That’s right, folks, the Cal Alumni Association is hosting a pre-Cinco de Mayo gathering for young alumni and graduating seniors, and there will be margaritas. They’re calling it “The Last Grrr-rah,” but don’t let the corny name fool you — the food should be genuinely delicious. The event will feature Taqueria Sinaloa, whose signature truck will be parked at the Alumni House to serve attendees a myriad of tacos, including chicken, carne asada, carnitas and vegetarian.

Taqueria Sinaloa is normally located in Oakland, so you’ll save yourself BART fare and a long walk by taking advantage of the truck’s convenient location in our own backyard, so to speak. The cost of attending is $10 ($13 for young alums) and includes one margarita and five tasty tacos. No word yet about who’ll be tending bar, but those who wish to imbibe will need their IDs handy.

Stay hungry, Golden Bears!

The Last Grr-rah will be held at the Alumni House patio on Saturday, May 4, from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online until Thursday, May 2 at 11:59 p.m.

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If you thought cheap, flavored alcohol and whipped cream cans were the only substances abused by bored teenagers, think again. Never heard of the cinnamon challenge? Luckily, you can educate yourself on its website, entirely devoted to the challenge. The site describes the goal of the challenge as trying to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon in 60 seconds without drinking water. The task is not easy because cinnamon in large quantities (or anything in large quantities, for that matter) triggers a gag reflex.

But apparently, this unpleasant feat is attractive to more adolescents than it should be. According to data compiled by the American Association of Poison Control Centers, there were 222 cases of “abuse or misuse of cinnamon by teens” in the United States last year. During the first half of the year, there were about 30 cases of cinnamon ingestion that required medical treatment. The medical journal Pediatrics recently published an article stating the dangers of the cinnamon challenge. While most reports of taking on the challenge involve a burning sensation in the airways, nosebleeds, lack of consciousness, vomiting, difficulty breathing and puffs of rust-colored smoke spewing from the daring individual’s mouth, apparently the damage done can be far more serious. In the worst of cases, teenagers have suffered collapsed lungs and ended up on ventilators.

After reading this, you’re probably tempted to YouTube “cinnamon challenge” to see for yourself how dire the results really can be. You’re not alone. Dr. Steven E. Lipshultz, the author of the report in Pediatrics, says that, “We have seen a rise in calls to poison control centers around the United States that mirrored the rise in YouTube videos and their viewing,” confirming that food as a vehicle of masochism is an appealing subject. In fact, the cinnamon challenge website states that more than 40,000 challenge videos have been posted on YouTube.

Although cinnamon is harmless, delicious and has even been shown to have healthful effects when consumed in small amounts, it can be caustic to the airways when inhaled. The damage is caused by cellulose, a starch found in cinnamon powder that is harmless but does not break down. Therefore, when it is becomes lodged in the lungs due to coughing, it remains there in the long term. If the lungs are coated with caustic cinnamon oil, it can lead to chronic inflammation and eventually scarring of the lungs — a phenomenon called pulmonary fibrosis, a condition equivalent to getting emphysema.

Clearly, while shoveling a spoonful of cinnamon down your throat may sound like an entertaining and exhilarating way to spend your night, you might want to think again.

Contact Erika Chan at echan@dailycal.org.

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The tea bar at Teance is unique in Berkeley because it’s round. Most tea houses don’t have bars, and most bars are long rectangles at which you can’t talk to anyone except the people next to you. I’ve lost count of how many amazing conversations I’ve had at this round bar. Its smooth, cool-yet-earthy shell-and-glass surface usually surprises the customers, who begin conversing in mutual admiration.

Complete strangers share one another’s bewilderment as they inhale the gardenia aroma of freshly infused Baochong oolong or share a cup of Yunnan Gold and nod in agreement when one person joyfully exclaims that she detects a peppery note in the tea’s sweetness. Then they go on to share business dreams, youthful memories, their children’s performance in school, political and religious beliefs. They bond over the tea bar. “The roundness brings people together,” says Winnie Yu, Teance’s director and founder.

