Food
Posted on February 20th, 2010Those who know me know that I love food. Almost to a fault, even. I mean, I go to the gym regularly but, often, progress made there is stifled by an indulgence in rich, tasty cuisine. (Aside: why is it that so many of the tastiest foods are so unhealthy?!) It’s not fair.
That said, there are many ways that I could get around this problem. Recently, I challenged myself to stop taking out food for lunch when I’m at work. (This has, consequently, reduced the frequency of me taking out food to just around nil.) Doing this was/is difficult for a few reasons: lunch is a social thing at work, take-out food is very tasty, and I would have to motivate myself to prepare lunch after a day at work and time at the gym.
The folks at work have been quite supportive of this. As they make their rounds, gathering people for the trek to a local restaurant/deli, I get asked if I brought lunch to which I coyly reply that I had. And that’s that — no problems. To combat the tastiness of take-out food, I’ve had to avoid “bland” lunches; otherwise, I think that I would succumb to restaurant food. Over the past couple of weeks (which is the extent to which this challenge has lasted so far), I’ve made frittatas, various pasta dishes, and other meals that I’ve loaded with flavour. It’s tough, but it’s working so far. As for the time issue, I have often found myself making the next day’s lunches after 11:00 pm. And that really sucks. (Those who know me also know that I love sleep!)
By preparing my own lunches, I get to choose what goes into my meals; I control the salt, fat, carbs, calories, sugars, and everything. If I am really serious about being healthy (and I’d like to think that I am working my way towards it), I will leverage this control. But, one step at a time first. The other benefit is that I get to make use of my lovely kitchen and practice cooking. Previous apartments have had sub-optimal kitchens but, now that I have a reasonably good one, I can resume recipe experimenting and tweaking.
The other thing that I can do is to focus on the quality of the ingredients. One of the simplest, most responsible, and most helpful ways of doing this is to buy organic food. Bonus points if it’s locally sourced too. While the price is a bit higher, I’m trying to convince myself that it will be worth it in the long run. In addition to doing something good for the planet, I’d like to think that I’m doing something good for my body too. Now, I am not going to say that I am going to always buy organic food from now on; that is presently a bit overzealous and too lofty of a goal. But I’m starting to ease my way into it and that’s step number one.
This morning, I hit up the local Whole Foods (which, sadly, is a solid 30 minutes away) to procure good meat, fruits, and vegetables. Outside, the Union Square Farmer’s Market was in full swing so I took a peek at what was available there. (Given that it is winter, I expected little besides potatoes, squashes, and apples.) I did pick up a few things (apples, eggs, and honey), but what I really took away was how ghastly expensive locally sourced meat is.
It was just about double what I’d pay at Whole Foods which, in turn, has a pretty big markup over a traditional grocery store. My heart sank. (Those who know me know that, as far as food goes, I love meat.) And to think that those prices were what the farmers were charging in order to remain competitive. It made me think how the corporate farms manage to make their products so cheap. Sure, economies of scale will help a little bit, but there are some serious cost-cutting practices in place. (I’m almost scared to watch movies like Food Inc.; even articles like this make me nervous.)
I’m reminded by the adage “You are what you eat.” Increasingly, I am surrounded by cheap, processed, mass-produced people. One day, and hopefully sooner rather than later, I sure would like to be wholesome, healthy, ethical, and responsible.
Homesick
Posted on February 14th, 2010Maybe it’s the Olympics. Maybe it’s the fact that I am coming up on my third year in New York City. Maybe it’s because I had an amazing time back home over the holidays. Maybe it’s because there are so many people back home that I want to see.
Whatever the reason, I am terribly homesick. Feeling this way has caused me to re-evaluate my current disposition quite a lot, and I have to say that my adversity to change is whittling away. Now this may not mean that I’m going to hop on the first plane back to Canada (read: I am not), but maybe what I expect to get out of New York can change.
There are two main reasons why I am staying in New York: the first is my job (which happens to be the reason why I came to New York in the first place), and the other is my church. If I were to move elsewhere, I would certainly miss one of those two (and I’ll let you figure out which one that is). So again, I’m re-evaluating.
