Kara & Michael’s Blog

This is a recipe based off one I found here. I think it’s a good base. Essentially – zucchini becomes your pasta. And honestly, it is not as weird or gross as it sounds. It’s also a great recipe to dust off now, because before you know it, zucchini will be plentiful and cheap.

Here are the ingredients I used:

• 4 small zucchini (probably a little less than 4 cups)
• 8 oz fresh mushrooms (pre-sliced and pre-washed — yay!)
• Oil — I used peanut oil, no more than a teaspoon or two total in the dish
• 2 cloves garlic (easily could have done 4, but I really like garlic)
• Jar of Alfredo Sauce (the lowest carb ones I find are 2 carbs per serving)
• Sundried tomatoes — 3 or 4, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Parmesan (optional topping)

I prep my zucchini first, as this is the most time consuming aspect. In my case, I washed four small zucchini and then split them in half lengthwise so I had a big, flat surface. Then I got out my mandoline and my special blade-proof gloves and prayed I didn’t do anything completely stupid and hurt myself, because I’d be driving myself to the hospital.

Don’t be afraid, I have a girly name.

But thanks to the gloves and my cautiousness — the zucchini was sliced (AND I even washed the mandoline without hurting myself!)

Once the zucchini was cut (I try to make fettucine-like zucchini noodles, I set it aside and cooked my mushrooms separately.

I cooked the mushrooms in two batches in a very hot small skillet with a tiny amount of oil (maybe half a teaspoon, if that) and let them get all brown and pretty. Once they were cooked through (and browned on both sides), I chopped them up and set them aside. While I was cooking the mushrooms, I also got a handful of sundried tomatoes and rehydrated them in boiling water. They did not turn out well — note to self, buy sun-dried tomatoes which are canned in delicious oil.

I put about a teaspoon of oil in a big non-stick skillet and threw the zucchini noodles in. After it cooked for about 5 minutes with me stirring it every so often, I threw in the garlic and cooked it another couple minutes. Then I emptied the pan, put a little more than half my jar of alfredo sauce into the pan (about a cup of sauce) and added back the zucchini, the mushrooms and the sun-dried tomatoes (which I had chopped). At this point, you would add a protein if you weren’t as lazy or ill-prepared as me. Then, I added salt and pepper to taste (you gotta have fresh-ground black pepper) and topped with a bit of Parmesan.

Zucchini Alfredo with mushrooms

MOO-tritionals per serving (this recipe made 2 hungry Kara servings)

Calories: 260 kcal
Fat: 20.4 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Cholesterol: 50 mg
Sodium: 665.8 mg
Carbohydrates: 13 g
Fiber: 2.8 g
Sugar: 6.9 g
Protein: 8.4 g

Perhaps surprisingly, the largest contributor of sugar in this dish is the zucchini. The more you know.

I admit it, I have an expensive addiction (besides alcohol, which is most costly to my self-respect).

You know those stupid olive bars that every upper or even mid-level grocery store has to have now? Where you pay 6 or 7 bucks a pound for fancy olives and stuffed peppadews and that sort of junk?

I can’t help but wander over to them, my eyes seeking the most dull, plain-looking thing there.

The marinated mushrooms.

I love these things — I love the slight chewiness of the mushrooms, I love the acidity of the vinegar and the mild heat of onions and garlic and red peppers.  I think they’re amazing and I will pay like 5 bucks for a cup of these delightful little treats because heaven knows I can’t make them.

Except I can. And so I did.

Marinated Mushrooms

I used a recipe here, from Whole Foods. They were actually really easy. And really good. And totally low-carb and also vegan and also really nice to eat while you drink beer on a super-lazy Saturday afternoon.

The whole coriander/peppercorns are a little weird. I appreciate the canning-aesthetic but they got trapped in the middle of my mushrooms (since I de-stemmed them) and while biting down on whole coriander is a relatively pleasant experience, I cannot say the same of whole peppercorns. I advise that you spend a few minutes while it’s coming up to room temperature to dig those suckers out.

Of course, I probably spent more than 5 bucks making them, but they were so tasty and so plentiful.

Sometimes, when I’m eating low-carb, it feels like the only exciting recipes I come across are baking — bread, cakes, cookies or some sort of deliciousness with rice or pasta. It can feel debilitating.

