Category: Uncategorized

Forget Super Bowl Snacks

Forget Super Bowl Snacks. In fact, forget the Super Bowl. Settle down. I’m not against football, Taylor Swift, or the big game. I enjoy football, but I didn’t watch the game yesterday. I decided my time could be better spent changing the status quo.

American football in sharp focus on green grass

We’re so often rocked by the stress of change, especially unavoidable change, that we fail to examine a status quo that does not serve us well. Areas in which we’ve found a groove can stick for decades even while we complain about the toll of those very areas.

Are we afraid, lazy, in denial, numbing, or just too tired from our everyday responsibilities to take on one more change? Probably all of the above. But does that mean we should resign ourselves to however things are right this minute?

I say no. I think it’s worth exploring what happens when we change one thing and stick to it. By not watching the Super Bowl, I learned I didn’t miss the ads at all. I didn’t miss the casual acquaintance getting drunk and puking on the carpet at a watch party. I didn’t really care whether Kendrick Lamar taunted Drake although I’m curious whether that will affect Drake’s lawsuit. I did want to know the score around halftime and at the end and I hoped Taylor and Travis would have a sweet moment together on camera. And now that I realize it, I didn’t think about Tom Brady at all.

We’ve hit February. Most of us have abandoned any New Years Resolutions and are most likely back to the routines we had before the end of last year. So what is the point of short-lived changes if we don’t learn something along the way?

And why only experiment at the beginning of the year? Why not try changes all year long?

Next up, I’m exploring new foods sources as well as prep and cooking schedules. If those changes, I’ll need to review my cleaning efficiency. Because, yep you guessed it, changing one thing brings an opportunity to change other related things.

Treating each change as an experiment allows me to learn what is and is not important to me, how much I will notice any loss, and how I may want to do things differently in the future. Keeping the experiment going all year means I’m building constant improvement.

The Super Bowl experiment was easy. Challenging family norms or traditions is more complex, but the knowledge gained is more significant. Admittedly sometimes sadder or more painful, but still important and often freeing.

This year as I continue letting go of things that are not serving me well, I invite you to join me. Who knows, we may all find renewed enthusiasm and purpose along the way. And I’ll venture a guess that we’ll be healthier as well.

I now know I can go without the Super Bowl and not feel any sort of loss at all and I didn’t even miss the snacks. In fact, forget Super Bowl snacks.

https://www.cooking2thrive.com/blog/super-bowl-snacks-variations-theme/

Enjoy Something Spicy

As we approach the new year, maybe it’s time to enjoy something spicy! This year’s stockings were filled with spices. I guess Santa knows we don’t want a bland 2025.

My current favorite is New York Shuk Shawarma. It contains Coriander seeds, cumin, paprika, turmeric, garlic, spices, sunflower oil, & salt. (Fortunately, I use this in small enough quantities that the sunflower oil doesn’t seem to cause any adverse effects.) I find myself sprinkling it into many dishes I wouldn’t normally season with cumin. Somehow it adds just the note I want.  

I also received a blend from Penzeys called Revolution. It’s made of flake salt, Tellicherry black pepper, cane sugar, turmeric, orange peel and coriander. The predominant flavor is pepper. The orange peel gives it a festive touch appropriate for the holidays.

My son prefers the shit from Big Cock Ranch. His favorite is Good Shit, but he also uses No Shit (salt free), Bull Shit, Aw Shit, and Chicken Shit. He’s not big on Special Shit though.

You can buy the blends separately or in gift packs like Box o’ Sh*t, Get Your Sh*t Together, Shit Load, Give a Shit, and The Whole Shit and Kaboodle. They used to have a Sack of Shit. Not sure that’s available anymore.

Big Cock Ranch also offers BBQ Shit BBQ sauce and three pepper sauces packaged together as Lil’ Shits. The fun continues with Hot Shit hot sauce and Dip Shit seasoning for vegetables or fruit.

You may remember that I started the year gorging on black garlic. I’m still liking it enough that I gave some purée as gifts.

While Christmas is over for this year, we’re about to embark on another year of birthdays, anniversaries, and other gifting opportunities. Spices are excellent gifts for many occasions. Additional spices I consider gift worthy are Penzeys Mignonette Pepper and their Pure Vanilla Extract (single or double strength); smoked paprika, Maldon, whole vanilla beans, Turkish bay leaves, and Vietnamese cinnamon.

If you use and reuse tins, SpiceWalla packaging may appeal. Founded by a James Beard award winning chef, you won’t lack for fresh, quality, diverse choices when you gift this brand. Don’t miss the blends that are collaborations with rapper T-Pain, Billy D’s Fried Chicken, Island Creek Oysters, Caroline Schiff, and more.

Perhaps you’d rather give herbs than spices. Packages of basil, oregano, sage, thyme, cilantro, or mint seeds make a great gift for the gardeners in your life. They’re small, easy to ship or carry and they add delight to a plate.

