Cars Are Coffins

I have a very conflicted relationship with cars. On one hand I drive one almost every day and yet on the other hand I can’t stand them. I don’t enjoy the act of driving a car. I don’t enjoy having to pay for a car, insure it, maintain it, clean it, or any of the other responsibilities associated with owning it. I can appreciate the engineering that goes into some of the finer automobiles out there, but it otherwise wouldn’t bother me one bit if I woke up tomorrow and cars were largely obsolete.

I’ve been thinking about my relationship with cars lately because of the way I find that it contrasts with most other people. Having an unfashionable viewpoint is nothing new to me, but in this case I feel mine has substance. I believe that, whether they know it or not, cars are the source of many people’s agony. Think about it. Cars place large requirements on your time and money. Coping with automobile traffic is an affair often steeped in frustration and danger. Those who’ve made a substantial financial investment in a car often find themselves mired in worry about the well being of their purchase as well as the social motivations that prompted it.

This automobile induced agony is insidious and can be found permeating aspects of life and society that you’d otherwise never consider. Of course there are the obvious aspects like the fact that they are bad for the environment, dangerous to their operators and others, and often damaging to people’s individual finances. However we rarely consider their other detrimental, yet more subtle impacts.

I personally believe one of the worst aspects of the automobile is the stigma attached to it as a possession. A car is a status symbol. A car supposedly speaks volumes about its owner. A car is used to attract mates and incite greed in others. We are conditioned to desire these qualities in an automobile so strongly that we often go to extreme lengths to satisfy this need.

We’ll place ourselves in oppressive debt to own a car whose inflated price tag provides no material difference in its ability to move from point A to point B. While the financial folly is glaring, the less obvious ramifications are not. Despite the absurdity of placing ourselves in such a poor financial position, we won’t hesitate to look down our noses at those less foolish than us that choose to content themselves with far more modest purchases. This sort of baseless pride is infectious and creates a contrived inequality between people that is damaging to notions of inclusiveness and kindredness. It arbitrarily seeks to stratify us by a means so absurd and yet so widely observed.

Cars also imbue us with a sense of entitlement. Every time I see an animal carcass lying eviscerated on the side of a busy highway I feel sad and, more importantly, ashamed to be a party to it. We’ll forge roads wherever we like and, once there, it becomes ours. We are not kind and light-footed interlopers. We are conquerors. We bend our surroundings to our will. A road is a symbol of subjugation. It is ours and we’ll use it how we please. We remain unfazed as our children peer out from their backseat window at the disregarded remains of an animal shoved to the shoulder of the road and the margins of our thoughts. No more poignant commentary on our relationship with nature needs to be made.

Dominance over the wilds isn’t the only sense of entitlement a car affords us, though. As a cyclist I know this all-too-well. While we all contribute equal money to the construction and maintenance of our roads, we are certainly not permitted the same equality in its use. Cyclists, runners, and others of our ilk are marginalized and, worse yet, often vilified. There is a strange collective assumption that those is a car have, by default, a far more important destination than those that are not. Alternative forms of transportation are considered to be mere novelties. It’d seem that this is largely predicated on the fact that, ultimately, cars will get you there (wherever that may be) faster. But what if we applied this logic without exception? Would, then, the jet airplane render the car a bauble no more significant than a bicycle?

Of course it’d be myopic of me not to recognize that cars are also of great benefit to us. They allow us to transport goods and people in a timely and efficient fashion. They’ve provided us the ability to make great societal advancements and afforded most individuals opportunities they most likely wouldn’t have had without them (myself included). However, like most conveniences borne of technology, the car’s use has proliferated and evolved into something far beyond its original design. Stepping back and reevaluating their true necessity would provide us the understanding of how we could curtail our use and construction of automobiles. It’d challenge us to think creatively about transportation and adopt healthy and productive changes to our collective lifestyle. By doing so I envision a shift of focus onto the simpler yet more important things we have and, as a result, a much happier society.

The Weekend: Mishaps & Wilderness Showdowns

Tristan had been spending months gathering the parts for his new build. The build, itself, was the product of even more months of research and planning. Finally it all came to fruition – the parts were in, the time presented itself, and the bike was built.

Last Friday was to be its maiden voyage. We met at the West Hartford Reservoir parking lot after work and cast off on our normal loop. A mile into the ride things began to fall apart – literally. I heard a loud howl of frustration and saw Tristan gazing with singular intensity at his new bike. The seat post had snapped in two. The upper portion hung limply from the lower portion still clamped firmly in the frame.

Baffled, we decide I’d complete the loop while he went in search of a new post. I finished a lap and found Tristan had returned to the parking lot, new seat post in hand. Again we cast off onto the trail anticipating no further anguish. Of course we were fooling ourselves - this is mountain biking - anguish is in no short supply. We were within mere minutes of finishing the ride when we heard the sharp hiss of Tristan’s rear tire going flat. Daylight was waning, as was our patience, so we decided to walk out. Tristan would worry about the tire later.

The next day finds us at Case Mountain. It’s hot as hell and we’re both feeling a little mopey. We struggle through the initial climb and are justly rewarded with some time in what we’ve dubbed “The Playground”. We’re rolling rocks, dropping drops, and negotiating skinnies. We find an especially formidable looking rock roller. We decide to each have a go but, again, fate chooses to frown upon Tristan and arranges another flat tire for him.

The holes are numerous and large. With no spare tube available we attempt some patch-mongery and hope for the best. The best isn’t good enough and the leak persists. Meanwhile, we’re being stared down by the most audacious white tail deer I’ve ever crossed paths with. Broad daylight, this deer is a mere thirty meters away staring at us intently as we toil away on Tristan’s bike. The intimidation doesn’t stop there as the deer begins to thrash his tail, stomp his hooves, and make bizarre snorting noises. It isn’t until another rider finally rolls by that the deer decides to fall back. He’s moved on a bit, but we can still see him grilling us from a distance.

