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Leslie Dinaberg’s columns

Laundry Lessons

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My friend Erin turns 40 today. She doesn’t want any presents; she just wants me to tell her the meaning of life.

That’s all. The meaning of life. Just a simple, little gift. I don’t think she’ll accept “no,” “42,” or even “swordfish” as an answer.

Doesn’t she know that I don’t really know what the meaning of life is? I’m not THAT much older than she is. Though I do know from personal experience that you can’t find the meaning of life in any store. Not even the shoe department at Nordstrom.

It’s not in a glass of wine or a tree or a yoga pose. And contrary to what some people say, I never learned about the meaning of life in kindergarten.

But I do know one thing I can share with her: You can learn a lot about life by doing laundry.

On the surface it may seem like a never-ending, redundant chore-whites, brights, darks, lights, towels, sheets, rinse and repeat. Again, five, six, seven, eight, whites, brights, darks, lights, towels, sheets, rinse and repeat. You can never catch up with the laundry. The moment that you match that last clean pair of socks, another soiled and sweaty duo shows up in the basket to take their place.

You’re never done. There’s always another day and another pair of dirty socks.

Of course anyone who does a lot of laundry knows that there’s really no such thing as being able to make all the socks match up in perfect pairs. Sure they start out that way when they’re new and fresh from the factory. Those socks are unscarred and optimistic because they’re too young and naïve to know any better. They walk down the aisles of Target in perfect harmony, believing that plastic staples and a shared manufacturer will bind them blissfully together forever.

Little do they know that once they hit that laundry basket life is full of surprises. The lucky pairs will stay in the same cycles, dancing around separately by day—while one rendezvous with a favorite t-shirt, the other attaches itself to a sweet smelling sheet—only to reunite in a cozy drawer for the night.

It doesn’t matter how many clothes you have or how often you wash them, every load of laundry is familiar, but if you look carefully enough you’ll always find surprises. Some weeks are full of grays and some are full of color. Some clothes, like some people, thrive in hot water, while others prefer it to be chilly. And try though you may to keep your dainty delicates away from the dryer, sometimes they attach themselves to a muddy pair of khakis or a stinky sweatshirt with an old college logo and they’re never quite the same after that.

An errant burr might worm its way into your sole leaving a scar on your heel that only you can see but you feel it every time you take a step. Buttons fall off and disappear into the ether. An errant purple crayon makes its way out of a classroom to permanently mark its territory on your favorite pink tank top. Things don’t always come out the way you think they will in the wash. That’s why they invented tie-dye.

The rinse cycle is good for cleaning off the grime, but sometimes you have to repeat—rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And there are some things that never come completely clean no matter how many soaks you give them and some that are always a little rumpled some matter how carefully you iron them.

Another thing you’ll come to realize after doing lots and lots of laundry is that not everything grooves to the same timetable. Those thick, thirsty Egyptian cotton towels turn out to be high maintenance, but worth the extra minutes in the dryer, while that Irish linen blouse demands more TLC than you have the patience for. So what if it was $59.99 (on sale!). Do enough laundry and you’ll learn that some things are just not worth the aggravation.

Sometimes the laundry can enrich you in more than just wisdom. I once made $2.87 in change and immediately went and bought myself a Slurpee. It was the coldest, sweetest, brain-freezing Slurpee in that summer full of Slurpees in a life full of Slurpees. I closed my eyes and wanted to savor every slurp of that special Slurpee. I opened my eyes and saw that I spilled some on my shirt.

And once again it’s back to the laundry. You toss and you tumble and try to sort through things and you clean them and they get messed up and you clean them again and again.

Whites, brights, darks, lights, towels, sheets, rinse and repeat. You’re never done. There’s always another day and another pair of dirty socks.

And another chance to clean them.

Share your laundry lessons with Leslie at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on April 16, 2010.

 

Bag Lady

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It’s taken me a while to get to this point. I’ve struggled and the results haven’t always been pretty, but I can now admit, loudly and proudly, that I’m a bag lady. The weight of my big fat carbon footprint has been keeping me up at night for years-not to mention all those agonizing times I’ve had to resolve the eternal debate between paper and plastic-but this year on Earth Day I’ll have a little more spring in my step because I’m finally, consistently doing one environmentally-friendly thing right.

I’m a bag lady.

I’ve got a lightweight, foldable, little chartreuse green number tucked away in my purse, ready to pull out at the pharmacy or the video store or library. And my car’s trunk is loaded with a vast assortment of canvas bags to be used for grocery shopping, picnics and all of the random sports equipment that seems to attach itself to my son.

