Sunday, September 27, 2015
REMEMBER...THE RESTAURANT REVIEW IS DUE BY TOMORROW, MONDAY, THE 28TH, AT MIDNIGHT...
Be sure it is turned in to turnitin by that time!!!
WEEK THREE BLOG ENTRY
1. What is the greatest single song of all time and why?
2. Do you have a memory that is directly linked to a song?
For example, you are on your first date and the Katy Perry song Dark Horse plays on the radio three separate times during the evening. So now whenever you think of the date, you are reminded of the song, and vice versa.
2. Do you have a memory that is directly linked to a song?
For example, you are on your first date and the Katy Perry song Dark Horse plays on the radio three separate times during the evening. So now whenever you think of the date, you are reminded of the song, and vice versa.
WEEK THREE READING
Is Music the Key to Success?
By JOANNE LIPMAN
CONDOLEEZZA RICE trained to be a concert pianist. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. The hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is a pianist who took classes at Juilliard.
Multiple studies link music study to academic achievement. But what is it about serious music training that seems to correlate with outsize success in other fields?
The connection isn’t a coincidence. I know because I asked. I put the question to top-flight professionals in industries from tech to finance to media, all of whom had serious (if often little-known) past lives as musicians. Almost all made a connection between their music training and their professional achievements.
The phenomenon extends beyond the math-music association. Strikingly, many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously.
Will your school music program turn your kid into a Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft (guitar)? Or a Woody Allen (clarinet)? Probably not. These are singular achievers. But the way these and other visionaries I spoke to process music is intriguing. As is the way many of them apply music’s lessons of focus and discipline into new ways of thinking and communicating — even problem solving.
Look carefully and you’ll find musicians at the top of almost any industry. Woody Allen performs weekly with a jazz band. The television broadcaster Paula Zahn (cello) and the NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd (French horn) attended college on music scholarships; NBC’s Andrea Mitchell trained to become a professional violinist. Both Microsoft’s Mr. Allen and the venture capitalist Roger McNamee have rock bands. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, played saxophone in high school. Steven Spielberg is a clarinetist and son of a pianist. The former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn has played cello at Carnegie Hall.
“It’s not a coincidence,” says Mr. Greenspan, who gave up jazz clarinet but still dabbles at the baby grand in his living room. “I can tell you as a statistician, the probability that that is mere chance is extremely small.” The cautious former Fed chief adds, “That’s all that you can judge about the facts. The crucial question is: why does that connection exist?”
Paul Allen offers an answer. He says music “reinforces your confidence in the ability to create.” Mr. Allen began playing the violin at age 7 and switched to the guitar as a teenager. Even in the early days of Microsoft, he would pick up his guitar at the end of marathon days of programming. The music was the emotional analog to his day job, with each channeling a different type of creative impulse. In both, he says, “something is pushing you to look beyond what currently exists and express yourself in a new way.”
Mr. Todd says there is a connection between years of practice and competition and what he calls the “drive for perfection.” The veteran advertising executive Steve Hayden credits his background as a cellist for his most famous work, the Apple “1984” commercial depicting rebellion against a dictator. “I was thinking of Stravinsky when I came up with that idea,” he says. He adds that his cello performance background helps him work collaboratively: “Ensemble playing trains you, quite literally, to play well with others, to know when to solo and when to follow.”
For many of the high achievers I spoke with, music functions as a “hidden language,” as Mr. Wolfensohn calls it, one that enhances the ability to connect disparate or even contradictory ideas. When he ran the World Bank, Mr. Wolfensohn traveled to more than 100 countries, often taking in local performances (and occasionally joining in on a borrowed cello), which helped him understand “the culture of people, as distinct from their balance sheet.”
It’s in that context that the much-discussed connection between math and music resonates most. Both are at heart modes of expression. Bruce Kovner, the founder of the hedge fund Caxton Associates and chairman of the board of Juilliard, says he sees similarities between his piano playing and investing strategy; as he says, both “relate to pattern recognition, and some people extend these paradigms across different senses.”
Mr. Kovner and the concert pianist Robert Taub both describe a sort of synesthesia — they perceive patterns in a three-dimensional way. Mr. Taub, who gained fame for his Beethoven recordings and has since founded a music software company, MuseAmi, says that when he performs, he can “visualize all of the notes and their interrelationships,” a skill that translates intellectually into making “multiple connections in multiple spheres.”
For others I spoke to, their passion for music is more notable than their talent. Woody Allen told me bluntly, “I’m not an accomplished musician. I get total traction from the fact that I’m in movies.”
Mr. Allen sees music as a diversion, unconnected to his day job. He likens himself to “a weekend tennis player who comes in once a week to play. I don’t have a particularly good ear at all or a particularly good sense of timing. In comedy, I’ve got a good instinct for rhythm. In music, I don’t, really.”
