Pause for Purpose

Mark K February 4th, 2010

This is my “greasecar”, Stella.  It’s a 1982 Mercedes 300 D (for diesel) that has been converted to run on used cooking oil.  I took it to a shop in Oakland called Veg Rev where they did the conversion work.  Diesel engines were originally built to run on a variety of oils – the only problem with cooking oil is that the viscosity is too thick.  You can either have a conversion done to your engine so that the oil is warmed up and made thinner, or you can chemically convert the oil, producing biodiesel, and use this with a stock diesel engine.

Since we own two restaurants that produce about 15 gallons of used cooking oil each week, I decided to have the conversion done.  The cooks at our restaurants know about my project, so they save the oil for me.  Each Saturday, I go down to the restaurant and take about an hour to filter the oil through a simple sock filter and put it back into the five gallon containers. I also test the oil in a hot frying pan to make sure there is no water mixed in.  Then when I need to fill up, I attach a funnel to my gas tank and pour the oil in.  I haven’t bought diesel for about three months now.

We use canola oil at our restaurants.  The oil comes from the rapeseed, and is grown in Canada.  Not only is the fuel free, but it comes from a renewable natural resource.  The carbon emissions that are produced by cars running on waste vegetable oil (WVO) are offset by the carbon dioxide being absorbed by the crop.

Filtering the oil, storing and pouring it into year tank can be a bit messy and time-consuming.  You save money in the long run, but you have to do some work instead.  A stop at the gas station might take five or ten minutes; filtering the oil and filling my tank might take over an hour.  The thing that happens, though, is that you really begin to see the relationship between the fuel and the traveling – it feels good to know that you’re part of the loop and that you’re not just sending your money to an oil company or being indirectly involved in the politics of importing oil from the Middle East.

People always want to know if my car smells like french fries.  Not exactly, I would say it’s more of a barbecued chicken aroma – it definitely smells better than diesel!  The gas mileage and performance is about the same as when I use diesel – about 20-25 miles per gallon.  If I’m on the road and run out of cooking oil, I can always fill up with diesel, or mix the two.

In the picture below, I’m filling up with Mazola corn oil.  A friend of mine deep fried her turkey at Thanksgiving and then gave me her used oil afterward.  So for a while, Stella was smelling like fried turkey!

• slowing down
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Mark K November 30th, 2009

I was already in a hurry when I pulled into the gas station.  It was one of those discount stations that gets swarmed with customers when the price of gas is especially high.  I maneuvered my way over near a row of pumps that was on the correct side for my gas tank and pulled up to the rear pump when the person in front of me finished.

I slid my card through the credit card reader and was about to start pumping gas when the car in front of me pulled out.  By now, there was a car waiting behind me, so I decided to cancel my transaction and move up to the forward pump so the person behind me wouldn’t have to wait needlessly.

As I moved up, I was congratulating myself on being such a considerate person and was pleased that the driver behind me gave me a nod and wave of thanks.  Then I slid my card through the card reader once again, but this time the pump flashed the message, “See attendant.”

I guessed that the gas station computer system had become suspicious that a person would use a credit card at two different pumps within two minutes and had intervened to block my transaction.  Muttering to myself something about no good deed going unpunished, I made my way to the attendant.

I explained the situation to the attendant and he abruptly barked back at me, “Your card is not being accepted. Give it to me.”

I never like handing over my credit card to a gas station clerk.  I like the control of handing the whole transaction myself – I’m never quite sure what kinds of mysterious numbers and charges might be added to my bill the moment I walk away.  It gives me the same unsettling feeling that I have when I check into a hotel in a foreign country and the desk clerk insists that I leave my passport at the front desk overnight for safekeeping.

Now when I returned to my car, I realized that my whole “being a considerate guy and moving to the front pump” strategy had backfired.  My appreciative friend at the rear pump was now well ahead of me in the gas-dispensing process and I still needed to pump my gas and retrieve my credit card.  To make matters worse, a line of cars was beginning to form behind her – I was holding up the entire parade.

As I began to pump my gas, out a nowhere appeared a young man with a reddish, bloated face.  “Can you help me out?,” he began, “I’m from out of town and I ran out of gas.  I need twenty dollars to fill my tank.”

Quickly, I began to evaluate the plausibility of his story – the condition of his face and the fact that there was no car in plain sight raised my suspicions, but I couldn’t really concentrate because I was racing to end my one-car gas station blockade.  Moreover, I am not a good multi-tasker and don’t like it when people come up to me and blurt requests without a word of introduction.

“Sorry, I can’t help you right now,” I mumbled.

Not to be deterred, Red Face began to negotiate.  “Ten bucks would be good.  I can get half a tank.”

