The Adventure

In life so far, I've...

Happened upon turtles on their first day of life braving the new world in Cozumel, Mexico.

Sat in a beer hall at Oktoberfest in Munich.

Was blessed with a clear view of the Matterhorn and wondered how many adventurers were on it. Switzerland is the home country of my parents, who were both born there.

Pondered the life of women across the world, whether she is selling vegetables on the streets of Tangier, or...

Maintaining traditions, performing in a flamenco show in Seville.

Watched the sun smile over a Lisbon castle.

Found out it was possible to fall in love: with a city, Paris.

Found out it was possible to fall in love with an entire country: Italy. La dolce vita is for me.

In the charming Disney Pixar film Up, a young couple, both adventurers at heart since meeting in early childhood and later married, long to take a dream trip to Paradise Falls. They meticulously save their coinage in a jar but they keep cracking it open when real life gets in the way - an accident, a home repair, and such. Now elderly and the wife having passed away, the old man looks at the photo album of their life together with a note from his wife at the end of thanks for the adventure, and encouraging him to go have his own. Their life together was the real journey more than any faraway land.

While I've been blessed to have seen many places, money and time are limited, and most often my traveling will only extend to my armchair (reading books, poetry or blogs, eating, films and so on). But I remember the sentiments from Up, and give you today's favorite four letter word: live. Live the adventure of life every day.

Facebook Status: Not On It

Why I'm not on Facebook:

"Friend?" I believe it was Paul Rudd who said so rightly, "If I wasn't friends with you in high school, I don't want to be friends with you now." I understand morbid curiosity (who doesn't wonder about old flames). But who wants people you have to take out your high school yearbook to remember involved with so much intimate detail in your life? Quality, not quantity, is what I value. I take issue with their use of the word "Friends." I really treasure friendships, and don't think it's about some ridiculous numbers game.

Too much information in our information age, and not of the quality kind. I agree with Betty White's Saturday Night Live monologue: it sounds like a total waste of time. A friend of mine said of the overdose of information people provide constantly throughout the day (what they ate for lunch, are they vacuuming, did they just grocery shop), when she asks "How's it going?" she wants to know in life, not what you just did in the last hour. There was an article some time back warning not obesity, but vanity is America's new epidemic in part because of sites like Facebook. I tend to agree.

Like so many I know, I long for days of just catching up over coffee, writing a long letter (even in e-mail form), having a nice long chat on the phone. One of my least favorite four letter words: busy. Everyone seems too busy to make time for people anymore, and catching up with friends to me isn't knowing that they're at the gym.

Maybe it's our youth obsessed culture, but adults seem to be behaving more and more like teenagers. A 10 minute wait at a restaurant? People are whipping out the gadgets since one can no longer just sit with their thoughts. Perhaps the status is: 10 minute wait at the pancake house.

Just say no: to mass thought. Partly, I'm a stubborn, independent minded Scorpio who tends to not want to do things everyone else is doing, but I'm also a little disturbed by the idea of mass thought.

Ridgewood, New Jersey middle school Principal Anthony Orsini boldly told parents of young teens this in a mass e-mail: "There is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site!...They are simply not psychologically ready for the damage that one mean person online can cause, and I don't want any of our students to go through the unnecessary pain that too many of them have already experienced." Read more.

As someone who personally experienced bullying as a young teenager, I cannot imagine having to go through it with my tormentors having Facebook as an additional tool. I also think Orsini's comments speak to the mass thought of doing something everyone else is doing and that no, it's not a necessity to be on Facebook just because that's what everyone else subscribes to.

I don't doubt the positive aspects of Facebook in helping artists, social justice movements, promoting small businesses and the like. But it's just not for me, and if that limits getting the word out about my blog (and I know other bloggers not on Facebook feel the same), so be it.

I am proud to be among the numbers not on Facebook.

Mad Men Mondays: The Erasing Conscience

NOTE: Some spoiler alerts if you haven't watched Mad Men.

"You're going to have a lot of first kisses. You're going to want it to be special, so you'll remember. It's where you go from being a stranger to knowing someone. And every kiss with them after that is a shadow of that kiss," Betty Draper tells her young daughter Sally, in one of my favorite quotes from the show.

Doesn't that sound romantic? Wouldn't the world of Mad Men seem more alluring if, well, everyone wasn't cheating on everyone? I tried to think of one stable relationship among the main characters - and couldn't. Can you?

