10 Features

Dorm Room Cooking: Chocolate cake in a mug

BY DARYA WATNICK
Features Editor

The Pioneer Log, January 28, 2011

The recipe is titled the Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake in the World- 5 minute chocolate mug cake. The simplicity and ease of making a cake in a microwave is definitely dangerous. I spent about 20 to 30 minutes in the kitchen of my dorm and made four of these tasty desserts. Ingredients: 4 tablespoons of flour 4 tablespoons of sugar 2 tablespoons of baking cocoa 1 egg 3 tablespoons of milk 3 tablespoons of oil 3-4 tablespoons of chocoLate chips Small splash of vanilla extract Other necessities: A large coffee mug Measuring spoons microwave Directions: 1. Add dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking cocoa) to mug. Mix well. 2. Add egg. Mix well. 3. Pour in milk. Mix well. 4. Add chocolate chips and vanilla. Mix well. 5. Microwave for one and a half to two minutes. 6. The cake will rise over the top of the mug while its cooking, but it will shrink when done. 7. Let mug cool for a minute and tip onto a plate to eat. Enjoy immediately for best results!

At least six chocolate mug cakes can be made with ingredients purchased from one trip to the store. One delectable cake should only take around five minutes to throw together. Make one for you and your roommate!

Before the cake is baked in the microwave, the ingredients look like typical gooey, chocolate-y cake batter. Chocolate chips added to the batter will melt in the microwave. These melted morsels add an extra element of chocolate to the cake.

Perspectives: Bob Mandel

A weekly look into the thoughts of people within and outside Lewis & Clark
BY JULIA STEWART
Opinions Editor

The final product of the cake is delicious and can easily satisfy the dessert cravings of two hungry college students. It may not look like a gourmet confection and in fact looks quite sloppy and unappetizing. One bite will convince you that it is actually a scrumptious snack.

PHOTOS BY CATHERINE GRELLA

Perhaps you have seen him around campus: that teacher with the big smile and the big glasses to match, who tucks his short sleeve button down shirt into his jeans and combs his hair 360 degrees around his head. Bob Mandel: one of six professors in the International Affairs department at Lewis & Clark whose specialty is security studies. Whether or not he worked ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA STEWART for the CIA remains a mystery; when asked, he chose to dodge the question. Nothing about Mandel seems to adhere to societal norms and as such, he embodies his philosophy towards education: question everything and think outside the box. Below are the highlights from my conversation with Mandel about what he feels a liberal arts education is all about. What attracts you to the world of academia? I like the ability to explore puzzles, problems, questions, and look at them in new ways, different ways ways that work outside or contradict the conventional ways of looking at things and I like the challenge of transmitting and discussing these unconventional ways with colleagues, students, and other people. I am very interested in the basis of your approach to education, which as you have discussed, stresses the unconventional and challenging of norms Where did this begin for you? I have always thought about issues conceptually since I was very, very small. And I have found that that in itself is very different

from a lot of people. A lot of people think about things experientially. They get interested in what they want to major in based on an experience they had, something they have lived through. For me, thinking about things conceptually was natural; it was not something I had to work at. I want to be clear that I am not prescriptively advocating this approach for anyone else in any other field. There are a lot of subject matters and a lot of teachers where this would not be appropriate for their pedagogical goals. I remember you mentioning in your Global Security class that there should be an octopus in the classroom. What was the point you were trying to get across? The octopus example is one that I brought up because Octopi have a very, very, very sophisticated brain, and I also happen to like octopi a lot because they are so physically attractive. I bring it up to remind us that we are getting one particular form of perspective [the human perspective]. Its also a neat example to think about the arbitrary place we are in as scholars and viewers of the world and to again, think in unorthodox ways about how issues might be looked at from other parties. Does this pattern of taking into account different perspectives speak to conflict and peace more broadly for you? It links up with the causes of conflict because a lot of conflict, including violent conflict, is based on misperception and misunderstanding and a lack of cultural sensitivity. Now, not all conflict is based on that. Some conflict occurs when two societies see each other very accurately and are so incensed by what they are aware of that they go to war or have a fight. It takes real effort to understand why someone who views something a different way has that view.

NPR host spoke to students in the Council Chambers last Friday.

BY DREW LENIHAN
Staff Writer

A visit from Michele Norris

Michele Norris has been the co-host of one of National Public Radios longest running programs, All Things Considered, since 2002. She has been recognized as one of the most influential journalists of our time for her work at the Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Washington Post and ABC, and has received the Pulitzer Prize four times. Her first book, The Grace of Silence, is a memoir about her familys experience in Birmingham, Alabama on the eve of the Civil Rights movement. It was the primary topic of her lecture on Friday. Norris had anticipated writing a book about the dynamically changing dialogue about race and ethnicity in America in the midst of Obamas presidential campaign. The project became a memoir, however, when Norris discovered stories about the racism and prejudice that her father and his brothers faced growing up in Jim Crow America, which her family had kept hidden. Michele explained, The Civil Rights generation did not want to clutter our path with pain. The memoir includes the story of Micheles father getting shot by a police officer two days after being honorably discharged from the military, and of her grandmothers experience working as a traveling Aunt Jemima saleswoman for the Quaker Oats corporation. Stories like these are part of a history that is often forgotten in America. It was as if Harriet Tubman passed the baton to Martin Luther King and then he ran for the touchdown, Norris said. These gaps in the historical record can allow ignorance and contribute to racism. Michele cited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a voice to admire in the search for the uncompromised truth. Our language is hot today, she said. Listening to King reminds us we can make a point without screaming; his voice is a call to arms, and most importantly, a call to reason. In an exclusive interview with the Piolog after the talk, Michele said, As journalists, we write the first draft of history and it must be uncompromised. In terms of race, when we talk about race in America, lets not forgot to talk about us, and understand what is happening so our identity does not fade into shades of gray. At the end of her talk, Norris encouraged the audience to find the I in history and gave advice on how to get ones own family to open up about secrets of the past, which she believes happens most successfully over a meal. We can only hope that during her next visit, she stays for dinner.