Still, he practices the clarinet at least half an hour every day, because wind players will lose their embouchure (mouth position) if they don’t: “If you want to play at all you have to practice. I have to practice every single day to be as bad as I am.” He performs regularly, even touring internationally with his New Orleans jazz band. “I never thought I would be playing in concert halls of the world to 5,000, 6,000 people,” he says. “I will say, quite unexpectedly, it enriched my life tremendously.”
Music provides balance, explains Mr. Wolfensohn, who began cello lessons as an adult. “You aren’t trying to win any races or be the leader of this or the leader of that. You’re enjoying it because of the satisfaction and joy you get out of music, which is totally unrelated to your professional status.”
For Roger McNamee, whose Elevation Partners is perhaps best known for its early investment in Facebook, “music and technology have converged,” he says. He became expert on Facebook by using it to promote his band, Moonalice, and now is focusing on video by live-streaming its concerts. He says musicians and top professionals share “the almost desperate need to dive deep.” This capacity to obsess seems to unite top performers in music and other fields.
Ms. Zahn remembers spending up to four hours a day “holed up in cramped practice rooms trying to master a phrase” on her cello. Mr. Todd, now 41, recounted in detail the solo audition at age 17 when he got the second-highest mark rather than the highest mark — though he still was principal horn in Florida’s All-State Orchestra.
“I’ve always believed the reason I’ve gotten ahead is by outworking other people,” he says. It’s a skill learned by “playing that solo one more time, working on that one little section one more time,” and it translates into “working on something over and over again, or double-checking or triple-checking.” He adds, “There’s nothing like music to teach you that eventually if you work hard enough, it does get better. You see the results.”
That’s an observation worth remembering at a time when music as a serious pursuit — and music education — is in decline in this country.
Consider the qualities these high achievers say music has sharpened: collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas. All are qualities notably absent from public life. Music may not make you a genius, or rich, or even a better person. But it helps train you to think differently, to process different points of view — and most important, to take pleasure in listening.
Joanne Lipman is a co-author, with Melanie Kupchynsky, of the book “Strings Attached: One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/is-music-the-key-to-success.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
By JOANNE LIPMAN
CONDOLEEZZA RICE trained to be a concert pianist. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. The hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is a pianist who took classes at Juilliard.
Multiple studies link music study to academic achievement. But what is it about serious music training that seems to correlate with outsize success in other fields?
The connection isn’t a coincidence. I know because I asked. I put the question to top-flight professionals in industries from tech to finance to media, all of whom had serious (if often little-known) past lives as musicians. Almost all made a connection between their music training and their professional achievements.
The phenomenon extends beyond the math-music association. Strikingly, many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously.
Will your school music program turn your kid into a Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft (guitar)? Or a Woody Allen (clarinet)? Probably not. These are singular achievers. But the way these and other visionaries I spoke to process music is intriguing. As is the way many of them apply music’s lessons of focus and discipline into new ways of thinking and communicating — even problem solving.
Look carefully and you’ll find musicians at the top of almost any industry. Woody Allen performs weekly with a jazz band. The television broadcaster Paula Zahn (cello) and the NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd (French horn) attended college on music scholarships; NBC’s Andrea Mitchell trained to become a professional violinist. Both Microsoft’s Mr. Allen and the venture capitalist Roger McNamee have rock bands. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, played saxophone in high school. Steven Spielberg is a clarinetist and son of a pianist. The former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn has played cello at Carnegie Hall.
“It’s not a coincidence,” says Mr. Greenspan, who gave up jazz clarinet but still dabbles at the baby grand in his living room. “I can tell you as a statistician, the probability that that is mere chance is extremely small.” The cautious former Fed chief adds, “That’s all that you can judge about the facts. The crucial question is: why does that connection exist?”
Paul Allen offers an answer. He says music “reinforces your confidence in the ability to create.” Mr. Allen began playing the violin at age 7 and switched to the guitar as a teenager. Even in the early days of Microsoft, he would pick up his guitar at the end of marathon days of programming. The music was the emotional analog to his day job, with each channeling a different type of creative impulse. In both, he says, “something is pushing you to look beyond what currently exists and express yourself in a new way.”
Mr. Todd says there is a connection between years of practice and competition and what he calls the “drive for perfection.” The veteran advertising executive Steve Hayden credits his background as a cellist for his most famous work, the Apple “1984” commercial depicting rebellion against a dictator. “I was thinking of Stravinsky when I came up with that idea,” he says. He adds that his cello performance background helps him work collaboratively: “Ensemble playing trains you, quite literally, to play well with others, to know when to solo and when to follow.”
For many of the high achievers I spoke with, music functions as a “hidden language,” as Mr. Wolfensohn calls it, one that enhances the ability to connect disparate or even contradictory ideas. When he ran the World Bank, Mr. Wolfensohn traveled to more than 100 countries, often taking in local performances (and occasionally joining in on a borrowed cello), which helped him understand “the culture of people, as distinct from their balance sheet.”