When looking at the American Dream: Then and Now, I noted Professor Albert Lieberman, Executive Director, EMT Program, NYU Stern School of Business, said in the Mad Men season 1 extra, "Part of what I would call advertising environment is set up to make you believe that there's always more, there's always better." Doesn't this apply to affairs as well? The bored person always is looking for more, better, and when the opportunity presents itself, they take advantage as one does for fleeting pleasure of a consumer good? This seems to be the case in most of Don's affairs. Pete's fling with the nanny down the hall - true love? No way.

Isn’t it also true of the excessive consumption that so defines us (think material goods or food)? Done out of boredom, lack of fulfillment, the temporary pleasure of the new? Consumed because it's convenient, there, fills us with passing contentment? It seems all tied together to me.

There also seems to be lacking one thing: conscience. There doesn't seem to be much guilt at all for betrayed spouses, and Don's slew of mistresses all know and don't care about Betty and his two children. How about Sally Draper's teacher who starts bedding Don and openly stated she didn't care about his wife. I always thought the eighties were the "me" decade, but the writers of Mad Men will have you believe it's the sixties. Everyone seems concerned simply with, "me."

One of Don's mistresses stated mentioning Betty makes her feel "cruel." How often do we participate in consumer behavior that we justify as being okay so long as we don't think about it (regularly eating factory farmed meat where we don't think about the animals or the workers; polluting our air driving extremely fuel inefficient cars because the air quality isn't measurable). I think the absence of conscience applies here as well. Hasn't generations of "Mad Men" worked to disconnect us from the sources of our happiness so that we only think of our own? How often have I read the word "trained" when referring to consumer behavior. Do you want to be "trained" (just another word for controlled, in my opinion)?

One can only speculate on the fate of fidelity then and now, but we seem to be an even more consumerist society from the time Mad Men was set in. Awareness is growing (I think of the fair trade, organic, free range movements, etc.) but overall I can't help but think most consumers don't think a lot about this, and simply consume.

Do you think we're too much in the time of the "me?" and not in the mindset of the "we"?

Making Me Smile Right Now

Best yet, free or frugal.

Frugal: my community school Advanced Beginner French class, which breaks down to just $10 a session. I hope to travel again to France one day (I went for a week a few years ago to Paris). I simply love the language.

Frugal: finding albums at thrift shops like New York City's Housing Works, these just 50 cents each. Don't you adore album art, another dying art in our digital age?

Free: using the library to explore music more. I can't stop listening to Scarborough Fair, April She Will Come and The Sound of Silence on The Graduate soundtrack! The Simon & Garfunkel songs were my favorite part of the film.

The Museum at Bethel Woods: The Story of the Sixties and Woodstock is well worth a visit if you're ever in that area.

Free: rewatching the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a French film where every line is sung, with the stunning Catherine Deneuve. I loved Deneuve's feminine, simple style (including the bows she donned in every scene) and the color - color everywhere.

Free: watching partners in life by the lake in the park. Spring is in the air.


Frugal: drinking my morning cup of coffee out of this thrifted "Chorus Line" mug, $1, while listening to the nature's chorus line outside.

Frugal: eating vegan strawberry rhubarb pie from Old Hook Farm. The plate, also thrifted.

Free: walking with my favorite, four-legged friend (a rescue dog my family found on Petfinder).

The news is doom and gloom everywhere. Remember all the simple things in life that make you smile. Most cost very little, some nothing at all.

What's making you smile? Robins in the parks? Brighter days? Seasonal foods? A great piece of art (written, sonic, visual, dramatic or otherwise)? Declare it publicly or ponder it to yourself. Remember to smile often.

Mad Men Mondays: Selling the Lifestyle of Mad Men

"The most brilliant dimension of advertising is that for the most part we who are tremendously affected by it have no sense that we are affected by it." - Dr. Bernard McGrane, Department of Sociology, Chapman University.

