Tagged: diet

April 22, 2013

Grateful in Seattle

The first person I have to thank is actually a woman at Goldberg’s in the Atlanta airport:

Atlanta airport

Thank you, gentle young person, for the turkey salad you made for me after I, hungry and trying to hide my panic, explained my many food restrictions and allergies. Though I’d brought a homemade lunch, I assumed ATL would have something I – with my gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free, and other-common-food-free diet – could eat for dinner. But all the salads I found came pre-made with cheese AND croutons. I could have picked off the cheese, but no way was I going to risk a gluten reaction before getting on a 6-hour plane ride! And Delta, in all its budget-balancing wisdom, no longer offers meals except for money, and even if I did want to spend $10 on airplane food, it would undoubtedly be gluten-full and dairy-not-free.

I almost ordered the chili, but the clerks at Goldberg’s couldn’t tell me what was in it. They tried their comical best by spooning some out and peering into the small paper cup. “We can’t tell you what all is in here,” one woman said, “but we can see beans, meat, and tomatoes.” I wavered and almost ordered the chili before one of them said, “You better be safe than sorry. I can make you a salad.”

And she did. She took lettuce and cut it with her own hands, then asked if I wanted tomatoes – yes, sprouts – yes, cucumber – no thanks. She added turkey. I felt so grateful I thought I might cry. That this underpaid young person, who sells pre-packaged food all day to distracted people in a hurry, would take the time to help someone with a special diet – moved me. I almost laughed when her co-worker asked her, “Where did you learn to do that?” And she said, “Do what? Make salads? They do it downstairs all the time.”

My only complaint is when I tried to tip them, the person who rang me up (not the woman who made my salad, thanks to the specialized conveyer-belt-like food system of airport food service) said, “We’re not allowed to take tips.”

Not allowed to take tips? Because your minimum wage is spoiling you? C’mon, Goldberg’s. But then again, I’d seen a sign complimenting the staff for their efficiency: “Food service: 25%; Personnel: 16%” I couldn’t tell what it meant, but it was obviously meant to be good, and it was obviously to do with some kind of cost savings. If you ask me, in airports and way too many other places in our society, “good” is equated to fast and cheap when it comes to food. Even if it means unhealthy, sugary, and laden with additives and pesticide residue. Lucky for me, one young woman at Goldberg’s didn’t mind taking the time to make a salad by hand.

The salad was a good omen. In Seattle the food was magnificent. Even at The Edge Grill, formerly Fox Sports Grill, where I expected breaded cheesy products and mystery meat on sticks. Proving me happily wrong, the catered food looked delicious. However, most of it was marinated in a soy sauce, which contains gluten. So the server asked me, in a sincere tone, “Is there something we can make you?”

Then I dined at Thai Ginger, 4 stories up in the Pacific Palace on Pine Street. Mixed vegetables with fresh-as-fresh seafood. The Pike Place Market, where I had grilled prawns, coconut veggies, and a smoothie I didn’t have to order without sugar because it was made in front of my eyes, with soy milk. At each of these places, the servers knew exactly what gluten was, and whether it was in or not in what they were serving. Imagine that!

Pike Place Market

In that food paradise I have two favorites. First was Lola, a Tom Douglas restaurant that serves breakfast anytime (I’m already convinced). I got top treatment from the bartender, Guillermo, and enjoyed a mint licorice tea, maple sausages handmade in-house, smashed potatoes, and over-medium eggs. And a side of steamed asparagus. Nobody made me feel weird or looked at me funny when I explained that I don’t eat olive oil, just canola or sesame. They were just conscientious and accommodating.

Finally was Tsukushinbo, which my friend Bethany suggested. It’s a good thing she told me there was no sign, but excellent Japanese food, because the cozy space would have been easy to overlook. And when I told my friend Marina who lives in Seattle, “It’s on 515 Main St,” she said, “There’s a Main Street?” The taxi driver confirmed the out-of-the-way-ness of the place. When he picked us up, he said, “This is Main Street? I didn’t know there was a Main Street!”

