As someone who recently turned 21 (November of ’22), I’ve explored very little of the local bar menus. My early bar orders were largely inspired by Sex and the City and my parents’ orders in an attempt to mimic models of adulthood I’d seen. After months of continually ordering a dirty gin martini, I’ve started …
Read more “A Search for a Signature Drink — and Maybe Adulthood, Along the Way”
According to the Biblical story of Passover, in their escape from Egypt, the Jews did not have time to allow bread to rise, and instead had to settle for sun-cooked crackers called matzo. Now, when we, as modern-day Jews, celebrate Passover, we, too, abstain from leavened bread products. In preparation for the holiday, we purge …
Jack Egan is an Oberlin College fourth-year and a head cook for Keep Cottage’s dining co-op, which is part of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association. Head-cooking is an unpaid position in which he has served since the fall of 2021. I got dinner with Jack and spoke with him in my living room to learn …
Read more “On Preparing Food for 60 People: An Interview with a Co-op Head Cook”
Bagels have always been a big part of my life. We’d order in bagels to break the fast after the High Holy Days and pick up bags of cheap day-end bagels every time we went to visit family on Long Island. But bagels weren’t just food. Growing up, “bageling” was the term we used to …
Rugelach is a pastry embroiled in Jewish culture. Visually, it resembles a mini croissant; it can contain fillings ranging from Nutella to raisins to jam to chocolate chips, which are enveloped in a cream cheese dough. It has roots in kifli from Hungary, kipfel from Austria, and rogal from Poland. For special occasions, such as …
Read more “The Ritual of Rugelach: An intergenerational attempt at recreating a lost recipe”
Working at a café in LA, one is bound to find themselves, at one point or another, serving at least one celebrity. Meeting celebrities wasn’t new for me, having grown up in LA, but serving them was usually a memorable experience – and I was always curious to see whether or not they would tip well. The first …
I sat down, as I did every weeknight during my semester in Paris, at the small, circular table-for-two by the window. The kitchen was long and compact, the walls pressing in on each other, and my host mom was busy preparing eggs. Since this was breakfast-for- dinner, wine replaced coffee as the beverage of choice. As she served them up onto …
Read more “Bitter Orientalism: How Coffee Cultivated a French Fascination with the East”
Episode: 9 Hours at Azzies Produced by Hazel Feldstein Azziarah’s Cafe or Azzies is a social hub on the Oberlin College campus. In homage to This American Life’s episode 24 Hours at the Golden Apple, Hazel Feldstein spent a day collecting stories and exploring how Azzie’s is a community space. From 8 am to 5 …
It’s easy to import undue gravity onto a situation. So take it with a grain of salt when I say I was heartbroken. Heartbreak is a strong word for the sting of an unrequited crush. It’s a bummer, for sure, but it’s not lie-on-the-floor-clutching-a-pillow-grieving-a-future-that-will-never-be heartbreak. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Heartbreak or no, a …
When I’m particularly caught in immediate everyday upsets, I get itchy for the open road. I’m stuck, isolated, by my suburb’s lack of sidewalks and perimeter of highways. Going for a drive to nowhere is a cliché coping mechanism, I know, but I am only a product of my circumstance. Staying here feels nauseating. Somewhere …