So when the New York Times posted a recipe for Chicken Saltimbocca — I leapt at it. Chicken, cheese, prosciutto and oil? Yeah — that’s definitely low-carb friendly. Of course, this being me and my still-not-fully-unpacked kitchen, I had some troubles.

Chicken Saltimbocca

Trouble 1: Closest grocery store does not sell boneless, skinless chicken breasts except in enormous packages and to be honest — I kind of hate boneless, skinless chicken breasts and have no desire to eat them most of the time. I’ll take chicken thighs any day of the week. So I opted for chicken breast tenderloins because they had them in smaller portions. They’re smaller, but I figured it wouldn’t really matter…

Trouble 2: I know we have a meat tenderizer-y mallet somewhere. I thought I had unpacked it into one of my many surprise drawers (let’s see — candles, cookie cutters, car keys all belong, right?) but I was wrong. I couldn’t find it so I attempted to pound the chicken breast tenderloins with…a potato masher. This did not work.

Trouble 3: Flaw in method of recipe. Recipe is adaptation so this can be quick week-night dinner so chicken breasts “marinate” in olive oil, salt n pep, sage, garlic, red pepper flakes for an hour at room temperature (or refrigerated overnight). Looking online afterwards, saltimbocca is often brined overnight — I wish I had done this because Trouble 2 came to bite me in the ass when the pan-frying chicken part came along.

Trouble 4: Because I hadn’t pounded the meat enough, it took longer to pan-fry on the stove (used mostly peanut oil, some olive oil for the pan-frying). This led to dried out meat, unfortunately.

But we did like this recipe — pan-frying is awesome, and we fried sage leaves which were tasty. Also using the broiler to finish the meat/cheese on top was lovely. I think I’ll try this again sometime soon — but with more pounding and brining the chicken breasts for ultimate tenderness. Also, the recipe called for Fontina cheese which Michael thought was a bit expensive considering the flavor didn’t really come through strongly (but I put a lot more garlic in the marinade than the recipe called for, which may be why).

Also, we really need a mesh fry shield thing — I spent a while cleaning oil off the stove, back splash, counters, floor, etc.

I love Indian food and recently I’ve been working on Indian cooking quite a bit. There is a different understanding of flavors than I’m used to, so it’s a fun challenge. When I decided to make biryani, I started with a recipe from MySpicyKitchen and made changes to suit my taste and to make it easier to prepare. After 5 or 6 rounds of revisions, I think this recipe is ready to share. It is delicious and I think it’s almost as good as what I can get at local restaurants in our town, which is pretty much an exclave of South India thanks to our high concentration of IT workers. I’ve tested it out on some very accommodating Indian coworkers who say it’s very good.

Yum.

For people from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, biryani — and lamb, mutton, or chicken biryani in particular — is quintessential party food. It’s not especially healthy or easy to make, but it’s absolutely delicious. The super-traditional method of making biryani (dum biryani) involves layering ingredients in a pot, sealing the pot lid with a flour and water dough, and cooking for exactly the right amount of time over exactly the right heat. When I tried to make it this way, I ruined a pan and our house smelled like burning chicken for several days. So, in my subsequent attempts I made a lot of compromises and worked out a way to make biryani by keeping the rice and chicken separate and mixing the fully-cooked ingredients when ready to serve. It’s a compromise, but I think it’s worth it.

You will need a few things that aren’t common in American grocery stores. You will need ghee, since the smoke point of butter is too low to work in this recipe. You will need a few spices that you probably don’t already have, most importantly black cumin or kala jeera. There are 2 spices sold as “black cumin” in English: one is “kala jeera”, also called “shah jeera”, which literally means “black cumin” and looks just like skinny black cumin seeds, and the other is nigella seeds, which are small almost-round black seeds with a completely different flavor. You need to make sure you get kala jeera and not nigella. You’ll need ginger garlic paste, which you can make yourself at great expense of labor, or just buy at the Indian grocery that you’re visiting anyway to buy kala jeera. While you’re there, you can pick up a dozen or so small green chilies, or you can use jalapeños which work just as well in my opinion.

Anyway, here’s the recipe. It’s in multiple parts, which I’ll explain in a minute.

