kim’s career.

how vastly different it was to make food for four people versus making it for 40 people. She then dove into an internship with a famous chef in Madison, Wisconsin, followed by a stint in New York. Finally, her biggest learning came from the Rome Sustainable Food Project, which is a working and learning kitchen in Rome where she spent about six months and got the bulk of her culinary education.

“I worked in different kitchens and created my own curriculum to learn from,” Kim said. “In some ways, I was getting paid for my own education.”

Although each of these experienc-

es enhanced Kim’s culinary skills, none taught her the art of making Korean food. Kim turned to historical cookbooks written in Korean from the 17th and 18th century, vegan cooking, Buddhist cuisine and local Korean restaurants. Due to the fact that she speaks Korean and can read the language, Kim was able to really take all aspects of her learning and bring them to life in her restaurant.

Missing the authentic Korean food that she grew up eating and not finding many options that tasted like home, Kim saw an opportunity to provide home cooked Korean food for the Ann Arbor community.

FEATURE

“I missed the home cooked meals that I was used to from my mother,” Kim said. “I am from New Jersey and in New Jersey, there’s diversity within the Korean restaurant cuisine, whereas in Ann Arbor, the menus are the same. Or similar enough from restaurant to restaurant. I would say we are feeling like we’re filling a little bit of void and like offering something a little different.”

Kim has hand crafted the menu with an emphasis on making each dish unique. She has created plates that remind her of what she ate growing up..

“My favorite dish changes here and there but I think my most favorite dish that I consistently come back to is the rice cakes dish,” Kim said. “I think we offer different versions that are unique. Most often it’s served sort of like a saucy braised rice cake dish with sweet and spicy

gochujang sauce. We make the texture a little more crispy and then we have three different flavors. So you can have your pick on which flavor so I tend to go back to the dish a lot. I know the story of the dish.

This is also a dish that I used to eat as a child, after school I would get it from the street vendors. We try to incorporate local vegetables and mushrooms into it whenever we can.”

Rani Nathwani, the front house lead, believes that the hard-work Kim has put into curating the menu is shown. The attention to detail and creativity behind all of the food that is made has built a strong sense foundation for the restaurant as a whole entity. “[Miss Kim] has worked really hard creating all of the different items and doing a little bit of a fusion between different dishes,” Nathwani said. “With the Tteokbokki, the sauce is a lot thinner and the THE COMMUNICATOR

rice cake part of it is more fried. The quality of ingredients is so high. We try to source locally from the best farms and the best places that we can get the best quality of product from and you can really taste it.”

Kim has worked hard to earn a reputation of uniqueness.

“We’re doing a very particular kind of Korean food,” Kim said.

“We pay attention to the story of the food and the story of the people who made that food. And that’s I think beyond just understanding like ‘oh my mom used to cook this or my grandmother used to cook this’ I want to actually know the trajectory of the entire dish, over centuries.

And how that dish evolved throughout time and how it plays out when it lands in a different continent, different country in Midwest Michigan with slightly different climate and different seasons. You have to understand the whole arc of the dish.”

29

FEATURE

Restaurant Profile: Zingerman’s Zingerman’s began as a delicatessen in 1982 by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig, and it’s grown into a large “Community of Businesses” across the Ann Arbor area.

Although Zingerman’s has been popular enough to expand past county lines, they decided to stay local and continue to contribute to the community today.

BY CLAIRE STEIGELMAN

On the corner of Detroit Street and Kingsley Street sit an assortment of colorful houses known as Zingerman’s. The property serves as the origin and main base for what has become a renowned “community of businesses,” which includes the original deli, the Next Door Café, the Bakehouse and the Candy Manufactory. Each business not at the main downtown location, with the exception of the Greyline event space, is owned separately, with their owners sitting on a managing body similar to a board for Zingerman’s.

Zingerman’s signature sandwiches began with meat from Sy Ginsberg and continue to feature his products even after his business was acquired

by Grobbel Meats of Detroit. In the early days of the delicatessen, Ginsberg would deliver the meat himself, creating a long-lasting bond with the Deli.

Next comes the produce, which is 30

Photography courtesy of Zingerman’s Rick Strutz, Grace Singleton and Rodger Bowser, the managing partners of Zingerman’s Delicatessen, sit on a bench in front of the Deli. Photo credit: Zingerman’s Delicatessen.

usually sourced locally, sometimes even from the farmer’s market.

The sandwich ingredients that are derived from the produce are all made in Zingerman’s kitchen, with the exception of the pesto imported from Italy. The sandwiches are then assembled to order using the ingredients that the kitchen had made earlier.

Not only is Zingerman’s ingredients sourced locally, but they are also served locally. All Zingerman’s “brick-and-mortar” businesses are located in Washtenaw County, the furthest out being an event space on a farm in Dexter, MI. “Being local has been part of the vision of the organization from the very beginning,” said Jennifer Santi, the marketing and communications

manager for Zingerman’s Delicatessen. “Lots of people approached Paul and Ari as the business was growing and said, ‘Oh, I love your sandwiches so much. Can you open up here?

Can you open up there,’ and they really felt that in order to preserve the quality of the food, the relationships we have with our vendors, and to really keep the experience very unique, they decided on a growth model that would include staying local.”

The only way to experience Zingerman’s nationwide is via wholesale, typically with products that have a longer shelf life, such as coffee and candy.

As a result of staying local, comes the Zingerman’s Experience.

“The Zingerman’s Experience is for somebody to have a really great

FEATURE

Photography by Elle McCreadie and Kyrie Garwood A pre-made sandwich from Zingerman’s Next Door sits in its wrapping. The sandwiches found at the Deli are made-to-order.

experience where they’re experiencing kind of the joy and the love of our food and that our staff are giving them great service, that they’re having fun while they’re here,” Santi said. “We bring love to every interaction we have with people, we serve them great food, and that we really want to be the best part of their day.”

Zingerman’s also contributes to the community more than as a vendor of food. Zingerman’s donates to many nonprofits either with time and expertise or with money. This expertise can range from business and legal advice to planning skills.

Their first major nonprofit venture was Food Gatherers, a local food bank.

“Food Gatherers started in our early days with a recognition that there

was a need for help with food in the community and that we are a food business,” Santi said. “We sometimes have extra food that we cannot sell, but it’s still good to eat and that we could maybe feed the people in the community with that food.”

CHS also recognized this need in 2009, which led to the partnership formed between the school and Food Gatherers in the form of an annual fundraiser each November. This was also to counteract the large amounts of waste generated by pre-Thanksgiving celebrations at the school.

The iconic Zingerman’s font and drawing style also came from a local source: Steve Muno, a staff member who worked behind the meat and cheese counter towards the beginning of Zingerman’s existence.

THE COMMUNICATOR

The designs began as doodles on butcher paper in his spare time, and now drawings in his style cover the walls and products found at Zingerman’s. The font, called “Muno” after their creator, can now be used

by Zingerman’s on the computer in their graphic design suite.

The designated illustrator, Ian Nagy, is tasked with the overall designs for each Zingerman’s brand.

Nick Jaroch, the official sign painter, is responsible for the murals and physical art installations in the delicatessen complex.

Many Zingerman’s recipes have remained the same throughout the years, with slight modifications.

One such modification is swapping out ingredients for more local counterparts, which is the case for the sauerkraut. The bakehouse sources grain from Michigan and the midwest. Overall, Zingerman’s strives to remain local.

31

The Craving Conundrum Sweet or salty? Fizzy or crunchy? Food cravings come in various foods and drinks for different people, ranging in age and lifestyle, but why do we get these desires?

BY RUTH SHIKANOV

“ Cravings tend

to only be satisfied by that particular food or texture or flavor that is being craved,” Fingerle said.

32

The sound of ice skates gliding across the rink echoed throughout while Natalie Serban and her sister stood in front of a vending machine, deciding what to get. Sprite, Coke and Mountain Dew sat on the shelves, but one caught Serban’s eyes, a soda she had never seen.

“Dr. Pepper, that’s a weird name,” Serban said.

“You’ve never had Dr. Pepper?” her sister replied.

And from the first sip, Serban has loved the fizzy beverage ever since, craving it daily and this sweet, spiced drink is a constant in Serban’s routine.

“When I go to Kerrytown and there’s Dr. Pepper, and I’m in a chill mood, I’ll get Dr. Pepper,” Serban said. “Dr. Pepper is a subtle drink to have on the side, and I just really enjoy it and crave it.”

Cravings: an intense desire for a specific flavor or texture and can differ from hunger, the brain’s response to the biological need for food.

“Food hunger can be satisfied by any kind of food,” said Tory Fingerle, a registered dietitian. “Cravings tend to only be satisfied by that particular food or texture or flavor that is being craved.”

Fingerle has a pool of various clients, from those with nutritional related diseases, like Type Two Diabetes, to those who seek weight loss.

Fingerle has seen an array of different cravings, varying in texture and flavor profiles, but there is an evident, occurring theme — the desire for hyper palatable foods, or rich, calorie-dense foods.

A study done by Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom found that people under 25 years old reported more cravings for hyper palatable foods and carbohydrates ART BY BEE WHALEN

and those tend to decrease with age.

Given that the group studied were young adults, the researchers hypothesized that those in college tend to eat a diet lacking in nutrition or may have changes in taste sensitivity, due to age. But with life comes stress, and food cravings stem from emotions, the environment and hormones. Ghrelin, or the “hunger hormone” is released from the stomach, signaling the brain when hungry. The opposite is leptin: the hormone that indicates fullness. These hormones can be altered, changing hunger levels and cues.

“People who experience menstrual cycles have changes in estrogen levels and estrogen affects your levels of ghrelin, impacting your ability to recognize if you’re hungry or full, and you might crave things,” Fingerle said. “Estrogen definitely disrupts the mechanism because if estrogen is low, then ghrelin isn’t suppressed, and we experience more hunger.”

But fluctuations in hormones are not the sole reason — hyper palatable foods can mess with signaling pathways to the brain, causing the brain to fail to recognize fullness.

“Hyper-palatable foods that you imagine people crave often, so really sweet, really salty, really fatty and calorically dense foods may mess with the signaling pathways of those two hormones,” Fingerle said. “So, we don’t recognize when we’re full and then we continue to crave those foods.”

There are external cues that can influence cravings, such as environmental factors, like commercials and billboard signs, or simply walking past the kitchen or the aisles of the grocery store. Habits, such as nighttime routines, are also contributors.

“It could be a habit of you sitting

FEATURE

down, turning on the TV for a couple of days in a row and when you did that, you had something sweet,” Fingerle said. “The fourth day you do that you sit down, you turn on the TV, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘oh, I’m craving something sweet’ because it was from that habit.”

Contrary to external cues, internal cues, including stress and other emotions, exacerbate cravings. Kent Berridge, a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, observes that many people tend to self medicate during difficult times, leading to binge eating disorders.

But even happy stresses can promote cravings, such as getting a good grade or the job you want.

“There are mechanisms in the brain that we understand a little bit about that accomplish these stress systems when they’re activated,” Berridge said. “They amplify that dopamine craving system, that dopamine wanting system, so it responds more powerfully.”

Whether one craves salty, savory foods or has a sweet tooth, there is no sufficient evidence that people can be predisposed to certain cravings, nor that cravings stem from nutritional deficiencies.

“There are plenty of people that eat a nutritionally balanced diet that still experience food cravings,” Fingerle said. “There is no research that there is a genotype, depicting that one is prone to have specific cravings.”

But there are many hypotheses rooted in the idea that cravings could be based on childhood foods and what one grew up eating or years of restrictive dieting.

Infants who are fed sugary, soda-like water, to relieve pain, can go on to have higher sweet preferences. Conversely, infants were fed a commercially available infant diet, which are bitter by comparison to milk, but infants don’t seem to mind that bitterness, and they go on to have greater likings for foods, like broccoli and spinach.

“Early food exposures shape our tastes and cravings and lead us either into sort of a healthy eating path or unhealthy eating path,” Berridge said.

And restricting certain foods that may be deemed as ‘unhealthy’ can also heavily impact cravings. “‘I’m not ever allowed to eat candy’ for whatever reason, and then that can intensify their cravings for that particular food because they’re depriving themselves of it,” Fingerle said.

To Fingerle, there’s a harmful connotation surrounding cravings in society today.

“People definitely see them as something they should feel guilty about, but we don’t have to feel guilty for feeling hungry,” Fingerle said.

With Fingerle’s work, she aims for her clients to recognize and understand that cravings, just like any other emotion, such as anger and stress, are not emotions that need to be avoided or ignored. Rather, it’s critical to focus on how to address the cravings.

“How do we kind of experience them? What are our mechanisms for moving through them in a healthy way just as you would with stress or you would with anger?” Fingerle said.

THE COMMUNICATOR

What Fingerle suggests is for people to sit in that craving and experience it. This feeling can be new and uncomfortable, but Fingerle asks her clients to consider questions regarding their hunger and satisfaction levels. She refers to it like a simple, easy-to-follow road map: “If I’m hungry, is the craving the only thing that’s going to satisfy me right now, or is it any other food?”

Fingerle said. “If you’re feeling like that craving is going to be the only thing that satisfies you, I like to say eat what you want, add what you need.”

“Eat what you want, add what you need” is an intuitive-eating practice where you add a food, with protein or fiber, for example, to be more nutritionally balanced.

“Maybe you have some chocolate and you have a few carrot pieces or some fruit or some protein,” Fingerle said. “So you’re making this balanced experience out of it.”

Giving oneself full permission to make certain food choices is another aspect Fingerle emphasizes. When people have deprived themselves of a specific food, overeating and binge eating episodes are common, resulting in more guilt. There’s a way to achieve a nutritionally balanced diet while still enjoying foods one loves without restricting or cutting out certain foods or food groups, like carbohydrates. As Fingerle promotes, mindfulness is key.

“If they give themselves permission, like ‘I can have some of this and because I’m giving myself permission’, I’m not going to feel guilty about it,” Fingerle said. “There’s a positive reinforcement cycle that’s happening.”

Photography by Ruth Shikanov Natalie Serban has at least one Dr. Pepper every day, a must-have item in her backpack.

Serban first drank Dr. Pepper when she was 7 years old.

“I have loved Dr. Pepper ever since,” Serban said.

33

PASSING IT DOWN Delving into the preservation of traditional Indian recipes through Janaki Nallamothu and Maneesha Mankad’s experience learning from an older generation.

BY SANA SCHADEN

Maneesha Mankad After her mom passed away, Maneesha Mankad struggled to eat, let alone bring herself to cook any of her mom’s recipes.

“It took me a while to be able to do it,” Mankad said. “I couldn’t make the things that were most special to her. But now, I make them for my children. And I’m able to do it. But it’s that special relationship. Cooking was so dear to her. It was like an art form. It was her stress relief. It was a way to express her creativity.”

Mankad’s love of cooking was largely cultivated through her relationship with her mom. However, growing up in India, she was reluctant to learn due to traditional expectations of women in the kitchen.

“I saw it from a very patriarchal society,” Mankad said. “Women were expected to cook. My mom was at home, and she was expected to do the cooking. But my dad had studied in the U.S. and worked in the United States. So he always was very appreciative and wanted to help out.

So at least I saw that aspect, but I wanted to stay away because I didn’t want to get sucked into that whole idea that because I have to cook. I didn’t want to show love for it. I was very interested in a career and I wanted to do all these things.”

Mankad did become responsible for a portion of the cooking when her mom began to work part time.

It was not until she came to the U.S. that Mankad began seeking out traditional dishes to try and asking her mom to make a list of recipes. Most American style cooking had cook34

books or recipes off of the internet, but Mankad’s mom’s traditional Indian recipes would likely have been forgotten had Mankad not preserved them.

“I wrote down everything in this diary, so it’s a precious thing now for me,” Mankad said. “It has smears of grease. It has all these things that make it so precious. And I had all the dishes she wrote down. Then I wrote down all the ingredients and recipes, which I use to this day.”

Years later, Mankad’s mom needed medical treatment for cancer in the U.S. so she came to stay with her daughter. It was at this time that Mankad began asking for details in recipes and filling her cookbook diary. She also gathered recipes from other family members including her mother and sister-in-law. Mankad’s mom also shared her love of cooking with Mankad’s friends when they asked for Gujarati (a state in India) recipes.

