think less, do more: the 10-miler

So, there will at some point be a blog up here about how I thought less and did more of something that wasn't running, but for the time being, the most obvious way I've been employing this 'think less, do more' philosophy is in running races like crazy in New York. (This is my 3rd road race since April).

This past Sunday, I ran a TEN MILE women's race in Central Park! Yeah! I'd never run ten miles in a row before. I was pretty sure I could do it (I knew I could run 8), but I didn't feel very well prepared for it, having worked out scarcely in two weeks. BUT, I not only beat my 'slow goal' of 1 hour 30 mins, but also beating my 'ideal goal' of 1 hour 20 minutes. I ran it in 1 hour 19 minutes and 13 seconds! I placed 133 out of 1341 runners. And since it was Mother's Day, I ran for my Mommy!

It was a lovely day for a run. Sunny with a nice cool breeze, and tenderly warm in the sunshine. Around the 7th mile, I spotted a couple of runners near me that I would drift in front or behind of every once in awhile. There was another woman in bright pink further ahead that I was gunning to pass up by the end. Well, I didn't catch the bright pink runner (she picked up her speed quite a bit), but the last mile and a half, I was in a pretty steady race with a woman who would speed up and run beside me every time I picked up my pace a little-- oh that was incredibly motivating-- I like a chance to be competitive on that kind of level! But once I passed the 9-mile mark, I surged big time and was on the move-- leaving her her in the dust.

Nearing the finish, through the din of my headphones pumping fast-moving jams, I heard a man who was running along side the route say (probably *not* to me) "You're almost there! Only about 400 meters!" Thankful to this man, I began my sprint, and channeled my high-school track coach's yells and gave it a powerful finishing kick. This part of the route was the same as a 4-mile run I did last month, so I already knew that the finish line snuck up on you after a sharp curve in the road. I finished in great time, and hung near the line for a minute until the woman who was giving me a good race earlier crossed. I smiled at her, shook her hand and we exchanged a 'great race!' with each other.

This run was a tester for me, to see what it might feel like to run a half marathon. I figured, once I'd run 10 miles, tacking on another 3 miles wouldn't be so bad. I'm signing up for the Nike NYC Half which is at the end of July. Let's hope I get selected (it's registration by lottery) and you can come out and cheer for me!

Here's me, moments off the finish line, feeling tired, but happy. (And with complimentary carb-refueling agents in hand!)



If you are curious about my or overall results, click here. And if for whatever reason, you want to see the rest of the awkward running photos of me taken by Brightroom at the event, just click here!

NYT: "Ask About Cycling in New York"

In recognition of National Bike Month (here's the NYC-specific link), The New York Times City Room blog is now taking questions from readers for the bicycle program coordinator of NYC's Department of Transportation. This can include anything from policy and rules, to safety issues, and anything else that has to do with biking in NYC!

Click here to go to the NYT page!

greywater, anyone?

While I don't know a ton about greywater and sustainable water systems, I think whatever we can do to conserve water, keep polluting substances out of our lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans, is an a-plus idea! A friend of mine just passed this link for the Greywater Guerillas on to me, encouraged by a friend to begin focusing on water reclamation strategies.

Essentially, greywatering is simply recycling water and is akin to what those of you who've lived out in the country in old days may be familiar with-- saving dish and bath water for things like watering plants, flushing the toilet, etc. The website gives a lot of easy examples and explanations and even hosts workshops (mostly in California, it seems). They also discuss rainwater reclamation and composting toilets.

Maybe greywatering isn't for you, or isn't feasible just yet, but think about other ways you can support healthy water ecology and conserve water in general:
- Get a grip on leaky faucets and running toilets.
- Install a water-saving shower-head.
- Take shorter showers and limit the amount of baths you take.
- Don't let the water run when you wash your face or brush your teeth.
- Instead of keeping the water running while you wash dishes, fill a bowl or pot (ideally one that needs washing) with warm soapy water, and dip your dishes and sponge in there, getting all of the dishes rubbed down and then doing all the rinsing at the same time with cool water. I like to save the greasier or dirtier dishes for last so that I don't have to change the water.
- And I know not everyone is down with this, but when I can, I'm down with 'if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down.' Just keep the lid down, geez, it's no big deal.

If you have some more tips, by all means, post them in the comments!

Chef Aja T. Marsh News - May Newsletter: Use Your Words - Making 'Fun' of 'Work'

Hello and Happy May to You!

