On Saving and Cyber Monday

The thought occurred to me sometime between boiling rice for dinner last Sunday night and shopping for digital cameras on Cyber Monday. With Thanksgiving and its stuffing moving into the rear view*, the Christmas shopping season is now hitting our windshields, and had even managed to capture my attention before the calendar passed into December. What can I say? I’m a horribly domestic male, and if I do have a guilty pleasure aside from fine cheese and Taylor Swift songs cranked up in the privacy of my own truck, it’s shopping for a bargain.

It hasn’t always been this way. Back in college I was a complete minimalist. I rarely ate out, didn’t blow money on anything that wouldn’t keep me alive, and bought into the idea that a penny saved is a penny that will one day come in handy for something I might actually want for something I’d actually need.

Sometime during the last year, I must have arbitrarily decided that day had come. Having lived a life where excessive, Scrooge-like saving and austerity didn’t lead to happiness, I felt it necessary to swing my personal pendulum in the other direction. Slowly but surely, I’ve built up a comfort level with buying, well, stuff. No, that’s not being honest with myself. To be perfectly forthcoming, I’ve become a loose cannon when it comes to buying food and drink, and of having to have everything. Of needing to try everything. No sooner do I guzzle a 2 liter of coke zero in the time in takes to watch a commercial, or plow my way through an ice cream cone in a post-workout high, then I’m already opening up my wallet and checking Walmart shelves for what I want next.

It’s as if I’ve reset my comfort level of what is normal in life, and have, somehow, declared that my only way to interact with the world, to experience the vibrancy of life, is through the sensation of buy, eat, and repeat. After finally settling into a full-time job, there’s a sense that my days of saving for something that may never come — a house, a family, a life? — were futile, and the mere presence of having money and of already having saved money means I might as well spend it. Adding to it all are the stresses of life. Those moments of anxiety and frustration which seem to come in waves each and every day, and the feeling that my only way of escaping them is to feed this cycle of often pointless purchases and consumption.

Sometime in the days after Thanksgiving I was immersed in these impulses, wondering how to reconcile them with the seasonal questions of what I should get my parents for Christmas. I also was thinking of how to respond to their questions of what I might actually want.

Want. It’s an interesting word, and something which I’m still learning to define, especially when there’s a world out there that doesn’t even know what want means. They don’t know it because all they know is to need, and all they’re trying to do is to survive. I may talk about trying to ‘survive’ my of work related stress and personal insecurities, but outside my narrow focus are billions of people who are really struggling to just survive.

It is better to give than receive. We hear it all the time during the Holiday season, and in a lot of ways, I think most people embrace it. I mean, who hasn’t gotten a warm feeling inside when they see a loved one’s face? I sure have, but eventually, those smiles pass back into regular life. The gifts we give, the money we spend, even when they bring someone we love happiness, they’ll eventually fade away.

Which brings me back to the rice. Boiling it for dinner, I was in no way turned on in wanting its taste,  its nutrition, or even the act of making it — a culinary practice involving the creative construct of, say, a Soviet architect. Yet in making it, I was reminded that food, and that all material things, really, are not always meant to be about want or temporary feelings of euphoria. For some people, for most people,  food, drink, and all things are about need. The kind of need that really saves.

Last Christmas, my mother gave me the gift of a donation of a donkey in my name. I won’t lie — I wasn’t a kid jumping up into her arms thanking her for a Turboman. But looking back on the experience a year later, I realize that anything she could have given me in its place — a gift card, a useless kitchen gadget, a dumb shirt — would probably have passed away from my memory before we even got out of the cold months. What she actually got — a donkey given to a poor third world family — however, well that’s something which likely made a real difference (and perhaps still does) in a family’s life. Looking back on it, I can smile and know something good and helpful came from the simple act of honoring a tradition of giving.

I flash back to my boiling rice, and I know what I want this Christmas, and I know what I want to give. What I don’t know is if I’ll ever be a truly happy or content person. I struggle with anxiety, have a temper that often gets the best of me, and wear my flaws on my sleeves. But while I don’t know if I will ever find something — find, you might say, what I really want — in this life, I know I have the power to take each and everyday and help some one, somewhere, have access to something they truly need.

