Jim’s Brain Online

Posted by Jim at April 28th, 2007

Recently we signed up for cell phone service for another two years. This is a good thing for a couple different reasons.

First, the face of my current phone got smashed when one of my daughters somehow hit the pocket it was in with her knee. As a result, it’s hard to see much of anything on the screen and getting a new, free phone saves me from buying a replacement.

The second reason that getting a new cell phone is a good thing is that the phone that I had was a basic model anyway. Pretty much all you could do with it was talk. This isn’t all bad since that’s all I really want to do with it, but after a while I did begin to lust after extra features–such as the ability to use ringtones that don’t sound like 80’s era midi files.

The phones aren’t here yet, but in my excitement I decided to check out my ringtone options.

They suck.

Well, that’s not quite true. Many of the options for jazz ringtones are ones that I like and wouldn’t mind having on my phone. On the other hand, the options for rock don’t include many of my favorite artists. The Decemberists and Yes don’t make the list. The Beatles are nowhere to be found. If Led Zeppelin was there, I missed it. Didn’t see Ben Folds or Living Colour either.

Also, despite liking much of the jazz, I couldn’t help but note that they didn’t have any Duke Ellington or Charles Earland.

So basically I’m giving serious thought to making my own ringtones. Mind you, I’m not sure that I will, but I’ve got to admit that it annoys me that ringtones typically cost $2.50-$5.00 while you can get the full song from iTunes for a buck.

You may be amused to learn that the Cingular ringtones list does include Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

Imagine that going off in a meeting.

Posted by Jim at April 18th, 2007

So here’s a strange juxtaposition: A few weeks ago, I attended the ninth annual Summit on Racism. The next day I attended a cooking seminar entitled, “The Spirit of Soul Food.”

Summit on Racism is a little bit of a downer. It’s not supposed to be. It tries to be positive and goal oriented as opposed to concentrating exclusively on what’s wrong with the world. Still, the only reason anybody is there is that our society treats some people badly for no good reason. You can’t expect to come out of something like that cheering.

“The Spirit of Soul Food” by contrast is more of a celebration of the style of cooking that came out of the combination of North American environment, slavery, and African culinary sensibilities.

What sort of food do you learn how to make? Many different sorts of food. A key point is that the food you learn how to make is the sort of food that people make at home everyday. Thus you get things like meatloaf, pork chops in gravy, and macaroni and cheese. There were also a lot of interesting vegetable side dishes (greens) and desserts (sweet potato pie, for example).

Oddly enough, it served to reconnect me with the cooking I grew up with as much as it did Soul Food. Since teaching myself to cook, I’ve spent most of my time cooking Indian, Mediterranean (Italian, Greek, Provencal French, Lebanese), and Southeast Asian (Thai, Malay) food. Occasionally, I also cook a few favorites from my childhood, but not all that many. My kids have seen a lot more basmati rice than grilled cheese sandwiches.

Soul Food doesn’t use curries as often as it does garlic or onion powder. It uses Campbell’s Soup (cream of mushroom) in more than a few recipes. The recipe for macaroni and cheese actually required me to buy Velveeta for the first time in my life.

It’s worth noting that “Soul Food” isn’t a homogeneous entity. It varies by region. In Louisiana, it includes red beans and rice. In places near the ocean, it includes crab cakes. Bearing in mind that Jaye and her father Jim originally come from Kentucky, this particular seminar included a recipe for Kentucky Bourbon Pie (bourbon comes from Kentucky). I tried the pie. It’s good.

Those of us who wanted to could also try a sip of the bourbon. It’s powerful stuff.

The instructors: Jim Beeler is a (semi-retired) self taught cook who worked in restaurants for his professional life. Jaye Beeler is the food editor for the Grand Rapids Press (my local paper). Even beyond learning about Soul Food, the family dynamics were entertaining.

During the seminar, each person was responsible to cook one dish. Despite not liking macaroni and cheese, I chose that one. Why? Mostly because my kids do like it. I thought it might be interesting to know how to make Mac and Cheese from scratch and flavor it with actual cheese as opposed to from a box flavored with Mystery Cheese Powder.

It turned out pretty well. I’ve made it at home since then and my family seems to like it (with the exception of one of my daughters who simply doesn’t like cheese). The same is generally true of the other dishes from the seminar. I’ve been trying to make one or two a week.

Next year they were talking about doing a slightly different seminar–a Soul Food brunch. I’d go.

Posted by Jim at April 13th, 2007

Conversation after the kids have gone to bed:

Kristen: Jim, I’m going downstairs to do some laundry.

Pause. Then the sound of our downstairs closet opening. The laundry chute goes down from the second floor into our basement closet.

Kristen: Jim, they put toys down the chute again.

They do that.

Kristen: Jim, they put the soccer ball down the laundry chute.

Me: Wow. I didn’t know the soccer ball would fit.

Posted by Jim at April 8th, 2007

I think that it may have been three weeks since I wrote my most recent blog entry. I think that that’s likely the longest break from blogging I’ve taken so far.

It’s a great study in what my life is like and what I prioritize, I guess.

The major reason that I haven’t been writing much recently starts with the week of Summit on Racism. I’m responsible for the design of the Summit pages, programming the online registration/payment system, and handling questions and comments about the registration process.

During that week, I did minimal work for clients and tried to reply to as many emails and voicemails as I could (while simultaneously cranking out Summit related documents). The next week I mostly rested. The week after that I began catching up on all the work that had been building up during Summit. In combination with my training for the Fifth Third Bank Run (which has just begun to get hard) and short vacation, blogging has had a lower priority than it might lately.

The funny thing is that I wrote several blog entries in my head (mostly while running). I just never got around to pounding things out on the keyboard.

I like to imagine that that will change soon.