A Year in Books 2020

This year was a doozy and my selection of books definitely reflects what was happening in my life and the world around me.  I read a lot about race, a lot of self-help about kids, a few that took me to parts of the world I was prevented from travelling to and tried to throw in a few fun ones to make life a little more enjoyable.  

• Midnight in Chernobyl, Adam Higginbotham
• No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, Rachel Louise Snyder
• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
• My Husbands Wife, Jane Corry
• How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell
• Nothing to See Here, Jenny Odell
• My Lovely Wife, Samantha Downing
• The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead
• Siblings Without Rivalry, Adele Faber
• Milkman, Anna Burns
• The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, George Packer
• The Lost Children Archives, Valeria Luiselli
• How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
• Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas
• NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children, Ashley Merryman and Po Bronson
• Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
• DisneyWar, James B. Stewart
• Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle
• Make Russia Great Again: A Novel, Christopher Buckley
• A Woman is No Man: A Novel, Etaf Rum
• Here in Berlin, Cristina García
• The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell
• Less, Andrew Sean Greer
• CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, Dan Piepenbring and Tom O'Neill
• Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape, Peggy Orenstein
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown
• Bannerless, Carrie Vaughn
• A Good Neighborhood, Therese Anne Fowler
• The Companions, Katie M. Flynn
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson
• The Giver, Lois Lowry
• Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu
• Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Sherman Alexie
• The Black Friend, Frederick Joseph
• Disgraced, Ayad Akhtar

Stress Cooking on Thanksgiving

Like most Americans across the country, this year marked the first thanksgiving in my entire life that was spent with just my immediate family; no parents or grandparents, no brother, sister, nieces and nephews, no cousins, aunts or uncles, no friends or adopted families. It was just the four of us. And like most, I too struggled with how to recreate the warm, loving and hospitable feeling of the meal with the turkey, all of the sides and multiple desserts for just a family of four.

A lover of logistics, I spent the week leading up to the main event perfecting the menu (to ensure just the right amount of leftovers), the grocery list (to ensure I only bought what we needed) and schedule (to ensure everything was perfectly cooked in our single oven).  I was going to host the perfect thanksgiving meal without wasting too much food or energy. It might sound stressful: a 14lb turkey, 7 side dishes (with recipes adapted for a family of four), 3 mini pies, a champagne and apple cider toast and a perfect martini all orchestrated to a schedule with no time to spare. And sure, it could have been stressful... but in reality, I realized about a week post-thanksgiving that the dinner wasn’t the cause of stress but in fact my outlet to manage my existing stress….I am apparently someone who cooks when stressed.

Back up to the beginning of November and I was bracing myself for a doozy of a month (and I didn’t even know the half of it). Work wise we were coming into quarter end, along with Dreamforce and the annual investor day conference. Add to that our largest acquisition ever and yeah things were busy. At home, life was a mixture of balancing work, showing appreciation to Martin for picking up my slack (7am and 5pm meetings kind of put our daily routine into chaos) and finding time to actually mentally unplug and focus on the kids. In addition, for the first two weeks of November I was mentally preparing to have to miss out on McKane’s wedding (previously scheduled for Dec 11, thankfully now rescheduled, for March and which I am to be a bridesmaid) and trying to find the words to comfort Anjulee after losing her best friend and then father both to cancer two weeks apart. Oh, and Martin decided to grow a mustache... to be fair that one didn’t add to my stress. It just seemed like an appropriate thing to add to the list.

With all of the craziness and sadness and stress this month brought, I was actually thankful for the distraction and focus of planning this ridiculous meal and attempt to bring some joy to these bleak times.

And you might think that I would stop there (because, yeah, I had a full plate already, both figuratively and actually), but like I said, the cooking, prepping and planning of meals has actually helped me work through my stress. And there is no better way than to try and use up all of the leftovers and ingredients from Thanksgiving dinner with letting nothing go to waste. Since thanksgiving I have cooked the following: Annegrets goulash, turkey pot pies, turkey Asian noodle soup, hermit cookies, carrot marmalade, celery soup, cranberry salsa and carrot salad…. Seriously, f this was a marketable skill, I would be rich.

For those wondering, below is the menu we had for our 2020 Thanksgiving Dinner

Drinks Starting at 5pm
The Improved Dirty Martini – by the NY Times
A Champagne and Cider Toast with Billecart Salmon Brut Rose and Martinelli’s apple cider

Dinner Server at 6:15pm
A 14lb Spiced Roast Turkey from Little City Meats and recipe by Foreign Cinema
Sides Dishes included:
Mashed potatoes ala Martin with gravy from Little City
Stuffing by Foreign Cinema
Traditional green bean casserole
Creamy pearl onions by Williams Sonoma
Cranberry relish by Oceanspray (and my childhood)
Sweet yams by the Lafayette Collection Cookbook
 
Dessert at 7pm
Mini apple, pumpkin and pecan pies with whipped cream by Martha Stewart

Life Theories by Lisa

In many respects, this year, and especially these past few months, has been a doozy.  It has been a true rollercoaster of highs and lows.  In the past month alone: I cried upon hearing about the death of RBG, I had some amazing moments of joy with the kids, I cried again when I heard the news that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected to the highest positions in the US and then I somehow signed myself up to become Chair of the Parent Advisory Committee at school (almost as great of an honor).

