wine: Ariel Sauvignon Blanc and other drinks for preggers
So, for those of you who might not know… Tom and I have “recently conceived”. We have a blog that we publish to together called Now Entering Parenthood. I started a new blog, because otherwise this blog would become consumed in baby stuff… and I still am convincing myself that while this is a incredibly huge part of my life now, it’s not my WHOLE life. But there is one area where these two topics meet, and that is tasty drinks and being pregnant…
There is a whole assortment of non-alcoholic recipes out there, but often what I’d find is that 90% would be little more than fruit smoothies, dessert shakes, and high calorie fruit juice concoctions. Are there no good drinks that can bring me the pleasure of a simple glass of wine or a fizzy vodka tonic with lime?
my top pregnancy drinks
1. cranberry juice + tonic + bitters
This is my standard order at the bar, and fix up at home drink. It’s great because cranberry juice is super good for you, it’s fizzy and tangy, and the magic ingredient (bitters) gives it a unique flavor that really reminds you of an alcoholic cocktail. Sprite Zero is also a nice substitute for tonic.
2. sparkling juice + anything or alone
Sometimes I just REALLY want to drink something out of a wine glass that might kinda even look like wine. Sparkling raspberry, apple, or grape juice are a great way for me to do just this. They make great mixers, but they are also great on their own. I love the St Julian’s stuff, but Trader Joe’s has some great sparkling juices as well.
3. ginger ale + lychee puree
I had this amazing concoction at a fancy wine bar in NYC. You aren’t likely to have either of these items in your house, and that’s the point I’m trying to make. Why avoid going out to fancy bars and restaurants? Why not indulge in some super exotic non-alcoholic drinks? Some bartenders have real fun with it… others don’t know how to do much beyond make you a high calorie virgin daquiri, so make sure to have a back-up plan.
4. Ariel Sauvignon Blanc
Now their website has a whole slew of flavors. I’d be interested to try the sparkling and rose wines, but the reds just scare me away. My Trader Joe’s only carried the Chardonnay (at $8!!) and the Sauvignon Blanc ($4). The Chardonnay tasted like a watery apple juice, very far away from wine and overpriced. The Sauvignon Blanc however was pretty refreshing and with it’s crisp fruit flavors reminded me a bit off a semi dry Riesling.
the good news
Many of the drinks I listed above are surprisingly low in calories. I was ecstatic to learn how little a glass of non-alcoholic Sauvignon Blanc or sparkling white grape spumante contained (less than a normal glass of white whine in many cases). Other good news is that almost all these drinks are cool and refreshing. In a time where we are encouraged to drink milk and juice, and we are discouraged from carbonated soda filled with caffeine and sugar… it’s really nice to know there is something delicious and fizzy we are allowed to drink, especially at all these upcoming summer events!!
the bad news
Nothing I have listed above will ever ever take away the personal satisfaction that comes from a glass of kick ass red wine. There is no substitute. Nothing quite will make you feel the same. Nothing will go as good with a juicy tender steak or a tangy tomato pasta. And certainly nothing will taste the same… if you think grape juice just as good, you obviously have been drinking some very cheap wine in your lifetime.
So here is the rub. As pregnant women we have to decide if “drinks for a pregnant girl” means 100% not a drop of alcohol during the next year (gotta remember breast feeding girls). This is about as heated a topic as they come in the mommy forums, next to breastfeeding and spanking your kids.
Here is all I want… don’t you judge me, and I won’t judge you. If you decide to go the “better safe than sorry” route, then I shouldn’t be able to come up to you and condescend about how you are a weak-minded soul who subscribes to whatever hype and pseudo-science fear-mongering BS comes your way. And if I decide to go the “everything in moderation” route, then you shouldn’t be able to come up to me and call me a selfish out-of-control lush who is putting my child at risk because of a stubborn addiction.
Because, honestly, neither of us would be right about each other. But this is what angry people in forums would have you believe the debate is about. Just like every other issue in this world… no amount of science and research will change the heated way moms argue over the right and wrong ways to raise children, even before they’ve left the womb. But… taking my Obama approach to this… can’t we just agree that at the very heart of this, we ALL just want the best life for our kids… a healthy positive caring life.
I think we can all raise a glass to that… wine, sparkling juice, whatever you prefer.
food: austrian goulash, viennese sachertorte
wine: sattler zweigelt 2005
The journey has almost ended. Tom and I are one Portuguese wine/meal away from completing our second journey around the world. And unlike a previous post suggested, I did not make this moment happen before my husband’s 30th birthday.
