The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 3B

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 3B

Revisiting chicken potpie

Students in the architecture section of UARTS 250 use flexible cardboard to design original projects.
Stuens embrac!e
creat-i-vity at the 'U'

oday, I'm diving into the
realm of freezer-aisle
food. Why? Because it
would be naive of me to pretend
that Iand every other college
student
have the
willpower to
perpetually
steer clear
of it. Some-
times, it's,
necessary
a go-to when NATHAN
we needa WOOD
super-quick
bite - and
perfectly convenient when,
adorned in sweatpants and slip-
pers, we just don't have the ener-
gy to leave our apartments.
Challenged by the prospect of
finding a frozen food that's actu-
ally worth eating for the flavor,
not just the convenience, I was
motivated to revisit one of my
childhood favorites: Marie Cal-
lender's chicken pot pies, the ulti-
mate in comfort food. I distinctly
remember the staple frozen pie
in my household being Banquet
brand, a red box of cheap quality
ingredients stuffed in a floury,
underseasoned crust purchased
for 88 cents. It served its purpose
- warm and filling, ready in two
minutes - but was utterly devoid
of the refined savoriness offered
by Marie's famous recipe.
Every once in a while, I was
lucky enough to discover a Marie
Callender's pot pie in the door
of our basement freezer, though
my mother could not bring
herself to routinely subject me
to the astoundingly poor nutri-
tion of the pot pies. The smaller,
10-ounce chicken pot pie boasts
70-percent of a daily allowance of
saturated fat and 42-percent of a
daily allowance of sodium (based
on a 2,000 calorie diet). The
larger, 16.5-ounce pie contains
over 1,000 calories and contains
100-percent of a daily allowance
of fat.

F
th

Full
abuse t
soon b
the gro
favorit
yestery
wheth,
tasty a
or if th
Mom w
mhy per
ness.

UARTS 250 focuses The student chooses a scrap and
reads aloud: "crystalline." After
on interdisciplinary seeing the confused look on the
student's face, Rush laughs and
education explains to him just how awe-
some that topic is: The possibili-
By JACOB AXELRAD ties are endless.
Senior Arts Editor Now in its fourth year, the
interdisciplinary course was ini-
On a Wednesday afternoon in tiated when Theresa Reid, execu-
Design Lab 1 at the Dudersladt tive director of the University's
Center, students craft sculptures ArtsEngine program, contacted
from balls of flexible wire, a scene Rush and asked him to gather
reminiscent of kids at play. together a group of interesting
The prompt is to "create some- people for an experimental class.
thing that would be found in After receiving $300,000 from
" water." Some work alone, clip- the Multidisciplinary Learn-
ping and cutting away with nee- ing and Team Teaching grant
dle-nose pliers as they mold their through the Office of the Provost,
copper crafts. Others gather in Rush's next task was to manipu-
groups to discuss the concepts for late the teaching schedules of
their final projects, which include professors from four different
subjects such as weightlessness departments: architecture, engi-
and rhythm. How they strut- neering, dance and Art & Design.
ture these projects is completely During the first half of the
up to them: They could perform semester, students rotate among
an original dance, make a paint- two-week workshops pertaining
ing or sing a song. As the title of to the four areas of study. While
UARTS 250, "Creative Process," one-fourth of the class dives into
suggests, the end-goal is not what the world of visual image in the
matters. It's the steps in between Duderstadt, another group is
that count. across the street in the architec-
A student approaches Stephen ture lab. Studying abstract archi-
Rush, a professor in the School of tects such as Gaudi and Gehry,
Music, Theatre & Dance and the these students use X-Acto knives
coordinator for the course, and to shape pieces of cardboard, test-
asks to be given a project. Rush ing out the basics of light, form,
extends a plastic bag filled to the shape and space. In one project,
brim with pieces of paper, each the cardboard has been fashioned
one bearing a potential topic. to form a two-foot-tall open-air

tunnel, with tiny windows allow-
ing light to fill the structure.
Though two weeks may not be
enough time to develop a strong
grasp of one discipline, Rush
explained that it is enough time
to deeply affect the way a student
views a concept.
"Two weeks isn't enough time
to see the Grand Canyon either,"
Rush said. "But do you not go?
You see this transformation over
the course of these four two-
week sessions. It's stunning.
He added: "These guys end up
learning to talk about things they
don't know about in an inquisi-
tive, honoring kind of way."
In the second half of the course,
students devote time to their final
projects, using each other and the
professors as sounding boards for
ideas. Students also keep a jour-
nal in which they record thoughts
and observations for each week.
While the journal is a big part of
their final grade, the aim is sim-
ply to get them thinking.
Additionally, each department
has a mini-project for students
to complete. Projects vary from
the ephemeral (a two-to-three-
minute movement piece) to the
concrete; the engineering section
has students use electric Legos
to create a machine of their own.
As Rush explained, students in
this section have produced paint
machines, banana peelers and
See UARTS 250, Page 4B

