Chai and my matai mortar

by Anton Zuiker on November 11, 2019

Mortar and pestle from New Zealand

I stopped drinking coffee in early August, and started drinking tea again, though some days I get to early afternoon and realize I have had no caffeine, and what I really need is a cup of cold water.

At home at night I’m back to making masala chai, following the recipe I read long ago in Saveur Magazine. To smash the cinnamon and cloves and cardamom and peppercorn, I use the mortar and pestle, made of matai wood, that I bought in New Zealand when Erin and I vacationed there in 1999. (That was during our Peace Corps service in the Republic of Vanuatu.)

I miss drinking good coffee. I stopped drinking it to save money and to change up my daily routine—not visiting Gray Squirrel every morning gets me to work earlier, and home earlier, and into my running shoes earlier—but I imagine I’ll come to a day when I realize the trusty mortar and pestle will still be here if I give chai a rest.

The slope out back

by Anton Zuiker on November 9, 2019

Today began as a crisp, clear Saturday morning, the first of the fall to start below freezing. Last night I’d shut the door to the chicken coop to trap what heat the hens on their roost might make. Now I stepped into the day and let the hens out into their yard. The early sun was sideways through the trees, and I stood looking across the property, seeing more clearly than ever the way our land slopes to the northeast. I went walking that way, down among the white oaks and yellow poplars and red maples and pignut hickories that have dropped most of their leaves. Liro, our cat, followed, and one squirrel saw him coming and scampered away. A silent morning, and cold, so I returned to the house and the warm bed inside.

Slovenia vodka

by Anton Zuiker on November 7, 2019

On my way home from work this evening, I listened to the Wine & Spirits episode of the From Scatch with Michael Ruhlman podcast. The first half is Michael in his New York City kitchen with chef Brian Polcyn cooking a jus lié (white wine sauce, recipe here), and it made me hungry, and want to spend time in my own kitchen this weekend.

Then, Michael was talking Cabernet Sauvignon with winemaker Dave Phinney and vodka with chef Peter Kelly, who explained how he came to produce Slovenia vodka after visiting that country and discovering the excellent source of buckwheat. Listen to a clip here.

I once had Slovenia vodka in its square bottle, a gift from my good friend and proud Slovenian-American Joe Cimperman. I’m not a regular vodka drinker, but I do remember it as being very good. I think a few other friends discovered it at one of our holiday parties and drained it dry.

At the moment in our freezer is a bottle of Russian Standard vodka. I was introduced that by a Russian friend here in North Carolina.

Styles of communication

by Anton Zuiker on November 6, 2019

I am nearing the ten-year mark in my role as communications director for the Duke Department of Medicine. I’m grateful for the job (and the excellent Duke benefits). I’m proud of how I’ve responded to the needs of the department’s leaders and faculty and medical trainees, and also how I’ve found ways to keep moving forward. The Duke River of News and the Voices of Duke Health listening booth and podcast are two examples.

A couple of years ago, as the department got a new leader (my boss) and big institutional initiatives loomed—workforce well-being, scientific integrity, how healthcare is paid—I recognized an opportunity to push myself to be more effective, creative, and visionary.

One way I’m doing this is by drafting a communications strategic plan to guide my team’s work over the next five years. I’ve worked on this over the last few months, writing and editing and gathering suggestions from colleagues. Many of them highlighted a certain phrase I used on the page describing the styles of communication we follow in our work: “small just, just ahead” was confusing to my colleagues, who clearly weren’t familiar with my blog post, Anticipation, that explains how I developed this perspective. So, I’ve adjusted the punctuation and description in my table of styles.

Here’s what that table now includes:

In my document, I also credit my friend Dave Winer for describing or developing a few of these styles. He’s written extensively about narrating your work, the natural born blogger, and the river of news. Dave recently celebrated 25 years of blogging.

The blogging style also references my own experiences as a blogger.

The park ranger style of communication is another one I’ve described on my blog, in Lone ranger walks again. That post references New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell and his long walks through the boroughs of New York City. I caught another, more-recent reference that suggests the educational role of a park ranger. The NYTimes Travel section last month featured this article about Frederick Law Olmsted’s tours of English parks and how that shaped his vision of landscape design.

In Central Park, Olmsted had established a security system that resembled the policing of city streets. But he returned to New York determined to try a gentler approach to security. Instead of relying on arrests, he blanketed the park with signs listing his rules, which forbade indecent language, throwing stones, picking flowers — even annoying birds. He also assembled a group of so-called park keepers who asserted control with friendly reminders and education.

I was last in Central Park in October 2017 with my family, and before that in May 2016, with Dave.

Back at work, the communications strategic plan has many more pages to reflect our complex and large department and all that we’re planning to communicate in the years ahead.

There will be more to report, I’m sure.

Michael Ruhlman's new book and new podcast

by Anton Zuiker on October 20, 2019

Michael Ruhlman has a nice new look for his website to coincide with a new book out last week: From Scratch. I’m hoping to pick up my copy at The Regulator Bookshop tomorrow. Michael also has a new podcast, From Scratch.

In his first episode, Michael’s guest Krishnendu Ray ends with a thought about the sensory memory of food, and how we externalize the world through food. I was listening to that as I was driving home from Greensboro tonight, and I reflected on my food memories, and immediately thought back to the smells of the tortilla shop in Caldwell, Idaho, where we often stopped for a bag of warm, fragrant, soft corn tortillas. I also remembered working beside migrant farmworkers as we planted Christmas-tree saplings in a dusty field, and my father driving me out to the simple living quarters where the workers ate their meals at the day’s end. My father worked to ensure that migrant farmworkers across Idaho get a toilet to pee in.

I wrote a longer post, Beside the farmworkers, about these Idaho experiences. I learned a lot from those hard-working Mexican farmworkers. I learned a lot from my parents as they treated these men with dignity, respect, and often a meal in our home. I should be telling these stories more.

Back to Michael’s podcast.

In his second episode, Citrus, Michael features an interview with Miami chef Michelle Bernstein, a name familiar to me. Erin and I celebrated an anniversary with dinner at Bernstein’s restaurant, Michy’s, in 2008. I blogged about that delicious meal (and others in Miami Beach) here and here.

Here in North Carolina, the nights are getting cooler, so I’ve brought the Meyer lemon tree in from the porch. Two lemons are turning yellow, three more smaller green fruit have months to grow.

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