We knew the patch wouldn’t hold, but it doesn’t matter anyways as Tristan’s chain breaks as he remounts the bike. It looks like this ride, too, is doomed. We decide that he’ll walk back to the road where I’ll pick him up.

The weekend is flying by and we’ve yet managed to get a successful ride in. We intend to try riding again at Case on Sunday. Sunday morning the phone rings – the seat post clamp snapped while Tristan was tightening it. The Sunday ride is over before it even starts. I take off on a solo mountain bike ride that morning with a follow-up road ride that afternoon. I feel a small tinge of guilt when both go off without a hitch.

Ace Piece of Kit

Hot damn do I love this new single speed! To imagine that my $2,500 bike would sit in storage while this bike, a mere fraction of the cost, would supplant it as my primary ride. Yes, granted it’s not as fast or comfortable, but what it lacks in speed and creature comforts it makes up for in sheer simplicity. No derailleur to tune, chain slap to endure, shock to pump, front fork to adjust, 9 speed chain to snap or suck, or rear linkage bearings to service. I can just take it out, ride as long and as hard as I want, and put it back it away with nary a concern for routine maintenance. I could ceaselessly expound of its virtues but then that would cut into my riding time.

Bikes are Cool

A Word on Oatmeal

For those of you who know Corey, then what follows may not come as any surprise to you. If you don’t know Corey, then all you really need to know is two things: (1) he loves road biking and (2) he’s the only other person I know personally that shares an obsession with oatmeal as equally unreasonable as my own. When we’re not talking bikes, we’re talking oatmeal preparations. Preparations can range from the truly delectable to the utterly bizarre. Some of the preparations are born of ravenous desperation, while others are the careful orchestration of flavors and textures plied together to beget a creation comparable to no other before it.

Like myself, Corey doesn’t bother to write down the details of even his most inspired oatey amalgamations, as a deliberate lack of precision in its recipes is one of the many qualities that defines oatmeal as the supreme grain. Despite this fact, we will, at times, become engrossed in a frenzied e-mail chain where we’ll swap ideas, criticisms, and heartfelt praise that can only be understood by a true fellow oatophile. Whether it be steel cut or rolled, raw or toasted, salted or sweetened, the common denominator is always that hint of sublime earthy oat flavor.

In these e-mails we’ve often discussed the reigning appeal of the oat in a world where the gourmand is otherwise overwhelmed with a multitude of other grains – each of which draws similar laudation from others as does the oat from us. We’ve decided that, among other things, the oat is the following:

(1) Easily prepared. In fact the oat doesn’t necessarily need to be prepared at all. Corey reports having simply rolled sliced banana in oats with a little cinnamon, salt, and honey. I’ve often times gnawed on raw oats while cooking something else, or have added them to trail mix like a lazy man’s granola. Even prepared, the oat simply needs only to be boiled or toasted – a triviality for someone even halfway competent in the kitchen.

(2) A blank palette. The oat, while possessing its own distinct and inherently appealing flavor, is rather muted in the expression of its essence, making it an excellent backdrop for so many other flavors.

(3) Versatile in texture and application. Going hand in hand with numbers one and two, the oat can be prepared to take on any number of textures – from the nutty crunch of an al dente steel cut to the creamy smoothness of a well boiled rolled varietal. As a result the oat is not only a readily accepting palette for flavor, but for texture as well. This allows the oat to play the role of bread, crust, crumble, nut, crunch, and a myriad of others. Oats (obviously) can serve as the basis of a dish itself, or can play a secondary role to whatever it is taking the spotlight.

(4) Cheap. C’mon, let’s not kid ourselves – oatmeal is crazy cheap while still providing a good balance of protein and complex carbohydrates. This also means you can buy it just about anywhere and, because it’s pretty shelf stable, take it just about anywhere as well. In fact (not surprisingly) instant oatmeal has been my go-to meal for every climbing trip I’ve ever been on, since food always seems to be the last consideration in the budget.

(5) Quick. Quick and cheap. Those two superlatives alone should render the oat the preferred grain of dirty old men everywhere. Seriously, though, oatmeal can take less than one minute to prepare depending on the species. As such, oats make an excellent recovery snack for us athlete types, or an excellent meal for those pressed for time in a more general sense. Again, ease of preparation is why oatmeal always is my staple calorie on any climbing trip.

With so many gleaming attributes, just how are Corey and I preparing our favorite dishes? Every way imaginable. I don’t run a recipe site, so you’ll have to deduce the details on your own, but here’s what we’ve been lucky enough to come up with so far: cookies n’ cream oatmeal, pumpkin pie oatmeal, oatmeal raisin cookie pudding, breakfast oatmeal with bacon (or sausage), potatoes, egg, and syrup, promeal (protein powder enhanced oatmeal – a trademark of ours), and baked oats with a caramelized streusel topping. Besides some of our more contrived concoctions, oatmeal is also great for just adding whatever the hell you want to. Some of my personal favorites are cottage cheese, apple sauce, berries, fruit of any kind, cream, honey, chocolate chips, and sunflower seeds.

