Outsourcing my blog, episode VII: Dump and bake

[Here is Cassie's first guest post. Thanks all for helping to keep UaKS new and interesting.]

 

JC and I recently watched “Easy-Bake Battle” on Netflix, and I learned about the glorious “dump and bake.” The beauty of the dump and bake is that you put all of your ingredients into one pan, stir, and then put it in the oven for a while. We’re always on the lookout for easy, low-effort meals that we can throw together after a long work day using our last functioning brain cell.

 

Not only is this dish seriously delicious, but it couldn’t possibly be any easier. I mean really, who wouldn’t want to enjoy all the benefits of pasta without having to even boil pasta? Plus, Dad’s favorite benefit—there’s enough time to clean your dishes while it cooks. By “dishes,” I mean your knife, cutting board, and cheese grater, because that’s all this recipe produces!

 

Illusory superiority

One of my favorite findings in social science is the mathematically impossible (much higher than 50%) number of people who think they're above average at various things. Social scientists love to coin clever names for phenomena and this one especially. This particular cognitive bias has been called, among other things, illusory superiority, the above-average effect, superiority bias, and, my favorite, the Lake Wobegon effect, after the fictional town in Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion radio show, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

 

A classic study ("Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers?") by Ola Svenson, published in 1981, demonstrated illusory superiority among drivers. Svenson found that 77% of Swedish drivers, and an incredible 88% of American drivers, believed themselves to be safer than the median driver. This study was successfully replicated by Lina Koppel and colleagues in 2023 ("We are all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers: Successful replication and extension of Svenson"). The new study found that over 90% of participants (all Americans) believed themselves to be safer than the median driver. Importantly, the participants in the 2023 study were 562 males and 641 females, so this was not just a guys-think-they-are-superior-drivers thing.

Driving lessons

If you want to be thoroughly entertained for eight minutes, watch this short film: "Shanti Rides Shotgun." This is one of the most New York things ever, in a good way. [I tried to embed the Vimeo video here, but Google's crappy blogger platform was having none of it.]

 

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Episode # 483: Food of love

Remember back in the day when Emeril Live was on every evening at 8:00 on the Food Network? Back then, there weren't many other options available for cooking shows, so I watched fairly regularly. He had all sorts of catchphrases — "Bam!" being the most famous — but I always liked when he said something was so good you could put it on a bumper and it would taste good.

 

Another thing that stuck with me was Emeril referring to something as a "food of love thing." I think most of the time he was talking about some kind of comfort food, like Uncle Clint's Mac & Cheese from episode #1 of UaKS, which was posted exactly 10 years ago today, and the Baked Ziti "welcome food" from episode #57 that I make every time one of you shows up here for dinner after a long trip, just like Grandma Pina used to make for our family. 

 

But I think it can also refer to any food, simple to fancy and everything in between, that you make with love and attention and the intention of nourishing the family and/or friends you're serving it to, hopefully accompanied by lively, interesting conversation. Like Emeril said, "Anything made with love, bam! – it's a beautiful meal."

 

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Misophonia revisited

I first discovered there is a scientific explanation for the irritation I feel when I hear certain sounds back in 2017 when Cassie sent me a Science News article entitled "If chewing sounds irk you, blame your brain." This came up again in a very good science fiction novel I just finished, Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino. 

 

The protagonist, Adina, is an alien life form sent to Earth to "take notes" on human beings (which, in a nice touch, she sends home using a fax machine) to see if her species can move here from their dying planet. Like me, Adina has a problem with various sounds. For example, she doesn't like going to the movies because the sound of all that popcorn chewing is cacophonous to her. She thinks it has to do with being an alien, until, after about 40 years on Earth, she visits a doctor to have her hearing checked. The doctor tells Adina

there’s a word for her aversion to sound. Misophonia. That the condition had been maligned for many years but has recently become slightly less maligned. “People report feeling rage when their loved ones clear their throats or eat. The clicking of a pen can launch them into fits of impassioned yelling. Some have berated strangers.”

Throat clearing, eating, pen clicking.

 

Check, check, and check on my list.

 

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A love letter to the world

My gratitude for the day is for the public library system. I recently read about a book I was really interested in: Four Seasons in Rome (2007) by Anthony Doerr, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2015 for All the Light We Cannot See. It wasn't available through Libby, but they do have two copies in the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library system. I put a hold on it, and it was transferred to, and available for pickup the next day at, our local Central Library, where I exchanged it for The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay, which I had just finished.

 

The Closer

Lately, Mom has several times come up with a missing answer that cracks the last unsolved corner in one of the crossword puzzles Brad and I have been working. She even managed this on a Saturday Stumper. Luckily, Mom has been surprisingly humble about this. Not! 😆

 

 

In addition to writing braggadocious things trumpeting the one answer she got in the entire puzzle, Mom has started referring to herself as "The Closer." As in, "Have you guys gotten stuck yet? Hand it over to The Closer and I'll break it open for you." This is why Brad and I are especially happy when we solve all of the Stumper in one sitting.