Inside the house we’ve got tradeshow swag bags advertising products no one’s ever heard of, reusable bags with dividers to hold wine, insulated bags to keep beer and sodas cold, and a scary number of canvas bags with the names of my employers who have long since gone out of business.

Note to the Daily Sound: do not give me a bag with your name on it.

It took a while for me to make the bag lady transition. I started accumulating reusable grocery bags a few years ago, keeping them in my trunk so that they’d be ready whenever I went shopping. I can’t tell you how many times I left Ben and Jerry melting in the cart while I ran outside to get my canvas bags. Despite the fact that we should all be equally invested in preserving the environment, I’m sorry to say the people behind me in line didn’t really take a global view of that particular situation.

Rather than further alienating Mother Earth by risking an altercation, I decided to start purchasing a canvas bag every time I forgot to bring my own into the grocery store. Kind of like my own personal, environmental tax. This is what finally made me make the change for good-it had to hit me in the wallet before I got in the habit of actually taking the bags out of the car before I walked in the store-my own personal tax.

Now I understand that some people think “tax” is a dirty word, so if you’re one of those people you can substitute “benevolent donation to the environment” for “tax.” Our local city council recently bagged on an effort to put a bag tax on the ballot, after some members of the public were fit to be tied over the $23,000 they were planning to spend to survey the issue (though I hear they’re going to “study it” again this summer). Personally I think the council would have had more success with a “benevolent donation to the environment” campaign than a bag tax, but I’ve got an even simpler suggestion: stores should just stop stocking disposable bags. Use up what you’ve got and don’t order more.

This seems to work just fine in France, where they’ve got some of the chicest bag ladies around.

Don’t have a bag? Sorry, you’ll have to purchase one. That’ll cost you a dollar. Eventually your purse and your trunk and your garage will be so full of bags that you’ll have to start bringing them with you when you shop. Talk about an easy way to change people’s habits. San Francisco sacked plastic bags a few years ago after a study found that each bag represents a 17-cent local expense for cleanup, disposal, and lost recycling revenue. This January, Washington, D.C. (where “tax” apparently isn’t a dirty word) started charging a nickel for each disposable paper and plastic bag and their use went down 86 percent in a month. Imagine what a buck a bag would do?

We’d have some pretty chic bag ladies running around Santa Barbara in no time flat.

When Leslie’s not carting her canvas bags around town, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on April 9, 2010.

Note to my Younger Self

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You know all that gibberish older people always spout about wishing they had smelled the roses, stayed out of the sun and flossed more when they were younger? Forget that. If my older self could fly back in time and give one worthwhile piece of advice to my younger self it would be this: Have your picture taken in a bikini every chance you get. In fact, take naked pictures if you can rustle up the nerve. Just don’t put them on the Internet or on a cell phone. Seriously, use some common sense.

I’ll say it again – take pictures in a bikini. Wear a bikini to work if you can. Spend as much time as possible in a bikini. You won’t regret it.

When I think of how many times I threw a towel over my perfectly tanned and toned tummy, or how many times I tried to cover up my non-veined and not-the-least-bit-thundering thighs, I want to slap that young girl upside her head and scream, “Flaunt it while you can, you look great.” All of that toxic self-consciousness was so stupid.

I’d tell her to enjoy those looks – in fact I’d tell her to revel in them – because they won’t last forever. You might not know it now but one day you’re pretty hot-whether you realize it or not-and the next day you wake up and you’re just plain pretty-as long as you’re wearing makeup-and before you know it you’re a mature woman and the only men who flirt with you are homeless and hoping you’ll spring for a meal.

The painful evolution from Miss to Ma’am will strike so quickly you might mistake it for a hot flash. You’ll be looking in the mirror looking for yourself instead of at yourself. That girl is gone, leaving a reflection you barely recognize. On a good day she’s a cross between some distant relative and Herman Munster. Hunt for that has-been-hottie all you like, she’s gone. You’ll find yourself hunting for your lost looks the same way you must constantly hunt for your lost keys or that lost Post-It note with the name of that great dermatologist that whatshername told you about. Sure you can find traces of that young girl at the gym or the salon, but they’re fleeting traces.

Enjoy your looks while you’ve got them. Someday you’ll look back on the reflection of your fading, younger self and wonder how you could possibly have ever had a moment of anxiety about your looks. Silly girl. What were you thinking? Someday you’ll squint in the mirror at your rapidly aging self and wonder why you never paid attention when all those old people told you what a cruel trickster time was.

