How Participating in February/March's SUMMIIT Climb Made Me a Stronger Writer

During the week ending February and beginning March 2023, I participated in the virtual SUMIITT Climb event organized by SUMIITT Challenges. I was given a set of metrics (high resistance, low cadence) to follow for my rides to roughly mimic riding to the highest point of Haleakalā, based on earlier rides on my Peloton. I regularly participate in other events organized by SUMIITT Challenges, including their quarterly Pelofondo. While I participate on a Peloton, the company is not involved with the event. The goal of the quarterly event is simpler than the SUMIITT Climb. For the Pelofondo, you register to complete a self-chosen number of miles in a 48-hour period. On the weekend, the app unlocks at midnight on the Saturday and locks either when you either chose to end your participation or at 11:59pm on the Sunday. I usually register for 100 miles. Usually for the my Pelofondo I stick with Music and Endurance rides. I record every ride, even if it was a slow ride, to make every mile count. For my Climb I did not record every ride, as the recorded rides needed to be taken within the required metrics which require a high resistance. I often chose to take a recovery rides before and/or after the higher resistance rides.

In the weeks following the event I have been working on a number of writing projects, and have realized that participating in the Climb strengthened my writing practice in ways that I want to share.

1. During the Climb you do not record all rides, you only record rides within the given metrics. The additional rides are meant as recovery, to make the recorded rides stronger. In the same way, not everything you produce for a writing project will be usable. Understand that the seemingly extra writing that gets saved for other projects makes the submitted work stronger.

2. Breaks do not have to be completely away from the project. During my breaks from the Pelofondo I took virtual yoga classes and stretches. Similarly, when you need to take a break from the actual writing, you can work on other aspects of the projects including editing from.a print-out.

3. During the Climb I participated in live rides where you can virtually high-five other participatnts. I also joined a team and participated in the Facebook group of my team. Simlarly tell selected others about your current writing projects, find a community that supports your writing goals.

4. Taking a day off of the bike during the week-long event was unexpected, but as it turned out, ideal. similarly take time away from your writing, not just for life’s necessities. Spending the day not riding made my rides stronger later in the week. Yes, deadlines are real, but taking time away from a writing project will likely benefit the work.

5. The most important to me was to have a food plan for the week. The week was physically tough, and to have a roasted chicken in the fridge made it so I did not have to do the physical labor of creating meals for myself. Similarly, when writing, it is easy to get mentally and emotionally exhausted. You might not have the emotional energy to think about daily food requirements. Plan ahead for this. If you know you need to specific amount of focused time writing, have meals and snacks pre-planned to conserve your mental energy.

6. Block out distractions during a set writing period. For the recorded rides during the event, I had to focus completely on my cadence and resistance numbers on the screen. I now set myself writing periods, distraction free times, and then try to give myself a recovery. time.

As someone who has never considered myself an athlete, I find that the SUMMIIT events are the right amount of accountability for me to make sure I train between events. I am looking forward to the Pelofondo at the end of April, and the outdoor walking/running virtual event (SUMMIIT Stride) in June.

Allowing Books to Talk to Each Other

Spending the last few days trying to write my personal statement for a possible doctorate program application, I find myself restless. Part of it has to do with having taken an amazing trip to Japan in December and then immediately visiting family in Florida and then returning to dealing with mundane daily tasks. Part of it has to do with beginning to prepare for a move and debating what items to move and which to toss or re-home. However, most of it has to do with trying to explain how my research from the past few years fits into future research plans, and finding the words to convey these thoughts.

This led me to answering an Instagram prompt by Jessica Carbone for her upcoming cookbook studies class, asking for photographs of our cookbook shelves and some minor text. Looking around I realized that over the past few years I stopped shelving my cookbooks separate from other books. However, over the past few years, my cookbooks have primarily become either research material, or books I read when I need to relax. I am more of an armchair cook than an actual cook (although I spent significant time and energy in my thirties learning basic cooking skills) and use my cookbooks to remember trips I have taken and to spark memories that involve food experiences.

As I begin to think about packing up my books, I also realized that I have somewhat organized my books by size and not in any other way. I do have my cookbooks catalogued in my Eat Your Books account and in my general LibraryThing catalogue. My Library Thing account exists so I don’t buy the same books in multiple formats by accident, although I sometimes buy multiple formats on purpose. I am finding that I enjoy shelving my physical books in a way that may seem random, but allows me to see the books in new ways. Books I would never connect seem purposely placed in conversation with each other. As I work on my personal statement, and proposals for future projects, I find that the books as placed on my shelves invite new projects and possible discussions between unexpected books that I strive to find words to explain.

