The Great Autumnal Simmer Down - Pt.2

The food selection was critical and we thought about it carefully. We wanted to stick with the season and revolve around what was relevant to Autumn: lots of root veggies, roasted chicken and slow-cooked pork. Something about a warm meal of potatoes, root veggies and chicken makes me feel great. Reminds me of my childhood Sundays at my grandparents house.

So, we decided to knock out big spend items first to see what you we were dealing with cost wise. Cliff is a veteran professional chef, so he knows most of this off the top of his head: what ingredients work well together and what we should be paying for it. We spent two or three hours working and reworking the list and menu, triangulating what we wanted to accomplish and how we could make substitutions and better buys.

Also, we avoided the Wisconsin freezer staple: the casserole. I know that some will think us insane for overlooking this family feeding dish, but please hear me out. For one thing, casseroles are not my personal favorite. If I wanted every ingredient in every bite I would buy bigger forks!

Casseroles are typically infill items: you throw them together at the beginning of the day and then bake later. Same deal with soups and crock pot meals. They are better as needed and made with what's hanging out in the fridge. The exception was our chili base. Maybe we will change this up next time, we'll see.

So, back to the shopping list.

MEAT

First off, plenty of proteins: 42# of whole chickens and 40# of boneless thighs. This would be made into several dishes. 20# of pork picnic cut (similar to shoulder) for slow cooking in (gulp) rendered fat. This would yield yummy, crispy carnitas and chicarones for mexican deliciousness. Also some pork roasts that would be vac sealed for our boil in bag meals.

We also threw in some ground beef for chili base and burger patties and a 20# tri-tip cut for little roasts and beef tips. That and a 20# corned beef brisket for slow cooking and slicing.

Lesson learned: the pork picnic cut is cheaper than shoulder/butt and yield perfectly acceptable roasts and carnitas. The tri-tip is a decent substitute for the more expensive hanger steak that we were considering. Avoid really great cuts like steaks or tenderloins since we were freezing them anyway. We bought all of these at Restaurant Depot.

VEGGIES

On the veg side we gathered 30# of potatoes, 15# parsnips, 20# white onions, 10# zucchini, 10# summer squash, 15# butternut squash, 10# turnips, 20# carrots, 15# beets. It's a lot (trust us we know) but we put veg into each meal bag and had plenty of veg only bags as well, for when we are not feeling as carnivorous. We bought all of these goods in 10# portions or better at Woodman's, Sam's Club and Restaurant Depot.

We were planning on grilling some veg, roasting some veg and leaving some in the cellar for immediate use. Except for the on hand items this was a lot of peeling and dicing. We saved some time by purchasing lovely italian tomatoes cooked and peeled in the can. Same deal for roasted peppers, tomatillos and pineapple. The canned stuff is really good and saves a ton of time.

Despite the canned items this still meant a lot of prep for one day, but we rose early and got to it.

The Kitchen

Our kitchen is small and has a standard amount of counter space. One oven and range top with four burners. Right off, it was apparent we would need more room so we set up the outdoor kitchen. Ours consists of a collapsible rain cover, a picnic table for prep and a section of counter top on sawhorses.

Keep in mind we live in the city so its a sight to see when everything is set up, but there you have it. Luckily, we used the rain fly: we could not have had a more November day in terms of overcast and light on and off drizzle.

The counter top was set up on sawhorses and laden with a large cutting board and two Nesco electric roasters. We also set up a pair of charcoal grills. A large cooler of meat and three or four plastic tubs of veg and other ingredients were set within easy reach and we were done with outside setup.

Let's get cookin' in the next post

The Great Autumnal Simmer Down

As winter approaches in Wisconsin we all start to hunker down a little: wrapping up tight in anticipation of gray autumn days, blustery wind and dropping temperatures. With all of the late work nights, deadlines and holiday commitments, it's easy to succumb to the "we'll just grab something" at Champion Chicken or Emperor of China on late dinner nights.

The other night, on a beer fueled lark, my buddy Cliff and I decided to take on a new cooking challenge. We were considering an all day cookout that would put a substantial stock of food in our chest freezer. Enough to provide 3-4 meals a week for our respective families through the end of winter. He is feeding an adult and child and I have 2 adults and 2 children.

This plan was a hedge against the cost and quality problem of "unavoidable takeout". No preaching, though. We love to eat out or grab carryout, but its much more fun when you want to do it rather than feeling as though your hand is forced by laziness or lack of preparation. The problem is feeding my family costs a minimum of 30-40 bucks at either place, every time. Also, while its fine to indulge occasionally, the food cannot compare to what we can make ourselves.

So, our plan was simple. Make a wide menu based on three proteins, include loads of veg, and figure out a way to do it all in a kitchen that would be at home on a submarine.

