52 Changes - Time to Catch Up

Damn, damn, damn.  Last time I posted one of these I was a week late but determined to catch up to the present.  In the time since, I have not only failed to catch up, but I've fallen farther behind.  So today I will put into words the changes for the weeks of 7/5 and 7/12, which are changes 7 and 8 if anyone's counting.  I tell you, making changes isn't easy!

So for 7/5, here's a bit of a cop-out, but still a good thing to strive for.  Minimum blog post requirement.  I know, I know, this has to be like the fifth time in the year that this blog has existed that I've tried to put some requirement of this type on myself.  And it's been very clear that if I go too ambitious with it, there's no way I can make it.  This time around I want to force myself to write at least one post per week.  Lately I've been meeting that goal, but now that it's quantified, I'll need to hold myself accountable.

The thing of it is that it's not for shortage of ideas that I don't blog often enough.  I think every week I could very easily contribute one of the '52 Changes' series, a 'Kitchen Zink' item about something cooking-related and either a photo stream like last time or one of the really long vignette-style posts I wrote more frequently earlier on.  It's just that I'm always doing so much stuff I can't write as often as I like.  Between actually watching the movies I blog about, reading books, going out and doing stuff, and this job thing, there aren't a ton of hours left for blogging.  If only somebody paid me for this...  :)  But back in the real world, I'm going to make sure I write one post per week, minimum.

Change number 8, for this week, is to make an attempt to eat more mindfully.  That's a cute little catchphrase, but what does it actually mean?  Well, I love to cook, as you know, and have no problem spending hours in the kitchen just to make a certain meal.  (Or in the case of the sauerbraten I'm working on, days.  It literally has to marinate for 3-5 days before it can be cooked.  Wow!)  That's no problem.  It's fun for me, so it's not a chore, regardless of how long it takes.

But then, especially if I've been cooking for a long time, I'm usually pretty hungry by time we sit down, and I'll start chowing down without always paying full attention to the flavors I'd just spent ages crafting.  Note that this doesn't happen a lot, but occasionally I'll find myself really digging in, and force myself to pause and say "hey, take a minute and really enjoy this."  From now on, I'm going to try to really force myself into that mindset before I get too far ahead of myself.  Supposedly you also eat less if you are more conscious about it,  which is why you should eat as fast as possible at an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Kidding.  But for real food that I make, and to a lesser extent everything else, I'm going to try to slow it down.  I'm pretty sure this is the way the French do it, and in the culinary world, who better to take inspiration from?

This'll be a challenge, but to the extent possible, I also want to extend this to breakfast and lunch.  Normally breakfast is a bleary-eyed bowl of cereal that I munch in automaton-like fashion while attempting to wake up enough to dress myself.  Lunch is spent in front of a computer screen where I usually have a sandwich and fruit.  Those frequently degenerate into robotic eating while I either watch or read the news, respectively.  I'm not going to force myself to deliberately savor every bite of granola every morning, but just a little more mindful would be a good thing.

Neither of these is a huge change, as they are things I frequently do anyway.  But now that they're listed, they are on tap for always happening.  This blog is supposed to be fun, and food darn well is supposed to be fun.  Making time for both should be a pretty enjoyable experience.

Weekend gastronaut

Here's a little photo essay of a pretty great weekend.  We headed down toward Indianola to check out the...

Summerset Winery!

It was a beautiful sunny day out, the sky was perfectly blue over the grape vines

We did the whole sample thing, and although Iowa wines are unlikely to ever compare to those we sampled out in Sonoma on our honeymoon, we found one that was pretty good.  So,

We got a bottle!

Stacia liked it.

I liked it.

Good times all around.  With a few glasses under our belts we headed down to Lake Ahquabi State Park to camp for the night.  But it was totally full up.  No campsites anywhere.  :(  We rented a canoe and toodled around on the lake for a while (lots of fun but no pictures taken).  That got us pretty hungry, but without a campfire to cook our hot dogs over, we had to get food in Indianola.  Luckily there was a super cute

A&W restaurant!

