by Sam Tackeff | Sep 18, 2012 | Challenge
Today’s Happiness Booster: The Email Opt-Out. In the spirit of the new year (Rosh Hashanah!), I’m going to be focusing on one new happiness booster each day. These are the little things that I try to identify and implement – consistently making my bed, going to sleep with the sink empty of dishes, 10 minutes of exercise, etc. – that when performed every day, add up. Today, I focused on the email opt-out.
A few months ago I started using unroll.me, a site which actually automates the process of clearing and archiving your inbox. It archives mail into a daily roll up, and lets you choose whether you want future mail from the sender or to unsubscribe. While this was convenient, I realized that I needed to do it myself for prime satisfaction. So each email, I’ve started taking 2 seconds to ask myself: Keep? Or Unsubscribe. I’m reaping the benefits already.
* * *
Breakfast this morning was a leftover slice of roast beef tenderloin, and a sliced tomato from Volante Farms.
I then headed out to a morning meeting with a friend at Formaggio Kitchen. George Howell coffee, black. I’m getting quite used to coffee with nothing in it, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that this is some of the best coffee in the city.
Resisting the urge to buy everything, I left with eggs from Silverbrook Farm. Farm fresh eggs are my vice. Lately I’ve tried Chip-In, Eric’s, Red Fire Farm, trying to determine which I like best. I admit it, I was swayed by the blue box.
Late in the afternoon, I set about doing some prep cooking, to help reduce time spent actually cooking during the week. This entire prep took just shy of 45 minutes, but it’s a definite head-start to the week! [Yep, 4 different things, 45 minutes.]
I started out with a batch of homemade olive oil mayo. It has a whole egg, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of mustard. A minute with my stick blender and done!
I then set about making some Coconut Chile Beef from Melissa Clark‘s ‘Cook This Now‘. Love, love, love this cookbook. Beef, coconut milk, chile, and lots of lime, cooked down into a sweet, tart, and savory sauce. The prep takes 12 minutes, and then you put it in the oven to braise for a few hours.
Because I always aim to maximize the work my oven does, I quickly chopped up the last of my Volante Farms eggplant and popped it in the oven as well to roast for an hour.
And then, on a roll, I decided to quickly brown the ground pork I had with some Italian Seasoning. I’ll use this with eggs for breakfast, or on leafy greens, or to add some depth to soup. I might also add some sauce and serve it on spaghetti squash. We’ll see. It helps to have it on hand.
Finally, I made myself a quick lunch before sitting down to work at the computer for several hours! Chicken soup with homemade stock, the last of the roasted chicken, a large handful of kale, and a good squeeze of lemon.
As if all that cooking wasn’t enough, tonight was our very first benchmark workout of the challenge at my gym! The challenge is 8 weeks, so we’ll likely do this at the end again to see how far we’ve improved.
The WOD: (Workout of the Day)
It’s split up into two parts – a strength workout, and then a workout set.
Strength: Back Squats – 6 sets of 3 @ 80% of your 1 rep max*, rest 2:00 between sets*If you don’t have a max, take the time to get one. I didn’t have a max, so I worked to get one today. I ended up hitting 85 lbs. for 3, and then 95 I managed to eek in 2 lifts. (85 is 20 pounds heavier than last time, so I’m feeling pretty good). 95 next time!
Benchmark WOD 1: “Fran”
21-15-9 reps for time:
Thrusters 95/65
Pull-ups
The prescribed weight for Fran for women is 65, but I’m still working up to full capacity. I eeked things out in 9:40, using 45 pounds. And I wanted to puke. But, that’s 10 pounds heavier than I did it last time. As for the pullups, well, jumping for me. This looks easy. It is not! I’m looking forward to what two months more of progress will bring me to.
When I got back home, I walked to the store to pick up a few vegetables, and set to work making a crunchy salmon salad. I was happy to have leftover grilled salmon on hand from last night, so it came together quickly. I’ll definitely be making this again soon with some of my frozen Copper River salmon – although you could also make it with a high quality wild canned salmon.
Just like tuna, but with salmon! I served it with a half an avocado, and two small tomatoes.
Crunchy salmon salad
serves 2 with leftovers for lunch
This recipe has a lot of mayo – but I make mine fresh, with good olive oil and a fresh egg, and it makes all the difference. You can reduce the amount you use to your taste, but it tastes better with more. Note, you can (and probably should) make this an hour or so before you eat it, and let the flavors meld in the fridge.
