Category Archives: hunger

On fruit cake

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A traditional holiday treat that many people don’t like, or at least lots of folks joke about. Sweet, chewy, filled with candied fruit and nuts, encased in a rich spicy cake, what’s not to like? In fact, this treat is so rich that it might not be a good idea to eat more than a small piece at any given moment. If you are watching your weight, forget fruit cake because each piece will have between four hundred and eight hundred calories given all the sugar it has in it. Perhaps it just seems old-fashioned. There are recipes for fruit cake that go back to the middle ages, a fact which opens the door to numerous jokes and lots of ridicule, but I think most of that ridicule is unfounded and based on a biased and uneducated experience as to what this delicious, succulent, treat is really all about. Cake. Who doesn’t like a nice spice cake with lots of rich eggs, flour, and sugar? Walnuts and pecans. Enough said. Candied fruits of all kinds. There are those people who do not like candied fruits, but again, it’s about sugar, so unless you are diabetic, you should love fruit cake which has candied oranges, cherries, pears, lemons, figs, watermelon rinds, and raisins in it. The common denominator here is sugar, and lots of it. Perhaps people fear and loath fruitcake because your strange Aunt Hortensia was the one who gave it to you as a gift, when you really wanted a new video game for your console. You have a natural aversion to your aunt who smells like cats, dresses as if it were 1955, and usually gives you tighty-whitey underwear for Christmas, not a new video game. This time the box weighs several pounds, and you know it’s not what you want. I often think that the presentation and image of fruitcake gives it a bad rap as well: brown and bumpy with strange, muted colors. Fruitcake is also rather massive and somber looking, not at all pleasant or translucent, as if it needed an extreme makeover so that it looked more like a diaphanous piece of sculpted cheese cake rather than something that the cat might have killed and dragged in. If you were to give it to the cat, I’m sure they would make short work of it though. Fruitcake has an image issue which its makers need to deal with. This is a dessert which is just not modern and glitzy, not healthy or holistic, not for losing weight or getting control of your blood pressure. I would suggest, in fact, that if you have any problems related to sugar or fat or weight or high blood pressure or cholesterol, that this is not your ideal food. If, on the other hand, you want to have friends in for a nice hot cup of coffee or mulled wine or aquavit or whatever, you might want to offer small pieces of this delightful, heaven-sent victual that is a delight to eat and wonderful to share. Certainly, you are not going to give this to the younger generation–they want toaster pastries or energy drinks or fast food. They eat with their eyes and fruitcake does not “look” good, so they won’t eat it. Their loss. But if you are having in a few people who have been around the world and eaten a few odd things, then a freshly baked fruitcake from a central Texas location is probably called for. The nuts, the fruit, the cake, it’s a great gift for your favorite teacher, a fabulous administrative assistant, your boss, or just someone you love. Being generous and loving during the holidays is a fine way to cap the year, and God knows, this has been a stressful year. So why not do it with fruitcake?

