JoeSoChallenges Update: The Month of May

Hooray for sunshine!

For the month of May -- perhaps the greatest month of the year, what with its flowers abloom and sunshine aplenty -- I decided to challenge myself to not watch any non-sports television. This choice made sense for several reasons. I have kickball and softball games 2 or 3 nights a week, the NHL and NBA playoffs kick into high gear, baseball season lazily rolls into Summer, my yarden needs lots of work, travel season opens, and people start cooking out on the regular. What a month! What a perfect time to ditch the TV! No crime documentaries, no stoned South Park marathons, no random Netflix browsing. I also had a chance to re-up on all my favorite podcasts, so I can fall asleep listening to 99% Invisible or Science Friday instead of Disappeared or Family Guy. What a great month! I violated my challenge once (because I had a bunch of Bob's Burgers episodes in my Hulu cue about to expire) and I felt like I had earned it after driving back and forth from the Hipster Capital of the World.

JoeSoGarden 2014 Bloomfield Edition, Part 2

Last week I finally posted some pics of the "yarden" in progress. For those of you portmanteau challenged individuals, yarden = yard + garden. Last Summer, my first in this apartment, I got to tend a yard for the first time in my life. Now, I don't necessarily mean extreme Hank-Hill-riding-mower-style lawn care -- I just have a small urban spot tucked in between an alley, a one-way side street, and crowded little Bloomfield houses with rusted chain link fences -- but I have a yard nonetheless. Take a look at the vegetables, herbs, and other plants I started in late April. I'll do a Part 3 of this post soon to show how everything has come together, with the herbs and veggies flourishing, and all my new ornamental annuals and perennials finding their homes in the Earth.

Who knew mint grows like a weed?!? I mean, I love a fresh mojito, but this herb will take over your life if you don't keep an eye on it. Last year I had it growing in the corner of the triangular plot, but this year I dug that sucker up and contained it. In Style class I learned you should always use the verb rather than the nominalization of it, so yeah, I didn't put it in a container, I contained it. Nice, job, Joe, that's why you TA'd that bitch as an undergrad.

From ground to pot to budding to flourishing in less than a month

I even planted grass seed, the bane of my athletic childhood existence, for the first time in my life. Trying to play soccer or wiffle ball without stepping on the goddamned grass seed sucks! Now I find myself standing on the edge of the lawn with my arms crossed yelling at Chance, don't pee on my grass!!!  I put the seed down in the corners of the yard and edges of the garden beds where it had gotten worn out. The areas I kept really wet have grown well, and I'll get those pics up in Part 3. In this particular spot, the mint had grown from the garden plot down under the brick and out into the grass.

In the last picture you can see last year's oregano starting to poke back out from underground. I didn't know this before, but oregano, mint, and thyme, will return annually. I'd love to know what other herbs do so as well...

In the next installment I'll show how everything has really started to grow throughout May and how I finished up the yard stylistically with a bunch of ornamental annuals, and perennials, and get this, a layer of mulch to cover it!

JoeSoGarden 2014 Bloomfield Edition, Part 1

Spring has arrived! Between April 20th and May 1st I got the yard all cleaned up and put several seedlings, seeds, bulbs, and even rocks into the ground. First take a look at the yard before I got to work. It didn't look too bad, but I had plenty to do.

I needed to clean out all the vegetation and debris from the back sidewalk/corner; dig out (and replace) all the rocks in the small rock bed along the fence to the right; till a few spots and plant grass seed; and rejuvenate both planter bed areas with fresh soil and compost. The one on the left also needed some minor reinforcement around the corners.

Redoing the rock bed took several hours over several days. Someone must have put these rocks in a few years ago, but without any plastic tarp or fabric underneath. So the weeds and soil had reclaimed most of it, and would have overtaken the remaining rocks by year's end. I had to do something!

So I got down there and dug out all those rocks, put down a few layers of plastic, and left the rocks out on the sidewalk for the rain to clean them. If the sun ever comes back out, I'll take a picture of the finished rock bed. (...Ok, a week later the sun did return!)

In my old apartment on Penn Ave we had a second floor deck that opened off the kitchen out back. In those close living quarters, though, we had no privacy from all the houses behind us, so I bought these 3' by 10' faux bamboo screens to run along the deck railing. I tried it here above the rock bed, but ended up moving it down further to cover the other neighbor's dilapidated wooden fence.




I also tried putting some of the planters in the rock bed, but I didn't like that either. I think I'll just leave the rocks to rock out on their own in their little spot along the fence. I mean, who really gives a fuck at this point, I just need to fill up a bit more text on the left side of this post to balance out the pics on the right. Alright, that'll do, pig, that'll do.

With the rock digging underway I focused on restocking those garden beds and eventually getting some grass seed down and this year's seedlings in the ground.

I went to Phipps Conservatory's used bulb sale a couple weeks ago also, and got some tulips, hyacinths, and something else I can't remember. Those will return in all their glory next year. I don't know whether to keep them in planters or put them in the ground.

I also planted broccoli (from seeds and seedlings), carrot seeds, cilantro seeds, a basil plant, and a stevia plant. Last year's oregano and mint plant have also returned. I'll get those pics up soon... 

