Baked Mac and Cheese

Recipe:

• Boil four cups of noodles until just softened (they’ll cook more in the oven)

• Prepare three cups of grated cheese. I prefer mozzarella and some kind of cheddar, but maybe you prefer something with more heat or a different texture. The choice of cheese is up to you.

• Whisk together two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of flour in a large saucepan over heat. Continue whisking for at least three minutes.

• Whisk in two cups of milk (any kind will do but whole milk is prefered), a bay leaf, and a couple sprinkles of paprika. Bring this mixture to a simmer and continue whisking and simmering for fifteen minutes until it’s reduced, and remove it from heat. For a less saucy and more reduced mixture, simmer for eighteen minutes. Then season with salt and pepper to taste.

• Whisk in about two thirds of your cheese and continue whisking until the mixture is as chunky/smooth as you would like. Remember that this will continue to cook as it sits and as it cooks in the oven.

• Pour your noodles into the saucepan and mix until thoroughly combined. The noodles should be coated in the cheesey saucey mixture. Move half of these noodles to a pan or bowl (one that is oven-proof).

• Pour the rest of your grated cheese into the pan or bowl, over the noodles, to serve as a cheesey center for your mac and cheese dish. Then pour the rest of your noodles on top. All of your grated cheese and noodle/cheese mixture should be in the pan or bowl now.

• Extra tip: if you feel like you didn’t get enough cheese in there, you can grate more cheese into the mixture at any time. This recipe is very forgiving and the amount of cheese won’t damage the final product; the amount of cheese is really to taste.

• Finish by combining a cup of breadcrumbs with two tablespoons of butter in a pan or skillet, and combine and toast until the breadcrumbs are warm and buttery. Spread this mixture on top of your mac and cheese.

• Put your entire pan or bowl of mac and cheese into the oven at 350 degrees (you could preheat the oven if you liked, but again the recipe is forgiving). The meal is done after half an hour or until the top is as golden brown as you would like.

• Extra tip: you can remove the mac and cheese from the oven and serve it immediately, but you can also mix it together, or add more grated cheese. If at any point in the process you don’t like it, just adjust the amounts of cheese/breadcrumbs/milk/butter/whatever to taste.

• Extra tip: This mac and cheese isn’t as strong as I like it, but I prefer to season it once it’s on my plate and not in the bowl with everyone else’s. Some hot sauce, coarse kosher salt, and ground pepper can really improve the strength of the recipe and also bring out the other flavors. In addition to seasoning, you can also add grated cheese to your own plate to give a little bit of chunk to your saucey mac.

• The final step is to enjoy!

This dish is a home cooked, hearty, comfort food. I use this dish to serve in large portions, because small portions of mac and cheese just make me sad that I don’t have more, so I will be analyzing this from the perspective of two to four people served per bowl (when this could easily create twenty small appetizer dishes).

In the context of other comfort foods, this dish holds its own. It has a lot of variation, but if you use the right ingredients this dish can be all whole food. Using whole milk is, obviously, the first step, but also make sure you’re using organic AND all natural cheese (placing far more emphasis on the organic on the label than the all natural). The other key is to use the proper seasoning; fresh salt, pepper, bay leaves, and paprika (and hot sauce if you’re interested in that feature of the recipe) are much less likely to be processed. These small pieces of the recipe are what create the taste, whereas the noodles and cheese create the bulk of the meal, so investing in organic, fresh, and unprocessed seasonings is critical. The real issue with processed foods arises with the bulk of the meal. The noodles are the biggest problem, because they’re grains and not digestible by our bodies, so they have to be processed. You could use veggie noodles, or even actual vegetables cut into the shapes of noodles (zucchini is a popular choice), or whole grain noodles as a whole food alternative to the most processed brands of noodle. You can even find out about these noodle choices on the Whole Foods website, ironically enough. Cheeses are also a difficult option. Spend some time choosing the right cheese (both in taste and in ingredients) and make sure it isn’t just the cheese at the closest corner store. Farmer’s markets are a great way to find little to no process cheese, and you can even make your own at home with a fraction of the “processing” that even the most local of farmers uses. In the end, if you want a little to no process mac and cheese recipe, you can get it, but you can’t use the Kraft box that’s sitting in your cabinet.