After watching Mad Men, I thought about:
Ordering a mai tai (one of Don's mistresses had it).
Drinking tomato juice as a starter a restaurant (Betty had it, no wonder she's so slim!)
Thought all those martinis looked festive and wanted to try one.
Looked up Maidenform bras on their web site (one show was devoted to Maidenform and Platex bras).
Thought the Ritz crackers and Utz potato chips on the top of Don and Betty Draper's refrigerator looked like fun accouterments for all those martinis.
Even thought it was fun when they we're all eating donuts one morning and thought - we should do that at work...gather and eat donuts!
Wanted to watch Bye Bye Birdie (a show centered around the beginning sequence with Ann-Margret).
Looked up Lutèce (now closed) and Sardie's (the former, where they would entertain clients, the latter, where Don took another mistress).

I can't go on anymore, pathetic, I know. I pride myself on being an independent thinker, but even I fall into this glamorization of brands and product placement, which is what everyone at Sterling Cooper is doing in between all that hanky panky and hard liquor drinking.

I'm not alone. Basket of Kisses, an all Mad Men things blog, had a post about finding a coveted Chip and Dip that Pete Campbell returned. Would this be a desired item if not in the show?

Aside from a can of tomato juice that's ended up in my grocery cart, the show has influenced me fashion wise, although even before the show, I always loved vintage looks. Since the show though, I've raided my mother's drawers for vintage clothes and scarves she no longer wears, and have even begun carrying my grandmother's purse. You only have to do a google search of "Mad Men fashion" to know I'm not alone in craving the look. Check out "Will 'Mad Men' get groovy" from the Los Angeles Times which considers how the fashion will change as the times do. From the article,

"For the first time shopping was entertainment. Clothes were cheap and styles turned on a dime — some outfits so ephemeral they were made of paper. It was the forerunner of today's fast fashion." Shopping as entertainment - sound familiar? It's a national pastime.

Mad Men has also solidified that I love more retro looking houses. A pink bathroom love affair has even been rekindled, remember?

As for those martinis, one cocktail is my limit if I had one. Do you think the show glamorizes too much drink and smoking? Being a child of two smokers, I detest smoking, and it's my least favorite part of the show.

Has Mad Men piqued your interest in any brands, films or people? Do you think about how advertising impacts your behavior?

Vegan Eats: A Photo Essay

Did you know that 10 billion land animals are slaughtered every year in the United States, according to Farm Sanctuary? That's staggering. Americans eat far too much meat (and in way too large portions) if you ask me. Yes, we have freedom of choice, but choices impact healthcare costs, the animals' welfare, workers' conditions, and the environment. Want a hog farming operation in your backyard? Me neither.

Can't skip meat all the time? Skip it some of the time. Or a lot. As much as you can. I can't skip dairy and eggs in everything, but I do it as much as I can, and feel better for it.

Not feeling deprived at all savoring...

At Alice's Tea Cup, a pot of chocolate chai tea (so good!) with soy milk, $6, and a grilled vegetable sandwich (swapping cheese for hummus) and salad with sweet ginger dressing, $12.

Spaghetti with Trader Joe's meatless meatballs, which are also tasty as a sub sandwich. Check out their handy vegan list.

At Rutherford Pancake House, sharing vegan "Dayiasadillas" (with Daiya vegan cheese), portobello mushrooms, spinach, roasted peppers, and sweet potato fries, $9.95, and vegan sliders with a tamarind date sauce, $5.99

A chocolate raspberry cupcake, $3.50, at all-vegan Sweet Avenue Bake Shop in Rutherford, New Jersey. I haven't made anything out of it, but several people recommended Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for at home baking.

Happy hour at Stecchino in Hell's Kitchen, New York City. Champagne with raspberry liquor, $6, and grilled bread with olives, $3.50.

My mock McMuffin with SoyBoy smoked tofu, vegan cheese (sorry, can't remember the brand!), and Yves meatless Canadian bacon. Do you ever stop to think about how a chicken, a cow and a pig labor in horrendous conditions to produce the traditional version of these breakfast sandwiches?

Yves lemon herb "chicken" skewer, grilled, over Spanish rice (I would do a less spicy pilaf with it instead next time since the skewer has a kick), with salad.


Some pre- and post-vegan week eats from this year:

Celebrating an early Mardi Gras dinner with Steve at The Delta Grill in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, the blackened tofu salad with Shiitake mushroom and couscous, $9. I love that tofu is popping up on more menus. Why shouldn't it be a protein choice? I know someone who is obsessed with counting carbs but when I ask about the chicken she eats almost every day, it's again, "I choose not to think about it." Why?