On fruit cake

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A traditional holiday treat that many people don’t like, or at least lots of folks joke about. Sweet, chewy, filled with candied fruit and nuts, encased in a rich spicy cake, what’s not to like? In fact, this treat is so rich that it might not be a good idea to eat more than a small piece at any given moment. If you are watching your weight, forget fruit cake because each piece will have between four hundred and eight hundred calories given all the sugar it has in it. Perhaps it just seems old-fashioned. There are recipes for fruit cake that go back to the middle ages, a fact which opens the door to numerous jokes and lots of ridicule, but I think most of that ridicule is unfounded and based on a biased and uneducated experience as to what this delicious, succulent, treat is really all about. Cake. Who doesn’t like a nice spice cake with lots of rich eggs, flour, and sugar? Walnuts and pecans. Enough said. Candied fruits of all kinds. There are those people who do not like candied fruits, but again, it’s about sugar, so unless you are diabetic, you should love fruit cake which has candied oranges, cherries, pears, lemons, figs, watermelon rinds, and raisins in it. The common denominator here is sugar, and lots of it. Perhaps people fear and loath fruitcake because your strange Aunt Hortensia was the one who gave it to you as a gift, when you really wanted a new video game for your console. You have a natural aversion to your aunt who smells like cats, dresses as if it were 1955, and usually gives you tighty-whitey underwear for Christmas, not a new video game. This time the box weighs several pounds, and you know it’s not what you want. I often think that the presentation and image of fruitcake gives it a bad rap as well: brown and bumpy with strange, muted colors. Fruitcake is also rather massive and somber looking, not at all pleasant or translucent, as if it needed an extreme makeover so that it looked more like a diaphanous piece of sculpted cheese cake rather than something that the cat might have killed and dragged in. If you were to give it to the cat, I’m sure they would make short work of it though. Fruitcake has an image issue which its makers need to deal with. This is a dessert which is just not modern and glitzy, not healthy or holistic, not for losing weight or getting control of your blood pressure. I would suggest, in fact, that if you have any problems related to sugar or fat or weight or high blood pressure or cholesterol, that this is not your ideal food. If, on the other hand, you want to have friends in for a nice hot cup of coffee or mulled wine or aquavit or whatever, you might want to offer small pieces of this delightful, heaven-sent victual that is a delight to eat and wonderful to share. Certainly, you are not going to give this to the younger generation–they want toaster pastries or energy drinks or fast food. They eat with their eyes and fruitcake does not “look” good, so they won’t eat it. Their loss. But if you are having in a few people who have been around the world and eaten a few odd things, then a freshly baked fruitcake from a central Texas location is probably called for. The nuts, the fruit, the cake, it’s a great gift for your favorite teacher, a fabulous administrative assistant, your boss, or just someone you love. Being generous and loving during the holidays is a fine way to cap the year, and God knows, this has been a stressful year. So why not do it with fruitcake?

On butter

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Can you ever get enough butter? Perhaps this deep philosophical question cannot ever be answered successfully without threatening the heart health and weight of the testers, but who wouldn’t like to die trying? Toast, for example, is not toast without a ton of butter slathered on it. Butterless popcorn is just not worth eating. There is something so creamy and so sweet about butter that it deserves its own food group. Loaded with fat and sugar in a velvety base of semi-solid lipids, butter is the apotheosis of ideal food, and we only invent foods such as toast and popcorn so we can eat it without guilt. Whoever invented butter was a food genius or the luckiest milk man who ever lived when their milk all of sudden turned quasi-solid. They must have originally thought that their milk had gone over, turned bad, until they tried it and fell in love. Butter makes so many foods taste as if they were divine victuals send directly from Olympus by generous gods. I love to put it in my decadent prohibited chocolate coffee fudge frosting. I have seen people scoop the frosting off of the chocolate cake, eat the frosting and leave the cake. There is nothing better for dipping lobster (if you like that sort of thing) than a little butter and garlic, which make an ideal couple when put together. How could anyone ever eat a baked potato if they did not have butter? I’ve heard that the French will put a fresh pat of butter on a freshly cooked steak–to each his butter own, I always say. Would the creation of butter ice cream be redundant or just a little too far over the top? Butter, pasta, parsley, an egg, some fried pancetta, cream, and some salt and pepper make a pasta dish too good to ever turn down. Why is it that when the toast is hot, the butter is cold and hard? Running out of butter is almost an emergency reason to go to the store regardless of the hour. Things I put butter on: oatmeal, mashed potatoes, green beans, asparagus, popcorn, pancakes, waffles, shrimp, lobster, toast, biscuits, grits. I’m sure that’s not a complete list, but it’s a start. Butter brings up the flavor in so many foods, especially cooked vegetables. Butter on freshly cooked corn on the cob is one of those delights that if you have not experienced it yet, it should be on your bucket list. Butter and garlic go so well together on many things that the vampires will be fleeing the area almost at once should you invoke this wonderful combination of flavors. Of course, if you have cholesterol issues, you are vampire and should flee from the butter. Butter is actually worth being in shape for so that you can eat it freely without looking at yourself in the mirror, but if you have no reflection anyway? It probably doesn’t matter, you don’t eat butter either. A pat of butter on a hot cinnamon roll gives off an aroma that almost supersedes the taste, which is nice, especially if you are on a food-free diet where such things are prohibited. Smelling it won’t cost you anything. Perhaps it is because butter does affect so many of the senses (no, you can’t really hear butter unless you are wading through it), sight, touch, taste, and smell, that it is so special and so unique and so loved as a food. Who won’t lick their fingers if they have butter on them?