But I’d be fooling myself it I thought the oat isn’t largely unappreciated today. Its neglect is readily evident by its relegation to grocery store shelves otherwise occupied by the sugary chemical laden mutations of the cereal world. It’s consumption is commonly uninspired, often consisting of nothing more than a few lumps of some pedestrian granulated sugar and a dash of sickly thin skim milk. Therefore is comes as no wonder to me that oatmeal has grown to be synonymous with insufferable diet plans characterized by monkish deprivation. But I say to you, oh reader, cast aside the fetters of self-imposed oat celibacy and rediscover the lusty side of a grain not always known for bland and prudish ways. Tear asunder the doors of your cabinets with unbridled fervor to rediscover the plentitude of additives which await forbidden union with your next bowl of oats. Then, as you recline lazily in your chair, smoldering cigarette resting between lips upturned in a mirthful grin while staring contentedly at the ravished bowl before you, you’ll be sure to thank me.

Guest Post: Tour of the Battenkill Race Report

Below is Corey's race report from last weekend's Tour of the Battenkill. 

The night before Charlie, Brian, Jeff, Jim and drove the beginning of the course (through Juniper Hill) and the end of the course (Stage rd). This was really helpful, especially for the juniper hill portion. It was as steep as everyone said, but very short.

Our race started at 10:30 on Saturday morning, so we roll up to the parking area shortly after 9. As I’m getting my bike out and doing some last minute checks, disaster strikes. My rear derailleur cable snaps off inside the shifter as im running through the gears. Note for the future: CHECK CABLES before a big race.

After a brief heart attack, I run my bike over to mavic support praying that they’ll be able to help me. The mechanic rummages through the truck, finds a rear derailleur cable and puts my bike on the stand. 10 minutes of fiddling later, he can not get the broken end out of the shifter and is hesitant to take the entire shifter off for fear of losing pieces. He tells me I’m just going to have to ride one of their bikes, and pulls a bright yellow 52cm Mavic logoed Caad9 out of the truck, complete with SRAM force and R-Sys wheels. A few quick fitting adjustments are made and I’m off and riding. By this point its around 10:20 and I head over to the line, no time for a warmup.

Jeff, Matt, Charlie, Conor and myself are all in this field. The race is pretty uneventful up until the first climb (except for the pro mountain biker soloing off the front at mile 2 and winning the race by 9 minutes), when the pace picks up. All the NYVC riders are in the top 20 as we go around the sweeping dirt corner that marks the approach to juniper hill. The climb was intense, once we got over the top someone shouted that we had separation, so we hastily got into a paceline and started working together. Pretty soon no other riders were in sight. There were probably 15-16 of us in the selection, including Matt and Jeff. I told myself that I only needed to drop 5 of these riders to get a top 10 finish, which would have thrilled me.

Things were pretty uneventful up until the Salem climb. I lost a full bottle right before the climb, but was able to get another at Feed zone 2. Everyone was out of the saddle pushing hard on this climb, Matt was right up at the front setting the pace. Jeff had mentioned he wasn’t feeling too great and dropped back. Despite all this, the majority of the selection made it over the climb so I knew we had a pretty strong group. Going into the flat stretch the wind picked up, no one was interested in lifting the pace or pulling too hard. Most riders were just pulling through and shifting to the back. One guy, Ned (cox communications jersey) tried to get the group more organized and raise the pace so we could try and catch the guy off the front, but no one was really having it.

Around Mountain rd the race got really tough. I was sitting about 10th wheel before the turn, then the 2 guys in front of me suddenly slowed and a gap grew between me and the 8 or so guys in front. Realizing I was in danger of getting dropped, I sprinted around the 2 guys in front of me and went all out for a minute or so. I managed to catch up right at the base of a steep dirt climb, so the pain didn’t end for a couple more minutes. The series of steep dirt climbs after this split apart our selection. I was really feeling the efforts on these climbs, but based on the gasping I heard around me everyone else was as well. When we got to the end of the dirt sections we had about 8 guys left. For the next 3 miles we lifted the pace, everyone was giving hard pulls to ensure we put the other guys out of sight. Then we all relaxed and recovered a bit for the last stretch before stage rd.

As soon as we hit stage road, Ned cramps up and nearly takes out another rider as he pulls over. At this point I start giving everything I have left. 2 guys are ahead of me with the remainder behind, Matt is right on my wheel up until halfway up the climb or so. I remember from the night before that there is a yield sign at the top of the climb, so I just keep pushing waiting for that sign to come into sight. Finally I see it, as I crest the hill I look behind me and see 2 guys gaining. Instead of trying to stay ahead, I tuck and coast down the descent and they catch up to me. At this point I organize us into a 3 man paceline. There is only 5k to go at this point. Our line catches one of the riders that was off the front and the 4 of us work together till the last turn into the finish. As soon as we make the turn, the guy we had just caught takes off. Im right after him but he gaps me by a couple bike lengths. I push it but the gap sticks, he crosses the line in 3rd with me in 4th, and the other 2 guys right after. I almost couldn’t believe the result, I was super pumped.

It was certainly interesting doing the race on a bike I had never ridden before, with no computer or stats, but I cant complain about the outcome.

Summer Hide

I smack at a fly on my calf and look down at the resulting smear of blood. An angry welt rises between two deep bloody scratches. One of them still cradles the stubborn tip of a thorn. I’m soon distracted by a burning tingle on my arm and seek relief in frenzied slaps and scratches. The back of my neck burns from sweat and sun; my face itches where it’s spotted with dried mud.

Harried by overwhelming corporal sensation, I remount my bike and strike forward with renewed purpose. The wind licks across my cheeks and arms. The spray of cold mud and water from occasional puddles and streams soothes my myriad ills. My muscles ache dully, but pleasantly. My breathe presses out, then in. The legions of gnats have fallen back and my body’s trifling complaints are replaced by the simplicity of labor. Any pause renews the onslaught of gnats and fiery flesh, a sure sign I still lack that toughened exterior so essential to the season. I look forward to growing my summer hide.