I wa
minute
packag
the sav
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a crisp.
rial abs
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five-an
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The ed
but stil
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can't h
made p
my pie:
the bes
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The cai

y knowledgeable of the hard. I'm all for texture contrasts,
o which my arteries would but as a general rule, orange
e subjected, I ventured to vegetables should be smooth and
eery store in search of my supple when cooked.
e microwavable meal of I must admit that the sodium
:ear. I was anxious to see stats mentioned earlier had me
er the pies were really as worried about the saltiness of
s I remembered them to be, the gravy, but I was pleasantly
e scarcity with which my surprised by its flavor. I was
vould buy them had tainted not inclined to add any salt,
ception of their delicious- believably enough, and my taste
buds were not repulsed by over-
powering amounts of sodium
chloride. Hints of onion powder
rozen food and garlic powder, thyme, mar-
joram and sage added warmth
at tastes like to the gravy. The viscosity was
on point, as well. It was thicker
home. than normal mashed-potatoes-
and-gravy gravy, appropriately,
so when I forked a bite of the
pie, it held its dignity by not
s impressed from the gushing out and emptying the
I opened the box. The pie to leave a naked shell of
ing features a susceptor, crust. My only complaint is that,
ior of all things microwav- because my pie was thickened
lore colloquially known as by cornstarch instead of the
ing disc, this silver mate- more traditional flour rue, the
torbs the waves, heats to a gravy had a slightly fluorescent
gh temperature and emits hue. Remember, though, this is
d rays to brown and crisp frozen food.
ist of the pot pie. And, after The truth is, Marie Callender's
d-a-half-minutes in my pot pies are not as wonderful as
wave, brown and crispy the I remember, but still a delicious
was. Its color was a deep bite by any standard. If you've
hue, even and uniform. never enjoyed one before, defi-
ges were particularly flaky nitely check them out. At $3 a pop
1 held their moisture. Even for the 10-ounce package, the pies
tom crust, often the victim aren't incredibly cheap, especially
-cookingsogginess in pot compared to their Banquet coun-
eld its delicate texture. It terpart, but they're still afford-
old a candle to the home- able: They make a great late-night
ruff pastry I like topping snack, quick dinner before study
S with, but it's definitely group or after-exam indulgence.
t crust that Krogers freez- Other 4ariations include creamy
offer. mushroom, parmesan, honey
white-meat chicken was roasted and cheesy chicken pot
t inlarge, tender chunks. pies. And if chicken's not your
't tough or dry like pre- thing, there's also beef pot pie
[frozen proteins can be; it and another classic- turkey pot
tually well-seasoned as a pie. Try them, as I plan to. But
alone ingredient. The peas please, don't tell my mom.

weet, verdant and fresh
, but I would like to have
dozen or so more in the pie.
rrots, unfortunately, were

Wood is eating all oftthe
chicken pot pies. To stop him,
e-mail nisaacw umich.edu.


SEP INlO

'FRIENDS' (1994), NBC

The legacy of Friends'

Like in the salons of 17th
and 18th century France,
this weekly installment
will feature two Daily Arts
writers discussing the finer
points of arts mediums
from at least 10 years ago.
It may have run for 10 seasons.
It may have featured such unfor-
gettable gags as Ross dressed
as the Holiday Armadillo, Joey
dressed in every piece of apparel
Chandler owns and, of course,
"The one with Chandler in a
box." We reminisce about these
episodes when we get together
with friends, striking common
ground with quips such as "I like
Phoebe but my all-time favorite
character has got to be Ross." Yes,
those six famous Manhattan-ites
have filled many a conversation
lull, even after the series finished
in 2004.
But I'm sorry to say that we are
all quietly deceiving ourselves.
"Friends," my friends, consists
of little more than a string of
sex jokes, pointless melodrama
and sloppy writing that leaves us
desiringlittle.
Consider Phoebe (Lisa Kud-
row). She's an orphan who was
supposedly raised on the streets.
Okay, maybe. But we're supposed
to buy that she can speak French
fluently and also believes in Santa
Claus? Something doesn't com-
pute. Though her absurd, wacky
nature has the potential to be
endearing, after a few seasons,
the charm begins to wane. In
fact, Phoebe, who belts out that

The original "Words With Friends."
oh-so-obnoxious one-hit wonder
"Smelly Cat" whenever the writ-
ers need a quick laugh, only has
one redeeming quality: the guest
stars that she brings in, such as
Hank Azaria (as the uber-suave
David) and Paul Rudd (as Mike
- so, basically himself). Her two
potential romantic interests are
not caricatures, nor do they get
caught up in needless plot points
used solely as cheap avenues
for tension. They are, despite
their limited number of episode
appearances, more mature than
basically anyone else on the show.
What makes side charac-
ters such as Rudd and Azaria so
appealing is that their humor
doesn't rely on the easy, recur-
ring one-liners that make up
about 90-percent of each script.
Joey is lovable and sleeps with a
lot of girls, but we love him any-
way; Chandler may or may not be
gay; Ionica used to be fat, and
now she's a neat freak. It's like,
we get it already. TV Guide may
have ranked "Friends" as num-

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ber 21 on its list of the 50 greatest
TV shows of all time. But there
should be more to these charac-
ters than a list of about 12 jokes
that the studio audience can sure-
ly see coming a mile away.
So next time you sit in your
own version of Central Perk
and discuss whether you're a
Monica, a Rachel, a Chandler or
a Joey, remember that these are
formulaic characters, conceived
as stereotypes precisely to fill
those painful silences. But dig a
little deeper and, unfortunately,
there's not much to find.
-JACOBAXELRAD
When Monica, Joey, Chandler,
Phoebe, Ross and Rachel shared
their first cup of coffee at Cen-
tral Perk, I was still a toddler. It
wasn't until 5th grade, when my
best friend introduced me to her
family's DVD collection, that I
saw my first episode of "Friends."
See FRIENDS, Page 4B

p &