Biryani Masala:

• 1 – 2 tsp cayenne pepper powder
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 10 black peppercorns
• 10 cloves
• 1/2 tsp cardamom seeds, removed from pods
• 1/2 tsp black cumin (kala jeera) seed
• 1″ Ceylon cinnamon stick or 1/2 tsp ground cassia cinnamon (don’t put cassia cinnamon in your grinder)

Marinated Chicken:

• 1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless dark meat chicken (e.g. thighs), or 2 pounds bone-in chicken
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste (or 3/4 tbsp grated ginger + 3/4 tbsp. grated garlic)
• 12 small green Indian chilies, split in half and sliced, or 2 large jalapenos, split in half and sliced with midribs removed
• 1/2 cup mint leaves, chopped
• 1 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
• Juice of 1 lime or 1/2 lemon
• Biryani Masala, as above
• 1 tsp salt

Rice:

• 3 cups (or 4 180ml rice cooker cups) basmati rice
• 1/4 tsp saffron threads soaked in 1/4 cup water, or 1/4 cup water plus 3 drops yellow food dye
• 6 cardamom pods
• 3 cloves
• 3 allspice berries
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cassia cinnamon stick
• 1/2 tsp cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp black cumin (kala jeera) seed
• 1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste (or 1/4 tsp grated ginger + 1/4 tsp grated garlic)
• 1 tbsp ghee
• 2 tsp salt

Fried Onion:

• 1 large onion, cut in half and sliced thinly
• 2 tbsp ghee
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Dahi Chutney:

• 3/4 cup plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp soybean oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp cilantro leaves, chopped
• 1 tbsp minced onion, or 1 tsp dried minced onion
• 1 tsp ginger garlic paste (or 1/2 tsp grated ginger + 1/2 tsp grated garlic)
• 1 plum tomato, diced (optional)

Grind all the ingredients for the biryani masala in a spice grinder. (The amount of cayenne pepper is up to you, but keep in mind this is normally a spicy dish. If you have lame store-brand cayenne pepper powder like I just bought, you will probably want to use closer to 2 teaspoons, but if you tend to think things are unbearably spicy, you probably want to err on the side of caution.) Chop the raw chicken into 1-1/2 inch chunks. If you’re using bone-in chicken, you can leave pieces on the bone or not according to your preference. Mix all marinade ingredients including biryani masala. Combine the chicken chunks with the marinade and mix well. Marinate in a sealed container or plastic bag for 4 to 24 hours. I like to use a gallon size Ziploc bag because it’s easy.

While the chicken is marinating, you can make the dahi chutney. Roast the cumin seed and mustard seed in a dry pan over medium-high heat until the cumin becomes fragrant (1-3 minutes). Beat the yogurt and gradually add oil and water, stirring. Add all remaining ingredients and refrigerate until ready to use.

About 90 minutes before you’re ready to eat, add the saffron threads (if using) to hot, not boiling, water. Then wash the rice several times in clean water, finally leaving the rice in water to soak for 30 minutes. Drain the soaking water. Combine all of the rice ingredients in a pot or rice cooker, sprinkling saffron water between layers of dry rice. Add sufficient water and cook the rice according to package directions or rice cooker directions.

About 20 minutes before the rice is done, slice the onion and fry it in the mixture of ghee and soybean oil, in a large frying pan over medium-high heat, until the strands are dark golden brown and caramelized. Remove the fried onion to a separate container but keep the oil in the pan. Pour the marinated chicken into the hot pan. Fry the chicken at medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes, turn the chicken pieces over, then cook at medium-low heat, covered, until done (6-10 minutes).

When the rice is done, fold the cooked chicken and fried onions into the cooked rice. Top with dahi chutney to serve.

I’ve been cooking, lately. Part of my new stop-eating-crap diet is to cook at home; cook whole grains; low added sugar and low added oil / fat and also I’m being a bit choosier about the types of oil I use. The low added fat has translated into a largely vegan diet, just because it kind of makes sense.

This is a pretty easy way to eat, if you’re cooking at home. We eat bean tacos on corn tortillas with guacamole and salsa. We eat whole wheat pasta with vegetables in tomato sauce. I’ve been making lunches. Lunch usually entails Trader Joe’s brown rice blend (brown rice; radish seeds; black barley), seasoned with vegetable stock alongside a Tofurky Italian sausage or something healthier.