“She had cancer, and she only prayed, ‘keep me well enough so that I can be cooking for my family,’,” Mankad said. “Even if there was a lot of stuff that she couldn’t do, she would sit in a chair and she would stir things. When she couldn’t sit in a chair for very long, she would give me instructions while laying down somewhere. She’d give me instructions about what could be done, so she was involved until she couldn’t do much any more.”

Cooking became a sacred part of Mankad and her mom’s relationship. Towards the end, Mankad felt

herself pull away from cooking traditional recipes all together.

“It was a very strange thing when she was really sick,” Mankad said. “I didn’t want to learn anything anymore. It’s almost like if I learned everything she knew, she would be gone. And I didn’t want that. I would only make things that she wouldn’t make because I didn’t want her to feel strange.”

Mankad has since begun cooking from her diary of recipes again, and often shares recipes with her husband, children and friends. Amidst the chaos of cooking for Diwali this year, an Indian holiday often referred to as “the festival of lights,”Maneesha Mankad realized she had forgotten to ask about a small detail in one of her mom’s recipes.

“I pulled up my mom’s recipe and then she had all these specific things but there was like one little thing, I never asked her—whether I’m supposed to cover the container when I’m cooking this,” Mankad said.

“And I don’t have her to ask [now], so I called my aunt and asked her.

‘Do you remember mom making this? And was it something that she covered?’”

Mankad scribbled down her aunt’s notes into the diary in which she has documented all of her mom’s recipes. Now, the diary remains a precious keepsake for Mankad.

While Mankad has never wavered from her feminist position on gender roles associated with cooking, she values the bond she shared with her mom through cooking together.

FEATURE

Maneesha Mankad serves dhoklas, a traditional Gujarati dish. Her mom often shared these recipes with friends and family. “My mom would also teach my friends,” Mankad said. “[They] would say, ‘oh can you help us? Can you teach us how to make this Gujarati dish?’”

Janaki Nallamothu Janaki Nallamothu is learning to cook, not only as a means of connection, but because it’s an essential part of preserving a piece of her Indian heritage and culture.

Nallamothu has spent the past two years living with her grandmother, while her family’s home is being remodeled. She’s learning from her the art of Indian cooking as well as the stories and values that come with these family recipes.

“It’s fun to see her in that environment,” Nallamothu said. “Her way of showing love for everyone is cooking. I always like helping in the kitchen, especially because she’s getting older, so it is hard for her to do some things.”

In her grandmother’s house, the upstairs kitchen is mainly reserved for American food, while the smaller basement kitchen is perfect for containing the strong aromas of Indian spices.

“It hides the smell, so she always cooks down there,” Nallamothu said. “Whenever she came to our house before, she never cooked because there was nowhere [ideal] for her to cook. So, in the past two years I’ve been trying to learn some dishes.”

Before moving in with her grandmother, Nallamothu spent some time learning from her mom. But due to her busy work schedule, it was often difficult to find time to teach more in depth recipes. Be-

cause her grandmother does not work and has plenty of spare time, Nallamothu jumped at the opportunity to engage with more traditional Indian cooking and learn from an older generation. She feels she would lose out on a significant piece of Indian culture, had she not spent this time with her grandmother.

“I’d be missing a lot of her stories and values as well,” Nallamothu said. “She loves to talk, which is amazing. She grew up in India, so she always tells me stories about her and her sisters learning to make these dishes. It’s just being able to connect that way.”

Nallamothu also values the authenticity of recipes from her grandmother’s generation, and hopes to continue passing down this part of her culture.

“My mom would use prepackaged spice packets, with all the spices you need for one dish, just because she wouldn’t have time otherwise,” Nallamothu said. “Whereas my grandma has all the separate spices, and she combines them in her own ways to make whatever she wants. She has different tips that are so different from what my mom would have told me.”

Once the renovations are complete, Nallamothu will move into a new home. She plans to continue trying new recipes there, and hopes to incorporate both her mom and grandmother’s styles.

THE COMMUNICATOR

Janaki Nallamothu learns to cook from her grandmother. She listened as her grandmother recounted stories and lessons from her life in India. “She loves to talk, which is amazing” Nallamothu said. “She always tells me stories about her and her sisters learning to make these dishes.”

Maneesha Mankad prepares chhole, a chickpea dish. She often made these traditional dishes based off her mom’s recipes. “For every single recipe that I make, she always gave me that one little touch of her own,” Mankad said. “That was like the secret sauce, either a way of garnishing or a garnishing or adding something to the recipe.”

35

A New Kind of Fresh Chartwells and Ann Arbor Public Schools work together to source school lunches from local purveyors and to continue to expand free meals for students at CHS.

BY ANJALI KAKARLA AND AILISH KILBRIDE

Getting caught in the crossfires of the challenges of college and their interests led Jack Gould to drop out of school and pursue a new path. With no clear career track in sight, Gould turned to their childhood love of watching cooking videos and found themselves in Indianapolis working in the fast food industry.

After gaining 10 years of food service experience and getting trained by “multiple wonderful individuals,” Gould is now one of the Chartwells/AAPS Sous Chefs working in the CHS kitchen serving meals to students.

“I’m grateful for my journey because I have a skill set that is universally loved no matter where I go,” Gould said. “Anywhere I move to in the world at this point I can go and get a job the next day so it works out.”

36

This career path stemmed from Gould’s adolescence. The lunch staff in Gould’s high school taught them a skill that they have integrated into their everyday practices with their students: they make an effort to remember one major thing about each student that passes through the line regularly.

“The lunch people in my life were some of the people that recognized, ‘Oh, hey, you come through here every day’ and that small conversation really made a difference for me,” Gould said. “I was an angry teenager and having somebody there that’s a friendly face and not just a neutral personality, but a positive personality goes a long way so and that’s all I try to do is be a positive personality for everyone that comes in here.”

Along with the sense of fulfillment that interacting with each stu-

dent brings, Gould is also proud of the work that Chartwells is doing.

According to Mike DeVries, the director of food service at Chartwells, AAPS has served 100% more lunches to students and 60% more breakfasts than last year.

In order to keep up with the rising numbers of student food consumption, Gould believes that planning ahead and having the numbers laid out beforehand has been a catalyst for success.

Additionally the two decades of restaurant experience has helped the kitchen to reduce food waste as much as possible. Gould aims to have about one to five leftover meals because that indicates that they made enough to feed every student plus extra in case of additional students.

This year, the state of Michigan

Photography by Ailish Kilbride Jack Gould holds a pear in his hands while standing in the CHS kitchen.

Gould gained ten years of food service experience before becoming a Sous Chef at CHS. “I’m grateful for [my journey] because I have a skill set that is universally loved no matter where I go,” Gould said.

“Anywhere I move to in the world at this point I can go and get a job the next day so it works out.”

FEATURE

partnered with the No Kid Hungry Organization to make over 100 million dollars of funding available for free school breakfasts and lunches.

Meals are paid for with a combination of this funding, USDA funding, and a combination of grants and smaller programs.

Recently, Gould has been making a push to have more food made fresh and in-house.

“I would love to start trying to get rid of more and more frozen fully made meals because nobody wants to come to school to eat a microwave meal,” Gould said. “Plus, moving forward with the new state ordinances that allow every student to eat free, I want [students] to eat food they want to eat and the first thing is to make food fresh, because fresh food is inherently more appealing from a visual perspective, it’s also an easier way to get the nutrition guidelines met.”

DeVries is excited to continue to expand and plan for a more robust composting program. Chartwells is hoping to source more compostable packaging options for the products that they utilize.

They have already begun to make small changes like the switch from foam to compostable fiber lunch trays. Chartwells is also trying to buy more local produce to incorporate into their foods.

“Our food comes from a variety of purveyors,” DeVries said. “Gordon Food Service is our primary supplier, but we work with a few others.”

Other suppliers include Prairie Farms (Michigan Farmer owned dairy) which supplies all of the milk.

Cochran Brothers Bakery (Michigan Bakery in Romulus Michigan) which provides hamburger buns, Sliced bread, hot dog buns, and Hoagie Rolls. Lesser Farms and Orchards (Dexter MI) which are the source for local apples. Tom Maceri Produce (produce distributor out of St. Clair Shores) is where the fresh produce and herbs are from.

Gould is also hoping that CHS can expand their kitchen to be able to make food in-house. Currently, CHS gets their pre-cooked food from Pioneer considering they don’t have a big enough kitchen to prepare enough food to feed students at CHS.

Our Favorite Meals “My favorite school lunch is the popcorn chicken and mashed potatoes. I think the ingredients could be more fresh but since they are making it on a such a big scale, that would be pretty hard.”

- AIDAN HSIA

“The one time I got school lunch, I got a spicy chicken sandwich and a diet Faygo.

It was pretty good. I don’t know if I would get it again though.”

- CALEB MOTHERSELL

“I eat the chicken sandwich a lot. The taste of the ingredients is better than when I got lunch at my middle school. The ingredients are pretty fresh and you can taste that.”

- YONA LIAKADA

“I get a school lunch every single day. My favorite days are the breakfast for lunch days, because I feel like the quality is better those days.

It’s a nice surprise when I walk down there and smell the pancakes and syrup.”

- THOMAS REED “The quality of the food is pretty good. Since it’s school lunch, you can’t really make it perfect because they have limitations of what they can use.

I’m sure if they could use better ingredients it would probably taste better.”

- ELIJAH LAWLER THE COMMUNICATOR

37

Baobab Fare Mamba Hamissi came to Detroit as an asylee.

He built his restaurant “Baobab Fare” with Nadia Nijimbere, his wife, they’re now a nationally recognized sensation.

BY ISABELLA JACOB

38

FEATURE

Mamba Hamissi arrived at the Detroit Metro Airport as an asylee.

When coming to this country Hamissi did not think he would end up owning a restaurant, but he did know the trait was in his DNA. Hamissi learned to cook from his mother. His mother, being a restaurant owner in their homeland of Burundi located in Eastern Africa, was constantly cooking. He was infatuated with cooking because of the way his mother looked at food.

“One thing I learned from my mom is that the only thing that everybody connects to is food,” Hamissi said. “You can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor but at the end of the day, the only thing that people need every day is food. I always said to her ‘This is a lot of work, why do you keep doing this?’ and she said ‘it’s because this is the only way you can change people’s lives.’”

But as Hamissi grew up in Burundi, his mother feared his passion for cooking seemed far too feminine for her son.

With the traditional African belief of “cooking is not made for men” strong in his mother’s mind combined with the fear that cooking wouldn’t be a path that would provide financial stability for Hamissi, she urged him to go to school to earn a degree.

Hamissi went on to get his Mas-

ters in Business and continued to cook. He then married his wife, Nadia Nijimbere.

In Burundi, Nijimbere was a human rights activist who worked for a nonprofit that served children. Nijimbere was forced to flee the country as quickly as possible when her work raised questions about certain systems.

Hamissi’s sister lived in Grand Rapids eight years previous to Nijimbere’s arrival and told the couple about the “Freedom House,” an organization in Detroit that aids refugees.

The couple went into hiding until Nijimbere was able to receive her visa. Though it left them flooded with fees and drained of financial resources, Nijimbere was granted asylum for her own safety.

“We didn’t even know where she was going, but she had to leave the country,” Hamissi said. “It was a very stressful moment.”

Nijimbere came to Detroit in 2013, and only upon arrival came to know she was pregnant with twin girls.

Hamissi and Nijimbere were separated for two years. He applied and was denied an asylum visa twice and got accepted on his third attempt.

When he arrived, he would meet two little girls that were his own for the first time.

Hamissi arrived in November of 2015, experiencing the cold for the very first time. He found it difficult to fit into a routine his family had already created and out of place in his own family.

The transition of being a father was one of the most difficult parts for Hamissi.

He felt a deep guilt for the lack of being there for his children, which is something he continues to struggle with.

“It’s something I’m not gonna catch up with, and I think I had that guilt for a long time,” Hamissi said.

“So I have to try to catch up with them, you know, stay home so we can build those bonds and we can be close but it’s still there.”

Along with meeting his newly grown family, Hamissi had to adjust to country he didn’t know where he didn’t speak the language.

The first thing he noticed about America was the size. Everything was bigger: the cars, the roads and the houses made it that much more difficult to navigate.

Though the adjustment was difficult, he felt slowly welcomed.

“We were knocking on the door and Detroit opened for us to come in,” Hamissi said. “We can knock on other city’s door and they won’t open, so we are grateful that Detroit didn’t even question us.”

Photography by Dele Nguyen Baobab Fare creates dishes with simple ingredients.

They made this dish with a rice base and topped it with fried plantains. “I’m not a fan of cooking with a lot of ingredients because I believe that’s how we have all these problems in the world,” Hamissi said.

THE COMMUNICATOR

39

Hamissi especially felt outside support when he first had the idea to start a restaurant of his motherland’s cuisine.

But when he first proposed the idea to Nijimbere, she was against it. In the relationship, Hamissi has always been the risk taker while his other half was logical. The prospect of a restaurant excited Hamissi as much as it scared him and that’s what he loved about it.

“If I’m working on something and it doesn’t challenge me, something’s wrong with it,” Hamissi said. “It has to be hard, tough for me to believe this is a great idea.”

Baobab Fare started in 2017 after “The Hatch Competition” which was Hamissi’s chance to prove to Nijimbere that a restaurant was an idea to fight for. Hatch is a month-long competition for Detroit small business owners, where Hamissi had to cook his way through and beat more than 200 businesses.

The couple won the contest and the $50,000 prize in 2017, changing their lives. They were set to open the restaurant in spring of 2020 right when COVID-19 swept the nation. They were forced to open in early 2021, still during the pandemic, not sure if anyone would come.

“We didn’t have a choice to open it,” Hamissi said.

“Coming to the United States was not a choice and 40

speaking and learning English was not a choice. I’d even say opening Baobab Fare was not a choice. Opening in the middle of the pandemic wasn’t a choice. I believe when you have choices you get lost in those choices. Because you have a lot of options and sometimes you miss the opportunity that can get you where you want.”

Through all the challenges, Baobab Fare started to gain traction. By February 2023, Hamissi and Nijimbere were named semi-finalists in the James Beard Awards for the second time.

In March 2023, Hamissi went on to win an episode of “Chopped,” a cooking show on Food Network. It was there where Hamissi first took pride in being a chef. It has been difficult for him to feel pride in how he cooks because of how he was raised. It’s why he leaned into his role as a businessman when building Baobab Fare rather than his cooking skills. At Chopped, he finally felt proud of himself though he admits Nijimbere is the better cook.

Hamissi went on “Chopped” not to show off his vast cooking skills but instead to tell a story.

“I’m more of a storyteller than being a businessman or a cook or anything,” Hamissi said. “There is this connection with everything in a story. That’s how you

Photography by Dele Nguyen This dish is “Kumuhana,” which contains a corn salad and grilled chicken. Hamissi loved to cook as a child because of what food meant to him. “One thing I learned from my mom is that the only thing that everybody connects to is food,” Hamissi said.

FEATURE

Photography by Dele Nguyen Baobab Fare showcases their iconic dish “Nyumbani,” which contains rice, tender beef, fried plantains and spinach. Hamissi wanted to introduce a new cuisine to his community. “You cannot trust the food, but trust me — and if you trust me, try the food,” Hamissi said.

connect with people.”

Not only did he want to tell the story of Burundi, but also the story of Detroit. His unique story contains an intersection of two places vastly different from each other in a way that also highlights how similar they are.

“Burundi and East Africa are very bad at telling our stories,” Hamissi said. “We never get a chance to tell our own story. Somebody else is telling your story. I wanted to tell the story and tell the story of Detroit. We don’t get platforms to talk. I was like, let me go to use that platform so I can talk about these stories. That’s the only motivation for me.”

Building connections and trust with his customers is an essential part of why Hamissi tells his stories as well.

Hamissi understands it might be daunting to try new cuisine and thinks that if a story can go along with the new food it’s more appealing to try.

“You cannot trust the food, but trust me — and if you trust me, try the food,” Hamissi said.

He also wants to convey a message dear to his heart that addresses ingredients and overuse. Hamissi’s mother used to use seven simple ingredients for her meals and would create everything with them, it’s where he developed a similar philosophy and way of cooking.

“I’m not a fan of cooking with a lot of ingredients because I believe that’s how we have all these problems in the world,” Hamissi said. “Climate change, high prices are not needed. We are doing things that are not needed and it’s hurting this generation.”