A few weeks back, I went out to breakfast with a friend and a friend of his visiting from out of town. With most of the food gone from our plates, the waitress came around and asked the out-of-town guest if he was still ‘working’ on his food. He looked at her kindly and with a smile said, “I was never working on this food. I’ve been enjoying and having fun with it.” After, she walked away with a smile, the three of us discussed how important it is to be conscious of the words that we use. But it’s really kept me thinking.

What is “work”? A place we dread going? Something we aren’t looking forward to doing? We work out, work it out, and work it in. Working on our relationships, projects, and we work on things that we enjoy and get pleasure from. I’m still thinking about what we talked about because it made me realize how easy it is for us to lose focus on the things we are enjoying, or not. And sometimes we even have to use more positive words to encourage us to do things that maybe are not as fun as we would like.

The language we use so unconsciously sinks into our psyche and creates a pattern. Why are we “working,” laboring over our food, when we should be savoring, playing, and relishing in it? By reducing eating to a chore, we forget how pleasurable flavors and textures can be! Sure, it’s important to ‘eat well’ but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.

Since this breakfast conversation, I’ve really tried to get out of saying “work” when it isn’t necessary. I remember to chew and eat slowly, and enjoy the experience of my meal and of the food, as well as offering gratitude to the cycles of energy that helped to create the food. And sometimes I’ll even play with my food, because I am a grown up and can do whatever I want! Beyond the plate, I’ll ask someone what they’re playing around with, how their day was, not “how was work”, sign-off phone conversations with “have fun!” and I sprinkle my own to-do lists with smiley faces and happy doodles. Maybe it seems silly, but actually, that’s the point.


NEWS FROM AJA
I know I have been neglectful, and never sent out an April newsletter. But in my defense, I was traveling to and from Texas, establishing new clients and contacts in the NYC area, and apartment searching in Brooklyn, which is incredibly time consuming. But now that I'm mostly settled back in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I should hope not to leave you hanging again.

In the meantime, there have been a couple of great guest blogs posted here including a new installment from Janet Watkins in her multi-part series on Fish and Sustainability (I posted an informal Italian-inspired Sardines on Toast recipe in the comments).

My dear friend Shannon McCarthy also posted a great account of her experience and know-how with Sugar Addiction (there's also a yummy and very special cookie recipe she posted in the comments to accompany the entry). As always on the blog, continue to leave comments, let me know if you tried any of the recipes, etc.! I want to provide content that you will use and enjoy.

This coming weekend I will be donating my services to a fundraiser for Feel Your Boobies, sponsored by S-Factor here in NYC. Should be a great time for everyone-- you should come out if you're around!

Coming up, you may find me with a cooler of sandwiches in McCarren Park in Brooklyn. That's all I can say for now...



ANNOUNCEMENTS, etc.
Read my article in E-Print!: Another article of mine was published in the April Green Issue of the Ladies Who Launch Online Magazine. My article, entitled 'How to Be a Greener Shopper' focuses on green shopping tips, which if you've been keeping up with the newsletters and Stem+Leaf, you've probably already read about.

Guest Blogger Opportunities: I am still looking for interested individuals to write guest blogs for Stem+Leaf about green and healthy-lifestyle related subjects, from your own perspective. No need to be an experienced writer-- just enthusiastic with something to say! Please contact me for more information.



Enjoy the fun of every day!

plastic bag police!

There are some days when I am especially aware and notice every person passing by or sitting in my subway car that is carrying a plastic bag, or as more often the case, multiple bags. When I am feeling especially impassioned, I count how many bags in comparison to people. And then there are the people at the grocery store putting a bunch of bananas in a plastic produce bag. Or an apple. Or a couple of onions. What?!
I just. Don't. Get. It.

It drives me insane. I am almost always fighting the urge to explode in someone's face (as nicely as possible, of course), chastising them for the plastic bag in their hand that is holding one t-shirt or paperback book, or for the produce that is unnecessarily in a bag in their shopping cart. 'What are you DOING?!' I want to ask. Or maybe, more what I want to do, is blast some sort of wonky siren and embarrass the ne'er-do-well-er on the street, spouting off some facts about how plastic bags (and well, plastic in general) are giving us cancer, choking cute baby animals, leeching chemicals into our soil and water, and just being generally unaesthetic (in your hand, on the land). Plastic bag police! It might make for good poli-social performance art though...