On butter

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Can you ever get enough butter? Perhaps this deep philosophical question cannot ever be answered successfully without threatening the heart health and weight of the testers, but who wouldn’t like to die trying? Toast, for example, is not toast without a ton of butter slathered on it. Butterless popcorn is just not worth eating. There is something so creamy and so sweet about butter that it deserves its own food group. Loaded with fat and sugar in a velvety base of semi-solid lipids, butter is the apotheosis of ideal food, and we only invent foods such as toast and popcorn so we can eat it without guilt. Whoever invented butter was a food genius or the luckiest milk man who ever lived when their milk all of sudden turned quasi-solid. They must have originally thought that their milk had gone over, turned bad, until they tried it and fell in love. Butter makes so many foods taste as if they were divine victuals send directly from Olympus by generous gods. I love to put it in my decadent prohibited chocolate coffee fudge frosting. I have seen people scoop the frosting off of the chocolate cake, eat the frosting and leave the cake. There is nothing better for dipping lobster (if you like that sort of thing) than a little butter and garlic, which make an ideal couple when put together. How could anyone ever eat a baked potato if they did not have butter? I’ve heard that the French will put a fresh pat of butter on a freshly cooked steak–to each his butter own, I always say. Would the creation of butter ice cream be redundant or just a little too far over the top? Butter, pasta, parsley, an egg, some fried pancetta, cream, and some salt and pepper make a pasta dish too good to ever turn down. Why is it that when the toast is hot, the butter is cold and hard? Running out of butter is almost an emergency reason to go to the store regardless of the hour. Things I put butter on: oatmeal, mashed potatoes, green beans, asparagus, popcorn, pancakes, waffles, shrimp, lobster, toast, biscuits, grits. I’m sure that’s not a complete list, but it’s a start. Butter brings up the flavor in so many foods, especially cooked vegetables. Butter on freshly cooked corn on the cob is one of those delights that if you have not experienced it yet, it should be on your bucket list. Butter and garlic go so well together on many things that the vampires will be fleeing the area almost at once should you invoke this wonderful combination of flavors. Of course, if you have cholesterol issues, you are vampire and should flee from the butter. Butter is actually worth being in shape for so that you can eat it freely without looking at yourself in the mirror, but if you have no reflection anyway? It probably doesn’t matter, you don’t eat butter either. A pat of butter on a hot cinnamon roll gives off an aroma that almost supersedes the taste, which is nice, especially if you are on a food-free diet where such things are prohibited. Smelling it won’t cost you anything. Perhaps it is because butter does affect so many of the senses (no, you can’t really hear butter unless you are wading through it), sight, touch, taste, and smell, that it is so special and so unique and so loved as a food. Who won’t lick their fingers if they have butter on them?

On leftovers

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The day after Thanksgiving, aka, Black Friday, is also the best day for leftovers during the entire year. Not that I want to eat turkey, per se, but the wide variety of leftovers can be stunning, running the gamut from green bean hotdish to sweet potatoes to stuffing to tuna and pasta salad. Now I know that some folks don’t like leftovers, but the microwave and the refrigerator were invented to prolong the life of prepared uneaten food. There is an entire philosophy of economy in the ethos of leftovers that makes eating leftovers a noble cause. For example, some foods get better the second, third, or fourth day out: meatloaf, red sauce, stuffed red peppers, roast beef, paella, meatballs, marinated artichoke hearts. Most tater tot hotdish doesn’t really reach the apotheosis of its true flavor until its third day. Yet, lutefisk should not even be eaten fresh–why is that? A nice collection of little plastic cool whip containers that have been repurposed as leftover storage containers is a wonderful sight to see, lined up like little cold soldiers in the refrigerator, each containing a dab of something, slowly smoldering away a just above freezing, forgotten by all until someone decides to clean the refrigerator. Some people are leftovers hoarders, a strange twist in the OCD world where not even a dab of food might be thrown away. On any given day, if a leftover has not been eaten within a week of its creation, one might safely stop that experiment in the radioactive half life of Carbon 13. In my worldview of leftovers, one must make a concerted effort to consume leftovers in a timely fashion. Leftovers come into their own when they can be repurposed and turned into something else. A creative cook does more than just reheat and reserve. The great advantage of having leftovers the day after Thanksgiving is being able to haul out the repurposed cool whip containers and put on the same rich spread you had from the day before but with no work. I have refrained from discussing turkey because it is one of the foods which becomes suspect after a short while. Unlike a luscious piece of cold fried chicken, turkey becomes even blander than it was in the first place. Perhaps there is something sinister about leftover turkey which no one understands. A sandwich made of leftover turkey white meat is dry enough to choke a horse, that is, if horses ate turkey. Late night foraging into the darkly lit reaches of the average fridge is often successful is someone has been thoughtful enough to fill up the cool whip containers. There a few things sadder than the visage of one who has unsuccessfully rummaged in the fridge looking for that one last morsel of food just after midnight. Leftovers are the stuff that dreams, dark dreams that is, are made of: cranberries, peas, pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, black-eyed peas, rice, garbanzos. In the end, however, things that get left too long become biohazard experiments that eventually walk off under their own power.