Every year, Yu travels to the fog-shrouded tea mountains in Asia and hand-selects whole-leaf teas from award-winning tea farmers. She says one connection always leads to another while she searches for the best teas.

“Asians are all about connections — otherwise, they wouldn’t talk to you anyway,” Yu said. “You know one tea master. Then they introduce you to a farmer. A lot of farmers connect to other farmers, family members, their friends in the industry. Through years and years of legwork and introductions, eventually you find some good farmers.”

Yu’s motivation for opening Teance was simple: to create a public environment where tea drinkers could gather and share teas.

“Let’s say you want to drink tea with your friends — where would you go?” she asked. “You go to a cafe? A coffee shop? It’s horrible tea there, and it’s usually teabags. It’s also a different kind of environment. Coffee shops smell like coffee. They’re not very tranquil. They’re not aesthetically the kind of place that I would like and that I’m used to in Asia.”

So with her friend Fu-Tung Cheng of Cheng Design, Yu strived to make Teance the serene oasis that shoppers on Fourth Street could duck into to seek shelter from the hustle and bustle outside and at the same time still feel connected with the outdoors through the abundance of sunlight, the water cascade that showers from the ceiling into a small pond with goldfish in it, the fresh flowers and even the bamboo coasters.

It’s no surprise that Teance’s calming atmosphere attracts many artistic patrons: designers, musicians, poets, dancers. It also hosts a number of book-signing events, Lunar New Year festivals and spring harvest tea parties, at which teas are served with artisan snacks such as mochi, tea-flavored ice cream, tea-flavored truffles and cookies all handmade by Teance staff members and their friends, all of whom embody the “slow food” concept that defines Berkeley cuisine.

Yu’s wish is for people to “think about tea as fine dining, as produce, a world of excitement, something very sophisticated but also extremely accessible.” Currently, Teance carries roughly 65 types of tea across all categories: white, green, yellow, oolong, red, pu’er, herbal. These teas come from Japan, China, Taiwan, India and sometimes Korea, depending on the season, considering that, just like those of wine, the tastes of the teas change from season to season.

All this may seem daunting at first, but TeaCal is a good start for students like me. For everyone else, the bar and the knowledgeable bartenders make it easy to taste everything and find out what one likes. The more enthusiastic tea learners can also make a reservation for a private tea lesson with an experienced bartender, and the cost is just the regular bar cost.

“We try to carry the highest grade of each type of tea,” Yu says, “so that the tea bar is the place for (customers) to be adventurous and try different teas and train their palate (for the high-quality teas).”

The more I learn about this beverage, some of which comes from trees that are hundreds of years old, not to mention the yixing teapots and the porcelain gaiwans in which it’s infused, the more I realize how much there still is to learn. The range of taste alone is overwhelming.

There’s the simpler Anji Baicha with a buttery note or the somewhat complex Honey Jialong that tastes sweet like jicama with an aroma of chamomile and plumeria. Then there’s Song Zhong Phoenix, in a single sip of which you can taste pine nut, unburnt cigar, malt, clove, the black tip of a young banana and something sweet, aged, smoky, resinous that you can’t exactly pin down with a name. And you know that this tea is high in quality because you can steep it again and again, sometimes more than 10 times, and the flavor remains strong or new flavors emerge.

One evening, I asked Mr. Moghaddam, one of the managers of Teance and the bartender that evening, to tell me the name of the tea that I was enjoying. Refusing to say its name, he told me to enjoy its flavors and the moment because even for the same tea, it will never be the same again. That may sound too philosophical, but there’s a bittersweet fact behind it.

In 30 years, these kinds of artisan tea will be history because of pollution and climate change and, most importantly, because the tea masters are aging. The youngest tea master in China is about 60 years old, and it takes a few decades to master the art of growing, picking and producing the tea, which does not yield enough financial benefit to entice the young generations to take up the art.

“Now is the time to drink tea,” Yu said.

Teance is located at 1780 Fourth Street in Berkeley.

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If you’ve kept your concern about curious-smelling urine after eating asparagus a secret all this time, do not be alarmed — you are not alone. A funky odor in your pee is a natural biological phenomenon, and although it may not be the most savory topic, asparagus urine is certainly something many of us have dealt with. What causes this bizarre odor?

