One time for 2022 - FOOD

No, literally, I'm going to blog once this whole year. It has been a year of personal and professional growth, but as you can tell, it's been offline. Frankly, the lines between personal and professional have been hazy these last couple years and this year I got a better grip on that.

What knowledge could I possibly impart on this last day of 2022 that would matter at all? I guess I'll just say the following things about something deeply personal and important to me: food.

First, I've tried new food things, especially plant based things. I made tofu tacos and they were great. Tofu gets a bad rap. I want to explore more and more this coming year - new spices and lots and lots of new soups. My dziadek would be proud. 

• If I can make a recommendation for a blog AND a book, I would say Love & Lemons. Jeanine and Jack make a plant-based diet so accessible and delicious with all of their wonderful recipes. Gonna' buy this book for myself, not gonna' lie. Got that spiral-bound for heavy use. 

Next, I love growing stuff I eat. To be clear, I'm only talking plants here. I'm not a great gardener. In fact, I have a little plot of dead seedlings I was experimenting with downstairs right now. However, I won't give up. There's something really great about having my own little patch of land where I can grow things that I can harvest and enjoy throughout the year. There are tons of resources out there, but here's a few of my favorites:

• Book: The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch
• The joe gardener Show podcast

My absolute favorite purchase in the last year or two has been my compost machine. Yes, I have a compost pile way in the back, but it takes a long time and frankly, I kept adding to it, never really having a complete pile. Now, I use Vitamix's FoodCycler FC-50. It's worth every, single penny. It's also made me much more in tune with how much food waste we're producing. Hopefully it will help my sketchy garden journey, too!

Lastly, I've really taken a liking to tracking my food and drink by simply making quick pages with a bunch of days and happily track along as I see fit. I journal if I'm feeling the spirit, but sometimes, I just want to mark what I consumed and get on with it. It's flexible and perfect. Hopefully I can incorporate more meal planning, but that's an ongoing struggle. 

Have a safe and happy new year!

New habits for the new year

Recently I finished a book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. This book sat on my "To-Read" shelf in Goodreads since 2016! It was time, and there was no better time, frankly. 

Interestingly, I gave this book a piddly 3 of 5 star rating. When I looked it up for this post, I updated it to four. I haven't stopped thinking about this book for the last couple of weeks. It prepared me to get ready to make real changes in the new year with a focus on good habits.

The book talks about both sides of the habit coin - the good and the bad. Exercise is a great habit. Gambling is not. Habits give our brains the ability to go into auto pilot on some things (morning hygiene, driving to work, etc.) so that we can give energy and literal thought to other, more complex stuff, like reading, using a new tool, solving an equation, etc. 

I FINALLY learned more about the "reptile" part of the human brain - the great basal ganglia. It's a more primitive part of the brain that is about the size of a golf ball and is "primarily for motor control, as well as other roles such as motor learning, executive functions and behaviors, and emotions." This area controls your habits. 

My favorite and most actionable learning from this title was about the habit loop. This really simplified it for me and got me thinking about my own habits. This habit loop helped me articulate three simple, new habits for 2021. 

Water Habit.

• Cue: "Dang, I'm dehydrated." 
• Routine: Every morning after I make my coffee, I now also empty the tea kettle and prepare some drinking water for the day. The reason I have drinking water out of the kettle is because I hate buying plastic bottles and I have sensitive teeth, so a nice, tall glass of lukewarm water is my jam. I fill up the kettle and boil it for the next morning. 
• Reward: As I ripen, dehydration impacts me a LOT more, so I'm trying to stay juiced with H2O. I have fewer stomach problems, my skin is less dry, and I avoid sugary beverages and snacks by constantly sipping.

Breakfast Habit. 

• Cue: My stomach contracts into painful hunger pangs throughout day. Also, need to take Vitamin D with a meal. Was scolded by primary physician. 😒
• Routine: While I mention oatmeal in that example, I'm really going to focus on keeping breakfast quick and simple. I'm going to bore myself to death with a week-long, repetitive breakfast with the goal of taking my Vitamin D with a meal. So far so good, but I have a lot of oatmeal I don't want to waste, so I will be bored to death with oatmeal breakfast until spring, probably. I will say this - I get really friggin' intense hunger pangs in the morning. The moment some coffee hits the belly, it triggers my metabolism in an unpleasant way. 
• Reward: Since I've been eating this boring ass oatmeal every day, I haven't had hunger pangs at all and my appetite is a little less, uh, ravenous throughout the day.

Gratitude Morning Meditation. There are lots of studies out there that tell us the positive impacts of gratitude. Feeling grateful for stuff is a practice in mindfulness. And while it's not easy for me to sit still, I know I have time for this quick meditation. 

