2022 Summer Review

As I enter into the Labor Day holiday weekend here in the US, it’s time to do some reflection on what has happened over the summer months.

Changing what I eat

I made the decision at the beginning of the summer to switch to a mostly whole food, plant based diet. I don’t just say “vegan” since that comes with other baggage, and there is a crap-ton of “junk vegan food” out there. The “whole food” component is very important for me, as I have learned (sometimes the hard way) that processed and ultra-processed food just doesn’t work for me.

And lets be realistic, I have probably consumed enough meat and dairy in over four decades to last a lifetime. I’ll still probably have the occasional seafood or grass-fed burger, but I want it to be an intentional choice rather than the default option.

I am blessed that now living in a rural part of San Mateo County, I have access to a number of small agriculture farms in the area like Blue House Farm & Fifth Crow Farm that grow food in some cases less than 10 minutes away from where I live. So the produce is always super fresh and in season. And I love to cook at home, so its a win/win.

Having been on this “diet” (to be honest, it’s not a diet, which sounds negative, it’s really a way of eating) for the past three months, it’s given me more health benefits than I expected… now the hard part, maintaining it over the long term.

So about that cooking…

On the property that I live on, it comes with a nano orchard with two pear and three apple trees in the front with a grapevine over one of the front doors and a cherry tree in the back. The cherries never last long enough to be picked as the birds pick the tree clean as the fruit reaches peak sweetness. (sigh)

I figured being several years into the latest drought that I wouldn’t see much fruit this year, but mother nature is resilient and is proving me wrong.

I have also found a replacement for my local fresh tofu maker - since San Jose Tofu Co. closed several years ago, I hadn’t found a good replacement and had to go back to store bought versions. Last month I discovered Sogo Tofu on the border of Cupertino and Saratoga where they make an assortment of fresh tofu (sheets, blocks, milk - sweetened or unsweetened) as well as other baked/fried Taiwanese delicacies.

And an example of some of the cooking:

Tech bits

Installed my first IoT device - a Netatmo smart home weather station . Where I live gets a lot of sun in the afternoon so the general weather predictions are off by several degrees so this is useful and integrates into my weather app (CARROT Weather).

And I added a couple of new low profile mechanical keyboards to the family - Keychron K1 and K3 with hot-swappable Blue optical key switches for that crisp clicky sound. The K1 stays home and once I can get a case for it, the K3 will become my preferred keyboard for on the road with my laptop.

Thinking of perhaps swapping the blue switches for some optical mint ones… have a cross between the tactile browns and the clicky blues…

And some entertainment

Had the chance to catch some live music with a-ha making a brief one night stop in Napa before the end of their tour at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of days later.

Next on the agenda

Going into the fall, I’d like to get some travel in (to burn some well overdue PTO that built up over COVID-19), as well as expanding the cooking that I have been doing now that I have a good rhythm for the whole food plant based route. (Of course the big test is to continue doing it on the road as well as I do it here at home). ;)

And if I could write more than one blog post every… two/three years?. LOL