Beet Smoothies with a Soundtrack
Hold On - Give me a 3 minute read...
Exciting news! I am currently working on my first collaboration with another writer from Substack, Valentina Petrova. As a Jack of all Trades myself, I certainly appreciate her backstory.
She writes Life Intelligence. It’s a newsletter for people who think deeply about life and relationships and want to live more, love more, and do more.
Valentina gives authority to that little voice in your head. If you ever wondered why you made another dumbass decision - again! - you would benefit from reading her stuff. She deep-fries overwhelming topics into bite-sized nuggets. I’ll just add the sriracha ketchup!
We found ourselves in a Zoom Breakout Room during a learning session hosted by Substack. We discovered a connection that has now evolved into an opportunity.
That opportunity will present itself in a piece that attempts to explore and explain some behavioral traits that manifest themselves in daily decision-making.
This is a super cool project that explores in real-time some of the trials, triggers and tribulations I’m currently experiencing and ties them back to the attachment styles learned in my chaotic childhood.
Beyond being just a cry for help, Valentina and I will work on naming the thoughts and actions that can then be used to reframe your decision-making process.
The hope is that you may recognize some of you in some of me, and we all get just a little better today than we were yesterday. Whatever “better” means to you.
Like DIY Self-Help. Read something. Learn something. Do something. Sounds easy.
Stay tuned for this collaboration to drop in my regular Friday slot next week. Valentina’s will drop on Wednesday, and I will be sending out an alert.
Here is a link to her post from yesterday that teases our collaboration.
How I Feel About 2021
It's complicated...
In the meantime, please check out her platform, and as always, support your writer community here on Substack.
Check out this series as a primer for the upcoming collaboration.
Tricks your mind plays causing you to misbehave - Part I
Tricks your mind plays causing you to misbehave - Part 2
While in the research prep mode, you might want to refresh with these pieces I wrote about vulnerability.
Vulnerability: Cost-Benefit Analysis - The foibles of human nature and the desire for perfection
Be Vulnerable - Wreck a Car, Not a Life
I Was Fat. Now I’m Bald.
My current weight is about 145 pounds and holding steady. In 2018, just three years ago, when the world seemed so quaintly normally screwed up, I weighed 176 pounds.
That’s a lot to pack on a 5’4” frame. The pictures of me show an older fatter man than the one I see in the mirror today. Need a second opinion? The bologna patch on top of my head got bigger too!
The stress of life is functionally eased by routine and regularity (and booze). A workaround skill of mine is to eliminate as many decisions about mundane things that clutter my brain on a daily basis. It lets me focus on shiny objects.
What to wear? Buy all the same style t-shirts in different colors and just grab one. Why decide what to eat? Heat up an oatmeal packet in a disposable cup and go. Keys and sunglasses? Right on the hook by the door, as they should be.
While that works well for all those quasi-inconsequential daily decisions, how does that workaround perform in a long-term marriage?
In my experience, not well. My thoughts turn to routine and regularity, and how those substitute for meaning and purpose. If your nose is always to the grindstone, it’s hard to stop and smell the roses.
Then 30 years slips by. The task-master of raising children is done with us. I looked up as I felt a loss. Not a painful one. The job was done. The work was over. The results are reality.
This Gen-Xer is really bad about future-planning. Whether it be financial or emotional. Let’s just say I wasn’t depositing enough in the relationship account to keep it solvent.
Worse still, I was making unilateral withdrawals. I think going to prison counts as a significant depletion of emotional currency. Other instances spring to mind and embarrass the psyche.
And the day of reckoning arrived. All those checks my actions wrote. Now my ass had to cash them. Searching under the cushions of my soul revealed no spare change.
The relationship was bankrupted. We kited some checks to pay for moments of affection at the end. But even those were fleeting and laced with melancholy.
When love was free and the future was forever...
The end comes smaller and quieter than imagined…
Hidden thoughts and desires, never revealed…
Before you know, it’s too late...
Life / Food + Music + Art + Craft + History = Culture (L/5e=C)
I write about the confluence of the elements of life that create culture. I express the confluence with that formula.
I am adding new features to my posts today. My belief in the elements of life places Food at the apex of the elemental roster with Music right behind. It’s probably 1 and 1A rather than 1 and 2.