Pizza & Sullying Our Land

So Friday was Associate Appreciation day whereupon we were shown appreciation with greasy pizza and jugs of soda. Naturally, I declined the gratuity. However, pizza continued to loom large on my mind and when dinner time rolled around I was victim to a real hankering for a pie. As I typically don’t keep flour on hand I had to decide if I was going to scrap the idea, go out and obtain flour, or figure out something else. I was frankly too lazy to go out and get flour but not so lazy that I wanted to scrap the idea, so I started flipping through my cookbooks and recipes for inspiration.

I found a recipe for oat bread using flour milled from oatmeal and, along with a pizza crust recipe, was able to cobble something together to form an oat crust. Basically I milled the oatmeal in a blender and using some salt, yeast, and honey came up with a nice formula for a crust. I made a rich tomato sauce from scratch and topped the pizza with fresh mozzarella, uncured apple wood smoked bacon, asparagus, onion, green pepper, and broccoli. It ended up being quite delicious and, even in my own self-castigating sort of way, congratulated myself on the creation. I actually found the denser crust created by the oat flour to be far more tart-like than anything, but really enjoyed it that way. It still was very moist, chewy, and extremely resilient to the rigors of heavily topping laden pizza consumption.

Having had a pleasant sleep filled with visions of pizza and bacon, I woke to find the sun shining in, what was, apparently a beautiful day. Both my patio doors and window face the east side of my building, however, which sometimes can impart a false sense of warmth that is easily deceiving. That being said, I broke out my mountain bike and departed on what would become one of the worst rides of my mountain biking ‘career’. First, as I have already alluded to, I set the stage for my ride by being totally underdressed – a fact I realized immediately after stepping out of the car at the shaded trailhead.

My goal was to explore a matrix of fire roads that crisscross over this large plot of land in Southington – part of the Crescent Lake property for those of you who are familiar. Well, not too far in I began to realize that they had started logging the area and were using the other end of the property as their point of entry. Because they were using an alternative entrance their operation wasn’t immediately conspicuous to me, for if it had been I probably would have reconsidered my venture altogether.

Anyhow, the roads, I learned, had been torn up by large logging machinery and were a combination of deep icy muddy ruts overlaid with a bunch of dead fall. Only twenty minutes into the ride I was covered head to toe in freezing mud, trying with all my might to keep my momentum as I pedaled uphill, as the road revealed itself to be a gradual but unrelenting climb in hub-deep arctic mud. The rutting was so deep that the roads were essentially acting as small rivers and thick brush on either side made it impossible to skirt the horrendous mess. However, stubbornness prevailed and I sallied forth instead of turning back. I can’t imagine I actually covered any significant amount of terrain, and yet I was still out for a good two hours. By the time I got back to the car I was fuming, rightfully blaming the loggers for such careless use of the land and for everyone’s eagerness to make a quick buck at the expense of Connecticut’s limited woodlands.

Upon riding back home with a mud packed hubs and an equally filthy visage, I contemplated just how sad the treatment of Connecticut’s land is. Human powered recreation seems to be a rarity around here, often leading to the limited amount of woodland set aside for its practitioners to be summarily overrun by OHV’s and loggers. This is far more commonplace than I care to admit and I continue to find more and more acreage fall victim to this sort of shabby and lowly treatment. As one can imagine, this is an issue that has long plagued me and my outrage only continues to grow with time. As such I am sure that you can expect future posts on this subject in my effort to begin combating the whoring out of our precious few woodlands.

Haste Makes Waste

Dinner last night was a disaster but, frankly, one that didn’t bother me. I got in late from a post-work mountain bike session and found myself with a sink full of dirty breakfast dishes and a very, very ravenous appetite. Instead of washing the dishes and composing my workspace, I decided to jump right into dinner without getting myself relaxed and prepared. Big mistake.

Dinner was supposed to be stuffed peppers along with a cold cucumber soup. I was going to stuff the peppers with black beans and brown rice, amongst other things. When I arrived home I realized that my experiment of leaving the rice and beans in a crock pot over the course of the day was a failed one and found the end product to be a gluey mixture of seemingly dubious origins (I plan to try this next time). To my prehistoric slurry I added some sautéed garlic, shallots, and a few pinches of spices. I realized after stuffing my green peppers with the mixture and sticking them in the oven that I had neglected to add egg, which I had planned to employ as a “binder” of sorts. Although my desiccated rice and bean mixture really didn’t need a binder at this point, I decided to beat up an egg and drizzle it over the top of the pepper regardless. Naturally it coursed right off the top of the pepper and pooled up on the baking pan, and later found it firmed up into a sprawling baked egg (which, though not planned for, was tasty in and of itself).

In the meantime I had started a batch of sweet potato fries as, at this point, I realized how famished I really was and needed something to address my rapidly plummeting blood sugar. Ultimately, it would be only the fries that turned out the way I had expected.

I then moved onto the cucumber soup while everything else was in the oven. I had never made a cold soup before and frankly this probably wasn’t the best evening to start. But I did, and ultimately ended up blending together cucumber, spinach, cilantro, yogurt, a tad bit of roasted red pepper, lemon juice, and a drizzle of olive oil. This slurry (as you can see I had given birth to several slurries on this particular evening) was actually pretty tasty but was far more watery than I had hoped for. I ultimately determined that I should have used the thicker Greek yogurt I had on hand as opposed to the European yogurt that had ultimately found its way into the soup.