This place was 1950s style all the way!  They had carhop service in the back with the old-fashioned trays that swing into your car.  And on the inside, they had the craziest way to order...

By telephone!

Stacia ordered us up some food, which was marginal, and some root beers, which were awesome!  On a 90+ degree day, there's nothing quite like a big frosty mug of root beer.

Mmmmmm.

With that, it was time to head back home.  But since this was Indianola, we saw a balloon before we left.

Back home again in West Des Moines, we found our garden had gone insane!  Gigantic plants!  Vegetables out of control!  Zucchini gone wild!

Note the expression of terror on Roxie's face

What to do with a baseball bat-sized zucchini?  Besides play baseball, of course.  Well, make zucchini bread, of course!  Using just half of this beast got us three full loaves of zuke bread.  No pictures, sorry.  One went to my coworkers, one to Stacia's, and we're still polishing off the last one.  I do love zucchini bread, but this may be a little out of control.  Time to channel my inner Bubba (Forrest Gump, anyone?) and start making zucchini everything.

Oh, and then there's the beans.  Picking on Saturday left us with four and a half pounds of green beans.  Which is way too much for two people to eat.  So we went all pioneer on them and decided to...

Can them!

That's 9 beautiful pints of green beans right there, plenty to last us well beyond the growing season.  I can't wait until it's the middle of December and we are still able to enjoy green beans out of our garden!

All in all, it was a jam-packed weekend.  We were busy from pretty much sunup to sundown, Saturday and Sunday.  And aside from the godawful "chili cheese fries" at A&W  (if that's chili, then I'm a Vermicious Knid)  it was an awesome food and wine experience.  I love to eat local and support local businesses, but even those can't compare to stuff you grow yourself.  I'm hoping to keep preserving this harvest and having lovely fresh vegetables for many months to come.

June Filmfest

As you may recall, my plan was to work my way up the lists of AFI’s top 100 movies from bottom to top.  Given my spotty luck with DVDs from the local libraries, I decided to start recording films from the list from Turner Classics onto the DVR.  This worked great, to the extent that the DVR started to get very close to full.  So this month I had to change the rules a bit.  In order to clear some space on the machine, I watched movies that I had from bottom to top rather than overall.  So instead of hitting movies 82, 81, 80, 79 and 78, I saw movies 82, 81, 79, 75, 73.  I’ll definitely catch up to the ones I missed this time around once I clear up some more room on the DVR.  Enough said, on to the movies!  As always, from my least favorite of the month to the best.

6) Rocky (1976) – It’s almost as though I can hear your cries of outrage from here.  I know, I know, Rocky is a classic, it’s inspiring, everyone loves it.  Well, sorry to say that’s everyone but me.  And to be sure I don’t hate it – I enjoyed many of the comedic moments, and of course I pulled for Rocky to win the big fight.  I also really liked the music throughout the film, including the well-known “Rocky theme.”  But it’s a movie about boxing.  I have never understood the allure of that sport, and it always kinda creeped me out.  I have a hard time getting behind a character whose motivation is to punch a guy in the head more than he gets punched in the head.  It also felt pretty drawn out, since the primary conflict is so straightforward.  If you don’t mind the boxing stuff, this is probably pretty inspiring, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

5) Giant (1956) – I have some mixed emotions on this movie.  It’s one of those really long films that follows the characters throughout pretty much their entire lives.  I say that suspecting that there are others that do the same, but maybe Giant is pretty much the only one?  Anyway, it’s a fairly interesting story about an East-coast woman who marries a Texas cattle tycoon, and as they grow older we see how their lives and thoughts have changed with the other’s presence.  The woman, played by Liz Taylor, is particularly cool, since she doesn’t take any crap from the less-than-progressive Texans about her role as a wife.  Her husband, on the other hand, is kind of a jerk up until the very end, so I was never too thrilled about them being together.  There’s a good subplot about a character being essentially destroyed by his oil wealth and some stuff about racism.  But with decades of plot to get through, it seems we are too busy being shown events and not as much about the people and how they are affected or feel.  Still an enjoyable movie though.

4) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) – So last month I decided I pretty much didn’t like silent films.  Then this month there are two more, and they both were pretty darn good.  Sunrise (which is on Youtube for free) centers around an adulterous man and his plot to get rid of his wife so he can be with his mistress.  This makes the guy flat-unlikeable despite the attempts at redemption later in the movie.  A lot of time is spent with him feeling terribly sorry, but given the terrible things he was considering, you are left feeling that he should feel bad.  The emotions are very well delivered though, and you can feel the wife’s betrayal and the husband’s sorrow.  That this was done in a silent movie is particularly remarkable, made even more so by the lack of dialogue cards.  There were almost none of these in the movie, which makes the presentation very impressive.  I liked that a lot, but then the film had to go and wrap everything up very neatly, so I was left with a bit of a bad taste.  It’s a shame, since the middle of the movie was so good.

3) Dances with Wolves (1990) – Believe it or not, I’d not yet seen Kevin Costner’s classic prior to this viewing.  Given his reputation post-Waterworld, I was a bit leery, but I ended up liking this one quite a bit.  The storyline is interesting, but even more importantly most of the main characters were real and complex people.  There were some ancillary roles that were a bit caricaturelike (wagon driver) or stereotypical (wise chief, bigoted soldiers) but for the most part they felt like humans with actual emotions and motivations.  It was neat to see the character development over the course of the movie as both the Lakota and Costner learn from one another.  The end of the film is, I’ll warn you, fairly depressing, but it’s not like the true story of the Native Americans and European settlers isn’t pretty dismal itself.  There’s one scene between Costner and Wind in his Hair near the end that really captures the heart of the film and might leave you a bit misty-eyed.  Fully expecting to not like this movie, I was pleasantly surprised.

2) Modern Times (1936) – Another silent movie, also available on Youtube, this time a Charlie Chaplin entry.  I had previously seen short clips of Chaplin acts and predetermined that they looked very cheesy and were not really my style.  After viewing this movie (which incidentally was also written, directed and produced by Chaplin) I have a newfound liking for his work.  A lot of the physical comedy he does is impressive as a feat or work of choreography, and most of the slapstick stuff is pretty damn funny.  There were several times I found myself laughing out loud, which few modern comedies have been capable of causing.  But in addition to the funny bits, there’s also a lot of social commentary, and some really touching scenes.  The movie shows the struggles of an average worker in, well, Modern Times, and some of the stuff with the factory owners pushing for ridiculous levels of efficiency touched a nerve today.  And after all of that, it’s a very cute love story.  I had a few minor quibbles with some of the plot holes, but not enough to lower my level of enjoyment with the film.  I’m looking forward to the other Chaplin entries on the lists.

1) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – Proof that I don’t hate Westerns!  Butch and Sundance have made it to the top tier of the movies I’ve seen on this quest with a heartfelt yet comedic and action-packed cowboy story.  Robert Redford and Paul Newman are great as the wise-cracking, bantering pair of bank robbers, totally believable as two really good friends who joke and kid each other through even the most intense of encounters.  Even as they may be robbing a bank, hiding from the authorities, or blowing up a train, they fire off witty one-liners, Sundance totally deadpan and sardonic playing perfectly off the more energetic Butch.  So it’s funny, but beneath it you really get the feeling that these two have a deep sense of camaraderie and care about one another.  It’s hard to watch this without a smile on your face as you see the chemistry.  Just a really fun movie, proof that with excellent writing, even the most expected of plots (it’s a Western, about two bank robber cowboys…) you can create something great.  I really like this one a lot.

