A Map in My Heart

I had dinner tonight with two of my favorite people.

Kris had been invited by the Willamette University Chemistry Club to participate in a panel discussion about careers in chemistry. I drove her to Salem and then joined my friends at The Great Wall, a Chinese buffet.

I love Asian food. If I could, I would eat Asian food for every meal: three meals a day, 365 days a year. I love it. A Chinese buffet is a dangerous place for me, especially when I’m on a diet. Earlier in the day, I had the following exchange with one of my friends:

F: We are big fans of Asian food too. It’s probably worth a trip to the Great Wall if you have never been. Their food isn’t the best Asian food we’ve ever had, but the spread is quite impressive.

J: Sounds excellent. I’ve had 500 calories today, so will have 1500 to spare for Chinese food!

F: You’ll need about 15,000! It is a very large buffet.

I should have heeded the warning. The Great Wall does, indeed, have quite and impressive spread. Row after row of steaming treats: General Tso chicken (of course), grilled salmon, bacon-wrapped crab, BBQ spareribs, black pepper chicken (my favorite), sweet and sour pork, spicy steak, fresh fruit, sushi, and that traditional Chinese dessert, tapioca pudding.

I didn’t eat 15,000 calories, but I certainly had more than 1500.

It felt great to spend time alone with these friends. I mostly see them in group situations now, and I miss the time we used to spend together, the four of us. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. For two years, Kris and I had been quite close to with them. Over dinner, we talked about our house and their house. We talked about pets. We talked about vacation plans. But we also talked about stuff closer to my heart.

We discussed how cultivating friendships is a lot like dating, but even more complicated in the case of couples. For one thing, all four people must get along well in order for the group to have a chance. In order for the group to thrive, every person must really like every other person. If the group can have fun together, can talk and laugh and play, then the friendship has a chance at real growth. We talked about how the addition of children adds another dynamic to the group, often makes a couple more inwardly focused. Our former intense friendship was never explicitly mentioned, but it felt like an implicit subtext to me, adding depth to the discussion.

It was a good meal. I’m glad we were able to get together.

“…every man has a map in his heart of his own country and … the heart will never allow [him] to forget this map.” — Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

After dinner, I returned to Willamette. I walked around a little, revisiting old familiar places on campus: the library, the botanical garden, the quad. As I entered the University Center, I stopped to inahled the old, familiar smell, and was swept away by a flood of nostalgia: a hundred different memories washed over me at once. Inside was worse. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of remembered faces, names, events.

Upstairs, in the Cat Cavern, I found a table against the back wall and waited for Kris to finish talking with students. I took out a piece of paper and began to write. But then I was no longer drowning in memories; I was living them.

In the back of the room, pen and paper in hand, writing, I might have been composing a paper for class. No — I am composing a paper for class. In a few minutes I will make my way to Eaton Hall for a study session with Heather James. I will spend an hour reviewing for the Psych final. Heather will just not get it, so I will play the role of the professor. She will sit three rows back. I will stand at the front of the lecture hall and scrawl psych terms and concepts on the board. She will be caught up in remembering every little detail about Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs, and I will not be able to convince her that what is important is the Big Picture, understanding what it means. When we have finished, I will walk to Doney, or to York, where Andrew and Dane and I will spend two hours bickering about comic books and science fiction. And then, when I’ve had my fill of friends, I will find Kris and we will spend the night together, secreted in her room.

Pen to paper. It’s liberating. To hell with the computer — it’s been too long since I’ve written this way.

Madworld

I hate seeing the pop songs of my youth co-opted for advertising. “Our House” by Madness used to advertise Maxell House coffee?

Jesus wept.

“I Melt With You” by Modern English used to promote Ritz Crackers?

Don’t break my heart!

What’s next?

U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in a V8 commerical? “Forever Young” by Alphaville used to sell knives?

Dietary Resource Page

Today’s entry is a dietary reference of sorts, listing recommended intake levels for fat, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, alcohol, and more.

Kris and I have begun a shared diet. It’s been several years we attempted a joint weight loss plan; it’s fun to work together toward a common goal. I’ve created this entry as a set of notes regarding recommended consumption levels, etc.