Every facet of Baobab Fare tells a story, including its name. “Baobab” translates to “the tree of life” while “fare” signifies cuisine.

As Hamissi filled out the first application for his restaurant, someone asked about the name of the restaurant. Immediately Baobab came to his mind for two reasons: one it was the name of his aunt’s restaurant in Burundi, and two it represented his situation.

“The tree is because me and Nadia are here in Detroit like that tree in the desert,” Hamissi said. “We are going to be a powerful tree in the middle of Detroit.”

THE COMMUNICATOR

41

42

FEATURE

Recipe From the Heart CHS staff, Jeri Schneider, enjoys being in the kitchen.

Cooking has become a big part of her daily life as it’s something that brings her comfort.

BY JANAKI NALLAMOTHU

Since 1997, Jeri Schneider has explored many recipes to accommodate her vegan diet. At first, finding recipes was difficult, but as time went on, she found solid recipes and tweaked them to taste as good as she wanted them to.

Schneider loves to cook and bake and everything involving food. She enjoys perfecting her foods by veering off from recipes and exploring.

Having over 200 cookbooks — most of which are vegan — and Google, Schneider has a variety of recipes to choose from.

One dish Schneider loves to make over and over again is her alfredo sauce. Every time she makes it, it always tastes amazing. This has been a staple in Schneider’s life even before she turned vegan; and when she wasn’t vegan, she made a tasty and creamy alfredo sauce that combined heavy cream, butter and egg yolks.

“It was completely unhealthy and had really heavy cholesterol and saturated fats,” Schneider said. “But it was so delicious.”

After steering away from many ingredients in her original recipe, Schneider wanted to make a vegan version of the alfredo sauce.

To make the vegan alfredo sauce, Schneider usually uses cashew cream instead of dairy milk. She still adds lots of garlic, a similarity between her vegan and non-vegan sauce. The sauce also includes mushrooms, plant milk — usually almond milk — sage and spices like nutmeg and pepper.

Schneider found a way to make her alfredo sauce using tofu as well.

One helpful tip she’s learned is to taste the dish throughout the cooking process. This helps her be able to experiment and explore without a recipe and add what she thinks will make it better along the way.

Cooking has become part of Schneider’s daily life. Whenever she

“

I make something whenever I feel like it,” Schneider said.

THE COMMUNICATOR

has a few hours of free time, she’ll make a list of things that she wants to do for the day. Almost always, there’s something on that list that involves her kitchen, whether it’s cooking or baking.

“I make something whenever I feel like it,” Schneider said. “It’s kind of an obsession.”

When she first became vegan, Schneider would often take a non-vegan recipe that she loved and substitute or leave out certain ingredients that didn’t fit in her new diet. Having explored the world of veganism enough to know what ingredients will work well together, Schneider’s love for cooking has grown even more.

For many homemade recipes, she has looked at a multitude of recipes, compared the basic ingredients and made sure she knew what flavors she wanted to have in the dish. Then, she’s able to whip up a delicious dish that is fitted to her preferences and can tweak it in whatever way she desires.

Cooking is a creative process for Schneider. She tries new things like tweaking dishes that she has made before, creating new foods or substituting ingredients based on what she has in her kitchen.

Schneider has always loved cooking, even from a young age. As a kid, Schneider would join her mom in the kitchen. Whether it was cutting an onion or stirring a pot, Schneider would have an enthusiastic energy to help out in the kitchen. She would ask her mom to teach her how to make some of her favorite dishes, and her mom happily obliged. Cooking with her mom is something they both enjoy doing together.

“We both just feel good when we’re doing it,” Schneider said. She enjoys the kitchen environment and the creativity and relaxedness cooking brings.

43

Making Memories in the Kitchen

44

45

FOOD STORIES

PARKER HAYMART

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

His chocolate chip cookies began as a way for Parker Haymart to express his independence, but have become a way for him to show his love for friends and family instead.

BY SERENA O’BRIEN

T

he recipe for his very first batch of homemade cookies came straight from the crinkled-plastic Toll House chocolate chip packaging.

Parker Haymart comes from a premade cookie dough family—baking always meant unwrapping a refrigerated package, forming the cookies and sticking them in the oven.

The 10-year-old’s decision to make the dough from scratch this time around was a stab for independence.

“It kind of had to do with doing something for myself,” Haymart said. “I guess proving to myself that I could.”

He tackled each step of the process on his own: he cracked the eggs, he folded in the chocolate chips and he waxed the pan. The only part taken out of his hands was the baking itself, as a parent swept in to handle the red-hot tray as it came out of the oven. His family was quick to sample the fruits of his labors, burning their tongues in the process.

“They probably weren’t nearly as good as the dough from the store,” Haymart said. In spite of that revelation, Haymart was giddy with excitement. A once seemingly formidable feat had been conquered.

Over the years, baking has become routine—even ritual. He prints or writes up the recipe (to avoid butter smudges of floury fingerprints on his phone screen), queues up some music and gets to making a mess. Every baked good that comes out of his oven inevitably leaves his kitchen in shambles.

“There’s always flour flying everywhere,” Haymart said. “Which I very begrudgingly clean up after.”

Though his kitchen has borne the evidence of brownies, snickerdoodles and experimentation with

pies, chocolate chip cookies have remained his staple. Through lots of trial and error and dozens of batches, Haymart’s recipe has evolved from the Toll House classic to what he considers to be the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

His cookies are a labor of love.

The first step is browning the butter, requiring a watchful eye but lending a caramelized nutty flavor to the end product. Then comes two types of sugar, flour, eggs and vanilla extract. He folds in the chocolate chips next—sometimes using as many as three varieties, along with chocolate chunks for better distribution (although his dad prefers them with no chocolate at all). Haymart believes the little things make all the difference.

He’s also taken to giving his cookies as gifts. They’re always well-received, and he thinks that the time and effort that go into making them mean more than something he could buy.

46

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SERENA O’BRIEN AND RUTH HAMSTRA

“I like to think of it as a more heartfelt gift than just an object,” Haymart said. The cookies are a staple of family gatherings and friend’s birthdays, and they make frequent appearances at Forum events.

His chocolate chip cookies have become a way for him to express his love for family and friends. Baking someone’s favorite dessert is an uncomplicated alternative to words, allowing him to show how much he values the people he loves.

“It’s a way for me to signify that I care about them and I want them in my life,” Haymart said. He gets satisfaction from making his friends and family happy, even if all it takes is one excellent cookie.

Every time Haymart whips up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, he remembers just how much of an impact a small act of love can have and never forgets to save his dad a cookie without the chocolate chips.

FEATURE

EMMA HAMSTRA

BUTTERMILK PANCAKES

To Emma Hamstra, pancakes are a childhood food, rooted in family and experimenting in the kitchen.

BY RUTH SHIKANOV

I

t’s simple, really: a cup of flour, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of baking powder, a cup of buttermilk and one egg, all mixed in a bowl before carefully being poured into circles on a hot pan, filling the kitchen with a wafting buttery aroma.

At 8 years old, Emma Hamstra learned how to make her grandmother’s buttermilk pancakes. Now ingrained in her brain, it was once on a notecard written by her father, placed onto the counter. These pancakes are simple to Hamstra, yet she finds solace among them.

“Pancakes are a great comfort food,” Hamstra said. “You can be upset, have a stomach ache, have a bad day at school, get broken up with by somebody, fail your math test, but pancakes, they never fail you.”

The breakfast food is a family tradition for Hamstra. As a child, Saturday morning and her family’s pancakes were synonymous.

“My parents were quite young when they had my brother and I, and Saturday mornings were the only time we were really all home,” Hamstra said.

With Hamstra’s dad constantly at the hospital during med school, internship, and residency, and her mom on call as a trauma social worker, sitting together and enjoying a meal was a rarity. But when her family could all have pancakes together, it became a tradition — every Saturday morning, the Hamstra family had the delicious pancakes, no matter what.

“If we had friends over for a sleepover, they got pancakes too,” Hamstra said.

“All of my friends and extended family have had my family’s pan-

cakes and fallen in love with them.”

Over the years, Hamstra’s family has played around with the recipe, adjusting measurements and the form of certain ingredients.

“I’m from a family of scientists, so when we cook, my family wants to know why certain things are happening,” Hamstra said. “‘Why are the onions caramelizing?’ and ‘Why is the baked good rising?’”

From fiddling the ratios of baking soda and baking powder to see the pancakes rise or flatten, adjusting for certain preferences, to adding popular add-ins like chocolate chips or blueberries (Hamstra’s personal favorite), she has discovered complex spins on the pancake recipe and enjoys sharing pancakes with those around her.

“I’ve gotten quite good at making Bananas Foster where I flambé the bananas, people always like that,” Hamstra said. “Over the years, I’ve gotten my own CO2 cartridges to make homemade whipped cream at home.”

As blueberry pancakes are Hamstra’s favorite and insists “you got to have real maple syrup, none of that high fructose corn syrup stuff,”, she enjoys going outside of her comfort zone, despite certain challenges being more labor intensive.

“I’ve recently started making those really tall, jiggly Japanese pancakes,” Hamstra said. “You have to whip the egg whites to get the lift for them, and then you have to get these metal circular molds that you heat up, spray them, and they take forever to cook because it’s almost like a custard in the middle.”

To Hamstra, those are not her favorite. Presentation is not the most important thing to her when it comes to cooking, preferring the THE COMMUNICATOR

ease of cleaning up, taste and getting food on the plate as quickly as possible. And Hamstra whole-heartedly choses pancakes over waffles, feeling like there is more control and less uncertainty on a pancake griddle than there was in a waffle iron.

“Put the batter in the waffle iron, you close it up, and you hope that the waffle worked, and if it didn’t, you open it up and you find that out,” Hamstra said.“Pancakes do take a steady hand and you have to almost baby them to get them the way you want.”

47

FOOD STORIES

JUPITER GERGICS

GOULASH

A traditional Hungarian stew brings together Jupiter Gergics’ family and friends.

BY NINA TINNEY

S

poonfuls of fiery paprika, bowls teeming with hearty stew and late-night bonfires are all things that come to mind when Jupiter Gergics thinks of Hungarian food. And out of the dozens of traditional Hungarian dishes they could choose from, Gergics’ favorite is goulash.

Goulash is a stew containing carrots, potatoes, bits of meat and a richly seasoned broth: a dish that Gergics and many other Hungarian families consider to be a household staple.

“If I went to a fancy restaurant, where everything was perfectly chopped, and they served me goulash, I don’t think I’d want it, ” Gergics said. “There is something special about it being homemade.”

Gergics’s family will often get together with their Hungarian friends and make goulash together. They will crowd into the kitchen and each be assigned a job whether that is chopping vegetables, making the spice blend or minding the pot.

They will even start a bonfire and bring the cooking outdoors.

It is during these get-togethers that Gergics will stay huddled around the fire late into the night.

They will roast sausages and ham, spread leftover grease over crusty rinds of bread and drink cup after cup of goulash, letting it fill their insides with a comforting warmth.

“Almost every time that we get together with our friends or family, we share a meal,” Gergics said. “It’s just nice to sit and chat and make a pot of goulash. It is something that brings us together.”

At this point, Gergics has watched goulash be made hundreds of times.

And slowly, they have started to commit the process to memory.

But whenever they ask their parents 48

for the recipe — so it can be written down for future reference — they are left without an answer.

This lack of specificity only adds to the rusticness of the recipe. As they dump chunks of carrots and potato into a pot, they measure with feeling, not a measuring cup. And this is the same for many other Gergics family recipes, developed simply by spending time in the kitchen.

“Whenever I think about Hungarian food, I picture things being randomly thrown into a pot. I picture an open fire and fresh bread and meat,” Gergics said.

“But mostly, I picture my family.”

For Gergics goulash has become more than a cup of soup. Amongst the carrots and potatoes, the soup is filled with sweet memories and time well spent with family and friends.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NINA TINNEY AND KLAVA ALICEA

FEATURE

ELOISE MACDOUGALD

SWISS ROLL

A cozy memory for Eloise MacDougald is baking during the holidays amidst the cold winter with the women of her family.

BY KLAVA ALICEA

E

loise MacDougald baked a Swiss roll in preparation for the holiday season, as she did many years ago. The last time she baked a Swiss roll was when she was 5 years old with her mother and grandmother before Christmas.

She described the cake as nostalgic.

“It’s a chocolate cake that’s rolled into a spiral and it can be called a Christmas log,” MacDougald said.

After mixing together egg whites and sugar, a white foaming mixture appeared that was combined with sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla extract. The batter was put into a pan and was placed in the oven. The recipe said for the pan to be in the oven for 10 minutes but the batter chose to be uncooperative that day.

MacDougald took the pan out after 30 minutes.

MacDougald remembers baking in her kitchen with her mother and grandmother as snow fell from the sky and Christmas music played in the background. Looking back on the memory, baking with the women of her family, it reminds her of a cozy time of the year.

“When it’s cold outside, you want to make something warm and comforting and I think this is that for me,” MacDougald said.

Baking during the holiday season allows people to come together and create shared memories with one another.

“I think the Swiss roll brings up a lot of good memories of my grandma,” MacDougald said. “It’s a nice dish to bring us together.”

MacDougald learned the recipe from her mother who learned the recipe from her mother, which has now become a family tradition.

“We all made it together. It’s a complicated recipe so I think we butchered it, but my grandma end-

ed up saving it,” MacDougald said.

“The thing I remember about the actual cake is making it, rather than eating it.”

A Swiss roll is a complicated dessert especially if the baker does not consider themselves to be good at baking. Before baking, MacDougald felt that she was not a good baker.

Typically, the end result of the Swiss roll was more of a puddle of chocolate batter and melted whipped THE COMMUNICATOR

cream rather than a Swiss roll.

Although the end result was similar to an expectation versus reality meme, it is the memory of the cake that holds real value.

Food holds memories and brings people together. The holiday season is an opportunity for people to come together and share important family recipes just as MacDougald’s family has done.

49

FOOD STORIES

KINGA JUNG

MÉZESKALÁCS

A classic Christmas cookie recipe passed down through generations creates nostalgia for Kinga Jung.

BY CLARA FREETH

F

or as long as Kinga Jung can remember, her Christmas holiday has always revolved around Mézeskalács, or “Hungarian gingerbread cookies,” the family-favorite makes an appearance every winter, the smells of clove, cinnamon and ginger filling the house with a nostalgic warmth.

For Jung and her family, these cookies are not just a one-and-done deal, as the dough is made the night before the main event, giving it time to rise before it is shaped the following morning. The next morning is for the rolling out and cutting up of the shapes. Colorful cookie cutters shaped as dinosaurs, angels and stars litter the countertop, year after year.

Big and small shapes line the baking sheets, ready to be coated with a layer of egg yolk before they are placed in the oven. As they bake, icing is made from whipped egg whites, powdered sugar and just a little bit of lemon juice. After they cool, the cookies are iced. Both simple and complex patterns adorn their golden tops; some to be eaten immediately and some saved to be shared with family and friends as a token of love.

Packed into containers to be carried across state lines, the cookies and the family annually make their way to their cousin’s house for the Christmas festivities.

When Jung was 6 years old, she remembers coming up the stairs with her cousins to the sight of presents.

She immediately ran into the kitchen to tell her grandma that the angel had visited. The sound of bells was faint in the distance as her grandma informed her that she just saw the angel flying by.

“I was freaking out. I was like, oh my god, that angel was actually here.

I’m hearing bells. I’m hearing bells.

She’s coming,” Jung said.

That was the moment she truly believed.

In Hungarian tradition, the angel delivers presents on the night of Christmas Eve. Most years, a post-dinner, pre-presents walk is a necessity (to make sure the angel has time to deliver gifts). But before they left, Jung would often try to take a peek inside, craning her neck, jumping up and down, hoping for a peek at the presents through the window before one of her parents ushered her away “I remember literally jumping with joy,” Jung said.

As they walk along the riverside,

50

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLARA FREETH AND LEILA DURRIE

the scent of pine thick in their noses as they listen for the sound of bells in the distance — a sure sign that the angel is nearby. Anticipation grows as snow lands on eyelashes and sticks to mittens, the sounds of Hungarian Christmas songs filling the air. Kis karácsony nagy karácsony, which translates to “Big Christmas, Little Christmas” Knowing that upon their return, presents would be waiting under the tree, she remembers the anticipation building with each step. Jung knows that even as she grows older, she can still enjoy the little frivolous joys like bells in the woods.

