Today I got yet another email from MyRecipes.com, but instead of a recipe I'd probably never make, it heralded the top 10 food trends of the previous decade. With the demise of Gourmet, there's sort of a wide-open field for the leading voice in food journalism, so why shouldn't the "editors" of Food Channel (not to be confused with Food Network) take a stab at proclaiming the best things to happen to food from 2000 to 2009?
Since I'm an amateur food anthropologist/historian, I clicked the email's link just for shits and giggles.
Sadly, there were no giggles to be had. Shits? Yes. Groans? Oh yes. Eye rolls galore? Indeed! I mean, do you think a list that spotlights bacon as one of the top 10 food trends of the first decade of the 21st century is really worth the bandwidth it takes up? Bacon, Gentle Reader! What's so revolutionary about cured pork belly or fatback? It's...atherosclerosis in convenient, red and white, greasy strips. And it's highlighted in the same list as healthful whole grains and oils. If that's not some type of irony (even if it is Alanis Morissette's brand of irony), then I don't know what is.
If you need a good guffaw, Gentle Reader, check out the list for yourself. I guess it's proof that just about any monkey with a computer connected to the Internet these days can be a food journalist.
The husband and I seem unknowingly attracted to cities that have an ongoing tug of war between preservation (more like stagnation) and progress. Our time as dwellers of The City Different (aka, Santa Fe, New Mexico, although I don't know if it uses that slogan any longer) opened our eyes to this fight, and we continue to experience here in hipper-than-thou Live Music Capital of the World (ha!) Austin. On one side you have the old-timers who seem dead set on preserving their nostalgia-heavy memories, even though the things they remember about their city have long since changed and can never be brought back. On the other side are the folks who want to drag everyone, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the bright, shiny, ultra-convenient future--if even that future's bright gleam wears off in nanoseconds and brings on more inconveniences than it solves.
Some folks in Austin can't seem to let go of the past. This article from today's Austin American-Statesman typifies that stubbornness:
Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen.
Yes, Gentle Reader, I have sinned. I have sinned greatly. And now I must pay for it in this new year that's hours away. To paraphrase Lydia Grant's little speech from the opening credits of Fame (the TV series, not the movie or the recent movie remake), "You've got big thighs? You want to be lean? Well, lean costs. And right here is where you start paying...in sweat."
If you've been wondering why I haven't been updating the site much this month, allow me to explain. No, I haven't been so thoroughly swamped with holiday preparations and festivities that I just couldn't squeeze in a post or three or four. Instead, something inside my head...well, it broke, and the consequence of that break has been that my control over my eating has vanished. Foods I haven't touched or barely nibbled on on rare occasions have been going down my gullet with reckless abandon. The consequence of that loss of control is immense guilt, which then leads to even more eating and then even more guilt and so on and so forth.
Hence the act of contrition. Hence my inability to write about food, even though I have several recipes to share with you. If you're on of those lucky people for whom food doesn't have a lot of emotional baggage attached, I envy you, Gentle Reader. But if you're like me and you have food issues and eating issues and emotional issues and control issues, then perhaps you can understand what I've been going through.
But with the new year barreling our way and my thighs not looking the way I'd like them to look, despite increasing my running distance back to 12 miles three or four times a week to try to compensate for my out-of-control eating, I'm digging deep within me to find the true resolve I need to get my shit together and take off the weight I've put on and reestablish control. And to be perfectly honest, I'm afraid that I might not have that resolve.
I've said before that guilt is my primary motivator for a lot of what I do, and while it can be a great source of motivation, it can also bite you in the ass and trigger one of those awful downward spirals, such as the one I'm trying to pull myself out of. Sure, I should find another motivator, but when it's one that's been with me so long, it's damn hard to find another reason--a positive reason, even--to get me to turn things around.
So I'm going to try to let my culinary misadventures be my motivation. Instead of the gross quantity of empty calories I've been consuming, I'm going to try to focus on creating and consuming meaningful, flavorful, inspiring, explorative calories that I can then share with you. And it that doesn't work...well, Goodwill probably still has all my old fat clothes on its racks.
Happy New Year and New Decade, Gentle Reader! Let the guilt-inducing TV ads roll!
When the husband and I married nearly 12 years ago, my desire to have "The Imperial March" played as the recessional was looked upon with much derision by certain people--and was nixed by the church in which we were married since it's not a liturgical song of a religion recognized by the Church. (Sorry, followers of obscure Star Wars-origin religions don't get the nod from the Pope.) Sure, we ended up playing it--awkwardly--as we entered at the reception, but it was just...a throwaway moment.
Nowadays, since weddings have gotten even more ridiculously out of hand than they were a dozen years ago, it seems the bride and groom go to extreme lengths to make their guests feel awkward and uncomfortable. I'm sure, Gentle Reader, you've seen or heard about the neverending wedding processional, complete with ham-handed choreography straight from a drunken frat party, accompanied by that product placement-rific tune "Forever" by that bastion of romance, Chris Brown.
While you might argue, Gentle Reader, that that particular example may not have made guests uncomfortable, this gem surely did.
Do bad reception DJs really cost that much? I it really that difficult to hook up an iPod to some speakers or put together a digital slideshow for reception entertainment? Are couples really this cheap?
Man, the dude could at least have sprung for a decent Supes costume, and not just paired a Supes t-shirt from target with some other somewhat appropriate articles of clothing he found here and there. What a cheapskate, especially consider the bride probably dropped a pretty penny of that meringuey gown of hers.
Yeah, this one's definitely going to last a lifetime.
A week or so ago, Condé Nast announced Gourmet was dead--or at least would breathe its last with its November issue. The news was a surprise to everyone, from its editor-in-chief to little 'ol me, who'd received the mag for two nonsuccessive years as gifts. For all those issues I received, I made one or two recipes. I read maybe half a dozen articles. I kept none of the issues.