I seem to start several diets a year, but rarely see them through. (Or, equally as common, I’ll lose twenty pounds, then fall off the wagon and gain all the weight back.) The good news is that mentally I’ve already bought into this one. I’m committed. I want to lose this weight.

My goal is to lose fifty pounds in ten pound increments. I want to lose the first ten pounds, to drop from 210 to 200, by June 1st, which will require an average weight loss of 1.5 pounds/week. Kris wants to lose ten pounds by August 1st. My current daily intake target is 2000 calories; Kris is aiming for 1500 calories. The first few days of a diet are tough for me, and this time is no exception. Yesterday was hell, though I’m pleased to report things were easier today.

Here’s a breakdown of my average daily calorie consumption from the past week:

[chart of calorie consumption, which actually looks okay

Because I’ve attempted so many diets during the past decade, I’ve done a lot of reading on nutrition and fitness. I can recite many of the bullet points by heart. Here’s some of what I know:

Calories
Calories measure energy consumption. In nutrition, calories measure the amount of energy the body releases when breaking down food. For example, when we say that one gram of protein has four calories, we’re really saying that the body needs to use four calories of energy to process that gram of protein. Confused? Basically, the body has to process everything you eat. It takes energy to do that, and your body can only process so many calories at a time. If you consume too many calories, then the body has to store the excess as fat, energy stores for later use. But if your calorie consumption is low enough, your body says, “Aha! I have some free time. I’ll go work on breaking down this fat I’ve stored.”

How many calories can the body process? A general rule of thumb is that the body of the average man is able to break down calories equal to about twelve times his body weight every day. The average woman’s body can break down calories equal to about eleven times her body weight every day. Active people are able to process more calories; sedentary people can’t process quite as many.

Weight loss is achieved when you run a calorie deficit, consuming fewer calories than your body can process every day. Weight gain is caused by a calorie surplus, consuming more calories than your body can use every day. As a general rule of thumb, one pound is equivalent to 3500 calories. This is a convenient number: altering your calorie consumption by 500 calories/day thus produces a theoretical swing of one pound per week.

In my case, I’m starting at 210 pounds. Using the above formula, my daily requirement is 2520 calories. Thus, if I were to reduce my calorie consumption to 2000 calories/day, I would lose about one pound per week. (Notice that as I shed weight, I’ll need to reduce my daily calorie consumption to maintain this 500 calorie/day gap. For every ten pounds lost, I need to cut my energy consumption by 120 calories.)

Also note that it’s possible to pump up the other end of the formula. That is, by exercising, one can cause the body to burn more daily calories. My rule of thumb (and this is only roughly accurate, but it’s close enough) is that traveling a mile on foot, whether running or walking, burns 100 calories. Biking for ten minutes also burns about 100 calories. So, if I take a three mile walk during the day, I know that my body will burn roughly 300 extra calories that day.

When I diet, I generally aim to maintain a calorie deficit of between 500 and 1000 calories.

Fat
One gram of fat contains about nine calories. Fat from all sources should make up no more than 30% of your daily calories. Our foods contain a variety of fats. Some, such as those from nuts, olives, and fish, are “good fats”. Others, such as saturated fats and transfatty acids are “bad fats”. Transfats should be avoided completely. Saturated fat should make up no more than 10% of your daily calories. Put into numbers, in a 2000 calorie diet, daily fat consumption should be limited to about 65g or less, no more than 20g of which should come from saturated fats. (Cholesterol should be limited to less than 300mg per day.)

Alcohol
One gram of alcohol contains about seven calories. I only have vague notions of alcohol and its relation to diet. I was a teetotaler until about five years ago. I did some research tonight, and was surprised to find that moderate alcohol consumption actually is considered acceptable, even healthful. I’d thought such claims were bogus. Moderate alcohol consumption seems to mean the equivalent of one drink (ten to fifteen grams of alcohol) per day for men, and half a drink (five to eight grams of alcohol) per day for women. (One drink is a bottle of beer, or a glass of wine, or a shot of whiskey.) If you consume twice this much alcohol, you begin to be susceptible to various health risks. If you consume four times as much alcohol, you’re considered a heavy drinker. If you consume 80 grams or more of alcohol each day (about six drinks), you are doing severe damage to your body.