It’s in that context that the much-discussed connection between math and music resonates most. Both are at heart modes of expression. Bruce Kovner, the founder of the hedge fund Caxton Associates and chairman of the board of Juilliard, says he sees similarities between his piano playing and investing strategy; as he says, both “relate to pattern recognition, and some people extend these paradigms across different senses.”
Mr. Kovner and the concert pianist Robert Taub both describe a sort of synesthesia — they perceive patterns in a three-dimensional way. Mr. Taub, who gained fame for his Beethoven recordings and has since founded a music software company, MuseAmi, says that when he performs, he can “visualize all of the notes and their interrelationships,” a skill that translates intellectually into making “multiple connections in multiple spheres.”
For others I spoke to, their passion for music is more notable than their talent. Woody Allen told me bluntly, “I’m not an accomplished musician. I get total traction from the fact that I’m in movies.”
Mr. Allen sees music as a diversion, unconnected to his day job. He likens himself to “a weekend tennis player who comes in once a week to play. I don’t have a particularly good ear at all or a particularly good sense of timing. In comedy, I’ve got a good instinct for rhythm. In music, I don’t, really.”
Still, he practices the clarinet at least half an hour every day, because wind players will lose their embouchure (mouth position) if they don’t: “If you want to play at all you have to practice. I have to practice every single day to be as bad as I am.” He performs regularly, even touring internationally with his New Orleans jazz band. “I never thought I would be playing in concert halls of the world to 5,000, 6,000 people,” he says. “I will say, quite unexpectedly, it enriched my life tremendously.”
Music provides balance, explains Mr. Wolfensohn, who began cello lessons as an adult. “You aren’t trying to win any races or be the leader of this or the leader of that. You’re enjoying it because of the satisfaction and joy you get out of music, which is totally unrelated to your professional status.”
For Roger McNamee, whose Elevation Partners is perhaps best known for its early investment in Facebook, “music and technology have converged,” he says. He became expert on Facebook by using it to promote his band, Moonalice, and now is focusing on video by live-streaming its concerts. He says musicians and top professionals share “the almost desperate need to dive deep.” This capacity to obsess seems to unite top performers in music and other fields.
Ms. Zahn remembers spending up to four hours a day “holed up in cramped practice rooms trying to master a phrase” on her cello. Mr. Todd, now 41, recounted in detail the solo audition at age 17 when he got the second-highest mark rather than the highest mark — though he still was principal horn in Florida’s All-State Orchestra.
“I’ve always believed the reason I’ve gotten ahead is by outworking other people,” he says. It’s a skill learned by “playing that solo one more time, working on that one little section one more time,” and it translates into “working on something over and over again, or double-checking or triple-checking.” He adds, “There’s nothing like music to teach you that eventually if you work hard enough, it does get better. You see the results.”
That’s an observation worth remembering at a time when music as a serious pursuit — and music education — is in decline in this country.
Consider the qualities these high achievers say music has sharpened: collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas. All are qualities notably absent from public life. Music may not make you a genius, or rich, or even a better person. But it helps train you to think differently, to process different points of view — and most important, to take pleasure in listening.
Joanne Lipman is a co-author, with Melanie Kupchynsky, of the book “Strings Attached: One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/is-music-the-key-to-success.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
WEEK THREE WRITING ABOUT WHAT YOU READ
Is music the key to success?
--or--
How has music impacted your experience of or thinking about life?
--or--
How has music impacted your experience of or thinking about life?
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
COURSE SYLLABUS
Hi there,
Hopefully you are now fully acquainted with the blog and getting into the rhythm of the course.
I now post our blog. It has some due dates and assignment descriptions...enjoy!
As always, if you have any questions about it, email me at bschmoll@csub.edu.
Hopefully you are now fully acquainted with the blog and getting into the rhythm of the course.
I now post our blog. It has some due dates and assignment descriptions...enjoy!
As always, if you have any questions about it, email me at bschmoll@csub.edu.
COURSE SYLLABUS
REQUIRED READING:
The
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The
Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle
MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS/GRADING SCALE/DUE DATES:
BLOG: (10%) DUE
WEEKLY
WRITING ABOUT WHAT
YOU READ: (10%) DUE WEEKLY
RESTAURANT REVIEW:
25% DUE SEPTEMBER 28TH
IN CLASS ESSAY: 25%
OCTOBER 10TH FROM 9-NOON AT CSUB
TIPPING POINT FINAL DRAFT: 30% DUE NOVEMBER 20TH
TIPPING POINT FINAL DRAFT: 30% DUE NOVEMBER 20TH
GRADED COURSEWORK EXPLAINED A BIT MORE:
BLOG: Each week there will be a question on the blog. You
will write at least 250 words(a long and brilliant paragraph) in response to
that question. You must also respond to your classmates’ writing at least
twice(with at least a one sentence response) each week. The best thing to do is
to write your response to the blog prompt, respond to someone else’s blog
entry, and then wait a few hours or a day before coming back to see what others
have said about your blog entry. Then, respond to that. The more you write, the
better. Each week, I will chime in at least once(and usually more) with my own
response. Bu remember, this is NON GRADED WRITING. Studies have made it very
clear that the more you write in non-judged ways, the better your writing
becomes. So simply write!