FEATURE

DESMOND LORENZ

GERMAN PANCAKE

Desmond Lorenz finds generational connection through the family tradition by making his grandmother’s German Pancake recipe.

BY LEILA DURRIE

E

arly on a bright Saturday morning, Desmond Lorenz tasted a German Pancake for the first time. He still remembers his 7 year old self watching his dad preparing the dish in a cast iron pan.

“That delicious, fluffy nature of eating a German Pancake right out of the pan is a memory I’ll never forget,” Lorenz Said. “It was surreal.”

Passed down from his great, great

grandmother, Mimi Lorenz, the recipe has continued to survive throughout generations. Family gatherings, especially during the holiday season, have been an opportunity to pay homage to this beloved recipe.

When Lorenz’s family comes into town, this dish is always made for breakfast one morning and is a family favorite on special occasions.

The tradition of making this dish THE COMMUNICATOR

is a tribute to his family’s German roots.

The Lorenz family’s German ancestors came to America hoping for a new start after World War I, bringing this recipe and other traditions with them. A family cookbook contains their special recipe. The pancake recipe is one of the only things that has stood the test of time for the Lorenz family and has kept a prominent place as a tradition. Lorenz’s father inherited the recipe and when he was old enough to learn, Lorenz was taught to make this dish as well.

“It was just really a bonding experience with my Dad when I got to learn how to make it,” Lorenz said.

“Which was pretty awesome and a great way to spend time together.”

This experience with his dad has inspired Lorenz to continue passing this recipe down to future generations of his family.

“Having dishes like this are important because of the family connection and the memories I have with family while eating it,” Lorenz said “But also because when you’re cooking it, you can look at it in the oven. And if you take a time lapse of it, you can see the sides puff up really tall and overflow above the pan, and it’s really amazing.”

Also known as a Dutch Baby, this dish has a pancake-type crust, with a fluffy puffed center, tasting similar to custard. Lorenz explains it as: “The German Pancake is just a pancake but way bigger and it looks cooler. So, it really is an upgraded version of normal pancakes.”

The uniqueness of Lorenz’s dish is not just in taste, but in the emotions and family history behind it.

The connection with family and the stories it creates is what makes German Pancakes so special.

51

FOOD STORY

JULIA HARRISON

FRIED TOFU

Julia Harrison has grown up in the kitchen, learning and uncovering new things every step of the way.

BY CLAIRE LEWIS

F

work adapting and learning new recipes. Throughout the years, the two of them went through many different phases; one year all they did was make crepes and the next, they worked endlessly to perfect the French macaron. Although there are many memories Harrison has in the kitchen, it’s really about the knowledge of cooking and learning that Harrison holds on to more than anything else.

As the years have gone by the two of them don’t spend quite as much time together in the kitchen, but they have maintained their love for cooking. This in turn has evolved a new form of communication for them: Instagram reels.

“She’s always sending me videos of crazy meals that she wants me to try out.” Harrison said. “Most of them seem a little bit too extravagant to actually try out, but every so often I just go for it.”

This is how the two of them discovered one of their favorite recipes: tofu fried in a medley of spices and flavors. Although Harrison doesn’t have a name for this specific dish, the adjective most used to describe it is “delicious.”

“Honestly, usually I just make it for myself… it’s just that good. But there’s always leftovers and so my family scrambles to eat them,” Harrison said.

The tofu has become a staple in their household: it’s a request, a latenight snack, a family dinner. It’s become a comfort, warm and delicious. But it’s really about how it came to be that sticks with Harrison, all the years that prepared them to have some authority in the kitchen.

“My mom always used to call me her sous-chef,” Harrison said. “Although recently, she says that I’ve graduated, and now she’s mine.”

or Julia Harrison and their mom, it’s always been more about the discovery than anything else – the two just love to cook. Both of them have always been found tinkering away in the kitchen, and it’s their own curiosity, and appetite, that has fueled that wonder.

When Harrison was younger, everyday they would arrive home from school and eagerly go to the kitchen. Helping their mom

was a staple in their day to day routine and was taught many of the ins and outs of cooking.

“She really taught me everything I know,” said Harrison. “Since we’ve been cooking together since I was little we’ve both adapted to each other’s cooking styles, because of that we can work together to make awesome new and delicious meals.”

Harrison’s mom worked at home for the majority of Harrison’s childhood, which led to hours of

52

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASPER FORGEY AND BRIDGETTE KELLY

FEATURE

LEILA BANK

HOT GARLIC EGG

Indulging in such a fresh meal, ripe with feelings of nostalgia and love, makes the meal extra personal to Bank.

BY BRIDGETTE KELLY

O

n a weekend morning in the Bank household, the sizzle of eggs frying on a pan, the steady ticking of a toaster and the sharp cracks of a knife hitting the cutting board fill the kitchen. This culinary symphony is part of Leila Bank’s and her father Andrew Bank’s weekend breakfast tradition.

“The dish is what my dad likes to call a hot garlic egg,” Bank said.

“It’s basically avocado toast topped with a fried egg with garlic and salt and all the fun stuff. My dad likes to add hot sauce which not a fan of, but you can add whatever you want to it.”

Bank’s father introduced her to the recipe years ago and after countless weekends of cracking eggs and drizzling olive oil, Bank now believes she is even better than her dad at making “hot garlic egg”.

“I’ve perfected my craft if you will,” Bank said. “It depends, but I usually like the yolk a little bit runny on my egg and you have to figure out how to make that happen. You have to have the timing right for when to put the bread in the toaster and you have to make sure you have good avocados. It’s a hustle.”

Bank’s dad can’t recall how he started making the dish, but Leila remembers the moment she got hooked.

“I was really hungry one day and he was making it for himself, and I took a bite of it and went ‘Wow, this is maybe the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life’,” Bank said. “Then he made me one, and the rest is history.”

Making “hot garlic egg” is a team effort. Bank is often the one toasting the bread, mashing the avocados, and seasoning them with salt and olive oil, while her dad is the

one frying the eggs.

“My dad does the egg because he thinks he’s really good at it,” Bank said. “I’m better at it but he doesn’t need to know that.”

This 20-minute weekend breakfast routine is generally a quiet affair, but Bank knows how meaningful the moment is for each other.

“It’s sort of comfortable silence,” Bank said. “I think that’s really imTHE COMMUNICATOR

portant to me because talking is nice, but being able to be silent with someone and have it not be awkward is also really beautiful.”

Such a simple dish holds many of Bank’s most cherished memories between her and her dad. Bank knows she will be making this dish for years to come, not only because of how delicious it is, but because of what it represents.

53

Access to food is not a human need, but a human right. The ending of our Food Gatherers’s fundraiser has opened our eyes once again...

54

OPINION

STAFF EDITORIAL

to how food is often in question for members of our community. Food insecurity and the question of “when will my next meal be?” is an epidemic our country continues to face in spite of being one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

According to the latest Household Food Insecurity report, 33.8 million people in the United States experienced food insecurity in 2021. While Washtenaw county is the second wealthiest county in Michigan, 6.8% of children living here still face food insecurity at some point during the year.

As young people, we are about to inherit a world that is pained by hunger. It is our responsibility to raise awareness and create a more equitable system where food is a guaranteed part of life for all households.

Food insecurity is a solvable issue, and the first step to address it is awareness. Without the necessary communication, the people who can easily contribute to help the cause might not be aware of the scale of the issue.

The Food Gatherers’s fundraiser aims to raise awareness while simultaneously taking action. This year, CHS raised $71,471 with an additional $50,000 matched by Harold and Kay Peplau. In total, these funds will provide 242,942 meals to our community. Year after year, this fundraiser has proven how much impact our school community can have.

Creating a local impact, though important, does not equate to fixing the system. The problem lies within a system that makes us fight for human necessities. While food pantries, soup kitchens and other resources have positive impacts, they are a band-aid over a bullet hole.

To systematically address food insecurity, we must enact legislation that aids groups that are disproportionately affected by the issue.

It is our responsibility to advocate for policies that address food insecurity at its root cause. Food Gatherers supports the 2023 Farm Bill, which is a sweeping piece of federal legislation that would strengthen government programs designed to better our community like “The Emergency Food Assistance Program” and the “Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.”

THE COMMUNICATOR

We can advocate by contacting elected officials and local representatives, which can be found on the Food Gatherers’s website.

Advocating for legislation should supplement volunteering and charity work, as both are equally essential ways to make change. The CHS Food Gatherers’s Fundraiser is an example of what can be accomplished by a community rallying towards a common goal.

Taking action through projects that are organized through school, like the Food Gatherers’s Fundraiser, can have an immense impact on the community.

If every school in our district focused on a large community service project, that could make a huge difference, at least in the local community.

If every school in our district participated in a schoolwide community service project, not only would it teach lessons of cooperation but students would learn the importance of being community service oriented.

School-based service projects have the potential to foster a generation of students who will realize their passion for helping others and dedicate themselves to making a difference.

There are 17,070 students who attend one of the 32 schools in AAPS. Each of whom will graduate and join workplaces and communities across the world. They can bring the community service skills that they learn in AAPS to other communities; this is how we can actively work to make the world a better place for all.

Community service must be incorporated in our district’s curriculum just as core subjects like math and English are. It will take school leaders and students to join together and take on this initiative. The result could change our community, and if focused on ending hunger, could eliminate food insecurity.

Every year, the Food Gatherers’s fundraiser gives us a reality check on the harsh truth of food insecurity.

Fundraising for Food Gatherers and raising awareness about food insecurity should not stop in November because food insecurity doesn’t stop in November. It’s our generation’s responsibility to make sure no one in our country goes to bed hungry.

55

More Than a Meal Starvation at school should no longer be the norm for students in the United States.

BY ISABELLA MALDONADO

Hunger consumes us. No matter who you are, your stomach starts to rumble, and all other things turn to fog. Learning math or science no longer matters when all you can think about is when you’re going to be able to take a bite of food.

That is why allowing kids to have access to free lunch is so important. Whether you just forgot your lunch at home or lunch at school is the only full meal you get, all kids deserve the option of free school lunch. Markell Lewis Miller, the director of Community Food Programs at Food Gatherers, is a firm believer that all kids should be able to have access to food.

“If kids are fed and have access to a healthy meal, it’s easier to learn; it’s easier to have kind of regulated behavior during a school day when you’re trying to sit in class and have energy for exercise for sports,” Lewis Miller said.

Before COVID-19, when students would charge for lunch without having the means to pay for the food, it would contribute to a deficit in the Ann Arbor Public School’s (AAPS) food program. Every school year, the district made the schools pay that deficit off, which was in no way fair to the school budget, so the district would absorb the debt. But to be able to pay off that debt, Michigan required AAPS to apply for a grant to reduce the funds to nothing, so that at the beginning of the next school year, they would have no debt in school lunch.

The second the announcement was made that school 56

Photography by Isabella Maldonado Students wait in a line for the cafeteria to open at lunch. Since AAPS schools started to provide free lunch to all its students the amount of kids getting food has increased. “It’s all a good problem because that means more people are getting fed,” Margolis said

was called off for the next two weeks, Liz Margolis, the executive director of student safety and district operations for AAPS, and her team worked tirelessly over the weekend to make sure that by Monday, families had a place and a plan to get food.

“Friday, March 13. It’s burned in my brain. We worked all weekend so that we were able on that Monday, the 16th of March, to start with the program,” Margolis said. “The federal government allowed us to do food for free for everyone. And so we developed about 22 service locations, for families to come to get their food. We served over one and a half million [people] in the U.S. during COVID-19.”

At the start of COVID-19, President Biden enacted the American Rescue Plan. This plan’s mission was to “provide direct relief to Americans, contain COVID-19, and rescue the economy,” according to the White House.

This plan included allocating funds so that AAPS could provide food to the students in their community and families in need while they are not physically in school.

This AAPS food assistance also allowed bus drivers, who in most places would be laid off during COVID-19,

OPINION

“

LUNCH IS A PART OF THE SCHOOL DAY, IT’S PART OF THE EXPERIENCE.”

Photo Courtesy of Liz Margolis Volunteers get ready to load meals onto buses to be delivered to families in need. These volunteers worked tirelessly to help the AAPS meal program and came to have real connections with the families they delivered meals to. “A lot of families were isolated for a period of time,” Margolis said. “They look forward to those deliveries, and [volunteers] developed relationships with families.”

a chance to keep their jobs by delivering food to families. The program gave food service workers at Chartwells who couldn’t work in schools employment.

But as our time of online school due to COVID-19 came to an end, the support of free lunch from AAPS and the federal government didn’t. When going back to school in 2021, it was announced that for the entire school year, all AAPS students would be offered free lunch and breakfast. As families were still recovering from COVID-19, this should be expected, right? In fact, shouldn’t students no longer have to worry about not being able to pay for school lunch again? That seems like the most logical answer, except that the federal government ended funding for schools to be able to have free school meals in June of 2022.

This meant that families would now have to go back to the previous ways of getting free school lunches, with complicated forms such as EBT. But what if you don’t quite qualify for free or reduced lunch, or your parents aren’t able to fill out the form? Well then, it sucks to be you. Or it did until the Michigan Senate proposed Bill 173.Bill 173 provides funding for all public schools to be able to offer their students free school lunches.

“Every Michigan child deserves a chance to pursue their potential and build a bright future. This historic education budget will make that possible,” Governor Gretchen Whitmer said. “This budget puts students first and supports parents by expanding access to free

Pre-K, providing free breakfast and lunch to all public school students, and improving higher education.”

Bill 173 also makes it so that you can’t tell the difference between a child whose family is paying for their lunch and a child who gets free lunch; it’s simply food.

“Lunch is a part of the school day; it’s part of the experience. And so it’s easier for students to participate and not feel like they’re left out or, you know, doing something different,” Lewis Miller said. ”There’s a great communal atmosphere when meals are free for everyone.”

With this new bill, there are no longer indicators of a child receiving free school lunch, no different color card, or a pop-up that tells people if they are receiving free lunch—no more shame for students in need. This erases the stigma that comes along with free school lunches.

“Students need to be fed, and they do not need stigmas attached to it, like free and reduced lunch. They just need to receive nutritious meals and not have to worry about that. And so that’s what our goal is,” Margolis said. “Our goal is to be following the regulations to provide the free breakfast and lunch to any students in our district, and it’s critical because we think that is important to student learning.”

However this opportunity is not offered to all students in other states; according to the Detroit Free Press, Michigan is only one of eight states to provide students with a universal free lunch. When you think about it, shouldn’t the opportunity to be fed and nurture a student’s body also go hand in hand with nurturing a student’s mind through education?

Food is necessary to live; it is a basic human right and so is education. America as a country needs to take a step forward and start providing all students, in all states, with free school lunch.

THE COMMUNICATOR

57

Simmering Regrets Working in my family’s restaurant meant that my childhood experiences were different than my peers.

BY WILSON ZHENG

My family has owned a restaurant for as long as I remember. In fact, you’ve probably even gone there.

Whenever I tell people this, they always respond in the same way: “Oh, you’re so lucky, you get free food.” But rather than feeling lucky, I felt quite the opposite—it was a curse, binding me to the place I considered a“second home”.

Growing up, my parents weren’t in the best economic position.

Since they immigrated to the U.S., they knew no English, not even the most basic phrases. This made it practically impossible for them to get any office job, so they worked in Chinese restaurants as the managers were more likely to speak Mandarin, and eventually, they opened their own here in Ann Arbor.

With this, they were able to buy food and a home for me and my sister to live in. Now, this sounds amazing, being able to sleep in a warm bed and not needing to worry about food is something I am really grateful for. But maybe not so much for the younger me.

Owning a restaurant takes a lot of work and time. My parents worked from daybreak to nightfall, coming home at midnight. They did this every day, every month, every year. I remember going to sleep and staring at the pitch darkness of my room, asking the ceiling light why they couldn’t just take a day off. It never 58

responded.

Since my parents weren’t able to take care of me, my grandparents did. They would spend half the year taking care of me, and the other half in China.

When they weren’t in the U.S., I would be picked up late from school to the restaurant by my dad and spend my time there until closing to go home with my parents. It was extremely boring but I had no other choice as my parents had no time to take me home.

As the years passed, I started to work. My mom thought it would be a good chance for me to get more experience and skills. I thought it was a waste of my time. It started off simple; peeling carrots, wrapping wontons.