2 cups leftover cooked salmon (preferably wild)
2 hard boiled eggs
1 shallot
juice of a lemon
salt
1 red bell pepper
1 cucumber
1/4 cup homemade mayo
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
salt and pepper to taste
Mince your shallot, and place in a small bowl, adding a pinch of salt and the juice of a lemon. Let sit while you prep the rest of the salad. This tempers the shallot so it won’t have such a bite! In a large bowl, flake your salmon with the two hard boiled eggs.
Prep your vegetables – peel and dice the cucumber, and dice up your red bell pepper. Add to the salmon and egg mixture, and stir to combine. Add about a quarter cup of homemade mayo, and the cayenne, celery seed, and dill. Stir gently, add the lemon and shallot mixture, and stir again. Taste, and season with a little bit more salt if need be.
You can eat this right away, but it tastes a lot better if you give it an hour or so in the fridge. (Well learned lesson from my dad, tuna/salmon/crab salad master.) Serve as is, on lettuce, or a soft bun.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 13, 2012 | Challenge, Uncategorized
{via}
Things are shifting, and they’ll be looking a little bit different around here. For the next two months I’m participating in a challenge at my gym. Yes, that’s right, cue the crazy-alarm, I’ve gone ahead and lost my mind. The challenge is based on both fitness and nutrition, and boy am I looking forward to it. We’ll eat healthy, unprocessed foods (okay, so minimally processed – I don’t have a larder of canned foods to draw from, nor do I have a 12 cup food processor, so I’m okay with things like canned coconut milk, and frankly Rao’s tomato sauce is better than what I can make even from the best tomatoes) and each week we participate in new fitness challenges, with benchmarks at the beginning and end in power and endurance.
There are a few great things I love about this challenge. First, that I’m doing it with a team (and there are over 50 people participating). Doing anything with a team is fun. I wasn’t really a team gal in school, but now that I’ve been going to the gym on a regular basis and working out with people, I get it. Second, everyone is required to use a food journal. I’m a strong believe in using journaling to help you attain your goals. This is also good because I have a blog, and I plan on using it as my own accountability. Daily meals, inspiration, lists, and even yes, some workouts. Which means lots of posts over here – I hope you don’t get sick of me.
My focus for this challenge is on whole foods, cooking, improving my fitness, and general happiness. I haven’t hashed it all out yet, but, for now here’s what I’ve come up with in addition to the challenge rules:
My major nutrition goals for this challenge include: planning my meals and share my meal planning, eating at home as often as possible, eating a rainbow of colors and taking advantage of seasonal produce, and drinking a hell of a lot more water.
My major fitness goals for this challenge include: running a race, and then another one. I’m signed up for the first, in a little over a week. Yeesh! And, a 200 lb. deadlift. We’ll work on that one. I have a little ways to go.
Happiness goals include: Sticking to my kitchen resolutions, doing more to make my house into a home, being a better partner, daughter, sister and friend.
This won’t be about preaching, it’s a personal reset. But, I do hope to see you around. Have you ever done a challenge before?
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 19, 2010 | Books, Challenge
There is nothing quite like a little forced introspection to make you sit down and realize that you’ve had one of the most jam-packed years of your life. (Literally, lots of jam.) In this case, a competition — Foodbuzz’s Project Food Blog is the name of the game. Their first challenge requires me to define why I should be the Next Food Blog Star. Perhaps I should start be re-introducing myself to them, and to you.
I’m Samantha. And I love food.
Two years ago I needed a change of scenery and decided to move three thousand miles from the comfort of New Hampshire to bustling San Francisco. To be honest, this decision was probably made years earlier when I first watched the film Mrs. Doubtfire. Few things live up to the wide eyed optimism of a seven year old, but San Francisco held up its end of the bargain. I love it here.
Continuing with the spirit of reinventing myself, I started a food blog upon my arrival.
Little did I know where it would lead me. Shortly after joining Foodbuzz, I participated in Foodbuzz 24,24,24 and got an amazing dream meal at chef Chris Cosentino’s Incanto. This connected me to an internship at a Food P.R. firm. I started working with chefs and restaurants on recipe organization, development and testing, and fell in love with all the hard work behind creating a dining experience. Okay, truthfully this love started when I became a stagiere in a local restaurant at the age of 12.
Somewhere along the line I also became the research assistant and recipe tester on a cookbook by “Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it” author Karen Solomon (see, lots of jam). I became involved (re: obsessed) with Omnivore Books on Food, and eventually ended up pretty much moving in, thanks to Celia Sack offering me a mercy job. All the while, I took control of my own health, got back into shape, and I went back to school at Integrative Nutrition to become a Health Coach and help others do the same.
