Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Three Beautiful Things 11-21-2023: Working Out with Wireless Earbuds, Fixing Chickpea and Rice Bowls, Artificial Intelligence and Then More Watergate

1. I like to work with words first thing in the morning and exercise either later in the morning or in the afternoon. Therefore, having an 11:00 slot at the rehab center in CdA and going to the Shoshone Fitness Center at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon works perfectly for me. Today, at the Fitness Center, I took my wireless earbuds, hoping they wouldn't fall out while I was exercising (they didn't), and listened once again to Episode 2 of the podcast, Who Killed JFK?, and to a past episode of Fresh Air featuring Brian Stelter talking about recent changes at Fox News -- the firing of Tucker Carlson and what it means for Fox that Rupert Murdoch has, to some degree, stepped aside. 

2. Once I returned home, I made our next HelloFresh meal and it turned out to be one of my favorites. The meal has kind of a long name: Vegan Street-Style Chickpea Bowls with Yellow Rice, Garlicky Hummus Sauce, and Pita.

Do you want to call this a Mediterranean meal? Middle Eastern food? Whatever you call it, it might be my favorite style of preparing food. 

And, it was simple. 

I heated up some olive oil in a small pot and added turmeric to it and then added water, vegetable stock concentrate, and jasmine rice and let it cook.

I chopped up a cucumber, tomato, and a couple of green onions, put them in a bowl, and seasoned this little salad with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. 

In another bowl, I combined hummus, olive oil, garlic powder, and lemon juice. 

In a pan, I heated olive oil with some chopped green onion whites, garlic powder,  and Shawarma Spice Blend (turmeric, cumin, coriander, garlic powder, paprika, allspice, and black pepper) and then added chickpeas and a couple packets of vegetable stock concentrate. I let this cook until the liquid was gone. Then I added lemon juice and some salt and pepper to the chickpeas. 

When this rice was done, I added a packet of sliced almonds to the pot and fluffed it.

While the chickpeas cooked down, I topped two pitas with olive oil and garlic powder and toasted them in the oven. 

Now it was assembly time. I put a layer of rice in the bottom of Debbie's bowl and mine. Next I added the chickpeas and the simple salad. I drizzled each bowl with hummus sauce and hot sauce. Last of all -- guess what? -- more lemon juice! 

I cut each pita into quarters and put them on top of the rice, chickpeas, salad, hummus, and hot sauce.

We loved this food! It was pretty close to ordering a tasty rice and bean bowl from a food truck! 

3. Debbie and I relaxed after dinner with a podcast episode and another tv episode of Season 1 of Slow Burn. We listened to an episode of Code Switch and learned how Artificial Intelligence and search engines are not neutral, but have the same racial biases built into them that we humans do. We learned about this from UCLA professor, Safiya Noble. Then we watched a Slow Burn episode focused on the aides who worked behind the scenes during the Senate Watergate Hearings and on John Dean looking back at his work in the Nixon Administration and his testimony before the committee.   



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