The truth is that inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened. Remember that.

When a saleslady tells you how flattering your driver’s license picture is, you’ll want to slug her-until you look in the mirror and realize that while your eyes are closed and your hair is cattywampus, the photo was taken ten years ago and look how nice your skin looks. You had no age spots, no crow’s feet, and no gray hair. Talk about lowering the bar.

It’s humbling to know that-if I’m lucky to live long enough-one day I’ll look back on today’s picture and think how marvelous -looking I was, how little gray I had and how great my skin looked. I read a great quote from Suzanne Braun Levine the other day: “Imagine how many good laughs we would miss if our bodies weren’t giving us so much hilarious material.” She’s right of course, but I would still tell my younger self to laugh while she was wearing a bikini.

When Leslie’s not looking for her car keys or her old self in the mirror, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on April 2, 2010.

Taking a Gander at Gender Selection

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Sometimes I look at the dirty, rowdy, brilliant, clueless, sweet, sensitive, unpredictable bundle of otherness that is my son and marvel-he truly is everything I never knew I always wanted.

It’s not that I didn’t always want to be a mom. I did, for as long as I can remember. When I played dolls, or put on little shows with my friends, I always wanted to be the mommy. One of my earliest memories is rocking “my baby” doll alongside my mom rocking my baby sister.

But when I pictured me rocking my baby someday, I always pictured a girl. Lucky for me I’ve got nieces to turn to whenever the tutu envy starts to overtake me. Being the mom of a boy has been-like most of the best things in life-one of those things I never realized how much I wanted or needed until I got it.

Baby gender selection has been in the news a lot recently. Australian fertility doctors have been rallying to try to get the government to rescind its ban on sex selection technology, which is currently legal in the U.S., where dozens of Aussies travel each year and spend thousands of dollars to choose the sex of their children. G’Day, mate.

Meanwhile, a University of Missouri study was released which found that the food that women eat during the very early stages of pregnancy can influence the sex (and health) of their unborn babies. Apparently bacon and big breakfasts are for boys while fasting favors girls-I’m sure a feminist theorist will have a field day with that one at some point.

Then MSNBC did a poll about the phenomenon of “gender disappointment,” asking whether people were disappointed when they discovered their baby’s gender. About a third of the people admitted that they were, although more than two-thirds of that group said they got over it quickly. I guess that means that one-third didn’t get over it. Time to buy little Bob a new tutu.

The random convergence of these three stories about baby gender selection-and happened to land in my inbox on the same day-inspired me to ask my friends: “If you could have chosen the sex of your child would you?”

Simply posing the question inspired vehement objections from many people, like my friend M, who said, “No way! We THOUGHT we wanted a boy, and ended up with our beautiful daughter.”

“All three of mine (two boys and one girl) are miracle babies,” said L. “I’m still amazed that they are here when by all reasoning I should be childless. I’m just grateful they are here and proud of each of them.”

“After my son was born, I was hoping for another boy and I was terrified to find out my next two were girls. I did not think I would know what to do if I ended up with a ‘girlie’ girl,” said P. “Now I am so glad to have a ‘boyish’ boy and two ‘girlie’ girls to teach me so much about life. I am so grateful not to have been able to choose-plus, three active boys would surely kill me!”

D was also glad she didn’t have to choose. “That would have made me insane for sure. I had a difficult time enough choosing a stroller, bouncer and colors for the nursery.”

Interestingly enough not only did most of my friends not want to choose the sex of their baby, a lot of them said they didn’t even want to know if it was a boy or a girl until the child was born.

“There are not many things in this world that are a true surprise. Why waste this one,” said B. “I loved hearing ‘it’s a girl’ (twice) and ‘it’s a boy’ (the third time).”

“I didn’t even peek to see what I was having before I had them,” said R. “I thought I wanted a girl and then a boy, but I’m thrilled to have my two girls. Sometimes it’s best to see what nature gives you,”

“Not only would I not choose,” said A, “but I still believe that “finding out” what you’re having takes something away from it all.” “I didn’t even find out what I was having while I was pregnant!” said S. “It’s the not knowing what you’re getting, what you’re in for that makes raising children the adventure it is-daily-no matter if they are a boy or a girl.”

For the record, I found out in advance that my son was a boy because I had to have an amniocentesis, and I figured if the doctor knew about the sex of my baby then so should I. But I do agree with S about the adventure of not knowing what you’re getting when you have a child. To this day one of the most fascinating things about being a parent is the way that you can be so close to this little person-they literally lived in your body at one point if you’re a birth mom-and yet they are separate people with ideas, preferences, vocabularies and really dirty fingernails that are all their own.