It was an endless cycle; go to school, get picked up to the restaurant, go home late at night and sleep. Each day would end, with the ball reaching the top of the hill for it to just roll right back down the next.

Do you remember visiting family up north, or going to the football game with your dad on the weekend, or maybe even going on vacation to Disneyland? All I can remember is going shopping at Costco every Sunday for food supplies and the occasional mall trip during Black Friday.

And to me, that was more enjoyable than any field trip, or any friend sleepover.

I remember throughout all of school, my friends and teachers would ask: “Where’d you go for break?” I would just say that I stayed home, ART BY BEE WHALEN

when in reality, I was packing the dozens of queued orders waiting to be delivered and listening to customer complaints about how their food was too dry. And while I played it off, I knew that I did actually hate it.

And before long, fifth grade became sixth, sixth became eighth, and so on. I got more extracurriculars and became more busy. I got to stay home to do homework and practice piano, and I went back to that place less and less.

The end isn’t anything grand. I didn’t have a big talk with my parents about how I felt. I didn’t call the police to report them for child neglect. I just grew out of it, and I think my parents did too.

I don’t think the kitchen is a place for children to be.

In fact, I don’t think any workplace is. But the truth is, at the time, it just couldn’t be helped. No one could take care of me, and I couldn’t take care of myself. They tried their best, and young me was simply too young to understand.

People often ask the question: “If there was one thing you’d let your younger self know, what would it be?”

For me, it would be seeing the dark red blood from my fingers after accidentally cutting them, feeling the searing hot pain from the angry oil when it splashed on my arms, apologizing to enraged customers when they found an item missing from their order.

It wasn’t all for nothing.

OPINION

Curiosity Carries Me Exploring complex and often stigmatized questions has always been essential to my being.

BY SANA SCHADEN

Standing in front of a classroom of other high school students, I walk the tightrope between student and teacher. My unique position welcomes big questions and gives me the key to answering them. As I take in the 20 pairs of students’ eyes staring back at me, many half asleep, others half intrigued, I wonder what they are thinking. My short who, what, why are you here spiel slides off my tongue comfortably as I explain my role, “I am a peer educator, devoted to providing comprehensive sex education and medically accurate information.”

At some point during my presentation, I pause to pass blank notecards around the room. At first, eyes roll. Too often, an extra notecard turns into a mandatory writing exercise. “This time, I want the notecards to mean something.” After assuring the participants that their responses will remain anonymous, I give directions, “Draw me a picture.

Ask me a question. Tell me what you think. Have a conversation. Just don’t leave it blank.”

As I sort through the last couple of questions, one small crumpled card catches my eye. “Are you even qualified to be teaching this stuff?” The blood rushes to my brain, signaling a momentary imposter syndrome. I sense my health teacher stepping in to defend me, citing my 100 hours of training on sexual health, gender,

and sexuality. But suddenly, I feel my familiar mantra take over. I am the most qualified to be standing in front of the classroom. We, as teens, are the most suitable because we are the ones dumping our most profound questions into a Google search or other impersonal databases — fearing that the questions we ask may condemn us.

Initially, I “dumped” my own questions into sketchbooks and notebooks through my artwork and creative writing. Around third grade, I realized how pervasive my curiosity for the world around me would become. I remember sitting at my third-grade lunch table, listening to my friends plan the perfect future life — a secluded island, free from the pangs of our apparent dystopia.

The island would feature just about every one of our favorite pieces of pop culture, leaving the bad to clutter less fortunate minds.

And while my friends celebrated our solution, I felt a strange disinterest wash over me. I wanted to explore the underbelly of our world, not some idealistic aspect of it.

By fourth grade, I was exploring grief, connection, freedom, and the human condition through my fiction short stories. I often stretched dinner table discussions into complex debates over buzzwords like privilege, human rights, right versus THE COMMUNICATOR

left and race. My curiosity carried me to topics I soon discovered not everyone had the moxie to embrace.

My passion led me to seek answers to all my questions, no matter how complex.

As I grew older, I yearned to stretch beyond my imagination. So, I stepped into a role that I hoped could help make a difference in my community, leading me to the frequent discussion over our bodies, rights, and autonomy. When I saw the application for Planned Parenthood Peer Educators in the school announcements, I realized this was an opportunity to create a space where I could answer others’ big questions. I spent 100 hours learning about sexual health, LGBTQ+ identities, and healthy relationships during my first two months in the program. Now, I spend my time finding the underbelly where change needs to happen and learning from my peers’ stories whenever I present.

I hope to expand my learning by exploring different aspects of my community wherever I am. My storytelling and creative skills give me the tools I need to continue cultivating brave spaces for people inclined toward change. I also continue to follow my younger self’s awareness that an ideal world doesn’t exist isolated on an island but rather as a complex culmination of people and perspectives.

59

AGREE TO “Bad food” is a very harmful concept, but not in the way you may think. It has an ever-changing definition and it is different from person to person.

BY FINA KUTCHER

Having a healthy relationship with food has always been a huge struggle for me. Looking back over the last century or so, it’s pretty easy to find evidence of how the diet industry has pushed food into narrow categories of “good and bad”. I have certainly fallen into this hole, and it isn’t necessarily an easy one to get out of.

The real problem with these strict categories is that it also pushes a narrative that every individual is the same and should all make the same choices to be healthy: this is not the truth. Every individual body is different, and every individual body requires different treatment to be healthy.

The standard that is pushed by certain parts of the media says that we should all be striving for a “perfect body” both on the inside and out, but the reality is that a “perfect body” simply does not exist.

One thing that I notice a lot in diet culture is a generalization of how to go on diets. For example, some very popular diets involve entirely eliminating whole food groups, like carbs or sugar. For some people this might improve their health in desired ways, but for others, it could be detrimental.

According to the Lindner Center of HOPE, dieting can lower metabolic rates, cause malnutrition, and create unhealthy eating habits that can cause a lot of harm later in life.

“Complex entities like health and wellness cannot be reduced to the 60

one isolated number of what we weigh or to what body mass index (BMI) is,” The Linder Center of HOPE said, “Dieting mentality tempts us into ‘If I am thin- I will be happy’ or ‘If I am not thin-I am a failure’ way of thinking but only provides a short term fictitious solution with long term harmful physical and mental consequences.”

A lot of harm can come from assuming a singular standard for all to strive for; it pushes harmful mentalities, unhealthy eating habits and can result in malnutrition. It is extremely crucial that as individuals, we all understand our bodies enough to be able to supply ourselves with the nutrients we require.

By proxy, it is also important to know what kind of foods to avoid to have a healthy lifestyle – what I might consider “bad food”. To ART BY BEE WHALEN

know this, it is important to fully understand yourself, and what kinds of food would keep you from being healthy. For example, if you are someone with food allergies, those would be considered “bad” for you.

The answer to this question, “Does bad food exist?” is entirely based on one’s personal definition of what a “bad food” is. To put it simply, a “bad food” is a food that harms your health.

It is impossible to generally define a singular food as good or bad. We all need different things.

In short, bad foods do indeed exist, but it is unhealthy to assume that they are the same for everyone.

For getting help, please call or text (800) 931-2237 For additional resources, search: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org

OPINION

DISAGREE Challenging and dissecting the conceptualizations that stand in the way of our nourishment and livelihood.

BY PIPER COOKE

Food does not have morality: it cannot be good or bad, clean or dirty, forbidden or allowed. Foods being organized into “good or bad” categories is a concept that the diet industry has pushed for over a century.

From my experience, food does not have the virtue of decision-making, it cannot exercise ethics and it does not have the capacity to be ludicrous. Carrots and french fries have the same ability to be wrong or malicious – none.

It can be an uphill battle to gain and maintain a healthy relationship with food. Many factors are battling against us as individuals who need food and calories to survive, but naturally seek comfort and enjoyment in the foods we eat and more generally, in almost everything we do.

The concept of “Good vs. Bad”

foods only perpetuates harmful eating habits, which further ingrains hostile ideologies into our lifestyles and society. It is unfair to yourself to outlaw foods from your diet based on an outdated concept pushed by harmful platforms. You are missing out on so much by restricting yourself and living in fear of food.

According to the National Institution of Health, “Eating disorders are actually serious and often fatal illnesses that are associated with severe disturbances in people’s eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions.”

Eating disorders are a crippling experience, regardless of the form they take. They are complex, serious and dark. It is detrimental to your livelihood. You deserve to live a life not bound to food categories, calories, or body image.

THE COMMUNICATOR

Even though limiting yourself around food dampens diet variability, in turn affecting your health and general quality of life, it is only a puzzle piece in the larger picture of being “healthy”. Health is different to various people, but I define it as all aspects of well-being: mental, physical, social, and any other you can think of are all respected and nurtured as a whole. Health is not just the absence of disease or crisis.

It is essential to entertain health in your everyday life and routine, even though this may look different from person to person. To some, it could be honoring a nutrition goal or maybe eating a food your body has recently been craving. It is up to you to determine what a healthy relationship between food and nutrition is. We need to consume foods that fuel and honor our well-being, and the conceptualization of good and bad foods stands in the way of nourishment.

There are many important factors to having a healthy relationship with food. Satisfaction and flexibility are also valuable and deserve a place at the table.

To answer the initial question, “Do good and bad food exist?” — my answer is no. Far too many factors go into health and well-being to let yourself waste a second longer dwelling on outlawing food and jumping from fad to fad. Relations with food are layered and complex; limiting yourself is never worth the pain.

61

The Forum Dinner Table Every forum need to have some form of food to bring their students together.

BY ISABELLA MALDONADO & EDDIE MOBILIO BRECK

Forum is a family, at least while you’re a student at Community High School. The four years you spend with the same people and teacher is an essential part of the CHS experience. But to get these students to connect, forums have proven that food ties everyone together.

Forum lunch is an idea that has come up to include more time into the forums’ schedules. Eating meals with others is something special. It feels like you feel so many emotions at once, there’s not just one word you can use to say how you’re feeling.

As a dual enrollment student, Sadie Barber gets to examine the difference between Community and Skyline. She gets to truly see that when it comes to connecting their students, according to her, Community has a tight-knit student body because of forum, and specifically forum food.

“I think when we generally think of school, it’s just like academics and stuff, but Community is different,” Barber said. “Especially with our forums being like your family at school. Sharing meals at school brings sort of a familial energy that you wouldn’t get the opportunity to have at other places.”

The familial atmosphere is seen more often in forums that do share food in some way. For Charlotte Rotenberg, it’s her love language. It allows her to show how much she cares.

Rotenberg, a member of the Brent Forum, connects most to other students in her forum through homemade goods. The making of muffins and cakes uplifts the mood of 62

Rotenberg, especially after a long school day. “The other day one of our freshmen, Willow, brought in pumpkin chocolate chip muffins after a long day,” Rotenberg said. “It was a Tuesday at two-thirty, and everyone eating muffins really brought us together.”

Rotenberg loves to connect with different groups of people and keeps an open mind when it comes to introductions. She also indulges in opportunities that include interactive activities with new forumettes.

“Last year, during Forum Day, I had a cookie competition with one of my forumettes to see who made the better chocolate chip cookie,” Rotenberg said. “Unfortunately, I did not win. But I think I can redeem myself with brownies.”

But for some forums, it hasn’t been easy. CHS math teacher Luciana Qu’s forum struggled for the first few years coming back to school after COVID-19 and found it hard to create a family — that was until they started forum lunch.

“I feel like students get an opportunity to actually socialize during that time,” Qu said. “They’re enjoying the food that other students are taking. It feels like everybody’s contributing to the forum and I think that that is building a more positive environment and culture for us.

I think that people look forward to coming to the forum at least every Thursday, because they know there’s going to be food and it’s just encouraging to see the students want to come and be a part of this.”

Forum lunch must be the standard. It allows students to talk to students they wouldn’t normally.

Food is what makes a forum’s bond.

ART BY BEE WHALEN

OPINION

Dinner’s Ready!

CHS students weigh in on the importance of eating meals with their families.

BY MIA RUBENSTEIN AND PAIGE PLAVNICK

Eating a meal with your family can strengthen family values and traditions, and it can help you feel more connected to your parents and siblings. Every Friday night, my family eats dinner together. It is the one night a week that everyone sits together at the dinner table for about an hour with a home-cooked meal.

It gives us a chance to talk about our highlights and challenges from the day and talk about the upcoming week.

On other days of the week, we have conflicts that make it difficult to sit down together as a family for a meal. For example, my brother has baseball practice some nights, my sister and I have theater rehearsal or my parents have meetings.

It is important for our mental health to be able to tell someone about our day and hear the struggles and successes of others’ lives.

Julia Kaltwasser thinks that time spent with family is vital for building relationships. She and her mom have bonded so much just eating and talking.

She finds that after her parents divorced, meals with her parents were allowed for bonding with each of them individually. Eating meals with your family doesn’t only affect how connected you are to your family members, but it also affects your THE COMMUNICATOR

mental and physical health. According to researchers from the University of Florida, eating meals with families has positive effects on child development and mental health.

“Family dinners have been linked to a lower risk of obesity, substance abuse, eating disorders, and an increased chance of graduating from high school.”

CHS freshman, Amalia Bucher, agrees that family meals are important to help you bond with family members.

“Family members can also give you good advice on things happening in your life, help you manage stress, and can even help you with schoolwork you are struggling on,” Bucher said.

According to a study conducted by Laurie B. Fisher, Isa Williams Miles and Bryn Austin, adolescents who do not eat meals with family members have a higher chance of intaking alcohol.

“Girls who ate a family meal every day were 50% less likely to initiate alcohol use than those who ate a family meal some days or never,” the study showed.

Overall, based on academic research and student opinions, it seems that even as a high schooler, spending time with family is a valuable experience.

63

NARRATIVE

READERS WRITE Short personal narratives centered around their experiences with food and how it creates connection and memories in our staff’s lives.

64

OPINION

LYDIA DEBORD When my mother first agreed to go on a date with my father, she had no idea that would entail a third wheel of mushrooms. Rather than taking her to a fancy restaurant, my dad had prepared a stew in his kitchen. My mom was skeptical at first, but despite her reluctance, she loved it.

Throughout my childhood, cooking has been a skill almost as essential as reading and arithmetic. In first grade, my dad made sure I knew how to correctly cut onions. In sixth grade, he invited me backstage for Thanksgiving prep. My mom has always included me in her various holiday cookie prep, be it in oven mitts or with a cookie cutter in hand. I have a place in the kitchen, I’ve always known I have.

The first thing I ever learned to make was “ham roll-ups” for my preschool lunchbox. They were rather self-explanatory: first I’d layer two slices of lunch meat and spread a dollop of cream cheese or mustard across. Finally, I’d wrap it up into a tight sack of protein. I’d repeat the process three times and then pair it with apple juice and sliced strawberries.

Although it probably wasn’t any sort of dazzling cuisine, my four-year-old self was enamored.

Throughout elementary school, my goal was to always have lunches I would label “gourmet”. My parents were never the type to send me in with Lunchables or deliver me Panera, so my lunches were my own inventions. By middle school, I had an alternating selection of dishes: pretzel sandwiches, burrito bowls, quesadillas and salads.

In that period of time, my handmade dishes and I were the outliers to a rule I hadn’t been caught up on: girls didn’t eat now. Whether it was cool or a rebellion, I was never sure, but no matter my efforts they were there.

There were many days I would sit at my table, my glass-guarded lunches in front of me and feel like a fish out of water. Most of my friends and their varied diets would usually share a single bag of Skinny Pop, and that was that. My parents wouldn’t let me make the switch from meals to snacks, no matter how much I begged. They argued for my sustenance and nutrition, aspects my 12 year old self found ridiculous.

But when I hear the horror stories now, I’m thankful. Thankful that I didn’t become a statistic, thankful for every fruit and vegetable I ate and that the thought of “thin” didn’t consume me. Most of all, I’m thankful for the meals and the continued pleasure they bring me.

THE COMMUNICATOR

65

NARRATIVE

FINA KUTCHER Glittery-glistening pink rain boots pitter-patter across the damp pavement in desperate pursuit of cover. Hand locked with mine, my mom guided my wandering feet towards the nearest lit storefront, one whose bright and inviting look stood out against the muggy indigo air.

The soft glow from the building’s windows illuminated the sign that read “Zingerman’s Delicatessen”.

