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jeffreypratt
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| ...and you're done! |
[Jun. 29th, 2010|06:53 pm] |
I no longer trust that Livejournal will continue to exist, so I'm packing up and leaving town. I've migrated all of this lunacy to a hosted Wordpress blog, where the frequency of postings may or may not change.
All future updates will take place here or reasonably close by.
Best wishes,
jeffreypratt |
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| Kirkland Half Marathon |
[May. 10th, 2010|03:27 pm] |
I finally completed an actual half marathon event in under 2.5 hours! My time yesterday was 2:25:18. The course map was deceptive--the first half looked really hilly, and the second half looked flat. But there were a couple of hills in the second half that were no fun. For once, I don't feel like I gave up on myself or didn't put forth enough effort. That alone is a huge accomplishment for me, but I'm already feeling like maybe I can do more...this could get interesting! |
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| Fun with grocery shopping |
[Mar. 30th, 2010|08:38 pm] |
I'm no nutritionist. But as I've learned more about the ingredients in food, I've become a lot more particular about what I buy at the store. Here is a quick summary of how I read a label.
First, read EVERY label on EVERYTHING you buy at the grocery store. There is bad stuff lurking in the most unexpected places! When you first start paying attention to labels, reading every label of every item is arduous but as you start to learn what ingredients go where, it gets a lot easier.
Speaking of ingredients: first, if you can't pronounce it, or if you don't know what it is, consider it poison (or whatever it takes for you to visualize it as unappetizing). Do you know what "thiamin mononitrate" or "tricalcium phosphate" is? Me neither. But "sugar"? Sure, that works.
Two ingredients to avoid at all costs:
- High fructose corn syrup. Studies show that HFCS will cause more weight gain than sugar, even when the caloric content is similar. And HFCS is in EVERYTHING. We bought a loaf of whole wheat bread recently that contained it (see what I mean about reading EVERY label?). Heinz Ketchup contains it. Worcestershire sauce contains it, as do some salsas. It is really difficult to avoid, particularly if you are trying to save money.
- Monosodium glutamate (MSG). Salt on steroids (see below).
Now, for the nutrition facts on the label:
Calories count. I generally try to eat 2000 or fewer calories per day, and so I check the calories per serving on the label of everything I buy. It is also useful to know the serving size so that I can estimate the bang I'll get from my caloric buck. Fewer calories in a larger serving size=good. Eating five potato chips that are 500 calories is not fun.
Sodium is the enemy. It raises my blood pressure and makes me feel bloated and fat. Unfortunately, our foods are full of sodium. Consider that an average person should consume 2300 mg or less of sodium per day (per the FDA, but I know that my doctor would advise an even lower number). A single can of Progresso Chicken Noodle soup is only 200 calories but contains almost 1300 mg of sodium! Even breakfast cereals are loaded with sodium. Low sodium options are available, but you'll find that most "natural" foods contain significantly less sodium. I try to find stuff that is lower in sodium.
That's it, really. I don't worry too much about protein or carbohydrates or vitamins. It doesn't need to be complicated--like Michael Pollan says, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
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| Oh, happy day! |
[Feb. 10th, 2010|06:06 pm] |
This is a box of Kashi. I've been eating it for years, and I was pleased to find jumbo boxes at Costco, dirt cheap, about two weeks ago.
Also for the past two weeks, I've spent my afternoons in pain--the worst kind of gastrointestinal pain you can imagine. Bloating, gas...ugh. I couldn't figure out what I was eating for lunch that would cause such horrible pain. I actually planned to ask my doctor about it during my annual checkup next week, until my wife innocently asked if I thought it possible that my breakfast might be causing it.
Today, I skipped the Kashi and it was a miracle. No pain. No bloating. No gas. Consider this post bordering on too much information to be a public service announcement: apparently, Kashi contains some kind of protein that is very difficult to digest correctly! Do a Google search for "kashi+gas" if you don't believe me.
You're welcome. |
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| 2009 review |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|09:20 am] |
Life: This year was all about moving. We sold Emily's condo and moved to West Seattle in April. Then, we bought a house (after two years of searching) in October and moved again. I am officially done with moving, but it was worth it to end up in this house. Two months after moving in, I still have a "holy crap, we own THIS" moment two or three times per week.
On a sadder note, my last remaining grandparent passed away in May. I wrote a post that day that I decided not to make public, but there is one thing I wrote then that is worth mentioning after all of the crap he gave me about being single: "I'm so happy that he was able to attend my wedding. I don't know if I'm lucky to have had him there or if he is lucky to have finally seen his grandson get married. Both, I suppose."