But still, this will be an epic moment. Since Christmas 2006, I have been treating my husband to (almost) monthly theme dinners. The idea was this… dedicate the night to one country, it’s wine, it’s food, it’s cinema. We have gone from Chilean Cabernet to Australian Shiraz, from Grecian white to Israel red. I’ll save the full wrap up for that fateful night next month where I pop open the wine from Portugal, because tonight was all about Austria.
how to make a good goulash
In just about every goulash recipe I found, there was a key ingredient… patience. Well, patience and paprika, but those actually go hand in hand. The dish is fairly simple to make. Meat, spices, onions, wine, broth, and loads of cooking/stirring/waiting/tasting. Luckily I was also taking this time to bake a cake and clean the kitchen, so I got to see the magic of a 2 hour simmer unfold before my eyes.
Around half an hour in, I actually accidentally burned some of the sauce. I was tempted to start over out of perfectionist sake, but I’m glad I didn’t. The reason why the two hours is needed is because it breaks down the meat, but also because it mellows out the otherwise bitter paprika. The same theory applied to a slightly bitter taste of browned sauce. By an hour in, I started to notice all bitterness going away and turning into a richness. By an hour and a half in, my meat turned from tough leathery stew meat to disintegrating at the touch of my fork. And by two hours, I had goulash.
the necessary evil, chocolate cake
Reading the “true way” to do this dish was again a life saver. A Viennese Sachertorte should not be mistaken for a rich flourless chocolate cake that melts in your mouth. This cake is fairly dry, which is why the Austrians always eat it with a dollop of whipped cream (yum!).
While I created the batter, which involved a lot of fluffing and folding, I had a hard time imagining this would turn into anything but a moist, rich cake. But low and behold when it came out of the oven, it was surprisingly light in flavor and slightly dry in texture… not stale dry, just “fluffy”. It is a great contrast to the rich ganache topping and the sweet apricot jam filling, which could otherwise create for a combo that is just too rich.
drinking a varietal that starts with “z”
Finally, although the Sattler Zweigelt 2005 is hard to find, the flavors weren’t terribly exotic. It smells of white pepper, shoe polish, and blackberry. The taste was dark and rich, with great fruit and a crisp dry finish. The loads of pepper help it cut through the rich meat of the goulash, but there was still enough fruit in the wine to pair fairly well (not ideal) with the cake.
According to Appellation America, the best and only place to get cartoon characters of varietals, the Zweigelt is virtually unknown in North America as vintners don’t want to take a chance on a wine with a funny name. But those in cold climates, who already gamble quite a bit, have started taking a risk on the grape. Which is interesting, because the only other place I have seen a Zweigelt before was from the Pelee Island Winery in Ontario. I seem to remember it tasting very peppery as well, but quite good for the price. Maybe we’ll start seeing more in the future!
life: back to your roots, how I came to love wine
I hope that Lenn doesn’t mind, but my Wine Blog Wednesday is actually going to come on a Thursday. I hope I still make the cut!!
I am a day late, but for good reason. Yesterday was Tom’s and my 3rd anniversary. I was out all night having good wine and good food, and, for once, not blogging. But this was an important WBW for me, because this month’s theme is all about “getting back to your roots”, the wine that gave you that great big AHA moment. I wasn’t able to taste that wine last night, but the theme lead my husband and I on a journey about how we got into one and what that AHA moment was.
The fact is… I can’t even talk about wine without talking about my marriage and my relationship with Tom. They are and forever will be linked. It’s not just because we drank wine as part of our ceremony and received wines from our birth year as wedding presents. It’s not just because we honeymooned in Napa Valley. And it’s not just because all the great wines I’ve enjoyed in my life I’ve enjoyed with Tom. It’s all of those things, but most importantly to this theme, it’s because we experienced that AHA moment together.
It was RODNEY STRONG.
Life before Rodney
We knew we liked dry red wine. We were some of those people. Nothing really stuck, one wine wasn’t really that much better than the other, we just liked it red and not sweet. We were okay with cheap… actually super cheap. I remember how excited we were to buy cases of Crane Lake for $2 a bottle at Meijer. That would last us for a couple weeks. Now we only ever use that stuff for cooking.
Then, we had our first bottle of Rodney Strong Cabernet at my dad’s house. It was magical. We began talking about a particular flavor. We couldn’t really put our finger on it. One thing we did know, however, was that we liked the way it made us feel. The “wine buzz” we called it. It was warm and happy and not like any other buzz you could get. It made the blood rush and food taste better.
Life after Rodney
We started buying Rodney for ourselves. At $16, it was the first “expensive” wine we ever bought regularly. We’d save it for special nights. Whenever I would grab the bottle from atop our fridge (not a good place for wine) we’d have to evaluate whether the night was Rodney-worthy. It was in those days in our apartment where we developed our habit for “wine and cheese” dinners, elaborate snacking that would commence while watching movies together on the couch. Life was good.
