Fun Interesting Informative and Delicious!

My big present to the family was a cooking class we all took together. I set it all up via email, and printed out some info from the web pages and wrapped them up in a box. I also warned everybody a week in advance that I had scheduled a family thing for Friday evening so they should plan around that.

Added this in an update: photo sent by the chef so I'm in it.

I stumbled onto this while searching for a present for the boys, both of whom like to cook a lot. Actually, all three kids like to cook. It was actually hard finding something that either the two boys, or all three kids, could do together. My middle guy is 17, so purely adult classes at most venues don't want him, but he's really too old for the "teen" stuff, and certainly his older brother is as well. Knowing my boy, I thought he would have a lot more fun if he did it with his brother rather than with strangers. So through the magic of google, I found Ben Tehranian, a personal chef, who also teaches classes in his house.

We were all a little awkward at first, but then everything thawed and we started to have a lot of fun. I had picked one of his set menus in advance:

Maryland crab soup
Baby spinach salad with hot bacon sauce
Gulf shrimp with anchovy butter sauce
Duck a la orange served over saffron risotto
Braised celery with Madeira sauce
Pistachio and almond Baklava

He started with going through each of the dishes, and what was involved. (We each got a packet of recipes, which were then set aside until the end.)  But of course, we didn't make one thing at a time - he had set it up with some prep work, but we started with the soup because it would take the longest.  So early on, he gave us each a knife and some vegetables, and had us chopping away.  Good to get the interactions going first.  

We were on our feet for about two and a half hours doing the prep. One of the most fun things was he had us tasting everything along the way. We started with the soup, and as things were added along the way, or time simply did its thing, we tasted again. It allowed us to start to figure out how individual ingredients affected the taste of the whole dish.

He was also focused on presentation.  Some of the ingredients were only for show, for color or texture, and he explained that. He plated one of everything with a good presentation, for the photo op, then we sat down and ate there, family style.

All in all, this was a terrific way to spend time together.

We had left over baklava, which was sloppier than usual baklava.  Nevertheless, the leftovers were all consumed in the car on the way home, using our fingers.  (Yes I did too!)






The summary comes from one of the kids:  Fun, interesting, informative, and delicious!

[Updated to add one more photo at the very beginning: 1/5/13]

Irresolute

I'm thinking about New Year's resolutions. Because who can avoid it at this time of year? It's all over the news and radio. I looked at last year, where I was totally and absolutely focused on learning how to run and completing the epic win:  a 5K. I did that, actually two, but I failed to make it a habit.  I signed up for additional 5Ks as a motivating tool and for a variety of poor reasons did not keep up the running.

I've got bigger problems now. In the continuum of mind-body-spirit, I think its my spirit that needs shoring up this year with some kind of resolution. So I've signed up at 750words.com, which is built on the concept of "Morning Pages". Morning Pages are one of the techniques used in the book The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. This book saved my life, back in the mid 1990s. It is because of this book I am here, in DC, able to be with my family. It pulled me out of a deep deep funk of despair, and got me off my tush and doing things. It was written out of workshops to help writers and other artists suffering from writer's block. I have never defined myself as an artist, so would never have gotten this book if it hadn't been highly recommended by someone. The book is big on the concept of serendipity, which I remember being explained as more than just coincidence, but the universe pulling together in unexpected harmony. But it doesn't just come to you, you have to get off your duff for it to happen. The practical thought is, if you are out there shaking the apple trees, the universe is likely to shower you with oranges, and its up to you to recognize the gift and use it when it comes. Don't spend time whining about how you didn't get your apples.

So I worked through the exercises in the book, most prominently the morning pages. Write three pages every single morning. Just simple, stream of consciousness. But do it. Three whole pages. Long enough to get into some actual thoughts. I did. I decided I wanted to change my job, and I thought it would be cool to live in the east, close to my family. In the middle of working through these exercises, the internet finally reached my computer at work, and I discovered a job posting in DC, described as if it were designed for me, and reporting to one of the only three people I had met that worked at the agency I'm at now.  This would be serendipity at work.

This "750 words" website is an online way to do morning pages, typing instead of writing longhand. It keeps cool stats on when and what you write, which you regular readers will know I'll like. It's all fun-ified and automated, because its designed as a project of love by a very competent Silicon Valley guy.  I stumbled across the website sometime last year, but wasn't ready to give up handwriting. I browsed to some Quantified Self YouTube videos a couple of days ago, and found Buster explaining some things he has discovered about tracking and monitoring himself and he mentioned this site as being his own. I was ready to make the move, and I've committed to 750 words every single day in the month of January.