So if you could choose the sex of your child, would you? Tell Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on March 26, 2010.

Heeled

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Manolo Blahnik Pumps

Manolo Blahnik Pumps

In elementary school my nickname was Big Bird. No, I wasn’t covered with yellow feathers back then-nor am I now, for that matter-but compared to the other kids I was absurdly tall. Taller than all of my friends, taller than all of my female teachers and even a few of the men, I was as tall as I am now. Well, almost. I was measured at 5’8 3/4″ the other day and I used to be only 5’8,” which is really not that freakishly tall these days, like it was when I was ten.

Despite my self-consciousness about my height, my mother’s constant reminders prevented me from slouching and probably a lifetime of bad posture and back problems. But what she didn’t prevent me from was a lifelong fear of high heels.

Sure, plain old walking is easy. Babies can learn how to do it without being taught. On a good day I can even walk and talk at the same time, and if I’m feeling like I’m really hot stuff, even chew a little gum. It’s when you add heels that I get into trouble. I just never learned to walk in them properly.

Anything more than a two-inch heel and I stumble, literally. I just can’t walk in high heels. I’d like to be well heeled; I really would. In my fantasies I’m strolling jauntily down the streets of New York in a pair of red-soled Christian Louboutin embroidered, peep-toed pumps. Or gallivanting along the Seine in Manolo Blahnik‘s patent leather leopard print tapered toes. Or gliding elegantly around the dance floor of a Parisian palace, in Prada platform pumps.

Hey, a girl can dream.

I just know that if I had those Jimmy Choo silver gladiator style platform sandals I would look at least 20 pounds thinner (and my wallet would be about $1,295 slimmer). Not only couldn’t I walk in these shoes, I couldn’t afford them and I have absolutely nowhere to wear them. But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about Jimmy Choo as I scoop up Mossimo’s 13th runner up bridesmaid version of the gladiators at Target, which I still can’t walk in, but thankfully only set me back $24.99.

They don’t call me Imelda for nothing.

My closet is filled to overflowing with beautiful heels in mint condition because I’ve only worn them once since they’re so uncomfortable. Though they’re mostly from the Nordstrom’s sale rack and Ross Dress for Less, I hesitate to think of all the money I’ve spent on shoes over the years.

I still don’t think I’d have quite enough to buy the most famous shoes in the world. Inspired by Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz, and designed by the House of Harry Winston, these babies have 4,600 rubies of 1,350 carats and are estimated to be worth at least $3 million. I don’t think I’ve spent quite that much money on shoes over the years. But if I had it all back I’d easily be a shoo in to be able to afford Manolo Blahnik’s fabulous $14,000 alligator knee length boots, which are black and would go with just about everything in my wardrobe-if only I could learn to walk in them.

When Leslie’s not fantasizing about adding to her shoe closet, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on March 19, 2010.

Ineffectiveness and the N-Effect

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Is the school board creating a GATE-way to mediocrity?

Did you hear the one about the N-Effect? A research study published in Psychological Science found that when it comes to academics, the more competitors you have, the less motivated you are to do your best.

Researchers Stephen M. Garcia (University of Michigan) and Avishalom Tor (Haifa University) found students’ average test scores on the SAT and other tests go down when the number of test-takers increases. People taking the tests don’t even have to see their competition to have their scores go down, just an awareness that they’re out there seemed to have the same influence on the outcome.

Garcia and Tor named this phenomenon “the N-effect.” The larger the “N”- number of participants involved in a task-the worse the outcome for the individuals who are participating. In an ongoing series of experiments they have found again and again that people work harder, and perform better, when they are up against just a few people.

For example, they gave students a trivia quiz, saying there was a prize for those who finished the test the fastest. Some students heard that they were in a group of ten students, while others were supposedly competing against 99. The students who believed they were in the smaller pool finished the quiz significantly faster than those who thought they were one of 100.

The N-effect seems to be there regardless how difficult or easy the task. People work harder if they believe they have better odds of winning, but this also goes to their motivation to succeed.

All of this makes me think about the current debate over the future of GATE (gifted and talented education) in the local schools. Full disclosure so you can question my motivation – my son has been fortunate to be in the pullout GATE program at his elementary school. Frankly, I think he’s benefited more from the small group-learning environment than the actual curriculum, because there are only a handful of kids in the GATE class as opposed to the 26 in his regular class.