Two Performances of & Juliet

I recently got back from my first international trip since 2017, I had planned for it to be a food trip, culminating in my presentation on a panel at the Oxford Food Symposium. Presenting at the Symposium had been a multi-year goal, and I hope to further digest the experience for a future post. I had set up a few food experiences in London for the days leading up to the Symposium and added on two advance theater tickets.

During my first trips on the Underground in London, I was inundated with posters for the West End musical & Juliet. It reminded me that one of my favorite things about traveling alone is the ability to change my plans when desired. I got tickets and headed to the theater that night, knowing only that the musical was about Juliet Capulet. My seatmates at the show were a lovely grandmother, daughter, and teenage non-binary grandchild (pronouns were carefully exchanged).

I don’t want to spoil too much, but when the show started, and the character of Anne Hathaway (Shakespear’’s wife) complained about the ending of Romeo and Juliet, I began to cheer. I now realize that watching this show, where a teenager gets to survive mistakes made in her first relationship, speaks to the current politics over abortion in the US. Watching a jukebox musical that used known pop songs to allow the multi-generational female characters to make and learn from multiple romantic mistakes unfortunately seems revolutionary right now. I wanted to show this musical to the teenage version of myself who thought she needed to be in a romantic relationship before she was ready, who did not understand the nuance of the world of Romeo and Juliet as a seventh-grader, and that the young couple were not role models. In this production men, women, and non-binary characters are constantly working to re-invent themselves into more evolved individuals both within and outside of relationships. At the end of the show, the grandmother and I were crying, along with most of the audience. This was the version of Shakespeare’s play our younger selves needed. Hopefully, this is the version of Juliet that a new generation will be introduced to, before exploring the wonderous language of Romeo and Juliet.

Later in the week, I found myself with a free night, so I got tickets to a second performance of the musical. This time I could take in the detailed costumes and amazing choreography. I was also lucky to see different cast members in some of the featured parts and understand how each performer made the character his/her/their own.

From Tableau Public to SQL and Back Again

I have been taking a data analytics part-time course through General Assembly for the last few months. My interest in data analytics began when working on my thesis for Boston Universityʻs Gastronomy program, where I now realize I was attempting to teach myself the basics of computational linguistics to explore how what cookbooks tell us about the context of their creation is as important as the food instructions. Examining the word and phrase choice throughout the works can allow us to explore the reveling choices made by the cookbook creators. At the time, Summer 2020, I did not have the headspace to learn vocabulary that would have made my work simpler to explain or learn to write simple SQL statements that would have made searching my spreadsheet far easier. My thesis was a time of exploration, but it has since become clear that using SQL would have avoided many mistakes throughout the process, and if I want to continue the work, I needed to learn the proper tools and vocabulary. 

While the class focused on business analytics, I was soon reminded that that is not one of my strengths. While I did use the suggested Superstore data-set to learn to write SQL statements (exploring table discounts in Australia) for the final project I was able to The Mary Eliza Project data set from the Boston City archives. More information about the dataset can be found in this article.

Having used Tableau Public for my thesis work without SQL and using it for this project with knowledge of basic SQL was a revelation. I was able to dig into the data-set in less stressful ways, without constantly making changes to my spreadsheet. This allowed me to spend more time with the actual analysis. 

While Iʻm glad I had the freedom while working with my thesis to explore Tableau Public, using it now, after learning basic SQL statements allowed me to spend time perfecting the spreadsheet and go down some rabbit holes with the data.

It is now clear that my brain was processing current events in Ukraine. The data set provides the places of birth of New Women Voters in Boston as recorded by a town clerk in 1920. Some of the women immigrated from Eastern Europe between 1880-1920. Their recorded birthplaces reflect constant changes in that region. I spent significant time trying to explain “Russian-Poland” and its variants before deciding to map the geographic details I found in the data-set in Tableau Public which meant I had to determine the current official name of the country to have the birthplace recognized by Tableau. I found myself trying to place as many womenʻs birthplaces not in Russia, but in Ukraine and Poland when appropriate. These New Women Voters tried to have the official record reflect their national identity and found ways to hint at how they saw their birthplace in a Voter Registration document.

