Courageously Creative

Be more creative in your own way

Food

Food

QUALITY OF LIFE STANDOUTS

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Harvest time

I’ve been reflecting on what helps me feel better and more creative. Two quality of life activities come to mind that have high returns without too much effort. Full disclosure: all I receive for these suggestions are the satisfaction of sharing. Both are old ideas that have been made more accessible for us to use.

The first seems like it belongs in science fiction. Snow is falling and my crops are ready to harvest from seeds planted just last week. The plants don’t require sunshine or rain, there is no weeding, no dirt, and they provide a steady supply of healthy radish, bean, and broccoli sprouts right in my kitchen. While, hydroponics has been around for centuries, do-it-yourself farms are becoming popular, as are micro-greens. I got started last year with this tabletop vertical Bioset farm that takes less space than a gallon of organic soy milk.
Just adding water twice a day for fresh eats in 5 or 6 days. This leaves endless opportunities to experiment with favorite vegetables but the real creativity is needed in finding uses for the I-Love-Lucy conveyor belt of hydroponic micro sprouts. The endless supply inspires new recipes and healthy eating.

Along with healthy eating comes some exercise. While people have benefited from the next practice for over 5000 years, I’ve been successfully avoiding it my whole life. While I thought I was in good shape, my wakeup call came after a Taekwondo black belt test left me with muscle pain for months. Please take note; it wasn’t me taking the exam! I became sore from just sitting in the audience. Watching for three hours from a wooden gym floor, alternating between folding my legs and kneeling. When crisscross applesauce felt more like a burnt pretzel, I realized, that something had to be done.

What type of tree are you?


For the millionth time, yoga was suggested but this time, it sounded less silly. I thought about trying but my schedule doesn’t allow for classes and I’ve never been into group embarrassment. A teacher recommended a program 3 Week Yoga Retreat I could do at home in 30 minute segments and that was all it took. While any exercise could help, Yoga surprised me. Through the easy to follow instructors, I’ve improved flexibility, balance, strength and posture – and I may have grown a few inches taller.

Creativity takes focus, strength, flexibility and it helps if you feel good. With some commitment and little effort, Microgreen farming and Yoga both have helped me feel better – and this is something I wish on everyone.

Back To Basics

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will never boil

will never boil

Years ago when I asked my grandmother for her chicken soup recipe, she thought back and told me her first step was to remove all of the feathers. So each winter the first thing I do when making a batch of soup is to read her instructions and skip the first step.

Through the years, starting with the basic recipe, I’ve experimented and made some improvements and mistakes. Dill didn’t really work but using cheesecloth was an improvement. While it’s easy to throw vegetables and a carcass into a pot, it’s more laborious to get them out. Softened carrots, parsnip, and celery break apart and worse – bone fragments need removing from the broth. Difficulty and finger burns have given me reasons to find better ways for making a homemade soup that just can’t be found anywhere else.

Although I thought of it myself, post-invention Googling shows I’m not the first to try my latest innovation. It’s to use a pasta insert to lift the solids from the boiling broth. Also, instead of boiling, I added vegetables to an upper steamer compartment and they stayed firmer, while their drippings fell right in making this the easiest and best soup to date.

While I enjoy experimenting, this winter, I’m looking for opportunities for improvement by getting back to basics – and I’m curious if you would like to join me. All creative expressions have two separate parts, an idea and a technique.

We all have ideas, and we all can learn or improve upon our techniques.

When we master a technique, whether its learning to use the f/stop on our camera or knowing how to format a business plan, we are better equipped to express our ideas.

Unlike plucking the chicken, sometimes we can’t skip the basics.
I’m taking a step back to work on improving technique by improving my writing, drawing, practicing pen and ink exercises, and looking at best practices in the kitchen. It isn’t about precision or perfection; instead it’s about improving our techniques. Whatever medium we practice, learning the grammar helps us express our ideas and helps others accept except our ideas.