Somehow, all those years of saving suddenly make sense. You might say I knew I was saving for something. I just didn’t know it would be less about me, and more about something far more worth it.

Considering giving a gift that matters this year? Consider that for under 15 bucks, you can buy a enough food for a family in Haiti for an entire month. How can you object to that? I mean, if even I can give up 2 weeks of Coke Zero 2-liters, I don’t think finding an extra 15 bucks in your life is too much trouble. If you’re interested in giving a gift of giving this Holiday season (and really, there’s nothing wrong with Holiday, ok?) check out websites like Food for the Poor.  

*Although, I should opine, it doesn’t have to. Move into the rear view mirror, that is. After eating my mother’s rendition of Cooking Light’s Fennel, Sausage, and Caramelized Onion stuffing I’ve concluded, without question, that stuffing (or dressing, as my coworker from Georgia corrects me) need not be relegated to a once-a-year occurance. Frankly, I don’t know if once-a-week will even suffice given how addictivly tasty this stuff is.

Healing and Basketball

I never understood why so many movies were made about basketball before today. Dribbling drum-beats in a pre-dawn gymnasium, the quiet calm that comes over me transcends anything “just a game” could provide. Each meeting of ball and floor is rhythmic but varied, echoing in my mind even before the next repetition. A ball between the legs and then around the back in a dance of  instinctual choreography comes naturally. Creative. Expressive. On a cold day before I sell my body and my mind to anything but.

There is healing in that dribbling sensation, and recovery and respite in methodical shots. They come here — beyond the arc — or there — a layup — or elsewhere from the floor. The point where the ball leaves my hand does not matter, nor does whether the ball actually goes into the hoop. Call the bank, air-ball it, or drain in. As soon as the ball leaves my hands, no matter the outcome, the feeling of exhilaration comes full force, like a Gus Johnson exclamation in the final seconds of regulation during March Madness.

There’s something cathartic in the experience. It’s timeless – effortless – taking me back to days when I was in middle school, pretending to mix-it up in And-One streetball fashion with my I3 shoes and a bunch of awkward rich white kids (and one Arab) at recess. With no before, no  after. My sore body forgets the rushing heart rate of minutes before on the elliptical machine, trading in calories burned and gripped stares at a screen for imagination fulfilled and fading glances at a rim. All the while blessedly ignorant of the stresses in the day to come.

Shot after shot. Lay-up after lay-up. The morning, looming in a sunrise somewhere outside these echoes, this court, it no longer seems so daunting. Nothing seems so daunting.

They say there’s love in basketball. I say, there’s healing.

Roasted Kabocha Squash and Beet Salad with Curried Chicken

Anger. Stress. Disappointment.

Life finds us, finds me, in dispositions we’d rather leave behind.

So this week, perhaps more than any other

we remember what it is

we are thankful for.

For the curiosity to embrace the vibrancy of another culture’s markets

The creativity to build upon flavors and textures and aromas

The intuition to trust your own skills, your own hands

The love, the want, to provide for those we hold close.

The wealth bequeathed, to bequeath again

autumn’s gifts

life’s blessings

from a loving God.

Requiem for a Twinkie Memory

I must have gone into four or five grocery stores on Saturday, and at least another couple of gas stations. There were still some single serve packages of Ding Dongs and Cupcakes, and more than a few bags of Donettes, but Twinkies were nonexistent on shelves. Ok, so there were a few packages of the chocolate Twinkies. But what kind of shit is that?

I’m not mourning the fall of Hostess. I’m sure something so iconic, so beloved, will be back in one form or another. Not even Michelle Obama and her crusade against personal choice of snacking freedom can deny that certainty. But even while nutritionally worthless sponge-cake and sweet white “cream” will find a way to live on in one form or another, and even though I hadn’t had a Twinkie in almost two years, I still feel a tinge of sentimentalism this week. Ok, I’m not mourning. I’m grieving.