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Pesto update

Mom has been using all the summer basil to make pesto left and right so I thought I should get this one posted sooner rather than later. This is just a minor tweak to the original pesto, from a post in which I lauded the virtues of making pesto in a mortar and pestle. It's still great that way, but this one is quick and easy and a little more flexible, providing for the use of just about any kind of nuts (pecans were surprisingly good!). If you want to make this pesto but serve it in the traditional Genovese way with some potato and beans, you can still follow the instructions for the rest of the recipe for Pasta al Pesto Ricco.

Cooking for one

I'm in the second of my multiple stints home alone this summer, so I had a chance to cook again this new recipe I found that makes one small portion of noodles right in your dinner bowl. Not to bury the lede, these may be the best noodles I've had. It's insane how good and easy these are, mixing the sauce right in the bowl you're going to eat out of and ready in under 15 minutes. They're good enough to make you look forward to being alone and cooking for yourself. This one goes straight to bold in the index of "Recipes."

Running and executive function

There are lots of studies showing that running improves executive function, which Psychology Today describes as

a set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals. The “executive functions,” as they’re known, include attentional control, working memory, inhibition, and problem-solving, many of which are thought to originate in the brain’s prefrontal cortex.

For example, one Japanese study from 2019 found that, compared to brain function at rest, just 10 minutes of moderate-intensity running (50% of VO₂ Max) increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex and thereby significantly boosts both executive function (measured using the Stroop Color and Word Test) and mood, which is also controlled by the prefrontal cortex. The lead author has opined that "running may stimulate the prefrontal cortex more broadly to benefit mood and executive function than other forms of exercise that do not require as much coordination of weight-bearing activity, such as pedaling."

The big day

As you all know, we recently had a very big day here in Central Virginia. Yes, it was time again for the Friends of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library spring book sale. Wait, did something else important happen recently? 🤯 We'll cover that too, but I need some more time to process everything. In the meantime, here are the 22 books that $31 bought me at the book sale the week before last. "The Vulture" (aka Brad) has really turned the corner, as he ended up being the big winner this year, with lots of recent books that he put off buying new and ended up finding for $3 and $4 at the book sale. Go Brad!

 

From the Friday night members' pre-sale

Saturday afternoon's tally

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A flophouse in Duluth

When someone in our family catastrophizes (which is not all that infrequently), Brad thinks of Dan Harris in 10% Happier, whose catastrophizing always ended up with him in a "flophouse in Duluth." For example, if someone scored an assignment that Harris wanted while he was still working at ABC News, he would think the executive who made the assignments "dislikes me → My career is doomed → I'm going to end up in a flophouse in a Duluth." Or he noticed some thinning in the back of his basically full head of hair (Hello!) and imagined a future that looked like this: "Baldness → Unemployment → Flophouse in Duluth." I think this is a funny image to keep in mind when your catastrophizing gets out of hand to calm things down.

 

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Forty years too late

I recently received the latest issue of Johns Hopkins Magazine (Spring 2023), which is billed as “The Food Issue.” One of the stories is about Dharshan Munidasa, who got an engineering degree from Hopkins in 1994 but is now a chef and restaurateur best known for his Ministry of Crab restaurants (great name!). Munidasa’s recollection of the food offered at Hopkins’ Homewood campus in the early ’90s is that “You could eat it, but it was never interesting. It was mass-produced. Boring.” That’s actually a slight step up from what I’d say about the food we were served at Homewood a decade earlier. His reaction was similar to mine though, that is, “to eat well [given the crappy Hopkins dining hall food] he needed to teach himself to cook well.” Which is how I started making spaghetti alla carbonara for your Mom on a regular basis after we began dating.

 

Gilman Hall (Daderot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Hopkins is apparently now seeking to change the food culture on campus. In his opening letter in the Food Issue, Hopkins president Ronald Daniels says that food “brings people together, expanding our tastes and inspiring us to greater creativity. It truly binds a community.” To that end, Hopkins has “spent the last year bringing all our dining operations in-house instead of contracting with an external partner,” like they did in my day. Now, Daniels writes, the improved “Hopkins dining experience should be a source of joy, comfort, and the feeling of home.” New offerings on campus will include Puerto Rican pernil, barbeque jackfruit, the new Director of Culinary Innovation’s favorite tandoori-style chicken, and even—oh, the irony—“house-made gelato.”

Spring book sale report, day one

Time again for one of our favorite events of the year, the first Friday evening of the biannual Friends of the Library book sale. This time around I found hardly anything that was actually on my list, but I still came away with some interesting finds that I wasn't looking for, or previously aware of in most cases, which is one of the best things about the book sale: being able to take some flyers on books you've never heard of for only $1 or $2. Here's my haul from day one:

This is what $21 buys you at the book sale

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B.A.R.F.