Yep, I guess I helped kill the magazine. Not just because I wasn't one of those food enthusiasts who lived and breathed by the publication, but because I'm part of the food blogging movement that some folks claim drove some of the nails in Gourmet's coffin. I'd beg to differ on that second point because I hard ascribe to capture the...cultured, sophisticated, très chic, trop cher aura of food and dining that Gourmet seemed to proffer (at least to me and some other readers and browsers).
My dear Christopher Kimball chimed in on Gourmet's demise in the op-ed pages of The New York Times (lucky him). He too comments on the role (or alleged role) of food bloggers in this murder, but he also has some very astute things to say about how the Internet has given a ready platform for any idiot (that's me!) who things she or he has something to say, with the quality of the content not even considered.
Sorry, that's a bad summary. I'll let my dear Christopher Kimball speak for himself:
The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up. They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers. That leaves, I think, little room for the thoughtful, considered editorial with which Gourmet delighted its readers for almost seven decades.
To survive, those of us who believe that inexperience rarely leads to wisdom need to swim against the tide, better define our brands, prove our worth, ask to be paid for what we do, and refuse to climb aboard this ship of fools, the one where everyone has an equal voice. Google 'broccoli casserole' and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise--the kind that comes from real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind. I like my reporters, my pilots, my pundits, my doctors, my teachers and my cooking instructors to have graduated from the school of hard knocks.
I'd like to think, Gentle Reader, that my culinary misadventures allow me to gain that 'thoughtful expertise' of which he speaks. I'd like to think that by sharing those misadventures with you, I might be inspiring you to think about the way you eat, the way you prepare food (or don't), those experiences that shaped your attitudes about food and its preparation and about how you can royally screw something simple up. Am I doing that? Hell if I know. And to be truthful with you, I don't really care. By writing about my misadventures, I have the opportunity to reflect on the successes, the unmitigated disasters and let those lessons sink in so that the next time I step foot into my kitchen, I'm a little bit more sure of what I'm doing, I'm improving.
Gourmet, I suppose, presented the mastery that comes after many a culinary misadventure. Of course, that mastery also had the good fortune to have at its disposal some very high-end equipment and ingredients--things I'll never have in this lifetime. Just like that mastery.
Because today's been ridiculously crazy thanks to a heavily booked schedule, I found myself listening to Fresh Air during the first half of the 3 pm hour while making supper. On the menu was a pot of easy spicy chicken and rice--which entails browning some onions and rice, throwing in a can of Rotel, cream of chicken soup, some chicken broth, some cubed chicken breast and some black beans, bringing the whole mess to a boil then simmering it until the rice is cooked--that I figured would keep for the three of humans here at Chez Boeckman-Walker to eat a warm, filling meal as our schedules permitted.
At the time I was doing this work, Fresh Air was in the middle of a segment about the theory that the discovery of cooking--not language or other shocking discoveries--was what allowed cave dwellers to prosper and survive and flourish and become we modern homo sapiens. Writer Michael Pollan, who was presenting this theory, provided some interesting evidence about how cooking changed our ancestors' stomachs and how today, our by and large abdication from the cooking process--and, really, from the whole food production process--is (he theorized, as have so many other folks, myself included) driving us into gluttony, ill health and early death. Yet at the same time, he argues, TV programs about cooking and food preparation are highly popular.
So what gives? Are all those eyesballs watching the TV food programming indulging in some sort of nostalgia for the days, which weren't that long ago, when someone "slaved" over the stove all day to prepare a nourishing meal? Or are we collectively being bonked on the head by caveman urges to participate in the preparation of the food we eat, to go back to that process that makes us wait for gratification--urges we're doing our damnedest to ignore as we pop open another bag of chips and stuff our faces.
Of course, I'm listening to Pollan talk about the loss of from-scratch cooking to the "convenience" of packaged, prepared foods and packaged, prepared meals that have flooded the market after WWII as I'm ::gulp:: opening up a can of cream of chicken soup. I'm guilty, Mr. Pollan: I'm thinking that I'm cooking from scratch, but in truth I'm not.
(There's your irony, Alanis.)
If you want to listen to the segment, it's available both as a podcast and as a stream. The segment serves to draw eyeballs and brains to his lengthy piece on the topic published in The New York Times recently. If you have the time, Gentle Reader, I encourage you to both listen to and read the piece--and think about what Pollan says.
Cooking as fundamental to our identity as human beings--that's pretty paradigm-shifting stuff potentially.
In today's post, I'm going to attempt to explain my interest in bread machines and making the boys' bread, as I promised earlier, along with a few other things that have captured my attention. Bear with me, Gentle Reader, because this post will probably come off somewhere between high-minded, intellectual and rational pontificating and tinfoil hat-wearing ranting.
Let the fun begin, eh?
That Simple Message, Delivered Repeatedly, in the Chronicle of a Year As you probably well know, Gentle Reader, over the past year or more, I've learned to really pay close attention to what I put in my body to nourish it and what I offer my family to nourish them. Initially, that attention came as a result of my most recent weight loss success and my vow to keep the weight off without winding up on some silly eating routine that essentially starved my body of certain key nutrients.
However, as the weeks and months passed and my interests in the culinary arts really began to dovetail with my longstanding interest in health, fitness and health care, my reasons for being so fussy about what the family and I eat began to expand. For example, we hoped a more keen sense of the nutritional value of foods we offered the boy would help him behave better at school (not that we were feeding him shit in the first place). I began to see an alarming--yet not entirely surprising--uptick in the number of food product recall alerts from the FDA. Our addiction to fresh veggies, fruits and herbs, not to mention bread that didn't have high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient, didn't wane even when our bank balance began to decline.
Having been raised by parents who for many years had a fairly abundant garden, some of which was pickled, preserved, frozen or in some other fashioned canned for later use by Mum, and who for many years bought half a slaughtered cow's worth of meat for the deep freeze and who grew up on the farm and still had siblings farming, my instincts to try my hand at raising some of my own family's favorite items were spot-on. Of course, all my previous attempts to tend to anything green have largely failed, but I thought surely this time my interest in reducing our grocery bill and knowing better just how those produce items were cultivated would keep those growing greens healthy and alive and--dare I dream it?--fruitful.