And for the sake of full disclosure, I should confess the number of cookbooks I own now well exceeds the bookshelves I own to store them.
Why do I blog you may ask?
Ultimately, it comes down to the people I get to meet and be truly inspired by. For me, food blogging is not just about the chow, but integrally about those who are a part of it. I realized early on I wanted to share their stories with you. And in many ways, that’s what The Second Lunch has become.
In the past year, I’ve met so many wonderful chefs and insiders of the industry — I truly feel blessed for where my passion for food has led me. For this post, I decided to make a list of some of the folks I’d met, thinking that I’d get a good paragraph out of it. I did not expect this brick wall of superstars. This shocks me every time I glance down at it.
The short list includes: the wonderful folks from Big Sur Bakery, Polly Adema, Arthur Allen, Nate Appleman, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Ed Behr, Amy Besa, John Besh, Carole Bloom, Mark Bittman, Kim Boyce, Bruce & Eric Bromberg, Frank Bruni, Novella Carpenter, Mark Stewart Cassidy, David Chang, Nan Chase, Anita Chu, Andrew Coe, Langdon Cook, Chris Cosentino, Temra Costa, Elizabeth Crawford, Dave Cruz, Tod Davies, Penny De Los Santos,Tracy Des Jardins, Elan Drucker and Brett Emerson, Tara Duggan, Gordon Edgar, Elizabeth Falkner, Sarah Max Feldner, Jeremy Fox, Zoe Francois & Dr. Jeff Hertzberg, Fran Gage, Marcia Gagliardi, Anna Getty, Barbara Ghazarian, Darra Goldstein, Evan Goldstein, Joyce Goldstein, William Grimes, Giuliano Hazan, Dierdre Heeken and Caleb Barber, Jaden Hair, Pauli Halstead, Gerald Hirigoyen, Fergus Henderson, Lauren Hoover, Dianne Jacob, Madhur Jaffrey, Michael Kalanty, Niloufer Ichaporia King, Thomas Keller, Shelly Lindgren, David Lebovitz, Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito of Baked, Barbara Lynch, Kermit Lynch, Deborah Madison, Jacqueline Mallorca, Harold McGee, Nancy Mehagian, Dr. Daphne Miller, Kate Moses, Marion Nestle, Cynthia Nims, Andrea Nguyen, Barbara Passino, Greg Patent, Cindy Pawlcyn, Georgia Pellegrini, James Peterson, Gayle Pirie, Michael Pollan, Michael Recchiuti, Peter Reinhart, John Relihan, Sara Remington, Tori Ritchie, Chad Robertson & Liz Pruitt, Lorna Sass, Rachel Saunders, Jennie Schacht, Lisa Schwartz, Kim Severson, Andrew Smith, Karen Solomon, Andrew Swallow, Heidi Swanson, Michael Symon, David Tanis, Pim Techamuanvivit, Corinne Trang, Patricia Unterman, Alice Waters, Max Watman, Tara Austen Weaver, Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, Ari Weinzweig, Joanne Weir, Laura Werlin, Kathy Wiley, Victoria Wise, Molly Wizenberg, Paula Wolfert, Scott Youkilis, Grace Young, and Jane Ziegelman – Not to mention the hundreds of other food lovers that I’ve had the pleasure to meet over the past two years. (They would fill another post in itself). And I already know I’m forgetting some wonderful people on this list.
And that’s only in the past year. In the next month I’m going to add Rene Redzepi, Tyler Florence, Michael Chiarello, Dorie Greenspan, Jordan McKay, and Diana Kennedy to that list. And who knows who else?
* * *
Just incase you need another reason to push me onto the next round, here are several awkward and embarrassing photos from my childhood revolving around food. From top left: The taste tester, baking cookies with Sarah and Sara, hugging the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut, and picking apples from a tree.
Mostly though, I blog because I love it here. I love being part of a greater community who cares just as much as I do, and doesn’t bat an eye when I whip out a camera at dinner and debate the origin of our meal with my dining companions, purchase another cookbook I don’t have space for because I don’t want to deprive myself of knowledge, wait an hour in line for crispy pork skin because well, it’s crispy pork skin, or wade through thousands of hungry hippies at the farmers market for the perfect summer peach.
Yes, my name is Samantha and I love food.
But equally, I love everything that surrounds it.
