Food! Oh, yeah... and life, too.

[Book]

So I've been watching all the incredible achievements of the people here, and I've been a little envious. For a variety of reasons including the fact that I'm trying to continue being a semi-competitive athlete (hammer throw), I'm not really going to see the kind of improvements that most other people are experiencing (although don't get me wrong, I'm planning on adding some good weight to my lifts this winter). In fact, in the coming years, I need to expect a slow decline, at least in this area.

And I can't really pick up something new (time constraints, the effect it will have on my principal training). I've thought about perhaps taking a year off from throwing to try something new, but I wanna throw!

So.... my 'big improvement' areas will have to be in the non-physical areas. I've already been putting some significant effort into a few areas:

1. Language: My mother's family is French-Canadian, and I took half of my classes in French from 7th-12th grade. I'm not fluent, but I can certainly carry on a conversation. Living in Minnesota, I don't have a lot of opportunity to use my French, so even maintaining is a issue. I've also worked on Portuguese, Italian and Arabic recently. This was probably biting off more than I can chew. I burned out a couple of months ago.

2. Professional Education: I made a splash at work by studying, on my own, some technical/clinical information. Again, I burned out on this a few months ago.

3. Music: This is actually more about my kids, although I play with them, partially to help keep them motivated. My daughter has been learning violin at school, and my son has been learning piano. Over and above this, we take a group lesson with an amazing Celtic/Irish musician.

However... there is one area that I really *need* to improve, and which of course is all about NF: my diet. Now, I'm not looking to go paleo (yet), but I'm certainly comfortable with protein-and-vegetable-rich meals, so please feel free to point me at some great paleo recipes. In general, I'm looking to build up a repertoire of dishes, preferably things that I can make in large amounts (5 kids, and a desire to have plenty of leftovers). I see a recipe over at Mark's Daily Apple for Curry Meatballs that I'm planning to try.

For now I'm simply going to say that I want to make significant improvements in this area, with the knowledge that I need to make much more specific goals in the very near future.

As for the other stuff, we'll obviously continue with music, and I'll get back into my language/work studying, although I'll cut down to just French and Portuguese.

However, I think I need to add something else, which is to add some extra organization. I have a pretty good system for studying, but in both the music and food area, I have spent significant time researching how to do or play something, and then forget. I need to file/organize these things properly so that I can pick them up again much more quickly.

[SirEarl]

Can't really help you with the food part since I barely know how to cook myself, haha!

Portuguese is a wonderful language. I was recently introduced to livemocha, and I'm in love. Tons of languages, native speaker support, and many different ways to learn.

Violin and piano are insane. Love them both, play them both, but understand neither. I think it's great you take a class with your kids. As far as being organized goes, it's helpful. I should know since I'm not organized! Often I'll be working on a song, but then will want to refer to an earlier version of that song, so I'll have to shuffle through hundreds of pages of my chicken scratch on paper just to find what I want.

[Book]

Yay! The thing that got me out of bed this morning was my burning desire to start the organization project and respond here!

My kids and husband devoured these ham egg cups like a horde of locusts. http://thesimpledelights.com/?p=246 You can cook up a dozen or two dozen at a time, with a muffin tray or two.

Oh... those do look fascinating and tasty and so easy.

Tortilla wraps and DIY mini pizzas (with pita bread for a base) are great with kids because they love getting to choose which meat and salad options they get to put on their very own dinner, and you're all set with leftover cooked onion, grated carrot, pineapple pieces, etc. for lunches the next day.

You're right... the mini pizza idea is a slam dunk. I'd never thought of using pita. And getting the kids more directly involved also seems awesome. I've gotten them involved with some things in the past, but not in such a fun way.

Its good to get a blank book to copy your fave recipes into. There's plenty of customized blank recipe books out there, or just a blank journal will do.

You know, that is an absolutely lovely idea. Particularly if the handwriting is nice, then it almost takes on an heirloom quality. I've got a little bundle of my mother's stuff, and I like it more for that reason than the recipe angle.

However... my handwriting is *not* neat, and I think I know myself that writing it all down would be something I'd tire of pretty quickly. I've started in a nerdier way: simple, hyperlinked web pages. I love the convenience of it. For example, I literally copied and pasted that recipe (including pictures) into a Word document, saved it as a webpage, linked to it from another web page. Now I can transfer the whole thing to my smartphone.

Now my biggest problem is: I wanna try them all, now!

Can't really help you with the food part since I barely know how to cook myself, haha!

Portuguese is a wonderful language. I was recently introduced to livemocha, and I'm in love. Tons of languages, native speaker support, and many different ways to learn.