On leftovers

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The day after Thanksgiving, aka, Black Friday, is also the best day for leftovers during the entire year. Not that I want to eat turkey, per se, but the wide variety of leftovers can be stunning, running the gamut from green bean hotdish to sweet potatoes to stuffing to tuna and pasta salad. Now I know that some folks don’t like leftovers, but the microwave and the refrigerator were invented to prolong the life of prepared uneaten food. There is an entire philosophy of economy in the ethos of leftovers that makes eating leftovers a noble cause. For example, some foods get better the second, third, or fourth day out: meatloaf, red sauce, stuffed red peppers, roast beef, paella, meatballs, marinated artichoke hearts. Most tater tot hotdish doesn’t really reach the apotheosis of its true flavor until its third day. Yet, lutefisk should not even be eaten fresh–why is that? A nice collection of little plastic cool whip containers that have been repurposed as leftover storage containers is a wonderful sight to see, lined up like little cold soldiers in the refrigerator, each containing a dab of something, slowly smoldering away a just above freezing, forgotten by all until someone decides to clean the refrigerator. Some people are leftovers hoarders, a strange twist in the OCD world where not even a dab of food might be thrown away. On any given day, if a leftover has not been eaten within a week of its creation, one might safely stop that experiment in the radioactive half life of Carbon 13. In my worldview of leftovers, one must make a concerted effort to consume leftovers in a timely fashion. Leftovers come into their own when they can be repurposed and turned into something else. A creative cook does more than just reheat and reserve. The great advantage of having leftovers the day after Thanksgiving is being able to haul out the repurposed cool whip containers and put on the same rich spread you had from the day before but with no work. I have refrained from discussing turkey because it is one of the foods which becomes suspect after a short while. Unlike a luscious piece of cold fried chicken, turkey becomes even blander than it was in the first place. Perhaps there is something sinister about leftover turkey which no one understands. A sandwich made of leftover turkey white meat is dry enough to choke a horse, that is, if horses ate turkey. Late night foraging into the darkly lit reaches of the average fridge is often successful is someone has been thoughtful enough to fill up the cool whip containers. There a few things sadder than the visage of one who has unsuccessfully rummaged in the fridge looking for that one last morsel of food just after midnight. Leftovers are the stuff that dreams, dark dreams that is, are made of: cranberries, peas, pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, black-eyed peas, rice, garbanzos. In the end, however, things that get left too long become biohazard experiments that eventually walk off under their own power.