Anyhow, the peppers finally did come out of the oven and some sort of dinner began to coalesce out of the various constituents. In my ravenous state everything seemed to be acceptable, although reflecting on the experience casts some doubt on the soundness of my judgment at the time. Once I had finished plowing through the mish-mash on my plate I realized what a mess I had made of things and promised myself that next time I was in need of immediate calories I’d abandon more elaborate dinner plans in favor of something simpler. Experimenting with new ideas, dishes, or techniques is definitely something best approached with ample time, patience, and clean kitchen.

So What’s Up in Eats?

Well this week has been a bit busy with spring and daylight savings time tempting me to prolonged forays into the out-of-doors. However, I’ve still gotten a fair amount of cooking in despite my limited time at home. Breakfasts, to start, have been pretty typical. Some sort of egg dish, some steel cut oatmeal sweetened with mashed banana and vanilla, and some pan-fried sweet potatoes.

On Sunday I made a delicious vegetable soup from some of the chicken stock that has long been monopolizing my freezer. It was a hasty amalgamation of what I had as leftovers in my fridge at the time – celery, kale, brown rice, tomatoes, black beans, onion, shallot, carrots, and broccoli. Topped with a couple of bay leaves, oregano, basil, salt and pepper and I had a solid soup for a lunch and dinner accompaniment throughout the week.

As for dinner the only standouts (if you could call them that) were:

Monday – Southwest Casserole of sorts. Browned grass fed beef over riced cauliflower with a sauce of tomato, cumin, red pepper, and jalapeno. Baked in the oven and then topped with guacamole, Greek yogurt, green onion, and cilantro. On the side I had some sweet potato chips with a chipotle yogurt dip I had made the week before.

Tuesday – Roasted root vegetable salad (carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, with some cauliflower), vegetable soup, soft boiled eggs on a bed of spinach.

Wednesday – Mussels in tomato sauce (tomato, garlic, shallot, oregano, salt, pepper). Vegetable soup (what a surprise), and for dessert I had roasted pear (with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg) topped with whipped Greek yogurt and toasted sunflower seeds. I put too much hot sauce in the soup and too much pepper in the tomato sauce. As a result dinner was too hot and spicy. Nothing plenty of Greek yogurt on top of the pear couldn’t fix.

Food & Change - A Manifesto

I’ve decided to retool this blog a bit and expand its role from merely a pulpit to more of a running journal devoid of the pomp and finish (yeah right) that it’s possessed up until this point. You may ask yourself, ‘stripped of its previous luster, what’s left?’ Well I plan to leverage this blog for allot more ‘stream of consciousness’ type writing, in addition to a forum to house my culinary ventures, minor trip reports, and a repository for self imposed goals and aspirations (thereby making it more difficult to shirk them at a later point in time). Basically, I am going to drop any previous pretense and just use it as a virtual scratch pad. Therefore, from here on out I am sure you can expect an increasing lack of cogency and coherence, giving rise to ever increasing entropy and clouded vision of purpose.
As mentioned above I’d like to use the blog as a way of tracking my culinary ventures. To that end I intend to dispatch with one of the authorial golden rules and write in ignorance of my audience and use this blog (at least in my capacity as an amateur cook) as a means for my personal edification and advancement. However, unlike any other blog posts on food you may have read previously, mine will be devoid of artfully arranged food photography, helpful recipes, and blissful accounts of the preparatory experience. Rather what you’ll find is a candid look at my forays into the world of cooking taking place in my tiny (and ugly) apartment kitchen, replete with blunders, oversights, and occasional poorly lit photographs appearing to have been taken from a moving car.

What calls for this change? Due to my increased attention to my nut & peanut (the astute among you will recognize they’re not the same thing) allergy I’ve found my options to be largely restricted when it comes to eating out. When combined with adherence to my tenets of healthy eating, I find my diet difficult to cater to unless I wish to prepare all of my meals myself. Out of these requirements has been born my renewed passion for cooking which has spurred me on to become a more competent, well versed, and knowledgeable cook, with a genuine appreciation not only for the food, but the act of preparing it.

Seeing that I intend to introduce cooking as a major player in my blog, I think it’d help to paint, in broad strokes, some of the ideals that govern my food and stylistic choices. I’ll refrain from getting into the basis for these decisions in this post and, in all likelihood, future posts as well.

- Food is Life: Food literally IS life. It fuels our bodies and minds and is the basis for our continued existence. Strangely, food in modern America has come to be treated as a grudgingly necessary component of the overly scrutinized input/output system formerly known as our bodies. As a result, food had become devoid of enjoyment and is a main source of our constant anxiety. Food, in America, garners only a miniscule fraction of the average American’s paycheck – a fact further illuminated by the contrastingly large amount spent by those in many other first world countries (and even more so in third world countries). Coupled with this financial deficit is the lack of enjoyment and time that food sees in this country. (It’s for this reason that other cultures don’t have the weight management issues that ours does -- read “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”…I didn’t, but I understand that’s the premise).

I am trying to buck that trend and once again provide food the central role in my life that it both deserves and should rightfully occupy. I try to make time and expense secondary considerations when it comes to food. To this same end I make its preparation just as enjoyable and engaging as its consumption. Therefore, I don’t do fast food, 100 calorie packs, vitamin water, or eating in the car. I do sit down meals, everything from scratch, and whole afternoons spent on the dinner to follow.

- Whole Food: I strive with 98% success to eat only whole foods or, in other words, foods easily recognizable in their marketed forms. This means no additives, processed grains or sweeteners, canned produce, or factory prepared items.  I also don't do low fat.  Never.

- Limited Grains: I don’t really do breads (if I do, they’re sprouted), baked goods, or the like. I do use whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, oat groats, and the like on a limited basis. I definitely don’t do processed grains.

- Limited Land Based Protein: For environmental reasons I try to limit myself to only two pounds of land based protein a month. The rest of my protein I try to get from environmentally sound fished or farmed seafood, as well as limited consumption of dairy and eggs.

