The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4B - Thursday, October 27, 2011 5 ERIN KIRKLAND/Daily Cafe Havana provides students with a Latin fusion experience. GLOBAL FOOD From Page 1B Cuban culture at home. Moreno- Koehler recalled the delicious Cuban food her father would make when he returned home from work - her favorites include tostones (fried plantains), picadil- lo, Cuban sandwiches and paella. Now that she's living in Ann Arbor and no longer can depend on her father's meals, she pre- pares Cuban food herself and occasionally eats out at Cuban- like restaurants. And since she doesn't live too far away, she also has the luxury of being able to drive home if the food cravings are too much to control. For the most part, her go-to meal to make is rice and beans, in addition to meals that require plantains. Unfortunately for Moreno- Koehler, her ability to cook Cuban food has become more difficult since she decided to become a vegetarian. Thanks to her grand- mother's advice, she was able to come up with a few meals that incorporate beans, rice, eggplant and typical Cuban spices. A common problem these stu- dents face arises from shopping at international markets - the pric- es of goods often change. Engi- neering graduate student Hyeon Joo, who came to Ann Arbor in 2009 from South Korea, said he enjoyed buying foods like kimchi, bulgogi, samsang, gochujand, fish and choco pie at Manna Oriental Market and Galleria Asian Mar- ket, but he was frustrated by the often-fluctuating prices. The solution to this problem lies in a surprising location. Some international students found a wide availability of international foods in chain grocery stores like Meijer and Kroger, praising these big-box markets for their cheap- ness and proximity. Bukhari said he found most of his spices there, and Moreno-Koehler cited Mei- jer as a convenient place, since it was not as far and less expensive than a typical international food market. There's no taste like home Though these individuals enjoy and prefer eating their typical cultural foods, sometimes they can't find the time to cook. The solution to this predicament is to go out to restaurants, usually ones similar to those found at home. When Kamath goes out to eat, the spicier the food, the better. Her favorite Indian restaurants that fulfill this requirement are Shalimar Restaurant and Taste of India Suvai. Where and what she chooses depends on her appetite: If she's not particularly hungry, she'll go for Southern Indian food, since it's typically more snacky. But for dinner, she said she enjoys North- ern and Southern Indian food equally. Her typical meals at restau- rants are chicken tikka masala (a curry dish with chicken chunks), seekh kebab, dal and naan (a leav- ened oven-baked flatbread). Still, these restaurant's takes on dishes do not quite resemble the ones in her native India. "It's the best of what we can get here," Kamath said. "I think it has to do with the palate here. Sometimes it won't be really spicy. They kind of alter the spic- es to make sure it's not too spicy or too bland." Moreno-Koehler had the opposite reaction to the restau- rants of Ann Arbor in regards to their spice level. She said many of the Latin restaurants on cam- pus, particularly Cafe Habana, are a fusion of a few Latin cul- tures, which results in a hybrid flavor not completely familiar to her. "It's as authentic as you can get in Ann Arbor, Michigan," Moreno-Koehler said. "They do a lot that's authentic, but it's meant to be a fusion of things, so some of the stuff is spicy. Cuban food isn't spicy necessarily; our spic- es are for flavor not for burning your tongue off." She added: "They're pandering to a customer base that doesn't know that and expects Mexican- style spicy." Cross-culture eating A main difference Joo found between meals in Ann Arbor compared to those found in his home country is the amount of food served. When he first arrived in America, Joo said he could barely finish a full meal since the American portions were so large. Though the taste of the food was comparable to that of his native Korea, the larg- er bowls and plates he encoun- tered were unfamiliar. But some students have grown used to the American way of life. Engineering sophomore Ken Ling was born in China and grew up with a variety of Chinese food. Ling called Panda Express and other "Americanized Chinese restaurants" not as authentic or "attractive" since their meals are tailored more to American taste buds. Ling usually likes to go to Great Shanghai, Asian Legend, Evergreen Restaurant, Asia City, Middle Kingdom and Chia Shi- ang Restaurant for their authen- ticity. However, he admitted he still goes to Panda Express from time to time. Dyer has noticed this shift in mindset. She has seen her international students gradually incorporating some of the food customs native to America in their daily lives, be ita cup of cof- fee in the morning or fast food. "They're adapting a whole new food culture while they're here," she said. "They're being acculturated into our American way of eating." Ultimately, food's most impor- tant aspect is its communal qual- ity. Dyer has had many potlucks with her students throughout the years and praises food's capabil- ity to be shared. "It's not just sharing within your own culture, but sharing across cultures," she said. "We're actually very similar sometimes, so the whole act of sharing food is important." I4 PAUL SHERMAN/Daily The Northern Lights are visible from the top of the Angell Hall Observatory. Ofskies and stories. Connecting with the human history of astronomy By KAYLA UPADHYAYA Daily Arts Writer Physicists, rocket scientists and mathematicians aren't the only people who appreciate astronomy - humans have always been fas- cinated by the night sky. Its allur- ing beauty, its mystery, its sheer vastness - it's hard not to look to the stars and yearn to know more. And thanks to advancements in technology, just about