A Whole New World

I started my new job this week. So far, I feel good about it. Here are the highlights thus far:

• I sit next to a window that overlooks a street that has always felt like home to me.
• The staff is culturally diverse and people seem very down-to-earth. They make a point, as part of their external and internal mission, to treat everyone thoughtfully and respectfully - caring about how people are feeling - being aware of others on a very human level.
• The org structure is largely flat, with everybody helping with everything. I mean...everyone answers the phone. Whoever can answer it, answers it. Everyone. No receptionists/secretaries.
• Did I mention that my commute is like 4 minutes? In the summer I will most definitely be riding my bike to work.

Not too surprisingly, nobody really knows what my job looks like at this point - I don't have specific tasks and thus it is a somewhat awkward transition into the organization. I'm just learning, helping with whatever I can, and likely I'll keep loading my plate until it is full - then the balancing act will start. Most staff are swamped, so I know that I will be highly utilized and be greatly valued.

Anyway, enough job updating. It is too soon to say much about it at this point.

I want to recommend a documentary, if you haven't seen it yet -- Miss Representation (2011). It is streaming on Netflix. The film powerfully tells the story of just how underrepresented women are in positions of power and influence in America, and the role of the media in perpetuating demeaning images of women (and men). Watch it. It helped me gain perspective on these prevalent and frankly horrifying problems and how to be part of the solution.

End of an Era

I bought the ticket and now... I'm taking the ride. Tomorrow at noon I will leave my office for the last time. My feelings are mixed.

I have always thought of work as secondary to "my life." While I aim to do challenging and impactful work that I enjoy, I still think of work as a means to an end. Every day I most look forward to the moment I get home, put on sweats, turn on music, and start cooking with SB. It is those moments that keep me going day-to-day and make it all worthwhile. And no matter what my new job brings, I think that I will still feel this way about work.

That being said, full-time employment brings with it a deep connection to people and place. We separate the notion of "colleagues" from the notion of "friends," but for me, a few of my colleagues were close friends. They threw a surprise wedding shower for me and were part of our wedding day. They shared with me their perspectives on professional and personal matters, and taught me a lot about life by sharing their own experiences. 

If you know me you likely know that it is hard for me to make new connections because I tend to stay in my shell. Those who I am able to make connections with become cherished friends. So, although I chose to leave my current position because of organizational restructuring, I am mourning the loss of sharing my day-to-day life with these friends. I can only hope that I will be able to develop such positive relationships again in my new work environment.

Can you guess what I did when I got home, feeling all of these mixed feelings and not really knowing what to do with myself? (SB is at his night class tonight, so I've got the place to myself.) Yep - I put on sweats, poured a glass of wine, turned on Louis Armstrong, and made a new recipe. This ritual is the great leveler of emotions - whether the day is excellent or crappy, I find such peace and contentment listening to jazz in my kitchen.

"Farmer salad" with shiitakes, snap peas, and chive vinaigrette
(baby potatoes were called for but we were all out). Another
good one from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Happy (almost) Friday!

It is almost Friday, and thus a time to celebrate. Today the celebration theme is cats. :)

I am fortunate to have a lovely cat named Cricket. She plays fetch, meows often, and likes to cuddle (especially in bed overnight). While I often take her for granted, it is undeniable that she enhances my quality of life by loving me and by being her quirky self. Pets are so great for these reasons.

A modern art museum in Minneapolis has an annual international cat video showcase. The event takes place outdoors and has been highly attended every year. Isn't that awesome? I wish I had thought up the idea. Below was a favorite video from last year, or maybe it was the year before.... Enjoy!

Joy in Record Form

For Christmas my folks gave SB a gift card for a local record shop. Last weekend he bought a handful of records, including Sindey Bechet and Fats Waller records that completely blew me away. The Waller record was released in 1953 - it is fun to listen and imagine the previous owner(s) enjoying it just as much as we are today. The Bechet record is printed in Italian, which gives it some added character.  :)

At first I thought the whole record collecting hobby was so needless. I mean, we have SO MUCH music already - so why buy more (and God forbid anything we already own digitally) on vinyl? And maybe it IS needless, but that is sort of how hobbies are by nature and what makes them pleasurable. Regardless, I've come to really appreciate listening to records for a few reasons:

1) I love music! And at a time when most music is downloaded into a large digital library, it is easy to purchase it and forget about it or at least underutilize it - it just isn't tangible. While I didn't mourn the loss of CD cases, liner notes, etc., I must admit that I like physical records - it is owning the music + the experience of all that album art.

