Arte De Timo

Author: admin

  • What is Healthy Food?

    As the holiday season fades in a few weeks, and a new year faces us, many will set out, either through resolution, or just looks in the mirror, to cut back on calories, do more exercise, lose some weight, or more generally just get healthy. But what does “healthy” really mean when it comes to food and our behaviors?

    For most of us, health is a rather elusive state that seems to shift out from under us every few months. This is because we don’t know what it is. As a result, media, marketers and our own psyches play tricks on us to make us feel we are lacking that missing ingredient in our health.

    For people with chronic illness, lack of pain might be the ideal “healthy.” For the terminal patient, another few months of just being alive could be all the health he or she wants. In my twenties health was all about being able to play a full game of soccer, or climb up a rock gym. There is also a whole other way of thinking that describes health as a mental state of well being. In the end, health is a fairly relative term that varies from person to person, and moment to moment. I think we can all get a handle on it, though, if we do some philosophizing.

    When it comes to food, I have built a philosophy around the idea that foods are neither good, nor bad, but nutritionalism and “fast” food are.

    When is food healthy? When it has high nutritional numbers? Low in fat? Sugar? Salt? Low calories? Or some discovered health benefit? Is it healthy when it has a label of “natural,” “organic,” or even “healthy?”

    For countless generations people ate food to survive, and enjoyed it whenever they could. Enjoyment usually meant the addition of fat, salt, or sugar, and often all three. People didn’t use to live very long, yet were very active physically and mentally. Food was an active part of their health, but only because they were eating it.

    It is a misconception that contemporary people have a leg up on our great grandparent, pesant ancestors because of our “health knowledge.” The reality is that our ancestors did actually know every sign of health very well. Their lives depended on it. Strong bodies and sharp reasoning were needed every day to keep food on the table. Whether it was on the farm, at the shop, or in a factory, people knew their bodies well, how much they could do, and how much food they needed to do it. They saw health, with all its nuanced glory in their animals, themselves, and in each other.

    True, they didn’t have the scientific knowledge to back it up, and superstitions were often wrong, but then again there wasn’t a need for more “knowledge,” because people were healthy as a matter of course; or at least didn’t live long enough to know the difference. Actual contagious diseases were the enemy then, not our self inflicted stress illnesses. Our ancestors had medical problems, not health problems. Those things are too very different, yet related things that often become conflated in our over-informed society.

    When scientists began to understand the nature of nutrients in the mid-twentieth century, they were able to find ways to rid society of mal-nutrition, but it didn’t actually make the rest of us normally-nourished people any “healthier.” Mal-nutrition was a medical problem then, and not the health indicator it is now. In Western society, there is really no such thing as mal-nutrition anymore, even amongst the poorest of us. When compared to the dire conditions that true famine and starvation caused in the past, and still do in areas of the world like Sub-Saharan Africa, minor boughts of “not-in-perfect-health” are a mere shadow.

    Taking all that into consideration, why are we so concerned with “nutrients” in our food? Unless a doctor has tested you and found that there is a medical problem, few are actually in danger of nutrient problems. I hear people talk about protein and vitamins all the time, I do it to, instead of food. We should be talking about the body’s reaction to that food, as in taste, vitalization, and satisfaction. Nutrients, and the corresponding nutritionalism, are small parts of the wrong puzzle for most of us.

    Our bodies don’t react, or function on nutrients. In fact, they require, and function on food. So what is food, then? For one, it is not simply the carier of nutrients. Food is a conglomeration of emotions, sustenance, and a giant mix of compounds. On any given day or given meal, no one can be totally sure what food does nutritionally in the body. It is a short term stimulus, and a long term metabolic stabilizer. Food is the sum of everything beyond the air we breath that keeps us alive.

    Food is so wondrous and complex, we need to relax about it, and with it, then build a nuanced approach to eating. A big part of my choices now revolve around being a vegetarian (with some fish once in a while), but there are a whole bunch of other considerations to eating healthy, too.