anyone can explore space and learn about the galaxy. "We seem to have this natu- ral explorer sense about us," said Matt Linke, the director of the planetarium on the fourth floor of the University's Exhibit Museum of Natural History. "We're curi- ous about what's up there. We've all looked up and seen a bright something, the twinkling some- thing, or the shooting something, and so we want to know what those things are." The planetarium serves as a resource to explore the universe. On weekends, museum staffers give star talks in the facility, not only explaining ways to locate certain stars and constellations, but also sharing the mythology that fills the nighttime sky. Sitting in the planetarium's plush leather seats, one can look up in the dome and see the beautiful night sky spread above - unlike the dim, light-polluted sky seen from cam- pus. "We try to cover alittle mythol- ogy and a little astronomy," Linke said. "A star talk is mostly ground- based, but then we also leave the earth and take advantage of the technology." Linke has been working in planetarium education for 33 years and has been at the Univer- sity for more than 22 years. "I'm certainly more of a tra- ditional planetarium educator," Linke explained. "I'm not an astronomer by training." Linke said the purpose of the planetariumistoeducate,getpeo- ple interested in astronomy and to understand what they're look- ing at. Sometimes people will ask him what stars they might be able to see on their vacations in other countries. By simply punching in coordinates, the planetarium can take its viewers to anywhere on the globe and show what the nighttime sky will look like from that location. The planetarium also runs shows that explore specific top- ics, like black holes, perceptions of space throughout time and the motions of the sun, earth and moon. A show called "Stars of the Pharaohs" combines history and astronomy, allowing viewers to explore the role of the nighttime sky in ancient civilization. To the Egyptians, the stars told tales of their gods. This sacred connection between the stars and storytelling is not lost. Today, people are just as allured by the sky as they were in ancient times. Linke called this interest "ingrained in us." The dome uses two sets of graphics to depict constellations during star talks: redline draw- ings that connect the stars and the actual pictures of what they represent Linke said the physi- cal drawings are more useful for storytelling. Linke reflected upon a time when people existed in a world where there wasn't as much light pollution as there is today. "We know they were watching the sky," he said. "We see their petroglyphs; we see the kind of things they did in caves, things they made. They were clearly visualizing what they saw in the nighttime sky." The Exhibit Museum is not the only place with a planetarium on campus. A new planetarium resides in Angell Hall, along with an observatory that allows stu- dents to observe the actual sky. "(Looking at the sky) takes you to a different mindset than you would have in your everyday life," said LSA junior Mary Holt, presi- dent of the Student Astronomi- cal Society. "It's something that's outside of your world and makes you think about what else could be out there." The Student Astronomical Society hosts open houses in the Angell Hall Observatory a couple oftimes a month, focusing on gen- erating student interest in astron- omy. On clear nights, they set up telescopes in the observatory.' The Student Astronomical Society tries to make astron''y more accessible to people wht might not necessarily be interest- ed in science. The images projected in the planetarium - brilliant star clus- ters, expansive nebulae, constel- lations, planets and the moon - all have as much artistic value as they do scientific. "Sometimes there's art in sci- ence," Holt said. "I feel thatthere's a beauty to it. Finding patterns in the sky is also an art." Though the planetariums in Angell Hall and the Exhibit Museum serve more or less the same purpose, the shows they give differ because the sky is a canvas that can be interpreted. Linke said he always makes an effort to work different percep- tions of common constellations into his sky programs. "The mythology, the sky leg- ends, are an important part because it's part of our collective human background and culture,' Linke said. "If I say constella- tions and I mention a few names, people just think right away that they're Greek and Roman constel- lations. But the reality is, every culture on the planet has left their fingerprints on the sky." It's clear the night sky is not just for space geeks and wannabe astronauts. Its rich history and artistic beauty make it something that almost anyone can appreci- ate. Linke and Holt agreed the night sky is something we all share. Though it is the same sky we see, there are many ways to enjoy and interpret it. Engineering sophomore Ken Ling praises Asian Legend for its aut 6 0 The Angell Hall Observatory lets students see the real night sky. IWednesday, November2 Mkhlgan Theater. 603 E. Lirty Tickets: Michigan Union Ticket Office 734-763-TK'TS Ticketmaster.com TeArk.org LUCAS From Page 3B rhymes work byestablishing relationships between words based on sounds; words that sound alike purely by accident become semantically yoked. Mullen simplyuses a differ- ent technique to accomplish the same end. For "burn," read "born;" for "bend of the ear," read "end of the year," and so on. But then go back and read the poem asit's written, and notice how your own mind "corrects" what's printed into what you think it should say. The printed page becomes the poem that exists and the poem we imagine instead. No wonder Mullen offers "came into the word" for "came into the world." We too come into the world as we come into the word. Rhyme is only one of the ways poets make something new of both. "Lucas" really only rhymes with "mucus." To discuss, e-mail dwlucas@umich.edv.