A current version of my capstone project can be found at Beyond Simple Voting Records: Exploring The Mary Eliza Project

Finding Intersections between Food Studies and Information Science

Note: This was initially written as part of a larger project explaining how I ended up in Food Studies

I started in the Gastronomy program in 2017 thinking I was taking a quick summer break from my career in Information Science and Cultural Heritage. I had planned to take a single class to clarify my thinking on the United States food system. For the past few years, I had been searching for the “perfect” diet that both suited my nutritional needs and was relatively harmless for the environment and society in general. In prior jobs, I had the opportunity to work on projects with small-scale farmers and had also learned to cook at a Boston-area non-profit. Instead of clarifying my thinking, my initial class in the Gastronomy program complicated my understanding of food systems, and the myth of the “perfect diet.” In the single class, “Anthropology of Food” I found food to be deeply ingrained in cultural and personal histories.

Immediately following that class, I took a solo trip to Iceland. During the trip, I participated in a number of food events including visiting greenhouses and farms, thinking critically about the similarities and differences between Icelandic and United States food histories. During this trip I began to identify myself as someone who studies food, deciding to take a second class in the Gastronomy program. During this second class, focused on Cookbooks, I began to consider how studying food could intersect with my degree in Library and Information Science and formally applied to the program. In my time in the program, I found many of my short-term research projects related to the intersections of Food Studies and Information Science. I explored the possibilities of the programʻs culinary library, wrote a finding aid for a menu collection, and considered how the interdisciplinary nature of food studies challenges linked museum search engines. 

In January and July 2019 I attended workshops at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the first of these workshops, focused on Provenance, I discussed how stains, burn marks, and handwritten notes can be used to follow the history of individual cookbooks, especially cookbooks owned by multiple generations of a single-family. After this workshop, I visited many cookbooks in collections around the Boston area and found that newspaper articles and other ephemera found in the cookbooks often told a further story of the book users and owners. 

My second workshop at Rare Book School focused on the History of the Book in the United States. For my final project, I presented how cookbooks have become more visual in reject years and reflect a move to more visual culture. I also began to consider how many cookbook authors, past and present, have developed multi-media empires, creating links between their works in the various media of their time. This workshop also provided an opportunity to work with printing presses, and I experienced how, like cooking, printing consists of embodied knowledge dependent on muscle memory. 

For my final project of the Gastronomy program, I began to consider how the field of Computational Linguistics (a term I learned after finishing my thesis) could be used in cookbook studies. For the project, I developed an initial workflow to compare the frequency of terms used in multiple cookbooks. This allows a researcher to analyze how uses of food terms were popularized over time and show the influence of corporate marketing of foodstuffs in cookbooks. I hope to continue working on this workflow incorporating new-to-me computer languages and search technologies.  

When I took my first class in the Gastronomy Program I thought it would clarify my relationship with the food system. Instead, it challenged me to take my Information Science career to new places while allowing me to make connections between book history and food history that I had never considered. Looking forward, I hope to encourage others to participate in cookbook scholarship using tools from their own professional fields. 

The Importance of Documentation in Personal Research Projects

Every few years I get reminded of the importance of documentation and working in a systemic fashion. Todayʻs wake-up call came in the form of two personal research projects that still require more work. The first is for my Paddington project. I have been scanning a boxed set of what I consider to be Paddington canon for a computational linguistics project. I made the mistake of deciding to scan while watching something mindless, and after unbinding, the pages scanned the even and the odd pages of the books. I did not realize until later that only one set of pages had the name of the chapter and the other set had the name of the books. Also, not all pages have page numbers. With the help of a large spreadsheet, I am now going through the scans to create a txt copy of the text from the PDF scans. Of course, given the small pages, many of them got stuck in the scanner and never scanned. Lesson learned next time I scan for personal reasons, smaller batches, and try to scan by chapter. Fortunately, I have some time over Christmas week to bond with the scanned documents and get organized to write the conference proposal. Fortunately, I have the time to write down what should have been my methodology in the scanning process. 

The second reminder happened during my project for my Data Analytics class. I am working with an interesting data-set, and need to remember that the point of the project is to practice my Excel skill at this stage, not the actual analysis. Since many of these tools and tricks are new to me, important to record what I used for each function/cleaning step. Taking a step back to record each step of the data-cleaning project, which I professionally know is important, can be difficult. I also need to remember that I should be focusing on learning Excel tricks and tools that are new to me and be grateful that I have the privilege to exert resources on this project. 

As Iʻm working on both of the projects in chunks of found time, documentation is especially important as I take a large amount of time away from both projects and need to pick up right where I left off. 

Back to PDFʻs and spreadsheets!