The childhood movie that warned us not to put twinkies on our pizza came the shared enjoyment of college friends, and the inspiration for a day of just being, well, us. Goofing around, savoring the wholesome and good-natured fun of a late semester Saturday before entering the ‘real word,’ the age-old question stood out like a Zinger amidst a line of Twinkies. Why the hell not?

I won’t remember the long litany of ingredients or the health implications of what each and every one of those chemicals *might* do to my body. I’ll eventually forget the taste of whatever that white cream stuff actually was. I’ll lose the association of sticky-sweet golden sponge cake stuck on the wrapper. It’s not so bad though. Because it’s the memories of friends and moments that I’ll never forget.

The Best Way to Spend a Saturday

Gripped with anticipation.

In the everlasting second of a pre-snap read

The eternity of the rotations as a ball tightly spirals

Through double-coverage chasers into an oustretched body

Before the gasped amazement of tens of thousands, hundreds more.

“Oh Shit.”

Now that was one amazing ass football game.

Apple Cinnamon Cheerios

If there’s one thing I dislike about cereal, it’s that it’s hardly seasonal. Count Chocula and Christmas Crunch with their timely box art and release dates be damned, I’m talking about flavors here, people! With the full force of autumn gripping us, there is an intrinsic need to satiate that craving for fall produce and the warming effects of cinnamon and nutmeg. But for as awesome as a cereal like Roasted Butternut Squash with maple syrup and ginger sounds, there are few seasonally appropriate flavors featuring fall’s classic flavors.

Or are there?

I think we can all agree that if there exists a quintessential autumn cereal, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios belongs in the discussion. There are other apple and cinnamon flavored cereals, of course, and even some Apple Cinnamon flavored cereals. But the classic combination of flavors seems no more wholesome or complete then in the familiar oat shaped O’s that only Cheerios can bring us, and has been bringing us without interruption for over two decades . Loving autumn above all seasons, and cereal above many, many snacks, I guess you could say that it’s ironic — if not pathetic – that the last time I ate Apple Cinnamon Cheerios was years ago. With the leaves falling faster and the getting slimmer, however, I felt it high-time to see if the classic cereal deserves its iconic image.

Did You Know? Apple Cinnamon Cheerios was the third flavor of Cheerios to be released, first hitting shelves in 1988. Cheerios debuted in 1941, with Honey Nut Cheerios coming out in 1979.

I think it goes without saying we all have our favorite flavor of Cheerios, with many of us perhaps even subscribing to a Cheerio Cognition Theory which states the first kind of Cheerio we eat will always be our favorite. For me, it’s Honey Nut hands down. I love the glaze. I love the honey taste. I even love the fact that it gets its own mascot. Still, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t give the other flavors of Cheerios enough of a chance.

Case in point, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I poured myself a bowl amidst the perfect setting. A crisp and cool fall evening may not scream breakfast table to you, but the sweet cinnamon taste and hearty oat flavors of the O’s don’t discriminate. I’m immediately struck by the cinnamon flavor. It’s clean and warming, as opposed to rich  and heavy (Cinnamon Toast Crunch) or harsh and overly earthy (Kashi GoLean Cinnamon Crumble). The thing about the flavor is that it seems to transcend just cinnamon alone. There are brown sugar notes as well, and I swear a whole host of those classic fall spices like cloves and ginger.

It’s a bold flavor, but it’s not an overhwelming sensation to overtake the apple flavor, nor loud enough to detract from the sweetness or hearty oat flavor of the O’s themselves. There’s something about the sweet start and slightly astringent finish of the flavor that goes extremely well with the oat base, which unlike the Apple Cinnamon Version of Chex, doesn’t suffer from any lack of baked-in flavor.

Pouring some milk over the cereal (a third cup skim mixed with two tablespoons Half-and-Half, for body and flavor) I like how the oats absorb the milk while still staying crunchy enough to resist falling apart. The sweetness takes on a wonderfully mellow flavor that accentuates the milk’s flavor. It’s almost like warm apple cobbler of ice cream in terms of taste, leaving a delicious end-milk with the perfect amount of sweetness and spice.