But not only did I try to start some container gardening on the yoga patio (with a tremendous amount of starting-off help from Mum), I also got around to reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book had sat on my to-read pile for almost a year before I got around to reading it. I kept putting it off for other tomes, and I'll admit readily I was reluctant to read it because I wasn't in the mood for what I thought would be a crunchy-granola overgrown hippie diatribe on the orgasmic bliss of growing one's own food and devoting one's entire food budget to all things organic and to hell with everything else in a twisted, slavish devotion to the cause.
Thankfully, I was wrong.
The book is, I think, an even-handed look at one family's attempt to eat locally for one year by raising many of their own foods--including meat items--and acquiring what they could not make themselves from local sources. If memory serves, "local" for Kingsolver and her family meant raised within 100 miles of their Appalachian home. They take on this experiment not for any zealot-like principles per se. It's more common sense: Food that's grown elsewhere or processed elsewhere costs us all in many ways a lot of us consumers have yet to acknowledge. Economics, environmental conservation, good health and good old-fashioned self-sufficiency meld in a way that just, well, strikes me as good common sense.
Kingsolver, her husband (the bread-maker of the family, hence one of the key sparks of my interest in making bread) and her college-age daughter collaborate on the book. While Kingsolver the professional novelist records the family's year-long experiment, her husband Steven Hopp supplies sidebars that connect the family's activities to broader movements and "Hey, did you know?" topics, while the daughter supplements each chapter with recipes referenced within and meal planning ideas. None of the three ever get on a soap box and bash the reader over the head with their ideas, and the natural flow of raising food provides enough fodder for drama and just plain, good storytelling.
Of course, if you are somewhat conscious of issues with today's food production, then some of the stuff in the book, particularly in Hopp's sidebars, won't be as shocking as they might be to other, less-aware readers. For example, Hopp dedicates one sidebar to the nutritional differences that result from the different techniques for raising and processing animal flesh and byproducts, particularly bovine and poultry meat, bovine milk and poultry eggs, for human consumption. (Having covered international pharmaceutical and biotech firms for a number of years, I know a surprising lot about the origins of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, aka mad cow disease, and its human form, Jakob-Creutzfeld disease. It's disgusting how cheap agribusiness is when it comes to feeding fellow humans, and it's honestly a wonder how so many of us around the globe haven't dropped dead from terrible health problems related to the consumption of mass-produced meat.) He reveals that cows and chickens that are allowed to eat the way the design committee of the universe intended them to eat are not only less prone to infections and health issues that make them dangerous for human consumption, but their meats and byproducts (milk, eggs) also have better nutritional profiles and flavors. Eggs from free-range chickens have less "bad" fats and more "good" omega fatty acids than eggs from chickens raised in cages amongst their filth that are pumped full of antibiotics and feed that contains, among other things, slaughtered animal byproducts.
With this in mind, is it any wonder that (a) the number of salmonella contaminations have occurred lately and (b) the FDA recently announced new measures to curtail salmonella contamination?
But again, Gentle Reader, if you have any awareness of where your food really comes from and how it's produced and what kind of issues are being raised about our food supply, such revelations that Hopp makes are not shocking. I mean, some of the things I hadn't read before, but they were conclusions that I determined for myself made sense because of what I know.
And then there are the discussions about big agribusiness' quest to control through patents and IP and genetic engineering the world's crop production.... Gads, it's really quite frightening what people are driven to do for big money, and anyone who eats pays the price. I have uncles from both sides of my family who grow wheat (or at least try their hardest to do it), my dad still helps with harvest each year on the farm where he grew up, and one of my uncles manages (or at least I think he still does) the local mill. These are, by and large, honest men working hard and trying to do the right thing, but the "right thing" has become twisted and corrupted by agribusiness, which cheapens their work and cheapens our lives. Our health--hell, our very lives really do depend on changes taking place at these early stages, at this ground level of our food supply.
The Message Gets Animated Then there was that episode of King of the Hill....
While I wish I could share with you the entire "Raise the Steaks" episode, just know that Hank resorts to shopping at--and "volunteering" at--the local food co-op because he's tired of buying tough, tasteless steaks at the Mega-Lo Mart, which eventually takes over the co-op, forcing Hank to rescue the cows the co-op farm was raising for its meat market. Hilarious episode and I swear lines of dialogue were lifted from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, especially when one of the characters (I think it was Hank) gushes over his slice of tomato have ::gasp:: flavor!
Here's a fun clip:
Airing as it did as I was in the final chapters of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and contemplating the acquisition of a bread machine and lamenting that farmers' markets in the area are held at times that are not convenient for me and feeling so frustrated that all my herbs had died and that my bell pepper plants would not be bearing fruit, I couldn't help but see this episode as just another bap on the head from the universe to do more.
Reality...and Reality I recognize the truth in Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and in the PRs I revise and upload to dailyrx.com about food recalls and in "Raise the Steaks." I would dearly love to live that truth--to have a much more intimate knowledge and awareness of the foods I prepare and eat.
But here's another reality, one that Kingsolver also acknowledges to some degree: Making choices that promote environmentally responsible and healthful food production and consumption is tough, requires some degree of sacrifice a lot of us aren't willing to make and can seem awfully expensive, especially when money is tight. And here's another reality that she doesn't acknowledge to much extent: Not all people and not all geographic areas are well-suited now for food production that could sustain a person in some meaningful way.
I'm one of those people. I don't have the patience, the knowledge, the knack, the intuition and all that other stuff that it really does take to grow food. As I was reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, I found myself at times longing to live back home in Bumblefuck where the soil isn't hard, inhospitable clay and where there is space to raise a respectable garden and where the culture is a tad more connected to the cultivation of food. I found myself envious of my mother's knack for growing things successfully and knowing when to water and when not to water and when to prune and how to prune and where to plant and where not to plant. In a word, I can't grow shit--not even cilantro in a pot, which any idiot should be able to do--so self-sufficiency to any degree is out for me!