Yesterday I picked up some more decorative shrubs and flowers. Dude at Home Depot cut me a sweet deal, too, because he couldn't get it to ring up at the advertised price of 3 for $10. And then when I thanked him, he said, "any time." Now, maybe he just says that all the time, but I wonder if he actually meant he would hook me up with a deal "any time." I'll have to go back and see. I wonder what I could hook him up with in return...

JoeSoGarden 2014 Edition Part 2 coming soon

JoeSoChallenges Update!

Let me update the world at large about a few things happening in the world of JoeSoHeady. As you may know, I started 2014 by identifying some habits I wanted to add, drop, or change, and came up with a monthly 30 Day Challenge plan to take me through 12 months of self improvement. January -- no alcohol; February -- read for pleasure every day; March -- no caffeine and stretch every morning.

Welcome back coffee to my life! Wooo!
Dunkin' Donuts original, whole bean

I powered through January without a sip of booze. February flew by, my nose e-buried in an e-book most waking minutes. Then came March. Cold, gloomy, will-spring-ever-arrive March. Oh, beware the ides! What a month to drop caffeine! What a time to rely solely on sleep, nourishment, and sunlight for energy. The first week came and went. Oh how I yearned! Just a sip, just a taste, just a hint of a warm creamy cup o' Joe. 

Now, granted, the tone of this post might lead you to believe I strode through March like a (decaffeinated) Clydesdale coming down the home stretch, but I did not. I had my first JoeSoChallenge violation last month. In fact, I had exactly two and a half violations, and when April 1st hit I drank a whole pot a coffee, but I still call it a great success. Since March ended and I've allowed myself to return to caffeine, I can proudly say that I've skipped it at least 2 days, had decaf or half-calf a couple of times, and only brewed myself 1 cup at a time rather than the whole pot. Hopefully I can keep forming good habits in this department... Wool Sea.

Kickball season returns!

Heading into April I have daily exercise planned for myself every day this month. I designed my monthly challenges with this in mind. I figured I would drop caffeine in March, and added in the daily morning stretch to help replace that morning coffee routine. (You can't change a habit without replacing the old routine with something else.) Plus, doing the stretching every morning would start to prepare me for the daily exercise challenge coming in April. Kickball also started this month, so that gives me a planned exercise at least 1 day a week. I can count (serious) yard work or gardening as exercise too, so April made sense for that reason.  So far, I've had significant exercise every day!

April 1st I did major yard work; on the 2nd we had our first kickball game (and won 12-2); on the 3rd and 4th I rode the exercise bike for at least half an hour (and watched Sal Khan's talk at CMU); Saturday morning I went for a jog, followed by throwing the ball around, with Clay and Dan, and today I did a bunch of yard work and gardening again.

Yard work and gardening counts as exercise if you do a lot. Prepping the garden!

Simple Chicken & Vegetable Soup

With April just around the corner and the first cookouts of the season in the books, I didn't expect to post a soup recipe, of all things, this week, but here we go. I don't even eat soup very often, let alone make it, but we had a bunch of vegetables around, and the mercury has dipped low this week. With that in mind I bring you the very basics of a simple chicken and vegetable soup. I think it turned out pretty well.

You need 3 basic things: chicken, vegetables, and broth. You'll probably also want tomato paste, spices, and maybe a fat like oil or butter. You put everything in a large pot (or a dutch oven or slow cooker) and simmer for a couple hours. Today I decided just to use what I had on hand, and not to use any added fat. Use a basic ratio of 3 Cups broth, 3 Cups chopped vegetables, 3 Tablespoons tomato paste, and 3 boneless chicken thighs.

Ingredients: 

• For chicken, although I prefer thighs, today I had breasts available, so I used 2 medium chicken breasts, cut small. 
• For veggies, I used 1 banana pepper, half an onion, half of a carrot, 3 garlic cloves, half of a tomato, a handful of green beans, half a zucchini, and I wish I had a can of corn to dump in too. 
• 3 T. tomato paste and an extra cup of broth will help
• oregano, thyme, cilantro, and parsley

Directions:

1. I brought 3 cups of broth to a boil in my Dutch oven, stirred in 3 T. of tomato paste while the broth boiled, then dumped in the chicken and all the veggies (and spices) and put the heat on low. 
2. I cooked it for maybe 3 hours, stirring occasionally. 
3. I shook in a tablespoon or two of shredded Parmesan cheese about an hour before I stopped cooking too, which gave it a great cheesy smell and a bit of creaminess. 

Chopped veggies...

...plus chicken...

...together in broth, makes soup!

Tip: marinate chicken in soy sauce ahead of time, always.

Joe's Amazing Chicken -- First Cook Outs of the Season

Yeah Buddy! Cookouts have returned to Heady Place! (Oh, by the way, some people refer to my house as Heady Place.) Temperatures topped out around 50 degrees a few times last week so I fired up the ol' grill.

