By: Ajmal Abdirahman

Canjeero is a breakfast staple in Somalia. Both my mom and dad would eat it almost every morning when they lived in Somalia. It’s one of my favorites from Somali food. I grew up eating it almost everyday just like my parents. My mom would get up very early in the morning and make a big batch of Canjeero and alongside she would also make her signature Somali shaax!

Canjeero can be eaten in many different ways. Like with shaax (which is Somali tea), with sugar and sesame oil, with goat or camel liver (which is called “beer” in Somali), with oodkaac (which is a Somali dish of preserved jerky style beef cubes), or my favorite way, with honey!

Somali tea (Shaax), was first introduced to Somalia through ancient trade with the Indians and Arabs. It’s typical for Somalis to drink this throughout the day but mostly at breakfast or late at night. Tea is widely preferred in Somalia over coffee. If you add milk to your tea then it is called Shaax Bigaysi.

I asked my mother for her recipes; here they are!

Canjeero Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 cup of self rising flour
• 1 cup of corn flour
• Pinch of salt
• 3-4 cups of water
• 1 teaspoon of yeast
• 1 tablespoon of sugar

Instructions on how to make Canjeero:

1. First combine all the flours in one large bowl along with the salt, sugar, and yeast and whisk well
2. Add the water slowly until you get the right consistency (thick and smooth)
3. Then let the batter sit for an hour or overnight
4. Enjoy!

Shaax Recipe:

Ingredients:

• Cold water (amount is how much tea you want to make)
• 1⁄2 cup of sugar
• Cardamom (add desired amount)
• Cinnamon sticks (add desired amount)
• Cloves (add desired amount)
• Ginger (you can use powdered ginger but fresh is best, also add desired amount)
• Black tea bags or black tea leaves (add desired amount)

Instructions on how to make Shaax:

1. First grab a kettle and pour your cold water into it
2. Either boil the water first or boil when all ingredients are added
3. Add your sugar
4. Then add all your spices, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and ginger, then let that all boil together
5. When that all boils together nicely add your tea bags or tea leaves
6. Boil for a couple of minutes until it gets to a dark brown color
7. Strain the tea and pour it into your thermos or tea pot
8. Enjoy!

For more information, please visit:

• “Take a Somali-Style Afternoon Break for Tea and Sweets” http://www.inquirer.com/food/recipes/somali-beignet-recipes-20211201.html
• “Just My Cup of Tea – Somali Shaah Redolent with Spices” somalikitchen.typepad.com/my-blog/2014/04/just-my-cup-of-tea-somali-shaah-redolent-with-spic es.html
• “Tea Culture – Teapedia” teapedia.org/en/Tea_culture#Western_Europe
• “Traditional Somali Canjeero/ Laxoox | Canjeero Masago” http://www.youtube.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YAdBjWxAao
• “A Survey of Laxoox/Canjeero, a Traditional Somali Flatbread: Production Styles” https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-022-00138-3

By: Jessica Garcia Saligan

CanCan Wonderland

This attraction is an amusement built in a historical building.
CanCan Wonderland has many attractions for all ages. Kids and adults can play an 18 hole mini golf course made by 18 different artists. All 18 holes are different and provide different skills. CanCan also has a ping ball arcade and many other retro arcade games. They provide many necessities to have an amazing evening.

Here is a link to find CanCan Wonderland: https://goo.gl/maps/FMmT32SeT7U2

Mall Of America

The Mall Of America has many attractions to choose from! They have an escape room with 12 different room choices from prison escape to a mansion escape. This attraction involves a lot of critical thinking so if you’re good at, that I suggest that you try it out!

The mall also has an indoor theme park with many coasters for all ages from thrill rides like the rock bottom plunge, to zip lining and many kid coasters for the little ones. I recommend the park to younger kids because the thrill rides aren’t as thrilling compared to other places, but overall, it’s a great place to spend an evening out.

If you ever get hungry while shopping, the 3rd and 4th floor have so many restaurants and fast food places and so many varieties of food you can choose from.

One thing that MOA is known for, is the biggest Sea Life in Minnesota; it has more than 10,000 underwater creatures plus the 11 breathtaking exhibits that are filled with 1.3 million gallons of water.

The Mall of America is located at: 60 E Broadway, Bloomington, MN 55425

WhirlyBall

WhirlyBall is a fun place to go out with family and friends! There are so many activities to do such as WhirlyBall, a lot of people don’t know what it is or never heard of it. WhirlyBall is a team sport that is up to 2-4 people per team. You have a bumper car and a scoop with a ball. What you have to do is make sure the ball doesn’t hit the floor and score on the opposite team’s goal.

Some other activities they have are laser tag, arcades, bowling, escape rooms, and if you really enjoy WhirlyBall you can join a Whirly League. You get a lot of benefits if you’re on the team such as exclusive food and drinks, 50% off walk-in Whirly anytime all season. It’s $5 per person for 3 games per night, which will be $75 per week. You need to have 5 players on each team and must be 18 years old to play. They are also known for how many good food options they have.