Compounding my incompetence is the local weather. Spring here starts in late January, early February. Summer starts in late April. Summer ends in late October. While that's great weather, for the most part, for outdoor enthusiasts, folks who have health conditions that can be exacerbated by cold weather and summer fun-lovin' fools, it really does suck for trying to grow anything. A plant doesn't really do well when the temperatures go from the pleasant 80s one week to the blazing triple digits the next. Yeah, sure, Gentle Reader, you can preach all you want about xeriscaping and native plants, but I would dare to say that thanks to climate change, even plants that once were native have a hard time thriving because their natural habitat has changed.
Which leads me to another point: No matter how much you work to use healthful, environmentally responsible techniques for cultivating your food, you're still doing it in a global climate that is hardly free of pollution. As a highly respected Ayurveda practitioner once counseled a group of yoga teachers, people today are hard-pressed to benefit from the techniques and advice contained in ancient texts because our world is polluted, and not just with environmental pollutants. Do you understand what I'm trying to say, Gentle Reader? It's sort of like living in Europe in the years after the Chernobyl disaster and trying to claim that your mountain retreat offers pure, unpolluted air, water and land. Uh-uh, it's just not possible. Hell, I recall reading just a few years ago how the radiation contamination from Chernobyl is still polluting Europe. It's not like that stuff just goes away!
So what's a person to do? For me, the only way I can rectify things is to make conscious decisions whenever I can. I'll try to buy local produce when I can, but I'm not going to burn up a tank of gas trying to get it from the really nice farmers' market in South Austin. I'd love to buy local, free-range chicken, but doing so would get me whole chickens that would largely be wasted--and being wasteful in my mind is a big, big crime that ought to be avoided as much as possible.
Just as I've gone to extremes in the past to keep my weight at a certain point, only to mistreat my body, I'm not going to go to far-flung extremes to keep in line with certain ideologies. I'll do more to choose fresh produce that's in season; I'll be more conscious about choosing produce that's had to travel a long way to get to me and has had to undergone some really nasty stuff to reach me in a visually appealing state. I'll try my hand at making the boys' bread so the high fructose corn syrup stays out and more whole grains--from organic sources, if I can afford it--go in. And the entire time, I'll be berating myself for not doing more.
I'm a vehiclist. Some days I'm a motor vehiclist, and some days I'm a bicycle vehiclist. Lately, I'm more the latter than the former, and that's given me plenty of food for thought, particularly combined with observations of other bicycle vehiclists.
Realize, Gentle Reader, that being a bicyclist in Austin is nothing out of the ordinary. Lots of other cities have a good number of folks who try to bike to wherever they need to go, and they also probably have a good number of recreational cyclists. Nor do I suppose Austin's the only city with a rather vehement bikes-versus-autos never-ending battle. But, seeing as how this is Texas and, well, "everything's bigger in Texas," that catchphrase might apply to Austin's ongoing spat between cyclists and autoists. Perhaps if we didn't have this misperception about size and the ensuing selfishness and self-centeredness that come hand in hand with such a misperception, perhaps that spat wouldn't be so vociferous.
(Of course, I also suspect that if a certain bodily organ of the men in Texas truly were "bigger," we wouldn't have the need to overcompensate with space-hogging trucks, roads, houses, properties and other personal possessions. But living within certain geographic boundaries does not impart physiological endowment, so some of us just have to live with others' delusions of the need for size and the very real consequences of those delusions. Le sigh.)
I'm sure you can fathom, Gentle Reader, the following equation for disaster:
Large autos with drivers who feel they have a divine right to all the paved space a roadway affords along with a divine right to drive their massive autos however the hell they choose
+
Cyclists lacking the shielding of a few hundred pounds or more of steel, fiberglass and other materials but who spent a pretty penny on their own chosen mode of transportation who are convinced that autoists are all the scourge of the world, that traffic laws do not apply to them even when they choose to ride in the roadways and that someone owes them something because they choose to use a vehicle that does not pollute the environment = Very real roadway danger + Stupidity by the truckload
Getting hit by a car or truck while riding a bike is a tragedy, but more often than not, the extenuating circumstances are such that the tragedy could have been avoided. Too many times, I've observed such circumstances that could easily lead to tragedy but, by the will of the FSM or some other force in the universe, tragedy does not occur. But just because a tragedy is avoided does not excuse the dumbass behavior!
That said, if you are a cyclist, Gentle Reader, I'd better not observe you doing these dumbass things:
Riding with your iPod or other in-ear entertainment device in use. You are not shielded by a few hundred pounds of steel, fiberglass and other materials and do not have the luxury of air bags, safety harnesses, reinforcement bars, bumpers, etc. You need all your senses at your full disposal to pay attention to what the hell is going on around you, not jammin' out to your favorite tuneage.
Riding without a helmet. Do you really think your cranium is going to hold up to the forces at play when it hits the hard pavement going even just a few miles per hour?
Riding against traffic. Hello, dumbass, you are traffic. Would you drive your car against the tide of cars going the opposite direction? Or do you just prefer to see your gruesome death or dismemberment coming at you?
Ignoring the rules of the road. Again, dumbass, you are traffic. The rules of the road apply to you. This does not mean you get to go wherever you want whenever you want. Traffic lights and signs apply to you.
This last one particularly galls me because (1) I see it so frequently and (2) it's just so self-centered--and that self-centeredness puts the cyclist and the autoists in potential jeopardy. For example, the other morning while biking to the gym, I observed a dumbass cyclist attempting to cross six lanes of traffic to continue on her merry way westbound despite the lights being green for the northbound-southbound traffic. Obviously, this woman thought her need to get to her destination faster or her desire not to have to come to a complete stop with her feet off the pedals trumped the traffic laws, not to mention common sense. But, hey, maybe I'm just silly and self-centered in my desire not to be a traffic hazard and to, y'know, stay alive.