On Little Red Riding Hood

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The story seems so simple, yet, of course, it is so complex. We read it to children, this horrifying story of violence and death. A wolf is loose, a wolf who can talk, and he is interested in eating Little Red. An odd name, that one, Little Red Riding Hood. Today, it’s just a red hoodie. The young girl does not have a name, not a real name anyway, and she lives in a rural area of farms and trees and isolated country cottages. She is carrying a basket of goodies to her grandmother, but of course her grandmother lives in a cottage in the woods, and by this we understand such things as fear, loneliness, and danger. After all, it is off the beaten path in the woods, and who knows what you might run into out there. Little Red is, of course, just a metaphoric player in this family drama about coming of age, sex, and awakenings. There is no talking wolf, but the wolf does eat grandmother, a tradition that doesn’t seem to alarm listeners, but it does scare me, being at times rather wolf-like myself. The most frightening part of the story is the conversation between Little Red and the wolf who has now put on the grandmother’s nightdress and hopped into bed. I imagine there are still little drops of blood on his whiskers, but let’s skip that ugly detail. “My, grandmother, what big teeth you have.” ” My grandmother what hairy hands you have, and you also need a manicure.” “My, grandmother, what big ears you have and they are pointy and hairy as well!” Why Little Red cannot see the wolf in grandmother’s clothing is a little beyond me unless Little Red is a little simple in her ways. The wolf attacks her, of course, and she runs, seeking the help of another wolf, the axe man/lumberjack who happens to be near grandmother’s cottage. Using his ever present phallic ax he proceeds to disembowel the wolf, saving Little Red and the grandmother from certain death. The goodies probably go to the trusty young handsome woodsman, and everybody is happy–the wolf has been defeated. Life seems to be all about defeating the wolf, who represents all sorts of unmentionable things that we really want to ignore in life–sex, violence, adulthood, coming-of-age. We would all like Little Red to remain a child forever, caught in a strange vortex or stasis where she is forever ten years old, innocent, unknowing, pristine, unmarked, virginal. The father of Little Red is strangely absent from the story, leaving things unsettled and the entire story is disquieting and problematic. The wolf, who is not a wolf, is only a person dressed in wolf’s skins. That is all the wolf has ever been–a person. How else could it talk? There are unanswered questions about the violence that Little Red witnesses, the fear she experiences at the hands of the wolf, and that strange red cloak that defines her very identity. Yet she is condemned to stay ten forever, never arriving at womanhood, forever trudging through the woods to her grandmother’s cottage. I hope there is snow in the version you have read because that will make her red cloak that much redder. She epitomizes womanhood and femaleness as a paradigm of innocence pursued by evil, a relentless evil that takes the form of a wolf, a violent carnivorous animal bent on destroying her. I have never completely understood the story, and perhaps I never will.

On Little Red Riding Hood

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The story seems so simple, yet, of course, it is so complex. We read it to children, this horrifying story of violence and death. A wolf is loose, a wolf who can talk, and he is interested in eating Little Red. An odd name, that one, Little Red Riding Hood. Today, it’s just a red hoodie. The young girl does not have a name, not a real name anyway, and she lives in a rural area of farms and trees and isolated country cottages. She is carrying a basket of goodies to her grandmother, but of course her grandmother lives in a cottage in the woods, and by this we understand such things as fear, loneliness, and danger. After all, it is off the beaten path in the woods, and who knows what you might run into out there. Little Red is, of course, just a metaphoric player in this family drama about coming of age, sex, and awakenings. There is no talking wolf, but the wolf does eat grandmother, a tradition that doesn’t seem to alarm listeners, but it does scare me, being at times rather wolf-like myself. The most frightening part of the story is the conversation between Little Red and the wolf who has now put on the grandmother’s nightdress and hopped into bed. I imagine there are still little drops of blood on his whiskers, but let’s skip that ugly detail. “My, grandmother, what big teeth you have.” ” My grandmother what hairy hands you have, and you also need a manicure.” “My, grandmother, what big ears you have and they are pointy and hairy as well!” Why Little Red cannot see the wolf in grandmother’s clothing is a little beyond me unless Little Red is a little simple in her ways. The wolf attacks her, of course, and she runs, seeking the help of another wolf, the axe man/lumberjack who happens to be near grandmother’s cottage. Using his ever present phallic ax he proceeds to disembowel the wolf, saving Little Red and the grandmother from certain death. The goodies probably go to the trusty young handsome woodsman, and everybody is happy–the wolf has been defeated. Life seems to be all about defeating the wolf, who represents all sorts of unmentionable things that we really want to ignore in life–sex, violence, adulthood, coming-of-age. We would all like Little Red to remain a child forever, caught in a strange vortex or stasis where she is forever ten years old, innocent, unknowing, pristine, unmarked, virginal. The father of Little Red is strangely absent from the story, leaving things unsettled and the entire story is disquieting and problematic. The wolf, who is not a wolf, is only a person dressed in wolf’s skins. That is all the wolf has ever been–a person. How else could it talk? There are unanswered questions about the violence that Little Red witnesses, the fear she experiences at the hands of the wolf, and that strange red cloak that defines her very identity. Yet she is condemned to stay ten forever, never arriving at womanhood, forever trudging through the woods to her grandmother’s cottage. I hope there is snow in the version you have read because that will make her red cloak that much redder. She epitomizes womanhood and femaleness as a paradigm of innocence pursued by evil, a relentless evil that takes the form of a wolf, a violent carnivorous animal bent on destroying her. I have never completely understood the story, and perhaps I never will.

