Bistocchi’s, My Favorite Restaurant Essay Example

Bistocchi’s, My Favorite Restaurant Essay Italian, American, Spanish, Asian and other cuisines may entice one’s palate. However, there can only be one that could really capture one’s soul with merely the smell of the dish coming out from the kitchen. For me, there is only one restaurant in Dunmore that satisfies my palate and captivates my soul—a restaurant established by the Italian couple, Angelo and Yolanda Bistocchi. People come and go in Bistocchi’s Restaurant for a various reasons. Some people feel comfortable and well-attended to with the friendly service that they give them. Some people greatly appreciate the delightful menu. Others simply love the ambiance and the music being played in this restaurant. In my case, I come back to my favorite restaurant, Bistaccho’ all the time for all of these reasons. A ten-minute walk towards the south of my house brings me to this Italian restaurant that features a wide variety of dishes that everyone would love. Upon arrival to what may seem an extension of my home is a bar. Behind it is a sixty-year-old bartender that would greet you with a warm welcome as soon as you step in the place. To first-time customers, this man seems only to be a bartender greeting them a good day. But to all of us who has been with this institution since it first opened its doors in 1982, the man behind the bar is Butchie, a good old friend. We will write a custom essay sample on Bistocchi’s, My Favorite Restaurant specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Bistocchi’s, My Favorite Restaurant specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Bistocchi’s, My Favorite Restaurant specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Behind the bar is the restaurant where all of my good dining memories happened. Walking towards the restaurant part of Bistocchi’s allows you to meet the dedicated owner of the restaurant, Brenda. Brenda manages her restaurant well by being hands-on. You could always see her in the restaurant welcoming and waiting customers. She welcomes you with a big smile and makes you feel comfortable like the way one would welcome a guest in one’s home. Name, Butchie and Brenda lighten up my dining experience. However, it is never complete without the superb dishes that they are offering. Bistocchi’s, being an outstanding Italian restaurant, offers a wide variety of north Italian dishes. Some of these dishes are traditional family recipes handed down by the original restaurant owners, the parents of Butchie and Brenda. Some these are among the customers’ favorites. â€Å"Family traditions secret recipe for great Italian restaurants in region†, an article written by Marita Dempsey Lowman from the Time’s Tribune, describes some of the dishes, which are the restaurant’s big seller. Yolanda Salad, a big hit in the restaurant, is mixture of greens with anchovies, dry blue cheese and hot peppers as toppings. Another specialty is dish that the previous owners, Angelo and Yolanda, named after their daughter. Imagine four varieties of Italian cheese seasoning a roasted chicken breast that would lift up your down spirits. This uplifting dish is called the Chicken Brenda. Aside from these two traditional family dishes, the restaurant is also well-know for homemade cheese lasagna, veal franchese and pork chops calabrese. Of all these superb dishes, there are only two dishes that make me go back to this wondrous place: ceasar salad and their famous lasagna. Every week, I would pay Butchie and Brenda a visit to have a taste of the ceasar salad which is enhanced by loads of garlic. Sometimes, I order them for three consecutive days.   After getting enough of this salad for big craving, I order the hearty and flavorful homemade cheese lasagna to satisfy the other side of my palate. On times when I have dinner at Bistaccho’s, I make sure that I get a taste of an Italian-aniseed flavored wine called sambuca. After every dish, I finish off with a slice of cheesecake and coffee. Name, Aside from the wonderful people and the hearty food at Bistaccho’s, every dining experience is accompanied by the cozy ambiance of the place. The place is decorated with Italian furnishings while the wall is painted in red and gold. These walls are brought to life by hanging pictures of customers, some of which are celebrities. The sense of sight and taste are not the only senses being satisfied when you visit Bistaccho’s. Sinatra’s songs are usually playing in the restaurant since it is the family’s favorite. You can also dance to the disco music playing on the jukebox. Neil Diamond’s fans need not to worry since they could always find his songs on the jukebox. Bistaccho’s restaurant is an Italian restaurant established in 1982 by Angelo and Yolanda Bistaccho. Today, it is run by two of the most welcoming and pleasant people that I know, Butchie and Yolanda. Under their management, they continue to offer heart-warming dishes that satisfy any palate. They ensure the highest quality of service to customers while making them feel at home. They maintain the furnishings and Italian decoration in the restaurant which give every customer a feel of the Italian culture. For these reasons, many customers have become loyal to the institution since their first visit. For these same reasons, I go back every week to this restaurant, a place that now seems to be a newly found home.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Essay Example

