During Fall Break, I decided to go on a little trek into Boston for a day of yummy food and some good old fashioned studying in a coffee shop! What ended up happening was a little different...
First stop: the famous Flour Cafe, run by Joanne Chung.
Every person that I've met from Boston, have mentioned how amazing this cafe was, especially its sticky buns.
Even though it was a Monday afternoon, the cafe was filled to the brim with customers, patiently waiting for their orders. The interior had hand drawn menus on blackboards, creating a homey feel of the cafe.
Rows of desserts tantalized everyone waiting in line.
Various menu items had already been sold out but it seemed like sticky buns were not going to be one of them.
And these are the sticky buns...look at how fluffy they are!
Look at those lovely, cushioney layers!!!
Joanne Chung, the owner of Flour Bakery, actually has a very interesting backstory to how she came to start this extremely successful business. She graduated from Harvard with honors in Applied Mathematics and Economics and became a management consultant. She eventually found that her true passion was in cooking.
Her past culinary experience included working as a garde-manger cook at Biba Restaurant and working in New York City in the cake department of Payard Patisserie and Bistro.
In 2000, she returned to Boston to start Flour Bakery and has since started four branches in MIT, Cambridge, Back Bay, and Central Square.
As my friend and I walked towards Cambridge for a study spot, we came across a local farmer's market.
We made a couple of friends too
We also stumbled upon beautiful works of street art.
We finally made it to Algiers Coffee House, a beautiful little place that serves delicious Middle Eastern style coffee and teas.
As evening rolled around, Slow Food Wellesley joined me in Cambridge for a Food and Science lecture at Harvard!
The lecture that day was on Elasticity and Polymers that featured olive oil and sesame oil gummies.
This was a batch of gummies they made earlier in the day that we were able to touch and smell.
The whole idea behind making this gummy was to introduce olive oil to the Asian community. Unlike Western style cooking, Asian cooking uses woks. Unfortunately, when olive oil is used in woks, the extremely high heat breaks down the oil and turns it rancid. These chefs found that when they went to China, gummies were a popular candy and that olive oil and sesame oil could be combined and made into a sweet. That way, the community would be able to accept olive oil along with a taste they were familiar with, sesame oil.
After the inspiring talk, Sophia, Slow Food President, and I got a little silly.
But we got some good pictures out of it!