Last week, it was basmati rice alongside chickpeas with spinach. I used this recipe, although I didn’t add the breadcrumbs, reduced the oil a bit, and added more salt and smoked paprika than was called for. M opined that for the amount of tomato sauce called for, I really should have chopped up some plum tomatoes to add to the recipe instead of opening a jar of sauce. Valid point. Anyway, I split up the entire recipe into sixths and packed 3 lunches, with about 3/4 cup of basmati rice a piece. Made a very hearty lunch, without us having to do the processed vegetarian meat junk.

About two weekends ago, I sat down to make Michael’s vegetable lasagna.  The vegetable blend is a large onion, 3 peppers, 4 cloves garlic, a large zucchini, shredded (I used 2 medium), 2 cups of chopped spinach and a carrot (I used 1/3 cup shredded carrot). Basically, you just saute the onion and peppers and garlic, then just add the zucchini, carrots and spinach and some white wine. His original recipe called for a cheese layer with a blend of ricotta and mozzarella. I replaced it with soft, silken tofu — which I blended with a little bit of nutmeg and salt and pepper. I added about 1/4 cup of Daiya’s mozzarella shreds to give it a better cooked texture.

Assembled the lasagna with tomato sauce and cooked whole wheat noodles and topped with about 1/4 cup more of daiya.  One twelfth of the 9×13 pan contained 150 calories.

This week, I got it into my head that I wanted mushroom risotto. Originally, I thought it would be great for Valentine’s Day. Then I remembered that’s a work day so probably spending hours over the stove would make me crazy.

So I decided to make it this weekend. And I remembered that on my last trip to Whole Foods, they had fresh chanterelle mushrooms, which I love. So I wanted to make chanterelle mushroom risotto, and I found this recipe online.

Except, Whole Foods didn’t have the mushrooms when I went yesterday, boo. So I had to rehydrate some dried chanterelles. Which did not go as well as expected.

Changes we made to the mushroom risotto – cremini instead of porcini mushrooms. Rehydrated chanterelles instead of fresh. No white truffle, which I couldn’t even find at Whole Foods. Used a blend of mushroom and vegetable stock in lieu of chicken stock.  Reduced the oil/butter by a couple tablespoons. I also added the Parmesan into the rice when it was still on the heat. We added parsley and fresh pepper to the plated food rather than the entire dish.

So, not low added fat and not whole grain and not vegetarian because the Parmesan was made with calf’s rennet and I used butter because how are you going to risotto without butter?

But oh… so… freaking… good.  Going to go eat some more now.

I miss being able to relax.

I don’t mean that my life is so insanely busy that I have no time to relax. I do, of course. I have oodles of time, I think. I just mean that it’s a skill I don’t have, and it made me think about what relaxation actually is, where the mind-frame actually comes from.

And I think that it comes from a place where you can be at peace with being in process.

You don’t just get that peace. It doesn’t just appear one day because you worked long and hard enough at a million other things and you earned it. You have to work at being peaceful. You have to work at being mindful of the present without focusing on what still needs to be done.

I used to excel at peace, and I don’t know when that changed. I don’t know why I feel like I’m always in a hurry now, to some indiscriminate “better” place. Because when I stop to pause, I realize that where I am right now is pretty darn good. And that’s outside of all the lovely and fantastic things I take for granted – hot water, indoor plumbing, low-carb brownie mix.

And while I felt like I was so stressed and running around this weekend, I actually sat down and re-read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books — well, most of them. The Library of America just published them all and so M bought them for me. I guess there’s not a whole lot more to me that feels like relaxing and being in the moment than reading.  Than having the luxury of time and light and a nice comfy chair.

But it feels superficial, like a cute Hello Kitty band-aid over some gaping wound. It makes me smile to think of it, but there’s no lasting sensation of calm. Just a pause to the madness.

I made up my mind, that I don’t want to be that person who can’t just pause and be happy and calm. That I don’t think life is much worth if I can’t have that peacefulness somewhere at arm’s reach. The ever-present belief that life is okay and I’m okay and it’s okay to pause.

But maybe I am taking my relaxation too seriously, making it another one of the many goals I intend to achieve instead of marking it with every step I take along the way.