I began to touch upon this in your choice of ingredients, but having a healthy whole food option isn’t the only benefit of purchasing from local and organically grown farms. Cheese, especially the homemade or farmmade and whole food kind, is very difficult to make. The process is arduous and time consuming, but in the end rewards the consumer with an amazing and deep flavor. Investing in farmer’s market cheese is good for the consumer, but more importantly is good for the farmer. Supporting local farmers is what keeps unprocessed food on people’s plates, so this mac and cheese recipe is a great opportunity to support farmers.

In my preparation of this food I admittedly didn’t use farmer’s market ingredients. I used relatively fresh seasoning bought from Trader Joe’s and my mozzarella cheddar blend was created using their cheese as well. Trader Joe’s in particular is a happy medium between corporations like Kraft which crank out low quality mac and cheese at a low price and a farmer’s market with high quality ingredients but equally high costs. Trader Joe’s also uses the profits from their foods for good causes and are reliably healthy and organic. My preparation of this meal was free, but the combined prices of the ingredients were $15, I would estimate. This amount of fast food mac and cheese, however, say from Wawa or Panera, would cost me even more (two family sized mac and cheese sides from Wawa cost the same $15 but wouldn’t fill the bowl that I filled). The fast food option of this meal would also be much less healthy, even if you opted for store bought cheese and processed pasta.

​This paper was my attempt to mix an analysis of this unit's topic and an analysis of war films. I used a lot that we learned from The Things They Carried and also some of my own research and conjecture. In putting the two ideas together, I came to the conclusion found at the end of the paper, but the process of writing the paper was the process of reaching the conclusion, not just explaining it. I found myself putting the ideas forth and then only connecting them at the end. I would like to do more research into the underlying psychology behind violent films, and in general how we react to role models (actors) doing something (violence). This could be imprinting, or it could be the tribal nature of humans, but I'd like to learn more about the psychology of violent films.

One of the hardest genres in film to get right is the war film. In an attempt to analyze film, one comes across this very tricky genre time and time again, and how hard it is to make a good war film. This may arise from the natural intricacies of telling a war story, and even the complicated nature of violence itself. I myself am interested in finding out how to make a good war film, and how this can apply to society’s greater, more general obsession with violence.

Storytelling is a constant battle to keep people engaged. A good storyteller will use all the tools in their tool belt to accomplish this goal: reveals, flashy visuals or details, twists, etc. Books, films, even songs use these same ideas and tools. In making a war film, the audience, we can assume, is already interested in the subject matter (and perversely so I might add). Years of western culture and civilization have trained them to love Hollywood shoot-em-up blockbusters and gory, violent video games. The fact that a war film can keep people entertained with its gore and violence is something addressed in two quotes from an interview with Tim O'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, a prime example of a good war story. The two quotes (quotes two and three on this document) both suggest a different way of keeping the audience entertained: one way being a violent perverse attraction to violence and war and guns and bombs and death, the other being the immediate urgency that a war story and its consequential mortality brings to other morals, like love, relationships, and fairness.

Take, for example, the scene in Saving Private Ryan where the old veteran tears up at the grave, and then falls to his knees, bringing his family running. The shot shows an old veteran kneeling at a white cross tombstone, one of many that look the same in a graveyard of soldiers. The veteran kneels at the right of the frame, looking at the tombstone at the center of the frame. The tombstone splits the frame in half, separating the veteran from his family standing off in the distance. They are all dressed similarly, and so is the veteran, but their attention is (naturally) directed all over the place, some towards the veteran, some aimless, some amongst each other. The tombstone, while one of many just like it, is particular to this man, and keeps him separated visually from his family, as if they could never experience the things he has experienced, and so they can never truly connect with him. As the veteran falls down, the family runs up to him. The urgency of this experience is amplified by the family's own urgency, but is already engaging because of our subconscious awareness of mortality in this war story. The rest of the film may be engaging for that reason too, and also because of our "pornographic" infatuation with violence and war, but this specific scene just goes to show how themes can be amplified and morals can be engaged with when faced with the blatant mortality of war.

Many war stories attempt to cover different perspectives. Quote number eight from the O’Brien interview explains more about this. The Things They Carried covers only the perspectives of the soldiers, and while all of the different stories may extend the perspectives, they're still a perspective heard from another perspective; a story within a story. The book only covers one perspective. When the soldiers confront the corpse of a Viet Cong soldier, they are in fact confronting another perspective. The story does not extend past what the soldiers (in fact what O'Brien) saw of this new perspective. A good war story should, therefore, not extend to unknown perspectives, but just analyze them from the known perspective. It is like looking into another house from your own house. You cannot see what your window does not reveal.

