Rebecca Barr
Plate of the Union: Leo’s is where the heart is
If you knew how many times since coming to Georgetown I’ve made it home for Thanksgiving, you might say I’m a bad kid. As a senior, I’ve managed to make the trek back to Minnesota only once.
By Rebecca Barr and Colleen Wood November 20, 2013
Plate of the Union: Meat: The flavor of love
I’ve been thinking a lot about meat lately. Maybe because two of my housemates are vegetarian, I get a sort of odd little twinge of guilt when I’m browning the ground beef for my chili or frying up some particularly fragrant chicken dumplings. Yet meat has always been a part of my diet, a nicely regulated quadrangle on the food pyramid.
By Rebecca Barr and Colleen Wood November 6, 2013
Plate of the Union: The Joys of Campus Cooking
This is the first year I have had access to a full kitchen at Georgetown (sorry Village B, but size matters), and it has been a blast to experiment with cooking and develop a culinary personality. Sriracha hot sauce features heavily in my food identity. Try any dish that comes out of my kitchen, and probability says you will ingest a healthy dose of Sriracha. I have to buy this stuff in bulk because of how I often I use it. Eggs, pasta, soup, meatloaf—you name it, and I’ve put Sriracha on it. Thus far, I’ve only managed to avoid squeezing a bit of the good stuff into baked goods.
By Rebecca Barr and Colleen Wood October 24, 2013
Plate of the Union: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Breakfast was never big on my radar. In high school, it was a major accomplishment for me to remember to eat a Pop Tart, let alone actually put it in the toaster. Cold pizza was a go-to breakfast item. Occasionally, if I felt especially ambitious, I would crack an egg (and a few pieces of shell) into a cup of Bisquik in an attempt to make pancakes.
By Colleen Wood and Rebecca Barr October 10, 2013
Plate of the Union: A caffeinated Turkish delight
I will never forget the first time I drank Turkish coffee. It was my eighteenth birthday, and that very morning I arrived in southern Turkey, where I was handed off to a Turkish family who would be my family for the next 10 months. They spoke no English, I spoke no Turkish, and, as we zoomed away from the airport in a tiny blue car, dust flying, sun pounding, my heart raced as I thought, “What the hell am I doing here?”
By Rebecca Barr and Colleen Wood September 26, 2013
Plate of the Union: Bring on the cheese, Georgia
Georgian cuisine is not for the faint of heart. Or stomach. Or digestive system. Georgia’s national dish is khachapuri, which literally translates to “cheese-bread.” It’s not as simple as a chunk of cheddar on some whole wheat: Each of Georgia’s regions (even the breakaways and autonomous ones) have their own interpretation of the recipe. After a two-week tour of Georgia, during which I ate almost nothing but khachapuri and watermelon, I’ve got the lowdown on my three favorite renditions of this cheesy wonder.
By Colleen Wood and Rebecca Barr September 12, 2013
Plate of the Union: Mediterranean Munchies
I hail from the great culinary tradition of the American South, with our masterpieces of grits, cornbread, fried chicken, and peach cobbler. My friend Colleen is from Minnesota, where you can find fried everything at the State Fair. Through a series of conscious decisions, happenstance, and a little bit of spontaneity, we spent our last two weeks of summer traveling through the great nations of Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus.
By Rebecca Barr and Colleen Wood August 29, 2013