Then came our wedding, and it was Rodney Strong we drank with our vows.
The Honeymoon and the 2nd A-HA
We closed out the Rodney story by visiting the vineyard on our honeymoon. But, we also visited a lot of other wineries on that trip… 11 in total. For the first time, we were tasting $30 wines, and mostly Napa Valley Cabs. It was an epiphany.
They were delicious and bold. They were big and fruit forward. And they tasted… expensive. We started talking about flavors and colors and textures. We were becoming wine snobs for the first time.
To this day, there is a certain character that we will find in wines that will have us refer to them as “Honeymoon Wines” whether or not they are from California…
“I taste blackberry in this one with a chocolate finish and a hint of honeymoon”
On our anniversary, it has become a tradition to drink big California Cabernets. First it was Spring Mountain, which coincidentally was featured on Conan O’Brien later that summer. Actually it was Spring Mountain for a couple anniversaries. But last night, since we weren’t dining in Canada, where you are allowed to BYOB, we had a new discovery. It was a big bold California blend from Lail Vineyard called Blueprint.
And though our tastes have changed over the years, though we have gained an appreciation of Pinot Noir and subtle flavors from wines around the world… we always have a place for those Big Cabs and for Rodney Strong. And though I wasn’t able to “get back to my roots” last night, this theme has inspired me to make me realize how I really truly came to love wine, and more importantly WHO I came to love it with.
There is no one in the world I would rather drink with. I love you Tom.
travel: Northern Michigan
My blog frequency has steadily declined as my work blog frequency has increased. I don’t anticipate this to change, as I have very recently taken over as Executive Editor of the ThreeMinds blog for Organic. This means a lot more responsibility and a lot more exposure. So, I think I’m going to have an even harder time with RecentlyConsumed, unless I can train myself to write shorter blogs. I’ll try and work on that.
While I haven’t been blogging much lately, what I have been doing is experiencing the wonders of Northern Michigan, which is a pretty amazing reason to live within this sometimes depressed mitten state. It’s easy to forget when you drive the drive from Canton to Bloomfield everyday just how absolutely beautiful this state really is in the summertime. I almost leaped out of my seat the other day when a girl at my work said, “Michigan just doesn’t have any good beaches”. After 2 weekends up North, I have been feeling some major Michigan pride and understanding why SE Michiganders head up their in droves every weekend.
Some of the pictures are not ideal because we forgot our digital camera and bought a disposable for the weekend, but here is a run down of my favorite in North Michigan experiences…
BOWMAN LAKE
For 4th of July weekend, we drove out to Baldwin area, a nowhere town a few miles east of Ludington. We experienced hiking around Bowman Lake for hours without another human being in sight. We did, however, run into two very sleepy and scared baby raccoons lying right in the walking path (adorable). They arched there back like little kittens trying to look fierce as we approached them.
Bowman Lake represented my near ideal campground: highly wooded, highly secluded, a crystal clear lake, hiking trails. We ended up staying at Gleason’s Landing, which was also fairly gorgeous, despite it being mosquito mating season.
ARCADIA BEACH
I love mild weather beaches… I love them more than warm weather beaches. I would take rolling sand dunes with tall grasses any day over flat and sunny Florida or California beaches. Perhaps I’ll find a love for Hawaii beaches someday, but ultimately my heart belongs to Lake Michigan, a constant reminder of my childhood. There is something more peaceful to me about that scenery. Every year, my friends and I will spend a full day at the beach, grilling and swimming (if we dare, it can be chilly), playing trackball, making a fire, and watching the always remarkable sunset.
NORTH MICHIGAN WINE
I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but Northern Michigan has some great wine. Why I’m surprised is that before these two weekend visits, I had judged Michigan wine solely on some experience with southwest Michigan. The cooler Northern climate does quite well for the off-dry whites, the fruit wines, and the sparkling wines.
While I still find that there isn’t a good red wine to be found, and that some of the drier whites fail to pack much flavor, I was thoroughly impressed by many of the wines I tried… and certainly impressed by the price. Whereas Long Island wine has similar characteristics, good and bad, to N. Michigan, their bottles range from $30-50. At L. Mawby, Tom and I picked up some incredible sparkling whites in the $10-20 range.
LOCAVORE MOVEMENT
This was something I hadn’t even thought to notice before, but after finally finishing The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I was paying close attention. I have been inspired to try and eat more locally grown food, but now that I no longer work in Ann Arbor, my ability to buy local food has been greatly diminished to my own backyard. As soon as you step up North though, you will start to see signs everywhere. It’s all about sustainable restaurants and locally grown, seasonal cuisine. Restaurants and shops proudly feature foods and wines from the area. Even the gas station in Arcadia had bottles of local milk (the chocolate milk tasted like melted ice cream, yummm).