Initial Work on my Paddington and Marmalade Sandwiches Proposal for the Oxford Food Symposium

Last spring, I finished up the BU Gastronomy program by creating a methodology to compare word frequency in cookbooks. This involved a long process that included finding digital txt versions of the cookbooks and converting them into word frequency visualizations in my Tableau Public account. As I did not realize that the process would be my thesis, I did not adequately document my process and small, but significant decisions, but had to recreate them later. Since graduation, I have learned the business and academic terms for several of the steps in my methodology and wished I had done several things differently early in the project. My current thought process has been guided by conferences I attended virtually in Summer 2021, The Data Sitters Club, and my current enrollment in a Data Analytics class at General Assembly (remote).

As with any methodology, the question I am now considering is, how can I improve my thesis methodology in a new project. My current project idea came from a prompt from the Oxford Food Symposium call for paper proposals on Portable Food. 

While in the Gastronomy program I had worked on a project exploring food in Paddington Bear books, television shows, and movies. I vaguely recalled that portable marmalade sandwiches were present through the books and decided to start exploring the foodstuffs frequency and significance. I decided to start by scanning a boxed set of Paddington stories.

I am currently creating txt versions of the books in the boxed set for distant reading, aided by technology. Here is my workflow (subject to revision) for this current work stage from my methodology spreadsheet.

1. I started with the Box Set as the Initial Paddington Canon

2. Set Goa to Visualize frequency of portable food mentions using AntConc, Google Sheets, and Tableau Public

3. Realized and accepted that I would need to destroy the physical books for this project

4. Removed pages from binding

5. Tried to scan pages using automatic feeder at 200 dpi

6. Became frustrated that the small pages kept getting stuck in the scanner, and that I was scanning odd than evens pages to be rebuilt in Adobe Acrobat

7. Spent some time scanning each page, which meant that pages were in the correct order, but took hours

8. Placed physical scanned documents into correct binding for future questions around page/book order and rescanning as needed

9. Placed scans into dedicated Dropbox folders for each day scans

10. Made an initial spreadsheet to list Paddington Stories by book, year, and illustrator

11. Currently rearranging scanned pages in Adobe Acrobat, making each story its own binder

12. Currently running Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on scanned pages

13. Designed Spreadsheet with initial columns

14. Getting ready for more Scanning at 600 dpi

15. Planning to make a Dictionary Defining Columns for the main spreadsheet

16. Need to create txt files from the scanned pages

17. Making plans to clean txt files

18. Plan to rescan Specific pages as needed

19. Plan to import virtual books into Tropy with accurate metadata

20. Plan to clean Data with documentation of cleaning practices

21. Need to consider new copyright rulings that would have made this whole process easier

Embracing My Reading History

A few days ago I started pulling books from my personal library for a new project. I don’t currently have my physical books in a specific order, mainly organizing by size, and enjoy the fact that books I have placed next to each other form unexpected conversations with each other. 

This time as I was pulling books, it became clear that many of the books I needed only existed on my Kindle or in my Audible account and I could not remember their titles. Unlike the physical books, I could not simply wander around the house until I found them.

This led me to realize that I finally need a cataloging system for my books, not just the cookbooks which I enter into my Eat Your Books account to find specific recipes. While scanning my physical books into my lapsed Library Thing account went quickly, requiring limited thought, entering my Kindle books became more time-consuming and required more thought. 

Essentially, the issue became do I enter all the ebooks, or only the ones relevant to my professional work. That led to thinking about if I was ashamed that my public-facing catalog would include romances at a variety of heat levels and cozy mysteries. I noticed that I didn’t question if I should include thrillers and books often coded as male-interest. Also, at some level, all books possibly relate to food studies, and many of the mysteries and romance novels touch on food (my area of study) than thrillers. Was it simply that I was ashamed of being someone who reads genre books when stressed? I enjoy cozy mysteries and romances because it is about journeying to a known ending. I enjoy science fiction because the authors state the rules of their book’s worlds, which often needed to be guessed in real life. 

In the end, I am cataloging everything, partially because I enjoy looking at the Library Thing charts and grafts of my personal library, and also feel it is important to show that I not only performatively read, but enjoy a variety of material. 

Thesis Dedication and Acknowledgments

A large chunk of my 2020/2021 was spent working on my thesis for a Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy for Boston University’s Metropolitan College. This work will likely feed into later research and included me learning to use Tableau Public. I would like to share the acknowledgments and dedication for the work with hyperlinks added from “Intersections of Print Cookbooks and Information Science: Creating a Workflow to Visually Explore Historical Printed Cookbooks (1872–1920).”

Dedication: I would like to dedicate this work to all of the students in the Gastronomy Program, and to the Kitchings and Keenan families.