- Smart Buying (Organic): It’s my informed belief that locavorism and buying strictly organic is not necessarily the most environmentally friendly choice we can make as consumers. It definitely can be, but not always. However, my concern for responsible farming practices often leads me to buy organic foods before making the more environmentally friendly non-organic purchase. Therefore I try to temper buying decisions with a little bit of global altruism married with a little bit of self-preservation.

- Ratios: Ratios may seem like a funny word to use here but I really couldn’t think of a better singular term to describe this aspect of my culinary ‘code’. Besides being a déclassé cook, I am also a committed amateur athlete. The foundation of sound athletic performance and development is a diet well balanced in all the necessary macronutrients - fat, protein, and carbohydrate. By treating this ratio of macronutrients as a formula, many athletes easily achieve their nutritional requirements. However, many of these athletes treat food only as fuel and resultantly become objects of deprivation and self-castigation. I, on the other hand, don’t see a payoff in being an accomplished athlete with egregious deficits in other arenas of my life (see: Food is Life). Therefore, I try to observe ratios but understand that food enjoyed is ultimately the superior ‘fuel’.

- Minimalism: I appreciate minimalism not only as a sustainable means of living, but as an aesthetic one as well. I think doing more with less is a beautiful thing and therefore find I manifest that ideology in just about every aspect of my life. To that end I also employ minimalism in my cooking and am constantly exploring ways to minimize waste, ingredients, and kitchen tools. I think uni-taskers are antithetical to artful cooking and that finding creative ways to do more with less is both a stimulating and gratifying act.

Evolution of Man

Remember...

Internet Forums

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a big proponent of internet forums. I maintain that when properly leveraged by a discourse community they can be an excellent tool to disseminate information, dispel rumors, and arrive at a general consensus on topics that are generally too subjective or unwieldy to be tackled elsewhere. Forums, as many internet users know, run the gamut in subject matter, format, and generally accepted etiquette and, as a result, the better of these forums seem to develop their own unique identity and character.

As you can imagine, while I visit and post on forums of all types I spend the greatest deal of my time surfing outdoor sports forums. Some of them are regional, others national, and some even international. While their subjects and geography may differ, they all suffer from similar forms of abuse from internet tough guys, trolls (a role which even I have admittedly taken up on rare occasion), and those who are simply too lazy or ignorant to demonstrate common decency and respect.

I (already having admitted my own complicity in some of the shabby behavior that takes place here on these forums) have grown dispirited by the devolution that allot of my favorite digital stomping grounds have suffered. After a point the same questions have been asked time and again, the same scenarios belabored to the point of absurdity, and the same members banned, slandered, readmitted, and again ejected shortly thereafter. It’s become rather irksome that a resource that was totally unavailable in the not-so-distant past is now taken for granted to a degree so great as to almost render it useless due to the redundancy of the trespasses made against it.

One would think that such a pooling of knowledge would only help to foster a self-sustaining growth of that knowledge, and perhaps even evolve to tackle greater questions and arrive at even greater conclusions. But you’d be wrong if you’d assume that to be the case. Rather, the lazy and ignorant (most often amongst the forums’ newly initiated) fail to recognize the value of the forum as the self-sustained entity that it is and consequently are oblivious to the fact that they may draw from the already existing deep pools of knowledge it’s home to. Rather, they degrade the forum by posting on some of the most academic subjects possible and re-trod ground that’s been covered, ad nauseum, by past similarly self-indulgently negligent queries.

It’s at this point that the greater powers that be, whether it moderators or more senior members, should bear the burden of preserving their past endeavors and excise this redundant extranium from their collective and point the inquisitor to their answer among the past stores of knowledge assembled long ago. However, this is where the greatest offense is often made when the question is treated with integrity it does not deserve, lending it credence, and thereby cementing right alongside the very same knowledge that had already once been shared in the past. The lazy and ignorant have received their justification, and the senior contributors have squandered time and cognitive resources that would have been best spend developing the forum past its status quo.

Why can’t we just delete this rubbish or let it fall to the back page? Why beat the same dead horse again and again? Don’t respond with smarmy remarks, suggestive emoticons, or repetitive advise (as immediately helpful though it may seem to the impatient and lazy). Ignore it and treat it as the non-contributory work that it is. Have more respect for what it is you built and keep your focus fixed on elevating the general level of discussion beyond what it already is. Our internet forums can remain a rich resource for us all if we just let all the detritus sink to the bottom, thereby keeping those topics with potential for development buoyant and lively.

Silent Partner

Goddamn I love top rope soloing.

As a member of an internet climbing forum I frequent often quips, there are two types of partners – the loud and silent. His witticism is especially, well, witty, because it refers, in particular, to the device branded by Wren Industries as the “Silent Partner™”. The device is Wren Industries’ particular interpretation of a solo climbing device but, when left un-capitalized, ‘silent partner’ provides a more generic and all encompassing view of the act of solo climbing. The ‘loud partner’, on the other hand, is the one with two hands, two feet, a mouth, and a whole lot to say.

I always have and always will prefer to climb with a partner. However, there is a unique sort of joy and sense of self-sufficiency to be derived from climbing alone. First, as someone that loves to get inventive, establishing a manageable and safe solo top roping system can be an enjoyable challenge in and of itself if approached with the right attitude. I am constantly refining and perfecting my own system but, as it stands, it’s a pretty foolproof system, although I always strive for a greater form of elegance and simplicity in its construction.