I realize looking back over the past year, my writing has evolved as my life has evolved. I believe strongly that five elements have the greatest impact on our lives. Read about that here.
We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
Recipe for Success
Here come the beets. I start with beets because they are probably the least liked root vegetable, if not all veggies. Being the contrarian, I derive pleasure in liking the unlikable.
Beets are universally recognized as a superfood. “Yuk! I hate beets” is the most common response I get when I am asked how I lost so much weight.
That is a dichotomy that I alone can solve. Beets will change your life.
Q & A
What is it about beets that you dislike?
Can you describe the flavor that offends you?
Is it texture, flavor, or aroma that curls your nose?
Would you be able to put into words the exact opposite of the flavor you profess not to enjoy?
Speaking as a chef, if you cannot answer those elemental inquiries about the exact food that you profess to dislike, consider yourself as being a bit uninformed or dishonest.
Uninformed if you have only tasted beets from a can and dishonest if you have never tasted them at all. Thinking that you don’t like something is quite different from actually not liking it.
Maybe in either case, just say what the reality is. I ask if you like beets not to garner favor with you or to get on your good side.
I ask in a sense of earnest interest. Beets have been proven to add positive health benefits in my life. I very much want you to enjoy those health benefits as well.
If you are saying to me that yes, I understand that, but choose not to even explore it, I understand.
A smoothie of a thousand beets is started one beet at a time…
Ric
https://calorganicfarms.com/products/red-beets/
Prep your beets this way...
Buy a bunch of organic beets, cut off the roots and leaves (keep them!) and leave about 3 inches of stem
Fill a pot with water and put a steamer basket on the bottom
Chop the stems, roots and leaves, put them on the basket in the pot, add the beets on top and, cover with water and lid and boil till the beets are soft
Leave them in the pan in the water with lid on overnight on the stove
Next morning, just reach in for a beet and the skin basically falls off
I then dice the beets and freeze them in small baggies. If you add some other fruit to the bag, they make a perfect little smoothie pouch for meal prep.
I know, you think beets suck! They don’t.
Knowing full well that most people’s aversion to beets likely formed in their childhood, when mom was screaming “you’re not leaving this table until those beets are gone!”
I interpreted that to mean I didn’t have to eat something, it just had to be “gone.” Problem with beets though, even the dog hates them. You know me, can’t seem to find a rabbit-hole I don’t love.
So I found a piece that I believe will help - How to Help Your Child Learn to Eat Beets. With sections like How to Serve Beets to Picky Eaters and How to Talk About Beets to Help Your Child Try Them, you too can stop being a Beetaphobic.
That is why beet smoothies are so good for you - it does mask some of the taste people describe as “like dirt!”
But what the hell can you do with them?
smoothies - take the pouch of frozen fruit, add a banana, spinach, almond milk, Greek yogurt, protein powder, or whatever else you usually put in your smoothie. (You don’t make smoothies for yourself everyday?! Eye-roll head shake! How can I help you if you don’t help yourself?)
salads - think goat cheese, spring mix, sunflower seeds, lemon vinaigrette OR butter lettuce, red onion, feta, balsamic and EVOO, Everything Bagels Seasoning
roasted - the best! Add your other favorite diced veggies - squash, parsnips, turnips, onions, celeriac, garlic, shallots, carrots, potatoes, brussels sprouts, the list is endless. Toss in olive oil and sprinkle with Everything Bagel seasoning and bake at 400 for 45 minutes or so
Hey, you said “ new features” - plural. That was only one!
I hear you. Lucky for you, this post is packed with “new features”. I mean, have you been paying attention?
Let’s tick them off:
Announced a collaboration with a guest writer, including a Q & A with an expert
A recipe for a comfort food favorite of mine that will become yours
Graphics, page breaks, images, lists all add interest and break up the “wall of words”
So, that’s it? No, How about this ace in the hole? Music. If it’s so damn important to me, where has it been all this time?
Hit and miss. This hustle-juggling is actually quite difficult. I just make it look easy! I know I am late to the game on this whole Spotify thing. Better late than never, right?
My lofty goal is to take an artist and make a 10-song list that can tell the story musically of what the post is about. Today’s artist is The Alan Parsons Project.
I have always liked them well enough. I had a two hour drive yesterday and got lost in the jams. Please enjoy…