Acknowledgments: My readers Karen Bescherer Metheny, Ph.D., and Megan Elias, Ph.D.  provided constructive feedback and support on multiple versions of this project over several semesters. This project has also benefitted from the support of the Gastronomy Program’s entire faculty and staff.

The Northeast Popular American Culture Association (NEPCA), The Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), and individual classes in the Gastronomy program provided supportive spaces for me to workshop this and other projects.

 The American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, MA, The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and The Boston Athenæum encouraged and supported my use of materials in their collections throughout my time in the Gastronomy Program.  

Participants and leadership in The Gastronomy Program’s Student Association (GSA), the Graduate Association of Food Studies (GAFS), and Historians at the Movies (#HATM) created fun and supportive spaces to participate in discussions about the intersections of popular culture, academia, pedagogy, history, politics, and food studies.

This work benefited from my participation in workshops at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Eating through the Archives: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Modern Foodways held at by Folger Institute as part of the Before Farm to Table: Early Modern Foodways and Culture project.

Happy Thanksgiving

My Version of Introversion and Social Media

I recently had a friend reach out who asked me about being active on social media as an introvert. Of course, like almost everything introversion/extroversion is a spectrum and not a binary, but I definitely am on the introvert side of the midline. For my own brand of introversion, not universal in any way, hard boundaries and being able to participate in in-depth conversations on my own terms and timeline is everything. While I have been privileged not to have any true nastiness happen to me on social media, I think several skills I have developed as an introvert, such as carefully leaving situations/people who are overtaxing, means that I am quick to block people or topics without explanation. Generally, in real life, I leave the situation carefully with an explanation, but online blocking/leaving is acceptable behavior. 

I also find that I am better at written communication, having time to think through my replies in any conversation than needing to react in a quick, verbal manner. This is not to say that all of my social media is carefully thought through, anyone who has followed my tweets and replies during Historians at the Movies (#HATM) knows I share quick takes with lots of typos. 

I use a variety of social media to share detailed parts of my personality and others to share a more public persona. The social media platforms I use to share details are private groups with hard boundaries/rules. For example, one Discord group has a hard rule that nothing gets shared outside the group without clear permission. A private Facebook group I am part of around being child-free does not allow any shaming for the reasons someone might be child-free. I find I share more details about my life on these “private” (nothing on social media is truly private) than in my more general feeds. Part of this is that having a specific focus for the discussions means that I do not have to exert emotional energy choosing topics or setting the boundaries for conversations. 

These specific channels allow me to be more superficial on my more public social media accounts. This way, my website, and Twitter feed focus more on my career and my Facebook/Instagram are more about my more superficial personal life. Generally, when I am professionally networking I share my Twitter/Website information, and more recently Instagram. For a while, I tried having multiple active Instagram accounts, but that became too complicated. 

It also helps to sometimes think of social media participation as a chore, similar to writing. I am writing this blog as part of an online writing retreat run by Lisa Munro, having paid for and placed the retreat on my personal calendar means that I will get the writing done. I also place Historians at the Movies on my calendar when possible, as it makes sure that I have socialization on weekends when I am alone. 

Watching my friend transition to using social media as self-promotion made me realize how much of the platforms were designed for introverts and not for extroverts who thrive on immediate reactions and the energy of being with others. I am now curious if newer social media platforms, such as Tik-Tok are better for extroverts. Of course, all current usage of social media needs to the fact in the fact that many of us have been isolated in some way for the past 20 months, and cannot be used as a data set outside of this specific time period, but new social media platforms that better fit the needs of extroverts may be one result of the past almost two years. 

Decision Fatigue and the Pandemic

In the Spring of 2020 I was taking one of my last classes in Boston Universityʻs Metropolitan College Gastronomy Program before returning to my thesis work. While I forget the details of our last Food and Gender class before the shut-down, our homework assignment from guest-lecturer Ariana Gunderson was around creating artwork based on the weekʻs readings. That same week, my toilet broke. I spent so much of that week researching toilets, trying to understand all of the terms used in advertising and feeling overwhelmed. I now understand that this overwhelmed feeling had less to do with the toilet and more to do with the uncertainty of how COVID-19 would affect the nation and world. I was also dealing with an older, sick cat, and if we were at the end.

Taking a break from toilet research to feed myself, I found myself examining how many terms were on the various food packages in my kitchen. I had simply accepted that I should understand all of these terms, not realizing that the point of the buzzwords was to make me question my decisions and buy marked-up products to take responsibility for my own health. I did not realize that I was creating a poster for the class around an issue that would be a life theme for the next 18 months

As the pandemic continued I found myself more overwhelmed by the amount of information given to me in a given day. I should mention that I am in a privileged position without children or an immediate change in my income level due to the pandemic. Oddly, I found myself relaxing when I used the Peloton app.

