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August 11, 2006
Fluency
"I never would have thought of putting cumin and paprika into cauliflower," said MR, as he sat down and began to enjoy his salad of kale topped with cauliflower, which had been marinated in tarragon white wine vinegar with cumin and paprika and steamed for two minutes in the microwave, then topped with a teaspoon of olive oil and fresh ground pepper. To the salad I added a dish of eggwhites scrambled with tomatoes, green peppers, avocado, salsa and kale stems chopped finely, and nonfat cheddar along with two tablespoons of a black bean salsa I picked up at the local gourmet shop last weekend, topped with a teaspoon flax oil. Dessert was a CR'd chocolate crepe: low carb tortilla filled with nonfat ricotta and Walden Farms chocolate sauce, folded over and lightly cooked. The meal was high volume, low calorie, high nutrient content, and delicious. I put it together in about half an hour.
When I first started cooking for MR... using DWIDP to put together perfectly Zoned dinners of exactly precisely 639 calories, it was hard. I remember the first time I tried to cook for him: February of 05, the first night when Aubrey de Grey, his new boss and world famous theoretical biogerontologist, was staying with us in Calgary. MR and I were new lovers, MR and Aubrey were new co-workers, and I was new to Zoned exactly precisely measured cooking. I nearly tore my hair out cooking that first meal of scallops in white wine with tomatoes and cilantro. Then I learned how to use the software, not just to compute my daily nutrional needs, but to make each individual meal come out perfect. A few more eggwhites here... a few hazelnuts there to make up for some fat... a couple more blueberries can fit into that recipe, but no more tomato sauce... practice made perfect. It was hard at times when I was learning, but now it's easy, and it's fun.
Over the last few days when I've been meeting with RNs again after many months organizing non-RN health care professionals, I was reminded of how fluency feels. I know RN issues so well, the language that nurses speak to each other, the stress they are under and the challenges they stand up to every day. Organizing RNs again is like hanging out with a bunch of old friends. They're all new names and new faces, but they're so familiar that it's like I've known them all along. Luke barely got a word in edgewise, as I was so busy chatting with the nurses like I had known them all my life.
When I was in high school, I learned to speak French. I had taken French classes since seventh grade, but it wasn't until I had a close friend who had spent a year in France that I truly learned to speak French. We would chatter together (mostly about boys) in our secret language. My French improved. Later on, my best friend was a beautiful redheaded girl named Kathleen whose family was from Montreal. She spoke French with a gorgeous French-Canadian accent, and I started talking like I was a teenager from Montreal. I lost most of my French when I grew up and stopped practicing, but I'm sure that if I were to spend the day hanging out in cafes in Montreal, it would come back. Fluency is like that. It's hard to win, but you never really lose it.
It took about a year of intense study and practice to learn fluency with the concepts of good nutrition, CR-friendly cooking, and to learn what makes my body and mind feel best. Just like my first few years of nurse organizing when I was learning the language through many rough meetings of two or three nurses at once who asked me questions I couldn't answer, my first year of CR was both exhilariating and frustrating. Now it's easier. The struggles are different: keeping to my CR when life stresses me out, keeping my calories low when it seems like every night is a celebratory dinner out, paying attention to my calorie intake when my constipated cat is worrying me. But I can always return to my well-researched, nutritionally balanced, calorie-counted quotidian diet, and forget about it! And I can make beautiful, delicious CR meals, any calorie level you like, with very little effort. I'm fluent in CR now. It's kinda fun.
Posted by april at August 11, 2006 8:33 PM
Comments
I am fluent in the language of theater and I believe it has taken me somewhere today.
Fluency I think is riding a bike and swimming.
Once you figure it out, you never unlearn it completely.
Posted by: istanbulwitch at August 12, 2006 7:28 PM