Gnocchi Recipe

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Readers: I failed. At the gnocchi recipe. It was a total disaster.

I burned the inside bottom of the saucepan and had to throw out the saucepan.

It was a recipe I found in the Audrey at Home cookbook written by Luca Dotti–Audrey Hepburn’s younger son.

This experiment convinced me to not want to try to make the gnocchi again. Not at all. The food I’ve cooked from recipes comes out great. Not so with the gnocchi. It was a total disaster.

Wind-up:

I’m tearing through a KMart stocking up on items to the tune of $55. I bought a turquoise baking dish along with the replacement saucepan and other sundries.

You can get household items at KMart on the cheap. Though I didn’t relish having to spend the big bucks to buy another saucepan.

This gnocchi failure seems like the perfect metaphor for recovery and for life:

If at first you don’t succeed, consider Plan B. Figure out your next move when continuing down the same path isn’t an option.

A person is often forced to reinvent themselves when Plan A doesn’t go as planned.

This requires having a sense of humor. Laughter can be the best medicine as an adjunct to SZ medication. I want to tell amusing stories more so than to focus on the hell.

Now not all of our foiled efforts are as laughably raucous as a gnocchi recipe.

Yet IMHO the lesson here is that sometimes a mistake is just a mistake. The option we choose at the time (like going into a gray flannel career when you’re a creative madwoman) seems like the right one.

It’s only in retrospect that we realize: “What was I thinking?” It starts out innocuous. It seems like a good idea. Like wanting to try out a gnocchi recipe. Then you’re full-tilt into a mistake.

Recognizing the need to change direction in our lives is necessary.

That’s the moral of the gnocchi story.

I’ll talk about this in the coming blog entries: taking risks and risking change.

Failure

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Failure helps us get one step closer to victory.

Yet sometimes it’s not advisable to keep trying to do something over and over. My great light bulb that went off in my head was that if a person has to try too hard to make something work, it might be time to give up trying.

This was evident when I had jobs in the gray flannel insurance field. It was also clear when I made the gnocchi recipe: it turned out just to be doughy and forgettable. I won’t attempt to try the gnocchi recipe again.

Failure is the cost of trying. I’m found of the Michael Jordan quote: “Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.”

A corollary is the idea that a lot of woman make mistakes with makeup. It can take us years to settle on the colors and shades that we look good in.

A person can also spend a lot of time trying to figure out the life path they want to go down. Taking a detour happens to a lot of us. I’m confident when I tell readers that the whole of life lies in seeing. Seeing the possibilities and being open to choosing what we think is the best one right now is the way to go.

A woman I met said most people make excuses for why they can’t do something. Thus they remain stuck because they’re not willing to try something new or to consider doing something that is a stretch.

Yet no one gets it right the first time they do something. My failure with the gnocchi recipe is a concrete example of taking a risk that didn’t work out. In life as with gnocchi I’m a firm fan of taking risks to grow as a person.

I say: risk change.

The famous Linda Ellerbee quote tells us:

“Change is one form of hope. To risk change is to believe in tomorrow.”

I say: believe.

Beyond the Mediterranean Diet

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Layne Lieberman’s Beyond the Mediterranean Diet is my new number-one favorite nutrition book. Buy it or check it out of the library to see the changes you can make in how and what you eat to promote optimal mental and physical health.

The author is an international expert on nutrition who deserves to be viewed as an international expert. She is one expert whose wisdom I can totally parrot unlike that of other alleged “experts” who hang out a shingle and are taken seriously because of their toxic mouthfeel they spew out that doesn’t help anyone at all.

As an Italian I liked the section on Italy and the Slow Food Movement founded there the best of all the chapters. The book also details the secrets of the Super-Healthy citizens of France and Greece too.

I recommend you buy this book to have on hand to refer to often. It’s a short book and the writing is not dense it’s light and practical.

I’m gathering product boxes up to examine so that I can write about the products I think are good and healthful to consider buying and using.

My contention is that everyone should be cooking most of their own meals. And when you’re too tired to cook you should buy healthier prepared frozen meals instead of Lean Cuisine type meals.

Amy’s Organic company offers low-calorie healthful frozen dinners that weigh in under 650 calories–the average number of calories thought to be acceptable for a meal is 650.

I buy the Amy’s Organic Light-n-Lean black beans-and-quinoa salad; the Amy’s Organic vegetable lasagna; and the Amy’s Organic tofu scramble. One or two nights a week I cook a pasta recipe. Two nights I have fish.

These are the products I wanted to talk about. It appears there are no “natural flavors” in Amy’s Organic. I also cook the Amy’s organic low-sodium lentil soup for lunch once a week.

Progresso Soups and Campbell’s soups have natural flavors so there you go not a healthful option.

I will report back in here next week on two recipes I’m going to create: cream of tomato soup and gnocchi (pasta version not potato).

Buying a Kind bar is not an act of kindness when you read the ingredient label. Using your intelligence to make better decisions about what to eat is the true act of kindness.