And maybe this whole entry is really just a tired and irritable Kara whining when she should be sleeping instead.

Sleep, that’s where I’m a Viking!

As a side note, I doubt Vikings ever bothered to worry about relaxing. Everlasting bacon – yes; relaxation – no.

I talk about my marriage largely in practical terms.  I like to think that I am a logical person. I know that the feeling of love is due to chemicals sweeping through my body and causing more and more different chemicals to release in floods. There is no magic to love.

And I know there is a practicality to love – to learning how to live with someone else. Michael and I chose each other because we value the same stuff and we have the same attention span and we laugh at the same jokes.

But even after five years of marriage, those same chemicals spill over. I find myself overwhelmed by what I feel and by how strongly it pulls me.

So maybe there is some magic to love. Maybe I’ve been enchanted by Michael since the night he did a magic trick at the party I threw. It wasn’t just the flashing metal rings and his hands, moving too slow — teasing me to figure out how the “illusion” worked. There was something else there, even then. Maybe it was just the same chemicals overwhelming me.

Or maybe love is a spell we cast each day for each other. At first, it enchanted me because each trick was new. Later, it still enchants me, because it engages and intrigues me — each wordless gesture, each kindness taken for granted. The emotions and memories that just a touch of the hand can draw out of hiding are so unimaginably intense.

I wake up every day next to the same person. He smells the same and his hair gets rumpled the same and his cheeks have the same shape underneath his lashes.

And still, most days of the week, I wake up next to him just so I can hop right back into bed next to him to hold him close.

After five years together, my only hope is that I remain grateful for those shared moments. That I remember what we built together, and how it was built — on chemicals and millions of shared seconds.

I talk a lot about my cooking failures. But sometimes, I have a good idea and I can follow through with process. Michael and I got a beautiful and enormous eggplant from our CSA this week. So I decided I wanted eggplant parmigiana. And I decided I could find a keto-friendly breading substitute that WAS NOT carbquik.

This eggplant parmigiana was NOT fast. It wasn’t difficult but it was time consuming. I made the marinara yesterday, from scratch. All told, the sauce probably took me a couple hours — peeling tomatoes, squeezing out the seeds and juice, and then letting them cook down with garlic and onion and hot wax peppers (all from our CSA). Not a fast process. Lucky for me, a friend called and I could keep an eye on my sauce and be entertained.

The eggplant part was probably less time-consuming, but required a more watchful eye. I sliced the eggplant (which was bigger than I remembered), salted it and pressed it in paper towels for fifteen minutes or so, to de-liquify the eggplant. While the eggplant juice was leaking out, I made up my breading and my batter. It was probably four parts almond meal to one part shredded Parmesan, lightly seasoned with Italian herbs. I dipped the eggplant slices in my egg (from the CSA) and cream (no milk in the house, only cream) batter than dredged them in the almond meal breading.

The almond meal did surprisingly well as a breading substitute. It did not clump up as much as I thought it would (it is more wet than bread crumbs). It made a really light breading. It doesn’t taste exactly the same or crisp up quite the same, but it did soak up the oil from my pan in much the same delicious way and it did get a little crunchy. Altogether, a completely acceptable breading material.

As always, the trickiest part of pan frying is getting the oil (in my case, butter and olive oil) up to a suitable temperature. The eggplants had to sizzle when I dropped them in the pan. Then, since we have an electric stove, I had to adjust the heat down because the eggplant was getting a little too brown. But finally, the frying was done.

Then I plated it, topped it with my homemade sauce and some fresh basil (also from our CSA) and some shredded mozzarella. Microwaved it (I know, I know) to melt the cheese and heat up the sauce. And served it. In my case, alongside a Bud Platinum because I needed a (low-carb) drink after all that work.

Picture? But of course…

Look at me with my sprig of basil. I am an artist.

Dinner. And it only took like four hours, altogether… But I did use a LOT LOT LOT of produce from our CSA, and Michael said it was the best thing I’ve ever cooked.

So, I don’t always fail. But I’ll be honest – I kick ass at pan-frying and Italian food is probably the only food where I know the spices and seasoning acceptably well enough to cook without a recipe. Sometimes, you just have to go with your strengths.

M and I had a messy month or two. It was good messy, mostly. Lots of work and packing and moving. And buying our first house. Which still kind of feels like a vacation house to me and not like my home.