WRITING ABOUT WHAT
YOU READ: After you read each week’s
selection, you will respond to a question about the reading. These should also
be about 250 words. You do not need to respond to other’s work in this area.
However, you may find someone else’s work so interesting that you want to
respond.
RESTAURANT REVIEW: THIS IS OUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT. Go to any
restaurant in town. As you eat, take notes on the ambiance, the food, and the
service. You may choose any restaurant (from Taco Bell to Café Med), but you
should use this writing assignment to explore your descriptive capabilities.
Use sound, touch, taste, smell, and the look of the food and surroundings. The
review should be approximately three pages(typed, double-spaced) in length. You
may use the first-person in this review. Again, I will email you this
assignment separately, but you might start thinking now about which restaurant
you want to try.
TIPPING POINT FINAL DRAFT: (30%) For this assignment, you
will email me the final draft copy of your essay. THIS IS FINAL ESSAY OF THE
COURSE, SO DO NOT RUSH OUT AND START IT NOW!
The essay should be attached as a Microsoft Word document
and should be 4 pages in length, double spaced.
There are two essay topics to choose from.
Write a 4 page double spaced essay on one of the following
topics:
1. How might one or more of the ideas in the book The
Tipping Point apply to your chosen profession?
2. Locate a trend [social, political, cultural, other] that
seems to exhibit a "tipping point" phenomenon. Provide a brief
explanation of why you think this phenomenon meets Gladwell's three criteria
for tipping point phenomenon: a) contagiousness b) little causes having big
effects c) not gradual but dramatic change.
IN CLASS ESSAY: (15%)
We will take this in class essay during our face to face
meeting at CSUB. This is our one mandatory meeting. Since this course satisfies
the GWAR, you must pass one in class essay to be eligible to pass the course.
That essay will be given during our face to face meeting. If you do not pass
this assignment, you can come to my office to take a “demand” essay. This essay will be written about the book TORTILLA CURTAIN . We will discuss this
in detail as we approach that date.
OTHER COURSE POLICIES:
Passing Grade Requirement: Students must earn a grade of C
or higher in this course to satisfy the Graduation Writing Assessment
Requirement (GWAR). In addition, this course can fulfill the GWAR only if a
student has completed 90 or more quarter units of college work before taking
it.
To be eligible for a C in English 305, students must earn a
C or higher on at least one in-class writing assignment and a C average on all
other course assignments. Since this is an online class, in-class writing
assignments may be given at the first meeting or the last.
English 305 Waiting List/Drop Policy Statement
Students enrolled in English 305 must attend the first
Saturday orientation session. Students who miss this session will be dropped so
that other students may add the course. There is no make-up orientation
session.
Students who wish to add the course once the class is full
can contact the instructor before the quarter begins and ask to be put on a
waiting list. These students must attend the first Saturday session to remain
eligible for a seat, and these students can only be added if a spot in the
class becomes available.
Course Description:
An online/hybrid course in effective expository writing.
Emphasis on writing as a process. This course counts toward the Teacher
Preparation programs in English, Liberal Studies, and Child Development but
does not count toward the major or minor. Fulfills the GWAR.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in GWAR courses should advance their mastery of
the following learning outcomes:
Goal 1: Reading
Skills
Objective 1:
Analyze a rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, tone) and how a
writer’s rhetorical choices (e.g. bias, rhetorical modes, syntax, diction)
inform a text.
Objective 2:
Analyze a text’s structure and conventional parts (introduction, thesis,
main ideas, body paragraphs, conclusion), and how the parts work together.
Objective 3:
Analyze a text’s logic and reasoning.
Objective 4:
Effectively critique the effectiveness of a writer’s rhetorical choices,
organization, and logic.
Goal 2: Writing
Skills
Objective 1: Effectively adapt the writing process to
various rhetorical situations, anticipating the needs of purpose and audience.
Objective 2: Analyze more complex and/or abstract writing
prompts, and stay on task.
Objective 3: Create effective thesis statements, and use
a variety of appropriate and compelling rhetorical strategies to support the
thesis.
Objective 4: Effectively structure essays, evaluating how
the parts work together to create meaning.
Objective 5: Avoid logical fallacies, and use precise
logical reasoning to develop essays.
Objective 6: Use correct and college-level,
discourse-appropriate syntax, diction, grammar, and mechanics.
Goal 3: Research
Skills
Objective 1: Effectively use summary, paraphrase, and
direct quotes to smoothly synthesize sources into own writing.
Objective 2: Master a documentation style, and avoid
plagiarism.
Objective 3: Use research methods to find reputable
sources.
Writing Requirements
Assignments will gradually increase in difficulty, and each
assignment will include both a rough draft and a final essay. Writing
assignments may be distributed as follows:
● at least one in-class assignment, during the first or
last meeting
● writing to inform
● writing to amuse or move the reader emotionally
● writing to persuade
● writing to analyze literature and/or art
Participation
Students will be required to participate in peer revision
and discussion on a blog set up exclusively for this class.