The first cookout of the year featured Joe's Amazing Chicken (of course) and vegetable skewers: one of red pepper, one of zucchini. For the chicken, I used giant boneless breasts, marinated overnight in soy sauce and painted four times per side with Joe's Amazing Sauce while slow cooking for about 45 minutes. I sliced the zuke in wheels, sprinkled with coarse sea salt, and lined 'em all up on a skewer. I cut the red pepper in large chunks and skewered them, cooking unseasoned. Red pepper grills so well without seasoning, and the zuke really just needed a light salting. The grill brings out the natural sweetness of the vegetables. 

Joe's Amazing Chicken

This version of Joe's Amazing Sauce included roughly equal portions of: sriracha, teriyaki sauce, corn syrup, and olive oil. The key to Joe's Amazing Sauce lies in the four categories that these ingredients represent: spicy, salty, sweet, and stretch. You want a spicy ingredient (e.g., sriracha or hot sauce), a salty ingredient (e.g., teriyaki or soy sauce), a sweet one (e.g., corn syrup, brown sugar, stevia), and something to stretch the sauce and give you enough to coat the meat several times (such as olive oil, lemon juice, wine or beer). Heat one side the grill to high and the other to low, keeping the meat on the low side. Cook slowly, turning and coating with sauce often. Each layer of the sauce will cook into the chicken, or even start to glaze depending on your choice of sweetener. This re-coating and glazing makes the chicken ... amazing. As you continue to cook and add more sauce, try to drip or spread the sauce down into any crevices the meat might have. Depending on your meat you can find lots of little places to cook the sauce into. For example, bone-in thighs with the skin on make a great choice for grilling with this technique. Peal up the skin and spread the sauce underneath. Repeat every time you turn it, and you will have ... well ... Amazing Chicken. Finish it up over high heat to give you a nice set of grill marks across the meat.

The following day I made a jerk seasoning dry rub for cookout numero dos. You can make a really easy, delicious jerk seasoning with: ground cloves, salt, sugar, black pepper, cumin, and a little chili powder or hot red pepper flakes. Do not skimp on the sugar -- try brown sugar or stevia and little cinnamon too. The salt, sugar, and cloves make up the bulk of the seasoning. First rinse and pat the chicken dry. Then cover the chicken in the seasoning and press it gently into the meat. Turn and repeat a few times -- you want to coat the chicken completely. Grill the chicken as described above, or over a higher flame if desired.

Of course, as the season change comes along, so does my cold. It seems like every year both the Fall and Spring season change knock me out with a major cold. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

JoeSoChallenges Update -- No Caffeine!

Joe's last Cup o' Joe

Holy smokes, I just realized tomorrow I must stop drinking caffeine for 30 days! Actually, I did not just realize that. I have, in fact, had my eye on this moment all month...no, all year...dreading it. Every digital page I turned during my 30+ minutes of daily reading moved me one moment closer to this decaffeinated month. I had no problem whatsoever going alcohol-free in January. I had even less of a problem reading for 30 minutes every day in February. I relished it. I relished both of those challenges. 

To succeed in doing what I refer to as a "negative" challenge, you must replace whatever habit you intend to "negate." When I say "negative" challenge, I mean trying to NOT do something -- e.g., no alcohol for a month; quitting smoking; or giving up processed sugar. You can't just stop drinking beer. You must consider what reward drinking the beer gives you, and find something else to do instead of drinking the beer that rewards you in the same way. I discovered two drinking triggers during that month -- boredom and socializing. For the "boredom drinking," I found a simple substitute would suffice: coffee, soda, weed, etc. For the "social drinking," I discovered that I could enjoy the same social scene without having alcohol. I met friends for happy hour three times, went to two parties, and out for dinner dates a handful of times without touching a drop of booze. The cue and the reward stayed the same (in this case, "socializing" represented both the cue and the reward), but the routine (drink alcohol) changed (drink ginger ale or smoke herb). 

sad face :-(

Anyway, what did I want to say? Oh right, I call that a negative challenge. A "positive" challenge means trying to add a new habit, create a new habit, start doing something you've always wanted to do, rather than replacing or dropping an old habit. So I made sure to do a positive challenge for my second month -- 30 minutes of reading for pleasure. 

Now as I head into the third monthly challenge I decided to package a negative and a positive challenge together -- to drop one habit and put something else in its place. So I intend to both consume no caffeine and do a bit of stretching or exercise in the morning instead. So the cue will remain the same -- waking up in the morning and thinking boy I need some coffee. The reward stays the same -- a feeling of stimulation and wakefulness. But what comes between the cue and the reward -- the routine -- will change. When that cue goes off -- waking up and wanting coffee -- I'll hop on the exercise bike or do some yoga instead of brewing a pot. This new routine -- getting my blood flowing in the morning -- will hopefully yield the same reward -- feeling stimulated.

As a side note, I've struggled to address the moral, academic, physiological, and intensely personal debate over whether or not to drink decaf coffee during this month. Regardless, carry on!

One more side note! For posterity let me list the reading material I devoured this month...

• The Power of Habit
• Man in the Dark
• Black Hawk Down
• My Father's Dragon
• Coraline
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• The Little Prince (English version)
• George Carlin's Brain Droppings

Probably something else...