52 Changes - Keep on Moving!

I hate to fall behind on these things.  Technically this post is for the week of June 27th, a change that I actually did make that week but never ended up posting between all the traveling and the short work week.  I'm also behind on movie reviews, and I'm hoping to get that put together in the next day or so.  Whew!


Anyway, knowing that it was a short week for me, I decided to make a pretty easy change, i.e. something that I could do in one day and make that count for the week.  I decided to actually get some exercise.  Blah, right?  Well, maybe, but "they" say it's for the best, so who am I to argue?


I'm fortunate to have an insane metabolism, so I can pretty much eat however I want, never gain a pound, and still lie borderline "underweight" on the BMI scale.  That's genetic luck - I know that - but having it in my corner made me rather unmotivated to work out for most of my life.  I have been going to a yoga class once a week for about six to eight months now, which is awesome, but I've mostly gone for the fun of it than any sense of exercise.  Then when I was home recently, my brother's running habit came up in conversation and he asked what I do.  I mentioned the yoga class, and he laughed and asked the real question of the past few years: "what about cardio?"


In my defense, the yoga class is a vinyasa (flow) style one, so we do a lot of moving from pose to pose rather than simply sitting there stretching, but I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn't really strenuous enough.  So I decided to hold this thought as an idea for a week where I need a change I can just drop in the schedule: at least one day of real cardio exercise a week.  That really doesn't sound like a lot, and for sure it's below the FDA or whoever's recommendations for fitness.  But honestly, aside from taking walks during my lunch break and the yoga class I've been attending, I literally haven't been doing anything, so it needs to be a small start.  Last week I ran for about 20 minutes and felt so exhausted.  Obviously this is an area with much room for improvement.


Keeping it up is the real issue with this change, though.  It was pretty easy for me to get outside and tromp around for a third of an hour.  Much more challenging is making myself do that week-in and week-out, when I pretty much hate running.  I ran for the track team in high school, and looking back, I cannot fathom why I did it, since I never wanted to practice and spent nearly as much time trying to weasel my way out of it as I did actually running.  In college I spent one morning in the ISU running club (to try to impress a girl) before I quit, then spent the next few years sporadically "taking up running" to no avail.


Now, don't get me wrong - some people legitimately do enjoy running, and perhaps if I get my stamina up a little more I could like it too.  But at the moment it's really not for me.  So as a sort of add-on, this week we are trying the YMCA, with the potential to join for real after the trial period.  I had my reservations at first, but damn! this Y is nothing like the one I took swim lessons in as a kid back home.  It's huge and brand-new for all us west-side-yuppies, and there's enough variety that I'm unlikely to get bored.  There's a pool, an indoor running track (useful in winter), all the machines, more classes (including yoga) than I can shake a stick at, and the awesome video game bikes.


Not to sound too much like a raving YMCA shill, but the video game bike is so cool.  It's a regular stationary bike, but there's a TV monitor attached that shows your view pedaling through a virtual world.  When the terrain changes, the resistance goes up or down accordingly.  There are tons of virtual settings - we did Macchu Picchu last time - so you aren't going to get bored.  And then there's the fact that you mentally want to pass all the virtual cyclists, so you're motivated too.  It's like a wii fit attached to an exercise bike, and it's awesome!


Based on that, it's pretty likely that we're going to join up, and it should be pretty easy to keep this change going. Last night I tried swimming, for the first time since high school, and man do I have a long way to go.  But with some real amenities (pool, video game bike) and structure (class times to meet), I think I'm a lot more likely to stick with it than I am with a random "I should get outside and run."  If we do sign up, there's no penalty for quitting, but I'm pretty confident that issue won't come up.

The Best Thing I Ever Ate (La Crosse edition)

You guys ever watch that show, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, on Food Network?  Well, I don't either, but I've seen snippets of it on the TV in the background while I've been doing other things.  It's a kinda neat concept, in which various Food Network "personalities" talk about their favorite dining experience, within some sort of guidelines.  So there was a Best Thing I Ever Ate pizza episode, and a sandwich one, and BBQ, and so on.  Well, I don't go out to eat that often, and I usually don't think it's the best thing I ever ate, but this past weekend may have been an exception.