• Cue: It's important to feel gratitude every day and preferably first thing in the morning.
• Routine: Set timer for one minute and focus on or say aloud the following: "I am grateful for this water. I am grateful for this food." (I should mix in a few Sun Salutations or a walk with this habit, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
• Reward: I will have set the tone for the day. Even if the rest of the day falls apart, I will have started the day being grateful and positive. 

Yes, these are pretty boring, lowkey resolutions, if you even want to call them that. But they were spawned by the ideas around habits and how they form. I'm also quite interested in getting more and more habits developed, but I don't want to overload myself and get discouraged. 

This year, I'm looking at habits around writing and reading that are more specific than I've committed to before. Reading more and writing more is great, but what does that even really mean? I really started listing out some initial goals and thoughts. A blog post a month. An article for a newsletter I put together for a group at work. And journaling and counting how much I write every day. The word count has been eye-opening. 

One of the most important points that I picked up from Duhigg's book is that following and maintaining good habits leads to more good habits. And shortly after finishing the book, I heard Seth Godin on the Design Matters podcast, where he said: “Do enough bad stuff, and some good stuff is going to slip through, no matter how hard you try.” The quote captures the design thinking spirit. It let me break free of worrying about the perfect being the enemy of the good, but it also got me thinking about getting my writing out of my personal journals and notes and into the world, beyond what I do for a living. Design thinking comes through again, friends.

Good habits will lead to good things. And let's be honest, after 2020, we can all use a little more good in our lives. Cheers. 

Flour and Yeast

With all this new found time, I decided I wanted to try to learn to bake bread. Well, turns out it's hard to find yeast in the stores right now. My bread making will have to wait, but in the meantime, I learned these fun little tidbits from McGee's On Food and Cooking, cause I was like "What the hell is yeast, anyway?"

p. 531 - Flours
Both pastry and cake flours have low levels of weak gluten protein for making tender baked goods. Cake flour is distinctive because it's treated with chlorine dioxide or chlorine gas.

Leavenings are ingredients that fill doughs and batters with bubbles of gas, thus reducing the amount of solid materials in a given volume and making the bread or cake less dense and more light and tender.

p. 532 - Yeasts
The yeasts are a group of microscopic, single-celled fungi, relatives of the mushrooms. More than 100 species are known.

Air frying is great + cookbook recommendation

In my house, we like to use all kinds of gadgets in the kitchen, from little garlic mincer machines, to stuff like the Instant Pot and air fryer. I have had much more success with the latter.

Air frying is a great way to cook with much less oil. As with any new gadget, it takes a second to get used to and probably the biggest complaint about air fryers is that they are too small. As with any recipes, you'll have to think about how many you'll be cooking for and opt for the proper size air fryer.

Also, when getting an air fryer, I would recommend making sure the dial for the temperature can turned at 5 degree increments. Mine only does 25 degree increments, i.e. 300 to 325 to 350 degrees and requires adjusting times and stuff.

I found a book that was pretty great and gave me tons of ideas and temperature/time charts to work with: The Super Easy Air Fryer Cookbook by Brandi Crawford. I checked it out from the library and will immediately be adding it to my book birthday wish list to own.

Five stars ★★★★★ for both the book and the cooking method.

Learning about billionaire libertarians and their mind boggling perspective of injustice

The Koch Family. Phew. I'm already tired, fam.

The book I am reading right now - Dark Money - is not flattering to the family, particularly the two that at the helm of Koch Industries: Charles and the now deceased David. This book is a dizzying portrait of how some very wealthy people classify government regulations as injustice.

Um. Are you kitten me right meow?

Let's pause. The perspective of the ultra wealthy is surreal and distorted, albeit fascinating, in ways I completely overlooked or underestimated. My mind is blown by the idea that a billionaire has any clue what injustice is, but here we are.

Today, I learned what Charles Koch thinks is not just. This person, just like his father before him, hates government and the regulations the government imposes on companies and business. All of it. He hates taxes. He hates environmental regulations. He hates the idea of being transparent in his business dealings.

Koch Industries has been burned by quite a few lawsuits and settlements. In one case, a guy worked with benzene all the time and the company tested his blood annually. The company was supposed to share the results with employees if there were alarming levels, but Koch Industries didn't tell this guy for like two years. The worker got sick with leukemia, kept going to work, but when he got too weak to work, he was friggin' let go with six months pay (basically his sick bank). The widow thought the company would take care of them. Not even close. Thankfully she fought. The day before they were to go to court, the company settled.