The question to answer is this: what can violent films tell us about our obsession with violence? The answer itself is simple, although arriving to this conclusion might be a little more complicated. The reaction to and popularity of violent films are the most measurable insight into violence that those films can give us. Of the top ten all time highest grossing films (according to this list on the-numbers.com), eight of them featured violence. Of the infinite number of topics and plots to be covered in a film, violence is not featured in so many of them, and yet the most popular films usually feature violence, if not center around it completely. It should be an evident insight into the human psyche to see that our most popular films are those that glorify, romanticize, and practically endorse violence. If we see our favorite actor beating the crap out of some dude, aren’t we going to do the same? It’s the simple psychology of following a role model, and if the movies you see everyday promote violence, how can you not practice it?

We have a “pornographic” interest in violence, which extends to an obsession. While war films are feats of storytelling, and enhance the story being told, they definitely end up promoting violence. War films are an insight into our obsession with violence, because violence enhances morals, and makes our mortality come to the surface, making everything else more real. We love seeing more violent films because we’re obsessed with violence and the way it affects storytelling. This ends up endorsing violence, and making it both more accepted as well as more practiced by society. Violent films show us that our obsession with violence stems from its effect on storytelling, and that this promotes violence in our society.

Works Cited

"All Time Highest Grossing Movies Worldwide." The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2016. <http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/records/All-Time-Worldwide-Box-Office>.

Interview with Tim O’Brien

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

As the son of an immigrant, I always feel like a little something special. I don't have the right to; I didn't brave a new world, leave my family behind, and live a new life. I have been settled peacefully in America for my whole life, and I always have felt connected to America, but I've also felt connected to Germany. My mother spent a year abroad, and spent that year in America from Germany. That same year, my father spent his year abroad in Germany from America. They got married and attended college in the US, eventually settling down in sweet, sweet Philadelphia, and raising a family. Now my mother has lived here for more time than she has lived in Germany, and I wanted to investigate how she feels about national identity.

My mother has always seemed like the perfect immigrant (I know this sounds strange, but let me explain). Theodore Roosevelt said “Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.” My mother learned English within that time, and after 20+ years of living here, she has barely the whiff of an accent, and can speak English flawlessly and fluently. Often times I will forget a word (in English!) and she will remind me what that word is. She came here legally, got a green card, and kept it, meaning she didn't commit a SINGLE crime. How many Americans can say that much after 20+ years? No DUIs, no pirating music or movies, she's not a rapist or a murderer as Donald Trump would like to suggest. She obtained her citizenship just last month. She has been the model immigrant.

She spoke with me recently to help with this project, and I asked her to describe how she felt about national identity, being someone with multiple nationalities and coming from multiple national backgrounds and experiences. She told me about how she will always be a German, even though she now has both a German citizenship and a US citizenship. She said she was reluctant to get the US citizenship, and would only become a US citizen if she could keep her German citizenship. A quote from Ronald Reagan perfectly applies to this situation: “[A man said] you can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can’t become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.” - Ronald Reagan. She is still, in her heart, a German, and can never give that up or become something or someone else.

I also spoke with her about her “belonging,” meaning how she felt in the new world of America, and whether she felt like she belonged. She immediately snapped back, “Never. I never feel at home, like I belong.” She then went on to talk about her recent trip back to Germany to see her mother one last time, and then to arrange and go to her funeral. She said how, even after all these years of being away from home, she felt at home in her mother’s house. We all feel that way when we come home, like no matter what, we feel welcome. My mother has never really, truly belonged among Americans, but when she went home she felt like she belonged. Her national identity will forever and always be German, and while she feels at home in our house, with us, she really feels at home at her childhood home, in her childhood country, with all of the faces she has known since childhood.

Dank Friendship

My goals with this paper were to explore friendship for myself, and how I feel during this complicated time in my life. I was trying to figure out my priorities, and by just writing and writing and kept thinking, and so I was able to figure some things out. I think that I did a good job in reflecting on the paper, as well as the topic, and that my descriptive scenes were very well written. I would like to improve my description outside of the scenes, and how I interact with an audience that isn’t myself.

