First Friday: My first podcast ever goes live!

Last month I decided to do a series of interviews with people about their First Love and today I am releasing the first installment with my friend Nick!
I decided to name the podcast Durtee Lawndree in line with my blog, because it exemplifies exactly what I want my blog to be about and that is people "airing their truths." I had a great time talking with everyone and am super excited about releasing future episodes.

What I've learned through this first podcasting process:

#1. Interviewing is a learning process and I can only get better
     For those of you that know me, you probably know that when I start talking I can definitely hold me own, but when it comes to sitting with someone, asking questions and speaking with them, my nerves get a little itchy and inflamed. For this first session I had set interview questions because of this fear, which I think worked well for me. My hope going forward is that when I sit down and interview I will be able to sense the interviewee a little better and formulate questions as it goes along.
    

#2. Editing is a learning process and I can only get better
      I've pretty much only used my Garage Band and some Pro-Tools for light music editing, which means I have never been in the position of splicing and dicing a whole conversation.
For this first interview I cut almost 45 minutes down to about 20. It hurt my soul to take out huge chunks of conversation that I thought were interesting and funny. However, I knew that I needed to shorten a lengthy conversation that did encounter some stumbles as well as had information that wasn't necessarily relevant to our conversation.
This part of the editing process reminds me of when I'm editing my own writing and I think... this part is so intriguing and well written and I have to throw it in the garbage. Sometimes I can save the writing for later, but sometimes I can't because it would be too disjointed as its own.

#3. DON'T Interview at a super loud venue like... a coffee shop
      When I was scheduling times with people to meet there was no part of me that realized I needed to account for noise level. This is obviously the mistake of a beginning podcaster. In my mind, cafes are quiet and that's why people are always there studying, right?
In reality, cafes are quite loud with the bustle of the baristas making drinks, flipping book pages, conversations, spoons in coffee mugs, all stuff I realized is white noise that I drown out while working on a project. At least I know I don't have ADD.
Since at this point I don't have a real mic and was using my handy iphone mic, I don't have very much ability to isolate the conversation from the other noises, though I did use a variety of techniques to minimize it. I'm looking forward to getting a mic at some point for this project, but until then it's gonna be up to Carmen, my iphone, to help me with the interviews.

#4. Patience
      As with any new skill it does test a little bit of patience. Editing itself is not all that hard, but getting to know short cuts and accidentally pressing the wrong one, deleting a section and not noticing till later is a little trying. As I edited, things ran more steadily and the process became a little faster. There definitely are still elements that I have to learn like making cuts and transitions a little more smooth, but I'm sure that will come with more editing experience.

#5. Podcasting is really fun
      Though I write a lot and I have finished writing products, I realized there's nothing quite like having a finished sound product. Strangely it felt like I'd accomplished more in this 25 minute segment than in all the thousands of hours I've done writing throughout my life. I'm still not sure why that is.

If you have any comments, questions, concerns, want to be interviewed, want to give me free editorial tutorials, have a mic you want to donate or anything else is on your mind, email me: durteelawndree@gmail.com

Now here's the podcast!
If your browser has trouble loading the podcast go directly to Podomatic and listen from there.

Tasty Thursday: I suck at cooking but I do it anyway and so should you!

Most days the idea of cooking a meal is daunting and a chore. It's something I very much want to love, but when I look at a variety of ingredients my mind doesn't automatically figure out how to pair them.
For those of you that have friends that cook, as I do (I even have a friend that's a chef), it's often hard to relay to them your excitement about being a good cook while realizing you're terrible.

"Oh it's easy, you just put spice 1, spice 2, and ingredient in a bowl, mix them and voila!"

Whatever, friends that know how to cook; this is not what happens in my world. In general I'll add spice 1, spice 2, and ingredient and it turns into some either extremely bland yet colorful dish or an extremely over-spiced, palette confusing mess. Just like outfits and color coordinating I have no idea how to mix and match ingredients.

