Kevin R

Madame Hoagland

Monsieur Neumyer

Class:  7

3/21/13

St. Patrick’s Day

Hello, how are you guys?  Well I’m totally good, how was your St. Patrick’s Day?  What special dishes did you guys have?  Not that I need to know, for that matter, my holiday was pretty decent as it is.  Well as you may know my family by now, I have a big one, and soon to have a brother in law who’s still running that family restaurant with his family.  To remind you of that fancy little deli right next to Abbott technical High school is Named “A & J’s Subs”.  As many of you might know this is a very well done place that sells great food, and from this class of culinary that you see me in currently I may start working at “A & J’s Subs”.  Anyways the good old’ holiday known as St. Patrick’s Day, I can say was totally wicked dude!  What we did for this was create a Bon Fire in a pit in my back yard and invite a handful of people over to stay for a bit and hang out.  So as we beefed up the bon fire in my back yard, we took raw succulent meat and put them on sticks since our grill wouldn’t start, and the flame inside it was extremely low and non-affect ant to cook the big chunk of succulent meat.  Although the meat was heard to be very tasty, some leprechauns’ would have been extremely jealous otherwise, since it would have been cool to have beer battered ribs with that succulent meat we were chowing on.  As a matter of fact this occasion wasn’t too bad as it is since it is also a good occasion to spend with the family …..  But yeah it would have been nice to have more varieties of food available to us, but there was not much as it is.  But for those cupcake wars we had in school, I can say oh mah God that was extremely great cupcakes I’ve had, but unfortunately I didn’t have my first one’s since, some of the guys didn’t save any for me when I came down the next period due to freakin’ Capt make up.  But I clearly learn my lesson that there needs to be more of a variety of food to make this special occasion into a tasty occasion.  Well So long  how was your St. Patrick’s Day by the way?

Even though this may be late I still wanted to share one experience I had around this time last year in Boston. My friends and I had spent a long day at this convention and were very hungry, we kept asking around at local places if there was a restaurant nearby that wasn't too expensive. After a good 20 minutes of asking around, we were informed of this place called No Name. Sounded pretty sketchy at first but the reason it was called this was because when the people opened the restaurant on the harbor they had no idea what to name it and the idea of calling it No Name brought a sense of mystery to the place. Well nevertheless we made our way to the harbor and found this place hidden in the back of a mini plaza. I can hands down say that this restaurant blew us away. We were seated almost instantly and were served the most delicious food I have ever tasted. I decided to get a cheeseburger and fries while my friends got some seafood. All of it was amazing! Not to mention the service was amazing. At one point two people had run into each other, one was a customer, the other an employee. The customer ended up with a drink spilled all over their pants. The boss came out and told the customer that he would not only get his clothes dry cleaned but he would not have to pay for anything. The boss covered it all. Even I didn't have to pay full price when I went to pay for my food at the end! The lady at the desk had her hands full and was being very generous when she saw that I was low on money. Absolutely amazing service and food, no doubt.

With love, Alex Hassinger

Have you ever tried to do an extreme diet? It looks and seems like the most difficult challenge in the whole world, right? I thought that to until I accomplished one. I went from eating large amounts of fast food, sweet and sugary junk food and the unhealthiest of the unhealthy, all in a day’s work. I went from having no limits, no moderation and no cares at all to having self-control and a healthy diet. I went from all that to eating only vegetables, fruits, nuts, grilled chicken, fish and water. Never junk food, never sweets and never too much of anything. Along with that were huge amounts of exercise, weight loss and a boosted confidence. I thought it was going to be so terrible, such an impossible task, but it wasn’t. It was the best thing ive ever done for myself. I remember thinking about how much I was going to miss the old food and hate the new. After a little while I began to love the healthy life style and had no interest in junk food. I began to crave apples and natural peanut butter instead of chips. I remember feeling so more awake and happy every day. Never in my life would I ever of thought it would have been thanks to a good, clean diet. Thinking about it now is still kind of mind boggling. Many people would ask me how I did it, ask me for help and after I told them it was simply a good diet and exercise they were intrigued. I believe that if people could really see just how simple it really is to give up bad food for good then our country would be so much more healthy and happy. A huge part of this is also about what you’re surrounded with. If you are surrounded by a bunch of junk food, then you’re going to eat a bunch of junk food. If you’re surrounded by a bunch of healthy food, then that’s what your options are, and that is what will help you. School is a large part of this for many students and I believe that if the school would follow this and keep more healthy options compared to un healthy, Our students would learn to love vegetables and fruits and would grow up to be a healthy and fit.   -Kalianna F