  • Humanity as a Seed – part 1

    A lot of people are interested in sustainability and climate change, but where do I begin learning about the issues? Often the science is confusing, and leads many lay-thinkers to the wrong conclusions. Its best to start with sources holding open discussions, and expressing different points of view. I like the dot Earth blog, recieve and read Sierra Magazine every other month, and hit some interesting blogs. Plus, I get an alumni magazine from one of the world’s premiere green campuses, UC Davis. Organizations of all sizes from The Environmental Defense Fund to The Sierra Club to The Nature Conservancy, to The Natural Resource Defense Council to Green For All, and a score of others (feel free to comment with your favorites), work on policy and structural change from global and national levels down to the local and regional on a range of different issues. They all work to change the cultural landscape on what it means to be Green.

    There is no shortage of groups, people, and resources addressing the environment and sustainability, but they all seem to have slightly different points of view and goals. Who has the right approach? Who is worth considering? Which ones have the best ideas for the greater good?

    In addition to all the information out there, there are hoards of people of are trying to live sustainability, and take action on our problems, but sustainability means different things to different people. Some groups and individuals are amazing while others seem to just be taking advantage of “Green” marketing. From informative science based articles from NASA to the often less-than-useful bunch at Treehugger.com, there is much thought going into our collective futures. Lately, though, as more and more momentum gets behind these movements, I have been finding that broad public change is still scarce, though not all meaningless. With individualistic economic concernes cycling into dominance over and over again, all over the world, few major institution seem ready or able to address the root causes of our problems.

    You would think that with climate deniers slowly dwindling away there would be more political movement on the issues we face. According to a recent article by Sierra Club chief, Michael Brune, even Republican politicians, who have been silenced by the agenda-driven Right, are ready to address climate change if they can get out from under party politics.

    The country is primed for action, but something is going wrong.

  • First Racking

    I took a wild guess, and racked my one gallon of Viozinho this morning. As you can see it isn’t very clear at this point, but the smaller jug was very clear before I messed with it. It’s a little on the brown side, too but I’m not too concerned with that right now. All in all the wine itself looks to be proceded in a predictable way… well not predictable to me, but what I imagine would be to a professional. The process on the other hand, as usual has not been wonderful.

    About a week ago, I was reaching for a book neer the bottle, and as you might guess it fell it the weirdest and most Murphyesque way, bouncing two feet around a chair right on top of the the air locks. One shattered, and the other went flying across the room. The bottles and wine were safe, fortunately.

    After checking two local brew shops, who “for some strange reason” were completely sold out of the cheapest most abundant part of home brewing, I finally found one at a crazy price in a wine makers shop. Not a good sign for Timo’s home brew wine.

    Flash forward to this morning and Murphy was still dictating the direction of things. Starting the siphon on such a small container was much less than smooth. I had practiced with water for about 20 minutes and thought I had it down pat, but alas there were a lot cuss words flying as my precious wine spilled all over the place and my hand came in contact with all the equipment. I even had an extra set of hands, but it didn’t help. I seem to have an aversion to smoothness when it comes to making fermented beverages (Don’t ask about the other night of beer bottling! I must have said, “That’s never happened before” about ten times.)

    Anyway, I did pull off a little for a taste. I was expecting something horrid, akin to the plum wine I made a couple of years ago. That wine had so much acid in it, and so little sugar entering fermentation (I miss calculated the recipe) that the bottle I opened last month didn’t even pass as a good vinegar. This true wine was not vinegar, though. It actually had a pretty good feel considering I’ve never tried Viozinho, nor have any idea what a wine at the first racking is supposed to taste like. It wasn’t even a struggle to swallow.

    I kept the stems with the berries when I crushed it, which isn’t normal for a white wine, but as I have mentioned before, I have no idea what I am doing. Some of that carried through as a sour tannic note. It actually tasted like a young intense Chardonay in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t very good, but if it ages well, it will pass as wine.

    I have been thinking of adding 3 or 4 more vines in the back yard. My first choice was a classic red, like Cabernet, or Syrah. Maybe even a Durif, After tasting the potential of what I already have, though, now am I am considering upping the anti. I may make this whole project even more complicated (the way I like it,) and try my hand at cloning the Viozinho onto a resistant rootstock, so I would have 5 vines all with the same varietal.