I've been told multiple times that I don't need to know how to mix ingredients, it's all about just mixing it up and trying new things and seasoning it to my taste.
The fact is that I don't even know what that means. If I don't know even the very basics of cooking beyond the difference between dicing and chopping then how am I supposed to move forward? Where do I go from here? Why even keep cooking?

Well, I've decided instead of listening to all that totally wrong advice for me from people who actually know how to cook that I would listen to myself. If I don't know how to pair things well, then I am just going to follow recipes exactly. When I say exactly, I mean down to the last grain of salt - sea salt that is.

Last night I decided to prepare a dish called Vegan Coconut Curry Red Lentil Soup that I found on Food.com. I chose this recipe because I knew that I had lentils and coconut milk in my cupboard, the only ingredient on the list that wasn't at my house was the cilantro, so this made it a cheap meal for me. However, for you, I decided to calculate the price per serving just in case you are wondering.

I try to find the best deals when shopping and so I tend to shop around, though do a majority of my shopping at Trader Joe's and Madison Market Co-op near my house. There were some things I didn't add because I'm assuming that you have some basic staples like oil to cook with, salt, sugar, and water. Usually these products are bought in bulk and so the cost is fairly negligible.
Below you will find the cost of the product on the left, on the right you will find a note if it was changed or if I am noting how it was purchased. 

Recipe for 12 Servings  (I was making the dish for my band)

($0)1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil      I used Coconut Oil because I don't use Olive Oil for cooking -ever
($.50)1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder   purchased in bulk section at Co-op
($0)3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
($.89)1 1/2 onion, chopped
($.79)3 carrots, peeled and diced              I included the full bag cost
($.50)3 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated       Uwajimaya 1.79lb 
($.50)3 garlic cloves, chopped                  Madison Market 1.99lb       
($0)3 teaspoons salt
($0)1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
($.99)1/2 cup tomato paste                     
($0)10 1/2 cups water
($1.98)1 (22 1/2 ounce) can coconut milk   Two 14oz cans - Used Light Coconut Milk
($1.86)3 cups red lentils                              Madison Market   1.86 per lb
($2.58)1 (22 1/2 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained (chickpeas)   Two 14oz cans
($0)1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
($.79)1 1/2 to taste fresh cilantro (for garnish)   Bundle for .79
($.39)1 1/2 to taste lime wedge (for garnish)  Bought one from TJ's for lime wedge and lime juice

Total: 11.77  

Additional Garnish: Avocado  (1.50)

This makes each serving approximately .98c   I did not make note of what things were organic or not. I buy some stuff organic and not others depending on my checking account. This is a fairly low cost meal, but I know people that can do it for cheaper and it can definitely get pricier by buying everything organic. This is a great recipe if you want a lot of meals to come out of it.

The original recipe says 1 serving is 469.5 cals per serving. I'm pretty sure that is reduced because I used light coconut milk but I didn't calculate it. 

How did it turn out?

It was amazing! Apparently following a recipe really works wonders, who'd have thunk? My band mates loved it and so did my roommies, so I think that I actually accomplished something.A step in the right direction.

I don't know if I'll ever be an excellent cook, but I certainly can follow a recipe like a champ and so I'm just going to continue doing this. I'm going to attempt to cook at least one new meal a week, so stay tuned for those. In the meantime if you can't cook like me, there is hope!

What this Blog is about

Durtee Lawndree: [dur-tee lawn-dree]
1. A place to air grievances, outdated catch phrases, clichés, and Freudian slips.
1. A dusty old story that needs to be aired out and given a second chance at life.
3. A place to soil yourself with words.
 
Origin: 2008 My backyard 

I originally created this blog back in 2008 so that I had a place to write snippets from my memoir. We can all see how well that's gone because it's still in progress. Don't worry, it's still happening and it even has a title More Peoples than you can handle. That's slated for release sometime in 2032.
Until then, I am turning this into a place for venting, writing about what interests all of us from time to time - dramatically boring gossip, and just a general place for me to let the world know what I'm excited and pissed about - these things can in fact simultaneously exist.
On that note, let me know what you've got a lot of strong feelings on and I'll write about it in the blog!

Email me at durteelawndree@gmail.com