Now I was pretty sure that this guy was a scam artist but had decided that I could spare two or three dollars.  I just couldn’t do it at that precise moment.  I really needed to get the gas pumping. “Okay.  Give me just a minute,” I said.

And that’s when he answered – I kid you not about this – “I don’t have a minute,” and turned his flushed face and disappeared.  I never did see a car and he just walked away with me calling out something lame like, “Then I can’t help you!”

The teenage kid at the pump across from me and I exchanged bewildered shakings of the head.  He must have wondered along with me where this stressed out panhandler might have needed to be in such a hurry that he couldn’t wait 30 seconds for some free cash.  Did he have a more cooperative and faster-moving sponsor on the hook at pump number six?  Was it time for his break? Was there less than sixty seconds worth of gas left in his tank?

I finished pumping my gas as the driver behind me snaked her way around me to get out of the station and the next car pulled up to take her place. I went inside to pay and resisted the urge to take out my frustrations on the less-than polite attendant.

I got back in my car, started the engine, shook my red-faced head one last time, stomped on the gas, and raced out of the station.

• slowing down
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Mark K April 29th, 2008

Check out this video of a “flash mob” event at Grand Central Station. What place could better represent the crazy hectic pace of life than Grand Central Station? Watch these people pausing (for five minutes!) for a purpose.

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Mark K March 8th, 2008

A friend and I were talking about different ways to organize a book group and she told me about taking this slow approach.

The group had only four members, all women, and they would carefully choose a book – or maybe two books of similar styles – that were known for their rich, full, descriptive use of language. The books were generally written by women who wrote in an earlier time, before spare, efficient language became the vogue. They were the kinds of books that you wouldn’t read on the beach or before falling asleep because you had to work a bit and discipline yourself to savor each line.

The women would meet monthly and take turns reading a passage from the book aloud. The next reader would then take a turn and they would pause from time-to-time for discussion.

Thinking about this group reminded me of an earlier post called Bring Your Extension Cord, about a young women who always brings her extension cord with her when she goes to Starbucks so that no matter where she is sitting, she will be able to plug in her laptop and do her homework for her college courses. Even though the people around her are all strangers, she feels that they will help keep her on task. If she does her homework in her apartment, there are too many temptations and distractions and she will surely find something more interesting to do than her homework.

I’m always thinking that one of these days I’m going to read some poetry, but I know that it will require me to slow down and absorb the language, the symbolism, the patterns of rhyme and rhythm. I’m somewhat of a slow reader, and when I read a book, I’m almost always aware of how many pages I’ve read, how many more I need to read until I’ve finished, how quickly it’s going, what book I’m going to read next. Like life, it’s very hard to just be in the moment, pay attention to each page, each sentence, each word.

My friend’s book group – like the Starbucks customers who were unwittingly helping a student to get her assignments completed – was a community which was helping its members to slow down and pay attention. They would stay with the same book for months because it wasn’t about finishing a book, hashing it over and moving on, but about being with the book for awhile, living with it, savoring every word.

I plan to try this approach with my men’s book group, but know that it will take a little tweaking in order for it to work. I’m thinking that a book like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will not only have the rich language required, but the adventure, action, humor, and political commentary that might be necessary for the group to accept such a novel approach.

In the meantime, I think I’ll practice my slow reading.

Tags: book group, slow movement, slow reading

• slowing down
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Mark K March 2nd, 2008

I had just sent out a newsletter which included my story “The Sound of One Foot Kicking”, when a friend of this blog, Stephen Altschuler, sent me an e-mail informing me that a story of his had just been published in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “The Sound of One Hand Chopping”. I’m always intrigued by these examples of synchronicity that keep popping up and was eager to read his story.

I first learned about Stephen when I read his book A Mindful Hiker, in which he tells the story about how he used to hike the same trail every day at California’s Pt. Reyes National Seashore. For him, the trail was a form of walking meditation and it was something that helped him to deal with challenges in his personal life and became a constant source of peacefulness and solace.

In “The Sound of One Hand Chopping”, Stephen goes back to an earlier time in his life when he lived alone in a cabin in New Hampshire for several years. Chopping wood was a necessity for keeping warm and he explains very clearly the equipment and method needed to do an effective job. As in A Mindful Hiker, this simple repetitive act is something more than that with results which affect your psyche as well as your PG&E bill. As he states it, “Your body will be stronger, your mind will be quieter, and your spirit will be lighter.”

When I visit my brother in Redding, I often help them split some firewood. One time, I asked his eight year-old to bring me the axe and he explained to me in a trying-to-be-patient voice, “It’s a splitting maul!” Then my brother pointed out to me that my hands were actually placed like a left-hander even though I’m right handed and would never hold a baseball bat like that.

If I had been able to read Stephen’s article ahead of time, I would have known these things!