In a Newsweek article Garcia said, “How we compare ourselves to other individuals is the engine that drives how we compete against others. When there are only a few people in the race, we put our foot on the gas, working harder and harder to outpace our competitors. And the competition becomes very personal. How we compare ourselves to others in the room becomes a referendum on our own ability.”

This is so true. And this is one of my primary concerns about folding the GATE program into what is now labeled “Honors.”

“In contrast, when we are against many, many competitors,” said Garcia, “we don’t care as much about how we stack up against one other competitor. Once the crowd is large enough that we don’t feel the element of personal competition, the result doesn’t feel like a personal statement of our worth, so we don’t try as hard.”

I believe that the school board probably has their hearts in the right place when considering this change. I know that the hairs on my neck stand up whenever I hear the label “GATE,” as though some kids are “gifted” and others are not; when I was a kid they called the accelerated program MGM for “Mentally Gifted Minors,” which was even worse. Nonetheless, I think they’re going in exactly the wrong direction. What they should be doing is expanding the number of ability groupings to fit the needs of all children, not limiting them even further. Call them group 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, or name them after fruits, or call them anything you want-but limiting the number of ability groupings serves the best interests of no one, other than champions of mediocrity.

Obviously it’s ridiculous to believe that a single test given to a third or fourth grader is the sole determinant of a student’s educational destiny, despite all the sweating of parental palms over their child’s place in the mini-meritocracy.

But no matter how special we all think our kids are, there is such a thing as an average child and there is such a thing as a child that will be lucky to graduate high school. It’s as ridiculous to try to alter that reality with politically correct labels as it is to try to mend the achievement gap by removing the top tier of instructional offerings, which is what it seems to me that the school board is considering doing.

Why don’t we aspire instead to do a better job of assessing students so they can be challenged and motivated to the best of their abilities in smaller groups? And while we’re at it, maybe we can come up with a better name for the GATE program. Maybe the LESLIE program?

When Leslie’s not wringing her hands over the state of education, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on March 12, 2010.

The Soup Takes Bronze

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Over the years I’ve written a few books, oodles of magazine articles, countless columns and an amazing number of thank you notes, but until recently I had never, ever, ever written a recipe. In all honesty, I had hardly even looked at a recipe, let alone tried to follow one.

I know some people, like my mom or my friend Katie, who can take a few ingredients, some fresh vegetables, a pair of chopsticks, a pot and a few spices, and miraculously transform into Chef MacGyver, tossing and throwing and shaping and forming whatever’s in the cupboard into delicious concoctions.

I am not even remotely one of those people. In the past year or so I’ve mastered a couple of simple things and everyone is dutifully impressed, but still, my kitchen has seen more than a few fires in its day, and my most used “recipe card” has the phone numbers of all the local takeout places.

But then I got inspired.

I first read about the YMCA’s clever fundraiser a few weeks ago: the Soup de l’YMCA soup-making contest, where for a mere $25 donation contestants competed for bragging rights, having their recipe published in the Santa Barbara Independent and a place on the menu at State & A Restaurant. I was impressed by the creativity of the fundraising idea and figured I’d write a column to help them get more entries in the recipe contest. The Santa Barbara YMCA and I go way back.

I took gymnastics lessons there as a gawky, 5’8″ 12-year old, and realized that the distance from the top of the balance beam to the semi-padded floor mats was way too far to fall on a regular basis. But still, it was fun. And I displayed my participation ribbons proudly on my bulletin board.

Then I tried to use my height advantage and played basketball at the YMCA, soon realizing that, unfortunately, a certain amount of pesky running up and down the court was required, beyond my being able to reach the basket with my outrageously long arms. Still, I enjoyed the competition part and I still have a soft spot for the Y.

Wanting to give them some support, I read the contest rules carefully and found that all soup entries had to include at least one major ingredient that begins with one of these letters: Y-M-C-A.

Y-M-C-A, I just happened to have the perfect Y-M-C-A connection. My old friend Eric Anzalone is the Leather Guy in the Village People. Seriously. My old friend Eric Anzalone is the Leather Guy in the Village People. I had interviewed him once before and he was hilarious, in a way that only a guy you went to high school with who now wears leather chaps as his work uniform can be. So of course I jumped on the opportunity to do it again.

“What kind of soup would the Village People eat?” I asked, since it literally takes a village to raise enough money for youth programs these days.

“Well, we’re kind of boring,” said Eric, though I know he’s anything but. “Some of our favorite items we always ask for when we travel are REAL black licorice (not the cheap jelly bean anise stuff), Buffalo wings, anything from Taco Bell, the fettuccine Alfredo that you can only get at Alfredo’s in Rome (when we are in Rome, we always reserve a group table…we are on the wall of fame there).”