You can find WhirlyBall at: 2405 East Old Shakopee  Road,
Bloomington MN 55425

By: Mushtaq Yonis

Malawax is a Somali traditional dish that’s regularly eaten for breakfast across the country and its diaspora. Malawax is a sweet pancake similar to a crepe. Some eat it with honey and drink shaax with it which is a Somali tea.

Malawax is one of the easiest foods to make in Somali culture, which is why it’s great to make before breakfast if you’re in a rush. Just make sure you have this mixture ready in-hand before you start.

Ingredients:

• 1 cups water
• 3 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom
• 1 1⁄2 cup plain flour
• 2 egg
• 2 cups milk

If you don’t have time in the morning to make this mixture, make sure you make it by blending the ingredients the night before and refrigerate it so it doesn’t go bad.

Instructions on how to make malawax:

1. Brush a nonstick pan with butter or oil over medium heat
2. Pour a little batter into the pan and swirl it around to cover it thinly
3. Cook the malawax till they’re golden underneath, about a minute or two
4. Make sure the malawax doesn’t stick to the pan by spreading a little oil or butter
5. Flip the the malawax over and repeat

Then you are ready to enjoy the malawax! It’s best eaten when warm so make sure you eat it before it gets too cold. You can add honey or butter if you want extra taste!

By: Audrey Smith

This week I tried the Crumbl Cookie flavors. I tried 4 different flavors in total. The theme this week was Saint Patrick’s Day, with a gold coin cookie, a green mint cookie, and Lucky Charms cookie.

The first flavor I tried was Lucky Charms flavored. It had a marshmallow cream cheese frosting and it had Lucky Charms on too. Inside the vanilla cookie, there was white chocolate chips and more marshmallows. This cookie was served hot. I would have to say this was one of the best Crumbl Cookies I’ve had. I would rate this a 10/10.

The next flavor I tried was the mint chocolate cookie. It was a chocolate cookie with green mint frosting and a chocolate ganache on top. This cookie was served cold. I thought this tasted sort of like a thin mint but leveled up. Although the flavor was good, I don’t really like mint so I would have to rate this cookie a 5/10.

The cookies and cream cookie was next. It was a vanilla cookie mixed with an Oreo cookie in marble. It had Oreos on top and was drizzled in white icing. This cookie was served hot. It was a good cookie, but I feel like I could have made it at home. I would rate this cookie a 7/10, it tasted good, it just wasn’t that impressive.

The last cookie we tried was the French Silk cookie. This cookie was a dense chocolate cookie, almost like a brownie, and it had a milk chocolate silk frosting with whipped cream. I really didn’t like the texture of the cookie, I thought it was too dense. Along with this, the flavor wasn’t that good at all. I would rate this cookie a 4/10.

Overall, this week was okay, and the Lucky Charms cookie was one of my favorites. I’d give this week a 7/10.

By: Joseph Nelson

We all know that building with the weird roof on the top of it. The same roof that draws thousands of customers into the building to order the now well known pizzas that Pizza Hut offers.

But there’s a problem, the yearly sales for the franchise have only gone down in the years! What does this mean? How has this happened? Has someone finally out pizza’d the hut?

In 1990 Pizza Hut had the reputation of having some of the craziest pizza ideas like the Bigfoot, that was a 2 foot wide and 1 foot long pizza, where at one point made a total of 18% of Pizza Huts total revenue. But that wasn’t even close to the sales of their stuffed crust pizza that totaled around 1 billion dollars worth of sales in its first year.

Along with all these ideas, Pizza Hut served as a more modern and fancy pizza restaurant where families and friends could come together to dine in instead of the now very popular delivery service that Dominos has pioneered. But, like all good things, they must come to an end.

Pizza Hut had finally started to cut down on quality and started raising prices with many critics calling out the change in Pizza Hut sauce as the start of its downward spiral. With this new sauce came new pricing with now a large pizza costing $8.49 instead of $6.49.

With the new pricing came new problems with the teen audience (who was their main audience they attempted to appeal to) being in outrage that their after school hangout spot just got a little more expensive.

The competition didn’t help either, with places like Dominos and Papa Johns making compelling and appealing prices to old Hut customers, with more bang for their buck, with a small Domino’s pizza almost costing only half of a small Pizza Hut pizza.

Now, finally Pizza Hut is seeing the downsides like in 2019 when they were forced to close more than 500 restaurants due to underperformance and lack of finances.

Pizza Hut has been a staple to many with the iconic saying “You can’t out-pizza the hut” but it truly seems like the hut has been out-pizza’d for a long time.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.eatthis.com/news-pizza-hut-favor-customers/

By: Rose Ramadan and Thea Berg

In this article, we will be reviewing the difference in pop flavors. We chose to compare Pepsi and Coke flavors, due to the big controversy surrounding them. We tested regular Pepsi, regular Coke, Cherry Pepsi, and Cherry Coke. We also tested the different pop brands they own. For Pepsi, we tested Sierra Mist and for Coke, we tested Sprite.

Our outcomes were as anticipated. More so than Pepsi, we preferred most Coke products. On a scale of 1 to 10, we assigned each pop a flavor rating. Then a bubble scale from 1 to 10. The aftertaste on a scale of 1 to 10.