With her other hand, my mom pushed the aquamarine door open. Despite the gloomy state of the world just outside, the other people crowding in the aisles bustled with a warm, welcoming energy that immediately drew me in.

A sweet aroma of freshly baked goods distantly lingered in the air; a familiar scent wafted from behind the counter and overwhelmed my senses.

I looked up at my mother as she picked a few items off the shelves, indecisively tossed them between her hands, but ultimately decided on a small jar of raspberry jam— which she handed me as she led the two of us up to the front counter.

Peeking over the counter, I stare as the employee scans the shelves and selects a plump loaf of Paesano to present to us. He rings up the purchase, slides the loaf into a large brown paper bag, and nudges it in our direction.

The two of us waited for the clouds to lift from our shelter inside the front window, patiently awaiting even the briefest break in the downpour. After a few minutes of silent stalling, my mother reached into the shopping bag and pulled out the loaf of bread. She pulled it apart piece by piece, sending a crisp, resonant echo into the nearby air; every tear and rift she broke into the bread, the golden crust sent minuscule flakes scattering across the boarded oak floors.

A great mess was made, but my eyes stayed glued to the warm, golden dough. She then set aside the collection of bread chunks, removed the quaint little jar of jam from the bag and unscrewed the lid. Then, using a small plastic butter knife, she scooped a large glob of the maroon jelly and spread it on one of the chunks of bread.

Since that day, a sweet, comforting and familiar aroma has remained dormant in the back of my mind: only to be revived on rainy days such as those where I could serve myself a simple serving of bread and jam.

66

OPINION

LUCA HINESMAN Each birthday in my family, we wake up between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. to hop into the car with music blasting. Our destination is always Northside Grill and our outfits are always pajamas. It isn’t a rarity to see one of us with crazy bed-head hair and weepy eyes, considering it’s arguably way too early for us to look human.

Next, we greet the employees and take our usual booth in the corner. Years ago, we used to be able to fit in one booth comfortably, but now we’re all older and bigger, meaning we have to squeeze in. The booth provides a warm atmosphere and many memories come flooding back to our brains.

I recall seeing my little sister eat seven sausages in one sitting when turning 7 years old. It was definitely a sight, especially since she had little teeth. Another favorite memory is when my little brother got locked in the bathroom and my mom had to help him out. Or when I had French toast from Northside Grill for the first time and my life was altered in so many ways.

Our next step on the agenda is ordering a variety of plates, including a stacked plate of pancakes. Freshly squeezed orange juice is then ordered for whoever’s birthday it may be and,of course, we ask for the birthday hat.

The waiter comes over and my parents ask for their regular coffee. Our usual waiter has been working there for what seems like forever and is so, so funny. My family and I chat with her and we all catch up on our lives.

She reciprocates and then gives our order to the cooks.

Eventually, our food is ready, and we all begin to eat our delicious plates. Conversing continues and we all try to finish as much of the food as possible, but usually end up taking a box home. My parents pay, we talk more, grab multiple mints, say goodbye and are out the door.

Over the years, we came to recognize the faces of some of the employees and know their personalities. Each is hilarious and constantly kind to us. They helped create multiple early morning memories and celebrated our many birthdays. It’s truly a special space and deserves lots of love. Not only that, but the food is always great!

MALCOLM LONDON

Scarlett was the picky eater in the family.

She hated ranch dressing, beets and even milk. She wouldn’t go near a jar of pickles. I used to dream of the wide variety of recipes we would enjoy once she went off to college and, above all, fish. When she was away from home — at dance practice maybe — and would not be joining us for dinner, my mom would seize the opportunity to defrost the breaded Costco tilapia that had been lying dormant in our freezer.

Its cardboard container would be warped and the fish would be caked in icicles and snow: a token of its forbearance. Despite its tragic appearance, the fish, once placed in the oven, created an extraordinary scent that would alert my nose and prepare my taste buds for a magical meal. However, it was prepared — in tacos, over rice, or just by itself — I knew it would fulfill my fish-full desires. Each bite of that tilapia was a remarkable one.

Scarlett will not join us for dinner for a very long time now. Essentially, I can eat whatever I want. Our fridge is now packed with things she’d hate: mushrooms, olives, sour cream and a lot of pickles.

But for some reason, we never buy that breaded tilapia anymore.

THE COMMUNICATOR

67

REVIEWS

Out Out Loud.

Loud.

Three albums, three hot takes.

BY EVAN “GUMMY” OCHOA

“A Great Chaos” by Ken Carson Ken Carson’s third studio album, “A Great Chaos” sees him sticking to his guns and continuing the trend of releasing rage rap with punk aesthetics, vampire imagery and Rick Owens. Carson has been on an upward trajectory as of late, with label co-signs from Destroy Lonely and Playboi Carti, as well as collaborators Yeat and Lil Tecca. With the music industry looking at him and the “Opium” label as an unstoppable force in hip-hop, Carson strives to make his mark by upping the ante with “A Great Chaos”.

In the past, a gripe I have had with Carson’s music is its lack of distinction in the pool of the popularized rage rap pioneered by artists like Lil Uzi Vert, Trippie Redd, and, leader of the “Opium” label, Playboi Carti. With the release of “Whole Lotta Red’’, artists like Lancey Foux, Cochise, Yeat and Homixide Gang feel like off-shoots of this style. With Carson’s last project, “X,” being full of repetitive rage beats and vocals that ranged from uninteresting to unlistenable, he seems to be one of the worst perpetrators of copy and pasting the rage rap formula.

“A Great Chaos”, however, sees an improvement on all fronts. For one, the production isn’t afraid to get experimental, with the off-kilter, metallic synth leads on “Me N My Cup”, to the deep-fried bass on “Lose It”.

To complement this, Carson’s vocals also see a refinement from earlier works; given much of his work on “X” sounds thoughtless, however, it’s not a high bar to cross.

While songs like “Jennifer’s Body” and the sticky refrain on “Fighting My Demons” are high points, Carson still lacks significance in the rage rap scene.

Even with my initial reservations of Carson’s catalog, however, “A Great Chaos” made its point across, with an improved skill set and a track list, nowhere nearly as bloated as “X”.

68

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

“nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana” by Bad Bunny

“Heaven knows” by PinkPantheress The rise of PinkPantheress and drum and bass inspired pop has been making the rounds on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram. The formula is simple: cutesy vocals telling a melancholic story, minimalistic, spedup drum breaks and lo-fi synthesizers sounding like they came straight out of a PS2 game. Along with each track’s bite-sized run times, “to hell with it” seemed to perfect this formula. Given how infectious the album became on the internet, along with “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” with Ice Spice, PinkPantheress’s recently released project “Heaven knows” seemed like it should be a home run — and for the most part, it is.

“Mosquito” already showed promise, with its sweet mix of plucky guitars and ear worm of a chorus. While it seems like everything one would expect from a PinkPantheress record, its mix, structure and production value has shown a drastic shift, which is also true for the entirety of the project; every song now follows a conventional pop form, the lo-fi quality has been swapped out with industry standard mixing, and tracks are actually longer than two minutes.

This is not all being said to devalue this project, though. This progression in her sound actually works in her favor in many ways. The higher budget of “Heaven knows” provides newfound depth that wasn’t present in her earlier works, while still embracing a “y2k” aesthetic inspired by 2000s pop and electronic music. “Another life” kicks the album off with a heavenly arrangement of organs, which transitions into her signature sound of dreamy synth chords paired with breakneck drum and bass rhythms. On the latter half of the album, “Feelings” is filled with glimmering synth pads and in the same vein as bass-y pop beat in the same vein as Timbaland’s “Give It To Me”.

With this new evolution in her music, she seems to be guiding the pop music industry into a new direction by combining her DIY-esque production with a glamorous budget. Whether you prefer lo-fi PinkPantheress or popstar PinkPantheress, you really can’t go wrong with either.

With only a week of promo, fans had little time to wait for the upcoming project by Benito Ocasio, AKA Bad Bunny, “nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana”, which translates to “no one knows what will happen tomorrow”. Aside from two singles released prior, most of the album was kept under wraps until its release, which would find listeners hearing Bad Bunny returning to his Latin trap roots.

After the orchestral intro on “NADIE SABE”, which plays out like a movie scene, we’re treated to an album filled to the brim with Latin trap. The occasional detour sees him veering into atmospheric house and psychedelic reggaeton. The first three tracks following the intro are relatively strong, with the artists Young Miko and Mora bringing entertaining features to their respective songs. After this point, however, “nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana” turns into a chore.

Apart from the first handful of songs, the bloated 22 track project rarely switches up its sound. From “MR. OCTOBER” to “VUELVE CANDY B”, Bad Bunny sounds like he’s phoning it in over passable, if not mundane, instrumentals that sound like he found them by searching “Bad Bunny Trap Type Beat” on YouTube.

The sporadic inclusion of tracks with him rapping over jersey house on “CYBERTRUCK”, industrial synthesizers on “BATICANO” and reggaeton on “PERRO NEGRO” are highlights to the overwhelming dull experience. Even the single “UN PREVIEW”, which didn’t feel special upon release, felt like a breath of fresh air alongside other cuts.

To give a consensus on “nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana”, it’s a disappointing downgrade from his previous, eclectic release “Un Verano Sin Ti”, which felt like it had something for everyone. Knowing he’s capable of experimenting and pulling off so much more, let’s hope this is just a minor bump in the road.

THE COMMUNICATOR

69

REVIEWS

Cooking in “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” + “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” How two of the most critically acclaimed games in the past decade immerse the player with culinary delights.

BY MIA FLETCHER

To say that “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” changed the gaming scene back in 2017 would be an enormous understatement. As the debut title for the brand-new Nintendo Switch, the game united long-time Zelda fans and brand new players who were just picking up a controller. After the tutorial, you’re free to choose where you go, when, and how you’ll get there. By relying less on scripted events and a static storyline – for the first time in the franchise’s history, the story was in the hands of you, the player. Choosing your play style and how Link (the game’s protagonist) will become the hero of Hyrule is, in my opinion, the most appealing part of the game. Breath of the Wild revamped the well-known formula and introduced many to the wonderful world of gaming. While I could go on and on about all the things that make this game brilliant, I’m here to focus on one: cooking.

As you venture across the land of Hyrule, you are encouraged to grab, catch and harvest whatever you can get your hands on. Along with being able to purchase items from stores and traveling merchants, the ingredient possibilities are endless. You’ll find that certain ingredients grant different effects, like spicy ingredients giving resistance to cold weather for a period of time. This is especially handy when you find yourself without the proper gear for a new area you’ve just stumbled into. Having a wide variety of meals with different effects can save you in many situations.

The actual cooking mechanic is simple, throw up to five ingredients into a (lit) cooking pot and get a fully cooked meal! Of course, getting the result you want is a little more complicated than mashing any five ingredients together. If you try to mix two ingredients that grant different effects, the meal won’t have any effect.

Furthermore, if you were to put something like bugs or monster parts into your recipe, the result would be… less than edible. Affectionately called“Dubious food” and said to be “too gross to even look at” in its description, you’ll be inclined to not make the same culinary mistake again.

One of the most iconic parts of cooking in this game, by far, is what happens while the meal is simmering away. When a lot of people hear “The Legend of Zelda’’ and “cooking” in the same sentence, they likely think of the recognizable jingle that plays every time you throw something in the pot. Even if you’ve never heard of “Breath of the Wild’’ before this, there’s a chance you’ve heard the tune before. It becomes so ingrained into the minds of anyone who plays by design. The beat itself almost seems to be diegetic at first, caused by the ingredients bouncing around in the pot. With the way Link 70

hums to himself, watching intently as the both of you wait for the meal to be finished. It almost feels like he’s just as curious to see what will happen as you are. It becomes familiar, expected and comforting.

As a direct sequel, “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” doesn’t change much in terms of mechanics.

To put it as literally as possible, everything is just – bigger. The new areas that expand up, out and below come with new flora and fauna that grant effects never seen before. New ingredients aren’t only hiding in the wild, though. The people of Hyrule have been at work in their kitchens and farms as well — with there being just as much to discover in the familiar towns from before as there is out in the unfamiliar wild.

Handy and simple — overall just another mechanic to help you through the game. If that’s all that you desire from it, that’s all that cooking will be. Really though, it can be much more than that. You choose how you play, remember? I really only covered how cooking relates directly to the player, but these games live to tell a story — many stories. They are intricately woven into the core mechanics – like cooking – you’re taught from the very beginning, waiting to be discovered.

Available only on the Nintendo switch. Both “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” were produced by Eiji Aonuma and directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi and released in 2017 and 2023 respectively.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

“The Bear” Review An engaging and intense series showcasing the truth of restaurant life.

BY LUCA HINESMAN

Available only on Hulu for both seasons. Created by executive producer Christopher Storer.

Season 1 was released in 2022 and season 2 was released in 2023.

After a tragic death in his family, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a talented young chef from the world of fine dining, is forced to return to Chicago to manage his family’s sandwich shop, “The Beef”. Carmy finds himself in a completely different world from his usual one, having to leave Michelin-starred restaurants behind for a small business with a kitchen full of stubborn and strongwilled employees. As he revives the restaurant, he is also dealing with the aftermath of his brother’s suicide.

Christopher Storer is the sole creator of “The Bear”.

Along with other writers and directors, he co-writes and co-directs a number of episodes. “The Bear” has, so far, delivered two flawless seasons with the cast of Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edibri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and occasional guest performances. The cast’s executions are beautifully layered. Humanity is portrayed so effectively here and truly taps into so many aspects of life. Most importantly, it shows the importance of food and the correlation to humanity. Andrew Wehde is the cinematography director for this show. The color palette is primarily darker colors when in the kitchen, but changes drastically when in others settings. Wehde is a master at creating visual chaos on screen so that you feel like you’re in the same room as the characters.

“The Bear” is a unique cinematic portrayal of restaurant life. This show best illustrates how awful people who work in restaurants can be. Screaming, constant swearing, pointing the finger at everyone and cruelty pop up regularly in the restaurant. A variety of problems arise, creating interesting plot twists and dynamics.

The focus of the first season is Carmy’s attempt to keep the restaurant which his brother helped open afloat. While money is a struggle, the battle with intense emotions is by far the biggest. Workers are shouting and yelling at each other nonstop. While this makes for an interesting work environment, it also makes it difficult for coworkers to get along.

My highlight of season one was definitely the seventh episode of “The Bear”. This episode shines with its 18 minute long take. Cinematographer Andrew Wehde and

THE COMMUNICATOR

others helped shoot this episode as if you are seeing something you shouldn’t. It made me feel like a fly on the wall in a dangerous environment. It shows all the tension that happens in a family when everyone gets together. This particular episode is complicated, but realistic for many families when considering family dynamics.

Season two is equally fantastic. This season really dives into the personal lives of the characters and provides a backstory to them. They are continuing to work on transforming the restaurant by remodeling and improving the menu. Each episode leaves you feeling closer to the characters than the last. The storyline is unique and dives into the past and present of each character. The season ends with multiple unanswered questions and a sense of empathy for each character.

The highlight of the second season of “The Bear” is episode six; a feel-bad Christmas special, which shows the Berzatto family on their most stressful day of the year as their unresolved conflicts and long-buried traumas come to light. This episode takes place before Carmy’s brothers suicide, while Carmy is still working in uptight, fancy restaurants. The cast for this episode features many incredible actors such as Sarah Paulson, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Mulaney, portraying extended family members. The dialogue in this episode is magnetic. I have watched it many times and it never fails to entertain.

The actors are incredible. Ayo Edibri is a standout to me because her performance has so many emotions to it. Her character is very likable, and I feel I can relate to her personally. Jeremy Allen White is also incredible.

His character definitely has anger issues and is quick to argue. I find this impressive because it must be exhausting to portray these large and complicated emotions frequently throughout the season.

The writing is probably my favorite part of the show, I consider it impeccable. Actors are yelling lines over each other and displaying so many emotions. The writing is raw and truthful. The bombs that are dropped leave you speechless and you know that something crazy is going to happen. The Berzatto’s scream and yell frequently about really anything. The intensity is severe and, occasionally, I would have to pause the television to mentally comprehend the cruel and explicit arguments. However, they are loving at the same time and care about each other at the end of the day. It allows the actors to portray many sides of their character. Each episode, you get closer to them as if they are a friend.