2) I love old music, and listening to old music on an old medium is something that I treasure. Some sense of "authenticity" is derived from it (I know, I know - whatever that means). It is truly a connection to the past to own old records.

3) Most importantly, listening to records removes you from your computer. Don't get me wrong, I love my computer as much as the next person, but at the end of the work day I need a break. I find nothing more regrettable than an evening sitting mindlessly on the computer rather than being present in my home with my family. Records require your attention every 20 to 30 minutes, to be flipped, and in that sense, they keep you present.

While it may not be the vinyl listening experience - here are a few great tracks from these incredibly awesome musicians.

Cooked

If you know me well, you likely know that I love to read. What you may not know, because I am ashamed to admit it, is that I rarely finish a book. I think it is largely because I like to read several books at a time, and because nearly all books appeal to me - by the time I get half-way into one book, I'm on to another that piqued my interest.

I've been getting better in the last year or two, and this year I aim to read one book at a time and to finish every book (unless I don't enjoy the book, of course, because life is too short to slug through a boring or unpleasant book). As a result of my new discipline toward reading, I've finally finished a great book that I have been reading off/on since October - Cooked by Michael Pollan.

From the moment I picked up this book, I loved it.

The book offers evolutionary perspectives on cooking from social science and natural science lenses. Pollan focuses his study on the transformations that occur in the process of cooking - transformations at the molecular level, transformations to the natural world more broadly, and transformations to human culture.

In addition to the scientific approaches that he uses to explain cooking, Pollan also adds a personal level to the book by including anecdotes from his own apprenticeships with BBQ pit masters, chefs, bakers, cheese-makers, brewers, etc. across the globe. This helps to balance the "heady" aspects of the book with down-to-earth experiences cooking from scratch.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is that it values a variety of epistemologies. There is not one type of knowledge prized in this book - he includes perspectives from academics and scientists, but also from food producers from every walk of life (blue collar BBQ men, a cheese-making microbiologist nun, and so many more).

The book is divided into four sections - Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Each of these elements corresponds to a different form of cooking - Fire: meats over fire, Water: braises, pot meals, etc., Air: breads, Earth: fermented foods/drinks.

Pollan examines not only how and why these forms of cooking have evolved, but also discusses the place where we have arrived. Today we cook far less and buy more prepared meals than ever. Americans spend less time cooking than people in any other country, but the downward trend is global. Yet at the same time, we have elevated professional chefs to household names, we watch more cooking shows on TV, and we are seeing a revival movement of from-scratch baking, home-brewing, canning, etc. It is an interesting cultural development, and I enjoyed reading Pollan's theories behind this "Cooking Paradox."

While I've read other books by Pollan (though I may or may not have finished them...), I found Cooked particularly compelling. He has a wonderful voice - intelligent, inquisitive, but also humble and with a dash of good humor.

This passage of the book struck me as representative of Pollan's message for us:

"To brew beer, to make cheese, to bake a loaf of bread, to braise a pork shoulder, is to be forcibly reminded that all these things are not just products, in fact are not even really 'things.' Most of what presents itself to us in the marketplace as a product is in truth a web of relationships between people, yes, but also between ourselves an all the other species on which we still depend....The beer in that bottle, I'm reminded as soon as I brew it myself, ultimately comes not from a factory but from nature - from a field of barley snapping in the wind, from a hops vine clambering over a trellis, from a host of invisible microbes feasting on sugars. It took the carefully orchestrated collaboration of three far-flung taxonomic kingdoms - plants, animals, and fungi - to produce that ale. To make it yourself, once in a while, to handle the barley and inhale the aroma of hops and yeast, becomes, among other things, a form of observance, a weekend ritual of remembrance.

The world becomes literally more wonderful (and wonderfully more literal) as soon as we are reminded of these relationships. They unfold over the span of evolutionary time but also over the course of a few hours on a Sunday in an neighbor's backyard."

Wild Geese

Happy Friday! To celebrate - a poem.

One of my favorite poets these days is Mary Oliver. I first heard one of her poems at church a few years  ago (as my highly unconventional parish makes a point to integrate modern culture into the experience of mass each week). She is a wonderful observer of the natural world. From what I can tell, I have not shared any of her poems on my blog before - a surprise, because this poem has been a favorite of mine since I bought my first book of her poetry.