There’s something about being with friends that makes every scene bearable. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sweaty, hot afternoon, with tiny gnats pecking at my eyes, or if it’s a restaurant with awful fries. When you are with friends everything seems one step up. If you’re watching a subpar movie, you can heckle it to no end and poke holes in it until it looks like a piece of swiss cheese. If you’re playing a terrible game you can laugh at it instead of getting frustrated and feeling the need to shatter your screen.

As I sit among friends in a restaurant with dank fries and a slight breeze rustling the trees outside, I take it, not for granted, but as a gift. I remember a time when I wouldn’t spend my afternoons in town laughing for two hours straight, but instead wasting away the waning light inside, rewatching stale episodes of old shows by myself. There’s something about wasting time with friends that makes it feel way more productive, and maybe even healthy.

I can definitely feel long times away from a social life taking their toll on me. If I spend too much time by myself or with family, I feel cramped and much worse about myself. When I spend time with friends, even if it’s a couple of minutes talking about nothing important, I can feel the stress washing off of me. Most of the time it’s a physical feeling; I laugh and feel the tension releasing from my muscles, like some kind of emotional stretch. I can feel relaxed after a day with friends, even if I have something pressing as hell coming up tomorrow, and I know that everything is ok in this way I can never feel in another situation, like a zen or a bliss is coming over me.

I remember one day I was working with some expensive equipment; a camera worth more than me and a glossy lens that I’m sure was fresh out of the box, taken from a pristine white factory with models for workers. I was trying to charge the batteries, but all of a sudden it wouldn’t turn on. I frantically tried flipping the dial from On to Off, trying to get a pulse from this dead machine. It even seemed to have lost its crisp click as I tried to switch it back and forth. I could hear the noise of a flatlined heartbeat in the background as I pounded away at it, trying to get it to breathe. I was fearing for my life. How could I afford to repair this equipment without chopping off my arm and selling it to the highest bidder? Freaking out, I called my friends trying to see if they knew how to fix it. They obviously did not, but just hearing them speak with me seemed to make it more manageable. Having someone to share the burden with made it all ok. Although it got fixed before anyone got in trouble, it was still a taught situation that seemed to be eased by the company of others. I would not have handled it with such finesse had I not had the help of my friends.

Recently I was trying to fix a serious issue. In one of my projects I had lost all of the audio, which was the essential element. I was wondering what to do, drawing a blank when I tried to problem solve. As I keyed my friends into this fact, they immediately hopped to, troubleshooting and brainstorming. I could see lightning above their heads. We managed to salvage the wreckage of the project and get a few chuckles from the audience, but if it wasn’t for my friends I would have crumpled into a ball and cried until it came time to get graded. There’s no one better than a friend to have your best interests at heart.

As I just mentioned, my topic is Financial Education and Literacy in America, and how people don’t learn enough about money to be safe and successful in their lives. People are being sent out into the world with no training on how to pay taxes, manage debt, or make money. And even though it is more important for people to learn more about the necessities, such as using a credit card, it’s also important to know how to make money. Not nearly enough people know about or use stocks to their advantage. I went on a quest to change this.

A lot of lessons about Financial Literacy and Responsibility are being taught around the world, and they help, but they aren’t always accessible. Many schools don’t have a program properly suited to helping kids get out into the world with the proper tools and knowledge. I tried to make my own little dent on my little community.

As I said in my Second Blog Post, I was hoping to teach at least one lesson to a class of First Graders, Third Graders, and Eighth Graders, as well as a presentation to some Ninth Graders. I only succeeded on one of those counts; I taught my advisory, the Ninth Graders, but I couldn’t get the scheduling quite right for the students at my old school, ICS. In the end, I made a smaller impact than expected, but I still taught about 20 students some of the very basic skills they need to flourish financially.

However, this is only 20 students out of millions that aren’t being taught correctly. Even if I had gotten to my goal of about 100 students (the ones listed above), I still wouldn’t have made enough of an impact. The real threat is that education mandates WORLDWIDE are not giving our students a fighting chance. They would rather teach students about the Pythagorean Theorem, which only some of them will use, than about how to get a job, which all of them will need. Also, even if you’re the most qualified person in the world, you still need to know how to get and maintain a job, and how to manage the money you make.