“I can’t really do much with Roman fettuccine, unfortunately. What else?” I asked.

“Cheetos, Cheez-Its, Bacardi and Coke, and Vegemite! And beer, a deli tray, assorted breads, fresh vegetables with dip, fresh fruit platter, coffee and assorted teas, hummus, Red Bull, beer, Gatorade, Coke (Coca Cola brand only) a case of beer, honey, mustard, mayo (Best Foods/Hellmann’s, not that Miracle Whip salad dressing), a box of Ziploc Baggies and barbecue ribs,” he said.

Sensing a beer theme -which is absolutely no surprise if you know Eric- I used that as my inspiration for my “It Takes a Village (People) Soup” recipe. Unfortunately with his busy international travel schedule (seriously, these guys sell out gigs all over the world, and sang and danced their way into the Guinness Book of World Records a few weeks ago, when it was finally certified that 40,148 adoring fans had performed the largest YMCA dance ever during the halftime show at the Brut Sun Bowl, in El Paso, Texas) by the time I actually did the interview and wrote the recipe, the contest deadline was upon us and my column deadline had come and gone.

I decided to enter my recipe into the contest anyway.

We laugh a lot at our house, but I have never heard a louder roar from my husband than when I got the message from Georgette at the YMCA that I was a finalist in the soup recipe contest. Except perhaps when I told my sister, who said, “Yeah right. And I’m going to compete in the spelling bee.”

Believe it or not (and yes, just writing this makes me giggle), there were more than six entries and my soup recipe made the top five finalists. The chef at State & A actually made it taste pretty good. By the time I tasted all five soups, had a few happy hour priced adult beverages, and endured the shock and mock surprised “this doesn’t taste half bad” feedback from my friends and family who had come out to support me at the contest, I actually thought I had about a one in five change of being the winner-especially since three of the four judges were personal friends.

I behaved like a good sport when poet Chryss Yost’s “Sopa de la Reina” took the top prize. It turns out she also knew some of the judges personally. And I guess she actually cooks, too.

Despite my bringing in an extra large group of family and friends to vote for me, Lisa Bull’s “Fiesta Chicken Tortilla Soup” won the “audience favorite” award for the night. “I think your soup was definitely third place, mom,” said my sweet son with the permanently damaged taste buds. “You got the bronze.”

Indeed, a bronze medal in my first plastic chef cooking competition is nothing to sneeze at. It was actually a lot of fun. I still need somebody to explain the joy of cooking to me someday, but the joy of competition, hey, that’s something I learned a long time ago at the local YMCA.

=

It Takes a Village (People) Soup

Ingredients:

3 oz. Yellow Snow IPA (from Rogue Ales Brewery)

3 oz. Molson Golden Beer

3 oz. Coors Light Beer

3 oz. Amstel Light Beer

2 cups cauliflower

1 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 minced garlic clove

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

14 oz. chicken broth

3 Tbsp cornstarch

1 cup cream

1 cup milk

2 cups shredded yellow cheddar cheese

Cook the cauliflower in a small saucepan with enough water to cover it, over medium heat until tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Drain.

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and Worcestershire sauce. Stir occasionally and cook until the onion is tender and translucent. Add the beers and bring it to a boil.

Drink the remaining beer in each bottle and the warm soup aroma will start to smell delicious, in fact you’ll start to feel warm all over. Add the chicken broth and let it come back to a boil then stir in the cauliflower.

Combine the cornstarch and three Tbsp of water in a small bowl. Let dissolve and set aside. Stir in the cheddar and milk and cream into the soup until the cheese is melted. Add the cornstarch mixture and continue stirring until the soup thickens. Serve with Cheez-Its and, of course, beer.

Share your soup recipes with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on March 5, 2010.

iMemories

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iphone-4s-devicesI used to have a pretty good memory, but now there’s an app for that.

I used to have a pretty good memory. Now I have an iPhone.

Actually, I used to pride myself on having a great memory; at least I think I did. To tell you the truth, it’s a little bit fuzzy. I know I used to be really good at Trivial Pursuit. Remember that game? I was much better at Trivial Pursuit than I am at Sequence, where the cards are all face down and you have to remember where they are and put matching sets together. Wait that’s not Sequence, that’s another game. Concentration? I know it’s not Scrabble. I’ll have to email my sister to find out the name of that game. One of her daughters was really good at that game.

Anyway, as I said, I used to have a pretty good memory. At least I think I did. Now I don’t have to remember anything anymore because I can look it up on my iPhone-as long as I remember to charge my battery.