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.


You do not have to walk on your knees


for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.


You only have to let the soft animal of your body
 love what it loves.


Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.


Meanwhile the world goes on.


Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain


are moving across the landscapes,


over the prairies and the deep trees,


the mountains and the rivers.


Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,


are heading home again.


Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,


the world offers itself to your imagination,


calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-


over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. 

New Year, New Job

Yesterday I turned in my letter of resignation. While I have imagined that moment for months and months, thinking it would feel so good to say "I quit," I have found the transition more emotional and surreal than I expected it to be. It was sad to share the news with coworkers who I have enjoyed working with over the past 2+ years. And even more heartbreaking (while heartwarming) to receive their congratulations, their disappointment in seeing me go, their kind wishes and hopes for me moving forward.

I move forward with similar hopes for myself - to learn about a whole new issue facing communities state-wide, to be part of a team that is hardworking and compassionate, to develop new skill sets, to feel that I am making an impact in doing my day-to-day work. No job is perfect and, let's face it, work is WORK, but I am optimistic that at least a few of these hopes will become realities in my new role. I plan to make the most of it, to challenge myself and to be the best that I can be in this new environment.

Been All Around This World

Last night SB and I saw Inside Llewyn Davis (for a second time).

We are big fans of the Coen brothers - and not just because they are hometown heroes, but because they have made a wide array of amazing movies.  To list a few: Raising Arizona, Fargo, Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, True Grit... and now Inside Llewyn Davis.

The new movie follows suit, in terms of the Coen brothers' quality and distinctive style. There is so much attention to detail in the filmmaking despite the fact that the storytelling is on a grand scale - making the lives of seemingly ordinary people into complex journeys. And amidst the familiar backdrop of ordinary life, you subtly see and feel suspense, anguish, and sometimes magic. And of course, there is wonderful humor.

Llewyn Davis is a compelling character because, throughout the movie, he continually finds himself in unfortunate circumstances and never really escapes them. In some instances you feel sorry for him because he tends to have fairly good intentions, and just a bad lot in life. Other times he is clearly to blame for his misfortune and the misfortune of others, which makes him seem like a careless jerk. I really enjoy when a movie makes you uncertain about how you feel about a character - then the character  becomes like a puzzle that you have to try to put together for yourself.

The movie offers several breathtakingly beautiful moments. In a handful of scenes the only action on the screen is Llewyn singing soulful folk songs with his acoustic guitar. I'm a sucker for folk music, but I think that these scenes really capture his humanity. It If you like cats, you will appreciate several scenes in the movie that feature the expressions and movements of an adorable tabby. In this somewhat dark and definitely dreary movie, the cat provided an opportunity for the audience to smile.

Anyway, if you're into Coen brothers movies, folk music, spiteful underdogs, and/or cats, you'll find things about this movie to like. I certainly don't think it is the best Coen brothers movie, and I wouldn't necessarily call it pleasurable to watch in the sense that it isn't a feel-good movie, but I enjoyed it a lot because I liked the character of Llewyn Davis, his story as well as his music. One other note is that the setting of this movie is one of the most romanticized periods in modern American history, and I appreciated that the movie didn't portray it in that typical way.

Movie trailer below:

PS. I got a new job. (!!!!!) More on that soon.

New Year

Happy New Year!

I don't know about you, but I really enjoy that "fresh start" feeling that comes with the beginning of each new year. It is a hopeful time when so much seems possible.

Last year was a busy one for me, filled with many ups (getting married!) and downs (ongoing job struggle!), and I feel that my blog often reflected my mood, with sprinklings of food photos, etc. My goal for this blog in 2014 is to offer more than my day-to-day moods and ramblings; I hope to be able to share my interactions with the world in a more structured way.

For instance, I plan to:

• Dig more deeply into my poetry collection and share more poems again
• Continue to share recipes and food photos, because hey - I'm a foodie
• Try to write more comprehensive "reviews" for books, movies, new records, etc.
• Share more photos that I take day-to-day on walks, etc.

I started 2014 off right this morning - a great breakfast with a book (SB was sleeping in).

huevos rancheros benedict

Also, enjoy the video below of a New Orleans band that I heard on the radio a few weeks ago. I really love the singer's voice.