    Of course I haven’t found a source of rootstock, and have never grafted vines before. But, I watched a couple of videos on Youtube, so how hard could it be, right?

  • Lomax

    In his world he went by the name of Lomax. There he could search for his meaning in life without the hardships of really finding himself. The real flesh of Lomax lived in a small flat like so many of his kind. The new young. Not really attached to much that was out there. He just drifted in and out of his games and rooms. Lomax had the power to change his world. He could be the astronaut that Mrs. Rinkly told him he could be in 2nd grade. He even became the ruler of his own nation on one spin of his globe. When Chromium met him there wasn’t all that much to know. She knew how Lomax lived and died. She knew where he lived and who he worked for. Chrom didn’t need the man behind Lomax. She needed his jack.

    Lomax’s favorite food came out of a can. He liked those classic ravioli’s that played in his memories from childhood. The canned food he picked up on the way home from work every few days kept him alive; nothing more. Lomax wasn’t trained to do what he did. He didn’t mean to fall into his industry, but there were big bucks in it for him when he began. There isn’t too much to say about his cube. Like the rest of the state, he had 25 square feet to call his own.

    He sits in front of his screen so many hours a day that he forgets what his voice sounds like. His mental waves are filled with the pounding nature of Lomax, his identity. The power his keyboard offers thumps through his mind so often that there is little distinction between the man and the reality he finds on screen.

  • First Flush Walk?


    After the first rain, called the first flush, a lot of trash gets washed into the storm drains, at which point it’s usually out-of-sight and out-of-mind, but it does end up somewhere. In our case, it ends up in the Bay. Having kayaked through all the South Bay marshes over the years and having witnessed all the plastic junk and trash that ends up stuck in the weeds, it is never out of my mind. I can imagine the whole route of those little candy wrappers out into the great garbage patch of the Pacific. It’s a sad bit of knowledge.

    After last night’s storm, and reading an article from Save The Bay, it occurred to me to go out and see what got flushed last night and maybe clean up some of it. So, on our way to the local running shop for a pair of shoes, about a mile or two away, we brought along a black garbage bag and picked up everything unnatural in the gutters and sidewalk along the way. The bag got very heavy very quickly.

    Some highlights included a shoe, a razor blade, car brake shoe pad, steak knife blade, a feminine pad, and the remnants of human vice; cigaret boxes, lighters, beer cans and bottles, coffe cups, gatorade caps, and candy wrappers. We found very little trace of good stuffs like banana peals, or juice bottles. We got a lot of stuff that was about to go down the storm drains, but a lot was already down there, particularly outside Star***ks, and the local Chinese joint. At the end, it was too much to pick up by our hands, and most of it had been there a while. The street cleaners and other wakers-by don’t seem to help much, so there isn’t much to keep this from getting flushed into the Bay; a sad thought.

    Maybe this should become an annual (or weekly) event. What could be the name? First Flush Walk? Fall Gutter Cleanup? What do you think?

  • The Seeds of Humanity

    With the horse and pony show going on during this election cycle, I can’t help but notice that there is a big nagging issue that nobody wants to touch for fear of letting the cat out of the bag. It’s the reason why they don’t talk about climate change, or the everlasting European debt crisis, or talk about the future at all.

    The candidates and media assume that our goal as a country is to “get back” to unchecked consumption of our world’s resources. Economists call it growth.

    Has anyone thought that “recovering” slowly and carefully is the best approach right now, until we figure out how we will deal with an overpopulated, overexploited planet?

    I think Obama actually has been tending toward a slow, smart recovery, but can’t even come close to that admission in an election season. Last election he talked about a shock and awe economy. While gas prices are cheap and the credit is flying, no one thinks about what they are doing, but when prices spike and their cards are maxed out, people go into shock and start complaining. They start blaming everyone else for their short-sightedness.