These are some of the things I talked about in my presentation. The presentation that I showed (the slideshow that I used) is here, and some of the notes that I used are here (I used the section titled “8” for eighth grade, as the lessons were similar). I had the students talk in groups, and I taught them from the notes as well. At the end, I let them ask questions about things they weren’t sure about or wanted to learn more about.

Hi readers! Welcome back to my You And The World (YATW) project. Last time, in my Blog Post #1, I was looking into Financial Education. What I found was that Financial Education is a real taboo in America, even though it is one of the most important things to have. Since then, I have looked a lot more into this, and have seen a lot more information.

First of all, If anyone is looking for a professional look on Financial Education, please look for some videos of Suze Orman. She makes very good points, and knows a lot about this topic. I have learned much from her.

Second of all, I’d like to update you all on my research. I have been doing some of my own research (surveying and interviewing) and have come up with some personalized data. An Annotated Bibliography, a Survey Analysis, and link to all of the survey information, including the survey itself, is here.

All that I found was basically this: Financial Education is a real taboo. Most people don’t know their income or what they’re spending on. However, all of the survey takers knew what kind of Financial Support they received. Another thing that I found was that, even though there was a wide range of Financial Education, reaching all across my 1-10 scale, almost every single person was taught outside of school. Most people were taught by parents or mentors, or even taught themselves. All of this information makes me think that Financial Education needs to be taught a lot more on a bigger and more important scale.

I am hoping to learn more about this, because I didn’t learn all that I wanted to about Financial Education. How does America budget? What is the average ratio of spending to saving, and spending to income? What percentage of ALL Americans receive Financial Support? All of these and more could be important to my teaching.

Now on to the future. Ahead of me is the Spring. I will be performing an Agent of Change Service Project. All of my research has lead up to this. I will be planning with some teachers at Science Leadership Academy, along with some teachers at Independence Charter School, to create a lesson plan to teach some children.

I am hoping to teach at least one class of First graders, one class of Third graders, and one class of Eighth graders. I will also be teaching a more advanced lesson to some high schoolers (if I can). This is a work in progress, but so far I have some notes about how the lesson might go. They are here.

If you have any other suggestions as to things I should see, topics I should research, or more subjects I should teach, feel free to leave a comment. I am also open to any suggestions as to where I should take this next. I am looking to continue this education onward and outward, past YATW. I want to teach more at ICS and SLA, and more at other places as well. The world needs to hear more about Financial Education, and there needs to be more of a teaching force.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If there’s anything at all, please feel free to comment!

Felix

Some extra information:

Your Income Level (Optional)

Less than $30,000 a year [5] 21%

$30,000-50,000 [0] 0%

$50,000-70,000 [5] 21%

$70,000-90,000 [4] 17%

$90,000-110,000 [2] 8%

$110,000-130,000 [0] 0%

$130,000-150,000 [2] 8%

Don’t Know [6] 26%

Do you receive Financial Aid/Support? (Optional)

Yes [5] 19%

A little bit [4] 15%

No [17] 65%

Don’t Know [0] 0%

Hello, my name is Felix Schafroth Doty, and this is the first of three blog posts for my English You And The World (YATW) project. For this project, we are to choose an issue in the world, anywhere, and combat it with some form of volunteering. I have chosen Financial Literacy and Education, and the fact that not nearly enough people have the knowledge to live a financially savvy life.

This problem came to my attention when I read a book on teenage finance and education. This book is called The Motley Fool Investment Guide For Teens, written by David and Tom Gardner, owners of a stock investing site. However, this book isn’t just on investing in the stock market. The Motley Fools, as they call themselves, teach you throughout the book about how to be smart and safe with money, and ultimately use it to your advantage. Their website is here.

But anyway, back to the problem at hand: Financial Literacy. This is a definite problem in America, as shown by a recent survey:

The 2012 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey, released in April, Financial Literacy Month, found that despite the recession, Americans still lack basic money skills. More than half of the 1,007 adults polled for the survey admit to not even having a household budget.

Also revealed in the findings:

• 33 percent, or more than 77 million Americans, do not pay all of their bills on time.

• 39 percent of Americans carry credit card debt from month to month.

• Only 59 percent of adults say they have savings -- a 5 percent decrease from last year.

• More than one in four adults say they are now spending more than last year.

• 42 percent of respondents give themselves ratings of C, D or F on their personal finance knowledge