We use plastic bags and the like so much, it becomes a completely unconscious consumption. Almost as if the thought of plastic bags not existing at all would be impossible to swallow. Awhile back, my now former roommate made an interesting observation-- the vendors at our heralded farmer's markets are often overly quick to put your purchases in a plastic bag for you. You've looked down for a quick moment to grab your wallet, and swoosh! all of your produce has been deftly tossed in a bag or two. I usually make my tote visible and/or say 'I don't need a bag' as I hand over the goods to be weighed, and I do see lots and lots of people using their own bag at the market (just another reason why the Greenmarket is my 'happy place'). And all of the Whole Foods in the country are now plastic-bag free (except in the produce department), so the whole choice of 'paper or plastic' is now more like 'your own bag? oh. no? well, we sell an assorted bunch of snazzy ones ranging from $1 to $30. but we will otherwise begrudgingly, but with a smile, pack your goods into a 100% recycled paper bag.'

And I have heard entirely too many excuses from people saying 'Oh, well they put my stuff in a bag before I had a chance to say I didn't need one.' Yeah, that's nice. TAKE IT OUT OF THE BAG and kindly leave the bag there and say 'I brought my own' or 'I don't need a bag'. This surprises and befuddles some cashiers, and sometimes I emphasize my point by saying 'I'm trying to reduce the amount of packaging I use.' I promise you, if you do this enough, everywhere you shop-- grocery stores, clothing stores, book stores, etc., you will not only get more in the habit of bringing and using your own bags, but you will also influence store employees and managers, and maybe even teach someone something new along the way.

So maybe you think I'm up here on my repurposed sustainable lumber soapbox making big noise over something that's 'not a big deal.' But I believe that we must all realize everything we do makes a difference and has consequences. One person makes a difference. One household makes a difference. You, YOU make a difference. So it's 'just saying no' to plastic (and paper) bags today, and it's another step tomorrow.

I hardly have any plastic bags in my house. Or paper ones for that matter. I try not even to use baggies (or I often wash and re-use them when I do). I am 95% a-okay with this, until the time comes when I need to transport my grungy kitchen clogs to an event, or throw wet items into, or help someone take leftovers home, and then I'm scrambling around improvising. But I can live with that so long as I know I'm doing my part. Are you doing yours?


FYI:If you have an excess of plastic bags sitting around your house, most Whole Foods, Central Market, and conventional grocery stores have bins near the doors for plastic bag recycling-- for shopping, produce, and newspaper delivery bags. I know the Whole Foods at Union Square in NYC employs a sort of 'have a bag, leave a bag; need a bag, take a bag' system, so if you do need a plastic bag for some reason, you could just take what you needed.

book review: 'alice waters and chez panisse' by thomas mcnamee

Wow. Just writing the title of this blog shot me right back to 4th grade book reports. Maybe I can make this a bit more exciting than those were. Well, hell, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse! Isn't that exciting enough?

Okay, let's see...if you don't know who Alice Waters is, essentially, she currently a leader in initiating and promoting healthy school lunch programs and school gardens across the country; she's one of the leaders of the Slow Food movement in the U.S. (what she called the 'Delicious Revolution'); she is a mentor to many, including Michael Pollan*, and back in the 70s, when she opened her restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, she lead one of the first major restaurants to focus on organic, local, and seasonal food.

So this book incorporates interviews with her and her friends, family, and colleagues, and offers a pretty thorough glimpse of her life leading up to Chez Panisse, through it's timeline, and up to the present.

Prior to reading this book, I didn't know a ton about Alice Waters, but had heard her mentioned often in other things I've come across in relation to sustainable food, cooking, etc. Oh it was such a fun and easy read, and I loved it especially because I felt like I related to Alice in a lot of ways-- ambition, desire for quality and real products, and interest in children's health and 'real food' education and appreciation for the masses. And there was just so much she said and experienced that really resonated with me.

In the book she says, "I believe that the destiny of humankind in the twenty-first century will depend most of all on how people choose to nourish themselves. And if we can educate the senses, and break down the wall of ignorance between farmers and eaters, I am convinced-- because I have seen it with my own eyes time and again-- people will inevitable choose the sustainable way, which is always the most delicious alternative." Yes!

The book is sprinkled with informal, conversational recipes, photographs, funny and enlightening anecdotes, and just a cool glimpse at the making of an American cultural icon.


*Michael Pollan wrote 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' which is an amazing, amazing book. Please read it. You will be enlightened at every turn of the page. I just started reading 'In Defense of Food' which I am getting the idea is a response to 'Dilemma' and may be a better, quicker read if you need to cut to the chase like that.

guest blog: fish: mercury, pollutants, contaminants, oh my!