This weekend was a crazy busy one, all of which was Stacia's fault.  There's this thing called the Edgewood Rodeo (somewhat self-explanatory), which she hasn't missed I think ever since she's been old enough to remember going.  It's always the last weekend in June.  More about that, including the incredible videos I shot with the neato camera from my bro, at a later date.  But this wasn't just rodeo weekend.  No, in an incredible fit of ridiculous scheduling, one of Stacia's cousins scheduled his wedding for the same weekend.  Fortunately he opted for Sunday instead of the usual Saturday, but that meant a trip up to La Crosse, Wisconsin and the burning of a vacation day on Monday.

But it also meant very exciting news.  Unlike the rest of the family, who had things they needed to get back to at home on Monday, we pretty much had the whole day to kill in La Crosse.  Which turned out to be a rather cute town.  I'm not exactly sure how they do it, but that town has one of the most thriving downtowns of any small city I've ever seen.  It may help that it's a college town and there were a rather higher than average number of bars, but there were also lots of shops, restaurants, cafes, etc. in the central core that most mid-sized town can only dream of.  It was a nice place, and the drive up there was simply incredible, going through the Mississippi River bluffs.  However, there was one other exciting point to La Crosse beyond all of that.

That's right, cajun food fans, it's a Buzzard Billy's!  For those of you not from the Des Moines metro pre-2008, let me explain.  Buzzard Billy's was a restaurant and bar in Des Moines, located about a block from the river on Court Avenue, in the basement level of a neat old brick building.  They had all sorts of cajun food, from catfish to andouille sausage, from crayfish to alligator.  That's right, the only place I've ever seen "Gator Fingers" on the menu, and they were actually pretty tasty.  (And in case you were wondering, it does look like they're farmed sustainably, if it ever comes up.)  We loved Buzzard Billy's, but probably didn't go often enough, since it closed forever about two years ago.  It turns out that when devastating floods arrive, a basement location a block from the water isn't the greatest place to be.  We were very sad... until we arrived in La Crosse!

Amazingly, even though it was 275 miles away and on street level instead of a basement, this place felt exactly the same when we walked in, right down to the old baseball cards under the glass top of the table.  Which, now that I think about it, may have been the same tables, relocated after the flood.  Or maybe just very similar.  Oh, and since the full name of the restaurant is Buzzard Billy's Flying Carp Cafe, there was a fun stained-glass carp window.

Anyway, food-wise, I didn't even need a menu when we sat down.  There had been some internal questioning about blackened versus fried as we arrived, but I pretty quickly realized I couldn't pick anything but... the Blackened Catfish Po-Boy, the Best Thing I Ever Ate in La Crosse, or in a Buzzard Billy's, or whatever.  Either way, it was really awesome.  Between ravenous bites, I took a poorly-focused picture.

That's me holding a whole fillet of catfish, seasoned and blackened at high heat in a cast-iron pan til it's juicy and delicious, topped with lettuce and sliced tomato, all on a soft warm hoagie bun slathered with tartar sauce.  The fish was the tender, soft but not mushy way that catfish is best, the seasoning was flavorful and exciting without being overpowering, the tartar sauce melded all the flavors together, and the bun was the perfect slightly yielding vessel to hold it all.  This was what I always ate at Buzzard Billy's in Des Moines, and for once I was happy to deviate from my usual "let's try something new" persona.  It was also huge, and I was stuffed to the point of borderline over-fullness when I was done, but it was worth it.

Oh, and Stacia got some sort of Bourbon Street Chicken sandwich, which I got to try a bite of, and it was tasty.

But I wouldn't trade my Blackened Catfish Po-Boy for anything at that point.  It was one of the Best Things I Ever Ate!!!