Something tells me I’m an idiot for having gone so long without reminding myself of how good Apple Cinnamon Cheerios are. Eating the cereal both plain and without milk, I really can’t find anything I dislike about it. It comes off as hearty and full flavored, with enough snackability to also make a great base for trail mix bags. I think, if there is one flaw, it’s that of most flavors of Cheerios — namely, there’s only one textural note. Still, given how Honey Bunches of Oats with Apple Bunches no longer exists, and how the Cheerios with Oats Clusters seems to have been taken off the market, I think it’s safe to say Apple Cinnamon Cheerios is the definitive source of fall flavors in cereal form.

Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (Website and Nutrition Info)

• Price: $1.67 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 8.5/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100% (next year)

Wegmans’ Hometown Burger with Truffle Oil Green Beans

For as much as I rave about Wegman’s and their bakery you’d think I’d be a regular when it comes to purchasing hot foods in the veritable food court of the Columbia store.

I’m not. Actually, I’ve only sampled from their wokery hot food bar once, loading up on a cloying combination of tofu, vegetables and peanuts in some asian sauce. That’s not to say I haven’t made the rounds around the store though. But they just never seem to be selling the kind of pizza I really crave, or the price just isn’t right or heck, or I’m just stuffed from one to many rolls and trips to the Coke Freestyle machine.

Last Friday was different though. I had been on the phone most of the day with one of the designers for this magnificent work of naval reference and had managed to get through the morning and most of the afternoon on nothing but coffee, oatmeal and protein powder. I was famished by the time four came around, and mostly I just wanted to taste something.

I stopped off at Wegman’s coming home from work. Wegman’s Food Bar offers a $6 Meal Deal with various options, including their 1/4-lb Hometown Burger, a side, and a small drink. I feel like an idiot for not asking if the burgers come cook to order, but in any case, mine came out done. Not “grilled to a hockey puck well done”, but there wasn’t any pink inside. I also got the green beans on the side, mostly because of those flashing lights of “Truffle Oil.”

The Burger — with American cheese — was good. Not quite In-N-Out good, but the meat had a really good crust from the sear, and the guy working the griddle did a great job of melting the cheese, which oozed a gooey, fatty layer. I asked for tomatoes and lettuce to be added and they didn’t charge me extra – which I like – but they left also left off the pickles and hot sauce the burger is supposed to come with.

Wegman’s advertises their beef as “irradiated.” Apparently it’s just a fancy way to ensure bacteria get killed off so the meat can be cooked to order. I don’t know if it made the burger taste any better, but there was something more, gosh, ‘natural’ tasting about the meat. At first I thought it may not be seasoned as enough, but after tearing a few crusty pieces off I realized the meaty, sweet backtones had adequate salt and pepper. Like I said, I liked it fine, although a little too densly packed for my tastes.

I wasn’t crazy about the bun. It wasn’t toasted and seemed like the kind of bulk enriched bun they sell for 1.25 in eight-packs for backyard cookouts. Knowing Wegman’s bakery, I really expected better, even for “just” the 1/4-lb burger (they also have a 1/2-lb burger.) At the very least, throw me a pre-packaged potato bun.

The green beans tasted like green beans. They didn’t taste special — actually, I barely noticed they were seasoned. I had to add salt to them and I didn’t pick up any truffle flavor, even though they did have an oily sheen. I would have guessed they had a drizzle of plain canola oil if they hadn’t been advertised with Truffle Oil.

I didn’t get the meal because I wanted a side, but rather because I was a craving a refillable soda for while I was shopping. I’m a diet soda drinker through and through, so the Coke Freestyle machine is kind of a big deal. A few fills of Coke Zero Vanilla are always in order, but I also like the Freestyle because you can essentially get the same soda with Caffiene Free Diet Coke (Vanilla) and also Mr. Pibb and Barq’s, both of which are seriously underrated soda’s with bite.

At 6 bucks the burger “meal deal” is not a bad value for a light dinner, especially if you put a premium on the Coke Freestyle machine, which I do. While the green beans were a big disappointment and the burger, as a sum of its part, could have been stronger, Wegman’s reputation for high quality beef and freshness definitely is followed through at their food bar, making a return trip — possibly for some sweet potato fries and a unique Veggie Burger — a real possibility.