Of course, cyclists aren't the only ones doing dumbass things on the road. Gentle Reader, you surely have seen your fair share of dumbass drivers wherever you live and wherever you've driven. And somehow I doubt the dumbass stuff I've observed when autoists and cyclists attempt to share the same roadway at the same time is unique to Austin, but nevertheless, I'd better never encounter you doing these things when you're using an auto while I'm riding my bike:
Hugging the white line just to prove something. Trust me, cyclists know the dumbass in the auto that almost ran them off the road is in a larger, more dangerous vehicle. Cyclists also already know that there are autoists out there who resent having to share the road with cyclists, therefore we don't need you attempting to educate us. Or kill us.
Hovering. In an attempt to stay out of a cyclist's way, some autoists hang back. In doing so, the autoist becomes a traffic hazard to her or his fellow autoists (I suspect this is one of the causes of road rage) and the cyclist, who must continually guess if the dumbass behind her or him is going to finally pass and move on or is trying to turn or what.
Succumbing to road rage. Really, autoists, why do you need to get so damned worked up over a cyclist on the road? The road is not yours. Yes, you help pay for its maintenance with your tax dollars, but it does not belong to you. You are not entitled to its use. Share. Just like you did when you were a kid and had to learn to cooperate with your peers.
When I'm biking on a fairly well-used roadway, I'm busting my ass to get to where I'm going. I'm not on a leisurely ride. Don't think for a minute I'm present to piss you off, autoist. I'm not present to try to shame you in some environmental awareness way. I'm just present because (1) I'm astounded I'm strong enough to bike to where I need to go and don't want to lose that ability, (2) I'm trying to burn a few more calories I probably shouldn't have consumed and (3) I'm cheap. That's right, Gentle Reader, I'm cheap. If I can bike to the gym or to Target, my tank of gas lasts a little longer, which means I don't have to spend as much money on gas.
Skin-flintedness, Gentle Reader. It'll probably be the death of me.
Kick off your workweek, Gentle Reader, with some No Shit, Sherlock news.
Relationship Found Between Napping, Hyperactivity, Depression and Anxiety
Napping may have a significant influence on young children's daytime functioning, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Results indicate that children between the ages of 4 and 5 who did not take daytime naps were reported by their parents to exhibit higher levels of hyperactivity, anxiety and depression than children who continued to nap at this age.
According to lead author Brian Crosby, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, previous studies have shown that poor or inadequate sleep is linked with symptoms of hyperactivity, anxiety and depression; researchers involved in this study were happy to demonstrate the potential importance of napping for optimal daytime functioning in young children, as napping is often overlooked in favor of nighttime or total sleep.
'There is a lot of individual variability in when children are ready to give up naps. I would encourage parents to include a quiet "rest" time in their daily schedule that would allow children to nap if necessary.'
The study included data from 62 children between the ages of 4 and 5 who were classified as either napping (77 percent) or nonnapping (23 percent) based on actigraphy data. Napping children napped an average of 3.4 days per week. Of the sample, 55 percent were white non-Hispanics and 53 percent were male. Caretakers reported their child's typical weekday and weekend bedtime/rise time, napping patterns and family demographics and completed a behavioral assessment of the child. Actigraphy data for each child was collected continuously for seven to 14 days.
Crosby hopes that findings of this study will encourage caregivers and other researchers to look at the ways napping impacts daytime functioning in children, as an optimal age to stop napping has not yet been determined.
Anyone who's cared for a young child or been around one for a modicum of time can tell you how important naptime is for having a kiddo who's relatively cooperative. Hell, my kindergarten graduate still needs a midday nap if his father and I want him to obey the household rules and be relatively cooperative when we are out and about. It's honestly no wonder he had behavior problems at school: His body and brain weren't getting any rest and reset time.
I'd argue that most adults need a midday nap too. I'm not the first to advocate for a siesta, and I won't be the last. A rudimentary search, Gentle Reader, will allow you to find all kinds of studies indicating the value of a brief (no longer than 15 or 20 minutes, I believe) nap during the day for adults. Ya gotta wonder how different the world might be--and how potentially fewer therapists and prescriptions for antidepressants might be needed--if more adults got adequate sleep at night and took a nap daily. Lack of rest not only leads to crazed kids, it also leads to crazed adults.
Now go get yer blankie, Gentle Reader, and take a cat nap.
...when The Washington Post asked Mrs. Obama for her favorite recipe, she replied, “You know, cooking isn’t one of my huge things.” And last month, when a boy who was visiting the White House asked her if she liked to cook, she replied: “I don’t miss cooking. I’m just fine with other people cooking.” Though delivered lightheartedly, and by someone with a very busy schedule, the message was unmistakable: everyday cooking is a chore.
I'm sorry, New York Times op-ed contributor Amanda Hesser, but I think you're mistaken.
Not every person who doesn't enjoy cooking views it as a chore. Let's face it: We place a lot of expectations on the foods we eat, and those people who make it face those expectations. Food is comfort for many of us, and the food we eat must stand and be compared to the trove of memories--emotional and spacial, if you will--of the food we've eaten in the past. People who prepare food face the challenge of not only nourishing others' bodies but also others' hearts and others' emotional attachment to food and their memories.
Is it any wonder then that some people don't thinking cooking is the greatest thing ever?
Really, that's one of things this blog is about: My overcoming all my insecurities and fears and phobias about preparing food. Admittedly, I'm probably way more neurotic than Michelle Obama, but who's not to say she doesn't have her own food legacy that she doesn't particularly feel the need to live up to? The FSM knows she's done and continues to do a lot of other worthwhile things with her time and talents. Why must cooking be one of them?
