Weirdest thing I realized yesterday tying into the course's theme of Food and Feasting.
I was visiting my boyfriend's mom, and as I sat in her kitchen I noticed her having alot of pictures and metal decor of fruit or baskets of fruit. I reminded me of the fruit we've been seeing in paintings and on the cover of The Edible Woman. It also reminded me how my mom has pictures of fruit in her kitchen. Her kitchen tiles even have them! So I concluded, these pictures are so common in kitchens as it ties into the theme of feasting. Like we talked about in class, kitchens are centers of preparations for feasts and where people/families are brought together by the notion of food and feasting. So, the fruit and the fruit baskets represent that notion and symbolize the unity and welcome people to come and share the fruit from the basket. What a trip!

HOW TO MAKE FISH COUSCOUS

Hey class!

After watching The Secret of the Grain, I wanted to try this famous fish couscous! I found a simple video that walks you through the process step-by-step. For anyone that is interesting in cooking and from our class presentations, several of you guys were, I would recommend making this dish. It may not be as notorious as Slimane's ex-wife's dish, but it's a starter! Enjoy.

fish couscous recipe

"Children: With more than one, you're a sitting duck."

I came across this article on Lauren Sandler, who recently released a book titled One and Only about wanting to have only one child and the judgment she receives from society because of her supposed selfishness. To quote, "she fiercely challenges society's judgments"on a woman. I found this article so, so relevant to what we talked about in class throughout the quarter regarding the female stereotype, and what we've been trying to move away from -evidently we have not done a very good job so far. Regardless, I think Sandler's book will make for a great read over the summer!

Some excerpts from the article:

Woman, Make Me a Sandwich!: Women's gender role as perceived by media (Presentation)

Here's a copy of my group's presentation if you would to check out any of the interesting pictures/videos!

http://prezi.com/cj9niili9fth/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Vampyres in House of Night Series

There are so many books, TV shows, and movies about vampires that are popular today. I personally love these and watch/read a LOT of them (Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Vampire Academy...)

However, out of all the shows and books I watch/read, I found the series I'm currently reading, House of Night, to be the most interesting in relation to the topic of our class.




In this series, the drinking of blood by a vampyre is extremely pleasurable for both the vampyre and the human. The consumption of blood is described almost like how sex would be described:

"This time I leaned into him and touched my tongue to his lip, taking the drop of blood into my mouth where it exploded ― heat, sensation, and a rush of pleasure I'd never known."

"The taste exploded in my mouth. As my saliva touched the shallow wound his blood began to flow more quickly, and with a moan that I hardly recognized as my own, I opened my mouth and pressed my lips to his skin, licking up the delicious scarlet line. [...] His head fell back and I heard him groan "yes." One of his hands cupped my butt and the other one went under my sweater to squeeze my breast. 

 His touch only made it better. Heat slammed through my body, setting me on fire. Like someone else was in control of my movements, my hand slid from Heath's shoulder, down his chest, to rub over the hard lump that was in the front of his jeans. I sucked on his neck. Rational thought flew from my mind. All I could do was feel and taste and touch. Somewhere in the depths of my mind I knew I was reacting on a level that was almost animalistic in its need and ferocity, but I didn't care."

It is obvious in these quotes that the consumption of blood is linked to sex and fulfills the hunger for not only nutritional needs to survive but also sexual desires.

What's more interesting is that in the world of House of Night, females dominate the vampyre society. The most powerful vampyres are females rather than males. So unlike what we typically saw in class this quarter, the females are the ones that consume the males and use males for pleasure. Highly ranked vampyres called High Priestesses (always female) typically have two men in their lives. One that they are together with (boyfriend or husband), and a human consort literally just for the purpose of fulfilling the vampyres' bloodlust.

- Dain (Jennifer) Kwak

A "Woman's" Food

I was on Youtube and encountered this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMRDLCR8vAE

It has an interesting discussion of how certain foods are paired with specific genders.  Check it out!

 I see a lot of these funny ecards on social media sites online and happened to look into a few relating to our groups presentation of chocolate. Most of the ecards I just found funny, or they show the relationship chocolate has to sex, valentines day, love, indulgence, and women. This first image is piggy backing off of Evan's post about chocolate being related to the divine or "god like."