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Essay Example Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Essay Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Essay In the novel, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, he explores that your environment, family, and cultural background have an effect on whether you will be successful or not. Matt Amaral, an English teacher from Mount Eden High School, argues that Steph Curry should not visit his school. He says, â€Å"You wont be able to bring yourself to tell them it is already too late.† Similarly, Amaral states how Steph Curry will be an inspiring role model that’ll say all the right things to persuade one to be successful, but in reality, he isn’t telling the truth. Gladwell’s arguments use examples from multiple scenarios that relate to Amaral’s key points. Gladwell introduces the â€Å"Matthew Effect† in the first chapter of the book. He states that people who are passionate, talented, and work hard can be successful. Also, he mentions that kids who matured faster than others grew up to be professional athletes because of the month they were born in. He argued that kids born in January, February, or March became professional athletes because they had a greater advantage over the kids born in August, September, or November. This relates to how Steph Curry has a great advantage by being tall. In the letter to Steph Curry by Matt Amaral, he says, â€Å"You also wont talk about the fact that you are a giant man and taller than almost all of my students will ever be. Even though on the court you look like Peter Dinklage in high tops, when you are around real people you are very, very tall. Six-foot-three is nothing to laugh at, and if you did walk into my classroom, you might hit your head on the doorframe.† Steph had a famil y that was tall. Therefore, he’s tall, and he was also born in March. â€Å"It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.† (Gladwell, 30) Take, for instance, the example of junior hockey players in Canada. Most of the hockey players on the best traveling team in all of Canada had birthdays in the first three months of the year. This seemed like an unbelievable coincidence, until we explore further. Gladwell interviewed people connected with the selection for these teams and it turned out the participants of a certain level had to be born after the New Year. Theoretically a boy born on January 1st would have time to physically mature over someone born towards the end of the year (making that child the youngest on the team). The more physically mature boy would then be selected for the team, get more practice time, better coaching, and compete on a higher level. This created and advantage for older children and created a roadblock in the path for hockey players born towards the end of the year. This is a phenomenon that also happens in our schools. For every kindergarten or first grade class there is a cut-off date for children who are being registered for school. The children closest to the cut-off date have more time to cognitively develop as compared to younger children. This provides the older children with a greater opportunity to be included in gifted classes, have better teachers, explore concepts more in-depth, and get the same head-start on education the older players got in hockey. The 10,000-hour rule, as I have come to realize is quite popular, is Gladwell’s theory that to truly become an expert at something one needs to spend 10,000 hours perfecting the craft. Gladwell cites several examples including a young Bill Gates practicing writing code, but for the sake of space, I will explain one example: The Beatles. While performing in the late 1950’s in Liverpool, The Beatles were not particularly gifted showmen and rarely stood out among other Mersey Beat groups. It wasn’t until they were booked to play clubs in Hamburg that they began to show their true colors. What was it about Hamburg? Gladwell points out that in Germany they played seven days a week for eight hours a day. Along with their Liverpool background, the Beatles had achieved 10,000 hours playing and performing, the magic number for mastering your craft. The 10,000-hour rule can apply several ways within our schools. For students, 10,000 hours can be spent in class, studying, researching, writing and computing. Perhaps to become the best student possible, or at least master the process by which you learn, one must reach that benchmark of time before becoming an expert. For teachers and administrators perhaps we must spend those hours teaching, reflecting, brainstorming, meeting, sharing ideas, and listening to others before we can master the art. Maybe we truly need to spend at that time learning from others and applying what we know before we can really find our niche in this profession. A child’s abnormally high IQ may trigger thoughts of undoubted success for many of us, but Outliers shows us that many with unbridled promise fail to deliver. This study shows that almost all â€Å"geniuses† that fail to complete post-secondary degrees have one glaring trait in common: socioeconomic status. Gladwell presents the case of Chris Langan, a man who’s IQ nears 200 and taught himself to read by age four. Langan spend his adult years as a bouncer and later ran a horse farm. This is hardly dignified work for â€Å"the smartest man in America. Langan’s only mistake was growing up poor. Gladwell compares Langan with Robert Oppenheimer, architect of the atomic bomb. While both were extremely intelligent, only Oppenheimer grew up affluent and gained necessary skills needed to succeed. While Langan had difficultly