I’ll end here by saying that I might be Italian however everyone should cook for themselves not just Italians. You can become a good cook even though you’re not Italian.

In Like a Lady Out Like a Bull

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The last time I had a hot dog was in 1992.

As soon as I read the label and saw a hot dog was 100 calories and 90 calories were fat I thought: this can’t be good.

I used to exist on real poverty food when I lived in the residence: I’d buy Velveeta shells-and-cheese that I marginally improved by mixing broccoli into it.

I rarely eat bagels anymore because I don’t want my belly to resemble a bagel.

The change-over started right when I was about to turn 50. I consciously choose not to drink Snapple and other sugary drinks. Not only not every week: I chose not to drink them at all. I drink only water now and occasionally a 4 oz glass of organic orange juice when the market is out of oranges.

One way to combat the insidious positioning of products in a supermarket is to buy groceries online from FreshDirect in New York City and Philadelphia or from PeaPod elsewhere if it’s available where you live.

The benefit with FreshDirect is that you can simply order on autopilot by logging into your account choosing to submit a new order using a previous order.

You don’t even have to think about it and you can add new items to the order as well. This is great when you don’t have the energy or think you don’t have the time to create a brand new order.

Not needing a car to travel to buy groceries also cuts down on your dependence on foreign oil. It also saves time and saves your sanity.

One woman I met told me about going to a local food market that she “goes in like a lady and comes out like a bull.” Dealing with crowds and waiting on long lines isn’t the way to spend two hours every week.

Years ago too I stopped eating a lot of dairy except for string cheese and drinking the skim milk I use in my cereal. I do eat cheese every so often though only every two or three months or so.

The benefit of watching what you eat is that you’re then free every so often to indulge guilt-free in a chocolate croissant or whatever is heaven to you.

I’m fond of the macarons at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that opened up. The owner is a young guy and I’d rather give him the money than Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks.

I’m going to try to scoop products in here in the coming months that I think are better alternatives to the ubiquitous garbage attractively packaged to seduce our eyes and mouths.

Life IS Fair

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I realized yesterday that life IS fair. It’s fair because regardless of what happens to us we have control over how we respond.

It might seem odd that I say this yet it just might be true. My hope is that when people read my memoir they see that I fought to have a better life. This was my response when I was shunted into a second long-term day program.

I will always be averse to having a young person languish in a day program for longer than nine months. I recommend obtaining goal-setting services at an Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Treatment (IPRT) program instead.

The wind-up is that a person can be successful later in life. Where you start is not where you have to remain.

I know a guy who collected a disability check all his life. At 55 he said: “This is it. I want to get a job helping people.” He got a job as a peer advocate and years later was able to retire.

It’s not ever over.

I’ll keep this blog entry short and repeat:

Where you start is not where you have to remain.

Serendipity

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I tried to enter therapy in the summer of 1996 with a guy who saw patients on Staten Island on the weekends.

The health insurance plan authorized only five visits because I had a preexisting condition: I was diagnosed with schizophrenia so the health plan wouldn’t allow me to see a therapist.

At the second visit I told Dr. B that I was in danger of losing yet another job in the insurance field. Miraculously, he told me he was a career counselor to upper level executives in Manhattan Monday to Friday. He told me he would do vocational assessment with me so that I could find a better job.

Dr. B gave me the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and gave me vocational quizzes to answer. By the fifth and last session he gave me career options to consider. That’s how I decided to go back to school to get a Masters in Library and Information Science.

Accepted at all three library schools I chose Pratt Institute and graduated in June 2000 with an M.S.

I’ll always be grateful for this random accident in meeting a therapist who turned out to be a career counselor.

This experience has influenced me to champion that a person diagnosed with a mental illness gets practical career counseling right from the start of their recovery.

Square pegs shouldn’t be forced into round holes:  This happened when the OVR state agency counselor in 1989 shunted me into training to become a secretary because I was female. No useful vocational assessment was given to me.

Imagine that: the health insurance plan told a person diagnosed with an emotional illness that she couldn’t see a therapist. You must remember that the Affordable Care Act guarantees that everyone can buy insurance even those of us with preexisting conditions.

I kid you not. I was denied therapy. And like I said miraculously I was able to get career counseling instead of therapy.

Ever since I started looking for my first job in 1990 I’ve had an unusual interest in creating resumes to help people get jobs. One guy I helped got a job as a dentist. A woman got a supervisor job. Another woman got a job as a secretary.

You should absolutely check in with your local neighborhood library to see if a librarian at a branch in their system helps people create resumes.. This is a free service that doesn’t cost you a dime. Check it out.

I would like to send a letter or e-mail to Dr. B telling him I’m eternally grateful that he was the catalyst in speeding up my route to having a better life outcome.

I will talk in future blog entries about finding the work you love and would be good at.

Added Attraction – Extra Blog Entry

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I wanted to publish an extra blog entry today after having read an Atlantic magazine news article on Twitter. It quoted research that 70 to 80 percent of individuals living with schizophrenia want to work and think they’re capable of working.