Protein
One gram of protein contains about four calories. A diet should comprise at least 10% protein, though more is better. If I recall correctly, protein shouldn’t make up more than 30% of your daily calorie totals. Thus, assuming a 2000 calorie diet, you should eat between 50 and 150 grams of protein per day. High protein diets are not necessarily more healthful for the body (in fact, the opposite is likely true); high protein diets work because they encourage a feeling of fullness. Protein satisfies. It’s possible to apply this principle to a healthy diet without going overboard. If you’re trying to lose weight, maximize your consumption of beans, rice, and lean meats. (Actually, now that I think about it, rice always makes me hungrier. I wonder why this is…)

Carbohydrates
One gram of carbohydrates contains about four calories. The bulk of your diet (40-60%) should come from carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are essentially sugars. There are different types of carbohydrates, from simple sugars to complex carbohydrates. Simple sugars are easy for the body to process and provides little or no nutritional benefit. It’s quick energy. The body is forced to break down complex carbohydrates (think “starches”), so the energy from a potato, say, generally isn’t available for the body to use right away.

Two carb-related notes: added sugars (refined sugars), such as those often found in candies, sodas, and sweetened cereals, should make up less than a quarter of your total calories, the fewer the better. (It’s my understanding that these sugars are easily identifiable on nutritional labels because they’re the ones labeled “sugar” under the carbohydrates section.) Also, fiber is technically a carbohydrate, though mainly it’s just bulk that the body does not process. The old guideline was that 25 grams per day ought to be consumed for a 200 calorie diet, though a brief web search reveals that the new guideline is 38g/day for men and 25g/day for women.

Other Nutrients
Sodium intake should be restricted to less than 5000 mg/day, and preferably half that. (Past reading leads me to believe that sodium intake isn’t as critical for people who are not sensitive to it. I’m not sensitive to it, which is a good thing since I eat a hell of a lot of it.) Potassium intake should be greater than 3500mg/day (and closer to 5000 mg). I’m not clear on the reasons for these levels, though I do know that the body burns some amount of sodium (1500mg? 2500mg?) every day, and thus the need to replace it.

Water
Women should consume roughly 2.5 liters of water per day. Men should consume roughly 3.5 liters of water per day. Some of this water is taken in naturally through the other things we eat and drink. In general, the rule of thumb seems to be “drink when you’re thirsty”. Do that and you’re fine. (Note that drinking extra water each day is great for dieting. It promotes a feeling of fullness. If you are like me and often eat or drink simply to have something in your mouth, water is a perfect replacement. If you drink cold water, you expend a small amount of energy in bringing the water to body temperature.)

Excercise
The basic rule is: Just do it!

Doctors suggest a minimum of one half-hour of physical exercise every day, though an entire hour is recommended. Exercise has been proven to have enormous health benefits beyond weight loss and fitness. Exercise improves mental fitness. It encourages sound sleep. It enhances self-confidence.

Aerobic exercise, exercise that requires heavy breathing, is good for burning fat in the short term. Weight-lifting and other exercises that build muscle help in a different way. Adding muscle mass increases your metabolism, the low-level fat burning that occurs all day long, even when you’re asleep. A good exercise regimen includes both muscle-building and aerobic exercise. Unfortunately, most people prefer one or the other. (I prefer aerobic exercise.)

When I diet, I never count the exercise. I don’t track it. I do try to exercise, but any exercise I do is “bonus calories”, extra unexpected weight loss. It’s a subtle psychological game I play with myself, but it works.

Conclusion
I admit that most of this entry was composed off the top of my head. The information here could be inaccurate, or out of date, though I think it’s reasonably correct. This page is meant primarily as a resource for Kris and me to access over the next few months as we attempt to lose weight, but perhaps it can be of use to you, too.

One key point that I didn’t make above is that your diet should derive most of its calories from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Fats, oils, and sweets should be used sparingly. This means: don’t butter those peas, don’t eat that candy bar, and don’t use that salad dressing. Season the peas with salt and pepper, eat an orange, and use lemon juice on your salad.