But what about diet and exercise?  I'm not sure. I'm thinking about making a goal of a mile every single day - not between the kitchen and dining room, but a mile walk or jog, outside or on the treadmill. I've started experimenting and will decide next week if I'm going to do it.  I'm really trying for the habit.  I'm distressed about my weight, but of the mind-body-spirit continuum, I'm willing to put a bit less emphasis on the body.

For my loyal readers, I have been doing very short entries on my other blog (idea copied from KCF). I've re-titled it, from Credit Log to Quick Log, good and bad. I can make little entries on the fly from the iphone, just to remind myself to pay attention. Probably pretty boring, but there you go. Some element of accountability.

Really Good Food

No apologies. Much of this holiday has been (and will be) focused on food.  I don't cook that much, but enough time off and wanting to spend it at home with the kids has reconnected me with the fun of it. I'm very mindful of the need for vegetables and fruit in addition to the centerpiece of meat. Unusually for us, carrots keep showing up.

Sunday: Carbonnades Flamande. Originally from Julia Child, this is a Belgian not French recipe - beef stew with onions and beer. A good dark Belgian ale is best, and I had an extra bottle for seasoning the cook. Served with rice and good bread to soak up the incredible juice, I also used a lot of carrots in the stew, and asparagus from Chile steamed with balsamic vinegar sprinkled over it.  I poached some seckel pears in a brown sugar sauce while the stew was bubbling and hid them in the fridge for later.

Monday, Christmas Eve: Boneless leg of lamb. (We're a big lamb family, both by preference and default. I minimize my purchase of beef, since I steer away from factory farmed beef and that drives the beef price sky-high. The rest of my family is not so wild for chicken, though ethically raised chickens are much easier to come by and reasonably priced so we eat it pretty often since I usually do the cooking and family dinner prep. Most lamb is from Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland, or else purely local, and I've done enough research to be ok buying it without digging deeper.)  I marinated the leg with bottled French salad dressing (our traditional family lamb recipe), re-rolled it, lined the bottom of the roasting pan with carrots (since I didn't have a rack to keep the meat off the bottom), and roasted it in a hot (400 degree) oven. Simple green beans on the side, and gravy made in the roasting pan with the carrots. I made orzo with a simple olive oil, garlic and lemon juice sauce, since my gravy skills are weak, but as it turns out the gravy was excellent.  My mother brought two types of our traditional cookies: brown sugar with a pecan on top, and almond flavored wreaths with powdered sugar.

Christmas:  This day was pure tradition, which the kids absolutely insisted on when I asked before prepping.  My oldest boy made the Julekage for the second year in a row. He is a very accomplished baker, including baking bread for a hundred people every week for his dining coop at college. Julekage is the traditional Norwegian Christmas food that we actually like (in contrast to the herring which we can pass by easily). It's a sweet yeast bread flavored with cardamom and with dried or candied fruits in it. When I asked my mother a few years ago for the family recipe she offered a couple of index cards with different recipes pasted from magazines, so every year now we just wing it on the proportions. We also had make-ahead sausage,egg and cheese casserole after the presents were opened. Then it was off to naps and to read our new books, play with our new toys, until time to stuff ourselves again.  Dinner was our traditional beef rib roast, with onions, potatoes and carrots roasted with it. I made roasted brussels sprouts with a sweet balsamic and cranberry reduction sauce served on the side (from Pioneer Woman). I made gravy, but there was not a lot of meat juice to base it on, (I supplemented with a bit of beef broth) and it was way too salty.  We had the poached pears and cookies for dessert.

My big present is an ice cream maker, something I have wanted for years. The containers had to be frozen overnight, and the ingredients also have to rest in the fridge after being mixed. I've got them ready now, so that will be some of the adventure today.  Aside from that, it's leftovers and salads from here on out!

Except for Friday... My big present to the family is we are going for a group cooking lesson!  All of the family likes to cook, and I came across a local chef who gives small cooking classes in his home. I'm pretty excited about it and the kids seem into it. I'll report back on how it goes.