Violin and piano are insane. Love them both, play them both, but understand neither. I think it's great you take a class with your kids. As far as being organized goes, it's helpful. I should know since I'm not organized! Often I'll be working on a song, but then will want to refer to an earlier version of that song, so I'll have to shuffle through hundreds of pages of my chicken scratch on paper just to find what I want.

Yes! Livemocha is awesome. Being on that site is actually what got me interested in learning Portuguese. It seems like every third person there is Brazilian learning two or three languages and more than willing to help you learn their language. It makes me think that Brazil might just become more of a world player in the coming years. Their people seem *so* fascinated with the rest of the world, and they're so amazingly social, at least based on things like Livemocha and Orkut. I love the fact that they basically took over Orkut for themselves.

Yeah, I'm just the classic person who learned a few chords to strum on the guitar, a couple of fingerpicking patterns, and that's about all, never really progressing. My kids learning these awesome instruments is so amazing to me, particularly the ear and control to be able to play the violin. If I can keep them interested a while longer, then I think they will have such an amazing, life-long skill.

LOL, yeah. Nothing shows you the value of organization more than *not* being organized. I'm hoping the simplicity of this will let me keep it up.

Thank you both so much!

[SeanOfKelley]

I like this rib recipe from PaleOMG alot: http://paleomg.com/crockpot-coffee-ancho-chile-short-ribs/

[Book]

Hmmm... I'm not a coffee drinker, nor do I like the taste. (Although I do like the Canadian chocolate bar Coffee Crisp). Is the coffee taste signficant?

[SirEarl]

when used as a rub, it doesn't really impart as much flavor as you'd think. I do an expresso-chili rub sometimes, and it just tastes like a very rich chili rub

[mrRed]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/health/22recipehealth.html

Zucchini pasta is surprisingly tasty and easy for a quick meal. It's fun to snack on the seed area of the zucchini after you've peeled 'em.

Spaghetti squash is another great way to get people to be ok with no-pasta at meals, and can be subsituted for regular pasta in most things. It is sweeter than pasta, but still really tasty.

Chili is a must for colder weather. If you don't have a great chili recipe yet, work on it. During the winter we do Chili once a week, and it usually lasts for two meals.

If you want to learn how to really step up your cooking game, there's an essential cook book that totally changed the way we cook.

Ad Hoc at home - http://www.amazon.com/Ad-Hoc-Home-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579653774

Keller's method of roasting a chicken yields a perfect result every time. It's amazing. It soo good with winter veggies (rutabegas, parsnips, sweet potatoes, etc ...). If it weren't so hot here I'd make some next week.

Also, the methods he employs in the catalan beef stew has changed the way we do beef stew (but it did turn it into a weekend only recipe due to prep work required).

Lastly, I learned most of what I know about cooking from watching Good Eats. Alton Brown is really awesome, explains things in an approachably scientific manner and really helps cooking make sense.

In all, cooking for me is really about having a good base of techniques at my disposal. After that, different meats and veggies and fruits are flavors to play with based upon rules of what works.

That being said, I want me some ham egg cups!

[Book]

Athena, those ham cups were wonderful! I managed to figure out how to do them in the microwave, too. Now my next step is to try them with other meats. I'm betting a pastrami cup will be *wonderful*.

I've tried a couple of other recipes in the last few days. I tried this one: http://talktomejohnnie.com/diet/crock-pot-diaries-salsa-verde-pork

Someone, I can't remember who, suggested it in the chat room. It wasn't bad, but I think that salsa verde flavors are not the best for me, plus the pork butt was a little too fatty for my taste. It sure did come out tender, though.

I did finally also try the curry recipe I mentioned above: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/curry-meatballs-with-a-little-offal-in-creamy-tomato-coconut-sauce/#axzz21JMcCuAX

I liked this one a bit more. It wasn't the best curry I've ever had. It had a strange sweet taste that I would have rather not had. I got the impression it came from the onions. More experimentation required! I don't think the inclusion of the liver was an issue. The steamed cauliflower rice replacement didn't work for me, though. Time to get some good aromatic rice

My organization project is coming along well, too. It has been incredibly convenient to have everything at my fingertips on my smartphone, including in the kitchen, and I know I'll be able to find it easily in the future if and when I want to try a recipe again.

I have tried the spaghetti squash in the past, mrRed. It didn't work for me. We do have a chili recipe (although I think we could do better ). I haven't had a chance to look at the other stuff yet, but I will.

[Book]

What a fun day!

Today we had the second of the throws competitions that I organized, although this was the first one I could actually go to. We had a small group, but it was amazing weather, a really nice facility, and a lot of good throws. And yes, I again had some fun with my competition gear:

In other news, I did try the curry leftovers with Basmati rice. So freaking good.

[Book]

Have you seen these kilts? http://www.sportkilt.com

I've known people who had these, and they really liked them.