I recently read somewhere-I wish I could remember where-that you shouldn’t worry if you pick up the phone and can’t remember who you were going to call. But if you can’t remember how to use the phone, then it’s time to worry.

Boy, that’s a relief. I still know how to use the phone, although if I lost it I might not be able to figure out how to find my way home without its GPS app.

Now what was I saying? Oh yeah, I used to have a pretty good memory but now that I have so much information at my fingertips I don’t really need to remember so many things, which is good, because I can’t do that anymore.

The one thing I’ve never been good at remembering are people’s names. Somehow I always find myself thinking up fictional new names for them before I’ve memorized the originals. Don’t you think Lindsey Vonn seems more like a Bunny McPhearson and Jon Hamm should really be named Dirk McHandsome? I’ve got nicknames for people I’ve never even met, but when I meet new people I tend to forget their names instantaneously, before they’ve even made their way into my brain.

I would worry that this issue with names was a sign of old age, but I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember, which is still pretty long.

There are two ways I get around this name-forgetting problem (I suppose paying better attention would also work, but somehow that is much too hard for me). One, I hope that someone else whose name I don’t remember comes up to us and I can instruct them to introduce themselves or, two, I hand over my iPhone and ask the new person to put their name and their number into it. Of course the danger with this is that I end up making social plans with people I don’t know, while I barely have time to see my close friends and family. Luckily I can still text them or keep up with them on Facebook using my iPhone.

But I still can’t remember the name of that Memory game that my niece was so good at. Maybe I can find it online on my phone. There it is. It’s called “Memory.” Huh. Memory. Doesn’t it seem more like it should be named Concentrate McBoardGame?

Share your hazy reflections with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on February 26, 2010.

Fanning the Flames For the Winter Olympic Games

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TeamUSAOne of my favorite things about the Olympics is that they allow me to root for America’s quest for world domination without a bit of ambivalence. Unlike the complicated wars and diplomatic situations our country gets involved with, for often incomprehensible reasons, the winners and losers of the Olympic Games are fairly clear cut, with none of those pesky gray areas to fret about. Go USA!

The competition between the Summer and Winter Olympics is a little bit murkier.

It might be easy to assume that because I grew up in Santa Barbara, the Summer Olympics would always get the gold. Volleyball, swimming, gymnastics, water polo, diving, basketball, tennis-these were the sports I played and watched, so I could easily appreciate the athleticism required to be the best in the world at any of the summer sports.

The Winter Olympics are a bit more foreign to me. Curling, Luge, Bobsleds—I’m never quite sure what these events are about. Not that this stops me from putting in some marathon TV hours. I’m staying up well past midnight this week to do my part for the Olympic team, yet no one’s giving me million dollar endorsement deals. I don’t even get a free Nike Jacket, and the snowboard team’s plaid ones are really cute. Heck, at this point I’d settle for a Gatorade.

But even more than the exotic challenge of figuring out some of the rules, the thing about the Winter Olympics that keeps me faithfully glued to the TV—for many, many more hours than can possibly be healthy—is the drama. Almost all of the winter sports have the possibility for huge airborne, gravity-defying success or even more ginormous, dream-crashing failure.

The brutally cold hard fact that so many of these athletes could bite it and get seriously hurt is what keeps me on the edge of my seat for the Winter Olympics. Just uttering the name “Skeleton” (a sport where people lie face down on a sled and go careening down a frozen track without any brakes) runs a chill down my spine. The same thing with “Biathlon.” Did anyone really think it was safe to combine cross-country skiing with speed trials and shooting? Next thing we know they’ll make it a “Triathlon” and bring in Curlers to throw rocks.

The Winter Olympics could be a great action adventure movie. I can just see the trailer: Exotically handsome Apolo Ohno (Oh! No!) courageously fights off two South Koreans who knock each other out, and then victoriously clutches the American flag on the short track. Meanwhile, injured Lindsey Vonn “America’s fastest bikini-model-not-named-Danica Patrick,” whooshes her way downhill for an impressive gold medal victory. Could a romance be brewing between these two?

But wait, there’s danger around the corner, as a quick cut reel of dramatic wipeouts, snow snuffs and faceplants reveals the anguished falls of the Netherlands’ speed skater Annette Gerritsen, France’s skier Anthony Benna, Russian speed skater Yulia Nemaya, Canada’s cross country skier Ivan Babikov, Chinese short track skater Nannan Zhao and German pairs skater Robin Szolkowy, fading into a final shot of Canadian hockey player Marie-Philip Poulin practically eating the net.