One step back to basics may yield three or four steps ahead. As we need channels to express our ideas out from our minds, we can never go wrong by improving our techniques. What are you going to practice?

Inspired by Allergies

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lime-parfaitDo you ever feel like you are practically the only one facing some real challenges that don’t seem to affect many others? When I think of difficult limits from our environment, the line

“it was bye-bye for Shanghai – I’m even allergic to rice”

from Doris Day’s old song comes to mind. Whether you suffer from allergies or not, there are lessons to be learned about finding creative solutions within limits from JD Simone as she discusses her new book: Allergy Safe Cuisine; Cooking Without the Top 8 Food Allergens, Plus Corn, Gluten and MSG Like exit polls before memories fade, a great time to see the inside of the creative process is to ask people immediately after they complete a work. While often creativity is thought to be inspired by infinite possibilities, Simone’s inventiveness came through experimenting within strict limits.

What inspired you to write this book?
I have several family members with severe food allergies. The summer before last was a perfect storm of eating disasters and that experience spurred me on to write this cookbook. The whole family went away on vacation together and, no matter what we made for food, there was always somebody who couldn’t eat it. Compound that with the fact that there were so many people in one kitchen that keeping “safe” food for one person separated from the “safe” food for the other was nearly impossible, especially with a houseful of kids running around. The final straw was when we had a birthday party and one of my granddaughters could not eat the birthday cake. Can you imagine being a child, and having never eaten a single slice of birthday cake? Normally she takes it well, but her tears that time did me in. I decided that from now on, any food I make would be safe for everyone to enjoy. What is your favorite recipe? Lime Parfait. This was one of my own inventions. It tastes surprisingly like custard, is very easy to make, and is very decorative. Great to serve for company! How did you come up with the recipes you used?
I adapted some recipes, and invented others. Since life is complicated enough with multiple food allergies, I decided that every single one of my recipes would be free of the 8 major food allergens, plus corn, gluten and MSG. For people with multiple food allergies, flavorful, mixed dishes and seasonings are usually off limits. That was why I spent a lot of time on spice mixes, dressings, gravies and sauces. My mock Worcestershire sauce took months of experimenting to come up with, but it was well worth the effort. I also included a wide variety of meals and deserts, from the most basic of dishes to a small handful of more complicated ones for adventurous cooks.

I’ve always been involved in something creative. Right now I’m illustrating “Mommy’s First Picture Book: What Nobody Told You About Parenting,” which should be done by mid-summer.

Have you ever found yourself with some real limits and a need to find solutions for yourself or your family? Like the situation that spurred the idea for this cookbook. Please pass this on to anyone you know with food allergies!

Creative Risks: Mistakes That You Can Smell

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saltcod
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re making a mistake? As I write this, I’ve the nauseous feeling something is wrong and this morning I can smell the mistake and it’s coming from the kitchen. Like anyone going out on a limb to be creative who finds themselves in the midst of a potential error, I’m wondering if I should stop the madness or continue and see where it leads.

It all started earlier this week when I spotted an “out-of-the-ordinary fish” special while browsing the pages of my online grocery. Choosing fish over the internet has its risks but that didn’t stop me from adding “Salt Cod” to my shopping cart. It was not as much my bravery and willingness to take a chance to explore possibilities as much as it was that I wasn’t really paying enough attention.

The next day the fish was delivered in a plain marked pine box. Before even sliding the lid to exhume the contents, I could smell the “aroma.” It reminded me of strolls through the dried food markets in Hong Kong or like the beach at low tide on a hot day. I’ve learned that to some, the smell of dried fish is like the freshness of baked bread; however, I’ve not acquired this sense and beginning to wonder if even a splash of wine or a squeeze of lime could provide enough cover. The instructions say to rehydrate the fish in a series of water baths for a day and some Google searching revealed testimonials predicting a full transformation into something worthwhile and wonderful.

