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Some suggestions: - Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood an
by chrissnell 7y ago
Some suggestions:
- Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it.
- Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn about ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed and the interplay of those three variables. There's a fantastic multi-part tutorial on Reddit that can help you learn these things. I don't have the link handy but you can Google for it.
- Set a goal of cooking for yourself at least two nights a week and eating leftovers two nights a week. Buy a binder and some clear inserts and start to put together your own book of favorite recipes.
- Take a nightly walk.
- Listen to classical music. This one didn't come to me until my 40s but I finally realized: there's a reason that this music has been popular for 300 years. Opera is great, too. Listen to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". Download the KUSC app and listen to the amazing Metropolitan Opera broadcast every Saturday morning at 10 AM Pacific.
- inform880 7y agoThe cooking thing really hits home. I work in a high stress, banking environment at a fortune 500 company, and I eat out most days. I know theoretically how to cook, but between the time it takes to shop, cook, and clean, AND I'm doing well financially it's so hard to convince myself to cook. Living alone doesn't help either.
- a_bonobo 7y agoIf you have the money (and it sounds like you have), there are quite a few recipe box companies which send you boxes of ingredients and recipes every few days. It's a nice stepping stone towards fully cooking for yourself as it cuts out the shopping/deciding part.
- inform880 7y agoAnyone have suggestions for these?
- Linell 7y agoHello Fresh has been my favorite.
- leandot 7y agoHellofresh. Super happy with them in Switzerland - quality ingredients and good recipes.
- maypeacepreva1l 7y agoThis is good way to start cooking and hit the kitchen. Eventually though you may feel like you want to mix and match and start buying your own grocery.
- kthejoker2 7y agoWe used Hello Fresh to reduce the time spent picking recipes, food shopping, etc Highly recommended, but definitely pricier than acquiring it all yourself. Kroger now has a recipe thing where you can add it all to your cart, so we went back to that for the time being.
- exdsq 7y agoI use Riverford in the UK. Comes with all your ingredients and a recipe - I've learnt to make quite a few of my favorite dishes thanks to these guys.
- Narty 7y agoI'll throw Gousto in there as well for the UK.
- nske 7y agoI've used Gousto on and off for years, great variety of recipes and never disappointed -it actually works out not very expensive per meal if you order the 4-people package, though you need some organizing to cook/freeze the extra meals in time.
- 7y ago
- reaperducer 7y agoAnd if you don't want to invest in a subscription until you're sure that meal kits are right for you, most supermarkets sell their own.
- danenania 7y agoGet a slow cooker and have your groceries delivered. You can make delicious, nutritious 1 pot meals that last you 2 or 3 days a pop with minimal prep time and cleanup.
- ravenstine 7y agoIn a similar vain, I recommend getting a sous vide circulator. You'll make perfect steaks and pork chops every time, and it's extremely clean and convenient. You can cook all sorts of other things sous vide style as well. I recently got one, and I've been cooking at home a lot more often as a result. I think more people would cook their own food if they knew how to make it taste really good.
- komali2 7y agoI fully support the value system here in that we both want people cooking for themselves more, but I have to say that sous vide cooked steaks taste like boiled meat to me, aka terrible. People around me are swear by it until I slap a ribeye onto the pan for them, high heat, making sure to render the fat. To each their own but imo a sous vide is a big, expensive, plastic waste of counter space.
- tashoecraft 7y agoIf sous vide is tasting really bad to you, you’re doing it wrong. Almost certainly you’re not doing the final step, finish in a pan. You shouldn’t take something right from the sous vide to the plate, hit it in the pan at the highest heat you possible can to get the Maillard reaction and develop the crust.
- komali2 7y agoSo you're getting the pan out, oiled, and hot anyway. You're gonna have to clean it. And while on the pan a rare is slowly turning to well. Why not just do it all on the pan??
- balfirevic 7y agoIf you happen to enjoy it, cook. If you don't want to cook, you don't have to. It's also possible to eat healthily if you eat out, especially if you have enough money.
- ryanmercer 7y agoInstant pot (best kitchen purchase I've ever made) and meal prep. There's entire subreddits dedicated to meal prep with a lot of good ideas.
- colecut 7y agoSorry you're being downvoted. I guess the instant pot isn't hacker trendy enough
- ryanmercer 7y agoIt was probably the mention of reddit. I've found most of the time I mention a subreddit that is relevant to a topic I get downvoted.