figuring out the procedures necessary to fill-out financial-aid forms in college, Oppenheimer was raised to learn social niceties. The autho r goes into great detail explaining how the experiences provided to Oppenheimer through family wealth helped separate him from a fate all-to-often found by the poor. The topic of educating the nation’s less fortunate is one that is certainly not new. However, letting talented people slip through the cracks is something that we as educators can help to prevent. Someone with Chris Langan’s intellect does not come often, but that does not mean that as educators we cannot spend time to help those less fortunate. While the affluent can afford private schools, better tutors, and more social experiences, it is our job as public educators to do our best to provide all students with an opportunity to succeed. Prior to reading Outliers, I knew that socioeconomic status certainly played a role, but learning of all the cases where great minds have been wasted most definitely opened my eyes to the plight of the less fortunate. Part Two: Legacy In the second part of the book, the author looks at the backgrounds, influences and cultures to determine their role in someone’s success. Gladwell investigates cultural heritages and their effect on people. He presented the case of Korean Air, the most accident-prone airline in the world. It turns out that Korean culture frowns on speaking or giving commands to one’s superior. Simply put, members of the crew were watching their captains make mistakes with out speaking up and it was costing lives! In order for Korean Air to turn things around, it needed to change the culture. This is mirrored in our public schools across the country. Initiatives are constantly being presented and rarely do the ever affect the status quo. Until the culture of the school is changed improvements will continue to fall by the wayside. Just as in the Korean Air example, subordinates needed to by into the culture change. In schools, it is the teachers and staff that ultimately determine the success of a program. We must change the culture of our schools, get teacher buy-in, and have all staff believe in the change if initiatives are to work. Top-down communication is not the way to effectively foster change; our school culture needs to be reworked. One of the most fascinating chapters in the book is titled â€Å"Rice Paddies and Math Tests. † Gladwell takes on the stereotype of Asian students and their proficiency for math. Again, the answer lay in one’s ancestry and cultural heritage. Asians have subsisted on rice for centuries, and growing rice is one of the most labor-intensive crops in the world. Like math, there is no shortcut to cultivating rice paddies. Reaping a bountiful crop takes hard work, patience, and practice as well precise farming techniques. These traits that are so often associated with the Asian culture are exactly the recipe for success in the field of mathematics. There is no shortcut for math aptitude either. A student must be willing to continue to work after the thought â€Å"This is too hard† has already crossed their minds. In fact, the author found that math aptitude perfectly aligns itself with the countries that values hard work the most. The culture has predisposed them for success in math! Changing students mind and the values of all Americans may be nearly impossible, but a valuable lesson can be learned from all of this. Hard word and determination really does play a part in one’s success, and that it is not all luck, birth dates, and economic circumstance. This also relates closely to the 10,00 hour rule that I discussed earlier. Do you that these farmers have spent 10,000 hours cultivating their fields with backbreaking work? I certainly do. This also sets an example for students and staff hat in order to make real progress we have to keep pushing when things get difficult and persevere if we are to be truly successful. Finally, we examine the case of the KIPP Academy in the Bronx, New York. The KIPP Academy (Knowledge is Power Program) is a school in which almost any child in the Bronx can attend. There are no entry requirements and applicants are not chosen by their parent’s bank account. There i s a catch though: students attend classes from 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM and often have homework until 10 or 11 o’clock. KIPP Academy students also come to school for four hours on Saturdays and five hours each day in the summer. Many of us would wonder why anyone would subject himself or herself to this torture. The answer is simple: 84% of the KIPP students are proficient or advanced in math in an area of poverty, which rarely affords children the educational background to go to college. By presenting this case, Gladwell nicely and neatly wraps up his argument as to why some are successful while others fail. The KIPP Academy has ironed out the wrinkles of birthdays (anyone can attend), socioeconomic status (it matters not how much money you have), and cultural heritage (if you come to KIPP you will get your 10,000 hours regardless of where you came from). The KIPP Academy has placed success solely on the individual. It is up to the person to change his or her future. Success is not made on hard work alone; it is not given either. Rather a serious of factors needs to fall in place in order for the average person to become an outlier. But with knowledge of factors, one can overcome shortcomings and put themselves into positions to greater affect their lives or the lives of their students.