Tags: meditating actions, meditation in the everyday, zen work

• mindfulness , slowing down
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Mark K February 1st, 2008

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
- Gandhi

Drink coffee.
Do stupid things faster.
- Bumper sticker

Tags: Community

• mindfulness , quotes about time , slowing down
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Mark K January 23rd, 2008

Since I’ve now become a baker and am finally kindling an interest in learning to cook more than somethat that can be warmed in a microwave or stuffed inside a folded tortilla, my wife decided to give me a cookbook for Christmas. It’s the perfect cookbook for someone like me who is always looking at ways to slow down, notice and appreciate life – Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food”.

Around 1970, Ms. Waters had returned from cooking school in Europe and wanted to open a restaurant serving dishes made from fresh, seasonal, delicious ingredients like the ones she had enjoyed in France. She soon discovered that the best way to find these products was to buy directly from farmers and so she started shopping at local farmer’s markets. She found that at her restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, she could prepare simple dishes but that the flavors would be extraordinary because the food would taste like what it was – you could distinguish and taste the incredible ingredients that she had used.

When people asked where they could get these items, she would tell them that they, too could find the same ingredients at their local farmer’s market. This is one of the principals of what she calls a “delicious revolution”. Here are her nine principals:

1. Eat locally and sustainably
2. Eat seasonally – choose food that is at its best during that season
3. Shop at farmer’s markets
4. Plant a garden
5. Conserve, compost, recycle
6. Cook simply, engaging all your senses
7. Cook together
8. Eat together
9. Remember food is precious

As I start to read the book, it resonates with me because my intuition has long told me that slowing down, eating consciously rather than “fueling”, spending quality time with family and friends at mealtimes, growing a garden – are all things that I should have in my life but somehow never find the time to fully implement. Alice Waters uses the term “sustainable” and it occured to me that this year might be the time to make some sustainable resolutions – not to go on a crash diet or workout frenzy, but rather to change my lifestyle to one that is simpler and more satisfying.

I think that I’ll work my way through this book and try out Alice Water’s principals. Maybe in some future posting, I’ll write about my own revolutionary principals.

Tags: A Delicious Revolution, Alice Waters, Chez Panisse, farmer's markets, The Art of Simple Food

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Mark K January 23rd, 2008

Our friend Angela invited us to her parents’ house for Sunday supper last Sunday. Her parents both come from the town of Molfetto, in the Puglia region of Italy (near the heel of the boot) and they have a tradition of having friends and family come over for dinner each Sunday. After Mass, the mother, with the help of her sister who is visiting from Molfetto, prepared a tremendous meal of Italian regional dishes. This is what we had last Sunday:

1. fish and green onion calzone
2. “fratelli” fried calzone filled with cheese, tomatoes and herbs or with vegetables
3. assorted cheese, wine-cured salami and olives, which were harvested and cured by varous family members
4. marinated eggplant
5. fresh mozzarella cheese, hand-stretched from cheese curd
6. mozzarella cheese rolled with prosciutto and then cut into thin slices
7. grilled octopus and calimari
8. eggplant with ground turkey and marinara
9. garden salad
10. dessert – fruit and Italian almond cookies, both homemade and imported from Italy
11. drinks, including Italian coffee, lemoncello and vin santo

And this is their weekly tradition!

They also told us about “Il Fornaio” back in Molfetto. Not the Il Fornaio restaurant chain popular in the U.S., but literally “il fornaio” – the baker. Back in old times not many people owned an oven, so they would prepare their bread dough, focaccia dough, or lasagne and then take it to one of the many businesses in the city where a professional baker would bake their goods for a small charge. Angela’s mom remembers when she was a girl and her family would take the lasagne to the fornaio on the way to the beach and then pick of the finished dish on their way home. A few of these establishment are still in business in Molfetto to this day.

There is something about this coming together around food, whether at Il Fornaio or at a friend or family member’s house for a Sunday Supper that really appeals to my wife and me. We invite people over from time-to-time for Sunday Supper, but have decided to make more of an effort to keep this tradition alive – but probably not with quite this impressive of a list of handcrafted, homemade labor-and-time-intensive treats!