Fitness & Health: I've decided to break this out into its own category, since it has become a rather important part of my life. I unfortunately didn't run any races this year. I somehow ended up with a stress fracture in my foot back in February, which sidelined me for six weeks or so. And then our trip to Japan occurred right in the middle of Seattle marathon training.
I did a much better job of sticking to a regular exercise cycle this year, though. Every year, I've managed to improve on the previous year by finding ways to stay active. I've let myself go a bit during the last couple of weeks of the year, but that's a huge improvement over last year when I let myself go for that last couple of months.
Weight-wise, I'm at about the same weight I was at last year. I've been as light as 229 and I've gotten up to almost 250. I seem to plateau at 240--if I'm lighter than that, it is really easy to get back to 240, and if I'm heavier than that, it is really easy to lose the extra pounds. Losing any weight beyond 240 is a struggle. Not sure why, but merely discovering this is likely to be helpful.
Work: Really, nothing to report this year. I felt like I was in a rut for most of the year, but I think I might finally be breaking out of it. There was a single project that consumed most of my time and energy last year that was ultimately successful. I learned that I have a hard time taking credit for stuff, though. It is very easy to take the blame when some senior vice president is yelling at you about something YOU DID (or failed to do), but it is less easy to take the credit when everything works. I need to get better at both taking credit and not taking it personally when someone points out a failure.
Travel: We went to Vancouver in February to celebrate the two-year anniversary of our first date (and the one-year anniversary of our engagement). We went to New York and Washington D.C. in February/March for a friend's wedding and got to see U2 shoveling snow on David Letterman. We went on our spring Yakima wine tasting trip in April. We took a first wedding anniversary road trip in July, and drove from Seattle to Post Falls, ID to spend time with Emily's grandparents. From there, we went to Missoula, MT, Kalispell, MT and Glacier National Park, Banff AB and Lake Louise, Kelowna BC, Vancouver BC and back to Seattle. It was a lot of fun and a very beautiful drive--particularly through the Canadian Rockies. And finally, we went to Japan in October. I spent one week in Sapporo for work, and then met Emily for a second week in Tokyo
Charity: All YMCA, all the time. I feel a little badly about this. My original plan was to get deeply involved with a single organization (instead of being kinda involved with a bunch of organizations) but I think my priorities are shifting.
Previously, previously, previously. |
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| Crock Pot turkey stew |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|04:29 pm] |
Start with vegetables:- 3 large carrots
- 3 celery stalks
- 1 small green zucchini
- 3 peeled red potatoes
- 1/2 a red onion
Cut 'em up into relatively equally-sized pieces and throw them in the pot. Add one can of whole tomatoes and about 1/2 cup of brown rice or lentils or pearl barley.
Brown a package of ground turkey and dump that right into the mix. Add about 2 cans worth of vegetable broth (I used about 3/4 of a quart) so that about 75% of the mix is submerged. Finally, add a shake or two of salt and pepper, a sprinkling of parsley flakes and some garlic powder.
Cook in a Crock Pot on low for 8-10 hours. Your house will smell AMAZING.
If the finished product is too bland for your liking (i.e. if you don't care for the taste of vegetables), add tabasco or something like it. |
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| Filet mignon with roasted vegetables |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|09:41 am] |
I think one of my 2010 resolutions is going to involve cooking and food porn. Three years ago, I resolved to cook something every week and make a new dish once per week, and I stuck to it for about three months and had a lot of fun. I also have a difficult time with recipes--I'm too O.C.D. to improvise when presented with strict instructions, so it would be a good idea for me to write down (in narrative form) my cooking instructions so that I can revisit stuff. And who doesn't love photos of food?
Costco had filet mignon on sale stupid cheap last weekend, so we bought a pack of three steaks for $24 (seriously, we would have paid $24 for a single steak at the local grocery...go Costco). I've read that filet mignon is difficult to cook because there typically isn't much fat in there and so it is easy to dry out the steaks on the grill. But if you pull it off, it is oh-so good.