In another case, the company didn't update an aging gas line which resulted in a couple people trying to start their truck and EXPLODING INTO A HUGE FIREBALL. The father of the driver won a $296 million dollar settlement. Instead of addressing the bad pipelines, Koch Industries just sold it. In another case, a whistle blower went to report Koch industries when they reported a completely falsified report on how much pollution was being created by a facility.

Okay, so this guy Charles Koch, the main dude at Koch Industries, is listed ninth on the Bloomberg Billionaires list. His company has annual revenue of $110 BILLION dollars. And this is the person who feels that the government making his company report alarming blood results to coworkers is not just. He doesn't think he should have to worry about bad gas lines his company is profiting off of. This guy's company ripped off Native Americans by purposefully mis-measuring oil taken from indigenous lands. This guy thinks having his pollution-spewing, employee-killing, ethically questionable company regulated is injustice.

This would be laughable if it wasn't straight up terrifying.

The Freedom School: "We're not anarchists, we're autarchists" - yeah okay pal

This book I'm reading, Dark Money, is pretty disturbing. I'm not even halfway through and I can't tell if I'm supposed to laugh or cry. Do I continue to believe in humanity, or make a hermit plan and escape society? I'm gonna' stick around, but, dang humanity. Do better.

This book starts off with some history on the Koch family and about libertarian movement. I always fancied libertarians as harmless. Just some sweet little anarchists that want to smoke pot and get a prostitute legally. Nah, I was wrong. They aren't harmless. The ones in charge are dangerous and they are very, very smart.

And of course some are crazy af. Like this Santa Claus-looking dude Robert LeFevre that created a fringe group called the Freedom School in 1957. LeFevre hated Communism. Simultaneously, he favored abolition of the United States government. He also thought he had supernatural powers, floundered into bankruptcy, and was obsessed with a 14 year old girl. 

Listen to the crap this Freedom School belched out into the world of ideas (real shit ideas, I might add):

• Taught a revisionist history that painted robber barons as heroes and the Gilded Age as the U.S.'s golden era.
• Taxes were theft.
• The weak and poor should be taken care of by the wealthy, not by government.
• The South should have been allowed to secede and people "should be allowed to sell themselves into slavery if they wished." (No, I'm not making this up.)

It's no surprise a group of teachers that went to the Freedom School for a session immediately called the FBI after they returned. The teachers said the school was proposing the Bill of Rights be reduced to "just a single one: the right to own property" and calling for no police, no fire, no help for the poor, etc.

While, this LeFevre freak clearly should not have been an inspiration to any-damn-body, the book says that the Freedom School was "seminal to Charles Koch's political evolution."

Welp...

To a new year, new era and new ways of thinking

Today we talk about no limits in writing and listening.

This post should have happened at the end of the year, or maybe right at the beginning of the new one. It should have been robust, maybe broken up into multiple posts. Maybe I should have proofread more. Maybe I should have perfected every bit of the prose and appeased the grammar goons. Instead, I just freaking wrote it and forgot to publish it.

Yet that is not what my New Year intention was. One of my most important intentions this year was to write. And not just write, but to:

• Write all the time and about every topic.
• When I don't have a topic, come up with one, because this life is full of endless splendor and suffering and everything in between. 
• Come up with words. Because "I can't even" and "I have no words" are not what writers are about. We have to articulate and HAVE THE WORDS.
• Write everywhere; it will help with writing all the time. In the past, I wanted to make sure my work stuff was in my journal designated for work. My trivia notebook was strictly for trivia. My personal journal could never have notes on work. I stopped taking notes because I was being overwhelmed by pieces of paper. I didn't know where my digital notes where. Well, you know what, not writing things down is crap. I will find the notes. I will learn from them. I will lose the notes, and find them again. I will never, ever regret writing something down again, and I will never limit myself to where I write. 

Through this commitment to myself, that I will write come hell or high water, I discovered a way to support another resolution. I have a whole pile of those. Some resolutions are perennial - reading more, writing more, working out. This second specific one, though, it's special. And I think I'm doing okay. The second resolution is LISTENING.

Now that I have liberated my writing, I realize that writing is one of the ways I listen. Phew, having a lot of breakthroughs these last ten or so months. It's a lot to take in, but I feel better, stronger and more empowered every day.

Safety: in professional sports, campus life, reading, etc.

There has been a lot of talk around professional sports lately. Google it. However, my little heart just melts for the MLB. Detroit Tigers, to be specific.