Canada, I miss you.
2009 [Reasons to Celebrate]
Posted on December 28th, 2009In what is becoming a bit of a tradition, the end of December marks a time when I would sit down and reflect on the year that was. Last year, it was a year of firsts: my first year out of school and, consequently, my first year of having a full-time job. It was also the first year that I was going to spend in New York with no definite end in sight. Suffice it to say, then, that it was an exciting year with a lot of promise for this one.
At the beginning of this year, I set out some goals for what I wanted to accomplish: there were professional, physical, intellectual, and social aspirations. How did I do? To be honest, pretty terribly. While I think that I have done quite well in my career at Bloomberg over the past year, my dedication to the gym/diet has been inconsistent (with a full three or four months of inactivity), the CFA never happened (for work-related reasons), I haven’t been cooking as much as I would have liked, and I still feel that friends back in Canada have been given less attention than they are due. But there are some gems in 2009 that I feel compelled to share and archive:
1. Work has been quite amazing this year. I feel that I have significantly increased my exposure at Bloomberg and have been working on really cool and important products. This year has been one of transition for my team, as we have been hiring aggressively and have been adjusting to a new management style, and I have been able to get involved in projects and with people beyond the realtime space, which is my current area of expertise. The highlight was delivering our flagship realtime product to the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms, which was a huge win for the team and our clients.
2. I found an amazing church. I have written about Forefront before, but much has changed since that original experience. The first thing was getting involved with a small group, which was a big step in getting connected and developing a commitment to the church. Then it was deciding to lead a small group. Then it was deciding to help out with the worship team. I haven’t feel this plugged into a church since the days of insanity at The Embassy, where I somehow had my hand in a lot of what the church was doing. Volunteering has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I cannot wait to get more involved with this great community.
3. Part of the reason that I am so keen on getting more involved with Forefront is because of some of the people that I have met there. The small group in the spring/summer grew together quite quickly and a bunch of great friendships were borne from it. There was this cool balance of people there, with the right mix of humour, sarcasm, vulnerability, boys, girls, shyness, craziness, Canadians, and so on. From small group, I got plugged into the community group (which is a gathering of several small groups). It’s kind of like a church away from church. In this larger group, I met even more wonderful, genuine, talented, and passionate people.
But this year wasn’t just about meeting new people; despite earlier claims of leaving my friends in Canada high and dry, I think that I have been doing better than before. I have certainly maintained my friendships, and have managed to reconnect with some old friends from whom I have not heard in many years. (Clearly if they haven’t deleted me on Facebook yet, that means I’m doing something right, right?) I feel really blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people from both far and away, and I really hope that I can be a better friend. Even for those from whom I have not heard in a while, I am assured that it is still not too late. (Encouraging everyone to get on Google Talk is step number one!)
4. Love was everywhere! I went to a handful of weddings this year where friends of mine were getting married to other friends of mine, and there were other still that I couldn’t attend; indeed, a group of FOURTEEN of my friends got married to each other!! It was such a joy to have been a part of the weddings (and apologies to Laura/Phil and Ashley/Chris for missing out!) and I wish all of you the happiest of days ahead.
5. I did lose someone special: my grandma. But even though it was a loss for me, she has been freed from her broken body and is hopefully in a better place now.
6. At long last, I have moved into my own apartment! This is a big step in my life and has opened up all sorts of doors in my life. (I had some excellent roommates but, let’s face it, I can’t have roommates forever.) As I continue to fill the apartment with things that make it more homely, I am very much looking forward to taking advantage of the new freedoms that having my own place affords me. Especially the delicious kitchen.
So, given all of this (and there is much more that I haven’t said), I think it stands to reason that 2009 was a very good year for me! Probably one of my best, actually. Perhaps the icing on the cake is that there is so much to which I can look forward in 2010; I wait with bated breath for what’s in store.
As the year winds down, I hope that all of you have had many fond memories of the year that it was. Of course, all the best to an even better 2010!