Tags: about this blog, Community

• cultural diversity , slowing down
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Mark K October 19th, 2007

There is a strike in France today. The newspaper says that it was an especially bad day for the French president. He and his wife announced their divorce, and transit workers throughout the country have gone on strike to protest reductions in retirement plans for public workers.
How has that affected me? First of all, I have blisters on both of my feet, and secondly, it has reminded me that I need to slow down.
Actually, it took three things to remind me to slow down. The first, was the aforementioned blisters, caused by marching from my hotel, along the Seine to the D’Orsay museum (closed due to the strike) and then another mile or two to the Eiffel Tower. Then it was my wife, reminding me that I was the guy who was all about pausing, not running from sight to sight with my nose buried in a guidebook. But the last reminder was the most mysterious – a rugby ball which seemingly flew into my hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
After trudging to the Eiffel Tower, I was determined to get a good picture. Because of the curving of the Seine River, you can’t really see the tower until you’re right on top of it. Then, of course, it’s too huge to fit into the viewfinder of your camera. The world cup of rugby is going on in Paris right now and there was a huge tv screen partway up the tower, showing highlights from the games. Across the river, some sponsors had set up a hospitality tent for rugby fans with souvenirs for sale, free beer, and loud rock music. Some rugby fans in New Zealand uniforms were outside playing with a rugby ball as I climbed several flights of stairs to a plaza high above them where I could take a picture of the tower across the river.
So there I stood, trying to figure out (unsuccessfully) how to change the contrast on my camera, when a rugby ball fell out of nowhere, hitting me in the hands and almost making me drop my camera. Somewhere far below me, some beer addled Kiwi was probably congratulating himself on the powerful kick that had propelled the ball to my perch.
As annoyed as I was, I couldn’t help but think that there might have been a message behind the blow – slow down, take your face away from the viewfinder and out of the guidebook and look around you. That’s the Eiffel Tower in front of you if you’ll just take the time to notice.
Yesterday, the streets were filled with commuters trying to get around despite the strike. They have these bike rental stands around the city where you can rent a bike, ride it somewhere else and leave it at the next stand. So many people were desperate to get to work or back home that the rental bikes were all gone. You could even see people on roller blades and adults riding scooters to work! Today, the strike must be slackening because the rental bikes are all back in their racks and I haven’t seen a scooter all day.
My feet still hurt and my wife’s legs ache, but that’s just causing us to walk slower, stay in our neighborhood, and pay attention to the little things. It just took a few blisters and a rugby ball falling out of the sky to knock some sense into me!

Tags: Paris transit strike

• cultural diversity , slowing down
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Mark K September 4th, 2007

My friend John and I were talking about what kinds of activities put you in a meditative state that is most conducive to creativity. We both agreed that it would be something physical, but not too demanding in terms of effort or technical ability. It helps if it’s something that you’ve done many times so that you don’t really need to think about it and that it involves repetitive motion.

“Shaving,” John offered. “I’ve heard that shaving is the ideal activity for encouraging creative bursts.”

I thought about that for a moment. While I was thinking about it, I was engaged in the repetitive activity of stroking the 3-day old stubble on my chin, thinking about the beard that I’ve worn almost constantly for the past 30 years.

“Oh, so that’s my problem,” I said.

We got a good chuckle out of that one and both agreed that showering was also a great activity for creative inspiration – and something that I have done several times in the past three decades, I might add.

Then I started to tell John about my new job – I’ve been filling in as the morning bread baker at our restaurant for the past three weeks. When I tell people about learning this new skill they often have the same reaction – they say that working with dough and baking bread must be a very zen-like activity, that getting up early and working alone with your hands, kneading the dough must be very much like a form of meditation.

My first day on the job, I was trained by Gerhard, who had owned his own bakery for years and is now semi-retired. As we were kneading the dough, he tried to explain to me how you know when it’s the right consistency.

“There’s not really an English word that describes what you’re looking for,” he said. In German, the word is fingerspitzengefuhl – literally “fingertip feel.”

I guess that what he was telling me was that my mind might not comprehend when the dough is ready, but my fingertips would let me know.

Thus started my training in this fascinating combination of analytical chemistry and gut-level intuition.

I found that you had to measure everything precisely and set the mixer to knead the dough for an exact number of minutes. But five minutes into the mixing, you had to eyeball the mixture and throw several unscientific handfuls of flour into the bowl if it didn’t look or feel right.

The same could be said for the baking time. When the timer goes off, you need to look at the loaves and see if they look right, take them out and thump them for the correct tone and sneak a peek at the bottom to find out if the crust is darkened, but not burnt. Day after day, the bread comes out slightly differently and you get to use analysis and hunch to theorize what caused the variation.

So now that I’ve progressed from a novice baker-in-training to a slightly experienced baking assistant, what do I think about the therapeutic benefits of baking bread?

I like doing the work, and I think that it’s good for body and soul. Why? I think that it’s because for me bread baking requires a perfect balance between being comfortable and confident and being pushed out of that zone. Learning something new is always a challenge, but there’s a routine, a schedule, recipes and repetition that make it do-able. And then there’s the measurable results that you can view (and eat!) Feedback is almost immediate and there are plenty of complements when you get it right. But then there’s that something that’s hard to quantify – the art, the trial and error, the intuition, the – how can I explain it?

Fingerspitzengefuhl!

Tags: fingerspitzengefuhl

• bread baking , favorite posts , mindfulness , slowing down
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