Today I saw a tweet that talked about extending the safety netting at Comerica Park in the infield. No doubt, my season ticket partner and I regularly spoke about the extended netting. It is necessary. We saw some rough stuff. After five seasons, I have seen many unfortunate deflections, wild liners, and the terrible, collective groan of a crowd that just watched someone take a hardball to the face. You know it's bad when the entire section motions for the medics, twirling their pointer fingers to indicate, "Hurry up, help!" It's troubling.

The reputation of what it is like on a college campus is interesting, as well. For years, I have gone through fire drills, inclement weather drills, but lately my safety concerns are those of an armed assailant. I mean, really, if someone knows what they are doing, I don't have a chance. However, if I am ready to act quickly and decisively, I feel confident that I could survive some crazy sh*t.

Finally, I have heard about this book for some time and from many eclectic people. I've added it to my reading list, and am prioritizing it much higher: Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker. I've lived in Detroit. I've worked with the public. I have the gift of fear and I would definitely like to understand it better.

Be ready. That way, you don't have to waste time getting ready.

Happy Belated, George Orwell!

I can't believe I missed George Orwell's birthday! Luckily, The Writer's Almanac reminded me. He was born on June 25, 1903 in Motihari, India and wrote two of my favorite novels: Animal Farm and 1984. Those novels, I feel, are uncomfortably relevant today in the United States. The Writer's Almanac selected a quote that gave me chills...

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Ya heard?

Banana bread & cookbook tip

One of my favorite cookbooks that I can pop open and get a great recipe each time is Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. The binder version is the one to get, but I got the bound copy and use it relentlessly.

Strangely enough, tonight I used a recipe that I DIDN'T get out of this book, but I can always make more than one banana bread loaf.

Book Review: Phenomenal Woman

Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women by Maya Angelou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whenever I feel the pressure of a misogynistic world, this is the book I will run to. I will open this tiny collection of four poems and gain the strength and power of a truly phenomenal woman. When I have my own home and I begin to collect the books that I want at my side, this will be one of the first I seek.

...
They accuse me of livin'
from day to day,
but who are they kiddin'?
So are they.

My life ain't heaven
but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top
but I call it swell

From Weekend Glory


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Book Review: Dog Songs

Dog Songs by Mary Oliver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wish I could give this book more than five stars. Since my father passed away, I have considered death and dying so much more seriously. This book took me back to all my dogs and reminded me of the love I had for all of them. And frankly, it reminded me of all the love that they had for me. It did not matter we were poor. It did not matter that perhaps we didn't always share the happiest of times. Those dogs showed our family unconditional, wild love. I love each and every one of those doggies.

If you are hurting from a loss of a dog, read this book. The poetry touched my heart in so many ways and pulled a few tears from my eyes. This is what poetry does. Like dogs, it reminds us that there is still something wild inside us, love. Love is so natural and real and burns into the very being of us as humans. It is joyous, yes. But once love is gone, taken by death, it hurts.

This book, I believe, can help us heal when we hurt. The memories that we hold close keep the spirits of the departed with us forever.


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Book Review: Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book a lot, even though there were some rough patches. By page 40, I actually put the book down and started implementing some of the common sense tactics that David Allen describes. He does mention that he repeats a lot and while that's true, I felt that helped. The Getting Things Done (GTD) system is really, really great. Once I started practicing the method, I noticed better results, less stress and more control over my work.

One thing I will share is that while I gave this four stars, I think a lot of people might find it boring. Even I was a little bored at some parts and I LOVE reading about productivity. It's a really great system and if you can keep with it, I do suggest finishing it, because there are a couple really strong chapters at the end.


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Some notes:

• Choose one project that is new or stuck or could simply use some improvement. Think of your purpose. Think of what a successful outcome would look like ... Brainstorm potential steps. Organize your ideas. Decide on next actions. Are you any clearer about where you want to go and how to get there? p. 63
• "I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific." ~Lily Tomlin p. 71
• The more novel the situation, the more control required. p. 188
• Checklists at all levels: job duties, annual goals, weekly reviews, training, people to stay in touch with, year end (FY and CY). p. 189 
• Get clear, current or creative. p. 195
• Things that have your attention need your intention engaged. p. 268
• You can create the right placeholder for any type of potentially meaningful data. p. 294

Book Review: Manhattan Transfer

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is set in the 1920's in New York City. It really captures the Jazz Age through a story full of characters that are all acquainted in one way or another. There are a couple tales that capture the fall from grace that some people experienced as the banks started failing. It also takes place over about 20 years. As a classic, I liked this novel. It was interesting and it certainly took me back to Prohibition New York. It's a little tough to read because, well, it came out in 1925, but also because sometimes the narration of the story digresses into a dreamy internal dialogue. Also, while there are line breaks between the stories within paragraphs, the character perspectives would change right in the middle of a section. Still, I enjoyed the book. It was dark, but in a subtle way.