This guest blog is part three of a 4-part series about the benefits of dangers of eating fish, and how to consume it responsibly. Janet Watkins is a freelance writer living and blogging from the Midwest at www.insidewords.blogspot.com.
Please contact me if you are interested in writing a topical guest blog.

Sardines and saltine crackers with a can or two of Vienna sausages on the kitchen table could only mean one thing at my house—Dad and Uncle Italy were going night fishing. They would get us kids to dig for night crawlers (brown earthworms) for bait. Tackle box, rods, flashlights, thermoses of water and coffee were loaded into Dad’s 1955 Chevy and then he would drive off into the night in pursuit of male sibling bonding and a good catch of silver bass, catfish, and on less favorable junkets sheep head.

As a child I didn’t like sardines. There was something about seeing those poor little beheaded fish lying in a can of oil that caused my face and nose to turn up in disgust. Yuck. What a contradiction since seeing larger species of fish dressed in cornmeal and frying in hot oil never bother me at all!

Contaminants, Mercury and Pollutants
Sardines were my Dad’s favorite snack. They are one of the least contaminated fish you can eat. According to the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) sardines rank 5th among seafood with very low contaminant levels. Good news as they are some of the most heart healthy “brain” foods you can eat. But other species of fish, particularly the larger more mature varieties can contain high concentrations of PCBs, dioxins and other pollutants. Industrial and municipal discharges, agricultural methods and storm water runoff– including rainfall that rinses contaminants into the land, streams and rivers bioaccumulate in the skin, organs and other fatty tissues of fish. Many pollutants settle on the water’s floor and adversely affect bottom-dwelling fish like- wild striped bass, bluefish, American eel, and sea trout– all ten to be high in PCBs.

Mercury
Mercury occurs naturally, but also comes from smokestacks mining and other industrial processes. As it moves from the air and settles in our waterways it turns into methyl mercury and absorbed by fish. Larger and older fish have a longer time to build up mercury than smaller and younger fish. Predatory fish at the top of the food chain broadly have higher levels of mercury. Without question or debate mercury toxicity poisoning from fish is a health threat. It is threatening to prenatal development and pregnant women are advised to avoid and use extreme caution when eating fish. Young children’s fish consumption should be smaller than adults. It is recommended 1-2 ounces for toddlers and 2-3 ounces for older children. Shrimp and “chunk-light” canned tuna canned are best selections to serve children. They contain lowest mercury levels.

Contaminants Impact on Health
Mercury, PCBs and dioxins build up and concentrate in our bodies over time. Eating contaminated fish may result in effects that are minimal to birth defects and cancer. It takes 5 years or more for women in childbearing years to rid their bodies of PCBs, 12-18 months to significantly free their body burden of mercury. Mothers who consume contaminated fish prior to becoming pregnant may have children who are slower to develop and learn.

To eat, or not to eat fish, that is the question?
It is about now that you may be thinking, “I’ll forego eating fish …”—a logical place to end up in this fish drama. But studies and statistics support the overwhelming benefits that come from eating fish cannot be ignored. Returning to that Harvard School of Public Health study shows a modest amount of fish per week reduces the risk of coronary heart disease by 36%.

Fish is high in protein low in fat and rich in Omega-3 fatty acid. Following the marine food chain, algae make one type of Omega-3 fatty acid. It is consumed by zooplankton and stretched to form two other types of Omega-3 acids. Zooplankton becomes the food for finfish and shellfish, resulting in a high concentration of Omega-3. The benefits show up in cardiovascular health and are important for prenatal and postnatal neurological development. There is also evidence that it may reduce tissue inflammation and alleviate symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Other maladies omega-3 may play a beneficial role include cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), depression and irritable bowel syndrome.

where've i been?

I apologize to all of the voracious Stem+Leaf readers. I have left you hanging with no recipes in forever, it seems, sporadic and sparse blog entries over the past month, no April newsletter, and overall lack of healthy lifestyle goodness.

It's been a rather interesting month of travelling, moving apartments, hunting for said new apartment (in East Williamsburg / Bushwick, Brooklyn!)which is barely four blocks to a library, and catching up on life in general. Not to mention that I've been sneaking as much outside time as possible on the days where it is too nice to be anywhere else. I soon hope that will be every day!

But! I'm back and full of new blog ideas and now that I'm beginning to get settled in my new place, I'm hoping to be cooking regularly and overwhelming you with culinary e-delights.

Additionally, if you haven't noticed I've added a few more things to the sidebar on the right-- links to all of the guest blogs, recipes, and super-current and relevant recommended article links or websites.

And for those of you who actually are voracious readers of this blog, you are awesome! Post a comment and show some love!