Asparagus contains a high concentration of a sulfur-containing compound called asparagusic acid, named for the vegetable, of course, which can also be found in other pungent-smelling foods such as rotten eggs, onions and garlic. When your digestive system breaks down asparagusic acid, it releases volatile odoriferous components that are the culprits of the strange smell associated with asparagus urine. This process is so quick that the distinctive smell can develop within 15 to 30 minutes of eating asparagus, which can lead to unfortunate social circumstances such as awkward dinner-party bathroom breaks and avoidance of all beverages when asparagus is on the menu.

However, the asparagus pee phenomenon does not affect all asparagus-eaters equally (though this is not an excuse to deny that you were the one who left a strange-smelling aroma in the bathroom). As asparagus pee is such a hot topic in the both the scientific and culinary world, there have been various studies regarding it, and apparently between 22 percent and 50 percent of the population report having pungent urine after eating the vegetable in question.

So why isn’t the other 50 percent to 78 percent of the population familiar with the acrid stench of asparagus pee? There are two schools of thought on this issue. One is that only certain people’s digestive systems work in such a way that breaks down the asparagusic acid to release the sulfurous compounds. Therefore, certain people simply do not have the metabolic ability to create asparagus urine.

The other school of thought regarding asparagus’ odoriferous effects on urination is that the DNA code-associated nasal receptors that detect the specific compounds created by asparagus urine only exist in some people. In this case, all humans produce funny-smelling pee after ingesting asparagus, but only certain individuals with a particularly sharp sense of smell can (unfortunately) detect the odor. In other words, while all of us have the ability to produce volatile-smelling urine, only some of us have keen enough noses to suffer from the results.

Sadly, it is is not currently the No. 1 priority of food scientists to nail down the exact DNA sequence that codes for either the ability to metabolize asparagus into sulfurous compounds or the sequence that allows us to smell said compounds. So until researchers are able identify this variation in your genome and subsequently alter the DNA sequence to desensitize you to the pungent aroma produced by eating this delicious spring vegetable, you’re stuck with smelling asparagus urine for the rest of your life.

Since this is the case, I say that the 22 percent to 50 percent of us who cringe at the thought of the alarming smell of asparagus pee should no longer hide in fear. Now that the elephant in the room has been addressed, you should not be ashamed to release those volatile sulfurous compounds after savoring a delicious side of asparagus to accompany your springtime supper. Asparagus is only in season for a few short months out of the year, so don’t let the fear of producing asparagus pee hamper your enjoyment of this tasty vegetable. Instead, celebrate your genetic gift, and cross your fingers that the person who uses the bathroom next lacks the ability to smell asparagus urine.

Contact Erika Chan at echan@dailycal.org.

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After being seated, diners are presented with both a menu and a ticket. This golden ticket is the key to your inner pizza. When your design specifications are ready, you take the ticket up to the “Building Department,” where you are faced with a myriad of fresh sauces and seasonal ingredients, many of which are organic or local when possible. From here, you get to, yes, build your own pizza. I built two, one with smoked mozzarella, mushrooms, roasted garlic and anchovies on red sauce and the other with olives, onions, pulled mozzarella and pancetta also with red sauce.

While the pizzas baked in a stone, wood-burning oven, chef Clara Yun fixed a custom salad with cucumbers, beets, pickled onions and olives finished with house vinaigrette. BUILD offers some standard pizza and salad options as well, such as Mediterranean-style pizza or Caesar salad.

In almost no time, the pizzas were finished cooking and delivered to the table steaming, thin-crusted with a nice snap and crunch, tasting subtly charred in a way that can only be achieved in a wood-burning oven. The pizza was quite delicious, with no ingredient overpowering another, allowing for your personal creativity to shine through.

For patrons who are of age, BUILD has a full bar with wines, craft beers on tap and an array of original cocktails conceived by consulting mixologist Scott Beattie. The bar also has a full cocktail menu inspired by Italian tapas.