    If you look at his policies carefully, you might see a pattern of long term investment geared toward a lean future. His “all of the above” energy policy is actually a practical way to approach am energy cliff when nobody wants to admit there is a looming energy crunch. An everyone-gets-a-say educational reform, where states are encouraged to try out various reform approaches, is also a good way to get a diverse generation prepared for a tough future. Even his foreign policy reveals this forethought. In a future where the US can’t afford to be the world police, we will need all the worlds regions to be aligned without being directly dependent on the US.

    Our general population is so amazingly shortsighted, it makes me sad that we can’t have a public debate about the (non-fanciful) future we are heading for. I wish more people could or would recognize the caliber of thought and effort Obama’s team is putting into buffering us from the consequences of our deep-seated problems (edit: or as it was originally posted “deep seeded problems.”) His policies are not necessarily what we need, but when there is no debate, the unacknowledged, between-the-lines approach is all we will get. And if he loses we won’t even get that. It will be back to a path straight over the cliff.

    Strangely, what makes our problems hard to swallow is that they come from our success. We are much less violent as humans than we have ever been, and we are continuing to get more civil (Think of all the protests around the world that formed instead of wars, and the rebel groups seeking peace talks.) Our medical advances are saving ever more people and becoming more ubiquitous. And, our resource extraction/food production has become more efficient than our ability to consume (amazing to think that it is possible.) The result is overgrowth, overpopulation, and yet still increasing societal stability. We have done great things as humans.

    It doesn’t always seem like it’s true, because we are so used to it, but humanity is progressing at an amazing rate. Despite the loud public whining about how bad things are, this growth has let the us get ahead, and live out our individual dreams of owning stuff and being entertained. It’s not just here, either. People all over the world have more material wealth and long term stability than ever. Over the last half century, world poverty rates have shrunk drastically, and the standard of living has improved for much of the world’s people.

    Unfortunately, it has also lead to a new generation (by the real definition; people born within the 30 year peak, valley cycle) that is complacent, comfortable, and out of touch with the historic struggles that have defined humanity. This generation now assumes that an easy life (often, not even knowing that is what we have) is assured and is the natural human condition. We are delusional, in a word. (Edward Albee’s The American Dream, form 1961 is a great play about this generational legacy of delusion.) As much as this generation organizes protests for freedom and opportunity, and seeks the civil progress we all want, they are also generating an impasse.

    We have become delusional to the fact that our way of life is actually an anomaly of generational success. We have lost touch with the fact that our joy-ride must come to an end, and that the piper must be paid. We are still stuck on this rock with a whole lot of people who all want more than they have, and more than the earth can provide.

    Each election cycle seems to prove to me how screwed we probably are. It is not dire because we can’t solve or diminish most of our problems, but because most of us are so delusional that we can’t even recognize the signs of our dark future. In all the election hubbub, the “worst draught since the dust bowl” swept through 80% of our country and killed huge tracks of crops and natural land. No one seemed to notice. No one honestly accepts that the oceans will die, the carbon sinking tundra will completely melt, rain forests and coral reefs will be lost, the population will hit nine billion, and pollution will hit its highest levels ever all within a decade or two. The candidates we get seem to be drifting further and further away from these truths, and it is feeding the delusion.

    For those who know my THT work, it was conceived of exactly 4 years ago, during the last presidential election for this very reason. We have been delusional for so long, that society is now based on it. We are upside down in our priorities and politics, and have been that way for quite a long time. In fact, probably for most of my life. Generational goals, like flying to the moon, or feeding the world, or preserving the last great places are long gone in favor of the monthly tick of the “jobs report.”

    You will also know that over the last 4 years, I’ve also changed in many ways. I have been attempting to rid myself of my own latent delusions; the ones illuminated in my THT guides. I have to say it has been very tough, and it is far from complete, but the road has been a rewarding one. All of the things I enjoy like parenting, making, eating, playing, and others are so much better when they are the result of honesty, love, contemplation, and care. Four years ago, my family and I chose to stop chasing the typical American Dream, and as a result we ended up living in a place that lines up with our morality, ethics and ideals. It wasn’t a coincidence, it’s not easy, but it also isn’t an unmet Dream.