The Atlantic article said it’s their doctors who tell their patients they can’t work. I have in these various incarnations of my blog for the last nine years railed against the mental health staff who have a dim view of what patients diagnosed with schizophrenia can do in their lives.

I have always championed that in my own life I recovered BECAUSE I found the jobs I love and that I’m good at. I wasn’t able to do these jobs because I had recovered. I will always claim that it is the other way around: I recovered only after I found the careers I loved.

In New York City: Baltic Street AEH, Inc. provides advocacy employment and housing for individuals with mental illnesses. Baltic Street has an employment agency with two locations in Brooklyn. The staff there help people get and keep jobs they like and would be good at too.

The day is here. Today is the day when not only it’s possible to recover it’s possible to have a full and robust life equal to people in society who don’t have mental illnesses.

If you are a mental health staff person I urge you to take the long view and consider that your clients can indeed work at some kind of job. It might not always be a JD or MD. It might be a job in Rite Aid. It could be as the CEO of a corporation like my friend was able to do.

I urge readers to consider doing what I do. My first thought is NOT “This is impossible” or “I won’t be able to do this.” My automatic thought is “How can I make this happen?”

If you have a goal of any kind–to get a job, to live in your own apartment, whatever–I’ll be the first to tell you that you have right inside yourself what you need to succeed.

And if you want to get a job you can go to your local neighborhood library and ask if at a branch in their system a librarian helps people create resumes. Resume help is available at libraries in Brooklyn, NY.

Turn over every stone. Be creative. If a solution isn’t immediately available, see what you can do differently using your own strengths and your external support system.

Remember: I’m confident when I tell readers that I recovered BECAUSE I found the jobs I love.

If you want to work, you deserve to try. I will devote more blog entries here to this topic in the future.

To Dare Greatly

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This is my all-time favorite quote. It’s a famous Theodore Roosevelt quote:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Gym Member Success Story

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I have some cheerful news:

Though I was not chosen for a member success story at the gym:

My story is going to be featured for the gym’s other upcoming social media and website promotions.

The review team responded to me thus:

“Your story was incredibly compelling and special” so the gym is saving my success story essay and photos for other upcoming social media and website promotions.

I’m sent a $25/gift card as a reward.

It’s not ever too late to change your life for the better.

I was 46 when I started to work out at the gym like a madwoman in training for the prizefight of her life. Before I was 46, I hadn’t lifted one single weight. Four years later when I was 50 I could dead lift 205 pounds.

This story I hope uplifts and inspires readers to make positive changes in your lives at any point in your recovery and your life.

The goal as ever is not for everyone to be able to do what I do.

The goal is for you to define what a happy and healthy life looks like for you and to go do that every day or as often as possible.

It isn’t over until we’re no longer here. While we’re here we have the right and duty to use our God-given gifts to make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

God didn’t want us to love our neighbors before or instead of loving ourselves. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” often only happens once we start to like and more to the point love ourselves for who we are as human beings not what we’re able to do. Character counts more than any achievements.

Doing what’s healthy that makes us feel good is the goal. My intent in telling you this good news was to help readers see that success is not out of the question and that it might come later in life.

The milestones are different for each of us. The results we obtain for ourselves are not going to be the same either.

Yet perhaps readers can take from my story the idea and the hope that you can set a goal and achieve it.

Like all things it’s the effort that counts not the result.

Always try your best to do a little better each day.

It’s not ever too late to change your life for the better.

Like the posters on the wall at a gym beckon:

Don’t give up the fight. Reinvent yourself.

50 is the beginning of a better life not the end of our lives.

That’s my point exactly:

Do what makes you happy. Live your passion.

A long life to you!

Skinny Girl Lemon Swirl

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I bought a Skinny Girl brand Lemon Swirl power bar the other day. If memory serves it has whey protein.

I checked out the ingredients label and it appears that it doesn’t contain natural flavors or any other fake chemicals.

At the library I once scanned a Betheny Frankel diet book titled Get Skinny Forever or something ludicrous like that.

The section I read berated women for the food choices we make. That’s not going to motivate your readers to lose weight. I found that Frankel’s tone of voice in the book was hardly encouraging.

The idea that everyone has to be “skinny” is a myth if you ask me. I didn’t lose any weight after strength training going on five years now. Yet I did drop one pant and one skirt size because I gained muscle. So in that regard you could say I’m skinnier even though I didn’t lose weight.

The number on the scale shouldn’t dictate how we feel about ourselves. Maintaining a healthy weight rather than an unrealistically low weight is the better option if you ask me. Kate Moss’s body is not the kind of genetic anomaly any of us should aspire to have.

I see woman at the gym. Their arms and legs are sticks and they lift puny 15 pound kettlebells. That’s their thing so be it. Yet I recommend lifting heavier weights as you go along to develop more muscle to burn fat at a greater rate.

My mantra now is “abs and arms.”

I will be on the lookout for healthier snacks like the Skinny Girl Lemon Swirl bars.

I’ll report back in here on what I find.

I bid readers peace happiness and health this summer.

Relax: you don’t have to be skinny.