Sharing the orange flavored tofu with veggies and (not pictured) brown rice at Empire Hunan in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, with my mom. We took half of this home in our reusable cotainers (which we bring to reduce packaging waste and food waste). We also had steamed vegetable dumplings and scallion pancakes with peanut sauce (vegetarian, yes, vegan, ?) End: lychee fruit.

A tofu scramble with veggies and Lightlife Gimme Lean veggie sausage, with toast with peach jam.

Escaping our cubicles, an outing to Lime Jungle in New York City with a friend. A vegetarian taco (hold the cheese), $3.25, filled with rice, beans, guacamole and veggies, a a cup of black bean soup, $3.50. Beans are my favorite protein source: they are inexpensive, easy to prepare and widely available (no special Whole Foods trip needed!)

Date night with Steve at Pancho's Burritos in New Milford, New Jersey, a raspberry margarita and mini spinach burrito with soy cheese, brown rice and black beans and tofu sour cream (look for the Tofutti Sour Supreme at Whole Foods and other retailers). The honey mutard dressing for the salad may have some dairy.

Before the Banff Film Festival in New York City, grabbing the Earth Mother slice (five from the garden), $3.75, at Two Boots, various locations in New York City.

Oprah's Vegan Challenge: Reasons and Results

"I choose not to think about that." The common answer I get if I ask someone what they think about the vast amounts of factory farmed animal food in their diet. Laughter often follows, on their part, not mine.

I think of a Mad Men scene (yes, I know it's not Monday yet!) where Don Draper mentions his wife to one of his mistresses and she asks him why he would bring her up and he's making her feel cruel. Isn't it odd how we rationalize if we put it out of our minds, it's morally alright? Isn't part of the advertising environment that so shapes our decisions - to make you feel good about your choices, no matter the consequences to others.

I respect everyone's right to eat what they want, but to me it's reprehensible the conditions animals are raised in, like filthy wire cages for egg-laying hens, or gestation crates for pregnant sows who cannot even turn around. Learn more about factory farming from Farm Sanctuary. Who wants to regularly consume eggs that came out of a hen crammed in a filthy wire cage with 5 other chickens who can't even spread their wings in a dark warehouse? I firmly believe in our Internet age with widespread availability of knowledge in so many cases the question is not a matter of not knowing, it's a matter of knowing, and not caring. Have we become so desensitized by corporations and marketers that people really don't care? A scarier answer to "I choose not to think about it" is "I don't care." An addition to my favorite four letter words list: care.

I gave up eating meat, chicken and fish when I was around 14, ate some fish in my late 20s, and went toward a vegan diet for a few years. I went back to vegetarianism because I tired of not being able to eat something with touch of honey, couldn't have a vegetarian pasta salad that had cheese at an office luncheon, or a piece of cheese at a picnic in the park. But I've been overindulging in cheese and sweets, so I did Oprah's one week vegan challenge back in February.

Since people always asked me what I ate as a vegan, and even as a vegetarian, here, readers, is what I ate all week. I usually take Trader Joe's soy creamer and sugar in my coffee or tea.

Monday
Breakfast: Amy's Kitchen breakfast burrito, Whole Foods Market organic orange/banana/pineapple juice, coffee
Snack: Silk vanilla soy yogurt with bananas, Twinings chai tea
Lunch: half a vegetable panini (River Edge Diner leftover), carrots, potato chips, seltzer with lemon
Snack: celery with organic Trader Joe's peanut butter
Dinner: Salad (romaine) with chickpeas, Amy's Kitchen non-dairy vegetable pot pie, a Woodchuck pear cider
Dessert: Almond breeze cappuccino swirl ice cream.
Passed on: homemade brownies at work in the morning, and a leftover cookie tray from a meeting in the afternoon

Tuesday
Breakfast: Nature's Path organic homestyle waffles with strawberries and kiwi, a slice of Yves meatless Canadian bacon, juice, coffee
Snack: soy yogurt with blueberries, handful of pecans, Teavana Earl Grey creme tea
Lunch: Salad (romaine with carrots), lentil vegetable soup (from a catered lunch), Whole Foods Market roasted red pepper hummus and 365 brand vegetable crackers
Snack: apple, chamomile tea
Dinner: at Alice's Tea Cup: grilled vegetable sandwich on pumpernickel (hold the cheese, sub hummus) with salad with ginger dressing, chocolate chai tea with soy creamer.
Passed on: cookies at a weekly Tuesday tea afternoon tea break, and trying my friend's banana nutella scone at Alice's Tea Cup. That was tough! They sometimes have vegan scones, but their baker wasn't in that day, blast.