WEEKLY GOALS
WEEK ONE
This week I hope you will be able to effectively adapt the
writing process to various rhetorical situations, anticipating the needs of
purpose and audience. (Goal 2, Objective 1)
WEEK TWO
This week I hope you will be able to analyze a rhetorical
situation (purpose, audience, tone) and how a writer’s rhetorical choices (e.g.
bias, rhetorical modes, syntax, diction) inform a text. (Goal 1, Objective 1)
WEEK THREE
This week I hope you will be able to effectively structure
essays, evaluating how the parts work together to create meaning. (Goal 2,
Objective 4)
WEEK FOUR
This week I hope you will be able to avoid logical
fallacies, and use precise logical reasoning to develop essays. (Goal 2,
Objective 5)
WEEK FIVE
This week I hope you will be able to use correct and
college-level, discourse-appropriate syntax, diction, grammar, and mechanics.
(Goal 2, Objective 6)
WEEK SIX
This week I hope you will be able to analyze a text’s
structure and conventional parts (introduction, thesis, main ideas, body
paragraphs, conclusion), and how the parts work together. (Goal 1, Objective 2)
WEEK SEVEN
This week I hope you will be able to analyze a text’s logic
and reasoning. (Goal 1, Objective 3)
WEEK EIGHT
This week I hope you will be able to effectively use summary,
paraphrase, and direct quotes to smoothly synthesize sources into own writing.
(Goal 3, Objective 1)
WEEK NINE
This week I hope you will be able to master a documentation
style, and avoid plagiarism. (Goal 3, Objective 2) and Use research methods to
find reputable sources. (Goal 3, Objective 3)
WEEK TEN
This week I hope you will be able to create effective
thesis statements, and use a variety of appropriate and compelling rhetorical
strategies to support the thesis. (Goal 2, Objective 3)
Sunday, September 20, 2015
RESTAURANT REVIEW DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
RESTAURANT REVIEW: DUE September 28th
Go to any restaurant. As you eat, take notes on the ambiance, the food, and the service. You may choose any restaurant (from Taco Bell to Café Med), but you should use this writing assignment to explore your descriptive capabilities. Use sound, touch, taste, smell, and the look of the food and surroundings.
The review should be approximately two to
three pages in length(double-spaced). You may use the
first-person in this review. And in fact, you should include something about
the social experience of eating. What part did your company play in making this
an essay worthy food experience?
Basically, you should go to a restaurant and capture the experience on paper. You may write this one in a fairly informal tone. This is due on September 28th, by midnight.
HERE'S HOW YOU TURN THIS PAPER IN:
Once your essay is finished, you will upload the final draft to turnitin.com at any time on or before the 28th.
If you have not used this site before, you will go to turnitin.com and sign in using your own information. To enroll in the class, you will need the CLASS ID and password. They are below:
CLASS ID: 10751457
Basically, you should go to a restaurant and capture the experience on paper. You may write this one in a fairly informal tone. This is due on September 28th, by midnight.
HERE'S HOW YOU TURN THIS PAPER IN:
Once your essay is finished, you will upload the final draft to turnitin.com at any time on or before the 28th.
If you have not used this site before, you will go to turnitin.com and sign in using your own information. To enroll in the class, you will need the CLASS ID and password. They are below:
CLASS ID: 10751457
PASSWORD: english
Once you are signed in, you will click on Restaurant Review, which is the only available assignment right now. You will submit your paper there. That is it. If you have trouble with this, let me know.
Again, that assignment is due on the 28th and will be turned in only at turnitin.com.
Best,
dr. s
Once you are signed in, you will click on Restaurant Review, which is the only available assignment right now. You will submit your paper there. That is it. If you have trouble with this, let me know.
Again, that assignment is due on the 28th and will be turned in only at turnitin.com.
Best,
dr. s
WEEK TWO BLOG ENTRY
(just a reminder, write
your entry and then come back and respond to others)
What is the strangest
thing you have ever eaten? Ants from Columbia? Pancreas from Spain? Cow heart
from Peru? Deep fried grilled cheese from the Kern County Fair?
Alternatively, if you are not that kind of eater or have not tried such culinary oddities, what is one food you would never eat?
Alternatively, if you are not that kind of eater or have not tried such culinary oddities, what is one food you would never eat?
WEEK TWO READING
This is a restaurant review from the LA Times. Look at the
way the author inserts herself and the social experience of the visit into the
review. It has some great descriptive detail as
well.---------------------------------------
The Review: Patina
Fine dining is alive but a bit fragile at Joachim Splichal's
downtown spot, where the economy and changing tastes have put a dent in
business. But not on the Patina experience.
By S. Irene Virbila, Los Angeles Times Restaurant Critic
June 10, 2010
June 10, 2010
As friends and I step into Patina, the figures of the
hostess, manager, bartender, server and sommelier awake from their enchantment.