We ordered a deluxe sashimi bowl including sea urchin. Marina had eaten sea urchin before, and when I asked her what it was like, she said, “Well it looks like poop. And it tastes…like nothing you’ve ever tried.” But, brave woman, she was willing to try it again, and good thing! Because it was a delicious, savory umami bite. I guess the other stuff she’d had wasn’t fresh.

See what I mean?

The next morning (if 4am counts as morning and not the middle of the night), the same cabbie, who gave me a stylish card called “Andy Taxi Cab,” came to pick me up at the Mayflower Park Hotel. I left Seattle, thankful for all the kind servers and satisfying, allergen-free food.

And to think, it all started with one woman and a handmade salad.

October 22, 2012

Being Kind to Myself: The Email Diet

Today I put myself on an email diet. Which means I’m allowed to check email three times per day. This applies to my work and personal email accounts, and even with the limit, I probably had my email open for almost two hours. But compared to my usual habits of leaving it up all day, this was a huge improvement. And I get to use this snazzy chart:

mon			tues			weds			thurs			fri
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3
1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	2	3

Over the past few weeks I realized I was on email overload. Email had become my go-to procrastination activity, but unlike watching Arrested Development, it was also what could send me into panic mode most reliably. I used to leave work, unsure of what I had accomplished, but feeling completely fried.

We have just come through a period of deadlines at work, where I needed (or pretended that I needed) to keep email open all the time in case something time-sensitive appeared. But having my brain on constant alert mode meant I was attempting to keep vigilant attention all day, which is exhausting. Not to mention, about half of the incoming emails required a response, so I was also adding to my to-do list several times per hour.

A few conversations helped me confirm that I’m not the only person suffering from email fatigue. Colleagues shared strategies like reading email twice per day, once in the morning and again in the late afternoon; or anytime except for morning writing sessions; or replying to emails about certain topics on certain days. I even heard of a somewhat complex system of replying promptly when not working on a paper, and replying with a canned “I’ll get back to you in 2 weeks” when working on a paper.

When I mentioned my new email diet to a student, she acknowledged she does the same thing, and admitted that she’s afraid she’ll miss something important. She rattled off all the different lists that provide regular, sometimes time-sensitive, information: coursework, program announcements, student news and events, and our lab announcements.

Our culture challenges us with “too much of a good thing” habits: flying on airplanes, watching television, checking email. As much as I appreciate my information economy job, it’s making me tired, and there are no structures in place where I work to help my email behavior improve.

The first hurdle was identifying the problem. I don’t think I wanted to admit to myself that I “couldn’t handle” having my email open all day. Like an addict, I thought it was under my control and that I could stop at any time. I also compared myself to other colleagues, assuming they were on email all the time, asking myself why they could do it when I seemed to be tiring myself out.

Then the light bulbs began to go off: first, I recalled the words of one colleague who I believe manages his email better than I do (his five young children probably provide some extra incentive): “Emails beget emails.” Which means replying to emails – “tidying up” –exacerbates instead of solves the problem.

Second, I realized that I don’t sit around waiting for people to reply to my emails. Okay, sometimes I patiently await a reply, but it’s probably every tenth one. The others I forget about as soon as I’ve hit “send.” So I’m going to assume that 9 out of 10 people who email me aren’t worried about when I respond. Which is a high-tech translation of “I’m not nearly as important as I think I am.”

Finally, I gave myself a break. I decided it’s okay if I become tired at work and if I become tired from checking email. I decided I’m not Super Email Woman (apparently someone is. The internet is amazing). Instead, I’m Normal Brain Lady.

This last insight was difficult. I was reading an essay this morning by Diane Ackerman and she shared the simple, “why didn’t I think of that” idea that her energy is finite. She wrote that in one morning, she can either write, OR talk to a friend, OR answer emails. But not all three. And it’s okay, because she’s Only Human.

Imagine that. (And now, with my extra brain energy, from being kind to myself, I can).