An Election Day Appeal

I am not proud of the anger I put into my heart when I set out on my morning run on October 27th. The first day of early voting saw me determined to make a statement to myself and the world – in whatever symbolic, poorly thought-out way I could – that I didn’t just want change, I demanded it. After four years of brooding, four years of watching what I cared for dragged through the mud and people like me made to suffer the slings and arrows of those who claim they are free from hate or blemish, I was ready to vote.

To do so, I demanded a sacrifice from my body. I demanded my joints and my tendons to feel each hard footfall on the asphalt and each struggling shortness of oxygen in my muscles as I traveled the 6.5 miles to and the 6.5 miles back from the polling place. I wanted to show the world this is what it means to stand for something, and this is what it means to never take something for granted. I thought, and maybe some would agree, that it was the kind of act of romanticism and protest that would have made those who had once actually fought for voting rights proud.

I expected the pain of the run to reverberate as my body cooled down while waiting in line. I expect the cautious looks of last-minute campaigners holding signs and old folks waiting in line alike. I even expected the angry rebuttals by those who disagreed with me to come full force once I explained my position.

I received none of what I expected and all of what I never expected; a feeling of patriotism and good will towards my fellow men and women that found itself not only refreshingly nonpartisan, but altogether uplifting.

I do not consider myself a political person. I feel strongly in support of one party and disapprove the direction another has taken, but I do not like to interact with people on a political level. Standing at the polling place, flanked by individuals of different races, ages, and genders, I was reminder of why I don’t like interacting with people on a political level.

It’s because of the Orioles. Because of the Kindle Fire HD and the IPhone. It’s because of the guy who spent time as a defense contractor and the Virginia Tech students mulling what they had at Burger King the night before. It’s because of the old guy who visits the new county library each day, marveling at the use of his tax dollars even as protesters hold signs telling us what we don’t want our dollars going towards. It’s because of old friends spotted in line, and a chance encounter that turns into a half-hour run and a new friend on the way back. It is, it always has been, about people and their interests, lives, passions, and yes, just stuff about nothing. The smiles we neighbors wear when we take a second to admire a crisp, cool fall day before a coming storm — a literal storm — and taking the chance to talk to a stranger about what some might say is nothing at all.

I put hate into my heart when I started my run because of the spectrum of anthems of ads and talking heads, headlines and soundbites, which I have heard and reheard for what seems like forever. But when I went out to exercise that hate, to make a statement of my discontent to the world, I found myself completely and ironically content with it and it’s people. Standing in line and chatting with folks — good, honest, I have no-idea what their party affiliation was folks — I couldn’t be angry or upset no matter how hard I tried.

The experience did not cause me to change who and what I voted for. It will not stop me from feeling strongly in support of what I hope is a new administration in Washington. But that day does change the way I view the house across the street. The one with signs for the incumbent I have long expressed anger and even hatred for. It reminded me, as experiences with real, in-the-flesh people often do, that we as human beings are more than just the sum of our political beliefs. That those in and outside are community can interact or break bread or just hang out without ever having to discuss the things which divide us.

After I voted a funny thing happened. Starting back proud but slowly on tired legs, I was passed by a man with greying hair and a stride that would have made my 18-year old self feel jealous. He looked back and me and made some kind of joke about my speed, then slowed down as I sped up to catch him. One thing led to another, and we were suddenly running together, talking like old friends. He told me about his family, I told him about my job and how great it felt to get a day outside after spending all week cooped up in the office. We didn’t speak of politics or voting at all — another reminder, however subtle, that the world turns on and will continue to turn on despite whatever differences we may or may not have.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my day at the polls, and thinking about how it relates to this Tuesday. For many of us — for half the country, in fact — it will likely be a day that depresses and angers us. But it won’t be our last day, and for that, we’re blessed. My appeal, my prayer for all of us, is that on this election day we take some time to distance ourselves from the noise, to frame ourselves and our neighbors outside of the their votes and their campaign signs.

And my hope is that we don’t just do those things this Tuesday, but on each and every day of the four years down the road.