With the quaint towns and the vast amounts of nature and available land, it’s hard not to fall in love with up North. The locals show a good amount of pride and for good reason. As winter comes and as the snow makes my already ugly drive even longer and harder, I will look back on this blog and remind myself of just a few of the reasons why living in Michigan is still worthwhile.
technorati tags: lake michigan, locavore, northern michigan
This weekend marked the culmination of several weeks in planning. Well, actually, for happy couple, it was many years in the making, but for the part that the rest of us played, it was relatively short and involved. On Wednesday, July 2nd, Nick asked Carrie to marry him in one of the most interesting ways that I have been a part of: a strange scavenger hunt leading her all over Manistee County. I was personally excited, because ever since Amélie, my friends and I have had fun crafting several citywide (Chicago) hunts involving sets of mysterious clues.
It all began with a fake website for the 3rd Annual Arcadia Mystery History Hunt. I sent an e-mail around claiming that I had found an exciting Arcadia activity for us to participate in over the 4th of July weekend. Carrie, as Nick suspected, took the bait. She is a total geek and loves scavenger hunts. Over the following week, I sent out a few e-mails as a fake scavenger hunt organizer, enough to make it seem legit before our very first clue came in the mail.
“Four original schools of thought contemplate flight, furniture and old toys. Find your first clue “
This was the fun part for the rest of us, the game had begun. Nick had come up with a series of clues that Tom and I were to stealthily place around Arcadia and Frankfort in preparation for the big hunt. Even though we had to get up at the crack of dawn and tie ziplocked envelopes to precarious public landmarks in the pouring rain, it was well worth it for the thrill of what followed.
“The first King reigned over his North Breakwater castle with a luminous stare. He reigned with a cast iron fist and his Sixth Order colored the waters red. Find your second clue”
Even though we thought Nick’s clues were pretty hard, and quite unbelievable for the old ladies that run the Arcadia Historical Museum to have come up with, Carrie was able to nail clue after clue in a few minutes time. We were off to the lighthouse in Frankfort, where she was prepared to walk to the very end of the pier in heavy waves. Luckily, we had put it further inland.
“My blood runs red and white. I was bludgeoned and left for dead in this 80 year old catacomb. Find my brethren and find your third clue.”
While the first two clues were broke open and signed, as if another team was ahead of us, we coordinated the next clue to make it look like we were ahead. Everyone was playing their part. The girls were excited and interested in winning, the boys were interested in slowing down for a couple glasses of beer. Carrie promised that once we got ahead, THEN we could have our first drink. The next clue led us to the wine bar at the Bestie Bay Inn. Unplanned genius!
“200 slain Ottawa Indians defy death and pull towards the center of their burial mound. A famous alchemist and founder of calculus’s head would not need mending. Find your fourth clue on holy ground.”
The next clue took quite a while to figure out, so it was a good thing we were chilling at the bar. The mobile internet was coming in handy for me to prove to Carrie that she was on the right path. We were off to Gravity Hill. Every time the group split up to take two separate cars, we’d be dying in laughter. Carrie was getting mildly upset that Nick wasn’t taking the hunt seriously enough, if only she knew. We were all anxiously awaiting the big finale.
“This hallowed hall of wood with heavenly roofs and bramble walls has seen 1 suicide, 3 car wrecks, 2 ship wrecks, and countless youthful kisses. Pace yourself, look to the lake and find your fifth clue.”
As we approach the lookout point, we notice something strange… a gold van that we had seen at the last few places was beginning to follow us. Later we find out there was some other weekend scavenger hunt going on for the town of Frankfort and the Bestie Bay Inn had given some team our clue by mistake. Man, those people must have been pretty confused when they reached the end.
“The spirits of “the Chief†and “The Mom†still haunt this place. Youths find happiness and a spiritual guidance of a different kind here. Find you sixth clue.”
Camp Arcadia for the last and final clue. The boys wait outside while the girls plant the seed with Carrie that we might have better luck splitting up, something she wasn’t terrible comfortable with. This was the end, the winning clue, and why was everyone now being so disorganized!!
“This is not the board game Clue, but the real Colonel Mustard was murdered in 1815 by his mutinous soldiers in this exact spot. Legend says his blood stained the ground for 50 years. Today his gravestone has been erected. Find me north of STATE, south of LAKE, east of FIRST and west of SIXTH/22.”
The rest of us stopped back by the house to grab a chilled bottle of champagne. Nick and Carrie set off in the pouring rain, little did she know he was leading her to their property. We took the back roads and then began to sneak up in the bushes just at the right time. “Oh MY GOD!!” said Carrie. At that point she was staring at a dumb Halloween gravestone planted in their property. She knew something was fishy, someone had been tricking her, but it was not sinking in.