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

½ cup butter

1 ½ cups brown sugar

1 (20 ounce) can sliced pineapple

10 maraschino cherries

1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix

Preheat oven according to directions on cake mix box. Then make the cake according to cake box directions. After the mix was made we put it off to the side to assemble the rest of the cake. Then I took the butter and melted it in a large skillet. Then when it was all melted we took it off of the heat and evenly spread the brown sugar over the top of the butter. After the brown sugar was evenly spread out we added the pineapple slices on top of the sugar. Then in the center of the pineapples slices we added a maraschino cherry. Then we took the cake mix and evenly poured it over top of the brown sugar, pineapples, and cherries. Then we put the skillet in the oven and baked it for 45 minutes. When the 45 minutes were up we let it cool for 10 minutes then, took it out of the pan and we have a cake!

Jessica L.

After a fierce battle,

Cupcake War No. One
Presentation: With 19 points, Table 12.
Taste: A tie, with 8 points a piece, Tables 21 and 22.


Cupcake War No. Two
Presentation: Table 12
Taste: TAble 12



Cupcake War No. Three
Presentation: Table 12
Taste: You guessed it. Table 12

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that Harry's team???!!!???
Go Ginger Caramel!!

Jackson C.

A Food Journey through the Big Apple

            Over February break, my family and I went to New York City for my birthday. Not for the sights, but for the food. Our first food destination was Eataly (This is around lunchtime). We did some looking around but then, of course, went for the food. We looked through the whole building looking for a place to get a quick sandwich. We found a place deep in Eataly that had an assortment of gourmet Italian deli sandwiches (hot and cold). We got a roast beef sandwich and a pork panini with Italian cheese (can’t remember) and a spicy red tomato sauce. It was good, but not my thing.

            After some sight-seeing, we went to Max Brenner’s chocolate restaurant, but to no avail. There was a 2 hour wait. Instead, we went to Stumptown Coffee, which my dad says, “has the best coffee in the world”. I didn’t get anything, but my mom and dad got espressos.

            For dinner, we went to Joe’s Shanghai, a little restaurant deep in Chinatown. (About a half hour cab ride from Times Square). Imagine standing in a cramped elevator. That’s what waiting for a table was like. When we sat down, my dad ordered us the pork dumplings, which apparently they are famous for. Since this is an authentic place, you had to eat them a certain way. You had to poke a hole in it. And then drain the soup out (there was soup inside). Then you drank the soup and then ate the dumpling. They were amazing. We ordered 3 entrees; General Tsao’s chicken, spicy fried shrimp, and Kung Pao chicken (fried rice included). They were all amazing.

            The last stop (dessert) we went to the new Georgetown Cupcake location in the city. You can’t go wrong with cupcakes, so of course, they were amazing as well (Our Oreo cupcakes are better though).

Nicole O

One of the best parts about going on vacation is trying all the delicious food from that place.  Last week I visited my grandparents in Naples Florida and all the food there was amazing. One of my favorite things that  I had while I was in Florida was the homemade strawberry ice cream that I got from a small little ice cream shop right on the ocean. It had actual pieces of strawberries in it and it wasn’t just made with strawberry flavoring. When we were there my cousin got a coconut ice cream and she said it was the best ice cream she’s had in her life.

One day we went out to lunch and the special was “Bang Bang Shrimp” so my cousin and I both got it and it was amazing. It was fried shrimp dipped in some kind of tempura sauce and it was served over lettuce and it was delicious. We both finished our entire meal in less than ten minutes because we loved it so much. While we were there and my grandpa got steamed clams and they came in a plate with some of the clam juice still on the bottom so he took his bread and dipped it into the clam juice. When I first saw it I thought it would be disgusting because usually those two things don’t mix, but I tried dipping a small piece of my bread into it and surprisingly it was really good!

Every Saturday morning my grandparents go to the farmers market that is near their house, so when my cousin and I were there they decided to take us. The farmers market had so many fresh fruits and vegetables and they were all so colorful and ripe and looked delicious. There was also a bunch of homemade pastries so my cousin and I got fresh bagels. She got cinnamon and sugar and I got blueberry and we split them and they were the freshest, softest bagels I’ve ever had in my life. Most bagels are hard when you bite into them but these ones were so soft even after we toasted them. Overall my trip to Florida was fantastic and the week went by so fast and I wasn’t ready to leave. The food and the warm weather combined just made it fantastic and I can’t wait to go back!