In part two we get to the food.

Drawing Again....

Neil is drawing, which basically means I am drawing...just trading ideas.

Just a couple that I rubbed out in Photoshop using my dust gathering tablet. Just flippin' through a Hellboy trade and taking inspiration. A couple looks at Rasputin and then with one with the Mad Monk and 'ol Red. Mostly erased these from a black background.

Pulling the Plug on Cable TV - pt.1

After talking about it for months we are closing in on ending our cable subscription. For many years we were Time Warner Cable subscribers and took advantage of bundling our cable, phone and internet service. Last year we switched to AT&T UVerse (U200) service in an effort to save money and get more options for our cable box. We did save money and were generally very happy with the new options. AT&T has been great and we have had no real complaints (a minority view these days, maybe). In any event, the services were not the problem.

The problem was the price and priority we were placing on television. We like to think that we don't spend inordinate time watching TV. We limit ourselves to about 90-120 minutes and our kids to about 60-90 minutes per day. We watch about 15 channels with any regularity. The kids watch about 10. The convenience of switching on the box, even with a time-shifting DVR, is inescapable. I think the main reason for keeping it all to this point was the kids and the ease with which they could be entertained.

Entertainment costs a ton. Our current monthly bill is $160. I don't think that I need to justify my horror.

Breaking It Down

It's all bundled so it gets a little complicated, here is a more straightforward version of my normally incomprehensible billing statement.

$67/cable
$33/phone
$25/internet (18Mb connex) Normally $55 for internet (- $30 promo credit for 12 months)
$18/non-monthly charges (taxes and fees)
$17/additional charges (wtf?)

Another way of looking at it:

$160/month
$5/day
$1,920.00/year 2010
$2,280.00/year 2011 In 2011, we lose the $30/mo. Internet promo credit

Our Goals

For us, that is way too much to be spending on a system that offers us too few price points on content packages: We have 200 channels of which we watch 15 to 30. Spendy overkill for the convenience of a cable box and DVR. That's gotta go. Savings ~$804/year

Historically, we kept a "land line" for Susan's benefit, but I think we have turned the corner on that one with a new iPhone 3GS for her. So, the AT&T Phone is going as well. Savings ~$396/year

Reducing the Internet portion is a non-starter: we have an internet business, we play games, we surf all the time and have a computer in every room. 12-18Mb is probably just fine for our media needs, but we might need to move to a 24-30Mb connex in the future. Savings ~$0/year

So...cable pricing sucks and the content packages are overdelivered with stuff that we will never watch. The "land line" is really just a voip phone that is delivered over the internet connection anyway. What are we planning to do?

1. Replace Cable with internet delivered content: Netflix, Hulu, PlayOn and content websites.
2. Reduce our monthly AT&T bill to $55/mo. + charges for internet
3. Replace AT&T land line with a pair of smart phones that offer better service and the ability to access the content on Netflix, Hulu, etc.
4. Add a new iPhone (~$99 one-time) and data plan ($20/mo.)

More on how we do it all in the next article.

The Road to a New Web Site. pt 1

The new site for the TMJ Association launched in early 2010. As a member of the team that worked on the site, Terrie and Deanne asked me to let you know a little bit of the behind-the-scenes thinking that went in to it's creation.

When we were first brought in to redevelop the TMJ Association website we felt pretty confident: We had just finished a similar project for another not-for-profit organization that used the same underlying software and practices. Each organization had similar challenges and goals, despite having different audiences.

After meeting Terrie and Deanne we realized that they are the heart and soul of the TMJ Association. No one knows more about the daily trials of TMJ Disorder sufferers, or what it takes to keep a not-for-profit organization running with a full-time staff of two. That's right, these two extraordinary women are it, the entire full time operation! I wish I had their energy and dedication.

WHY A NEW SITE?
The TMJ Association had been noticing for some time that new membership was not keeping pace with previous years. The amount of traffic on their site was falling off and they were not sure what to do about it. Just adding more content to their current site was not working and with only two people full time it was difficult to understand how they could really do more.

We decided together that the overriding goals for the new site were:

1. To present the most valuable information so it's easy to find
   
2. Tie the site together with a better structure to make prominent information stand out.
3. Provide hooks to social media to broaden the exposure to a wider audience.
   

We knew we needed to focus on four main areas: content, social media, design and tracking our results. Seemed simple enough, but as always, there are unforeseen challenges.

WHAT STAYS AND WHAT GOES
The first challenge: look at current site content and winnow it down to the essential elements. The previous site, www.tmj.org, was stuffed full of information, some of it timely and some that was archival material. Adding to the problem was most of the content was sort of floating around on the site at the same level. There was nothing really calling attention to the more relevant information (diagnosis, treatment, things to say to your dentist).