Owners Lisa Holt and David Shapiro also hope to use the restaurant to expand charitable efforts through the BUILD Pizzeria Foundation. The foundation will focus on environmental and planetary causes, local and community-based areas of concern and organizations that assist in the empowerment of women.

When it comes to pizza, though, “it’s all about choice and your own individuality,” Holt says. And come Tuesday, diners will get to make that choice, but it’s not a difficult one. BUILD Pizzeria Roma’s pizza stands apart from its competitors on Shattuck and deserves a build or two.

BUILD Pizzeria Roma is located at 2286 Shattuck Ave.

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Grilled cheese might be simple, but there are some very exciting variations on the theme. Depending on how well equipped your kitchen is, your grilled cheese experience can take you down one of the following three paths.

Any bread and any cheese will do. Just make sure you have enough to feed yourself and any jealous roommates.

Stove top: Just like mom used to make it. A pan, a little bit of nonstick cooking spray and maybe a little butter, and you are in business.

Panini press: It might be an expensive piece for your kitchen, but you will thank yourself time and again for the investment. Panini presses produce restaurant-quality grilled cheese faster than the old-fashioned way, and you get the cool grill lines!

Blowtorch: It isn’t efficient, but it sure is fun. Making a grilled cheese sandwich with a creme brulee torch is an experience that you won’t soon forget.

The grilled cheese sandwich is really just the jumping-off point for making many gourmet sandwiches. A personal favorite is the bacon-fried grilled cheese. Start by cooking bacon in a pan, leaving the extra grease in the pan instead of nonstick cooking spray, and be sure to put your cooked bacon back into the sandwich afterward for extra flavor.

Fry up some bacon first, add it to your sandwich, then grill the sandwich in the bacon fat for extra flavor.

Oh, and if you’re lactose-intolerant like me, don’t forget your lactaid pill.

Happy National Grilled Cheese Day!

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This question can be answered by simple science. Let’s start with toothpaste.

Toothpaste contains sodium lauryl ether sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate, both of which cause toothpaste’s foamy qualities when you brush your teeth. The two function as surfactants that lower the surface tension on your teeth and tongue, allowing debris and grime to be brushed away. However, they also have nasty side effects that cause food to taste far less palatable. First, these ingredients suppress taste bud receptors that perceive sweetness. Second, their surfactant qualities break down phospholipid fat molecules, which usually coat your tongue to protect it from overwhelmingly bitter tastes. The combination of suppressed sweetness and enhanced bitterness explains why drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth tastes like ingesting rancid bile.

So how do you maintain your personal hygiene and continue to enjoy the flavors of otherwise delicious foods? You can brush your teeth after eating. Also, there are SLES-free toothpastes on the market that will leave your taste buds unaffected and squeaky clean (though far less frothy). You can also try clearing away the toothpaste residue by eating nonsweet foods such as bread or crackers and cross your fingers that it does the trick before you go for that refreshing glass of OJ (or tequila sunrise).

What about pineapple? While some are more sensitive than others, many people experience a burning, prickly sensation after eating pineapple, so much so that it can destroy your taste buds for the remainder of the day. The suspect is a protease enzyme in pineapple called bromelain that breaks down proteins. In fact, it is often used as a meat tenderizer or in marinades. Unfortunately, it is also responsible the prickly sensation people experience while eating pineapple. How do you avoid this tastebud-ruiner? Most of the bromelain is contained in the core of the pineapple, so try to avoid eating this part. Also, with time or cooking, the enzyme breaks down, which is why canned pineapple does not induce this sensation. Instead of eating your fresh fruit right away, cut it up and let it sit out overnight to lessen the attack on your taste buds. Or you can take the nutritionally beneficial route of restricting your pineapple-eating to pineapple upside-down cake and fruit cocktail.