They move forward, murmur a greeting and lead us to a table in the elegant,
modernist dining room. Sometimes it feels as if the entire restaurant has been
put into a state of suspended animation by an evil witch called the economy.
At a restaurant where you once had to reserve three weeks in advance, it's now possible to get a prime weekend dinner reservation on a few days' notice. Who knows, maybe even less than that. Not that the restaurant is empty. It's just rarely very full, and I don't get the sense that diners are waiting in the wings for tables. It's not all the economy. The other factor is the dwindling number of people interested in so-called fine dining.
At a restaurant where you once had to reserve three weeks in advance, it's now possible to get a prime weekend dinner reservation on a few days' notice. Who knows, maybe even less than that. Not that the restaurant is empty. It's just rarely very full, and I don't get the sense that diners are waiting in the wings for tables. It's not all the economy. The other factor is the dwindling number of people interested in so-called fine dining.
It's a shame.
Because right now Patina has an extraordinary chef in Frenchman Tony Esnault, who has been heading up the kitchen since September. And he is, hands down, the best chef that founder Joachim Splichal has had in years. A Ducasse disciple, Esnault worked with the multi-starred French chef at Louis IV in Monaco and in New York was executive chef both at Ducasse's Essex House and Adour. Esnault's impressive résumé wouldn't matter if his rigorous training and talent didn't show in his cooking.
This latest iteration of Patina sneaks up and reminds the unwary and the jaded just why fine dining matters. The restaurant is a place where everything — the ambience, the service, the food and the wine work seamlessly to create a sense of occasion. It's the time to slow down, to savor the food and the company. A moment outside of the everyday, and a rare indulgence.
Close your eyes. Pay attention to the first bite of the amuse. It might be a tiny bowl of nettle velouté crowned with a buckwheat chip that leaves you wanting more — and more — of the mysteriously earthy and velvety soup. Or it could be an intense lobster bisque with a dab of ivory crème fraiche.
Now just look at his glazed vegetable mosaic. What a breathtaking dish. With an unfaltering sense of color and proportion — and taste — the chef has composed a cityscape of vegetables in a coral-red pool of their cooking juices. There's celeryroot, carrot, a spear of asparagus, turnip, a bull's eye of crimson and white Chioggia beet drizzled with lemon-scented oil. Every bite delivers the essence of this or that vegetable in this whimsical dish.
Round, plump ravioli are filled with finely minced zucchini and cheese and are as beguiling as any I've encountered. Each wears a nubbin of emerald baby zucchini and at the center is a gossamer veil of goat cheese "foam" crowned with the bright gold zucchini blossoms.
The chef certainly has a talent for creating beautiful compositions, marshalling ingredients into geometric precision. Every note he hits rings true. A starter of hamachi (yellowtail) presents a rectangle of the marinated raw fish garnished with razor-thin slices of geoduck clam on one side of the plate with pieces of avocado, crunchy crostini and a green-apple mustard forming vertical lines on the other side. It's decorative, but not decoration. Each element plays against the other, so that depending on how you orchestrate it, each bite ofhamachi is different.
A dreamy foie gras terrine arrives as a skinny rectangle. A vein of tart strawberry-rhubarb compote runs down the middle, and for color, the top is glazed in a brilliant scarlet, which echoes the chunks of strawberry and rhubarb forming another long rectangle on the plate. The combination of the fruit with the fat richness of the foie gras makes the dish thoroughly modern.
Bite by bite, I explore artichoke variations ordered à la carte from the vegetarian tasting menu too. Underneath a soft pillow of gray-green artichoke purée and scattered around the plate, are roasted quartered baby artichokes and slices of artichoke so fine they look as if they have been prepared for the microscope in a barigoule jus dotted with emerald parsley purée.
The first time I had Esnault's cooking, I ordered the milk-fed veal rack. And on the last night, I ordered the rack for two just to see if it was as good as I remembered. It definitely is. It's succulent and tender, with delicious gelatinous and caramelized bits, cooked on the bone and carved tableside. The bone is served up on its own little plate. And the veal comes with rounds of carrot and turnip stacked and laid on their side like gambling chips. The slightly thickened jus is perfect.
I'd also recommend the Kurobuta pork with both raw and minced cooked radish and the beautiful rosy squab with a scattering of wild mushrooms and English peas.
Butter-poached lobster is a luscious preparation presented with spring vegetables — haricots verts, crisp snap peas, English peas and tender fava beans in a lobster-intense reduction that never overplays its strength. Barramundi comes just this side of rare with a fresh presentation of pastel beets and hearts of palm. Sole meunière is superb, the fish flown in from Brittany, fresh and firm. The accompaniments are almost austere, simply a line of diced mushrooms and some sautéed mizuna greens.
Patina has always had a well-curated cheese cart. Maybe now the selection is a little smaller, but you can't fault the presentation on a tall, gleaming gueridon, each cheese perfectly ripe. I particularly enjoyed the Époisses from Burgundy and a raw milk tommefrom the Alps. There's a similarly beautiful cart for caviar and another for the tea service, with loose-leaf teas in silver and glass canisters.
