Amazing Women

Perhaps the most tangible part of social networking for me is the wide range of friends and ideas I'm able to reconnect with or discover at my fingertips. I wanted to share a few of amazing things some of these women are doing.

Bee-utiful

Maybe it was the "Save the Honeybees" campaign on the side of a häagen-daz container or some random news bit, but when I saw that my friend Tiffany had started keeping her own honey bees, I thought how cool. I've enjoyed reading about her updates and it's gotten me to pay attention to the apiary movement popping up at work and following Vanishing Bees. 

Run, Recycle, and Yum

Her enthusiasm has been contagious as long as I've known her, so I love that my friend Kelly's blog tackles everything from how to make a fabulous quilt to homemade granola; how to train for your first half marathon to composting. Her energy makes my day brighter every time I have a chance to hear what she's working on.

Brilliant and Raising Three Boys
What I love about catching up with my friend Sarah's life through her blog is I get the perfect balance of real life peppered with her brilliant rhetoric commentary (because she's a rock star PhD). It also reminds me that life is way more fun with laughter, chaos and the ones you love.

Doing Exactly What She Wants
Anytime I think about what exactly I want to do personally or professional, I think about my friend Jen who's living the dream on the West Coast. Exactly what she said she was going to do. She's looking at our 30s with a serious "take the world by storm, but let's do while having a glass of wine" mentality. Oh, and she's wicked smart about the interwebs. California Dreaming.

Ciao Bella
We never got to spend enough time together in KC, but I love hearing about Caroline's adventures in Northern Italy. Living abroad in Italy. Enough said.

There are so many other women who inspire me and I promise to post links to their online musing soon.

Smiling

I'm really sure what prompted it, but recently I've begun making a point of smiling at people I pass in the hall or on the street. Not a crazy, stalker lingering eye contact smile, but just a bright, brief hello smile. The response has been mixed. It's always pleasant to receive a smile back in the brief seconds you pass someone, but it's not over disconcerting when someone just ignores you. I'm thinking though it's better to put a little happy karma out there than not.

Getting It Down On Paper

The following is a jumble of thoughts that are not fully formed into a singular idea, but it is important to me to capture them in a state of flux and to share them to aid in the formation of a greater idea.
 
Gathered around a computer on Monday night with the women of my book club I realized there needs to be a shift. Sitting in a pew at Sixth & I Synagogue last night I realized that I could help source, not just support a new idea. Perhaps the catalysts seem disparate, but these two statements are now steeping in my brain:

-Only women can manage to be 50 percent of the world's population and still be a special interest group.

-Giving can be an intrinsic part of a for-profit business model.

The first was remarked by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana a book about an extraordinary woman who created a business in Afghanistan that employed dozens of women during the Taliban rule of the past decades. In discussing her work with her directly surrounded by a group of women I have known for more than a decade I was struck that we could be doing more here and abroad.

Why is it that women have allowed societal pressures to fit in, succeed and advance compromise how we treat each other. Why are we unable to support each other at work, at home, at large without first judging, competitively measuring and compromising our own ethos. For all the examples of women empowerment and support of women's initiatives we may read or even experience, we still limit our own capacity for fundamentally altering society by perpetuating the negative and limiting constructs of the past. We judge ourselves, each other and then blame society.

The second idea came from Blake Mycoskie speaking about his new book Start Something That Matters. The idea that he frames his work with TOMS not as a shoe company, but rather around the one for one idea came into focus for me as he was speaking. For-profit companies can perpetuate societal change, be the subject of cause marketing, and still meet their stakeholder obligations.

From where I sit on a daily basis, I see people view the world in starkly different ways. Those that believe you can connect purpose and profit and those that believe connecting those ideas compromises the profit.

I believe we have an obligation to change business constructs and I believe women can help drive this change from within.

Burger Burger

Vegetables are something I usually prepare to put on burgers, not in burgers. So this weekend when I prepared to host a cook out for a combination of omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans I had to create a different kind of menu.

I wanted to make sure that everyone could enjoy the menu. So our combined efforts includes lots of grilled veggies, gorgeous orzo salad, delicious veggies with hummus and tapenade and chips/salsa. 

I used my small chopper to process the
oats/pumpkins seeds, spice blend, carrots
and black beans.

 Besides the regular burgers, turkey burgers and hotdogs, I attempted my first purposely vegan recipe, black bean burgers. It seemed that most recipes call for a fairly sophisticated spice blend, a vegetable binder, and the beans smashed and whole.

This particular recipe had a bit of a Indian spice profile and the verdict from vegans and omnivores was that it's a keeper.

I found the process of making the burgers simple and intriguing since it's a careful balance of binding the ingredients and adding enough flavor. I'm not giving up meat anytime soon, but I will certainly be exploring more vegan-inspired recipes.

Vegan Bean Burger Recipe from Daily Garnish
Makes 6 burgers.

• 2 cans black beans (rinsed and drained)
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1/2 cup dry rolled oats
• 1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

To Prepare:  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Next, add the oats and pepitas to your food processor and grind until coarsely chopped (they will still be a little chunky).  Let it run for roughly 10 seconds.  Grate the carrots, and then add to your mixture in the food processor.  Add 3/4 of the beans, all spices, and the olive oil.  Once all of this is in the food processor, give it a whir and mix it all together.

Spoon mixture into a mixing bowl and then fold in the rest of the whole, reserved beans.  Wet your hands and then form into 6 medium sized patties.  Place patties on a non-stick baking sheet or into a baking pan, and bake at 300 degrees for 40 minutes, turning once in the middle.  If you want to grill these, pre-bake them for 30 minutes at 300, and then throw them on the grill to reheat and get a little extra browning.

Planning an Escape

http://pinterest.com/pin/96679785/

In one month we will officially be in possession of our new place. In two months we'll be leaving for Paris. Kinda feeling like the luckiest girl in the world right now. Just about the time we'll be completely tired of unpacking, we'll pack our bags to celebrate our 10 year anniversary in the city of lights. Giddy happy.

So with a week or so to explore and brisk November weather sure to keep us bundled, I'm looking for good suggestions about where to go and what to do in the city. We're hoping to hit the flea markets to look for a few things for the new place. Our apartment rental place gave us great tips on shipping large items back, so I'm prepared to hit the stores for items of all sizes.

And of course, I could spend years of my life looking at art, so big and small I'm on the hunt for the best shows and galleries to go see, since I can't spend the whole week in the Louvre.

What do you suggest?