Ruthless Pruning - The Drawers

I'm back to sorting through all of the clothes in my room. I decided, fairly arbitrarily, I should only own the amount of clothes that actually fit in my room. I live in a small house, but I live alone, and I could just have clothes stashed all over the place. In fact, that is what has happened to me. But it doesn't result in a more diverse set of clothes I wear.  I just keep wearing the same things that are in my room and accessible. I totally forget I've got stuff in the guest room closet or down in the basement. So I've got to get it all together, and keep them all in one place, and limit myself to things I will actually wear regularly.

I've just had a new closet built and used that as an opportunity to review, consolidate, and prune all my hanging clothes, which are 99% for work. I got rid of a bunch of stuff, even if it fit, based on whether I would ever wear it. I broke my ruthless rule for dresses - I found several in the depths of my old closet that I would like to wear (next summer) and they all fit nicely in my new hanging space, so they stay for at least the next year.

Now I'm finishing up with stuff I don't hang. One of the results of the closet construction is that I have more and accessible storage at the top of it. I will still have to rotate summer and winter clothes between the convenient drawers and the boxes at the top of the closet.  I'm trying to figure out how to do that more easily in the future. I acquired clear plastic boxes from the container store, of sizes that fit into this new space, and that's where my summer stuff - shorts and tops - is going now.

I found my dresser drawers stuffed with things that aren't clothes. Toiletry and personal care items for travel in zipped nylon packages - multiples of them.These went into plastic boxes under the bed, to be dealt with before my next trip. Old pairs of eyeglasses, which I will rarely reach for when it fits meets my mood. Those went into a plastic box in the new closet, within reach. Band-aids and other, bulkier, first aid items. I put those into a clear box very accessible (and portable) in the new closet and noted what needs to be added to make it more useful. Scarves. I actually own some. I would like to wear them more often, but I do only once a month or less. There are hanging solutions, so I'll see them and thus give them a try. Jewelry. I wear a necklace and a pin pretty much every day, earrings and bracelets rarely. I dedicated a big drawer in the big dresser to the jewelry, with the idea if it was better organized I would wear the right thing more often. Right now its all jumbled together in the boxes in the front of the drawer, not laid out nicely in the little trays in the back as I planned. They migrated over time, and need to be sorted and restored to their individual places. I'm not settled on a plan for keeping that going yet.

How many socks should a girl own? I've got thin dress crew socks for work, other pretty-colored cotton socks for not-work in the summer, white hi-tech gym socks for gym and running, thick wool socks for the winter when not at work, acrylic hiking socks for, well, hiking! Here's part of my problem, not just for socks:  how many different multiple sets of clothes, for my many different roles, should I own?  I usually wear at least three different things a day: work clothes, after-work clothes, and sleep clothes. Plus gym clothes, at least twice a week. On weekends, chore clothes (sub-divided into gardening, cleaning, boating, running at least) and social clothes. I'm washing the sweat shirt I wore when I painted the closet. It's now got paint on it, and I know I'll be painting again, though maybe not for months. So I should keep a set of painting clothes, right?  Where?  Will I remember and be able to find them again when next I paint?  It might be on the boat, not here, so keeping them with my paint cans may not be the brilliant solution I first thought.

This is also tied to how often should I do laundry?  Or more practically, how often will I do laundry?  I still spend most of my evenings and much of my weekends over with the kids and my brother-in-law. I want to  own enough of each type that I'll have something clean to reach for between laundry bouts.

As all my clothes are laid out and organized, some things are obvious. I just discovered I have five pairs of jeans that fit, in varying thicknesses of denim and shades of blue. That's at least three pair too many, as I've got other slacks I wear on weekends that aren't jeans (think hiking / cargo aesthetics - look at Sahalie to see the type). So do I dispose of three pair, or do I find a way to squeeze them into the top of the closet for when the others wear out?  Which might be twenty years from now?  I will not store them not in my room, where they will be forgotten yet again.

All good questions, to be figured out as I go along. At least I've convinced myself I won't need to buy anything for a while.  I'll probably need to stick to the regimen of disposing of something every time I want to buy something new just because I like it, or else this will just get out of control all over again.  Right now, I've got a box in the guest room where I'm putting all the stuff to donate. I might want to keep a box in there after I get rid of this tranch, so I can keep pruning as I go.

It feels self-indulgent, to think so much about my clothes and how they make me look. This was not something my family encouraged when I was growing up, and the high school vibe was all natural, baby, no fashion or artifice. But this organizing also appeals to the engineer in me - lets get this figured out, laid out, organized and efficient!

