We interrupt this program to bring you some late breaking news!
Yeah, sure, the economy is in the tank, it's still winter and will be for weeks to come, you need a vacation (don't we all), and the air in the house is so dry you wake up at 3 a.m. with your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth. I feel your pain - sort of, in a purely figurative way.
Never mind all that. As I have you a "captive audience", as it were, there is a rather serious matter we haven't discussed lately.
Yup, you got it - lentils. Lentils are mighty serious.
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but you'd have to say that lentils are really understated and underrated, besides being under appreciated. They're like the Clark Kents of the group of foods known as legumes - that is various dried peas and beans.
Check out http://www.agr.gc.ca/, if you don't believe me. It's a link to the website of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Your tax dollars at work, folksies - use 'em or lose 'em.
Just between us - here's the low down on the lowly lentil… we're gonna learn youse on legumes.
Benefits:
1. Cheap – two kilograms of these babies will set you back less than $5.00 and you’ve got enough lentils to keep you in hog heaven for quite a while. And remember – no waste – it’s all edible.
2. Abundant – home grown in Canada. Available throughout the year. Often grown in crop rotation with spring or durum wheat. Encourage our Canadian farmers – buy Canadian lentils.
3. Nutritional powerhouse – high in fibre, low in fat, low G.I. (glycemic index) and cholesterol free. They are high in protein, B vitamins, and minerals, low in sodium and an excellent source of complex carbohydrates and vegetable protein. No additives – no chemicals. Worldwide lentils are considered to be a nutrient dense food.
4. Easy, quick to prepare – no peeling, mashing, or cut fingers. Just pick through for small stones, rinse under cold, running water and cook.
5. Versatile – toss a handful into soups and stews or replace a ¼ cup of flour in a bread, muffin or pancake recipe for an added protein and fibre boost. Lentils easily absorb flavours used in cooking. Pre-cook lentils by placing in already boiling water (easier to digest than starting in cold water). Turn down heat, cover and cook for 20 (green) - 30 (red, brown) minutes, then use in salads or add to vegetable side dishes..
6.Convenient to store – choose dried over canned. Less packaging, sodium.
7. Extensive health benefits – studies show lentils may be of some help in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, hypoglycemia and weight control. There are established health benefits for osteoporosis, the nervous and immune systems and the teeth. Excellent plant protein source for vegetarians. Further, lentil flour is gluten free so it is especially useful to people with Celiac Disease or Crohn’s. (Tip: To make flour, grind dried lentils quickly and easily in your blender.) Lentils are a wonderful source of the B vitamin folate – helpful in protecting against colon and cervical cancer.
8. Excellent source of phytochemicals – which have an antioxidant effect on several cancers, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Always remember to drink lots of water when adding new sources of fibre.
We'll now return you to your regular programing...local blackouts apply. Please retrieve your hat and coat at the back of the hall. Don't forget to tip your waitress and that nice bartender on your way out. Everybody's gotta eat, you know.
Gee, I wonder if they've heard about lentils.
Oh, and taxes are extra.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Who are you? Who am I?
In the telling of a tale it is necessary to answer many questions. While making a list of the questions characters in my fictional worlds must ask themselves, it occured to me that these are the same questions any one of us could ask ourselves in the serialization of our own personal stories - our very lives.
Who am I? Where did I come from? What do I want? Where am I going?Direct, simple questions we can ask ourselves, but sometimes ones with no easy answers.
QUESTIONS MY CHARACTERS MUST ANSWER
1. Who am I? Where did I come from? When? What makes me happy? Sad?
2. Who raised me? How old I am? Did I have a happy childhood? Was I loved? Wanted?
3. What character trait defines my personality? Am I trusting? Suspicious? Why?
4. What is my level of education? Am I intelligent? Am I capable of making hard decisions?
5. Am I healthy in body and mind? What is my history? Problems?
6. What is my occupation? Training? Experience? Work environment?
7. Do I have friends? For how long? Problems? How do they contribute to my story?
8. What about my family? Married? Spouse? Children? Parents? Siblings? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Grandparents?