- mywittyname 7y agoThe IP is pretty overrated. I have one and use it really often, but it has serious limitations that fad blogs just kind of ignore. Like, it's not really a huge time saver because it's low pressure and takes so long to come to pressure anyway. Also, pressure cooked meat is very often gross and spongy, so you should use it as a slow cooker in those situations. It's great for rice, beans, sauce & soup bases. Plus, it doesn't heat up the house in the summer. But I think it's limitations make it a poor suggestion for a novice cook.
- Kihashi 7y ago> pressure cooked meat is very often gross and spongy I haven't cooked much beef in it that hasn't become part of a stew, but my experience cooking chicken and turkey is that it comes out incredibly juicy and flavorful. Even better if you have the air fryer/convection add on. I've done turkey in it for the past several years for potlucks and family meals and it always gets rave reviews. For beef, part of the appeal was that I could brown it, saute aromatics, and then cook it in the same pot.
- chrissnell 7y agoI love my instant pot. My favorite recipe is red beans and rice. My mother-in-law is Cajun from down on the bayou and this was one that I adapted from hers. Happy to post it if anyone is interested. It makes enough for about 6-8 one-bowl meals and freezes wonderfully, so you can always have a quick meal ready in a pinch. Takes about 10 minutes of prep and an hour to cook.
- billfruit 7y agoLearn to enjoy poetry. There is so much of great poetry in English, but I think it is not being read and appreciated enough. It is a kind of mental challenge like doing a puzzle, to unlock the full vivid meaning. Also reading fiction, though how exactly it helps one is beyond me, but it offers glimpses into other worlds. For example I read recently 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', I doubt its richness of detail, and evocation of place and time, etc can ever be captured in a film or even a miniseries, and on top of it is choc-full of tid-bits of information.
- lkrych 7y agoI second this. Poetry is play and learning to play with language can open up new worlds. Here is a favorite of mine. Again by Ross Gay https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92019/again-586e779b07cc8 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92019/again-586e779b0... This book[1] compares poetry to music. There are many genres and styles of music, and it is likely that you don't like all genres. Enjoying poetry is about trying to find the "genre" of poetry that moves you. [1] Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems - Stephanie Burt
- whatshisface 7y agoIs there any evidence that poems have meaning? I could easily imagine a world where poets fool themselves into thinking the words they wrote contained their intentions, while readers fooled themselves into thinking they had uncovered those intentions.
- 323454 7y agoYou might as well ask "does music have meaning?" Poetry is many things, but at the root it's about the beauty of words themselves, their sound and shape and feeling and even taste.
- dri_ft 7y agoI'm faintly appalled by the glibness of this comment. I'm not sure what kind of poetry you have in mind, but spending even a little time with the classics will reveal that they "have meaning".
- brenden2 7y ago+1 to taking walks. Having a dog makes this really easy, because you have to take them out 3-4 times/day. Or at least, you really should.
- mattjaynes 7y agoFor the "learn to take pictures on a manual camera" suggestion, this is probably the reddit multi-part tutorial: https://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass/ (scroll to the bottom for the first lesson)
- Spellman 7y agoThey also just started their 2020 series here: https://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass2020/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass2020/ They'll slowly post the next step of the guide throughout the year. Subscribe and follow along to learn!
- chrissnell 7y agoYes!! This is the one. This class taught me so much. I went from a photographer that ended up with garbage 90% of the time, to one that can usually get the shot. Glad to see that they now have a 2020 class, too.
- tnel77 7y agoWhat blows my mind is how much I took my ability to cook for granted. So many people my age (millennial) can barely cook anything. I have friends who eat out every single meal of every single day. People give me weird looks when every single workday I have the same answer to “you wanna go out and get some lunch?” “Nope. I have leftovers!”
- woile 7y agoFor me it's quite similar, in the office they always tell me "Wow! That look amazing, I can't believe you do it everyday". Even when it's a salad with 3 ingredients
- galacticdessert 7y agoSame here. As Italian living in The Netherlands the difference with my everyday meal and the Dutch sandwiches always leaves some awe. Honestly, cooking and eating healthy is not hard, saves money and tastes better.
- FranzFerdiNaN 7y agoAs a Dutch person, I find it hard to believe your cooking is cheaper than a piece of bread with some cheese on it. Better tasing, for sure though.
- galacticdessert 7y agoMy two sentences were disconnected actually. 1. Cooking causes awe in Dutch people 2. Eating healthy is cheaper that eating out, and easier that many may think. BTW, you Dutch guys should stop putting butter on everything, eating hagelslag by the ton, and drinking yogurt instead of water. It might be cheap, but terribly unhealthy :).
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoButter and yogurt. That sounds healthy to me! (Don’t know what hagelslag is..)
