I used to think that road trips and cross-country moves were the best ways to test the strength of a relationship. But I’d also add “assembling furniture” to that list.
Seriously, IKEA probably kills more relationships than Ashley Madison.
(Note: M and I are fine, and the new TV stand looks great. But next time, we’re hiring a guy.)
In the documentary series, “Cooked,” author Michael Pollan talked about how cooking shows have become a hugely popular form of entertainment even though fewer people are spending time in the kitchen making food for themselves. He attributed the interest in watching people cook to family recollections implanted in childhood, an experience that created a sense of tradition and nostalgia.
“You know there are lots of things in modern life we no longer do for ourselves, that we’ve outsourced to corporations, and we don’t watch TV about it,” Pollan said. “Cooking is different. There’s something that draws us to that hearth. And I think some of it has to do with the fact that we all have powerful memories of being cooked for by our moms, by our dads, by our grandparents.”
I seem to be an outlier of his theory. I love to cook. I cook for my husband every day. But I certainly didn’t learn to love cooking — or food — in my childhood home.
I come from a Midwestern working-class family, one that pretty much survived on convenience foods. Typical dinners were hot dogs and Kraft dinner, fish sticks and canned veg or Hamburger Helper. Once in a while, there would be a pot roast or a meal cooked on the grill in the back yard. We couldn’t afford to eat out much so we never got hooked on fast food; going to McDonalds for a birthday party was a rare treat.
Every lunch box was filled with a sandwich (usually made with cheap white bread), a piece of fruit and some sort of salty or sweet snack. Every dinner was quickly assembled from a box or a can, and made on the stove top. My brother and I drank gallons of Kool-Aid and sweet iced tea and milk, but pop was a luxury that only Grandma provided on weekends.
Needless to say, in my family, there were few “traditional” recipes handed down from generation to generation, and certainly none that harkened back to any particular culture. Our meals rarely featured any ethnic cuisines or influences; hell, I didn’t even try Chinese food until I went away to college.
And so, I cook for other reasons:
Health: Cooking is healthier than eating out because I know exactly what’s going into the food I make. For example, my favorite recipe for sandwich bread contains flour, salt, milk, unsalted butter, honey and yeast. The most popular brand of sandwich bread sold in grocery stores contains: flour, sugar, wheat gluten, yeast, fiber, calcium sulfate, salt, calcium carbonate, soybean oil, cultured wheat flour, vinegar, dough conditioners (including one or more of the following: sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium stearoyl lactylate, monoglycerides and/or diglycerides, calcium peroxide, calcium iodate, datem, ethoxylated mono and diglycerides, azodicarbonamide, enzymes), guar gum, soy flour, ammonium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, soy lecithin, niacin, iron (ferrous sulfate), thiamine hydrochloride, riboflavin and folic acid. Americans also consume a great deal of excess salt and sugar from eating processed food products; when you cook at home, you decide how much of each ingredient to use.
Experimentation: Think back to those rainy afternoons at home with a stack of blank pages and a box of crayons. Or perhaps you were given a block of molding clay in art class and told to go wild. As children, we’re given the opportunity to play, to create, to mess up and start over again. Cooking is the same for me. Each new recipe is a chance to make a masterpiece — or to learn from a dish that didn’t turn out quite right. The more I cook, the more I understand and over time, I’ve gained the skills needed to elevate some of those “not so great” recipes into food that’s more than just edible.
Kitchen witchery: There’s something magical about cooking and baking. You take quality ingredients from all parts of the planet, combine them skillfully, add heat or cold or motion — and ta da! A dish appears. Watching this transformation occur is such fun. Plus, the “trick” tastes divine and it disappears!
Love: I’ve never worked in the food industry nor am I a trained chef. For me, cooking is an act of love. When I create meals, I’m showing people how much I care. I fill the house with warm, delectable scents and fill the body with food that both nourishes and satisfies. When circumstance allows, cooking at home leads to good conversations and great meals.
Hmm… Perhaps Pollan was right about that memory thing after all.
–Photo by Ariel da Silva Parreira
Milo, my 6-year-old 17″ MacBook Pro bit the dust this weekend. I’m talking ALL DEAD.
As Miracle Max once said, “There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do.” In this case, that one thing was dropping some serious cash on a new computer.
I did back up most of my data so other than a few very stressful days and the disappearance of about 1,000 songs, it wasn’t a complete loss. However, none of the calendar info transferred to my back up devices (and the calendar in the cloud was apparently incomplete).