Among the many reasons you should be grateful for your dear old parents is that we didn't let Dylan participate in naming either of his siblings. I've been reading Give and Take (2013) by Adam Grant[1] ($2 at the Book Sale). He has a few pages in there about some really interesting research on the surprising effects your name can have on, among other things, your occupation and even your longevity.[2]

 

For example, if your first name is Dennis, you're almost twice as likely to become a dentist (Dennis the Dentist!) than someone with a similarly common name like Jerry or Walter. Another study showed that people with the surname Doctor are more likely to become doctors (Dr. Doctor!) than lawyers, while people with the last name Lawyer are more likely to become lawyers. This phenomenon even extends to medical subspecialties, with Raymonds being more likely to become radiologists (Raymond the Radiologist!) than dermatologists.

What's more interesting is that even just your initials can have a seemingly big effect. For example, one study showed that men with "positive" initials—such as A.C.E., J.O.Y., or V.I.P.—live about 4½ years longer on average, while men with "negative" initials—like B.U.M., D.I.E., or P.I.G.—die about 2.8 years younger (the effect is smaller in women). For some reason, the effect was much larger in professional baseball players, among whom players with "positive" initials like A.C.E. lived a mean of 13 years longer than players with neutral initials or "negative" initials like D.E.D.

Fast food, episode XI

We had some locally made packaged potato gnocchi while we were in Italy, which were really good. Mom liked them so much that she lugged some packages across the Atlantic to distribute to glutenous family members. Then I went to Trader Joe's after we got back and found some similar gnocchi—also a "product of Italy," though Joe doesn't say where exactly in Italy because his sourcing is such a big secret—which were almost, but not quite, as good as the stuff we bought in Italy.

 

Both products have a similar ingredient list, including being made primarily of potato flakes, which is the star ingredient in the Instant Mashed Potato Gnocchi that we like so well.

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We have a contender

For years, I've printed out Newsday's "Saturday Stumper" crossword puzzle and worked my way through it. Sometimes that only takes 20 or 30 minutes, sometimes it takes me days or even, on occasion, a few weeks. When Brad is here, we work it together, and it usually goes a lot quicker because we feed off each other's thoughts and answers. Plus, Brad is great at figuring out the long ones, sometimes with hardly any letters already filled in.

 

When we're stumped for a little bit, Mom always asks if we need her help, then she usually grabs the puzzle and looks at it for about 30 seconds before getting bored and saying she's "got nothing" and giving it back. Last week though, Mom had her all-time Saturday Stumper moment, when she found a few wrong letters, which helped her finish off the missing clues by herself. And, as you can imagine, she let us know about it! Check this out:

Hats off to Mom for her excellent puzzle work. Even so, I think the appropriate description was not "contender," but "pretender."

 

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Belated V Day: Plaisir d'amour

For obvious reasons, Valentine's Day dinner this year consisted of Mom and I eating in different rooms, on different floors. (Mom's text: "Happy fucking Valentine's Day.") While I was eating alone in Brad's room, I read a great review in the New Yorker by Hua Hsu of the Soul Music podcast that the BBC has been producing since 2000. It's a fabulous testament to the power of music, with each episode generally featuring a good mix of joyous and moving moments. The episodes on "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "God Only Knows" are some real tear-jerkers.

 

Given the proximity to Valentine's Day, I was especially pleased to listen to the episode on "Plaisir d'amour" (the "pleasure of love"), a classical French love song written in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (how many hyphens can you jam into one name?). Listen to Marianne Faithfull’s rendition of the song (featured in the Soul Music episode) and see if you can figure out why. Do you recognize the tune, before looking below the video? 

 

Sparking joy, episode IV

One of my latest dives into the psychological literature was Chatter, a 2021 book by Ethan Kross, a professor in the University of Michigan’s psychology department and its business school. To quote the subtitle, the book is about "the voice in our head, why it matters, and how to harness it." Throughout the book, Kross offers a variety of tools we can use to harness the voice in our head instead of letting it derail us. I've discussed some of the tools before, including getting out in nature and using "distanced self-talk," that is, talking to yourself in the second ("you") or third person ("Paul") to gain some psychological distance from your problems.

 

I'm happy to say that Kross also reports that there is a scientific basis for the joy sparkage that comes from some Marie Kondo-style decluttering. Researchers have found that ordering our surroundings creates "perceptions of control—the belief that we possess the ability to impact the world in ways we desire"—which ends up having all sorts of psychological benefits, including improved physical health and emotional well-being, better performance at work and school, and more satisfying interpersonal relationships. Wow, all that just from cleaning up your desk or getting the excess crap off the dump-zone surfaces in your house.

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Redundancy

Mom and I have enjoyed our empty nest for all of eight days since the pandemic hit in March, which was the total amount of time that JMU was able to hold onto Brad once school started in the fall. After Brad and Cass left the house for a few weeks, the first meal I made was a new tuna pasta (the fourth), with a new microwave chocolate mug cake (the fourth) for dessert. You are now undoubtedly thinking, what's with the old man, does he really need four recipes for tuna pasta and four recipes for microwave chocolate mug cake (not to mention the 4.5 recipes for banana bread)?

 

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