- mattrp 7y ago> - Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Be careful... my wife gave me a drill one year and I’ve since renovated two houses and now have a small fortune in tools. If you don’t have a garage, basement or backyard for it, your local community college might have a “maker lab” with all sorts of high end woodworking, metal working, laser cutters and 3D printers...along with meetups and evening classes to boot.
- Tehchops 7y agoI always found the "idea" of that kind of work enticing. However, once I owned a house and had to do renovating/updating, I ultimately found it frustrating. Some jobs are incredibly frustrating if you don't have the exact tool to make it easier. The likelihood the angles and geometry of your home are square is, IME, near 0. Even measuring and re-measuring multiple times, I end up with a lot of wasted, mis-cut material. YMMV, but I always found when you add up the time spent and material cost, it's nearly a wash to just pay someone else to do it.
- jader201 7y agoI think woodworking != home improvements. I would agree that often projects to fix up your home can be more frustrating than satisfying, unless, like you said, you have the right tools and some prior experience. Building things that sit in your home (furniture) is likely a bit less frustrating & rewarding, even without the perfect tools and experience.
- brodouevencode 7y agoAgreed, carpentry and fine woodworking aren't the same thing, but a lot of the tools/practices/methods overlap. Start small and work your way up. Make a cutting board, fast forward a couple of years and you'll be building cabinets. Fast forward from that and you'll be shaving backs on a Windsor chair.
- JshWright 7y ago
- akerro 7y ago>- Listen to classical music. This one didn't come to me until my 40s but I finally realized: there's a reason that this music has been popular for 300 years. Opera is great, too. Listen to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". Download the KUSC app and listen to the amazing Metropolitan Opera broadcast every Saturday morning at 10 AM Pacific. How is this a skill?
- SQueeeeeL 7y agoAgree with the sentiment, the answer is just soapboxing life advise, not really answering. But being able to focus on/appreciate classical music is a skill, hearing the different instruments and such.
- Velofellow 7y agoAaron Copland's "What to Listen For in Music" is a great primer! I think most people fall into a Passive Listening model when getting into symphonic or chamber music. The book suggested above would certainly push an average listener closer to an 'active' model.
- djannzjkzxn 7y agoAppreciating anything that you aren’t already a fan of is a skill. You can also develop the skills of enjoying hip hop, metal, spaghetti westerns, rock climbing, etc.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- linsomniac 7y agoAgreed. The skill I'm working on this year seems to be woodworking. I made my wife a little box to put her Christmas present in, and designed and built a storage system for the garage over the holidays. Now I'm working on building a new set of workbenches for the garage to replace the ones the previous owner built.
- brodouevencode 7y agoIt's bloody addictive isn't it? I started out doing cutting boards and my last commission was to make a custom poker table.
- jmeyer2k 7y agoThe nightly walk part is really life-changing. We need time to process what happens in the day and a walk is a great way to do that.
- brianna_dickey 7y agoEinstein walked on the beach when he needed to work out complex problems. Steve Jobs preferred to conduct meetings while walking. Tchaikovsky took a walk every morning, before sitting down to work on his music. Charles Darwin walked twice a day to process ideas... turns out that walking boosts cognition and creative thinking. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-think-about-exercise/201501/charles-darwins-daily-walks https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-think-about-exer...
- reaperducer 7y agoListen to classical music. This one didn't come to me until my 40s but I finally realized: there's a reason that this music has been popular for 300 years. I agree. It's funny how when I was young I would only listen to one type of music, like it was some kind of tribal loyalty. Now I listen to all kinds of things, and I've learned to hear the difference between really good music and stuff that's just manufactured for corporations. (Ironically, what got me to expand my musical horizons was Apple's corporate promotion, back when you used to get a free iTune each the week on the iTunes store, by picking up a card in Starbucks, or buying a bottle of Pepsi from the vending machine at work.) Getting back to classical, I also recommend apps for KDFC/San Francisco, KING-FM/Seattle, RTBF Musiq'3/Brussels, RTHK4/Hong Kong, and RTÉ LyricFM (Dublin?). I used to be a WQXR/New York fan, but it lost its way after the New York Times sold it. I've heard good things about WRR/Dallas, but haven't tried it yet. KING-FM-HD2 is awesome background brain lubricant when you're working on something hard and mathematical. If anyone else has any favorite classical stations, please reply.
- smush 7y agoWRR has kept me through thick and thin. My bookmark straight to the music streamer page is below uBlock a few of the banner ads and you are set. http://player.listenlive.co/44461 http://player.listenlive.co/44461
- big_t 7y agoClassical 101: WOSA/Grove City, OH
- vonmoltke 7y agoIn what way do you think WQXR lost its way? I went from 12 years of WRR to WQXR about 3 years ago, and I didn't notice much of a difference.