We knew that this was the information that most new audience members wanted before delving deeper. Terrie and Deanne both know how important it is for TMJ disorder sufferers to get good information quickly. We decided that converting every scrap of information from the old site was not practical, we needed to make decisions about what to keep and what to leave on the previous site.

Initially, we considered shutting down the old site but this presented two major problems:

1. We already had Google recognition on www.tmj.org and many users that were happy with its layout and presentation.
   
2. A lot of the information at www.tmj.org was not useful on the new site, but not ready to be scrapped.
   

No matter how good a new thing is there will always be those that preferred what came before, what they were comfortable with. So, just shutting the previous site down was not really an option. Also, the goal of the new site was to present information in new ways and broaden the audience. So, what did we do?

Well, we left www.tmj.org alone...for the most part. Once we had a design (more on this later), we made the previous site look a bit updated with new graphics and logos and we renamed it as the TMJ Archive, but left it running at www.tmj.org.

Over time we hope that users will see the previous site as the "library" of the TMJ Association, a place to go when you need older documents, etc. Hopefully, the new site will be akin to a "coffee shop" where our audience can get up-to-date, portable information and social media links. Even after we decided what content needed to be moved we needed to look at that content carefully.

MAKE IT STAND OUT
To be certain we were serving our potential new audience we reviewed and edited the content for online presentation. We created more prominent headlines to make content easier to identify. We offered multiple ways to find information, such as a search box, a couple of different menus, blogs, etc. We simplified the content into three main areas:

1. Living with TMJD's - Essential real world information about dealing with disorders
2. The TMJ Community - Links and resources that unify our audience and provide them with updates.
3. The Science of TMJ - Keeping our audience informed about research and good practices.

Most online readers scan rather than read. They do not take the time to read every article (no matter how valuable it might seem to the writer). They zip through the first few words and move on unless they're really interested. So what did we do?

Nothing radical here, just streamlined to be presented for scanning rather than in-depth reading. Shortened some articles, made lists of others, etc. always with an eye to keeping the information succinct, on target and easily accessible.

NEXT TIME : Design Decisions.

Jazz and Cloud Apps

Just working it all out again on a Monday AM. Summoning motivation, organizing into work mode and starting another week. Sunny and beautiful outside judging by the slice of light peeking into my basement office. My Bud Powell Pandora station is keeping me sane.

Tried out a couple of new things last week: Evernote (www.evernote.com) and Pivotal Tracker (www.pivotaltracker.com) to keep life and projects in a more manageable space. More manageable in any event than my head.

Evernote is a cool little cloud app for organizing your life and work that uses the concept of notebooks. Each one contains notes, which can be text, photos, audio, webclippings, etc. The webclipping feature is great for project research: you highlight a page (or portion of a page) and hit the Evernote plugin button (in Firefox) and the content is automagically updated to your Evernote account. The photo and audio options are great with your iPhone, you can just snap shots or record musings and they are synched with your account. And its free with some bandwidth (and other) limitations. Runs on Mac/Win/iPhone/etc. Nice.

Pivotal Tracker is project management with a story based concept at its core. Each story is part of the overall project and as you complete stories it builds a map of how you work and how you categorize your work to provide a better understanding of how and when you can meet deadlines. Autopromotion and tracking determine the "velocity" of the current project and the program itself make recommendations about what to do next and why. Interesting. "HAL? HAL? What should we work on today?" Light screenfeel due to Ajax-like interface that allows swift drag and drops of tasks between lists. Initial test drive left me feeling like this could work for my own little company. Simple and easy to use. More to come as I learn more...

I know there are not many of you listening, but I hope this helps out.

Writing Blahs

I really need to practice writing more. The first time I write anything it just sits there on the page. dead. Yuck. I am not feeling the flow. Also, maybe just not all that happy since the dreaded stomach flu last week. Disgusting.

Been dealing with lots of funky vibes lately, but I'm determined to keep my chin up. I am ignoring every thing that is telling me to lie down and feel bad. I am conquering tomorrow.

Watching the Olympics is great for fighting depression. Tales of inspiration, real world inspiration. I am not a sports fan generally, but the Olympics are an exception. I even liked watching curling the other day. Though for sheer heart attack power the bobsled is where it's at.

I read in WIRED today that world records in athletics are increasingly safe without the aid of technology (such as friction reducing sharksuits in competitive swimming). The article made the case for the end of the natural human curve of athletic record breaking. How much faster, really, can anyone go than Usain Bolt, currently clocked at 28mph! Can we go 30, 35, 40 mph! It's a good question.

Thats all for now... not much of use.