Additionally, why aren't we badgering President Obama about his penchant or lack thereof for cooking? Why must his wife face this scrutiny? Why is it that many male cooks typically are celebrated with restaurants and cookbooks and TV shows and whatnot while far too many female cooks are the workhorses of private homes who either are uncelebrated in their decision to take up the art and craft of making meals or are slammed for their apparently unwillingness to do so or slammed for, perhaps, being too daunted by the work involved or accused of a myriad of other shortcomings?
If you find you enjoy cooking, great. If you find you don't, so the hell what? That doesn't make you any less of a person--or any less qualified to be a spokesperson for improved relationships with food and eating.
I've edited more than my fair share of summaries for books about ADHD, ADD, "high needs" children (all kids are high-needs kids, really), "out of sync" children (see previous) and kids tagged with every other label attached to young ones who are not easily trained to sit still and sit silently for prolonged periods. Imagine my delight, Gentle Reader, when I found the following PR during my morning med news trolling.
History of Hyperactivity Off-base, Says Researcher Educators do children and parents a disservice by claiming Mozart and others had ADHD
A Canadian researcher working in the U.K. says doctors, authors and educators are doing hyperactive children a disservice by claiming that hyperactivity as we understand it today has always existed.
Matthew Smith says not only is that notion wrong, it misleads patients, their parents and their physicians. Smith, who is from Edmonton, is finishing up his PhD at the Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter.
Hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is currently the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder, says Smith, and millions of children are prescribed drugs such as Ritalin to treat it. Yet prior to the 1950s, it was clinically and culturally insignificant.
He argues in a paper presented at the Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences taking place at Ottawa's Carleton University this week, that hyperactivity disorder as we understand it today is a modern construct that was first described as a disorder in 1957.
Before that, Smith says hyperactive behaviour existed – but it wasn't always thought of as a disorder or pathology worth treating.
However, Smith says many today assert that hyperactivity is a universal phenomenon, and say evidence of hyperactivity can be seen in historical figures such as Mozart or Einstein. Smith argues that hyperactivity as we understand it is rooted in social, cultural, political and economic changes of the last half century.
'When history is extended back beyond 1957, it overlooks all the social factors that contributed to the idea that children were hyperactive – and that that was a problem,' he says.
'We need to refocus the history of hyperactivity on the period starting from the late 1950s and 60s. By doing so, we start to understand why people started to think there was a problem with children, why they thought that problem needed to be fixed, and why it became acceptable to fix that problem with drugs.'
Smith says that whether you consider hyperactivity a disease worth treating often depends on context – and the context changed in the late 1950s when the U.S. refocused its education system in response to the space race.
'If a child's playing soccer, there's a chance hyperactivity isn't going to be a problem. But if they are stuck in a classroom, it is a problem.
'We have to look at the social and historical factors that created the idea that children were distractible and that these were pathologies that needed to be treated.
'For patients and their parents, what this means is that the process by which their children are diagnosed is not rooted in a long history. If they understand that, they can develop the tools to question the diagnosis.'
For me, here's the take-home message: "We have to look at the social and historical factors that created the idea that children were distractible and that these were pathologies that needed to be treated."
I really, really wish I could report that I love my new iPod Shuffle after its first outing at the gym. I really do.
I really, really wish I could report that my new iPod Shuffle worked fabulously during its first outing at the gym today. I really do.
I really, really wish I could get a piece of electronic equipment that didn't give me grief. I really do.
Well, Gentle Reader, it seems I have once again paid good money to be a company's beta tester. Yes, much like my much-beloved Nike+ Sportsband that had almost zero tolerance for moisture, it seems the 3G iPod Shuffle's headphone controls have almost zero tolerance for moisture.
Like many other users have reported on Apple's support forum, about 20 minutes in my run this morning, the volume suddenly cranked itself up to damn near full blast--not terribly great for the 'ol eardrums. I thought at first that the control had gotten wedged between my bra strap and my shoulder, but I was wrong. It was still bouncing free between my ear and my collarbone. I managed to get the volume turned down, but then the controls stopped responding.
After a few minutes of futzing with the thing, which I'd turned off and taken off so I could better experiment and hopefully find a fix, while still running (not a great thing when my gait is already funky), I stopped, zipped out to my car and hoped I might be able to get my old earbuds to somehow work with the Shuffle. Heh, no go, but miraculously, the Shuffle's controls started working again.
Hmm, I mused as I stalked back to my treadmill. Perhaps they needed just a few moments to dry out. That's not a good hypothesis.
I started back up again, and sure enough, I was about 20 minutes into my second go-round when the volume jacked itself back up. I kept running, got the volume back down to a tolerable level and was hopeful I'd be good for the remaining three miles.
How Easily Hopes Are Dashed Need I tell you, Gentle Reader, that the volume cranked itself back up a third time shortly after it did that the second time? Need I tell you that this third experience was much like the first?
Given that I was growing incredibly frustrated and just wanted to be done with the whole thing. I chucked the headphones into one of the treadmill's molded plastic drink cubbies, set the Shuffle on the literature molded plastic lip, alongside my old Nano that was hard at work tracking my mileage and whatnot, and just finished the remaining 2.5 miles sans music. Yeah, that was oh so enjoyable. But I got the job done.
In case you're wondering, Gentle Reader, the controls were working fine again once I got home and tested them.
Bum Equipment I'm not sure what to do about my Shuffle. I'm sure taking it to the Apple store will entail a product swap, which means I'll have to charge and load up music to yet another music player that will only be replaced. All I really wanted to do today after my gym time was come home, do some work for a client and then rest my leg.
Do I return the Shuffle to Target, where I bought it just yesterday, and wait until Apple puts out redesigned earbuds? If I do this, what am I supposed to do for music, that safeguard for my sanity, in the meantime when I'm at the gym? Rely on my old Nano, which has already had corrosion issues with its headphone jack? Yeah, there's a scenario that screams "Disaster waiting to happen!"
Ugh, I hate being a paying beta tester. But, hey, that's the nature of the electronics market, isn't it?
Wanna hear (er, read) about my oh so fun Tuesday thus far, Gentle Reader? Sure you do!
