Kale

This post is a bit off-topic for me, but I'm trying to cook at home more, and I've been experimenting with kale.

So, kale has recently been touted as a superfood (joining all those other superfoods they've been throwing at us in recent years: blue-green algae, broccoli, blueberries, açaí, and on and on they come). I don't pay exceptionally close attention to counting calories or measuring nutrients in my diet—I just try to eat healthily in a general way and hope things work out all right (despite my predilection for fatty cheeses and other bad-for-me things).

I'm training for a half-marathon (for charity), so I've added glucosamine supplements to my diet (for my old knees), and I've been eating a bit more, both proteins and carbs. But I think my higher consumption of kale is really making a difference in my energy levels.

OK, so here's what I've been doing with it:

I've been making Bobby Flay's sautéed kale.

I've been doing my own "quick kale": I fill a frying pan with hand-shredded kale (stems removed), sprinkle the leaves with olive oil and low-sodium soy sauce, and add a couple of tablespoons of water. Then I just sauté until the water evaporates and the kale is tender (a few minutes). It's a great side dish.

I've also been pulverizing a mixture of kale and lime juice in my food processor (a couple of loosely packed cups of leaves without stems, and the juice of about half a lime), mashing that mixture into an avocado, and adding some cumin and a bit of sriracha (which deserves its own blog post) to make a sort of guacamole that I use on burritos. All you really need is that and some beans to make a delicious burrito.

And I've been supercharging pesto by food-processing kale, a couple of cloves of garlic, and a little bit of olive oil, and then adding one part that mixture and one part pesto sauce to pasta. It's so good!

I like raw vegetables, but kale is a little tough and stringy unless you grind it up or wilt it a little bit.

Kale. It's what's for dinner.

Part 2
After I'd sent out this post, my father's wife, Maureen, was kind enough to share a photo of the "incipient kale" in her garden.

She says, "This is a bit blurry but you can see that the stems are very white and the little leaves are sweet and round. Kale at this stage looks a lot like kohlrabi, which is growing on either side of the kale row. We really like kale. It grows well, looks pretty, and can be eaten as you have pointed out in many ways. I like to make pesto with it because if you add enough garlic, parm cheese, and walnuts, you don't really miss the basil. And because the kale has been steamed a bit first it whirs up nicely without adding much oil at all, so is lower in fat."

He-She

I read with interest a recent review (from a New Yorker blog) of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. In this new version, the translators and editors have tried to use gender-neutral language—for instance, replacing the word forefathers with the word ancestors.

And they've tried to tackle English's pronoun problem. Although it's a wordy language, English lacks one word that would be very useful: a gender-neutral single-person pronoun.

As our society has moved toward gender equality, we've found many ways to express those changes in our language. For instance, writers sensitive to the issue might use the word humanity instead of mankind. Or when a person's gender is unknown, we use mail carrier instead of mailman, businessperson instead of businessman, and police officer instead of policeman. Some language purists (and some sexists) mock a few of these new terms. Fisher (for fisherman) is a good example of a word that sounds, to many, farcically "politically correct"—even though it is, in fact, not a new word but an old word recently revived.

But we haven't found a new word to fill this gap: "Whenever you see a soldier, smile at _____."

If we were speaking casually, we might say say, "... them." That's how we get around having to say "him or her" and "he or she" every time this happens when we're talking. But many grammarians (and I) don't like using they this way in print. One reason is that they takes a plural verb, so antecedents get fuzzy—and this, in writing, makes for odd sentences: "When I see a soldier, I smile at them, and they smile back."

Many reputable usage guides—such as The Chicago Manual of Style, Bryan A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern Usage, and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage—recommend the "he or she" solution if you're unable to rewrite your way out of the problem.

But I find that, if I put some thought into it, I'm almost always able to rewrite my way to a gender-neutral solution that doesn't call too much attention to itself—and that's good, because "he or she" can seem clunky when it's repeated a lot (I decline to discuss "he/she").

