My thoughts on Cooked

Pollan giving a TedTalk (From Wikipedia)

One of my "intellectual idols" would have to be Michael Pollan. I've been interested in his work after watching Botany of Desire, Food, Inc., and the Ted Talk he gave from the plants' perspective. I agree with many of his ideas on food and enjoy hearing him speak on them. I admire the work he has done to provide some clarity of what is going on with the modern day food system.

Cooked is Pollan's latest book that takes a look at the history of four cooking methods, barbecue, braise, bake, and ferment. The narrative is Pollan's journey to learn about these methods from masters of each of these crafts that tangentially bounces to the historic, psychological, and scientific stories related to each technique*. I am completely envious of this experience because it involves two things that love to do, cook and learn; to have been able to take the time to learn from masters of these cooking techniques is just awesome and something that hardly anyone could afford to do. However, his writing gives the impression that learning each techniques is within reach and cooking school is not a must.  For each method, I kept thinking to myself, "I could do that." While currently do not have lots of time to try each of these cooking methods at the moment (kind of hard at the moment being a student and a new teacher), I definitely want to try each technique. Oh, and I want to make the note that I do cook at home right now, but not with the type of cooking styles Pollan uses. I'll admit that I'm hoping this summer could be a time that I can try my hand at making a loaf of bread, braise a nice cut of meat, or even try my hand at barbecue this summer. I greatly recommend this book who enjoys good food and wants to be voyeuristic about learning how to cook.

*I wanted to also note that I read this as an audiobook, which helped out a lot. In the past, I tried to read In Defense of Food and Omnivore's Dilema, but I had gotten so caught up in the tangental narratives that I would ge frustrated and not finished. This time, it went so much smoother and I really enjoyed the fact that Pollan reads the book himself. It helps provide clarity to the narrative. I would definitely recommend this book as an audio book, and now plan on using this format to complete the other Pollan books on my shelf.

Rocketman tri

While the majority of America spent Cinco de Mayo with tacos, tequila, and margaritas, I spent part of it doing a triathlon with the hubs and some new friends. The Kennedy Space Center Rocketman Triathlon was my fourth mini adventure with the swim, bike, run sport. The options for racing included a Classic+, International+, and a half Ironman. I went with the Classic+, composed of a 0.26 mi swim, 34-36ish mi bike ride and a 3.1 mi run. (The official bike route was advertised for 34 mi, but there were plenty of people who had their GPS systems tracking the ride and said that they rode 36 mi)
The swim was off a pier near a Titusville park. There were a few dolphins and manatees spotted, but I didn't see them. :-( I did enjoy the fact the turn buoys were shaped as rockets.
The bike portions lead the racers into the NASA launch grounds. I didn't have a GoPro, so I don't have video if the bike course. There were plenty of athletes who did have cameras, so I'm sure there will be a video of the bike course soon. There was an interesting dichotomy of industrial built up space support equipment and the wild life preserve around it. It was very pretty; I saw all sorts of lush greenery some different birds. I almost ran over a baby snake - almost being the operative word. But alas, I saw no gators; supposedly, they were hanging out on the half-iron part of the course. Not being a space geek, I thought it was pretty cool to be that close to the launch sites. Definitely, it was an opportunity that I'm not sure I'll ever have again.
The run was a straight out and back in a neighborhood that finished at a park honoring the astronauts. The people who lived there were awesome about cheering us on. The preschoolers who cheered us on were really cute and there was a pit bull that had a pink tutu on. I know I remember some random stuff, but those little distractions help make the race fun.
The best part was our support crew!! Becca, Lauren, and Flux!!! They are awesome!! After the handful of races I've done, I cannot underscore the awesomeness that a support crew can do for your morale during a race. My goal will try to support them when they do any races in the future.

Progress on the garden...

Below are pictures showing the progress I've made on the garden.

With help from my dad, we were able to pull out most of the over grown burning bush and azaleas from the side yard next to the drive way. (Hubs was able to dig out the roots that didn't want to come out)

This year, I'm going to set up a few vegetable garden beds. I have one set up right now. It has tomato plants from the local garden center. I realize I initially said that I was going to go from seed, but 1) my plants got too much light and looked sickly and 2) I had feelings of garden inadequacy with my less than stellar seedlings.

So, I restarted seeds (tomatoes, herbs, squash) last week and will keep my fingers crossed that the seeds will take.

Oh the great experiment that is gardening.

Pulling out all of the over grown stuff

My blank slate!!

Veggie patch #1... More to come