Finally, if you haven’t already signed up for a free FitDay account, give it a look. It’s a simple yet convenient site for tracking calorie consumption, exercise, and weight loss.

Grandpa’s Woods

When I was a boy, the neighborhood kids roamed the countryside seemingly at will, and from an early age. Perhaps our parents were watching, but we never noticed. We were six miles from town, traipsing over farmland in rural Oregon. No harm could come to us except that of our own devising. And we did devise ways to hurt ourselves: dirt clod fights, near drownings, accidents with horses, etc. When our parents wanted us home, they would phone around the neighborhood, or, if that failed, they would stand outside and shout: “TOH-rey! DAY-vid! SHAW-un! JEH-uf!” and we would make our way home. (Shawn used to have extended shouted conversations with his mother, from half a mile away; that was pretty funny.)

Often we met the other kids at the Big Tree (which was, alas, cut down last summer), where once we found a stash of porn mags. Sometimes we rode our bikes the mile down to Charlie’s Market to buy Wacky Packs and Bottle Caps and taffy and Dr. Pepper. We romped through the filbert orchard, where we raced our bikes down rows of trees, scaring ourselves with stories of Homer Knopp’s shotgun (which he kept loaded with rock salt to shoot kids). We rode our bikes back to Grandpa’s Woods.

My grandparents lived a quarter-mile from us. Behind their house grew a stand of oak and pine and fir, a thicket we called Grandpa’s Woods. We spent a lot of time in Grandpa’s Woods. We built forts. We played hide-and-seek. We played in Sputnik, the rusting hulk of a car left behind by Uncle Stan and Aunt Virginia. There were often other miscellaneous pieces of farm equipment in the woods with which to play: plows and implements and tools of all sorts.

Sputnik, that dearly beloved plaything of my youth

For a long time, Grandpa kept his cows in the woods. There was a lane that led from Grandpa’s barn, back past a small field, and into the trees. The front half of the woods was thick with all sorts of trees, but dominated by towering oaks. The back half of the land had fewer trees, and was generally open, covered with grass and weeds and blackberry brambles. Grandpa’s cows grazed in this grassy area. To keep them contained, Grandpa had an electric fence. We used to play games trying to see who could hold the fence the longest (despite the shocking pulses), what objects we could use to touch the fence without being shocked, or how quickly we could crawl under the fence. Being boys, we considered a mark of honor to urinate on the fence.

One year, on my birthday, Jeff and I took Sean and Cory Brown back to Grandpa’s woods. For some reason, we had a hatchet. The winter had been harsh, and several trees had fallen. One had been arrested mid-fall, and lay at maybe a thirty degree angle to the ground. The Brown twins climbed the tree and started hacking at it, trying to cut off the top. “Let me try,” I said, and I climbed past them. I was a little nervous to be so high above the ground (twenty feet? thirty?). I was happily hacking away when the trunk snapped and suddenly I was in free fall. I hadn’t anticipated that sitting on the wrong side of the cut might be dangerous. Fortunately, the trunk fell away from me, and my fall was slowed by a thick growth of branches all around me. When I hit the ground with a thud, Jeff rushed to my side. “Are you okay?” he asked. I wasn’t sure at first, once I realized I was in one piece, I proclaimed: “That was fun!”

When we were older, we played “life-size D&D”, a game we made up as we went along, the rules of which were relatively fluid. (This is years before we were aware of the concept of live-action roleplaying.) We played with Jeremy Martin and Torey Lam. (And maybe Dave — Dave did you ever play with us?). We would run around with stout limbs as swords and axes. If we were magicians we would carry pine cones or oak puffs and throw them at our targets as we shouted, “Magic missile! Magic missile!” (Similar to this but without costumes, and with far fewer people.) Even in those formative years, priests were valued party members, capable of restoring our dwindling health.

Eventually I cast aside my youthful ways. I no longer went back to Grandpa’s woods to play. When I was in high school and college, I’d sometimes walk back there to be alone, to think, to write. It also became a fun place to take girls I was dating, a fun place to make out. (For some reason, they never thought it was as fun as I did.)