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Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

11/22/63 by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

11/22/63 by Stephen King
While I really enjoyed this book, I thought it could have been 300 pages shorter. For the first 2/3's of this book, I fell soundly asleep multiple times. However, the last 1/3 of the book really picked up pace and really had me captivated. I really like Uncle Stevie and his writing, I just wish he'd tighten up the writing. What do I know? HE'S the wealthy, popular and prolific author - not me. Anyway, happy to finally finish this fatty. Anyway, happy to finally finish this fatty. I really have to stop picking such hulking books. They put me behind on my reading every year, it seems. I still really liked this book. A little time travel never hurt nobody. AND Uncle Stevie drizzled in a little bit of dystopia. Nice.

Here are some passages I jotted down:

"Business is like a god in '58--everybody worships it but nobody understands it." (p 92)

"We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Not until the future eats the present, anyway. We know when it's too late." (p 454)

"He did it [listened] as the world's more charming and magnetic people do, always asking the right questions at the right time, never figeting or taking his eyes from the speaker's face, making the other guy feel like the most knowledgeable, brilliant and intellectually savvy person on the planet." (p 494)

"For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this?" (p 615)

Couple words I learned:

obdurate adj. - unmoved by persuasion, pity or tender feelings; stubborn, unyielding

elan n. - dash, imetuous ardor

Year of Gratitude - Day 336 - Velveteen Rabbit

When I was very young, I read The Velveteen Rabbit. I don't remember it at all and added it as my next classic to read. I was inspired to do so by coming across this somewhere on the internet:

Year of Gratitude - Day 273 - Elie Wiesel

Today is the birthday of Elie Wiesel. I read Night in the early 2000s and it changed me. I started to learn about the Holocaust, the role Poland, my home country, played in it and the very complex human issues generated by that genocidal event. Night was the first time I started to think about how memory, bureaucracy and evil can all be intertwined to destroy people, entire societies.  

I am grateful to have read this book and to have embarked on a scholarly journey that, though dark, shows that humanity can overcome itself.

"Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere." 

~ Elie Wiesel

Year of Gratitude & Book Review - Day 206 - Life as we knew it

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was suggested to me a few years back and I recently saw it on a "Books you can't put down" list. It was indeed a very quick read, but I generally attribute that to young adult literature. Sometimes people are confused as to why I read so much literature dealing with dystopian worlds, miserable existences and the end of humanity. The reason is, and has been, that it makes me appreciate what I have and it makes me think about what it would be like if I DIDN'T have that.  That is definitely what this book did for me. This book is perfect for my year of gratitude.

This book is a work of fiction told through Miranda Evans's diary. She is a 16 year old girl in Pennsylvania and her entire world begins to change dramatically when the moon is struck by an asteroid. At first people celebrate, but then it's discovered that the asteroid pushed the moon closer to earth, causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and then knocking everyone off the grid. The family stays together and survives in the best way they know how. It is a part of a series and I'm not going to lie, I think I might want to continue with the series.

This book made me think deeply about my parent's love. It made me also think deeply about how fragile human life is. Back in 2003 when there was a major power outage, there was a day of celebration, then of quiet, then of slight panic that the lights weren't on. They came back on, but that was taste of how people would react. Of course, a power failure is not quite the same as a monumental natural disaster, but it was still a very sobering story.


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Year of Gratitude - Day 164

I am grateful for all the books I'm exposed to through my work at the library. Perhaps one of my favorites is a recommendation by a fellow food-loving librarian, Nicole. She shared with me Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking. As I perused her copy, I found it packed full with information, interesting information, on every variety of food. I swear there were at least 4 ways to tell if an egg is spoiled or not.

Anyway, I finally got this book added to my local library's collection. I've purchased it for a chef friend of mine. This year, I added a copy to my kitchen. I know it will be well used. 

Year of Gratitude - Day 161 - Dr. Strecher, Julia and the Dung Beetle

Yesterday at the Development Council at the University of Michigan, we heard an absolutely incredible speaker, Dr. Victor Strecher. He is the author of On Purpose, a graphic novel-like book that "shows that self-directed, positive change is possible and that pursuing a self-transcending life purpose is one of the keys."

His story is heartbreaking and inspirational. His message spoke to me so much that I sat with a frog in my throat and tear welling in my eyes. And, Dr. Strecher started talking existentialism.


He also has a website that helps you to start seeking and realizing your life's purpose. Check out: http://www.dungbeetle.org.

And check out the book, too: http://www.dungbeetle.org/buy-the-book/.

I am so grateful to have had the chance to hear Dr. Strecher speak.