As we peered through the crack in the bushes, we saw Nick hand her the “final clue”, a card he had written to profess his love before getting down on one knee and proposing. Tears were shed, we ran out from around the bush, popped the Champagne. Everyone was happy and laughing. About three minutes later, Carrie asks, “Wait, so the scavenger hunt wasn’t real?” We had done such a good job that it was still hard for her to believe.
The pictures and videos of the event will end up showing up in many places… this blog, my Flickr, probably even at the wedding when that day finally arrives. Definitely a unique experience that has be incredibly excited to start building scavenger hunts for little kids. Yeah yeah, I know I just wrote that baby blog article, but things change all the time. Tom and I even started picking out some prospective names this weekend. But nobody keep their fingers crossed 
fact: Lisa from Top Chef is Little Pete from the Adventures of Pete and Pete
Top Chef is over and thank GOD Stephanie Izard won. First, her last name is the same as my favorite comedian. Second, her food always sounded delicious. And third, Lisa is a gross-to-look-at, arrogant, nauseating person and there would have been outrage in the fan community if she had won the competition.
I’m really writing this blog for two reasons. One, I needed to put out to the interwebs just how much I think Lisa is the twin of Little Pete from Pete and Pete. And also, I wanted to talk about the fun I am having with my eating challenge for the month of June. I am not go grocery shopping until we make a significant dent in the food we have been ignoring in our cupboards for the past year or so. The reward has been not only piece of mind and a cleaner cupboard, but some very delicious new recipes to add to the books.
Monday:
Spinach, walnut, and apple salad with goat cheese dressing
Wasabi cashew encrusted swordfish over carrots and edamame with a tasty soy glaze
Tuesday:
Black bean and sausage soup with goat cheese sour cream
Wednesday:
Spinach, walnut, and apple salad with goat cheese dressing
Wild boar and steak ragu
Thursday:
Chicken tikka masala (or something similar in nature, equally delicious)
Discoveries:
life experience: Camp Organic
“Life is moving at 500 mph, but I feel like I’ve been put on pause.” - Stacy
I can identify a lot with Stacy’s feelings. It has been more than month since I’ve put up a new blog post, but that isn’t from a lack of things going on in my life. What it has been missing is a lack of things that inspire me, things I’m passionate about, and certainly a lack of time to write about them. Intense workload, social schedule, and a few weekends of marathon gardening have left me sunburnt, tired, and passionately paused. Still, life is good… I’m young… the opportunities are exciting… and spending many hours last week analyzing the troubles in Stacy’s life, I have returned home humbled and inspired to appreciate the freedom I have.
So, who is Stacy?
Stacy is 39, a working mother of 2, living in Elmhurst, Illinois. Stacy is drowning in the hectic schedule of everyday life. She has a really hard time admitting she gets angry, and instead distracts herself with retail therapy and convinces herself she is invincible, after all she’s a super-mom. But lately, she’s been wondering why it has to be this way, where is her help, and why she has to always be the one “put on pause”.
Oh… and Stacy isn’t real. Her story is the result of an intense Las Vegas training exercise Organic puts its employees through called CAMP ORGANIC. It’s probably the best 72 hours without sleep that I have spent in my life. Painful, exhilarating, draining, challenging and everything I love about Organic with none of the limitations (no clients!).
The Story of Camp Organic
It’s much like a reality TV show challenge. In fact, when explaining it to my friends, I started using terms like “QuickFire Challenge” and “Elimination Challenge”. Organic sends 40 employees out to Vegas a couple times a year and gives them 36 hours to develop a product. Like every good reality show, there are limitations and surprises along the way. The ingredients are a demographic, a sin, and a product. The product is the only thing that is the same between the 7 competing teams. And at the end of the time limit, you must demonstrate an inspired presentation (in a semi-delirious state) to a room full of your peers.
The idea is to practice what Organic preaches, empathy inspired web experiences. It’s to encourage as many employees to drink and rejoice in the Organic brand kool-aid, and come back inspired to do better work. But rather than try to explain the idea in detail, you could just watch the documentary:
Our Assignment
Our Demographic: Female, 35-45, Married, Kids, 100K+ HHI
Our Sin: Anger
Our Product: Well… that’s where it gets interesting
The “twist” this time is that there is no product that we need to create. In the past it has been anything from energy drinks to timepieces to financial programs. However, this Camp Organic, we needed to create a BRAND MOVEMENT. Confused yet? Think Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty. Think GE’s Ecomagination. The idea is to take a brand and make it more than a brand… make it not just something people purchase, but something that people rally behind, gather around, spread, live, breathe.