The joys of its engineering aside, the top rope solo system presents a versatility that is uncommon (if not totally non-existent) in a ‘loud partner’. You’ll never find a top rope solo system that has to work late, is sick with the flu, or is going to their sister’s birthday party. In fact, most times I leave mine in the car all day without water and food and yet still find it just as eager to climb as when I left it there in the morning. It seems to generally agree with me when I pick a climb and (while it certainly never encourages me past a thin crux or a sketchy roof), it also doesn’t have a laugh at my expense when I grease off of a 5.easy. It doesn’t get bummed when there is a long approach but, then again, I tend to be doing most of the schlepping. Most importantly, I get to spend most of my time out at the cliffs actually ON the cliff and never have I found myself queued up on a climb when out with the ‘silent partner’.

Since perfecting my setup I’ve been able to get out on the vertical at least 50% more often that I have been, and I think as I continually improve my schedule and setup this number is bound to improve. Relying on my own system has made me a better climber – both more at home on the rock in addition to bolstering faith in systems of my own design.

I still love you ‘loud partners’, but you’ll have to pry my ‘silent partner’ from my cold, dead hands.

How To Own Land

Find a spot and sit there
until the grass begins
to nose between your thighs.

Climb to the top
of a pine and drink
the wind’s green breath.

Track the stream through alder and scrub,
trade speech
for that cold sweet babble.

Gather sticks and spin them into fire.
Watch the smoke spiral into darkness.
Dream that the animals find you.

They weave your hair into warm cloth,
string your teeth on necklaces,
wrap your skin soft around their feet.

Wake to the silence
of your own scattered bones.
Watch them whiten in the sun.

When they have fallen to powder
And blown away,
The land will be yours.

Morgan Farley

Another Yankee Engineering Project

So once again the outrageous price of manufactured goods has led me to seek a homemade alternative to preserve not only my hard earned money but, more importantly, my few remaining shreds of dignity. Recently I ordered a pretty high end handlebar-mounted light for my mountain bike so that I could continue to ride after work even in spite of the rapidly diminishing daylight. I had an older, far less impressive light laying around that I decided I wanted to mount on my helmet to provide me light when turning my head to look at things that don’t fall within my new light’s forward facing beam. This is not an odd application, so plenty of manufacturers make mounts that allow you to afix a handlebar light to your helmet. However, a mount like this goes for around $35! If you look at the mount, it’s nothing more than a piece of plastic and Velcro!

Any idiot with two brain cells to rub together could make a far less expensive mount and still have days to spare before their mail order mount would even show up at their house. Luckily, I am just the idiot for the job. With the $4.32 worth of parts pictured below, and about 25 minutes of time, I was able to construct this nifty little mount. Sure, it’s not quite as pretty as the one here, but by virtue of the fact that it’s built to hold its own source of illumination, it begs the deep philosophical question – “if an ugly mount serves to secure the only light by which you would recognize the mount for its ugliness, then is the mount even ugly in the first place?”. Well, yeah, sure it is…but I saved 30 bucks.

Lose the Thermometer

Why when I’m out in the wilderness do I see thermometers hanging like cancerous little growths off of people’s backpacks and jackets? What’s the big secret? If it’s cold out, add a layer, if it gets warm, remove one. What’s so complicated about that? Okay, ‘big deal’ you may say. However, if you ask me, these little plastic cysts are symptomatic of something far more insidious. The thermometer is just a small outward expression of the growingly invasive control that metrics now have over the outdoor experience.

What’s that rated? Where’d you finish? Which model is that? What’s your resting heart rate? How long is the climb? What grade is the hill? How many repetitions? What’s your time on that? What does that weigh? How much did that cost? What’s the beta? Where’s the guidebook?

Anyone who takes even a passive interest in outdoor sports has heard questions like these, if not asked or received them themselves. These questions help us to graduate our adventure and, by quantifying it, to remove its claws. They seek to cast light into the dark corners of our experience and act as preemptive knowledge of our act and, having performed it, to describe it in the most precise terms possible. By taking our own capabilities and the obstacles against which we pit them and reducing them down to mere numbers, we can extrapolate the outcome of our endeavors to so fine a point as to almost make it unnecessary to undertake them in the first place.

This is not how I want my outdoor experience to be. Instead, I want to experience adventure and the outdoors on their own terms. I don’t wish for guaranteed success or an overly forgiving safety net. I certainly don’t want to spend my free hours hemming and hawing over the tools that take me to where I want to be, or to wile away my time hashing out the minutiae of my future plans. I’d rather not be glancing at a digital read out, monitoring progress to assure myself I’m having the correct sort of experience.

Instead I’d like to turn corners without knowing what lies ahead. Start up a 5 mile climb without getting my heart rate pegged. Reach the next belay not knowing what gear I’ll need to build an anchor. Just once in a while I’d like to move a weight or a make a pedal stroke and know that I’ve just made myself stronger based upon feel alone. How I’d love to return from a mountain and simply describe it as ‘awesome’ or ‘gnarly’, without paying heed to numbers.

Now don’t get me wrong here – I think precise empirical information has its time and place. I appreciate the advances, innovations, and hard work that makes it so readily available. I’m a father and I sure as hell want to do what I can to ensure that I am around to see my son through all the best years of his life. I’ll look at a map, check the forecast, read a topo, and stuff my compass and GPS in my pack lid before I cast off - ensuring that I’ve bought the best model of each. But I certainly won’t continue to anesthetize my outdoor experience by shaping and molding it into another artificial construct like much of the world around us already is. If I should be charting it on a graph or describing it using anything other than a few choice adjectives, then I’m not sure that I want to be there.