I see no reason to save spiciness for the end of the year. Why not give herbs and spices now so we can enjoy something spicy as we begin 2025? I plan to!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Slow and Steady

Slow and steady wins the race. When you’re slow, it’s hard to even get picked for a team much less win. And yet so much in life requires slow, steady progress. Knowledge builds on knowledge. Strength is gained incrementally. Health builds from good habits over time.

We used to value the lesson of the tortoise and the hare. Then came fast everything – fast food, fast casual dining, speed dating, and immediate news posts. Fast channels currently top activity in the streaming world.

As a result, expectations changed. Tolerance changed. And yet, the effectiveness of slow, steady progress didn’t change. For some reason, anything that’s not immediate is now considered too difficult to attempt so we mold reality to our will by denying it. We demand immediate action and immediate results. Rarely is there a good long-term outcome to this behavior.

It is within our power to make different choices even when they’re hard. We just need to practice a few things.

What do slow and steady require?

Patience. Talk about a commodity in short supply. We are not a patient people. We want complete and immediate results. Unrealistic expectations lead us to view small bits of progress as no progress, lessening pain as inadequate relief, and grief as a process to be avoided. Impatience presents problems in many areas.

When it comes to health, impatience may lead some to abandon healthy habits before results are visible. It can lead to demands for medication when other approaches would be effective but take longer. A lack of patience may lead to impulsive behavior or riskier choices.

Dedication. Commitment to a particular course of action is required to stay on course over time.

Perseverance. Adhering to a course of action over time is inherently required for slow and steady improvement.

Open-mindedness. Not all standards, protocols, or methods are based on solid science or unimpeachable knowledge, yet they persist as “the right way.” As new peer-reviewed, rigorous scientific information becomes available, we must be willing to learn and adapt without being thrown off course.

Desire. None of the above is worth the effort if we don’t have a desire for improvement. And maybe that’s why all of this is hard. Maybe we would rather skate through life than put out the effort required because we just don’t have the desire to do better for ourselves.

It could be we feel like we’ve done our best despite not having put in much effort. Maybe someone has treated us in a way that causes us to doubt our worth. Perhaps we were taught everyone else is more important and using energy on ourselves is selfish. If these, or similar, beliefs hamper our desire to get better, or be better, we’ve identified a starting point for improvement.

Beginning a healthier path doesn’t require a large production. It doesn’t necessarily require an immediate reversal of every habit in your life. Small changes can lead to slow, steady progress and slow and steady can still win the race!

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Splinters

Splinters work for kindling, but they aren’t appropriate fuel for a roaring fire. Tomato, onion, lettuce, and pickles on a burger are great additions, but they aren’t sufficient vegetable servings for lunch every day unless you double up at another time. Your body burns calories like a fire burns wood, and like that fire, the type of fuel you feed it determines the energy it has available to burn.

Most of us want an abundance of energy so we can breeze through our day feeling fresh and light. Then we eat in ways that make us sluggish and slow. To get our pep back, we use sugar, caffeine, and energy drinks. It’s a vicious cycle.

And it’s just one example. I can give similar examples regarding how medicine is practiced in the west; how math is taught; how research is funded; how policy is set. I don’t know if we were all dropped on our heads as children or what happened, but convoluted, reactionary response seems to have taken the place of thorough strategic planning.

This has not always been true. Take flying for example. Aviation was well thought-out and well planned. Planes flying east would fly 500 feet higher or lower than planes flying west. The whole world would have a standard time clock so that international flights didn’t have to worry about multiple time zones. All plane systems would be built with redundancy. A phonetic alphabet would be used to avoid confusion over radios. Communications would be repeated. Pilots would verbalize control of the aircraft. Checklists would be used. Certifications would be required. Proficiency would be tested. Physicals would be mandatory for licensing. Certain ceilings would be maintained in populated areas. And these are just the beginning.

Then things began to happen that made little sense – TSA screening of passengers became invasive and cumbersome while any Joe Blow could still give a tail number and drive through the gate of an FBO and right onto the taxiways or runways. The 737 MAX failed to give pilots an effective override for a pitch correction assistance system that relied on a single sensor rather than two factors. The resulting 346 lives lost required a revamp, but the process for how the MCAS system was developed and approved echoes the vicious cycle described above.

So, how do we get back to an understanding that splinters should be used for kindling and nutrients are most effective when they come in the form of fresh food in significant quantities?

  • Ask questions.
  • Improve critical thinking skills.
  • Challenge tendency to deny or justify.
  • Allow time for healthy endeavors.
  • Recognize there is rarely a quick fix without long-term consequences.
  • Be thorough.
  • Create and/or use systems to assist.
  • Be open-minded and willing to adapt.
  • Be willing to start over.

If you feel mired in things that don’t make sense, it’s because there are a whole lot of things that don’t make sense. Some you’ll be able to change. Some you’ll have to navigate around. One may become your mission.

However you decide to proceed, be assured all of us can learn and improve.