The last time I was back in Grandpa’s Woods was for a photography class. The land isn’t in our family anymore, but I felt no compunction about trespassing to make some pictures. While I was working, somebody came along on a four-wheeler and stared at me for a while. I waved, but the watcher did not wave back. Soon after, several new signs appeared announcing “private property — keep out”. Somebody new may own the woods, but they do not own my memories.

Mechanix Illustrated – March 1939

I often buy old magazines at antique stores and garage sales. They can be fantastic fun to browse through. I have several issues of Mechanix Illustrated, a sort of do-it-yourself mag from the mid-1900s. I’ve scanned in some of my favorite pages from the March 1939 issue. Click any photo to view a larger version. For more from this issue, visit my Mechanix Illustrated gallery on Flickr.

First, the cover:

[Cover of Mechanix Illustrated, March 1939]

It looks as if the magazine has just undergone a price increase: now 10¢. Also, notice that the magazine is guaranteed. How great is that? (By the way, the article on the Technicolor camera reveals that there are only fourteen in existence, and that each one costs $16,000.)

One feature of these mags is the ads. They’re packed with advertising, similar to modern women’s magazines. Of the magazine’s first 34 pages, one full-page and two half-pages are devoted to the table of contents, one full-page to the cover, and only one full-page and ten half-pages are devoted to actual content. The rest is advertising. That’s nine pages of editorial content and twenty-five pages of ads. The magazine’s final 34 pages have a similar ratio of content-to-ads. The middle fifty-or-so pages have fewer ads.

Here’s a typical ad:

I could teach these skinny guys how to gain weight…

Take a look at the news story to the left of the ad. It’s good, too: two guys who’ve built a diving helmet from an old hot water heater. Awesome!

Mechanix Illustrated features announcements of recent inventions. Some of these are absurd, but many of them are neat to see because they represent the advance of technology we now deem commonplace, technology like automobile turn signals:

Technology like track hurdles that tip over on contact:

This issue features a full page on denture technology! This is my favorite photo from the feature:

[photo of dentures smoking cigarette...seriously]

I love the smoking cigarette firmly planted between the teeth. These people had their priorities straight!

Remember that guarantee on the cover?

What if modern magazines carried such a guarantee? Could I return copies of Newsweek that are filled with fluff pieces and thinly-veiled advertisements for new products?

And, of course, no magazine from this era would be complete without an orgasmic cigarette ad:

Remember to check out more at my Mechanix Illustrated set on Flickr.

Modern Mechanix is a great magazine to explore, not just for the humor, but for the novel inventions, some of which became commonplace. Apparently I’m not the only one who loves it: one fellow has gone so far as to construct a Mechanix Illustrated blog!

Space Man

I was in first grade the first time I can remember anyone asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Throughout the year, our parents had come to class to give presentations on their careers. One dad was a fireman. One mom played violin. My mother brought in a food dryer and dried pineapple. Ironically (in retrospect), the presentation I remember most was from a man who worked at the paper mill in Oregon City. He passed around a jar of raw pulp as he described how paper was made. He gave us each a ream to take home.

At the end of the school year, Mrs. Onion asked, “Now that you’ve seen what parents do all day, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

I knew instantly: “I want to be an astronaut.”

For one thing, Steve Austin had been an astronaut. Though his mission had ended in disaster, he did have a bionic arms and legs to show for it. Also, Mr. Spock was an astronaut.

Mostly, I wanted to live on the moon.

Throughout my childhood, I was obsessed with living in space. Every year, my teachers told me, “When you grow up, people will live on the moon,” and I believed them. I wanted to live on a space station orbiting the Earth. I wanted to visit Mars.

I devoured science fiction of all sorts, but especially that which portrayed humans living in futuristic societies. The Jetsons weren’t a comedy to me, but an idyllic vision of what might be. Isaac Asimov’s “Lucky Starr” books were keen not because of the mysteries and the robots, but because they posited a society in which people lived on Venus and Mars and the moons of Jupiter. (Not to mention the asteroid pirates — boy! how I wished I could be an asteroid pirate!)