On time poverty

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I think we all wish we had more time to do the things we would like to do. As a nation, we run to work, run to school, run to piano lessons, to football practice, to band practice, to the grocery store, to church, to whatever the next thing is. Today I didn’t eat lunch until 5 pm, which was totally my fault for bad planning, but I felt like I was running to and fro in the earth without a moment to breath, think, or take stock of the day–not to be sure. Time slips away and the day is gone, and I often feel like I’ve accomplished little or nothing, all the while thinking about what I have to do tomorrow, which is already stacking up as a busy day, and I’m not even there yet. We have successfully filled our days with so many meetings, events, happenings, practices, and duties that we must blindly scurry from place to place like so many moles looking for our next meal. Should lunch or dinner be something that we wolf down just to gain a little protein and few calories so we don’t pass out at the next football game? We text messages instead of talk to people, we send emails instead of communicating, we skype because we can’t be in two places at once. We double-ook and over-commit ourselves, and before we know it, we are late to everything, stop lights are our enemies, traffic and parking are more of challenge than pleasure. As we rush about trying to make everyone happy, we neglect our own poor abandoned soul in favor of trying to please everyone, so basically no one is happy. They don’t call it the rat race for nothing. There has to be a point in everyone’s life when you reach a breaking point: your clothes are sweaty and wrinkled, you did just miss a meeting, you don’t know where you are supposed to be, your head hurts, your stomach grumbles, you don’t really know what your life has become other than a chaotic jumble of people, places, and things. You no longer know what a rose smells like unless it comes in an air-freshener, you don’t remember the last time you sat with someone and just talked about nothing. You are stressed and cranky and facing an all-nighter because someone wants another paper or a report or an accounting or something. Should you have another cup of coffee really quickly? Or maybe a shower will help you wake up? Everything turns into a band-aid, a patch job so you can get the next task done. You lose perspective. If only you had more time to get things done. Is it time to start saying “no” and begin to recuperate your life? Is there more to life than over-committing to a dozen causes, to working sixty hours a week, to creating a schedule that is so hostile that your life is no longer your own? Perhaps.

On time poverty

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I think we all wish we had more time to do the things we would like to do. As a nation, we run to work, run to school, run to piano lessons, to football practice, to band practice, to the grocery store, to church, to whatever the next thing is. Today I didn’t eat lunch until 5 pm, which was totally my fault for bad planning, but I felt like I was running to and fro in the earth without a moment to breath, think, or take stock of the day–not to be sure. Time slips away and the day is gone, and I often feel like I’ve accomplished little or nothing, all the while thinking about what I have to do tomorrow, which is already stacking up as a busy day, and I’m not even there yet. We have successfully filled our days with so many meetings, events, happenings, practices, and duties that we must blindly scurry from place to place like so many moles looking for our next meal. Should lunch or dinner be something that we wolf down just to gain a little protein and few calories so we don’t pass out at the next football game? We text messages instead of talk to people, we send emails instead of communicating, we skype because we can’t be in two places at once. We double-ook and over-commit ourselves, and before we know it, we are late to everything, stop lights are our enemies, traffic and parking are more of challenge than pleasure. As we rush about trying to make everyone happy, we neglect our own poor abandoned soul in favor of trying to please everyone, so basically no one is happy. They don’t call it the rat race for nothing. There has to be a point in everyone’s life when you reach a breaking point: your clothes are sweaty and wrinkled, you did just miss a meeting, you don’t know where you are supposed to be, your head hurts, your stomach grumbles, you don’t really know what your life has become other than a chaotic jumble of people, places, and things. You no longer know what a rose smells like unless it comes in an air-freshener, you don’t remember the last time you sat with someone and just talked about nothing. You are stressed and cranky and facing an all-nighter because someone wants another paper or a report or an accounting or something. Should you have another cup of coffee really quickly? Or maybe a shower will help you wake up? Everything turns into a band-aid, a patch job so you can get the next task done. You lose perspective. If only you had more time to get things done. Is it time to start saying “no” and begin to recuperate your life? Is there more to life than over-committing to a dozen causes, to working sixty hours a week, to creating a schedule that is so hostile that your life is no longer your own? Perhaps.