Experiencing this show is something else. It’s similar to movies such as “Whiplash” or “I, Tonya”, considering they all carry on the perfectionist trope. Each episode of “The Bear” is engaging and perfect. Everyone should watch it. Feeling stressed can be expected when experiencing the chaos that comes out of this show. You don’t have to be connected to food or restaurant life in some way, but you should watch this show. I can guarantee that you can find one way to relate. It’s perfect to binge watch, as the characters forcefully pull you in.

“The Bear’’ is a cinematic and fast-paced depiction of restaurant life, perfect for food lovers. You need to watch it, even if you feel it isn’t for you. Give it a try and mentally prepare for this world.

71

ARTIST PROFILE

Dathan Austin One CHS artist describes their creative process and love for photography.

BY NINA TINNEY

With a phone in hand, Dathan Austin is constantly capturing the world around him. Whether he is casually snapping photos or thoughtfully composing a shot, his camera roll is extensive. And in the photography class he is taking this semester, the number of photos on his phone continues to grow.

One of Austin’s most recent photos is titled “Sunrise.” To create it, he took one of his senior portraits and fiddled with the exposure and brightness. After multiple edits, Austin was left with a striking piece: a dark silhouette of his face and a background splashed with reds, yellows and pinks.

“I wanted to make something that was different,” Austin said. “The editing took me a really long time, but after I saw the shadows and funky colors, I was pretty happy with how it turned out.”

72

What was once a traditional photograph was transformed into a bright, pop art-like motif. But besides colorful editing, Austin enjoys the collaborative aspect of photography. Whether he is working on assignments for his photography class or organizing photo shoots outside of school, Austin has found that working with other people makes the process more enjoyable.

For example, Austin collaborated with a close friend on his senior photos. The two walked around town, snapping photos of one another, trying out different angles and poses. The photo shoot was a great reminder for Austin of just how valuable other people can be to the creative process.

“Working with other people is really important,” Austin said. “It’s awesome to be able to bounce ideas off of someone else and figure out

the best way to capture your environment.”

In the company of friends or not, Austin continues to improve his skills. He takes any opportunity to whip out his phone and take photos, oftentimes sharing them to his Instagram account. And slowly his account has grown, filling with photos similar to “Sunrise.”

Whether that is photos of himself, of close friends or of sunset-filled skies, he takes photos of anything that catches his eye.

“Photography is beautiful,” Austin said. “And when something is beautiful you should try to capture it.”

With each new photography assignment or Instagram post, Austin tries to do something new. And as he adds photo after photo to his camera roll, he finds the beauty all around him.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

THE COMMUNICATOR

73

Iconic Foods in Movies Some of our most beloved movies present eye catching food that can make our mouths water just thinking about them. Here are some of the most iconic dishes and treats from movies.

BY BRIDGETTE KELLY & KAYLEE GADEPALLI

Ratatouille

“Ratatouille” is a movie all about the love of food. It highlights the idea that anyone can cook and centers around food as an art and evokes the desire to create delicious food to share and enjoy. A pivotal moment in the story is when an infamously harsh critic, Anton Ego, comes to review the restaurant that the protagonist, Remy, is cooking for.

There is only one problem: Remy is a rat, and the restaurant is in danger of being shut down. When Ego tastes the ratatouille that Remy (albeit secretly) makes for him, he is taken back to his childhood. In one flashback, Ego is instantly humanized, a moment so important that it is immortalized as the title of the film. He finds out Remy’s secret but leaves an incredible review anyway, expressing that the dish was so extraordinary that he loved it in spite of its “unexpected source”.

Ratatouille is referred to as a “peasant dish” and was made by a nontraditional chef, but it still impacted the critic deeply, proving once and for all that true artistry can come from anywhere and anyone who dares to try. The cooking sequences are hypnotic, the creativity is dizzying and the power of food is poignant in every frame. Ratatouille (both dish and movie) are sure to be remembered.

74

Gumbo & Beignets

“Princess and the Frog” is one of Disney’s most wellknown movies, boasting a dramatic villain, a romantic love story, and some truly iconic dishes. One of those is a gumbo that Tiana makes throughout the film, a dish she grew up cooking with her dad that inspired her to inherit his dream of opening a restaurant. “You know the thing about good food?” Tiana’s dad asks. “It brings folks together from all walks of life. It warms them right up and it puts little smiles on their faces.”

Gumbo is a type of stew popularized in New Orleans with base ingredients of stock, meat and shellfish, and various vegetables, typically served over rice. The gumbo shows up time and time again, from the scene where Tiana and her dad share the gumbo with their neighbors to Tiana teaching Naveen how to cook it and opening up about her dreams. It is not only a fantastic way to introduce new scenes and character moments, but to give us a glimpse into traditional New Orleans cuisine and culture, and into Tiana’s dream, the very thing that drives the story and makes it so memorable and impactful.

Tiana is also known for her beignets, a square pastry made of fried dough that’s often served for breakfast in New Orleans. Tiana is shown as stressed out and overworked at her waitressing job, but she visibly brightens as she whips up a batch of her beignets, drizzling them with honey and topping them with a generous amount of powdered sugar.

These beignets end up making Tiana’s dreams come true — she is hired as the caterer for her best friend’s costume party and promised enough money to finally open her restaurant. This tasty treat is not only a way to further the plot and make our mouths water, but it gives the audience insight into Tiana’s character. For example, as she serves up the pastries, customers smile and greet her by name, and we really see Tiana’s passion for good food and root for her as a protagonist.

ART BY BEE WHALEN

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Traditional Japanese Food

“Spirited Away” tells the story of a girl named Chihiro who becomes trapped in the spirit world. Set in a bathhouse for spirits, Chihiro has to confront and work for all kinds of spirits to be sent back to the human world.

Throughout the movie, we are introduced to a wide variety of traditional Japanese foods that are an integral part of the story. In this world, food is treated with great importance and value. At the beginning of the movie, Chihiro and her parents wander into a market overflowing with rich meat and vegetables. Everything looks so tender and juicy that Chihiro’s parents sit down to gorge themselves, oblivious to the fact that the food is for spirits. As punishment for eating the spirit’s food, they are turned into pigs midway through their meal, which sets Chihiros’s motive for the rest of the story: to get her parents back to human form.

As the movie continues, we are introduced to many unfamiliar foods such as fried newt on a stick (a delicacy) and healing rice cakes. Food is also used as offerings to more powerful spirits, which usually consist of plates overflowing with meat, sushi and cakes, and bowls, stacked dangerously high, holding rice or soups.

Desserts and Candy

With sweet treats being the center of this movie, many iconic desserts and candy were born. From the everlasting gobstopper to the “Fizzy Lifting Drink” so much detail and creativity went into the creation of the food.

The most noticeable candy that flowed through the whole movie was the chocolate river, but soon we are introduced to very specific candies with different abilities and side effects. One of the chocolates, named “television chocolate” could send itself through a TV, leading to Willy Wonka’s famous quote “If television can break up a photograph into millions of tiny pieces, why can’t we do the same with chocolate?” There were more sinister candies, such as the everlasting chewing gum that caused one of the girls, Denis Nickerson, to blow up into a blueberry.

The messages presented by the treats in this movie are the dangers of temptation, impatience and greed. The more the children pushed for something, the more susceptible they became to the side effects of the candy and dangers of the factory.

“

Turkish Delight

After passing through the closet and entering Narnia, a magical winter land full of magic and power, Edmund, one of four siblings adjusting to their new residence in the countryside, finds himself confronted by “The White Witch.” To hide the evil lurking behind her eyes, she offers Edmund a ride in her sleigh and opens a small magic bottle. As she drips the contents onto the snowy ground, a chalice and tray of Turkish Delight appear out of thin air.

After biting into the jelly cubes, Edmund becomes immediately enchanted, leaving him desperate for more.

This desperation makes him willing to commit unthinkable against his siblings and against Narnia. Though delicious looking on the outside, Turkish Delight was given a sinister meaning in the movie.

THE COMMUNICATOR

75

FASHION

A guide on what to wear when dining in downtown Ann Arbor.

BY MORGAN MCCLEASE & ADDI HINESMAN

Monahan’s Located in Kerrytown, Monahan’s Seafood Market is a staple restaurant at CHS. From their fish and chips to the $4.50 fries, Monahan’s is typically a more casual setting. Think jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers or even sweats.

76

FASHION

(1) H$M Rib-Knit Top

(2) Thrifted Brown Corduroy

(3) Black Adidas Sambas

(4) w.b.a necklaceEngraved Heart Chair Pendant Necklace, Target Diamonds, Target Pearls, H&M Gold Hoops

THE COMMUNICATOR

77

FASHION

Eat EAT, also located in Kerrytown, is open for lunch, dinner and brunch. When going to EAT your outfit can be equipped for a more casual setting. Jeans and a shirt or even a nicer top would be the perfect attire for dining at EAT. 78

FASHION

(1) H&M Rib-Knit Sweater

(4) PacSun John Galt Heart Necklace

(3) White Nike Air Force 1

(2) PacSun Eco Medium Blue Low Rise Baggy Jeans

THE COMMUNICATOR

79

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

Sava’s You’re out on the town looking for a place to dine. On State Street, Sava’s is the place to go. When dressing for Sava’s you can wear anything from a nice top and jeans to a casual dress with sneakers or heels.

80

FASHION

(1) H&M Ribbed Jersey Dress

(3) H&M Lettuce Trim Crew Socks

(3) Black Adidas Sambas

(4) Shining For You Necklace- Engraved Circle Chain Pendant Necklace

THE COMMUNICATOR

81

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

Kevin

DAVIS

Marcel Proust’s questionnaire created in 1890, featuring Community Assistant Kevin Davis

BY LUCIA PAGE SANDER

Tessa

APREA

82

CONSTANT

Photography by Lucia Page Sander Kevin Davis sits on the swing set on CHS’s front lawn. The CHS staff member enjoys reading on school breaks.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? I don’t have one because I’m worried that if somebody’s really, really happy, there’s going to be somebody else who is miserable. There’s always a Yin and a Yang. What is your greatest fear? Being trapped in a tunnel and not being able to escape. Which living person do you most admire? My mother. The more I got to know her after my father died, I started to understand what she had to put up with with me and my brothers. She’s the glue of our family. What is your greatest extravagance? I will get in my car and just drive and listen to music. I just blare it and relax. I’m a big Prince fan and a big Chicago fan, but I like all types of music. What’s your current state of mind? Right now, I am very relaxed and content. It may change tomorrow, it may change in the next minute, it may change as soon as I get a phone call saying, “Kevin, we gotta get this kid because he’s doing something,” I go through phases throughout the day.

On what occasion do you lie? To make somebody feel happy. What do you most dislike about your appearance? My ear. It’s an odd shape and every time I look at it, I get all freaked out. Years ago, I had an earring and it got ripped out in an altercation with a friend of mine. Which living person do you most despise? The list is too long. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I’ve got too many. Students would know better than me, but if they don’t know someone’s name, I call them Bubba. What or who is the greatest love of your life? My girlfriend, Lizzy. She was interned here five or six years ago, and I told Steve Coron, “I’m gonna start dating this girl out of the blue,” and he didn’t believe me. We started dating that December and things are going great. When and where were you happiest? Every time I’m in Italy. Which talent would you most like to have? I would love to be able to do real magic tricks. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I don’t have one great achievement, it’s more continuous stuff, like watching students who struggle throughout their four years here [graduating] up on stage, but I can’t say it’s my one greatest achievement. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I do believe in some sort of reincarnation, because I’m weird that way. I would want to come back as a tree someplace where people can come and sit underneath me, like a park. Where would you most like to live? Italy. What is your most treasured possession? A picture of my father. After my father passed away, we did this huge thing for the memorial where we gathered pictures and I noticed that there were not a lot of pictures with just me and him, and I was really upset about this. Then my dad’s brother handed me a picture of us and I was like, “where’d you get this?” and he said, “I’ve had it,” And then he looked at me and goes, “Kevin, do you understand why you’re never in these pictures?” And it was because I took those pictures. Then my uncle handed me a picture of the two of us from when I tried the timer on my camera for the first time, and he just said, “your dad loved this picture so much.” I still treasure it. I have it on my desk at home and I look at it every day. What do you regard as the lowest depths of misery? I don’t know. I just don’t want to think about it. What is your favorite occupation? I’m happy with what I’m doing now. What do you most value in your friends? Honesty, a good ear, and knowing that I can depend on them when need be. Who are your favorite writers? Michael Connelly and Lee Childs. Which historical figure do you most identify with? The only person I really am proud to base myself off of is my father. I’m proud to be his son. Who are your heroes in real life? My parents. The struggles they had to go through make me admire them for what they’ve accomplished. What is your greatest regret? I don’t have any regrets. There’s nothing I would do over again. Maybe I regret not learning magic.

THE COMMUNICATOR

83

Restaurant Tour Guide of Ann Arbor From midday feasts to nights out, here are four spots in Ann Arbor that you don’t want to miss on your next dining adventure.

BY EMMY CHUNG

Bigalora 84

RESTAURANT REVIEW

B

igalora is located right off Washtenaw avenue, in the Arbor Hills shopping mall.

Open for lunch and dinner, it’s a lively location for casual dining indoors or outdoors.

They offer an array of appetizers, pizzas, salads, pastas and entrees.

For an appetizer, I ordered the Prosciutto E Grana. For $13, you get quite the assortment. This small plate includes many pieces of thinly sliced prosciutto di parma. To pair with the classic Italian ham, there’s Grana Padano cheese and arugula.

The star of this plate may be Bigalora’s signature focaccia bread, flavored with hints of garlic oil, rosemary, and sea salt.

For my main meal, I chose the Vegetali Pizza. It’s a white pizza— consisting of house blend mozzarella but no tomato sauce. This dish is the best of both worlds: hearty vegetables and soft dough. Embedded in the melted cheese, there are slices of roasted yellow tomatoes and red drop peppers, providing little bursts of fresh flavor. Sitting on top of the pizza is arugula salad, which happens to also be an entree item on the menu. The leafy greens are dressed in fresh lemon oil and accompanied by thick slices of sharp Grana Padano cheese. The total price of this two-for-one pizza is $16.5.

The Crispy Brussels Sprouts are absolutely a must-try starter. If you’re not typically fond of this cruciferous vegetable, this item on the menu will be sure to change your mind. They are cooked to a crunch with a tangy red wine vinegar and topped with crumbly Grana Padano. The Manila Clams Guazzetto are more of a summery dish, but nonetheless delicious. Manila clams are known for their meaty and firm texture, which blends well with the sweeter tomato sauce and chili. They also come with focaccia bread for dipping.

You can’t go wrong with their classic red pizzas such as the Margherita Buffalo or Bacco Sausage. However, Bigalora’s selection of white pizzas are unique, customizable and adventurous.

Starting with the Crispy Brussels Sprouts pizza.

This unusual pizza consists of two types of cheese, Grana Padano

and house blend mozzarella; topped with the same brussels from the appetizer, with the addition of pancetta. This is a great choice if you’re looking for a warm garlic-cheese taste with intense salty flavors in each bite.

The Funghi pizza is one of the most unexpectedly delectable pizzas on the menu. Not being a mushroom person, I was skeptical of the combination at first; mozzarella, mushroom ragù, goat cheese and thyme. However, the rich taste of the mushroom ragù and creamy goat cheese makes this pizza have a mature and hearty taste.

Next up, one of the most popular items on the menu — the Spicy Agrodolce pizza. From the sweet caramelized onion to the house made sausage and garlic oil, this dish screams flavor. Agrodolce is a classic Italian sauce, ‘agro’ meaning sour and ‘dolce’ meaning sweet. The recipe for this typically contains some type of sugar, such as honey,

THE COMMUNICATOR

vinegar, pine nuts and a mixture of dried fruits and vegetables It comes out to be a rather sticky consistency with hints of sweetness and acidity. Agrodolce is often added to charred flavors as a complement to bring out a fresh taste.

Besides their amazing pizzas, Bigalora has substantial entrees: Chicken Parmigiana, Wood Roasted Salmon and Eggplant Parmesan. You can also find a wide variety of pasta dishes like Rigatoni Bolognese and Fettuccine Alfredo. The Strozzapreti Norcina is a delightful option if you’re looking to indulge in more than the classics. Both the truffle oil and cream especially give the dish quite the smooth and luscious flavor.