After all of this depressing news about things that make foods taste like poison, are there any foods that actually enhance flavors? For many of us, it would be a dream come true if all foods tasted sweet. Look no further than the artichoke. Have you ever noticed that after eating a fresh artichoke, even a sip of water tastes sugary? As it turns out, this is due to a chemical reaction from two chemicals found in artichokes, cholorgenic acid and cynarin. Cyanarin in particular inhibits taste buds that detect sweet flavors. Therefore, any food or drink consumed after eating an artichoke will wash away the cyanarin, causing your taste buds to detect an extreme contrast in sweetness, which your brain perceives as an overwhelmingly sweet taste. Artichokes may not be able to make vegetables taste like candy, but they can be used to mask slightly unpleasant flavors like, say, vegetables, toothpaste-induced bitter orange juice or post-pineapple prickle-mouth.

Photo credit: Orofacial, Micaela Vega and foodiesathoome.com via Creative Commons.

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Livability, a website that determines “America’s best places to live and visit,” recently published its top 10 foodie cities, and the only West Coast city to make the list was Berkeley, which came in fourth place.

The entry on Berkeley cites its “European-style marketplaces, boutique restaurants and artisan food shops” and heralds it — and Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse, of course — as the birthplace of the “California Cuisine” movement in the 1970s.

However, instead of segueing into the secondary Gourmet Ghetto that is Fourth Street, Livability zeroes in on the offerings down Shattuck Avenue, praising Angeline’s Louisiana Kitchen, La Note and Bistro Liaison for breaking the “healthily sophisticated” mold.

Read the entire top 10 list below:

1. Decatur, Ga.
2. Hoboken, N.J.
3. Bloomington, Ind.
4. Berkeley, Calif.
5. Madison, Wis.
6. Lafayette, La.
7. Chapel Hill, N.C.
8. Santa Fe, N.M.
9. Alexandria, Va.
10. Burlington, Vt.

Christopher Yee is the editor of Eating Berkeley. Contact him at cyee@dailycal.org.

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I sympathize with those of you who sift through bags and bags of Lucky Charms to painstakingly remove all of the hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers and blue moons. Even worse, what is one to do when traveling abroad and cereal marshmallows are nowhere to be found?

Look no further than Cereal Marshmallows, a website devoted entirely to selling, well, cereal marshmallows. Whether mega-sized 95-pound bags are your thing or if you prefer individual 7-ounce packages, this website will satisfy your sweet tooth. And, if you’re counting those carbs and trying to slim down for spring break, coming soon are 100-calorie single serving bags that will practically melt the fat away.

The story of the website is really quite touching. Nathan Wratislaw, a connoisseur and epicurean of cereal marshmallows, searched far and wide to attain these little gems — but to no avail. However, after contacting several wholesale distributors and tasting second-rate “soft, yucky, marshmallows,” he finally struck gold and ordered 10,000 pounds of the creme de la creme of cereal marshmallows. Lucky for you, he portions the marshmallows into user-friendly packages that you can order and have delivered right to the comfort of your own dorm, apartment or home.

The website not only allows you to buy mass quantities of air disguised as small, sugary and colorful bites, but it is also a great source of culinary knowledge for expanding your palate and use of cereal marshmallows. Who knew these little delights could be used to create cereal marshmallow brownies, or even cereal marshmallow mac and cheese?

Bored of Lucky Charms? The website’s creator provides more than 15 videos of himself eating cereal marshmallows in all kinds of cereals, from Shredded Wheat to Cookie Crisp — complete with commentary, ratings on a scale from one to 10 and very audible chewing. With this plethora of options, you’ll certainly want to consider joining the Frequent Buyers Club, in which you can “Qualify for a lot of Discounts and Specials and a FREE Birthday Gift!!”

For those of you that have been searching far and wide to satisfy your addiction for crisp, artificially-colored, rehydratable goodness, order your very own stash today. From what I hear, they’re magically delicious.

Contact Erika Chan at echan@dailycal.org.

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Impress your friends at brunch or wow your sleepover guests with your cooking skills. Creating the perfect omelet takes nothing more than eggs and a little confidence. Omelets allow for some of the most exquisite combinations of flavors — both savory and sweet — making them a wonderful addition to any aspiring student chef’s repertoire.

Crafting the perfect omelet starts with mastering the flip, so get to it. Grab a dozen eggs, and get cracking.

Contact Andrew Steinsapir at asteinsapir@dailycal.org.

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