Sylvestre Fernandes, who has been at Patina since 2000, is the sommelier and he couldn't be a better choice. He's knowledgeable and enthusiastic about wines, but without pretentiousness. And while the wine list still holds some fabulous old and young Bordeaux and Burgundies and California Cabernets, it also features the quirky and exotic wines prized by the new generation of sommeliers. I could be wrong, but wine prices here don't seem so scary-high anymore and if you buy a bottle from the list, the corkage fee is waived for anything you bring from your own cellar.
The service is less brittle than it once was, which makes for a more relaxing evening. But waiters may be a little too attentive with the water. I got a $22 water bill one night without anyone ever asking if we'd like them to open a second and then a third bottle.
Waylynn Lucas, the new dessert chef, has been here only over a month, but she's very good. She'd have to be since she was previously pastry chef at the Bazaar by José Andrés in Beverly Hills. I'm fascinated by the way a tarragon and arugula granité heightens the flavor of strawberries. Or the way toffee and chocolate are welded together in a soft milk chocolate dessert that's subtle and under-sweetened. Tres leches is served up in a dainty portion wearing a soft meringue cap, a lovely tribute to the Caribbean.
Splichal has mentored a good many of L.A.'s top chefs — Octavio Becerra, Walter Manzke, Eric Greenspan, Josiah Citrin and Rafael Lunetta, among others. But Esnault arrives as a fully formed talent with his own ideas about how to meld French techniques with a California sensibility. What I love about his food is its balance and grace. This is quietly confident cooking, delicious by any measure.
And to find it in a restaurant downtown at the Walt Disney Concert Hall makes it even more of a pleasure. Not to forget: Joachim Splichal was one of the first well-known chefs to take a chance on downtown. And now, once again, Patina retakes its position as downtown's flagship restaurant.
Patina
RATING
four stars
LOCATION
141 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles; ; http://www.patinarestaurant.com.
PRICE
Dinner starters, $18 to $26; main courses, $38 to $46; desserts, $12. Seven-course tasting menu, $120; six-course vegetarian tasting menu, $95. Corkage, $30, waived if you buy a bottle from the list.
DETAILS
Open Tuesday to Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 4 to 9 p.m. Supper is served at Patina after all Walt Disney Concert Hall events. Full bar. Valet parking, $8.
Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. Four stars: Outstanding on every level. Three stars: Excellent. Two stars: Very good. One star: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.
Because right now Patina has an extraordinary chef in Frenchman Tony Esnault, who has been heading up the kitchen since September. And he is, hands down, the best chef that founder Joachim Splichal has had in years. A Ducasse disciple, Esnault worked with the multi-starred French chef at Louis IV in Monaco and in New York was executive chef both at Ducasse's Essex House and Adour. Esnault's impressive résumé wouldn't matter if his rigorous training and talent didn't show in his cooking.
This latest iteration of Patina sneaks up and reminds the unwary and the jaded just why fine dining matters. The restaurant is a place where everything — the ambience, the service, the food and the wine work seamlessly to create a sense of occasion. It's the time to slow down, to savor the food and the company. A moment outside of the everyday, and a rare indulgence.
Close your eyes. Pay attention to the first bite of the amuse. It might be a tiny bowl of nettle velouté crowned with a buckwheat chip that leaves you wanting more — and more — of the mysteriously earthy and velvety soup. Or it could be an intense lobster bisque with a dab of ivory crème fraiche.
Now just look at his glazed vegetable mosaic. What a breathtaking dish. With an unfaltering sense of color and proportion — and taste — the chef has composed a cityscape of vegetables in a coral-red pool of their cooking juices. There's celeryroot, carrot, a spear of asparagus, turnip, a bull's eye of crimson and white Chioggia beet drizzled with lemon-scented oil. Every bite delivers the essence of this or that vegetable in this whimsical dish.
Round, plump ravioli are filled with finely minced zucchini and cheese and are as beguiling as any I've encountered. Each wears a nubbin of emerald baby zucchini and at the center is a gossamer veil of goat cheese "foam" crowned with the bright gold zucchini blossoms.
The chef certainly has a talent for creating beautiful compositions, marshalling ingredients into geometric precision. Every note he hits rings true. A starter of hamachi (yellowtail) presents a rectangle of the marinated raw fish garnished with razor-thin slices of geoduck clam on one side of the plate with pieces of avocado, crunchy crostini and a green-apple mustard forming vertical lines on the other side. It's decorative, but not decoration. Each element plays against the other, so that depending on how you orchestrate it, each bite ofhamachi is different.
A dreamy foie gras terrine arrives as a skinny rectangle. A vein of tart strawberry-rhubarb compote runs down the middle, and for color, the top is glazed in a brilliant scarlet, which echoes the chunks of strawberry and rhubarb forming another long rectangle on the plate. The combination of the fruit with the fat richness of the foie gras makes the dish thoroughly modern.