It was only when I started to take a Visual Design class from General Assembly that I understood that the design of the Peloton app requires limited decision-making by the end-user. Similar to the Choose-Your-Own adventure books I enjoyed as a child, you are presented with limited options and a few decisions lead you to a workout. Designing a practice website for an imaginary food establishment, I designed a persona similar to myself as my end-user for the website. In my website design the end user had to chose between “Delivery” and “Takout” or between “Salad” “Flatbread” or “Dessert.” Each option would lead to another series of simple options.

Note: I designed the website in Figma, the images are not mine.

Infuse Website

Looking at my Twitter feed around dinner-time, made me realize how many women have been dealing with decision fatigue around food during the past 18 months, and how simple solutions are needed, especially for care-givers. Sometimes you can only make basic decisions around food and this should be recognized by food marketers. Sometimes less information, but trusting the source of the information is what is needed.

Infuse App View

Thoughts on Starting a Gastronomy Thesis

Recently I was thinking about advice I would give someone starting a thesis in the Gastronomy Program at Boston University. This is in no way a complete list of my thoughts, I will likely be adding to it in the future

1. Understand that you will likely be researching in a variety of disciplines with a variety of buzzwords/assumed knowledge/metadata fields. Keep a running list of terms that you find useful.

2. Set up a thesis support group with others working on their final projects, This may be virtual, but regularly share your experiences and give each other feedback. It is easy to become isolated when working on a thesis/final project.

3. Reach out to other scholars as needed. There may be journals/conferences outside of Food Studies that will support your work. 

4. Set up a reference system early, I used Zotero and Tropy.

5. Start your thank you list early. This will help you in the final push of your work.

6. Keep a document of deleted ideas/sentences/paragraphs from your thesis at all stages. This will allow you to use this work in later projects. 

7. If visiting an archive/special collection library/museum in person, reach out early. Find out if you need to register in advance if you can photograph materials, and if there are food options nearby.

8. If using a digital collection, especially if working in multiple disciplines, keep a document of breadcrumbs, so you can find your way out of various brief digital explorations. 

9. Early in the process allow yourself time to explore relevant digital collections to understand their structure. 

10. Set up a file system for research pdf, drafts, notes. 

11. Keep a copy of all versions of outlines and drafts. 

12. Advocate for your work, Come up with a short mission statement for your project (it will change) that will assist you when talking to those unfamiliar with food studies or your specific interest. Fortunately, Food Studies is now becoming more prominent in academia

13. Celebrate minor victories. 

14. Explore the campus-wide requirements for your submission. For me, this meant finding the official BU thesis guide and discovering that I needed a draft reviewed by BU (not-Gastronomy) staff.  

15. Mine your semester papers for resources and structure that worked for you in the past.. 

16. Take time to free-write about your subject. These brainstorms may come in handy later in the project. 

17. Document your methodologies even if they seem simple. This documentation may be helpful for future projects.

18. Allow yourself time away from the project. Set up practices for head-clearing. This may include exercise, drawing, cooking, whatever works for you. 

19. Support others working on similar projects, always opt for kindness when possible. 

20. Keep a running resources page of useful websites. I now use Padlet (laurakitchings.com/resources)

21. Find ways to allow yourself dedicated thesis time. This may mean joining a virtual writing retreat, finding ways to minimize times on household chores, or setting clear boundaries with housemates. 

Hidden Labor of Peloton Classes

In Fall 2020 I briefly moved in with my parents while the HVAC system at my house got replaced. At the time I was pet-less and staying with them allowed me to take their dog for daily walks. These walks made me aware of how sedentary I had become in 2020. I also became aware that my weekly trip to the gym prior to 2020 was not sufficient exercise. Like many, I downloaded the Peloton app during a free trial and ended up actually using it. I soon realized that if I did not actually have to make the effort to go to the gym, I actually enjoyed exercising. As I began to consider purchasing the bike, I thought about how many of the members of my gym rarely followed the gymʻs rules about personal space and cleanliness prior to March 2020, and realized that I was fine with never returning. With financial help from my family, I finally purchased the bike and the monthly bike membership.

Most of the current classes on the platform feature an instructor seemingly alone in the room. During the yoga classes, you can see a camera capturing other angles of the performance, but not the people remotely operating the cameras. The main exception to this are the classes taught prior to March 2020 which show the in-person class participants. However, these classes mainly focus on the instructor and do not show the camera operators and other laborers and technicians needed to run the classes and produce the platformʻs content. 