Well, we got busy and had to pack and clean and unpack. Actually, we’re still doing all of that. Last time we moved, we had tons of help and I was unemployed. This time around, not so much. Cooking and keto fell by the way-side. Pizza and convenience won out. We ate out so much that I actually started eating roasted chicken and green beans and fried okra at work. Because it felt more like home (fried okra is comfort food for me for some reason, despite the fact that I NEVER ate it at home, my mom hates okra).

But we’re back on keto. Or something like keto. Which is kind of a relief, if only because the guidelines are simple and it cuts out most convenience food. It means we’ll have to start cooking again.

And, we invested in an elliptical, which Michael assembled today. It actually feels pretty good… sturdy, smooth strides, no horrible knee or hip pain on my behalf. I’m pretty pumped. And he was thoughtful enough to buy a tv stand so we can watch tv while we work-out. So, I can get my re-runs of South Park or Arrested Development in without feeling guilty, at all.

As for the cooking, I spent a while this afternoon making a chunky marinara sauce with the tomatoes from our CSA. I peeled them and ripped the seeds out and it’s really not going to be an ideal sauce because I only had one tiny onion and I kept the tomatoes in pretty big chunks and I accidentally threw in like half a bottle of thyme, which I then tried to spoon out. But it’s suitable.

It will be topping my experimental eggplant (from the CSA, again) parmigiana. Once I figure out what I’m going to coat the eggplant in – almond meal, cheese, spices? I’m not sure yet. And we’ll need some sort of side… maybe zucchini?

But at least cooking in the house makes it feel a little more like home to me. And helps us stay on plan with diet.

This is what the cat does while I slave away in the kitchen:

She has a difficult life.

No. The answer is and always will be “No,” because absolutely no one on this planet has boundless energy and money and effort to devote to every single thing that really captures their passion.

Why do people concerned with equality between genders ask this stupid question? Can a woman who is talented and has the drive and motivation attend college? Can she become a senator? Can she become the CEO of a company? Yes, yes she can.  And by the same token, can a woman who wants to stay at home and take care of her children, (disregarding any money concerns) do so? Yes.

Equality has never meant equal outcomes. Equality doesn’t mean as many women become CEOs as men.  It means women have the same opportunities to take that path. I don’t know if this is true with regard to social pressure but there is nothing in place legally to systematically deny women those opportunities. Rather, there are numerous protections against such systematic denial in place.

But some people aren’t satisfied with having opportunity. They want it all. That is not equality, that’s above and beyond equality.

My dad gave something up to work full-time, outside the home.

He gave up the ability to, largely, make up his own schedule day-to-day and decide his own priorities. If sour cherries were ready to go, my mom could take a few hours to drive us to the orchard to pick, and then pit the cherries.  She could decide, at least in some measure, how she wanted to spend her time. What her priorities were for the day. Granted, there were emergencies and chores that had to be dealt with, but there was a freedom there. A freedom my father did not have.

My father saw his kids on weeknights, when we were tired and stressed from school and he was tired and stressed from work. He saw us on weekday mornings, when we were tired and irritated at the early hour. He got to spend time with us on the weekends, at least until we filled those hours with friends and work, or just wiled them away in our rooms. My mother got to have a deeper connection with us, hearing our stories when we got home from school and meeting our friends more often. That’s another personal cost of working.

I don’t think either of my parents had an easy job. What I think is this — when we started bean-counting as genders, we stopped appreciating all kinds of work. We stopped appreciating that working outside the home is stressful in its own way. We stopped appreciating how wonderful it feels to come home to a house where someone greets you with a smile. Hell, we stopped appreciating how wonderful it can feel to be that person at home, smiling.

No one can have it all. So instead of bean-counting, we need to talk like this: Every one - man, woman or child – needs to have work that makes them feel valuable and engaged in the world. For some people, that means being a CEO, for others it means being or a nurse or a parent or a spouse.

In a culture where value is determined by ever-increasing growth, I don’t think we can re-iterate our emotional needs often enough. We don’t NEED to have it all. We NEED to be satisfied and feel as though we contribute something of value to the world — whether the world includes our home, our office, our community or something else entirely.

Everything else is gravy and tallying up gravy is stupid and messy.