Small things in the tool box

I keep losing the same pound over and over. I bounce up a pound or two, then bounce back down. MyFitnessPal, the weight and calorie tracker I'm using, proudly announces to the world, "Nan has lost 1.2 pounds since her last weigh-in and 0 pounds so far!" Then it falls silent for those days it is bouncing back up.

But I keep plugging away. There is no magic bullet. Just a series of small choices over and over again.

I've added a new trick to the toolbox, over the last couple of unseasonably warm weeks. On several mornings when I haven't had early gym appointments, I've kept the alarm at the same 5 am time and head in to work early. As I drive in the sun rises, and as a bonus the time enroute is nearly 10 minutes less. When I get to the garage (in the basement of my building), I leave everything in the car and head out for a walk. I work on the National Mall, a place tourists come from all over the world to see. I have my choice of looping towards the Capitol or the Washington Monument. Just a half hour or so, but it does so much for my spirits. Most people out are runners, and I long to join them but I'm in my work clothes. It helps absorb some of the continuing stress in the office, to get the fresh air. I don't so this every opportunity I have but sometimes.

A few evenings I've walked on the treadmill while watching tv on my iPad. Once I walked in the morning while reading the paper, but I like outside just after dawn better.

Tonight I pulled an older tool from the box and walked between my house and the kids. Crisp and clear and better than nothing.

Food has been good this week. I've found a new dedication to trying to make decent dinners for the family. I'm wanting to have them eat the way I want to eat, rather than my cooking what I think they want to eat. More vegetables. Less rice pasta or potatoes. Cauliflower braised in beef broth instead of mashed potatoes. That's another old trick pulled out for the occasion. Actual cooking, not just hearing something up.

An apple every day before dinner. Keeps the portions down and resists the kids junk food lying about. I brushed my teeth early tonight to make sure I was done with the snacks.

Small tricks. Keep plugging away.

- iPhone uPdate

Reckless Abandon

Tracking my eating in detail is useful; being brutally honest about what I've consumed is essential. But it can't stop me from consciously choosing to eat destructively.

It happened again last night. What am I thinking when I do this? My recollection is feeling reckless, almost giddy, the way I imagine an alcoholic must feel. I want this, I deserve this, no, rationally I know I don't deserve it, I just want it and I don't care. I am going to eat this because I want it and I shouldn't have it. I am just going to press the accelerator to the floor, head for the cliff and not worry about what comes next. I am choosing to subvert my future. It's why I do it. I don't want to be careful. I want to close my eyes and jump.

Yikes! I suppose I should be glad my self destructive urges happen in thousand-calorie gobblings of minimally harmful substances, rather than something more drastic with actual severe long term consequences.  But it sure would be nice if my need to fling myself overboard manifested itself in running till I dropped instead. It is the same mindless suppression of self I'm aiming for.

What can I do when I get like this? I could try to get physical - put the dog on the leash and head outside (not likely in the cold and dark) or go to the treadmill in the basement. I could turn on really loud music and dance (if only I could dance). I could just go to bed. When wound up like last night, though, I'm less likely to go under as soon as my head hits the pillow.  Maybe I could try writing, try to capture what I'm feeling and probe beneath the urge.

I'm not sure any of these approaches are viable, since almost by definition when I do this I am physically fatigued and emotionally drained, with very little reserves left. My reading on willpower indicates a tough week has used up physical reserves and low blood sugar makes it even harder to make rational choices - my body knows it needs sugar to be mentally and emotionally sound again. That would help explain my self-destructive weapon of choice.

It doesn't take a thousand calories to restore those reserves, but once I began eating last night, putting on the brakes seemed unimaginable. I put my food in a bowl in a feeble if valiant attempt to slow the onslaught, but four times I went back and re-filled the bowl. I remember even thinking, "I don't really want this but I'm going to do it" as I walked to the kitchen, filled with wicked glee (not full enough, apparently) and appalled at myself at the same time. I did stop before the bag was empty, unusually, realizing eating more would likely make me actually sick.

This morning, the magic food logging app on the iphone took a shot of the bar code and I added up the damages. The sight of more than a thousand calories shocked me - if asked, I would have estimated half that, though I didn't even look last night. So that's another technique I could try - log it before I start, so as the refills add up I've got the actual data starkly in front of myself.  This magic app every day estimates the impact of a day like I just finished on my future weight - if every day were like yesterday, in five weeks I would weight 10 pounds more than I did yesterday. Oh my.