- triangleman 7y agoBringing up Mozart is somewhat ironic, as he is basically the first pop music artist. A lot of his stuff is just catchy tunes.
- sharadov 7y agoLearn to make basic cocktails ( manhattan, old-fashioned). Get good spirits, quality mixes ( cannot emphasize this enough), fresh herbs and you got yourself a great skill.
- chrissnell 7y agoDefinitely. Like a good set of tools in the workshop, I love to buy new spirits every time I have a cocktail night with friends. I have a liquor cabinet full of strange aperitifs and whiskeys. It's very fun to learn. I should find an app that lets me build a virtual liquor cabinet and gives me ideas for new drinks that I can make with what I have.
- sharadov 7y agoMy wife got me this book - https://www.amazon.com/Shake-Perspective-Cocktails-Eric-Prum/dp/0804186731 https://www.amazon.com/Shake-Perspective-Cocktails-Eric-Prum... It's got a list of liquors to stock, everything in the book can be made with them. You will need to just buy fresh ingredients each time.
- agumonkey 7y agoWhere do you live ? Nightly walks do seem lovely (i tried twice), but I always have the potential mad person around in mind. City or forest.
- sangd 7y agoI have done all of the above except the classical music. I find spending time to do meditation is more useful. All of the above, I find cooking is an incredible skill that many people underestimate greatly. Here are the things that I do for my cooking for every week or every two weeks. + 30-45 minutes grocery shopping including driving. + 30-60 minutes per day to cook daily dinner and prepare breakfast. + 10-15 minutes to clean up. And what I think it solves/helps/improve our family daily life: + Food quality is definitely way better than outside. We have good amount of vegetable, fruits, fresh meat/fish/poultry and other dairy products. + Lots of time saving for not going out, spending time waiting, driving, moving the whole family around. + The cost is very low, probably around 1/3 of eating out. We do spend a day or two to eat out or eat carry-out food. While this takes time (months/years) to get a good skill at cooking and minimizing the time, this is so far one of the best skills I have had and I do think people should invest in it.
- 8ytecoder 7y agoAgreed, no one in my friend circle cook any more. I learnt it out of necessity - I missed home cooking and then became vegan which made me realise the lack of creativity of the chefs when it comes to vegan food. Now I love cooking just for the sake of it.
- chrissnell 7y agoThat's awesome! I forgot to mention this in my top-level comment but if you're ever interested in cooking some Tex-Mex, I have a recipe book for you. My grandmother wrote this in the early 1970s and it was regionally famous in the part of Texas where I grew up. She died when I was young and my aunt inherited the ownership of the book. I asked her for permission to make it freely available and she said OK. I had plans to translate it to TeX but never got it finished. I did put up a PDF scan of the original that you can download: https://chrissnell.com/cookbook/womc.pdf https://chrissnell.com/cookbook/womc.pdf Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. For newcomers to the book, I highly recommend the cheese enchiladas recipe and the anticuchos recipe. Anticuchos are not authentic Tex-Mex but they are very much tied to San Antonio and that recipe is probably the best in the book if you make it with good quality steak.
- 8ytecoder 7y ago+1 on all of the above. I just want to add one thing - Learn an instrument. Just for fun. You don't have to play in an orchestra or a band. I came to this thread expecting it to be about tech skills, glad to see this comment at the top. Overall, I'm more grounded and happier for it (and less depressed).
- pawelk 7y agoI am a hobby (unplugged) woodworker with a quite large collection of vintage tools... it all started because I needed some basic temporary furniture for the new house and w were broke enough to not be able to afford it - the kitchen I built is still around after 7 years and I have developed a lot in this area. I use manual cameras, or digital cameras in manual mode / with manual lenses because that's how I learned photography in 1990's I like to cook, 95% of our meals are home made, I can prepare a whole week worth of meals in abut 3 hours, including cleaning. I usually just improvise, my wife says I can make a delicious meal out of an empty fridge... Yet music somehow eludes me - and it is THE thing I have always wanted to be proficient at way more than any of the above. I just don't have any idea how to approach it. Let's say I get a musical instrument - be it a piano (keyboard), a guitar, saxophone or percussion. What's next? Practice the notes until I'm "touch-typing" them? Then try to mix and match? Try to play some sheet music or repeat what I've heard before by brute-forcing? I am actually able to re-create a simple melody by trying the keys on a toy keyboard, but in all the other areas (woodworking, cooking, photography) I went almost straight to improvisation - which I enjoy the most - and I have the feeling that in music there is some set of basic skills required to unlock this, yet I don't know what it entails. Woodworking is all about hiding the imperfections, photography is about selecting the best shots / being prepared for lucky timing, and an imperfect meal can be (usually) fixed with herbs/spices/salt. Music is either spot on, or too far off to be tolerable - am I missing some middle ground opportunity here?