    So, I guess we do face a choice about our future, and I hope more people catch on that it isn’t limited to electing a president. We can face the totality of the daunting challenges that will affect all aspects of our lives, or we can pick and choose what we want to see, and wonder years from now why it all went wrong.

    If the “seed” connection from the title doesn’t make sense yet, it will in the coming weeks. I’ve been working for a while on a series of posts about a new way I have been thinking about Humanity. What if the humanity we have experienced through history thus far has just been a seed? What if humans are destined to use up the Eden we were given in order to become something larger and sustaining?

  • My First Try at Making Real Wine


    I have very little idea how to make wine, but it is something that has always interested me, and living in California, it is something that’s just part of life. Anywhere you travel in this state you are bound to come across vineyards and wine tasting rooms. Go south from the Bay Area on US 101, and you will literally be driving through vineyards within an hour or two. Another hour more, and you will be in the heart of the Central Coast wine region with wineries and tasting rooms at every exist.

    Go to the North Bay, and well, I don’t have to tell you where you are, but you will be in some of the most picturesque viticultural districts in the world, if not the best producing ones. Head east, or in just about any direction, down any road and you will likely find a vineyard of some sort. All my memories are filled with grape vines, from visiting my aunt’s house in the South Bay hills, to heading to Monterey, or to the mountains to fish. Everywhere, there is a vineyard in central Califa.

    Even later, I couldn’t get away from the vines. Not that I wanted to. I did my undergrad at “The” wine university. You know, the one that now produces the worlds premier viticulturists and enologist, who go on to head up every major winery around the world. When I went there, though, the school celar wasn’t open to the public, and Mondovi hadn’t turned it into a wine tourist trap, so we only heard rumors of the vintages that got dumped down the drain instead of being drunk each year. Now they get sold off to the public, and the wine culture descends on the campus in hords to visit the Mondovi wine complex, celars, and wine shops etc..

    One of the things Davis used to do, and still does, I think, is give away vines to the first few hundred people who get in line at the viticulture booth on Picnic Day. They are the vines that students practice their grafting techniques on, so they often aren’t wonderful, but they are free. In the past, before the world knew of this little give-away they gave away interesting varieties, and it was easier to get them.

    Six years ago, my wife (also an Aggie) and I went to Picnic Day and got two of the last scrony vines they were giving away that year. I think it was the fact that they were small that let is in on something cool. No one else wanted the runts, but they were just a small slow growing varietal. The variety was called Viozinho, a white wine grape. (More on that in a bit.) We’ve been to Picnic Day since, and have gotten other vines, but these were the only ones that resulted in a producing vine.

    Funny enough, at the time I had no where to plant them, so I potted them up and put them on the balcony of our place. For a couple of years they languished, putting out a few leaves each spring. One eventually died, but in the third year the survivor showed some good growth, so I was happy to keep it on board. In that same year we bought our house, and I found a good place for it in the ground. Having little idea what type of grape vine it really was, or its characteristics, I just put it where there was room. It had more sentimental value than anything at that point.

    In its new home it didn’t do a whole lot except grow. Last year it produced some grapes but the squirrels (I hate squirrels!) ate every last berry, so I had no idea what the grapes where finally going to be like.

    This year was different. I netted the whole thing as soon as they were forming sugar, and they grew and grew. So many and so well in fact, that my poorly made trellis partially collapsed.

    With a whole crop to deal with, I finally looked up what they where, and thought about what I was going to do with them. They are a grape used in making Porto, a fortified wine from Portugal. They are supposed to have great character, but are little grown because of the slow growth and low yield. In fact they seem to only be grown commercially in the Douro Valley in very low quantities. The guy at my local brew/wine store had never heard of them.

    So what do you do when you have something little heard of, and considered a treasure? Of course, try to learn how to use it for what it is meant for. I only have enough for about a gallon of finished wine, but it will be a good first trial. Also, since this variety is rarely ever made into a varietal wine, and is usually blended, the low volume works in my favor. My guess, is that it will be very acidic and complex, so I will have something good to use in blends with future years (maybe going the Porto route,) or with my plum wines, which have little complexity.