Tough enough? Now add in a tight deadline and a city of people who are not terribly interested in talking to you.
My Not-So Typical 72 Hours in Vegas
(Not the full story, just the good bits aka what I would have Twittered given time)
WED MAY 14th
9:00 AM
My team looks tired, maybe we’re just conserving energy? Allard is an EM from NY, previously Netherlands. Andrew is a copywriter from Toronto. Govid is IT from San Fran. We’re like the united nations of Camp O.
11:00 AM
Quickfire Challenge to create a decked out basement for family of four, but ceilings only 5 feet high. We forget the constraints, don’t leave time to develop a presentation. Ouch we are rusty, maybe we are just saving our good ideas for the real challenge?
3:00 PM
Trip to the Boneyard under 95 degree sun. Diversion or inspiration? Whatever the intent, the heat is killer and we are all ancy to get our sins.
5:00 PM
The twist this season is “Brand Movement”. Sounds reasonably complicated. Brand movements require common values, community support, growth mechanisms, authenticity, and a solid launch plan. Just think for a second how easy that truly is to build for your current clients. Piece of cake!!
5:15 PM
Whatever it is, don’t let it be anger. Don’t let it be anger! Team 7 = ANGER.
6:00 PM
Talking about planning a plan. My strategist weakness is revealed. Until I have a diagram or timeline on paper, my heart is not going to start beating at a normal rate.
7:00 PM
Phew!! We have a plan, and some timeline goals… but wait, here comes counselor Sam. He says we are already ONE HOUR BEHIND all the other groups. Way to get us scrambling early. Time to diverge.
7:30 PM
At the airport, who’s brilliant idea was it to interview people at the Airport (Organic). They are interested in coming or going, not talking.
8:00 PM
First interview a smashing success, probably best of the whole lot. Woman going on a girls’ vacation for the first time in 13 years. Today her babysitter cancelled and her father scheduled a surgery, she barely made it to the airport and one of her friends didn’t. She is probably sitting on the beach in Santa Barbara right now having Margaritas. I wanted to give her a hug.
8:30 PM
Dual interview with interior designers. One young mother gives us the golden quote that she does 80% while her husband only does 20%. Way to hit it home with percentages. Airport is fertile ground for mom’s alone, without social influence.
10:00 PM
On Sam’s suggestion, on the hunt for mom’s in packs. Waitress suggests some clubs. Use the power of Twitter to get some more recommendations.
11:00 PM
Found a pack at the lounge in Caesar’s Palace on their yearly vacation to Vegas. They are happy and ready to talk. They don’t get angry, they can’t get angry. They need to teach their kids not to dwell in angry. Instead they escape. One lady goes to the gym everyday although she works 65 hours a week. Retail therapy. I don’t know that I believe that these moms don’t get angry, but they sure seem convinced with cocktails in hand.
11:45 PM
Regroup with rest of team, converge near jumping bugs outside Bellagio. They had a completely different experience. We are still energized to find some more mom groups while there is still time.
1:00 AM
Party is dead at Pollyster’s at Stratosphere. No mom’s in sight and quite a ways off course. It hurts to feel like you’ve wasted so much time, and the mom packs are thinning out by the minute.
1:30 AM
Have an anti-persona interview at the Wynn that proves more useful than you’d think. 2 young women just graduated college admitted to having the least responsibility now than they have ever had in their life. Nobody expects anything of them, except what they expect from themselves. They are in-between places with such specific hopes and dreams and expectations for the future. They sure don’t have a problem talking to strangers and are also getting hit on more and more by the minute.
3:00 AM
Unload onto the wall. Look for patterns… motherhood is a pressure-cooker, anger is present when things go out of balance. Anger is resolved through denial or escape. Either the anger is buried or the mind is distracted. We build questions tomorrow to delve deeper. We need to get these mom’s to admit they get angry. When was the last time you cried or yelled? Who was it at, strangers, loved ones? What gets under your skin?
3:30 AM
We are getting a little moody. Time for bed.
4:00 AM
Can’t sleep. Mind races with tomorrow’s events.
THURS MAY 15th
8:30 AM
Can barely eat hotel breakfast. Ready to get moving. Not a moment to spare. Today’s plan is to find moms actually with their kids, observe and probe deeper. Sam freaks me out again saying we need artifacts. I forgot completely about artifacts. Diverge.
9:30 AM
Apparently Casino day care doesn’t get hopping until the evening hours. Scratch that plan.
10:00 AM
Hunting for mom’s in Macy’s. Rejection, rejection, rejection. “I can’t talk, I have kids”. We get physically mom-blocked by a stroller. Moms are either non-existent or not interested. Tick, tick, tick.
