head in the clouds




though i'm not quite sure what my dream job is, i definitely look at kim severson's from time to time and imagine how wonderful it must be.

i had the great luck of meeting kim when i was just starting out as a cook.  i'd just graduated from school, was editing the daily cal for the summer, and thought what i wanted was to be a newspaper food writer.  she was working at the chronicle, and was very generous with her time and insight.  she offered me a lot of help, which i didn't take.  i sometimes wonder where i'd be now if i had gone down that path.  

after she broke the trans-fat stories and entered the national spotlight, she moved to the ny times and now writes the kind of stories i look for first every tuesday night when i dorkily read the food section before i go to bed.  she writes about people first, and food second.  about culture and relationships to food, about history and tradition, and all with a sense of humor.  

i totes look up to her, and i recommend her stories to everyone.  check her out...

i don't quite remember what it feels like to not be in constant pain, but i'm telling myself this is all for the greater good. the thing is, i am in love with this gym, the people who run it, and the other members. if i could, i'd go twice a day, every day. the soreness has grown to be a sort of background noise--i'd probably miss it if it weren't there.

in two short months, i have gained a ton of lean muscle. i'm stronger, (a little) more flexible, and can sleep through the night again. it's pretty amazing. my clothes fit better, i did 42 real pushups in a minute the other day, and i can hold plank for 90 seconds. i feel like i've known my chief abuser my whole life, and though she can be pretty evil during workouts (this evening she obvs had the number 100 on her mind, and we had to do 100 reps of every single horrendous exercise you can imagine), she's a pretty fabulous person and i know it's really for the best that she be so evil.

it's going to take me a year, give or take, to get to where i want to be, healthwise. but when i think that it took ten years to get here, a year doesn't seem so long. if anything, the protein thing might be what kills me--i'm just not sure i can eat too many more egg whites.

gispert


070525-063, originally uploaded by Anna Watson.





i just had a waking dream about casa gispert for some reason--it's one of the most lovely and charismatic shops i've ever been to. if you find yourself at the water's edge in barcelona, stop by and get yourself a handful of smoked almonds.


from the ground up




the other day at the farm, we made burgers. but these weren't any old burgers. they were utterly and completely from scratch:

homemade buns, check.
beef from home raised cows, check.
home made mayonnaise made with eggs from homegrown chickens and home-pressed olive oil, check.
homemade mustard made a la minute with home grown seeds and housemade vinegar and wine, check.
homegrown lettuces, check.
home canned pickles, check.
homemade guacamole made with avocados from the tree out back, check.

(we used all of the homemade ketchup up the last time we made burgers, and we didn't have any of the the family made jack cheese, so we went without those condiments).

the amazing thing is that this isn't a special event at the farm. dinner's like that almost every night. these peeps know how to live, if you ask me.
it's so easy to get caught up in a way of thinking. we're fed all of this stuff all day long by the media--it's so constant that it becomes subconscious after a while. i mean, my family is from iran, and i have spent some long stretches of time there, and yet, i still think about it in some very stereotypical ways.

i'm kind of ashamed to admit how giddy and surprised i was to realize that an artistic community such as this might exist there today. i love it!

vandana shiva




i just got back from a conversation with vandana shiva at herbst theatre. for many years, this woman has been a humongous source of inspiration for me--someone to look to for guidance and grace. she is an amazing activist, a brilliant scientist, a passionate environmentalist, a defender of women's and human rights, and a spirited author. her manifesto on the future of food and seed is a work of art, and i feel honored to have met her this evening.

i encourage everyone to learn more about her and her work:

navdanya

planting the seeds for change

south end press

winter blues, originally uploaded by i.anton.



alright....now that i have a moment to breathe:

on david chang

i am a cook. not a chef, but a cook. i care about making good food, and being part of a community. i care about inclusion, and warmth, humility and honesty. above all else, knowing that my food was raised with care matters to me. there is so much about food that is celebrated that i just don't give a hoot about, so to find this profile of someone who feels the same way about so much of this stuff as me was really exciting. and to see him doing well was even better.

i especially loved the parts when 1) he recognized that just because he's not some great chef cooking fancy food, it doesn't mean he can't have standards and put everything he has into it, and 2) when his only goal was to be better than the crappy japanese restaurant across the street.

on barack obama

we cooked, he came, he said hello, he spoke, he ate, he went. there was mayhem and teamwork, and we nearly set the place on fire. it was all good. and the secret service guys were very cordial.

he's very inspiring in person. i got to sneak upstairs and see him speak for about ten minutes. the room wasn't very big, and everyone was so star-struck (even the celebrities!)--we all got so swept into what he was saying. he seemed so unrehearsed, so natural. the man is a great orator--you've got to give him that. he's just so positive. yeesh.

on the state of my muscles

for about a month now, i have been going to this super hardcore gym where they essentially beat me up. it's kind of incredible, and i totally love it. it's essentially a cult, and i've been officially inducted. it feels so good to get stronger, and leaner. i love it. the best part is that there are basically no machines there. we do all of the work on our feet or with our own body weight. they do have rowing machines, though, and luckily, i am really, really good on them (from when i did crew in college).

today was one of the hardest days yet, and part of our circuit was rowing. i was basically the weakest and slowest (yet youngest) one in my group on all of the other stations, but every time we'd get to the rowing machine, i'd whip out these crazy times. the woman next to me--totally strong and in amazing shape--kept looking at my clock in disbelief until finally, on the last round, she huffed, "you're really good!" it was pretty cool, because everyone else in the class is in such great shape, and i'm just plain not...yet.

the amazing thing is how quickly i've felt myself change--so many exercises i couldn't do a month ago are second nature already. i love it!

i will post soon. i promise. i have so much going on, but i am under pressure, and exhausted, and i have a project i'm finishing this week.

one exciting thing--i'm cooking for barack obama this weekend. after that, i will have cooked for both him and hillary, so hopefully in a year's time, we can say that i've fed the president.

right now i am obsessed with:
protein
arnica gel
garlic
hulu.com
the ted talks
catalan farm strawberries

i miss you! i'll be back soon. promise.


jerome, my cooking and life idol (and that of so many others), the reason why i don't wear socks at work, has an amazing new project coming up: open restaurant.

i think i'm going to try to go on the 28th with a bunch of people--let me know if you want to come!

i've had a couple of great weeks, full of my food chain friends and mp and cp old-timers and new possibilities.

i've been working a lot, and thinking a lot, and starting a bunch of posts here just to quit and come back later.

i want so badly to be able to tell the stories i have in my head, but so many of my experiences are miraculous in such a way that words could only betray them. right now, i'm just feeling very, very lucky to know the people i know, and to consider them my friends and family.

i've been thinking a lot about success, and what it means to me. and i've been thinking that what gives me inspiration and strength to work toward the things i want to achieve is that there are so, so many wonderful people in my life who think outside the box when it comes to success. people who understand what hard work is, and appreciate humility, and work for so much more than just money.

i feel so lucky to have found these people, who believe in me, and want to help me, who want to work toward the same things for themselves, at such a young age. i can envision many alternate paths for myself that wouldn't have led me to even one person with these kinds of beliefs, and somehow, i was magically led to a whole community of them.