I bought some Hempler's thick-cut bacon and wrapped each steak with two pieces of bacon, secured with like six toothpicks. Fired up the grill. Our BBQ isn't really designed for winter cooking--it wouldn't get any hotter than 350 degrees, which is a little on the low side (I wanted 450-ish). The plan was to let the steaks cook, covered, for six minutes. Rotate 90 degrees and cook for another six minutes. Flip 'em, and cook for six minutes. Then rotate 90 degrees and cook for six more minutes. I figured 12 minutes per side would be sufficient, and the rotation would leave nice grill marks on the steaks. But because the BBQ temperature was so low, I ended up cooking them about 12 additional minutes (six on each side), which was probably a minute or two too long. They were delicious but not quite rare enough for me. But this was still a huge improvement over our last filet mignon experiment, when the steaks turned out so rare that they moo'ed when we ate them.
For side dishes, I mashed up five red potatoes and forgot to add garlic (d'oh!). Then I cut up carrots, celery, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and red pepper, and tossed 'em in some olive oil, sea salt and pepper. I put all of that in a baking dish, and threw it in a 400-degree oven for 20 minutes (stirred everything at 10 minutes) to roast it. I could have also added potatoes, but since I had mashed potatoes, it seemed redundant. I forgot that I had zucchini but that would have been good, too. |
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| Blogging is hard |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|01:51 pm] |
I've been reading "The Reagan Diaries" and thinking about how Reagan's daily diary entry was essentially a low-tech (and until recently, private) blog post.
My frequency of posts per month/year/whatever has declined to the point where I'm somewhat worried about Livejournal deleting all of this. I need to find a way to back up my blog so that I can refer to all of this once Livejournal is long gone (RSS hacking begins in 5...4...3...).
I blame two things for the slow death of this blog, both of which are entirely positive developments:
- Facebook. Facebook is the living embodiment of Metcalfe's Law. I've reconnected with childhood friends, learned more about my wife's (large) family than I ever could have at a once-a-year Christmas party, kept up with my own once-distant relatives, and much more. Facebook is how I stay in touch when I am traveling. With the blog, everything I say is immediately public. With Facebook, only the people I care about get to see it. I prefer making a jackass of myself among friends and family, so I prefer Facebook.
- Marriage. Marriage changed my priorities in life on so many levels. I much prefer spending time with my wife to surfing around on the internet (oh, and my wife is also--wait for it--on Facebook). I think one of the things that prompted me to start blogging in the first place was that I wanted to leave a legacy of some kind. As a single man, I was scared of "what happens after". Those fears are gone now. It is a very nice feeling.
Oh, and "The Reagan Diaries" is fascinating, even if you (like me) are not so much a fan of his politics. Reagan was one of only three U.S. presidents to keep a diary, but the only modern president and the only one to diligently make an entry virtually every day of his presidency. It is a weird trip down memory/history lane, and if anything, I think it makes Reagan sound eerily detached from most presidential business. He got very fired up about communism and the Soviet Union in particular, and he also was very cute whenever Nancy traveled--he complained about being lonely, or the White House feeling empty, etc. He also seemed to watch 1-2 movies per week, and usually commented about the movie.
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| Summertime and the livin' is easy |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|08:41 pm] |
We got a barbeque and we've been trying our hands at cooking all sorts of various things. I want to start chronicling the stuff that worked and the stuff that failed.
WINNERS:
1. Turkey burgers. Ground turkey, chopped red/green/yellow/orange peppers, onion, maybe a little garlic and blue cheese. Form it into patties and slap 'em on the grill, about six minutes per side. Cooking spray helps keep them from sticking, and the vegetable/blue cheese keeps the patties from drying out.
2. Grilled peaches. Cut peaches in half and remove the pits. Grill them cut side down for five minutes or so (we had small peaches). This would be yummy served with vanilla ice cream and a nice riesling.
3. Corn on the cob. No prep work required, other than soaking the corn in water for 10 minutes or so. Put them on the grill in the husks and turn frequently for about 20 minutes.
STILL WORKING ON IT:
1. Halibut. We made a mustard glaze but we overcooked the fish, leaving it very dry. If we do this again, we'll only cook the fish for 4-5 minutes per side and save the glaze for the very end.
2. Pork chops. I made the mistake of trimming too much fat from the chops, so they turned out extremely dry. The glaze was a winner, though--brown sugar, soy sauce, dijon/sweet mustard, a dash of salt and pepper...and bourbon. Yummy.
3. Beef tenderloin. I wrapped them in bacon, since there wasn't much fat on them. But I didn't grill them long enough (the cuts were 2" thick) and they turned out kinda disgustingly rare. Next time, I'll check the insides on the grill before serving to avoid unpleasant surprises.
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