So I had my appointment with a sports doc (well, his P.A.) this morning, the same doc who diagnosed my lateral patellar tracking and IT overuse issue on my left side back in 2005. After barely getting through six miles yesterday, I was praying Camille would offer me some hopeful news about what's going on with my sartorius and other fun parts of my right leg.
Heh....
I'm going in a few minutes for an MRI to rule out a stress fracture in the femoral neck area. Given how tender certain places were on my right leg this morning when Camille palpated them and given the pretty noticeable limp I had (which has since largely resolved after 45 minutes of Spinning just now), she was concerned I might be dealing with a stress fracture. She also said the tenderness could just be from the tendonitis, which she said I'm definitely dealing with--but she wanted to be sure.
However the MRI turns out, I'm off running great distances probably for a while (suck an elf!), and I'll be having some fun PT to get my leg back into rights (joy). But at least for now I'm not hobbling on a crutch or cane, which Camille highly recommended I acquire while I'm limping.
Ugh...
Better go dry my hair, get dressed and figure out if I can remove my navel ring. Wouldn't want that sucker heating up while I'm in the machine!
UPDATE The MRI tech said he didn't notice anything glaring, and I can call and get a copy of the report on Friday or so. The report and images will go to my doc sometime tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll get a call from Camille or the doc himself if there is a fracture.
Lemme tell you one thing, an MRI is a nice excuse for a little midday catnap in a big magnetic donut hole. However, I'm not chomping at the bit to do one again. I had to remove my navel ring, which hasn't been out since it went in in November 2002. I had to frantically track down instructions online for removing the silly thing--and that was the easy part. Putting the sucker back in--not entirely pleasant. And getting the iddy biddy ball back in place was a total pain in the arse, lemme tell you, Gentle Reader.
Wow, here's just a bloody brilliant idea: in-school coffee bars. Give me a friggin' break.
"A large Snickers Frapp, which is 20 ounces, has 402 calories, 12.5 grams of fat, 22 grams of sugar and about 60 milligrams of caffeine. By comparison, 20 ounces of Coca-Cola has about 243 calories, no fat, 65 grams of sugar and 58 milligrams of caffeine, according to the company. Also popular at the coffee shop are the cookie dough and cookies-and-cream Frapps. A large Frapp is $2.75, and a smaller 12-ounce Frapp is $2.15."
And I bet those cookie dough and cookies-and-cream "Frapps" are oh so nutritious too!
"Hey now, kids, just say no to drugs and cigarettes and other addictive substances, but don't you fret about being a caffeine junkie! We may be pulling soda machines out of school because, after all, sodas cause obesity, but don't stop gulping down those extra-tall full-of-fats-and-sugar mochafrappalattesppressos with extra whipped cream!"
This week's Newsweek (the U.S. edition, at least) features a fun essay supporting the eradication of cursive handwriting from education. As you know, Gentle Reader, I'm all for getting rid of this waste of time, and it's nice that a national publication is giving the topic some column space.
Among the things that essayist Jessica Bennett notes is that people who support the teaching and use of script have used various arguments to bolster their position, including research. One study that she gives as an example uncovered "that the majority of primary-school teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produce better work." Bennett adds immediately, "though it seems just as likely that the teachers might 'believe' that because legible handwriting makes their jobs easier."
Perhaps if teachers just gave students time (more than the 15 minutes Bennett says is the average amount devoted to penmanship in class these days) to practice writing legibly in whatever style comes naturally, be it cursive or print, more people would enjoy the art of handwriting. Perhaps we should stop calling handwriting an art so as to remove the pressure to make using a pen or pencil with paper to record thoughts some kind of masterpiece. Let's face it--jotting down a few grocery items on the back of an envelope or expired coupon when you're waiting at a red light ain't like painting the friggin' Sistine Chapel. Nor should it be.
Waay back when I first started this little endeavor, I regaled you, Gentle Reader, with a quick tale of a former coworker who hated cilantro, calling it "that foul weed." I just thought it was a personal quirk of his.
But I was wrong. Evidently, cilantro pisses off a lot of people, not just my kid and my former coworker. I mean, the hate is strong enough to land on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Check it out!
The level of idiocy out there really, really amazes me at times. And scares the shit out of me too. What, Gentle Reader, happened to common sense?
U.S. School Children Need Less Work, More Play: Study We needed a study to tell us this? Anyone who's been around young kids who've been forced to sit and concentrate (or attempt to do such tasks) for a prolonged time can tell you how absolutely absurd it is to expect the kids to do that.
Oh, and, uh, Reuters? Nice headline. Where did you find that gem of a reporter? And the two editors who worked on the piece? Got a crack team there!
But here's the even sadder thing about this "news" item: No one's going to pay any attention to it. You can't quantify the value of playtime. You can sure as hell quantify the results of prolonged sessions of math lessons, grammar lessons (hint hint, Reuters), social studies lessons and all those other uber-important topics in standardized tests. With those numbers you generate from those tests, you sure can make it look like a school is doing something for its students--or not doing anything for its students. ROI, bitch! That's what it's all about.
Onto the next item, which has me asking, Gentle Reader, when will the whitewashing end?
More Anger [A]bout Avatar So I've complained about Keanu Reeves bringing Cowboy Bebop as a live-action flick to the big screen. I think I complained in that same post about Spidey McGuire's bringing Robotech as a live-action to the big screen. Well, another cartoon property with a lot of Asian faces and ideas, Avatar: The Last Air Bender, is coming to the big screen, and guess what? Asians are few and far between in the pic!
Just get a load of what some genius at Paramount had to say about casting Asians for the film, as quoted in The Daily Pennsylvanian:
Casting officials are seeking candidates with military or martial arts experience, athletes, gymnasts and people of various races and cultures.
'We want you to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire,' [Deedee Rickets, casting director for the Avatar film] said. 'If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen.'