10:00 AM (meanwhile for Andrew and Govid)
Children’s museum does not take too kindly to our social experiment and kicks my teammates to the curb.
10:30 AM
Getting my skin analyzed while I interview a young mom who works at the mall. Sam suggests “you have to give a little to get a little”. No real insights here, only that her escape is into a journal. Will not admit she gets angry.
11:30 AM
Adventuredome at Circus Circus. Finally caught a mom sitting down. She is so distracted by watching her son, she cannot answer the simplest questions. “So, what do you like to do to stay calm? what do you like to do in your alone time?” She fidgets and is physically uncomfortable, as if saying “are we done yet? are we done yet?” with every inch of her body.
12:00 PM
Observe Mommy-radar in full force with the stroller brigade. It’s like driving a car, check mirrors, check speed. Only it goes left, right, baby, straight-ahead, baby. Sam says we should hard stop at 1:00 PM. He says we have much more than we think we do. With no good interviews at all today, I hope he’s right!!
12:15 PM
Even taxi time is valuable time. Allard tries an IM interview and I e-mail Julie, a colleague and friend of mine. Trying all angles.
12:30 PM
More nervous moms at GameWorks and M&M store. Body is always positioned with an escape route in mind. They read books, sometimes they yell at the dog… there has to be more than this. One tidbit from shy mom, says she is always in control of her emotions, angry people show a lack of control. Her body language says “am I answering this right? is this what you want?”.
2:00 PM
Converge over room service. Unload more stickies onto the wall of various colors. We don’t even know where to begin. There is so much left to do.
3:30 PM
Starting to put stickies we really like on one wall away from other stickies. Is this progress?
4:00 PM
Our main feeling now is that our insight has to revolve around loss of self. Denial and escape are both methods to satisfy anger, but they both don’t help this “loss of self”. Starting to feel a movement in here somewhere.
4:30 PM
Still hunting for the gift. Think we have it narrowed down to a couple solid thoughts. “I’m on pause”, “I can’t talk I have kids”, or “It’s not about me, but it can be”.
6:00 PM
Time is flying, but it feels like not much is happening. We have tested out our three gifts with some 100 mph brainstorms. Feels like we are swirling and just putting up more stickies on the wall. What does it mean to be paused? Is this helping? No… let’s pick and go. We decide on “It’s not about me, but it can be”. Phew, time for a break!!
6:30 PM
Sam says our “gift” is not a gift but a tagline, but we can worry about that later. We should have fun and think about our presentation. Sigh.
7:00 PM
All we know about our presentation is that we want drama and as few slides as possible. I guess that’s a consensus.
7:30 PM
Ooops… can’t forget to flush out that persona in full. I distract us for about half an hour to do that.
8:00 PM
Swirling, swirling, swirling. Andrew wants to get into product, Allard wants to talk about launch, Govid probably wants to go home, and I keep saying “wait, wait, wait”. My strategist brain is killing our momentum right now, so I decide to diverge myself out of the picture.
8:30 PM
Somehow our diverge turned into a nice sushi dinner for two of us (not me), and food court food for the rest of us.
9:30 PM
Too happy, sushi-filled teammates come back to the room with a notebook full of good ideas. The Great Mommy Strike of 2008. Detailed integrations with lots and lots of products. OMG!!! Yeah!! I can do wonders with clutter, but I freak out at a blank slate. This is where I feel comfortable. I’m starting to think for the first time all competition that we are on the right track (yeah, I’m a pessimist).
10:00 PM
The room is filling and filling with really useful stickies. We are flushing out ideas rather than creating new ones. We are pulling weeds rather that rototilling a new garden.
10:30 PM
The room is filled with counselors. I present the persona to some happy faces. We decide to not even delve into our master plan. Yeah… we are filling that confident. To our joy, the counselors don’t question it too much, but offer some good advice. CREATE DRAMA. Teresa says she loves our persona already, we just need to bring her alive.
11:00 PM
After I go to the bathroom for the 10th time today to wipe the tears out of my eyes… not due to stress, but due to the dry Vegas air and stale smoke, the team decides that my red-eyed female voice is probably the best voice to embody Stacy. We have now moved on to creating the presentation.
12:00 AM
I put up the all important “Path To Bed” stickies on the wall. Structure to presentation, build slides, assign roles, rehearse, improve (that’s a good one!), then BED. We all agree to the plan.
1:00 AM
Allard brings out our inner actors. My Acting 101 classes come rushing back. He challenges me to embody lettuce. Are we geniuses or madmen at this point? Definitely both.
1:30 AM
Take our acting challenge out into the hallway. Keep getting interrupted by elevators full of hookers. Only in Vegas.