The majority of Coke products scored an 8 on the flavor rating. They scored a 6 on the bubbling scale, primarily due to our distaste for bubbly beverages. On the aftertaste, they scored an average of 9.

Pepsi, on the other hand, scored an average of 6 on the flavor scale. On the scale of bubbling, they scored a 5. Finally, they scored an average of 7 for aftertaste.

To dive deeper, let’s review each comparison. To start with regular Coke versus Pepsi; the Coke had more of a refreshing taste. It was more pleasing to our taste buds and overall it had a better lasting flavor. In addition, it didn’t have much of an aftertaste compared to Pepsi, where the aftertaste had more of an unhealthy taste. Because of this, Coke had way more of a higher rating in our books.

To compare Cherry Coke versus Cherry Pepsi, we could hardly taste a difference between the two of them. As stated before, the Coke had more of a refreshing taste. We probably couldn’t tell the difference between them if it came down to it, though. The comparison between these two was hard.

Last, we compared Sierra Mist to Sprite. Sierra Mist, being a Pepsi product, and Sprite, being a Coke product. Though both are on the top of the list for our favorite pop drinks, we prefer Sierra Mist by a lot more. It has a sweeter taste and is more pleasing to our taste buds. It also has less bubbles which makes it more of an appealing option to the two of us.

The differences between the flavors of the regular Coke and Pepsi were subtle, but noticeable. Regular Pepsi tends to be sweeter, but it also has 2 more grams of sugar than Coke does, so the sweetness level makes sense. Coke is a little less sweet and has a more flavorful taste than Pepsi does. Pepsi also has more of a slightly citrusy tang, but Coke has more of a raisiny-vanilla flavor, although both Coke and Pepsi have very similar recipes that both contain carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, and caffeine.

One main difference between these two drink recipes is that Pepsi has the ingredient of citric acid in their drink, and Coke does not. The citric acid is what sets the flavors apart between the drinks and makes Pepsi have the citrus flavor over the vanilla raisin flavor.

Coke also had more carbonation and bubbles than Pepsi did, we thought that Pepsi seemed a little more flat and less bubbly.

Between the 2 of us we both agreed that we liked the flavor that Coke had better than the flavor of Pepsi. We both preferred the less sweet flavor and the less tangy flavor because we thought it tasted more authentic with the raisiny-vanilla flavor.

We also liked the carbonation level that Coke had better than the carbonation level of Pepsi.

Overall, we both agreed that the Coke products were better than the Pepsi products based on a lot of factors. Pepsi had many good flavors, and it had the upper hand with Sierra Mist, but most of the other flavors of drinks were in favor of Coke products.

By: Toby Martin-Kohls

Caribou Coffee is a worldwide coffee chain headquartered in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. It was also founded here in-state, in Edina, in 1992. As of May 2015, the company operates 603 locations worldwide.

Caribou is your typical American brand coffee chain, similar to Starbucks, Dunkin, Dutch Bros, and Peet’s coffee chains. They offer coffee and an array of snacks and bakery items.

On a Saturday morning, I decided to go venture out and try some of their bakery items, which I’d never tried before. This article was a good excuse for me to go buy some coffee, muffins, croissants, and scones.

The service I received was pretty good. I felt the price for the items was reasonable and each of the three items I tried, were all offered to be warmed up for me.

The first item I tried was their Blueberry Muffin. I received the muffin in a typical brown to-go bag. I’m going to be honest, looking at the muffin out of the bag was uninspiring. You could see a couple of blueberries from the top but not as much as you would like to see.

I was pleasantly surprised when I bit into the muffin, as it was warm and not dry. You could taste the blueberries but they didn’t overpower the muffin. It was sweet, but not overly sweet (like some of the other items!). The texture was wonderful, making it easy to enjoy.

The next item I sampled was their Raspberry White Chocolate Scone. It took me two locations to find them, so this may be a popular item. I opted to not have this one warmed up and was satisfied with my choice.

The white chocolate was the best part of the item, as it was nice to differentiate from just regular chocolate.

Fun fact: did you know that white chocolate is not actually chocolate and is actually made of just sugar, cocoa butter, and milk?

I was surprised by the sweetness of the chocolate complimenting the raspberry taste, but it worked pretty well. I thought the scone was soft and almost buttery-like, which made it enjoyable to eat without feeling too heavy or dense.

The sweetness was pretty good and balanced, but the coarse sugar sprinkled on the top might be a little much for some.

The last item I tried was their Lemon Poppy Seed Bread. As an avid lover of poppy seed muffins, I was excited to try this item. It is an old-fashioned pound cake with lemon zest, black poppy seeds, and icing.

I also got this item warmed up, which I think greatly improved the niceness of this item. Having your pastry warm just adds another level of comfort. The balance of flavors stood out to me, as the lemon flavor was there without being too overpowering of the bread. I got a little tired of the icing, but most will not notice the sweetness as much as I did.

Overall, Caribou has a solid selection of pastry items, perfect for when you want a little snack with your coffee on your way to work, school, or whatever!