Regarding Your Rights as an American

A venturesome minority will always be able to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches--that is the right and privilege of any free American. - Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

On Simplicity

Those passionate about the outdoors can often find themselves troubled by the paradoxical nature of their passion. It’s hard to find someone that is truly passionate about their time immersed in the serenity of nature that doesn’t maintain equal concern for its preservation. The problem arises when one begins to realize just what a large accumulation of material wealth is often associated with enjoying their outdoor pursuits in the capacity that brings them the greatest joy. In fact, some often find that the material aspect of their passion at times rivals their passion for the activity that first spawned its necessity. Whether this situation arises out of happenstance or out of the modern desire for material gain could be debated, but what’s not up for debate is the fact that it runs counter to what it truly means to be an advocate for the wilds.

What does this mean to me? Well, for years I think that my interest in the implements that granted me access to the outdoors has, like many others, rivaled my passion for the activities themselves. One begins to realize such things when rifling through a closet full of layers in the pursuit of the perfect article that would suit the weather down to the very smallest unit of measurement by which it’s quantified. When the greatest adventure precedes the actual act of leaving the comfort of the indoors, then it’s become obvious that the original point has been lost. At my worst I might as well have headed down to REI and taken up residence in their floor model camp setup because that’s how far from the path I’d strayed.

I suppose closer introspection may be necessary to tease out the source of my obsessive acquisition of possessions whose alleged purpose was permitting me enjoyment of the outdoors. Specifically, let’s see how this pattern of acquisition panders to my nature: I think, most importantly, I have an extremely deep appreciation for ingenuity - especially when it comes to something that solves seemingly complicated problems through a simple and elegant solution. I can appreciate the time and mental gymnastics that goes into addressing the issues that subsequently furthers our collective resources as tool users (or, as the word might be evolving to mean, consumers). Of course, natural progression would dictate that once enamored by such innovation in principle, I’d like to act as an end to its implication. So, of course, I buy it. Why? Because I need it. Right?

Well, maybe not, and there-in lies the problem. When does there come a point when man pitting himself against nature has actually become man’s creations pitting themselves against nature. I mean, we see it often in the more ‘extreme’ of man’s innovations that we, as supposed preservationists, abhor – oil tankers, mechanized logging machines, smoke belching factories – the list goes on. These are all innovations that improved upon previous intentions to simply thrive within our natural environment…even though these new instruments seem very far from this purpose. I think by this point you, much like me, might wonder where it is we should be drawing our line in the sand? I think allot of that is up to the individual. This individual, for one, has already drawn such a line for himself.

In order to draw the metaphorical line I’ve had to take a back step to a time before my own when man’s (and woman’s, of course) capabilities were governed by a far smaller arsenal of tools and implementations. To be arbitrary about it might not be truly honest, so I think the regression should be one in human innovation in addressing necessities and not necessarily in chronology. So, what is necessity again? You may not recall because it’s a word and concept long perverted by the relative comfort afforded by our own ingenuity, but necessity is essentially what we need to perpetuate a breeding population. However, due to the gratuitous swelling of our craniums, let’s give ourselves a little more license and say that necessity is what we need to live comfortably. Ideas of comfort range for the individual, but this is me we’re talking about, so I will say being warm, dry, and well fed are necessities. I will further indulge myself by affording mental wellbeing, which is the requirement under which I will lump my passion for the outdoors because, I mean, who the hell ever climbed a snow blasted mountain because it meant being warm, dry, or well fed?

Now that I’ve established my framework, the next step was to begin to modify my life to operate within that construct. This basically meant it was time to get to paring down what I had. This was an actual process that included not only the material aspects of my life in their most literal sense, but also finances, and time. I took a close look at every aspect of my life – from cooking, to cleaning, and climbing to biking, from a car to raising Eli, and from work to personal hygiene. I identified how each of these aspects contributed to my overall comfort and then, in turn, what made each of these aspects work as they should without even the tiniest bit of extra to spare. Then came the fun part – getting rid of the extranium. When I say this was fun, I truly mean it. I berid myself of hundreds upon hundreds of dollars worth of possessions. Some I sold on eBay and Craigslist, others I gave away to charity and to those I knew who could use them. I absolved myself of paper and converted solely to digital, and even got rid of every last beloved book that I knew had no use for other than to occupy a space on my shelf. On the coat tails of getting rid, there was also some small amount of acquisition with the intended purpose of facilitating increased simplicity – acquisitions that served two functions instead of one, or took up less space instead of more.

What did this leave me with? First of all, probably one of the greatest senses of peace I’ve known in a long time. Not only do I feel far less mired in the things I currently own, but I also feel less inclination to add to my material wealth. Of course this means more money not tied up in material, and more breathing room when it comes to unavoidable future financial obligations. With decreased material possession also comes allot more time. And what do I with all this time? Spend it in the outdoors! Now I’ve come full circle and am back to the very topic with which I began.

Spending more time in the outdoors has allowed me a far better sense of everything it has to offer. No longer do my possessions act as a buffer from my outdoor experience. I now move faster, lighter, and far less encumbered than I ever have. I no longer experience the outdoors as a specialist because I am not longer entrapped in the prison of specialized gear that I had built for myself. Rather, I enjoy nature on its own terms. As an act of attrition, I’ve also begun to pay far more attention to how those things that do come into my possession get there. Are they born of practices similarly responsible to those they I’ve strove to engender? How does the means of their creation equivocate to their end purpose?

Alas, however, this isn’t a project measure by a beginning and end. This is a way of living embarked upon and hopefully refined and brought closer to perfection as time moves on. Sure, I can’t claim to have divorced myself entirely from material possession and nor do I think I will ever be able to. However, I can move as close to my basest needs, as I see them, as possible. It’s to this end that I hope to keep working. Perhaps I’ll write more on it in the future…who knows, maybe I will even learn to use less words…