9. What is my nationality? Culture? Religion? What are my core beliefs?
10. Where is my conflict? Why? With whom? For how long? What will I do?
11. What do I want? If I want it badly enough, can I make it come true? How? What were my successes? My failures?
12. What am I willing to risk in order to get what I want? Will my conscience allow my actions?
13. What could the consequences be? How high are the stakes? What are my odds?
14. Why do I want what I want? How long have I wanted it?
15. Where can I get it? Who has it now? Why?
16. How do I get it (back)? What tests must I pass? Will I have to hurt anyone? How badly?
17. What motivates me? Is family honour involved? Love? Hate? Revenge? Pride? Fear? Desire? Greed? Empathy? Lonliness? Memories?
18. What can I control? Who is stopping me from getting what I want? What stands in my way? Why? How?
19. Will I get what I want? How long will it take? Will I be happy in the end? Will anyone else?
20. What happens next? Why? With whom?
21. Am I telling a short story or a novel? From whose perspective? Why?
Who am I? Where did I come from? What do I want? Where am I going?Direct, simple questions we can ask ourselves, but sometimes ones with no easy answers.
QUESTIONS MY CHARACTERS MUST ANSWER
1. Who am I? Where did I come from? When? What makes me happy? Sad?
2. Who raised me? How old I am? Did I have a happy childhood? Was I loved? Wanted?
3. What character trait defines my personality? Am I trusting? Suspicious? Why?
4. What is my level of education? Am I intelligent? Am I capable of making hard decisions?
5. Am I healthy in body and mind? What is my history? Problems?
6. What is my occupation? Training? Experience? Work environment?
7. Do I have friends? For how long? Problems? How do they contribute to my story?
8. What about my family? Married? Spouse? Children? Parents? Siblings? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Grandparents?
9. What is my nationality? Culture? Religion? What are my core beliefs?
10. Where is my conflict? Why? With whom? For how long? What will I do?
11. What do I want? If I want it badly enough, can I make it come true? How? What were my successes? My failures?
12. What am I willing to risk in order to get what I want? Will my conscience allow my actions?
13. What could the consequences be? How high are the stakes? What are my odds?
14. Why do I want what I want? How long have I wanted it?
15. Where can I get it? Who has it now? Why?
16. How do I get it (back)? What tests must I pass? Will I have to hurt anyone? How badly?
17. What motivates me? Is family honour involved? Love? Hate? Revenge? Pride? Fear? Desire? Greed? Empathy? Lonliness? Memories?
18. What can I control? Who is stopping me from getting what I want? What stands in my way? Why? How?
19. Will I get what I want? How long will it take? Will I be happy in the end? Will anyone else?
20. What happens next? Why? With whom?
21. Am I telling a short story or a novel? From whose perspective? Why?
Monday, February 23, 2009
Read your owner's manual
I'm going to let you in on a little secret - we humans have evolved from a bunch of easy going folks. Our ancient ancestors - early homo sapiens - got excited only when it mattered most - like when the tribe found themselves standing in the middle of a migrating herd of burly mastodon or trapped like rats at the cul-de-sac of a box canyon with a ravenous saber tooth tiger waiting for dinner safely at the only exit - the entrance. You're talking pure fight or flight here. Or slice and dice. Simple choices.
100,000 B.P. (before present) I'll bet Mum and Dad didn't obsess about little Klaaaakta Tum's feelings or how many birthday parties he hadn't been invited to, if he had enough of the right toys or had poor self esteem issues. I'm sure they still concerned themselves with proper friends for their children. Who wants their kid hanging out with losers?
Food and keeping the offspring alive long enough to fend - literally - for themselves must have kept Mum and Dad pretty busy. No time, energy or enough light to lay awake at nights wondering if they'd chosen the right career path.
