Container Gardening

On Thursday April 10th I attended the Container Gardening at the Oshtemo Public Library.  The presentation started at 3 and unfortunately I had to leave at 3:30 because I had to work at 4.  However, in those 30 minutes I did learn a lot of new information.  The woman who did the presentation was named Linda and she does a lot of work through MSU and she is also the coordinator of the master garden program in Kalamazoo.  She began the presentation by asking people if they had any questions that way she could see if she would address them in the presentation or not.  Next, she talked about Ornamental edible containers.  The key to a good edible container is that you have to grow something you like.  If you don't like the fruit or vegetable then you might not take care of the plant.  Also, what ever edible you decide to grow you need to figure out how much space and light it needs.  You can grow edibles in very little space if needed as long a they have enough sunlight and water.  Many of the edibles need a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight.  Edible plants need an inch of water a week.  When you plant an edible you should think about this.. is their water easily accessible.  You don't want to have an edible container in a spot far away from water because then you will have to deal with carrying the water a long ways or messing with a tangled hose.  Some negatives of edible containers is that they might get too much water or not enough water.  Too much water will cause rot, mold, mildew, and death to the plant.  Not enough water could cause arrest to the plant and stresses it out.  With containers you also need to make sure they have an escape route for water.  A rain barrel is a good idea for plants too!  Check this out   .

      

The restaurant I chose to visit was Zooroona.  Zooroona is located off of West Main st. in the Tiffany's Village Plaza.  I don't remember if this was one of the restaurants on the list Allen gave us, but when I looked up Mediterranean restaurants in Kalamazoo this one caught my eye.  I visited Zooroona during lunch time and that was probably a mistake because they were super busy.  I asked my server if he could tell me more about the restaurant like the background and where the family came from, but all he said to me was I apologize, but i'm too busy... so I kind of just left that alone, guess that's what I get for going on a Friday during lunch rush hour.  Luckily, they do have a website that gave me some background.  The Mandwee family comes from the Middle East.  They immigrated to Michigan in the 1980's and started Tiffany's wine and spirits.  Tiffany's grew into one of the favorite places to go for great wine and exceptional specialties.  With the love of their store the brothers decided that they wanted to bring a Mediterranean restaurant to Kalamazoo and that's how Zooroona began.  Zooroona means "come visit us" in Arabic.

The dish I decided to order was a Specialty plate called Spiced Beef with Figs.  I chose this dish because I haven't ate a fig so I wanted to try that and also I knew I liked beef.  Therefore, if everything else was terrible at least I know I would eat the beef.  This dish also had diced apricots and its served with saffron rice.  When I got my lunch it looked very delicious I wasn't a big fan of the figs, but everything else wasn't bad.  I really liked the saffron rice which surprised me because I hadn't tried it before.   I would recommend that everyone should go and try this restaurant especially because on Saturday's they have a belly dancer! Who doesn't want to see a good belly dancer haha.   

Global Warming and food

I am happy that Allen had Dr. David Karowe come into our class to present the topic of global warming and food.  When I first found out that he was going to come to our class I wondered what exactly he would cover...  By the time he was done presenting I was depressed.  The Earth is getting warmer and warmer and that is not good. According to Dr. Karowe's slide about the January 2014 temperatures, a lot of places besides Michigan had record warming for January.  Also, I can't believe that the estimate of current warming is 95% caused by human activities!  I knew we were doing things that weren't good for the Earth, but I didn't think it was that bad!  However, I am glad that Dr. Karowe told us that there is a glimmer of hope though.  For example, he said we could start by buying a more fuel efficient car and using more solar, wind, and hydro power.  I did a speech on solar, wind, and hydro power and learned a lot about it.  We don't use these power resources nearly as much as we should. They could help save us so much energy and lessen how much fossil fuel we need to burn.  My dad has been looking at getting a smaller windmill to generate energy at our house.
                  By 2050 if things continue to get worse, the US soybean and corn may decrease by 20-25%.   Even worse, by the year 2100 they could decrease to 55-60%.  This worries me a lot.  However, like Dr. Karowe said "The future is in our hands".  Our generation can make a difference, but it will take all of us to make the change to help better our Earth.      

Video games and food

First of all I wanted to say that I really enjoyed the presentation on food and video games that Casey and Joe did on Wednesday.  The part about Grand theft auto was very interesting.  I haven't played any of the grand theft auto games before so I had no idea what to expect.  It's ironic that in the video games they have actual commercials like it is real life.  The ones about the elections were pretty funny.  Anyways, I decided to write about Burger Shot and Cluckin' Bell.  Like Casey already said these two commercials are clearly making fun of Americans for our terrible eating habits and our obesity.  However, I think that the Burger Shot one is specifically on the game to show us that eating to much fast food a.k.a. garbage cause have us end up in a hospital.  The burger that is called the bleeder..... really??  and then it gets worse.. when I saw the 6lb. heart stopper my jaw about dropped.  I can't even imagine trying to eat a burger or any meal that is 6lbs.   In this commercial they show someone calling 911 because he ate so much crap he had heart problems...I wonder why?!  This commercial is a warning to everyone.. If you eat to much greasy fatty food you may have a heart attack and die!      

The Cluckin' Bell commercial was just as terrible.  This commercial bashes America for all the crap we put in/ do to our chickens to make them bigger and more juicy.  Watching this commercial made me not want to eat chicken again...Obviously that didn't happen, but I did give it some thought.  It is incredible that we put so much stuff in the chickens so that they have bigger breasts.  I think that this commercial could also be a warning to not eat so much chicken because of all the junk that gets put in them to fatten them up.  The things we do to our meat is nasty, but yet we all still eat it.   Maybe one day this will all change.... or at least I hope.

Once again good job Casey and Joe!