Bite by bite, I explore artichoke variations ordered à la carte from the vegetarian tasting menu too. Underneath a soft pillow of gray-green artichoke purée and scattered around the plate, are roasted quartered baby artichokes and slices of artichoke so fine they look as if they have been prepared for the microscope in a barigoule jus dotted with emerald parsley purée.
The first time I had Esnault's cooking, I ordered the milk-fed veal rack. And on the last night, I ordered the rack for two just to see if it was as good as I remembered. It definitely is. It's succulent and tender, with delicious gelatinous and caramelized bits, cooked on the bone and carved tableside. The bone is served up on its own little plate. And the veal comes with rounds of carrot and turnip stacked and laid on their side like gambling chips. The slightly thickened jus is perfect.
I'd also recommend the Kurobuta pork with both raw and minced cooked radish and the beautiful rosy squab with a scattering of wild mushrooms and English peas.
Butter-poached lobster is a luscious preparation presented with spring vegetables — haricots verts, crisp snap peas, English peas and tender fava beans in a lobster-intense reduction that never overplays its strength. Barramundi comes just this side of rare with a fresh presentation of pastel beets and hearts of palm. Sole meunière is superb, the fish flown in from Brittany, fresh and firm. The accompaniments are almost austere, simply a line of diced mushrooms and some sautéed mizuna greens.
Patina has always had a well-curated cheese cart. Maybe now the selection is a little smaller, but you can't fault the presentation on a tall, gleaming gueridon, each cheese perfectly ripe. I particularly enjoyed the Époisses from Burgundy and a raw milk tommefrom the Alps. There's a similarly beautiful cart for caviar and another for the tea service, with loose-leaf teas in silver and glass canisters.
Sylvestre Fernandes, who has been at Patina since 2000, is the sommelier and he couldn't be a better choice. He's knowledgeable and enthusiastic about wines, but without pretentiousness. And while the wine list still holds some fabulous old and young Bordeaux and Burgundies and California Cabernets, it also features the quirky and exotic wines prized by the new generation of sommeliers. I could be wrong, but wine prices here don't seem so scary-high anymore and if you buy a bottle from the list, the corkage fee is waived for anything you bring from your own cellar.
The service is less brittle than it once was, which makes for a more relaxing evening. But waiters may be a little too attentive with the water. I got a $22 water bill one night without anyone ever asking if we'd like them to open a second and then a third bottle.
Waylynn Lucas, the new dessert chef, has been here only over a month, but she's very good. She'd have to be since she was previously pastry chef at the Bazaar by José Andrés in Beverly Hills. I'm fascinated by the way a tarragon and arugula granité heightens the flavor of strawberries. Or the way toffee and chocolate are welded together in a soft milk chocolate dessert that's subtle and under-sweetened. Tres leches is served up in a dainty portion wearing a soft meringue cap, a lovely tribute to the Caribbean.
Splichal has mentored a good many of L.A.'s top chefs — Octavio Becerra, Walter Manzke, Eric Greenspan, Josiah Citrin and Rafael Lunetta, among others. But Esnault arrives as a fully formed talent with his own ideas about how to meld French techniques with a California sensibility. What I love about his food is its balance and grace. This is quietly confident cooking, delicious by any measure.
And to find it in a restaurant downtown at the Walt Disney Concert Hall makes it even more of a pleasure. Not to forget: Joachim Splichal was one of the first well-known chefs to take a chance on downtown. And now, once again, Patina retakes its position as downtown's flagship restaurant.
Patina
RATING
four stars
LOCATION
141 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles; ; http://www.patinarestaurant.com.
PRICE
Dinner starters, $18 to $26; main courses, $38 to $46; desserts, $12. Seven-course tasting menu, $120; six-course vegetarian tasting menu, $95. Corkage, $30, waived if you buy a bottle from the list.
DETAILS
Open Tuesday to Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 4 to 9 p.m. Supper is served at Patina after all Walt Disney Concert Hall events. Full bar. Valet parking, $8.
Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. Four stars: Outstanding on every level. Three stars: Excellent. Two stars: Very good. One star: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.
WEEK TWO WRITING ABOUT WHAT YOU READ
(just a reminder, write your entry--but you do NOT need to respond to others here)
What was the single best line of the restaurant review of Patina? Why was that line so appealing?
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
OUR ONLY SCHEDULED MEETING (no meeting this saturday)
JUST TO CLARIFY, WE ARE NOT ABLE TO MEET THIS SATURDAY. INSTEAD, AS YOU SAW IN THAT EMAIL, WE HAVE OUR IN CLASS ESSAY TOGETHER ON THE FOLLOW DAY:
We are meeting at CSUB on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH, FROM 9 TO NOON, IN CSUB 101
We are meeting at CSUB on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH, FROM 9 TO NOON, IN CSUB 101
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
BOOKS FOR THIS COURSE
1. Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle
2. Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Any version of these will be fine.
2. Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Any version of these will be fine.
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