Wednesday
Breakfast: Trader Joe's maple and brown sugar oatmeal, half a grapefruit, English breakfast tea
Snack: Soy yogurt with frozen strawberries; handful of pecans, tea
Lunch: a slice of cheeseless veggie pizza and salad (iceberg/olives/tomatoes/). We have pizza/salad luncheons every Wednesday at work.
Snack: peanut butter/celery; a pear
Dinner: Salad with avocado, red beans and rice, scoop of Ciao Bella banana mango sorbet
Passed on: white cheese pizza

Thursday
Breakfast: Veg "McMuffn": SoyBoy smoked tofu, vegan Cheddar cheese and a slice of Yves Canadian bacon on a Whole Foods wheat English muffin, orange/pineapple/banana juice, coffee
Snack: soy yogurt with blueberries, pecans, Twinings Irish breakfast tea
Lunch: 365 (Whole Foods private label) vegetarian chili with half an avocado, veggie chips and roasted red pepper hummus
Snack: a pear, dates
Dinner: spaghetti with 365 organic marinara sauce and Trader Joe's meatless
meatballs; red leaf lettuce salad, a Tofutti cutie.
Passed on: Betty Crocker German chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. I really wanted this! My sister kept saying, "Can't you pretend that it's a commercial on Oprah and you've gone to commercial break?"

Friday
Breakfast: soy yogurt with sliced bananas, half a grapefruit, coffee
Snack: half a pumpernickel bagel with tofu dill cream cheese and a blood orange. We get free bagels and they have tofu spreads every Friday. We're an office that likes to eat!
Lunch: Rising Moon Organics garlic and basil gnocchi, a romaine salad with shredded carrots and chickpeas
Snack: celery with peanut butter.
After work happy hour at Stecchino. Champagne with a shot of chambord (raspberry liquor), grilled bread and olives.
When I got home: a pear and hummus and chips (too tired to cook!)
Passed on: a cheese platter at the happy hour.

Saturday
Breakfast: Peanut butter and jelly waffles, slice of Yves Canadian bacon, juice and coffee
Snack: dates
Lunch: grilled soy cheese on whole wheat bread and my mom's homemade vegetable soup. There was some honey in the whole wheat bread.
Snack: I went to commercial break. I had a piece of the cake. :-(
Dinner: red leaf lettuce salad, Yves lemon chicken skewers over Spanish rice.
Passed on: picking up any sweets from my trip to local farms (muffins, pies, etc.)

Sunday
Breakfast: Trader Joe's organic corn flakes with almond milk, coffee, juice
Snack: yogurt with sliced bananas
Lunch: At Rutherford Pancake House, shared quesadillas with roasted red peppers, mushrooms, spinach and Daiya vegan cheese with sweet potato fries, vegan "sliders" (mini veg burgers), a root beer
Indulgence: splitting a chocolate raspberry cupcake at Sweet Avenue Bake Shop (best vegan bakery!)
Dinner: Leftover gnocchio with a red leaf lettuce salad.
Passed on: sweets at the church coffee hour. There was also a bake sale held by the kids raising money for a retreat. I did buy some cookies to share with coworkers.

My verdict: I generally feel much better (morally and health wise) eating vegan, but accept I, like most people, don't have the willpower to pass on every non-vegan item that comes their way, especially in our abundant food culture. The cake at my mom's house was huge and I remembered hating having to obsess over every single food choice when I was doing veganism strictly all the time.

I'm an advocate of eating as much as a plant-based diet as possible (the more, the better) but don't believe strict veganism is something achievable for the masses. Eating smaller portions and wasting less food is something we should all be doing. I'm not an advocate of perfectionism, but do think we should take ownership for our choices and how it impacts others (the animals, the workers, the environment of the people with factory farms in their communities). I hope that's a challenge you'll join me on. Let's leave the laughter out of feigning ignorance.

How do you feel about your diet, and about the conditions animals are raised in? Would you be able to gather the eggs from those chickens in battery cages? Or slaughter an animal? Do you feel okay about others doing it for you? Food for thought - literally.