Well, it's so nice to see that the folks in charge of casting really know about the cultures of Asia! How silly of me to have asked Mum to make me a hanbok in honor of my son's Korean heritage when I should have asked her to make me a kimono!
Oh well. At least the boy isn't from Belgium. Neither he nor I are big fans of lederhosen.
I love stupidity. I especially love stupid white people. They totally make my day.
Oh yeah, you're reading that right, Gentle Reader. I've logged more than 700 miles since late July.
Actually, add an additional 9 miles to the total you see in the image. I logged a little over 9 miles last Monday, but thus far I haven't been able to upload them to my Nike+ account because my friggin' Nike+ sportsband is in its final death throes. Yes, my much-loved but poorly designed sportsband's USB connector is no longer recognized by any of the three computers here at Chez Boeckman-Walker. By some magic late last week, I got my computer to recognize it and upload the 18 or more miles I had sitting on it, but the 9 I did last Monday? No magic has materialized to allow me to get those miles uploaded.
So what's a runner addicted to her little toys to do? Well, since Nike hasn't released the allegedly promised sportsband 2.0 (per the Bettysport salesperson I spoke with back in October) hasn't yet materialized, I opted to run to the Apple Store at The Domain last Tuesday and score myself a Nike + iPod sport kit. Which means I have to plug this little...thing into my gym iPod. Except I can't because the awesome case I have for it that does a superb job of protecting it from sweaty 'ol me doesn't have an opening for this attachment.
So, again, what's a runner addicted to her little toys to do? Well, she grabs out her old gym iPod and now goes to the gym armed with not one but two iPods.
Cumbersome? Yeah, a tad. Ridiculous? Yeah, a tad. But I'm getting my miles logged, which makes me very happy.
"Starting Feb[ruary] 10, retailers across the country may only sell products--new or used--for children 12 and younger that meet new standards for levels of lead and of phthalates, chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. All children's items, even those already in stores, will have to be tested and shown to comply or be thrown away."
Oh yeah, hooray for the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Just take a moment, Gentle Reader, and this of the massive impact these new rules could have. Bid farewell to buying used kiddie clothes, toys and accoutrements at Goodwill, Salvation Army and other thrift stores and resale shops. Say farewell to such items on eBay, Craigslist--and perhaps even at the local flea markets and garage sales.
And if you're a toy collector the way the husband is? Ooh, this could be very painful since it would be seemingly illegal for him to buy a ratty old Chewbacca plush doll circa 1977 at a sci-fi convention. (Good thing we did that waaay back at the turn of the century. Oh! how I love that ratty Chewie!)
What if this law applies to books? Half-Price Books would have large, relatively empty sections in its stores.
If you haven't had your daily dose of outrage yet, Gentle Reader, check out the Austin-American Satan's story, or enjoy (if you can parse it--I had difficulty because it's so poorly written) the story from the local ABC affiliate, which is accompanied by a news segment. Or just go look up "Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008" on Google and see what you get.
Afterwards, take a moment to consider the sheer waste this law could engender. Consider how much higher the price of kids' clothes, toys and other items could be now that they all have to be tested.
Yeah, got yer mind boggled real good, didn't ya, Gentle Reader?
Asinine, I tell you. Asinine.
UPDATE After kvetching about this situation with my good friend Alicia, she tracked down this PR the Consumer Product Safety Commission wisely issued today:
Hmm, was the poor widdle CPSC feeling a widdle bit of heat over its inability to respond to inquiries about this asinine law? Did the poor widdle CPSC realize what a major blunder it had on its widdle hands?
Let's face it, Gentle Reader, the first few months of a new year are really, really dull. After all the hullabaloo of the end-of-the-year holidays and all the anticipation that the new year is going to be different, we more often than not find ourselves back in the same dull grind. The air is usually cold (or cooler than normal if you're here in Austin), the sky is more often than not gray, the disappointment over failing to keep a new year's resolution (i.e., the body failed to spontaneously or near-spontaneously shed 20 or 30 pounds after only a few workouts and a few days of restricted eating) is high, the sales are lackluster (do you really need to stock up on towels, Rubbermaid totes, Hanes tightie whities and other "whites" and storage "solutions" every friggin' year?) and a sort of holding pattern descends as we all sort of bide our time until spring arrives. So what can bring a little excitement, a little anticipation back to our lives?
Awards seasons!
Doesn't everybody love an awards show? Doesn't everybody now get an opportunity to get an award now that we have so damn many awards shows? I mean, when I was a kid, I remember we had the Oscars, the Tonys and the Grammys--and this peculiar thing, usually on ABC, called the American Music Awards, but that was more of a concert on TV rather than an awards show. Then, later, came the MTV awards, which multiplied faster than horny rabbits, which, I think, fulfilled some ancient prophecy that then opened some mystic door to all kinds of other awards shows.
(The People's Choice Awards? Why do I give a dilly damn what the brain-dead readers or viewers of USA Today or Parade magazine or some other low-end, lowest common denominator media outlet choose? But, hey, last night Batman cleaned up! Check out a fun play-by-play over on Newsarama.)
It seems Awards Season has extended its tentacles and ensnared local public schools as well. The boy came home yesterday with a note about his elementary school's upcoming awards assembly. Yeah, an awards assembly in January. Just what kind of awards are we giving out in the middle of the school year? Why must we now honor kids after only one semester? Hell, if this were college and kids graduated and left in December, I could understand have two awards assemblies a year, but this ain't college.
I dunno, Gentle Reader. Call me...crazy? Sane? I just don't understand why we need an awards assembly after only one semester. Do we really think that kids' egos are that fragile and need constant boosting with meaningless awards--that accompany so much of the meaningless work they're required to do to meet meaningless metrics? (But hey, once these kids are adults, they'll be all ready to be drones in the workplace, where doing meaningless work to achieve meaningless metrics in the hopes of winning meaningless awards is de rigueur). And don't give me any B.S. about self-esteem.
Sheesh, and they wonder why Millennials have a raging sense of entitlement....