    Who knows where it will go, but so far it’s been fun starting down another path of learning. I already had the vine and the equipment, so I have little to lose, and wine to gain. Should be fun.

  • October is a Good Month


    This is a pumpkin from my garden. It’s one of the best I’ve grown.

    October is a great and odd time of year in California. It is a time when some of the trees drop their leaves as is traditional in the Fall, but others are just getting geared up to produce their crops. It’s a time to harvest everything thats been growing all summer, or clear out the old plants, but it is also the time to plant and nurish the second round of crops for the year.

    The weather is hot, then cold. The daylight is fading, but the skies are ablaze with light. Oktoberfest is a good celebration for this area, and I understand why it is so popular. Enjoy the beer and pumpkins everyone, because this is a special time of year around here.

  • A spike in renovation

    While renovating a small part of one of our buildings (the office out back) I ran into this while digging. What do you suppose it is? Obviously its a 10 inch steel spike, but the configuration is fairly odd. Working on this old house is always fun, cause I never know what I am going to find or what challenges I might be in for.

  • Bike Party San Jose


    Here are a couple of video stills from last night. It was my first experience riding in the San Jose Bike Party. I rode out from my place to El Camino, and after a minute was joined by a dozen people heading there. When I got to the parking lot, where the ride was to start, I had a pretty cool introduction to the Bike Party. There were food trucks, tailgaters, lots of stereos with music blasting, and literally thousands of bikes in all shapes and sizes, many covered in LEDs.

    I rode around the parking lot getting some video and taking it all in. Then some whistles started going, a big firework was set off, and people started cheering. We all started moving toward the road, with bells and horns going, and surprisingly nothing negative going on that I could see.

    These two pics are of the crowd forming and merging onto the road. I was in the top third, I would say. In the bottom image, the lights that stretch back to the left into the parking lot are all bikes.

    After about a mile or two, the massive hoard spread out a bit, and it was a little more comfortable. We passed lots of people waiting to join in with their bikes, families with kids just watching, and lots of cops. The cops were giving out a few tickets to some of the young riders. Minors aren’t supposed to be allowed on the ride, so they might have been getting tickets for not wearing helmets, or being drunk; who knows, but there weren’t many.

    I only did the first leg of the ride, which was under 10 miles. The whole ride was 27.5 miles and went on for hours. I think I will have to work up to doing that, and be willing to stay out all night. Next month, maybe.

    During the ride, I was amazed with all the variety and diversity of people out there moving as one. It was mostly college students, but in that there were hipsters, nerds, partyers, and every subculture you can think of. There were also a bunch of older couples on recumbents and high end comfort bikes, a few families with trailers pulling kids, and groups of young tough looking kids on BMX bikes. There were low riders and tactical urban assault bikes. It was a joy to see, and nothing was out of place.

    I guess, if you give people a reason to be out at night yelling and screaming with music, plus give them a chance to be creative and a bit rebellious, this is what you will get. There was a sense of “screw people in cars” running through the whole thing. Riders took up one lane and sometimes two (thought the Santa Clara Police didn’t like that much,) and generally pushed cars out of the way. We let them in an out as needed of course, but people driving cars knew to stay away.

    I love bikes even though I don’t get a chance to ride them much anymore, and it seemed like everyone on the ride felt the same way. That was a cool feeling. Once in a while it’s nice to feel like part of a crowd. Over the last 170 years, bikes have had a powerful symbollogy attached to them, and there is a great history to all of it, which I might write about in the future, but there is an important underlying part of biking to remember. People just feel good when they ride. More so, I think, in this day and age where cars are so dominant.

    Riding last night, I felt like both a kid and a grown-up. As much as the ride made me aware of the confinements of contemporary life, powering my machine down the road with all those people made me feel strong and free, and connected to the streets and people on them. That’s a good feeling to have in our boxed up, mediated lives.