And that’s just the first few days of action.

Watching the ice skating in particular, I feel like a rubber-necker at a car crash, anxiously waiting for a triple axel to turn into a bone-bursting accident or a salchow to spin into a crushing calamity. Pairs skating even has a move called the death spiral. You don’t see that in beach volleyball. No wonder I can’t look away.

Pass the popcorn. I’m gonna be here awhile.

When Leslie’s not glued to her TV screen for the winter games, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on February 19, 2010.

Relationship Research

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Photo by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

I’ve tried to get my husband into therapy for years – and failed miserably. Why is it that those who are most in need of psychological help are the least able to see it?

Anyway, when I saw an advertisement asking for married couples to participate in a UCSB study on close relationships, I jumped at the chance to get my husband on the couch, even if it was only under the guidance of some 19-year-old psychology students. Not only would Zak finally have the opportunity for some long overdue self-reflection (contemplating one’s navel doesn’t count), but also there was 60 bucks in it for us if we attended two sessions.

Talk about a win-win. They even promised us free parking and snacks.

It was surprisingly easy to talk Zak into going. He was actually excited. On our drive out to UCSB he said, “When they ask about our occupations, do we fight crime or do crime?”

“Honey, I think you should just tell the truth and get as much out of the session as you can,” I said.

“Right. We fight crime,” he said.

Yeah, sure. Whatever gets you onto that couch, dear.

After a brief introduction by a spectacled graduate student in a white lab coat who was, I swear, no more than 14 years old, Zak and I were put into two separate rooms to do some tests.

The first exercise was a series of questions about our relationships. We had to weigh our answers on a scale of one (where you strongly disagreed with the statement) to seven (where you strongly agreed with the statement) or a scale of one (I’m not at all like my mother, how dare you) to nine (I’m exactly like my mother, so deal with it) and so on.

I immediately became utterly and thoroughly confused.

I contemplated using my cell phone to call Zak in the room next door to help me with the test. Would wanting to work together show that we had a healthy relationship or that I was being a complete neurotic idiot? I reminded myself that there couldn’t possibly be any “wrong” answers, and tried to answer the questions the way a healthy person would, giving myself props for refraining from calling Zak as I opened my veins and sweated out answers.

A sample question: “How much time do you spend thinking about your relationship with your spouse?” Does wishing he looked like Brad Pitt count?

Or how about this one, “In my conversations with others, I don’t like to talk about things that don’t interest me.” Who likes to talk about things that don’t interest them? I find boredom extremely exciting, but only if I get to use the time to fantasize about Brad Pitt.

So far this study wasn’t really doing much to bring me closer to my husband, although we did go out to lunch with our stipend.

For our final session, they flipped a coin to decide which spouse would do which activity. Zak got to do a puzzle (something that’s incredibly fun and easy for him) while I had to give a speech (something that’s exceptionally painful and stressful for me).

Hmmm … I wondered just how random that little coin toss was as I contemplated my speech instructions, to fill five minutes, as though I were on an interview for my ideal job. While I can fill thousands of column inches writing about myself, actually talking about myself for five minutes felt like an eternity. Luckily Zak stepped in with some questions, coaxing me into describing how working no more than 25 hours a week would benefit my future employer (I’d be in such a good mood if I could sleep in till 9 every morning!) and why the loan of a company car (preferably a convertible) would help reduce my stress and therefore enhance my creativity.

The researchers found our silly banter to be symptomatic of a healthy relationship. Who knew? We later found out that we had been observed by the psych team the whole time. Thank goodness we didn’t turn the waiting room into a “What’s the craziest place you’ve ever made whoopee?” response, as my husband had suggested earlier.

They explained that the study was designed to help understand how spouses help each other cope with stressful life events and how that relates to marital satisfaction.

I didn’t have the heart to tell our grad student (who actually was 24, even if she looked 12) that the tests weren’t really that stressful, especially when she seemed so pleased with our performance. When Zak and I reviewed our answers we found that despite our contention that his father and my mother would make a terrible couple, we were actually more alike that we thought.

If he’s more like me than I thought, maybe he doesn’t really need therapy after all.

I told Zak, column comedy opportunity aside, participating in the study actually left me feeling pretty good about our relationship.

“That’s good,” he said, “because it really took very little work on my part.”

And that just might be the real secret to a healthy close relationship. That and fighting crime together.

Share your relationship secrets with Leslie @LeslieDinaberg.com. For most columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on February 5, 2010.