At the moment, it’s been soaking for 12 hours and the smell is …a little less fishy. Halfway through when trying something creative, when your hopes and your visions aren’t materializing, do you ask yourself: “What am I doing?” Should I go on?? Is it worth my effort? And will this one-pot meal disappoint my hungry audience and lead to the inevitable pepperoni pizza?

dryfoodmarket
At times, our plowing through the chaos and uncertainty is rewarded with an incredible final product. Other times, simply giving up can provide freedom, like playing with the food you no longer intend to eat, or splashing and dripping paint over a landscape you don’t expect to complete – when you have nothing to lose – you have the freedom to start to really experiment.
Is it Portuguese Fish stew or New York pizza tonight? when you get the feeling things are going wrong, what do you do?

Since crayons don’t come with spell check: INNOVember – Your opportunity to invent

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cranberries

out of the fire and into the frying pan

We don’t often have the chance to really look at the imaginative artwork created by children. Quickly walking past bulletin boards of preschool artwork, I recently saw written in day-glow orange crayon the word “Innovember” and this got my attention.

With my brain preloaded for all things creative, I mistakenly took this to mean: “Innovation in November,” and thought: what a great theme! Then, looking more carefully, the word accompanied an illustration of a Thanksgiving scene and I realized the little typographer who created this amazing idea had actually left out the spacing between words and meant to say: “In November.”

Well, it’s not exactly Rocktober but still a great theme and InNovember we have a built-in opportunity to be innovative. Our harvest festivals around the northern hemisphere and Thanksgiving in the United States in particular are steeped in traditional foods that are ripe for shaking up. However, as we are giving thanks and reflecting on our good fortunes, many people come to expect their stuffing and cranberry sauce cooked a certain way — and many families have traditional dishes that even the most courageous of us won’t dare to mess with.

Our opportunity doesn’t come from reinventing the whole meal or redefining a treasured side dish but from bringing an entirely different creation to the table. Whether it’s your favorite everyday food that you’ve perfected and want to share or a wholly new experiment involving bat’s wings, eye of newt, or the nearly forgotten sun dried tomatoes — either have the potential to become next year’s tradition. Assuming you use ingredients that don’t exceed their expiration dates and are fully cooked, there is little risk in serving a new dish since a singular disaster in a vast feast won’t leave anyone hungry — and mistakes provide the best leftovers that can be warmed up into stories for next year – and some even may even become legends. Try something new! And if you can, please December to help the less fortunate.

What was your biggest holiday food disaster or your greatest success? What will you cook this year?

Encouraged by the Bottom 10 percent

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"Can" you make it across (click to enlarge)

If you’ve been to Hong Kong, have you noticed the flashing man on the WALK signs look uncharacteristically overweight? Occasionally in NYC, you can see WALK and DON’T WALK lighted simultaneously, but have you ever seen a WALK sign made entirely out of cans of food.

Massive structures are built using cans of food as part of a design competition with the winners displayed at the World Financial Center in Manhattan. The event is sponsored by Canstruction which uses cans of food as a catalyst for change. When the structures are dismantled after November 21st, the food is donated to City Harvest,who uses the cans to feed hungry people.

While most structures are incredible, pointing to one that seemed lesser, I friend surprised me by saying , “if I could do that, It’s not very good.” Conversely and thinking back many years when I first started painting,

Why so angry? (click to enlarge)

I would go to group art exhibitions and feel challenged by the best watercolors yet encouraged by the bottom 10 percent. I would say “I could do that!”

The same sentence, “I could do that” can evoke opposite responses between people. Do you compare your abilities with professional athletes while watching a football game and say, if I could catch that ball, the player must not be very good? Why is our creativity so difficult to accept? Perhaps we could recast our self image on creativity, especially if we see proof that we can do something other creative people are doing.

Which one is your favorite? See more photos of the constructions [Read more…] about Encouraged by the Bottom 10 percent