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says, "'[H]e or she' may be used as a last resort to avoid an unwanted assumption of maleness or femaleness in a general reference," adding, however, that "preferred solutions are those that spare the reader all traces of a writer's struggle." It suggests plural constructions ("A good soldier always does his duty," for example, may be changed to "Good soldiers always do their duty"). Alternatively, you might rewrite the sentence so that no pronoun is required. ("A good soldier always does what's required.")

The second example is an intrusive edit, and the first, too, changes meaning slightly (it may suggest more of "a singleness of mind in the group," according to A Dictionary of Modern Usage). In longer writing, when I have multiple gender-unknown single-person pronouns, I sometimes switch back and forth between male and female pronouns: "The hiring manager may think she's being helpful. ... And when you speak to the HR person, ask when you can expect to hear from him."

More from A Dictionary of Modern Usage: "The traditional view, now widely assailed as sexist, was that the masculine pronouns are generic, comprehending both male and female." Some wordsmiths do still see this as true, but "he or she" as a construction is not new; it appears in English as far back as the early 1800s.

So why bother with this? Well, there's the whole clarity-in-writing thing. Also, I think it's important for readers (and therefore for writers and the the publications or brands they represent) to see themselves in writing and the media. Inclusiveness is the right way to write.

Hungarian, just as a side note, is one of the languages that doesn't have this problem. It has one singular-person pronoun, ő, which means both "he" and "she." If you're at all familiar with Hungarian, you know that its speakers have earned this small simplicity in their beautifully complicated language.

Part 2
In a new blog post on Queerty.com, I continue our conversation about pronouns.

Image: Keattikorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Self-Editing Tips

Writing and editing are, I think, very different activities—the first involves creativity, and the second is more about applying logic and making sure you're following "rules" (not only simple rules of grammar but also complex rules of style and readability).

That's why, in an ideal editorial situation, one person writes and another person edits. But I don't live in that perfect world. So with important documents, if I have time (and especially if I'm writing something long), I try to write and edit separately. This is my self-editing process:

1. I write: trying not to self-edit, I finish a draft.
2. I let some time pass: even a few hours can allow me to read with fresh eyes.
3. I print the text and review it with a colored pencil: I'll often find things on paper that I won't find on screen, and removing myself from the writing environment prevents me from slipping too far back into "creative mode."
4. I implement my revisions (and repeat steps 2 and 3 if I did heavy rewriting).
5. I read the document aloud: even if I just whisper, this helps me ensure readability—and I often uncover sneaky typos at this stage.
6. I run a spelling checker: I leave the spelling checker off while I'm writing; I find that it fades into the background if it's on throughout the process.

When I was the managing editor of Macworld magazine (where several editors and copy editors worked with the writer or writers of each piece), we employed some further tips that might help self-editors:

1. Read the first and last lines of each paragraph to check transitions.
2. Turn the document upside-down to check formatting: this allows you to see the document without reading it.

Are you a self-editor? I'd love to see your tips in the comments section.

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Pigs in Space

When I was a child, my family and I lived for a brief time near Washington, D.C.—in a Maryland suburb. My parents divorced when I was 9; my mother, sisters, and I moved away from Maryland, and I hadn't been back to D.C. until last weekend, when I visited for a conference.

I have a very distinct memory of being in Washington D.C. as a child. It is of being on the D.C. Metro with my family. I don't remember where we were going, but being on a subway was a novel experience, so my sister Sarah and I were in high spirits. (If Emily was there, she was an infant.)

At the back of D.C. Metro cars is a little glass partition in front of two "semi-private" seats. So here is my distinct and vivid memory: sitting in those seats, in the last car, with my sister Sarah, and playing "Pigs in Space" while watching the track recede behind us. Playing "Pigs in Space" entailed shouting, "Pigs ... in ... Spaaaaaace!" whenever the train accelerated.

You're familiar with "Pigs in Space," right? It was a recurring sketch on The Muppet Show.



This memory makes me happy. Isn't memory strange—the little bits and flashes that get recorded deep in your psyche? This long-ago outing is surely part of the reason I have such a fondness for public transportation. Thanks, Jim Henson, Miss Piggy, Link Hogthrob, and Dr. Strangepork.