Birthday Cupcake from Heirloom Bakery

I’m Dr. Perez, an assistant professor at CSUDH. My majors were in English for my BA, MA and PhD. I finished my PhD in 2011 at USC.

My food selfie is one I took of my birthday cupcake from Heirloom Bakery in South Pasadena. It’s a homemade (well, cafe-made), grown-up version of a Hostess Cupcake. It was excellent.

My favorite food, at least for today and coming out of the holiday season are tamales. I seriously love tamales and not only because they are delicious (which they are) but because of their indigenous roots in the Americas and their associations for me with home, family and the Christmas holidays. Unwrapping a tamale, hot from the steamer and almost burning my fingers is a joy. I like all kinds of tamales, sweet and savory, wrapped in corn or banana leaves, meat or vegetarian. That said, when faced with a variety of tamale choices, my first pick is almost always red pork. There’s something about the sweetness of the corn, the meatiness of the pork and the spiciness of the red chile that makes my mouth water.

This is the second time I’ve taught this class and am looking forward to getting to know all of you.

Welcome to our IDS 330: Food and Culture blog. This is where our more formal public writing for the course will occur. You should have received an invitation to join the blog. This invitation was (or will be) sent to your Toro Mail address. If you haven’t received an invitation to the blog by Monday, January 27, please email me.

As soon as possible, but by no later than midnight on Friday, January 31, follow the instructions on the posting on WordPress video (see Blackboard for video link) and make your first post. Your post should include your name (can be your first name only or a nickname, for the sake of privacy) something you want to be known by in the class, when you plan to graduate, an image of one of your food selfies (you can also use it in Slack) and a rich, detailed description of a favorite food.

Be friendly. Respond to other people’s intros and enjoy getting to know each other.

I’ve posted my intro here to be a sample.