So in an effort to lighten things up and get back to basics, below are a few of my many life theories that I have embraced or developed over the years… some may be more applicable to my 20s, but I still think they hold true even today.

Buffalo Theory: I can’t take credit for this one, as I learned it from someone in college but I still think of it often… the original concept goes something like this: In a herd of buffalos, the slowest and weakest are the first ones that get picked off by predators leaving the pack stronger overall.  In college, we applied this theory to brain cells and drinking, whereby the daily intake of alcohol killed only your slowest and weakest brain cells thereby leaving you smarter in the long run.  Today, I have been applying this theory to the grey hairs I keep finding in my hair brush… I refuse to admit that due to the basic law of averages, the number of grey hairs in my hair brush is in direct relation to the number of grey hairs on my head.  Instead I subscribe to the buffalo theory that the grey hairs are just the weakest ones and therefore the ones most likely to fall out and in turn making me less grey.  

Shampoo Theory:  Another classic from college, the theory goes that when washing your hair, the first time you shampoo your hair in the shower the bubbles are normal. However, if you immediately shampoo again with the same amount (e.g. rinse and repeat), the bubbles are significantly greater.  When drinking, if you don’t fully sober up before you start drinking again (e.g. you start drinking the morning after a big night out), it takes less alcohol to get you drunk.  These days, the lack of sleep and incremental stress of life is a better proxy.  If I never get a weekend to sleep in, destress and unwind (say via a weekend away with the girls), it takes less stress and less sleep to put me in a terrible mood.  

DSW Theory: Not to be confused with the theory of relativity, this theory is all mine and one I stumbled upon years ago when out shopping with some friends.  A friend wanted to go into DSW to look for some shoes so I stepped inside to wait for her.  One lap around the store and nothing looked good, in fact it all looked cheap and slightly out of style.  Ten minutes later and another lap around the store, I had found a few things that I thought might be cute, but would never buy.  Twenty minutes later and I had found the most amazing pair of shoes ever and had to have them.  I still own the purple polka dot heels as a reminder that this issue can and does happen all the time; whether you are in a small town, in a crowded bar or perusing the menu at Denny’s, it truly is universal.

Separated From the Herd: It is a known fact that it is easier to pick off (or pick-up) a woman when she is separated from her group of friends. 

Fishing Lure Theory: This one is still a work in process and I am not especially fond of the name, so I am open to suggestions. In short, I have spent a lot of time watching Planet Earth and other animal related shows and found it interesting that for most species it is typically the male that puts on a show (whether it is fancy feathers or elaborate dances) to attract a mate. Whereas for humans, in general, it is the women who go full peacock when out on the town.  It got me wondering as to why things were backwards for us.  But then one day, when looking at my red painted toe nails underwater and reflecting that they looked like fishing lures, I realized I had it all wrong.  The fancy make-up, high end clothes and countless other ways we preen ourselves for going out are less about attracting the opposite sex and more about intimidating our competition.  A guy doesn’t care about your fancy painted toe nails and probably won’t even notice them.  But you do, and other women do, giving you an extra boost of confidence that does make a difference to men.

There are plenty more theories up in my head that will take some time to articulate, but thought you might get a kick out of these in the meantime!

And Just Like That, It is Autumn

I woke up one morning and realized that it was officially autumn and the year was almost over. And I will say, we have fully embraced the season.

During one of our weekends up at Timber Cove, we discovered the Fort Ross Orchard, a public, but very hidden and unpopulated space just east of Highway 1 and up from Fort Ross State Park.  It was started by the Russians back in the early 1800s and now has apple, pear, olive, and cherry trees and picking is available for the public.  We have since been back a few times to spend a few hours picking fruit and walking around the area.  You are only supposed to pick what you can personally eat and we have definitely managed to make good use of what we have found.  Our first weekend there, we picked apples for Granny Fran applesauce and pears for homemade marmalade.  And just recently, we made a very large and very delicious apple and pear crisp.

In addition to picking apples and pears, we have also expanded our harvesting and preserving skills to include fermentation (Martin got a fancy fermentation pot for his birthday and has started the process of making rot kohl for our upcoming goulash dinner).

And autumn wouldn’t be complete without celebrating Halloween…and we went big this year.  We rocked out to monster-mash songs and had a dance party Friday night at our house, my parents stopped by Halloween morning to drop off candy and treats and then, after nap, things really kicked into gear.  We carved pumpkins, roasted pumpkin seeds, decorated the front steps and got dressed up (Oskar as an orca, Alva as a shark, Martin as a fisherman and me as a lifeguard).

We had friends from the neighborhood stop by that afternoon to pick up premade goodie bags on the front porch and to catch up in a socially distanced manner.  And then we headed out to a nearby park for picnic blanket treat or treating organized by some families from school.   We were home and in bed at the normal hour, full of candy and smiles. 

With autumn wrapping up, it is time for me to focus my attention on the upcoming holidays and planning out our Thanksgiving feast, with all of the fixings and sides, for only four people.  Wish me luck!