As I grew older, reality dealt harsh blow after harsh blow to my dreams of living in space. The rapid astronautical advances of my youth gave way to a relative stagnation of space-related progress. Still, I kept the dream alive by watching and reading whatever stories I could find that involved people living in space: The Black Hole, Outland, Alien. (All three of which are horror films to one degree or another.)

In time, my dreams of living in space faded. There were no more moon landings. The Challenger exploded. Gradually I became aware that my peers were actively hostile to the idea of a space program. (I remember one extended argument with some friends about the value and necessity of space exploration; they believed that NASA should be axed completely.)

Now that I’m nearing forty, my youthful dreams seem fanciful. I’d dearly love for the space program to expand beyond shuttle missions and space station stays, but it’s unlikely that we’ll put people on the moon again in the next twenty years, let alone on Mars. I continue to consume stories of space colonization (like Kim Stanley Robinson’s wonderful Mars series), but I recognize that our world has become too inwardly focused to dream big anymore. We’re too busy fighting wars. We’re too busy arguing over who should get how much money. We’re too busy consuming. As a society, we have no vision of the future, no vision at all, let alone a vision that includes space travel.

Still, somewhere in the back of my mind, it’s my dream one day to live on the moon.

Adult Onset ADD

Is there such a thing as adult-onset Attention Deficit Disorder? If so, I have it. I can’t focus on anything. I read somewhere today (on the internet) that many others experience this, and that one theory is that it’s the result of being stimulated by too many electronic devices. That seems plausible, but I really don’t know because now I need to go check on another web site.

Also: one difference between me and Kris, part 10,734. I can come home in the middle of the day, and Kris will have every light in the house blazing. They will have all been on since she got out of bed. Kris can come home at 10 p.m., and I won’t have a single light in the house on. It won’t even have occurred to me to turn one on.

A Rock, An Island

I had a conversation with Harrison tonight that broke my heart.

He elected to ride with me as we drove to dinner. I asked him about school. We chatted about classes and reading, and then I asked him about his friends. He explained to me that the other kids wouldn’t let him play with them: the boys didn’t want him in their groups, and neither did the girls. It was obviously something that makes him sad. It made me sad. (And I’m not even his parent!)

We tried to talk about what it’s like to not belong, but the concepts I wanted to share were too abstract for me to express to a seven-year-old, and the ideas he wanted to convey came out in first-grade-speak, a language with which I have difficulty.

We talked about his reading group instead. Harrison loves to read, but he doesn’t really like his reading group because the other members are all girls.

“Girls are okay,” I told him.

“I know,” he said, “but they always talk about girlie things, and they don’t like me to talk with them.” He paused. “Besides, we mostly just talk about reading.”

I didn’t know what to say. I tried to tell him to be patient, to be nice to kids so that they might be nice to him, but even as I said it I knew it was dumb advice. Worthless. Impractical. I asked if he gets to play with any of his church friends. Some play with him, some don’t. Harrison is a sensitive boy, and I can tell all of this is weighing heavy on his mind.

And here’s the thing, here’s the reason this makes me so sad: I was Harrison. I was that kid. I can remember experiencing the same fear, the same sense of not belonging, even in first grade. (Especially in first grade.) I found refuge in books and comics. Eventually I met other kids who seemed to feel the same way I did, but it took a while, and in the meantime I felt alone. I tried hard — too hard — to make friends, to get other kids to like me. Eventually I just gave up. Is this something that every kid feels? I don’t know. It never seemed that way to me; it always seemed the other kids had lots of friends.

As I’d hoped, Hank’s parents seem to be aware of the situation. At dinner, Jeremy asked him about school, about his friends. “How’s that new kid, Joey?” Jeremy said. “Is he still your bud?”

“Yeah,” said Harrison. “He saved me from Brandon the other day.” He launched into a long and detailed (but very bewildering because it was in first-grade-speak) description, replete with wild gesticulations, of how Brandon had been chasing him, but Joey had stepped in to save the day.

Ah, Harrison, how much you remind me of me. Hang in there, my little friend.

(Also at dinner, Harrison — eavesdropping — asked, “What’s divorce?” “I’ll explain it later,” said Jeremy. “Explain it now,” said Harrison, and so Jeremy tried. “It’s when two people decide that they don’t want to be married anymore. It’s very sad.” Harrison nodded: “It does sound sad.”)