- 8ytecoder 7y agoI'm learning it with an electric guitar plugged into my xbox using the game/app Rocksmith. It's not the recommended approach for beginners. But I'm having so much fun with it that I'm going to see how far I can go before I signup for classes. That and JustinGuitar is how I'm approaching it. The whole investment was under $300 (not including the xbox). I'm assuming that music is going to take a while before I feel I have anything resembling mastery of it. My goal is different - I just want to blow off steam playing music instead of a video game or watching TV. It's a very modest goal at this point. YMMV depending on what you're trying to achieve.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- amatern 7y agoCooking: while in grad school we started a cooking club, which has since evolved into a cookbook club. One person chooses a cookbook, and then tells the group which main dish they will prepare. Others chime in with side dishes, desserts, etc. The group gets together to discuss the book, the challenges, the triumphs, etc. It is one of the things I look forward to!
- rewq4321 7y ago+1 walks and cooking healthy meals. > Build something. Build something that the world actually needs. Something where you're using your unique skills and privilege to help improve the world a bit - help others who are a few rungs below you. Have a plan for how you're going to do the most good you can with the time you have left. Helping others (humans and sentient non-humans) is the best path to long-term happiness in my opinion.
- TheCapn 7y agoA reddit user (which I cannot remember) said it best imo. The way they put it was (loosely quoted) "Create something. It doesn't have to be anything physical, you can create experiences for people". If woodworking or car repair isn't your jam, volunteer to help the needy. Or if you like the stage join a drama club or comedy club or whatever else you can do to enrich other people's lives.
- omar12 7y agoCooking is one of my favorite activities that I'm actually decent at. One "cooking sin" that I do is that I don't taste my food throughout cooking. The general feedback on my cooking has been positive. When I try and cook new dishes, I do it by theme. The theme can be: * Ingredients (eggs, poultry, grains, tomatoes) * Courses (breakfast [eggs, pancakes from scratch], dinner, desserts [flan, custard] * Execution (baking, sauté, oven) * Cuisine (Mexican, Thai, French, Puertorican) You will easily overlap the themes the more you cook, the themes are a starting point. Two of my favorite books that the audience here might appreciate are The Food lab[0] and Cooking for Geeks[1]. * [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science-ebook/dp/B00TG24C34 https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science-eboo... * [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Geeks-Science-Great-Hacks/dp/0596805888 https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Geeks-Science-Great-Hacks/dp/...
- brailsafe 7y agoI discovered at 22 (now 28) that most cities have young person and student programs for inexpensive tickets to the symphony. $20 for any ticket in the house is a great way to spend 10 or more nights a year.
- trianglem 7y ago- I take commission based wood working projects - Cannot use a manual camera - Wife cooks most nights - always take a nightly walk with my dog - listen to classical music with my baby everyday I’m not doing too badly by this list and I’m relatively happy.
- shpongled 7y agoRe: cooking - What are you guys eating if you're not already cooking/eating leftovers 4+ nights a week? This is absolutely mind boggling to me... I eat out maybe 1-3 times per month, I don't think I would even want to go out more than that. Are people actually eating out 3 or more times a week? I'm convinced that you aren't actually saving that much time vs cooking.
- nkozyra 7y agoI cook most nights and frankly am starting to see the appeal of frequent dining out. I cook for three and that's generally in the 10 minutes prep, 20-45 minutes cooking, 15+ minutes cleaning. And that's dinner. It adds up. Eating truly fast food takes 5-15 minutes. If fast food were reliably better for you I think it would be a wash. Financially I used to order out in NYC and get two+ days meals out of a single Indian seamless order for $30 and no cooking time. The compromise, I think, is cooking a meal 2x quantity and freezing half for a week, but then you get into some very tiresome food routines.
- shpongled 7y agoI guess it depends on how much food you're making. My girlfriend and I typically alternate cooking and will make enough for ~3 days of food, so really we only cook 2-3 times a week, and when you alternate the task it's not much time at all. I also don't mind eating the same thing for days in a row, so that helps too.
- m-p-3 7y ago> Listen to classical music. It also open the doors to so many other genres as well that you might not appreciate as much than when you enjoy classical. Post-rock is mostly instrumental and some bands uses classical instruments to complement the guitar, bass and drum. It's an interesting mix an example from a recent album I listened this week: https://besides.bandcamp.com/track/ich-bin-wieder-da-2 https://besides.bandcamp.com/track/ich-bin-wieder-da-2