So, if you could do me a huge favor and forward your latest contact info and birthdate, I would really appreciate it.
“There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder.” –Brian Aldiss
As is our annual tradition, M and I snuggled up on the couch last Sunday and watched the Academy Awards telecast. We didn’t have skin in the game, but we both love movies, and enjoy seeing the people who entertain us look beautiful and receive honors for their talents.
Alas, the number of people who share our enthusiasm for this event has declined. According to The New York Times, viewership of the Academy Awards show dropped by roughly 8 percent from last year. A little more than 34 million people tuned in, making it the lowest-rated Oscars in eight years, and the third-lowest since Nielsen began tracking viewership in the mid-1970s.
The Times credited several reasons for this decline: Black viewers upset about a second straight year of all-white acting nominees, moviegoers who lacked sufficient passion for the nominated films and the public’s annoyance at performers who use their speeches to discuss causes like climate change and equal pay. While these explanations all have merit — particularly the diversity issue — there are others that need to be addressed.
Firstly, we’re all busy. If we’re not working or spending time with our families and friends, we’re streaming TV shows, attending concerts, going to movies, reading books, listening to music, taking classes, surfing the web, playing games, volunteering, participating in hobbies or updating social media. In the land of time-consuming options, the decision to do the same thing as millions of others at the same time generally takes a compelling reason or shared interest, and this year, many people had compelling reasons not to watch the show.
People were also “watching” the Oscars in a different way, one that wasn’t well tracked by traditional Nielsen ratings. Even in our own house, we viewed the program together live as it was broadcast. Who does that anymore? Most of the time, people see shows they’ve previously recorded when it suits their schedules.
Some people followed the Oscars without physically viewing them; instead they read about the entire affair on Twitter because it provided real-time news of winners, commentary on fashion and an inside look at the event from the celebrities themselves. In fact, Twitter users sent 24.2 million tweets about the Oscars during the broadcast, Re/Code reported, up from 19.1 million tweets in 2014.
While many were “watching” the event solely on the micro-blogging site, others were probably multi-tasking their media consumption. M watched the event on TV with a laptop perched on his thighs. He’s not much of a Twitter user, but on Oscars night, he always makes an exception and live-tweets his reactions to every speech, skit, musical performance and award.
That said, viewership of the Oscars telecast will continue to decline unless major changes are made to capture the audience’s attention.
One way to do this is for Hollywood to update its distribution of movies. Currently, non-blockbuster films (i.e., movies not expected to break $100 million on opening weekend) will often open in big cities, yet never reach smaller venues. While many of these movies later earn Oscar nominations, few fans have the ability to see them. Americans living in suburban and rural areas enjoy a good buddy comedy or action flick as much as the next person, but they crave films with substance, cult classics and documentaries as well.
The Academy should also move the Oscars deadline to December 1 and release the critically acclaimed films in theaters earlier in the year. That way, moviegoers have more time to catch them on the big screen, or stream them online in the weeks after the nominees are announced.
Increase technological options for the blind and deaf. Doing so will lead to more ticket sales and give audiences with physical limitations the opportunity to enjoy such entertainment as it was meant to be consumed. Include captions on all streaming video, particularly the clips posted online with the intention of building buzz. Fans won’t share a viral video they can’t watch/understand themselves.
Allow the public to participate in the awards process. Increase each category by one slot, and give movie lovers the chance to choose the 6th nominee. Then, during the voting season, provide those same film buffs with the ability to vote on the entire slate via Oscars.com. If the Academy wants to keep the voting process strictly to members, it can still present the audience with a place to make predictions and post the “fan favorites” at the bottom of the screen during the telecast.
Hollywood must address the #OscarsSoWhite issue. The people in power should make a sincere effort to hire a more diverse range of talent and crew. Encourage younger filmmakers of all backgrounds to bring their unique voices to the fore. Give meaty roles to more experienced actors and actresses. And purchase scripts with stories that move beyond racial clichés and stereotypes.
The Academy must diversify its membership. In 2012, the Los Angeles Times determined that Oscar voters were on average 63 years old; 76 percent of them were men, and 94 percent of them were white. Only about 45 percent of them were active in the industry.
Lastly — and most importantly — make better movies. So many top-notch actors and writers and directors have moved over to television because that’s where they’re able to create quality entertainment. Please stop producing so many sequels, remakes and CGI-heavy clunkers. In a world with a million options to fill our time, original storytelling is the best way to capture the public’s attention.
–Photo by Carlos Sillero.