As for dessert, you should stick around for the Frittelle, which are warm, fried strips of Bigalora dough completely covered in sugar. This sweet is served with a freshly-made smooth chocolate hazelnut spread and strawberry compote to dip.

85

PACIFIC RIM

86

F

or a special occasion or a night out, Pacific Rim creates a calm environment and serves vibrant food. The interior of the restaurant creates a vastly different environment from the busy streets outside; you will immediately notice all of the natural wood tones and bamboo, giving a warm ambiance.

Pacific Rim serves unique panAsian dishes. Although their menu is smaller, they have a variety of seafood entrees, grilled chicken, red meat and a vegetarian noodle dish.

You can also find a wide selection of starters like zucchini-scallion crepes and saigon spring rolls.

I ordered the popular ‘Seared Sea Scallops’ for my main dish. These highly-rated scallops are pan-seared with rutabaga vegetables, chopped snow peas and edamame beans. The vegetables sit on top of coconut-jasmine rice, which tastes like a slightly sweeter version of white rice.

What makes this dish so special is the orange carrot-lemongrass sauce.

This sauce ties everything together and adds a slightly sweet and tangy, yet creamy element to the dish.

The ‘Seared Big Eye Tuna’ is another impressive dish. This tuna is served with a tangy, umami ginger-miso sauce and a slightly spicy wasabi oil. It also comes with a fresh jicama salad and crispy sushi rice.

This tuna is imported daily from Hawaii, which is evident in taste.

For a meat-free entree, the Thai Peanut Noodles topped with caramelized tofu are equally tasteful.

This bowl is bursting with flavor.

Salty peanut sauce pairs perfectly with the rice noodles, which are topped with cilantro and curried chickpeas, making a wonderful, fresh vegetarian option.

For dessert, a warm, indulgent chocolate cake is made fresh for you, while you’re still enjoying your entree. If you can’t make up your mind, you can always have the ‘Crème Brûlée Tasting’ which comes with three delicious miniature flavors.

Dining at Pacific Rim feels like you are invited to a dinner party.

Eating there provides customers the full experience, while also receiving great service amidst the welcoming atmosphere.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

A

rguably one of the best hidden sushi spots in Ann Arbor, Sadako is located on South University avenue. Sadako is a Japanese restaurant and serves a variety of lunch and dinner options, including bento boxes, udon noodles and bowls.

Although the restaurant itself is small, they have quick and efficient service. One of the best parts about Sadako is the miso soup that comes complimentary with some dishes.

This soup is light and pairs well with other flavors.

I ordered The Sadako Crunch Roll—just one of the many ‘crunch’ rolls featured on the menu. Crunch rolls usually contain tempura shrimp, avocado, and fried tempura flakes; they aren’t a part of traditional Japanese sushi but they are a delicious addition to regular sushi.

This roll consisted of avocado and crab salad topped with crunch and special sauce. The avocado was fresh tasting and the sauce added an element of sweetness to combat the saltiness in each bite.

Sadako offers a variety of non-traditional sushi rolls, including a sweet banana roll, Philadelphia roll, and Mexican roll. Sticking to the basics, I also tried the Tempura Shrimp Roll—made up of fried shrimp, thinly sliced cucumber and crab. This roll has a solid flavor on its own and tastes even better when accompanied by ginger and soy sauce.

Although you might not think to try this dish, the Agedashi Tofu is a pleasant surprise and makes for a great appetizer. Served in a bowl of dashi broth, this crispy deep fried tofu is old and well-known in Japan. Another delicious starter is the House Salad. The sweet and spicy ginger dressing makes up for its simplicity.

On the lunch menu, you can order ‘combos’ from the sushi bar. These combos highlight dynamic pairs of flavors such as spicy tuna and salmon. If you’re looking for variety, a bento box is another option. Sadako’s bento boxes typically contain a protein such as chicken katsu or fresh water eel, four pieces of sushi, tempura vegetables and rice.

Sadako is very affordable and an overall pleasant dining experience.

Sadako

87

REVIEWS

STRAY Stray HEN Hen 88

THE COMMUNICATOR

A

popular spot among university students, Stray Hen meets all the requirements for a midday feast. With menu items ranging from buttermilk pancakes and adventurous toasts to a double cheeseburger, you are certain to find something you might like on the corner of East Washington and Division street.

Stray Hen’s atmosphere is modern, upbeat, and cozy. Although there’s tons of seating options, you can grab items to-go from the baked goods display, grab-and-go salads, and coffee bar.

The food comes out very quickly, but you can still sip on your drinks while you wait. The iced and hot dirty chai tea lattes (with oat milk) were definitely coffee shop quality; they provided the perfect balance between sweet, spices, and creamy milk.

For a fresh yet filling breakfast plate, I ordered the North Side scrambler. This scramble includes the perfect pairing of egg whites, chicken sausage, avocado, spinach, tomatoes and Gouda cheese. I also added a side of red skin potatoes, which are perfectly crisped on the outside and soft on the inside.

Sitting on a bowl of cauliflower rice is chicken sausage, a poached egg and an array of colorful vegetables—the Cauliflower Rice Bowl is equally as delicious for breakfast or lunch. This bowl is topped with crunchy sesame seeds and a flavorful Sriracha tahini dressing.

You can’t go to Stray Hen without trying their dessert-like breakfasts. I was blown away by the Cinnamon Roll French toast, which tasted like warm nostalgia.

Although Stray Hen leans towards the pricier side, you can definitely dine on a budget if you stick to the basics.

89

HUMANS OF COMMUNITY

Humans of Community Staff Edition: What is your best memory of food?

BY KATE GROVES AND KYRIE GARWOOD

Sean Eldon “My best food memory involves my friend [Mike’s] mom. Her name is Meg. And I’ve known Meg since I was four. And one of the gifts that Meg has is that she is a wonderful hostess. I had met my soon-to-be wife and we visited my old friend Mike at his house up north. I was hopeful that my friends would accept my fiancé as a friend. I had felt some anxiety around that.

Mike’s mom was there and she was very welcoming and very happy to meet Aimee, my fiancée, and happy to see me. She went out and bought a big tub of vanilla ice cream, like five gallons of vanilla ice cream and a big bottle of rum. And she mixed up Hummers for all of the assembled guests. There were probably about 10 of us, and I had never had this drink. I later found out it’s a Michigan specialty cocktail. And she mixed up this big vat of ice cream and rum and served each of us wholly inappropriate sized rum milkshakes. We all toasted to Meg, and then she toasted Aimee, and I just felt at that moment like my wife had been accepted by my friends.”

Lisa Durham “My mom was German. And so there were certain dishes of hers that even today like if I eat it or if I could buy it, it just brings all kinds of memories back because she has passed away. So things like German potato salad or Pflaumenkuchen, which is plum cake, or a lot of certain dishes that were for special occasions. So it’s sort of like Thanksgiving but instead it was family traditions and special food that she would make for special occasions and stuff. So our entire family, when one of us ends up getting it or making it we’ll take pictures of it and send it to each of our siblings. So it’s still very special and dear to all of us. Every my parents house was always the hub for Thanksgiving. And I was the youngest. So my siblings were much older.

They moved away and then they would come back and Thanksgiving. And it was it wasn’t just a place where we ate it was a place that we gathered and play games.

And my mom did all the cooking. And it’s just lots of good memories of being with family. And my parents have since passed away. So I miss that gathering and so anytime I eat or see food, similar to what my mom used to make, it just brings me back to those times when we gathered together.”

90

CONSTANT

Luciana Qu “I moved from Singapore to Ann Arbor. Singapore is kind of like a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities, just like how the United States is. But, the cultures and ethnicities are mostly limited to Asia and Southeast Asia, and a lot of the food also reflected that.

Growing up, my parents would have these weekend parties where they would invite other people who are also Chinese-American or immigrants from China. We would share a lot of our food together, and it would be a giant potluck every single Saturday. We would stay until like two in the morning. We would talk, play cards or Mahjong. There was a really special connection between being able to enjoy foods from where our parents grew up while also being able to socialize in a place where you might not be able to speak Chinese to everybody. That’s what I really relate a lot of my memories around food too.”

Kamaljit Kaur “My best memory of food has to be from like two years ago, where at my college, we hosted Ed talks, which was like a student-led student driven conference. And during lunch, we had different people prepare different things. And in my room, I prepared lunch, it was called Langar. I practice the Sikh religion. In my faith, Langar is a community kitchen. And in our community kitchen anybody is welcome regardless of whether you are Sikh or not. Your religious background or political background does not matter. Everybody comes together and you sit down and you eat together. So for my lunch I had a staple of Langar which is dal, which is lentils and rice. I got to tell everybody that came into my room my story about how I came to service.

I got to serve everybody as they would come in. So I’d give them a bowl and I’d give them a variety. And then throughout that experience I got to sit with all the people that are coming into my group, which are some of my peers and some I’d never known before and I had conversations with them. I felt the space we created in that room was very loving. There was a new member of my next scholars group and I hadn’t really had a chance to talk to, but I found out that her kids are half Bangladeshi. I had never known that about her, and she shared her stories about how she cooks with her sons and it was just very powerful to me. Just sitting together with my community. It felt really good to feed them because everybody loved the food I prepared and ‘I was like, thank you!’ Even though it was a lot of work, like I stayed up so long the night before to make the food.

But just in that moment, it was very nice to see it all come together. Everybody loved it.”

THE COMMUNICATOR

91

CRAVE

92

CONSTANT

Lemon Blueberry Biscotti

BY RUTH SHIKANOV

I’ve never been that good at baking.

I don’t like measuring everything so exact; the mess that flour and sugar leave all over the counter; and tending to the chaotic mess that took over the kitchen, as pots and ingredients are scattered all over.

I am a cook at heart, but there is something so comforting and special about baking, especially with friends and family.

It requires patience, precision and can be time consuming, but that is what makes baking so rewarding. It feeds and nourishes our souls, and helps us celebrate and create memories with friends and family.

With my sister and mom, we have been baking biscotti, a crunchy and crumbly cookie. They are perfectly sweet with the white chocolate chips and dried blueberries, combined with tangy lemon to balance the flavors.

I encourage you to bake something with someone close to you, and share it with friends and family as a token of love and appreciation — you won’t regret it.

Instructions: 1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

2) In a large bowl, mix your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3) In a stand mixer, add sugar and butter and mix until fluffy. Add your eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest and mix to combine. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. When everything is combined, add the dried blueberries and white chocolate chips and mix to combine.

4) Transfer to the baking tray and form into two logs, flattening them to about an inch. Bake for 35 minutes and remove from the oven. Place the logs on a cutting board.

5) Using a knife, cut the logs into ¾ inch slices on a diagonal. Arrange back on the baking tray and bake for 15 more minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely. Serve and enjoy!

Ingredients: 2 cups flour 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt ¾ cups sugar 2 large eggs ½ cup butter room temperature 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 teaspoons lemon zest ⅔ cup dried blueberries 1 cup white chocolate chips

THE COMMUNICATOR

93

@communicatorchs

SOCIAL MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

94

POETRY REVIEW

Poetry Q&A As soon as Poppy Magee got a taste of poetry, she fell in love.

BY CLAIRE LEWIS

Do you have a favorite genre of poetry? I usually like a lot of free verse poetry, not any specific forms. But these days I’m getting into sonnets and haiku. I’ve been trying a challenge where I write a haiku every day of November, which I’ve been doing so far. I like poems that are visceral but also reflective, and I do love a good spooky horror poem.

What is your favorite poem? One poem I’ve been really obsessed with recently is, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.

I’m not usually a huge Robert Frost fan but the line “The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I’ve got promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep” has been stuck in my head the past month or two, so that’s maybe my favorite poem right now.

Who is your favorite poet? I love a lot of different poets. But if I had to put it as an all time favorite, it’s probably Emily Dickinson just because of how prolific and interesting she is.

When did you write your first poem? The first time I remember writing a poem was in fourth grade, it was this little class assignment.

A kid in our class’ mom was a poet and she came in and gave us a lesson. I wrote a poem about my dog running away. And I drew a little illustration of my dog to go with it.

What is your favorite poem you have ever written? I wrote a poem about this book called “The Haunting of Hill House” that I read at a lot of events and that we published in our poetry club zine. That’s one of my favorites. And I just started working on a poem about these wolves in Yellowstone.

What ideas/things inspire you most? A lot of times it’s just things that happen to me in my day to day life, artwork, a lot of song lyrics, sort of odd random images on Pinterest.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MOLLY HAMALAINEN

Poppy Magee is a leader of Poetry Club, which meets in Emma’s room at lunch on Mondays. All are welcome to attend.

95

Donors Thank you for supporting the production of our publication.

Suzanne Admiraal Patrick O’Brien Kristin Gapske Peter Gergics Lauren Katz Joel Rubenstein Carol Deahl Seker Family Ronny O’Brien The Jett Pack Holkeboer Family Sue Ann Savas The Shikanov Family Adam Lauring Carolyn Yoon Fred Feinberg Suzanne Davidson Beth Nazario Elana & Jonaman Greenberg Sarah Munro Darrin Greenawalt Wasco Family Jackson Hunter Roshayne Jaimon Helen Levy & David Rosenfeld Joseph Hood & Ann Dilcher Costello-Saile Family Joan McGuire

96

Nat Leventhal Regan Knapp John Scudder Linda Young & Bob Carroll Kristin McGuire Carrie Bank Linda & Bill Anderson Kate Albertini The Tirico Family Ana Baylin Jenni Lane Yun Huang Dr. Karla Blackwood Mark Newman Valerie Jo Taylor The Pellerin Family Alisse Portnoy Mark Rothstein Meghan Wernimont Noah Garfield The Freeth Family The Freiwald Family Abbie Lawrence-Jacobson & Alan Jacobson Preeti and Jim Schaden Judith and Ken DeWoskin Kerry Hulsing John & Jessica O’Neill

THE COMMUNICATOR

Our Turn What is a memory you have with food?

BY LUCA HINESMAN AND MARISA ANDONI-SAVAS

Mia Rubenstein “Every Friday night, my family and I have what’s called Shabbat dinner, which is a Jewish holiday or meal that symbolizes the end of the week and the beginning of a new one. Every Friday night we have a meal with the whole family and we sit down at the table. It gives us a chance to talk with each other and get to talk about our week. And we have salmon and traditional Jewish bread called Challah and juice and say blessings. And it’s something that I’ve been doing since I was born, so it’s something that’s very traditional. That’s what comes to mind. It means a lot because I get to connect with my family and connect with my Jewish identity more. I guess I relate more to that. I really hope to continue it when I’m older, like if I had children and stuff with them because it’s something that I think is important.”

Morgan McClease “Over the summer or Labor Day weekend, I went up north with some of my dance friends to their cabin. My friend, Kai, and my friend, Fiona, we all wake up really early. We went outside to the dock, and we were just sitting there. We were like, ‘we should make breakfast for the little, itty, bitty babies upstairs.’ We decided to hop in a car and drive to this tiny supermarket. We got some ingredients for breakfast and I thought, ‘what I can contribute to this meal?’ I thought, ‘I’m gonna make my special eggs!’ What are my special eggs you ask? Scrambled eggs with Colby-Jack cheese. We’re in the store and “Waterfalls” was playing. We were just dancing in the supermarket and it was really silly because I love them all so much. We went back, we start to whip up some food and I make my eggs. Everyone’s there eating my eggs and saying it’s so good. I then decided that those eggs are like my new specialty, and it was just a really fun trip. So now every time I make them for myself, it makes me think of that trip, and it’s a beautiful memory now.”

Jasper Forgey “A memorable moment with food was on my third shift working at Mani.

It was my first shift that I was getting paid tips. It was a Thursday night, and it was raining. I was bussing this big circle circular table and there were a lot of glasses. So I was taking the glasses and I couldn’t. I didn’t really have the muscles yet in my wrist and my arm to hold the tray because it weighs a lot more than you think. You’re only allowed to use one hand because it looks classier. I was going up the stairs with a bunch of glasses and I wasn’t looking. My hand wobbled and they all fell right in the dining room. It made such a loud sound. A bunch of people were around, and I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do. It showed me at the end of the night that it’s about the people working in the restaurant, trying to get it all to work. It’s like a really big machine and everyone’s just trying. It was a cool lesson to me because it’s like working with a family at a restaurant and everyone experiences the same hardships.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCA HINESMAN