Thought I would post some food. In my attempt to eat healthier I've been trying to cook healthier.

I made this dish; pan seared salmon with some candied lemons and pickled persian cucumber. I dredged the salmon in a little cornstarch just to see what it would do. And, heirloom tomato and peach salad with basil and mint. You wouldn't think tomatoes and peach go together, but they do. The sauce is just some olive oil, soy, balsamic, orange juice and lemon.

I really do love to cook. I think with the holidays nearing I get really excited with the thought of being able to cook for anyone who ends up around my dinner table. This is me appreciating what I have while I have it. Last year was the first year I hosted Thanksgiving, a tradition that was my Grandmas. She passed away three years this Christmas, and so did alot of the traditions.

That, combined with the fact that my family is all scattered, holidays are just not the same. That makes me sad. And so every year, at this time, I think of grandma and those holidays that happened around her table.

Last year I cooked for my brothers and a bunch of friends. That was my very first holiday and it was all mine. I think at that time I realized there may be a time when I will not be able to host holidays again...and sometimes this makes me quite sad. I want to cook for my children and my children's children. I want to welcome them in from a cold day with warmth. So, I try to enjoy it while I can and put as much love as I can into it, because once it is gone, it is gone. It, meaning not just my body, but time.

I think I have already posted about why I love cooking so much. One, being the obvious, is it is centered around people, and two, it is creative.  

Cooking is slightly different than say how I would tackle a design of a product or branding a company, for example. Cooking is physical. It is repetitive and I know how to tackle it from any angle without even thinking. I don't think while I cook, I just do.  

But, when I am designing, whether a product or dreaming up a vision for a brand, it takes a little more effort. Of course it involves me putting a pen to paper and physically drawing, but for me design is more inside my head and I am charting mentally...creating spider webs and interweaving a broader scope. It is a cerebral exercise and I am so very thankful that my career is centered around my mind and not my body.  

I graduated from College for Creative Studies and majored in Automotive Design.  Since graduation I have added areas of "design" interest to my repertoire. Product, Graphic, Illustration, Web and the last few years I have really gotten into branding. There are so many components when you design something like a product, which is probably why I have gotten into branding; overall vision.  

If you tell me to design, say a shoe, I can't just design THAT shoe. I need to think of its broader scope. I just can't help it. It gives me a starting point, the start line preceding the finish line. It, design/art, is logical yet organic. 

A genuine expression of oneself is art.  Forget all the fancy paintings and hall of fame furniture pieces as being the representation or the mascots OF design. They are historical and meaningful, but so is everything that never sees the light of being a headliner in a textbook or paper.  It comes in all forms, from the experienced "artist" to the "non".

When Ideas Dance, So Do I.  I did this little 'trapper keeper' doodle. A ramble of thoughts spilling out of my head. I may not be able to physically dance, but my mind is a keyed orchestra and my thoughts, the entangled dancers.  When sketching this I actually was thinking of the movie Forest Gump. When Gump is younger and dancing in his restrained leg braces -- you know, right before Elvis steals his moves?

I added edamame in the sketch because I had a little situation with them today. 

Lately, I've been eating salads and boiled eggs for lunch. I am also way into edamame. I can buy the ones that are already shelled or the pods. I choose the pods because I figure it is good hand exercise to shell them myself.

When I make my lunch I have to strategize how to get the food from my kitchen to my desk. I usually use my rolly office chair, place all the items on it and then push it to my desk. I dropped my package of Trader Joe edamame on the floor. Luckily I have wood floors, so I took my cane and slid it across the floor like a hockey puck. Unfortunately the hockey puck met a bump and out came all the edamame...awwwww...noooo!.  

I can't bend down to pick them up, but needed to get them off the floor before my little Pippi came. She too LOVES edamame. So, one by one I pushed them across the floor towards my desk. This way I can sit in my chair, lean on my desk and safely bend down to pick them up.

Yes, there is strategy in every day. I felt like I was playing shuffle board and while I was picking them up one by one, since it took so long to do so, I imagined an edamame city and what that would look like. Buildings, cars, people, pets, all made up of edamame. A world made up of edamame. Could be fun. Got lost in the idea. Perhaps I will sketch it out one day. 

I've been working on a lot of design projects recently and nearing the end of my portfolio.  When it is finished it will probably end up being around 60 pages. 

It is time to get back out there. I need it. I am slave to human interaction and the magic that happens when ideas are bounced around from person-to-wall-to-person. Thoughts jumping like a ping pong machine.  Since leaving my LA gig, I've been consumed with ARM stuff, personal design projects, alot of freelance and in the middle of all that, dreaming up the company that I one day want to start.  I've also been watching alot of independent movies and reading alot.

My most recent book, a book I had read before but never appreciated like I do now, is 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death'.  

Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He awoke 20 days later only to realize he was left with a condition called locked-in-syndrome, a condition in which the patient is aware and awake but cannot move, nor talk due to complete paralysis of all voluntary muscles in the entire body except for the eyes. The entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid, the only part on his being that he could move...besides his mind.

The average WORD took about two minutes to compose.

Reading his book, I can hear is voice. He has a strong one. The movie is equally tear jerking. I think it is important to have a voice, something personal and sacred to yourself. Sharing your own voice, yourself and your perspective from your very own experience.  Bauby saw the problem, experienced it and then set forth to do something about it - even if it was just him blinking his eye. The book is an easy read. Only 120 pages. I read the whole thing in the bathtub the other night.  

My current book is Kurt Vonnegut's, "Breakfast of Champions'.

No mention of Wheaties anywhere. Slightly disappointed ;).