2:00 AM
Time to diverge. I work on scouring Flickr for those lovely full-slide images. Keep it simple. 6 slides, one picture, one caption. That is all.
2:45 AM
Did Allard fall asleep? Where is he?
3:30 AM
He emerges just in time to do a few rehearsals before bed. We are getting better and better each time, but we are dangerously close to that 20 minute mark.
4:30 AM
Nitpicking breaks out over each other’s sections as we try and make sure we are under 20 minutes. I call bedtime. We need to keep the spirits high. Each person responsible for rocking their own territory. I’m certainly excited to rock mine.
5:00 AM
Too excited to sleep. Dammit brain.
FRI MAY 16th
8:00 AM
One more rehearsal before breakfast. We meet our timing mark, but we are low on energy this morning. We’re just conserving right? I get nervous again.
9:00 AM
Energy slows to a crawl. Call Sam over for a pep boost and sufficiently freak him out. No, really… we are solid on our presentation, we are just a bit tired. We’ll come around (I hope!).
10:30 AM
Two presentations in. One with an Elvis impersonator!! Found the excitement again. I’m ready to present now. No luck, the honor goes to Greed and Gluttony.
11:30 AM
Two more presentations… one that took us out into the hall for a diversion, one with a great punchline “why does she feel so worthless?”. Impressive. One more presentation to squeeze in before lunch, I hope it isn’t Anger. Oh… so of course it is. I need to keep my mouth shut.
11:40 AM
Team begins pacing around the room. Pacing and pacing and pacing. Alright… I feel the energy, it is show time!!!
12:15 PM
Phew!! Feeling good. Channeled my inner-mom. The whole team was even better than last night. Govid saves the end, doesn’t go over. We use every last second of our 20 minutes. Now we can relax.
2:00 PM
Presentations done. End on some great skits (someone found time for humor) and interesting artifacts (letters, blogs). Spend the judge’s deliberation taking all the stickies down from my room. So much less rewarding coming down than going up.
3:00 PM
Yes, yes… best Camp O ever. They say that every time. Don’t make us wait any longer!!
3:30 PM
They drag out more time by analyzing each of our presentations individually. Probably the most rewarding part of the experience, sure sure, but still on to the winners.
3:45 PM
Drum-roll please. The top team is… ANGER!!! Wooooooooo.
4:00 PM and beyond
A blur of experiences recounted, sharing, congratulating, and winding down from one of the most intense experiences of my Organic life.
Am I glad I did it?
Hell yeah!! Not for the faint of heart or people who can’t easily swallow the kool-aid. But, definitely an amazing and empowering experience I couldn’t have had anywhere else.
Would I ever do it again if I could?
Camp Organic is much like a wedding. When it finally comes together, you feel pride and excitement. But for all of the blood, sweat, and tears, it will probably take you a couple of years out before you feel up for the challenge again.
drink: Pisco, a Chilean brandy
bar: Leopold Bros. of Ann Arbor
I have been meaning to post a quick blog on the awesomeness that is PISCO. Pisco is a brandy distilled from white muscat grapes. It is so popular in Chile and Peru, that both nations bicker over which can claim it as the national drink. But, here in America, it is relatively unknown outside of the San Francisco foodie community. I had to majorly struggle to convince my local liquor store that the drink even existed. “It’s not in my liquor books,” he kept saying.
When you can find it… it is delicious. I was turned on to it by my friend and previous co-worker, Andrea, who brought it back from her trip to Chile. When cooking my husband a Chilean themed dinner, I decided to opt for a cocktail course instead of a dessert course. Thus the Strickland household tradition of Pisco Sours and Anna’s Almond Cinnamon This was born.
The only place in all of Michigan where the existence of Pisco is acknowledge the way it deserves to be is at Leopold Bros. of Ann Arbor. In addition to being a brewery, they distill their own gin, vodka, liqueurs, and pisco!! Their menu includes an array of tasty pisco drinks, including piscola, pisco sunrise, and, my favorite, the raspberry pisco margarita. Leopold’s is a wonder in and of itself. Just off of the main street strip, the bar is one of the only hang out havens that doesn’t get uncomfortably overrun in the evenings. They offer large tables for groups, board games, the best jukebox in town, couches, free wi-fi, and a snackable menu (which now includes artisan sandwiches and pizza). It’s cozy, it’s friendly, it’s perfect… only it’s going away forever. The neighborhood rent is driving them to Denver.
The most unfortunate thing is that Ann Arbor-ites know what they are loosing, but can do nothing about it. It’s the fault of the market. All we Leopold lovers can do is hope that the new Denver crowd can appreciate the gem that they are getting. And in the meantime, I’m going to have to start stocking up on Pisco immediately.
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