The instructorʻs work to avoid showing otherʻs involved in producing the classes. I began thinking about this during a Tunde Oyeneyin live ride when she switched out her mic-pack during the class without stopping the class. Clearly, they did not want to show a technician helping her, and she placed the problem mic-pack next to the bike. I assume she practiced this during her onboarding to the company, and it was to minimize distractions to virtual participants in the class. 

As I began to follow a few of the instructors on their social media I began to notice non-instructors in the background during some of the Instructorsʻs Instagram Lives, and several instructors posted some carefully curated “behind the scenes” moments during photoshoots and ride-planning. I also found some posts from Pelotonʻs official social media discussing members of their administrative staff and the opening of an American production plant. 

None of this labor is shown during the classes, meant to feature a Minimalist aesthetic in a streamless production. During a recent live ride with Bradley Rose, the screen on the instructor bike broke, and eventually, a technician came into the frame to attempt a repair. In a following live ride, the screen remained broken, but not mentioned by Bradley Rose. The class was not released as an on-demand class and a version without technical difficulties was recorded. Bradley Rose did mention the malfunction in his social media and the original live ride became a discussion point among his fandom. 

This all serves as a reminder of the human labor needed to produce Peloton classes. While I continue to enjoy the carefully produced classes, the teenage tech-theater geek in me is now curious about the steps needed to produce a class, and the need to appreciate (and hopefully fairly pay) everyone involved in the classes and equipment. 

POVʻs in Wine Studies

In my last semester of my food studies program, while finishing up my thesis, I decided to take two wine classes. Having achieved a WSET 2 certification I thought I knew what to expect. The first class was a general history of wine while the second was a Spanish wine certification. This is not meant to be a review of these classes, Iʻm not going to name them, but more a reflection of my experiences taking the classes.

 Part of my experiences in my food studies program included reevaluating my understanding of history and understanding everything I had been taught came from a POV different from my own. In the program, I began to understand my own biases and privilege and how they shape my view of history. Placing food as central to history allowed me to center women of a variety of privileges in my historical thinking. The wine history class challenged me, as it was a return to history the way I had been taught in the last century. It allowed me to question what events I thought were central to the development of wine and consider why other events were centralized. Now it is obvious to me that wine scholars trained by the wine industry are not looking critically at the wine industry and that the wine scholarship I pursue in the future will likely be from outside the industry. However, the class did teach me the vocabulary to talk more fluently with those in the industry. 

The second wine class was a Spanish wine certification class that I expected to pass with ease. I spent my junior year of high school in Barcelona, and while it was not the ideal program for me, experiencing the city at such a young age was definitely life-changing. It was also where I initially learned to challenge traditional histories and understand historical events could be viewed through multiple lenses. While the program was supposed to strengthen my daily Spanish, I met people who would only speak to me in Catalan or Engish, never Spanish. This complicated my understanding of European history and began challenging my understanding of the problems of official boundaries. 

The Spain I encountered in the wine certification class textbook was simplified into a unified nation, only occasionally touching on regional tensions. The instructor tried to bring in these regional tensions but was limited by the program. The experience drove home the point from the wine history class, that wine classes taught by the wine industry come with a POV meant to benefit the industry, not to encourage critical thinking about history. 

Had I been able to remember that I was studying for a certification and not spent time reflecting on my time in Barcelona, I would have likely passed the certification exam which I failed by two or three points (at some point I will look at the letter again). However, the class did make me want to go back to Barcelona as an adult. 

The semester drove home the point that food (and beverage) studies challenge who and what POVʻs are centralized in histories of events. In these cases, the wine industry chose views of history that centralize the need for a unified wine industry with strict global rules, regulations, and definitions. As usual, I need to know the rules, regulations, and definitions, before complicating them.  