The Spontaneous Gourmet

Though I love cooking, I’ve never successfully created a dish of my own until now. I generally make things too complicated. For the past month, I’ve been conceiving an onion-potato dish that I believed might be both simple and delicious. I finally gave it a go last night, and I’m pleased with the results. It turned out exactly as I’d hoped.

J.D.’s Onion-Potato Hash

Dice two medium russet potatoes (about one pound) into quarter-inch cubes. Chop half of a medium yellow onion (about six ounces). Mince three or four garlic cloves. Melt two tablespoons of butter in a skillet (cast-iron if you have it) over high heat. Add the vegetables and stir til coated. Season lightly with salt and pepper. After a few minutes, reduce the heat to medium and stir. Melt an additional two tablespoons of butter on top of the hash. Continue cooking — stirring occasionally — over medium heat until desired texture is reached. Salt and pepper to taste.

I’m sure this is some standard dish that people have been preparing for centuries, but it’s nothing I’ve ever tried. There’s a great deal of satisfaction in creating your own recipe and having it turn out the way you’d planned. Most of the time when I try to create my own dishes, at best I end up with barely edible slop.

Whenever I try to get inventive in the kitchen, I’m reminded of this Roz Chast New Yorker cartoon, which has been a favorite in our house for over a decade.

Here’s what the cartoon says (other than the copyright watermark from the Cartoon Bank):

SPONTANEOUS GOURMET

“Sometimes something happens…and sometimes it doesn’t.”

1. In a small pan, sauté 1/2 c. onion in 2 tbsp. oil or butter.
2. Heat a can of tomato soup to just below a boil.
3. Sift 3/4 c. flour.
4. Pound flat 6 chicken breasts.
5. Add 1/2 c. raisins to 1 egg and let sit overnight.
6. Measure 1/8 tsp. nutmeg.
7. Crumble 14 soda crackers.
8. Grate 2 c. cheddar cheese.
9. Remove the casing from 1 lb. Italian sausage.
10. Take 30 maraschino cherries.

Roz Chast is our favorite New Yorker cartoonist. She’s somehow managed to tap into our brains; she knows what Kris and I both find funny. You can see all 762 Roz Chast New Yorker cartoons at the Cartoon Bank.

Walk the Line

I’ve been listening to Johnny Cash for a little over two years, only having discovered him after he died, yet it seems to me I’ve been hearing his music my entire life.

Perhaps this is because The Essential Johnny Cash (two CDs, thirty-six songs) has become the official soundtrack of “J.D. getting things done around Rosings Park”. My old stereo lives in the workshop. Whenever I have work to do there, or in the garage, or in the yard, I turn on Johnny Cash and let him sing. After nearly two years of this, I’ve gotten to the point where I need Johnny Cash in order to do any significant labor outside. (For example, Johnny Cash was blaring on Saturday morning as we hauled barkdust.) I can’t start working until I hear the familiar tones of the first song: “Hey Porter! Hey Porter! Won’t you give me a sign? How much longer will it be til we cross that Mason-Dixon Line?” I also have a Johnny Cash playlist that resides permanently on my iPod.

Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic from last year, is remarkably similar to 2004’s Ray, which told the life of Ray Charles. This plot summary could describe either film: a young boy is raised in poverty, suffers the death of a beloved brother, carries on due to a love of music, struggles to find a Voice, records some hit records, becomes a slave to Vice, and overcomes said slavery through the love of a woman, who saves him from destroying his life.

Walk the Line and Ray are both well-made films, but they’re both just sort of there. They’re a little dull to watch at times, the inevitable result of trying to compress a lifetime of experience into two hours while still putting the artist’s greatest hits on screen.

That being said, I liked Walk the Line better than I liked Ray, if only because I’m now familiar with Johnny Cash and his music. It was fun to watch Joaquin Phoenix (as Cash) and Reese Witherspoon (as June Carter) melt into these characters, actually performing the songs themselves.

Walk the Line is certainly worth seeing if you like Johnny Cash.