Still Dad would have to think about where tomorrow's brochette de bison would come from, and Mum might have had her share of sleepless nights fending off killer colds and flus, mumps and infections in her precious children and beloved buffalo hunter.
Naturally, Mum homo sapiens never got sick. Good thing, too, or where or where would our species be today? I'll tell you where - the same place our cousins, those loveable scruffians, the Neanderthal ended up, that's where. Right! Gone bye bye forever. Broken branch. All gone.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
Oh sure, we've developed a pre-frontal lobe in the eons since, but to our detriment in many ways. For one thing, we take life and ourselves way too seriously.
For once you know a thing, you can't unknow it and we love to "wallow in the mire" as Morrison once sang, so we throw ourselves into the muck headfirst, eyes wide open, knowing it's not a good thing. Shoulda stuck with the happy stories - just couldn't help myself, is what we say, but sure as spit, we'll be back. Oh, yeah, brothers and sisters - we'll be back.
Once you've allowed your marvelous lobe full rein - oh, there's no telling what kind of imagery it will unleash. Free to roam and breed new synapeses at will - why, who knows what, where or why your lobe will lead.
And you know of course, that you - the very you who "thinks" he's in the driver's seat - is now out of his head. He's really been relegated to a post in the rear seating of his own vehicle, and hasn't the brain to realize it.
Since we're the current owners of our brains and our pains, it behooves us to READ THE MANUAL. Nobody else can read your owner's manual but you. It's a closed blog with an audience of one.
One thing I know for sure is that is the chapter on "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is universal - everybody's got that chapter in their manual. Check right at the beginning. And it isn't a suggestion, it's a requirement of good vehicle maintainance.
Keep that in mind the next time your lobe switches over to red alert, because happiness is catchy - a good catchy.
100,000 B.P. (before present) I'll bet Mum and Dad didn't obsess about little Klaaaakta Tum's feelings or how many birthday parties he hadn't been invited to, if he had enough of the right toys or had poor self esteem issues. I'm sure they still concerned themselves with proper friends for their children. Who wants their kid hanging out with losers?
Food and keeping the offspring alive long enough to fend - literally - for themselves must have kept Mum and Dad pretty busy. No time, energy or enough light to lay awake at nights wondering if they'd chosen the right career path.
Still Dad would have to think about where tomorrow's brochette de bison would come from, and Mum might have had her share of sleepless nights fending off killer colds and flus, mumps and infections in her precious children and beloved buffalo hunter.
Naturally, Mum homo sapiens never got sick. Good thing, too, or where or where would our species be today? I'll tell you where - the same place our cousins, those loveable scruffians, the Neanderthal ended up, that's where. Right! Gone bye bye forever. Broken branch. All gone.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
Oh sure, we've developed a pre-frontal lobe in the eons since, but to our detriment in many ways. For one thing, we take life and ourselves way too seriously.
For once you know a thing, you can't unknow it and we love to "wallow in the mire" as Morrison once sang, so we throw ourselves into the muck headfirst, eyes wide open, knowing it's not a good thing. Shoulda stuck with the happy stories - just couldn't help myself, is what we say, but sure as spit, we'll be back. Oh, yeah, brothers and sisters - we'll be back.
Once you've allowed your marvelous lobe full rein - oh, there's no telling what kind of imagery it will unleash. Free to roam and breed new synapeses at will - why, who knows what, where or why your lobe will lead.
And you know of course, that you - the very you who "thinks" he's in the driver's seat - is now out of his head. He's really been relegated to a post in the rear seating of his own vehicle, and hasn't the brain to realize it.
Since we're the current owners of our brains and our pains, it behooves us to READ THE MANUAL. Nobody else can read your owner's manual but you. It's a closed blog with an audience of one.
One thing I know for sure is that is the chapter on "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is universal - everybody's got that chapter in their manual. Check right at the beginning. And it isn't a suggestion, it's a requirement of good vehicle maintainance.
Keep that in mind the next time your lobe switches over to red alert, because happiness is catchy - a good catchy.
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