The Joys of Metadata

Recently, I was asked to explain that different museums use different controlled vocabularies and metadata schemas. Most links are to the Society of American Archivist's dictionary. This is an introduction to the frustrating work of cataloging. Each type of institution uses a controlled vocabulary in their required metadata fields. To be super confusing different types of institutions use different metadata schemas. This means that the required metadata fields (filled using a controlled vocabulary dependent which controlled vocabulary is used) varies often dependent on the type of museum/archive/etc... For example, art museums may use the Art and Architecture Thesaurus while libraries may use the Library of Congress subject headings as their controlled vocabulary.  It is a big deal to change a word in a controlled vocabulary, and there are groups that are working to change some of the more problematic words in various controlled vocabularies. This made sense as institutions can choose a metadata schema and a controlled vocabulary to meet their institutional requirements and best serve their audiences. The various museums/archives/etc.. each uses a metadata schema (which controls the required metadata fields) and a controlled vocabulary (controls which words go in the metadata field) that best serve their audience. Many of these decisions were made a long time ago. But it is helpful as it allows those institutions using the Art and Architecture Thesaurus to share records and researchers of art history learn what fields to expect in a catalog record and what should be in those fields. Also, it allows the digitized materials at a single institution to easily make their database searchable. In the case of the main Smithsonian Institutions Catalog Search page, it is searching a variety of metadata schemas (chosen by the institution a long time ago) and controlled vocabulary also chosen a long time ago. Slowly, in the digital age Crosswalks are slowly being developed to map the different metadata schema to each other. Here are two examples of materials from the Smithsonian Institution catalog search using different metadata schemas and controlled vocabulary found using the term "morter" a misspelling of mortar. 

http://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:fbr_item_MODSI4159

https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=morter

Another example of a metadata schema is DACS which is what I used when creating the finding aid for the menu collection I did not use a controlled vocabulary. 

Usually, the metadata schema and controlled vocabulary come as a set. 

Weeks 2 and 3 of WSET 2

These two classes were focused on the production of red and white wines, learning what is a technically outstanding wine, and familiarizing ourselves with a variety of wine labels. In my food studies program we have run experiments on ourselves showing how all the senses are inter-related and how personal memories shape how we taste food. In the WSET course we are learning a defined vocabulary to be able to tell others what to expect when tasting the wine. It also requires that we understand how the wines age, and how their favors develop in either pleasant or unpleasant ways.

Examining labels we also explored how a label demonstrates what is the most important element of a wine from a specific reason. For example, German wines focus on the level of sweetness while French wines focus on the exact location of the wine production. This was also the first time I had tasted a Tokaji Aszú Hungarian sweet wine and am finally understanding how the noble rot adds a sweetness to the wine.

First night of WSET Level 2

Last semester I took Wine 1 at the Elizabeth Bishop Wine Resource Center at Boston University’s Metropolitan College. While I enjoyed the class, especially the essay I wrote on the future of wine tourism, I found that I needed a more structured approach to the tastings. After some basic research, I decided to obtain the WSET Level 2 Award in Wines. I finally found a class in Providence, RI at The Spirited Grape. I left early in order to find the location before dark (which comes early this time of year in New England) and had a tasty dinner at the nearby Troop PVD which was showing the 90’s gem Renaissance Man on the bar televisions.

Finally, I headed over to the classroom where I met the instructor and my classmates. The group turned out to be about a 50%-50% mix of wine enthusiasts and people from the wine industry. The initial part of the class involved the instructor walking us through the WSET Level 2 System approach to Tastining® (SAT), which included examining a variety of the aspects of five wines. We worked through examining the wines, including their appearance, nose, and palate, and then had to determine the quality of the wine. It was stressed whether or not we liked the wine did not affect our decision in the quality of the wine. We also started to work on our vocabulary such as terms to discuss flavors and aromas. I discovered that having a controlled vocabulary to discuss the wines was a great starting place to determine the aromas and flavors of the wine. While my favorite wine of the night was one of the omes determined to be of Acceptable quality, it was great to experience tasting some wines that were determined to be Outstanding, such as a South African Chenin Blanc.

We also explored how the various wines tasted with salt, acid, and sugar, to learn how elements of food change the taste of a variety of wines. While I had been part of a larger discussion involving potential wine and food pairings in Wine 1, it was great to have the basic principals repeated. Next week, we begin to learn more about the technicalities involved in red wine production.

My Experience at Rare Book School Post on the Boston University Gastronomy Blog

While I still need to write lots more on this site, I did get published on the blog of Boston University’s Metropolitan College Gastronomy Program Blog. Check it out at https://sites.bu.edu/gastronomyblog/2019/09/27/summer-at-rare-book-school/

Arriving at the International Food Blogger Conference in Juneau

I am not an active food blogger. I tried for a bit a few years ago, and found that I lost focus quite quickly. Instead of blogging I became a candidate for a Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy at Boston University. However, I continue to be amazed by people who blog successfully and also the mechanics behind running a successful blog. That is why I am happy to be attending the International Food Blogger Conference in Juneau, granted at a higher price than the active bloggers. I hope that this week in Juneau will allow me a glimpse into this world that is currently creating an amazing amount of content.  I also hope that my greater understanding of the blogger world will allow me to be a part of the conversation about how we will archive these food blogs in the future.  My information science side is  also interested in how food blogs in other countries differ from those in the United States.