21 for 2021: week 19 review
Week 19/2021: week of 10 May 2021
What did I want to do better this week?
More than one afternoon’s exercise in the week.
So, how did that go then?
I did two days . . .
I also did the City to Casino seven km walk on Sunday, and then walked back to my sister’s house afterwards, for a total of almost 13 km for the day, so I’m sure that counts as well.
21 for 2021 update
I didn’t work on a new chapter of the Change Journal (thing 4) this week. I’m working on the habits chapter (chapter 7), and pitch yourself (chapter 9) in conjunction with my resume review (thing 18). Really, this should just be a couple of hours work, a final check and hit publish. But I always seem to take so long to get to the final stage that I feel happy with on things like this.
Same goes for the behind the scenes work on my website (thing 13). It is taking far too long!
Vegetable of the week
Thing 2 is to choose a different vegetable every week from the book In Praise of Veg and make a recipe from the book using that vegetable. This week I chose onion and the dish was ‘The Any Kind of Onion’ Tarte Tatin (page 286). Let me begin by saying I had no idea what a tarte tatin is. I’de seen people make them on Masterchef but I didn’t really pay that much attention so I had no clue. Apparently it’s more of a dessert, but Alice says, “if you think of it like an open-faced pasty or upside-down vegetable tart, it starts to make a lot more sense”. Okay. (But why not just make a pie?)
The main thing I would note about this recipe is that it uses a lot more sugar than I would normally use in a dinner dish, and I have to be careful with this, which I forget sometimes.
As I did with the mushroom pie a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make a second dish from the book to go with the tart. I chose Salt and Vinegar Kale Chips (page 360) and, scoff all you want, I like kale. I also like quinoa and I like avocado as well. I just don’t sip lattes. Whatever. Haters gonna hate. I like kale. Especially when its coated in olive oil, vinegar, salt and chilli flakes, and baked.
The problem with this was that the kale had to be cooked in a 140 degree oven and the tarte/upside down pie was already cooking at 200 degrees. Round one of kale chips = completely burnt. I ate them all anyway. They were very crunchy.
Alice says that people complain that the kale chips can lose their crispiness and go soggy within a day. Leftovers? Who in their right mind would leave these left over? They are so good. I’m counting down the days to next time there’s kale in the fridge.
Back to the pie. I mean tarte. I cooked it in my controversial (don’t ask) Le Creuset skillet, which can go into the oven, and I’ll admit to having been a bit anxious about it cooking for 60 minutes when at 30 minutes the pastry already looked pretty well done. But I stuck to the recipe and it didn’t burn and it came out looking nothing like the picture in the book. Not a resounding success but not the overwhelming disaster I expected and it didn’t taste too bad either.
I’m sure there are others who would do this recipe a lot more justice than I did. I might have to try it again to see if I can do it better!
Regular projects
There are several things on my list that I have made a regular commitment to doing in the hope that this will be more likely to make me do them. I worked on these ones this week.
- Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. One hour on Saturday morning. One of the things on the list is to read books I have borrowed from other people and give them back. I’m reading one of these books.
- Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I spent two hours on one of these videos on Sunday and it’s almost finished.
- Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I went to see my mum on Thursday and talked a bit about what it was like to be a young mum in a small country town in the 1970s.
- Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. This week I started module 6.
21 for 2021 summary
- Things completed this week: 0
- Things completed to date: 2 (1, 20)
- Things I progressed: 8 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 13, 17, 18)
- Things in progress I didn’t progress: 6 (6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 16)
- Things not started: 5 (3, 12, 15, 19, 21)
When did I listen and what did I learn this week?
I had two training courses this week, which was a nice change from work. I went to the 26TEN Plain English Writing workshop on Tuesday, which was a good overview of Plain English, most of which I was familiar with but it was great to review what I knew and pick up on things I hadn’t quite grasped. And I learned a couple of new tricks for communicating more effectively at work.
These workshops are excellent and 26TEN runs them across the state at various times during the year at no cost, so if this is something you’re interested in, it’s worth doing.
The other workshop I did was Aboriginal Cultural Awareness presented by the government’s Aboriginal Employment Unit. This was interesting and built on understanding that I had already been developing on issues relating to Aboriginal people in Tasmania. One exercise in particular was really intense and clearly showed difficulties Aboriginal people can face in accessing basic government services.
The challenge from this is to build what I learned into my work. I have a lot to learn.
What do I want to do better next week?
That afternoon exercise thing . . .
What I’m reading
- On Writing by Stephen King
- Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
- Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
- gulp! The seven day crash course to master fear and break through any challenge by Gabriella Goddard
Habit tracker
- Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 3): 3
- Days I did my post-work pack up routine(Goal = 3): 3
- Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 2
- Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
- Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 5
- Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
- Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 4
- Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
About The Author
