This week's sporkful: February 2026

Friday, February 27, 2026

Thursday, February 26, 2026

Decanting the olives

That day's food discourse started with a report showing that spending on food from food service had increased as sales of food purchased from stores had decreased, and people trying to explain that.

https://x.com/SPnoir/status/2018456699313734091

Just looking at the data, it's not as dramatic a difference as you might expect; I can't help wondering how much of it is delivery fees. The lines cross right around 2020 when a lot of people started ordering in more and that has remained popular.

Regardless, people start replying about the wasting of money. On Mike Bird's post, someone with username "TheWealthCoach" admonishes that people learn to cook, and a rjurney below him replies "You can read his class within his response. He’s got time to be thrifty. He’s affluent."

(Because of how the replies are threaded, there is not a good link for that.)

Then, what really started the discussion I saw was this response from SPnoir:

I wanted to make sesame noodles with cucumber last week. Had to buy sesame oil, chili oil, sesame seeds, rice vinegar... let me know if you have these handy in your cupboard. That's not even getting to the main ingredients.

There were replies from many people who had those in their cupboards, and also that those are all reusable.

There were also some replies that there were swaps you could do, like that you could probably use any vinegar if you did not specifically have rice vinegar, and sesame seeds are more of a garnish, so you could probably skip them.

That brings us back to my earlier Worcestershire sauce example. The initial outlay can be expensive, but then the use per meal ends up being very inexpensive. If you bought a jar of nutmeg every time you were going to use it, that would add up (and is a good reason to check your cupboards first).

As you are getting into cooking, by all means take your time and build up gradually. You can look up recipes that use ingredients you already have.

Then BrieBrieJoy entered the chat.

Briahna Joy Gray was the press secretary for Bernie Sanders and now hosts the Bad Faith podcast. It's not the first time she has made anyone roll her eyes.

https://x.com/briebriejoy/status/2019074357125853529

She agreed with SPnoir, because people don't have these ingredients and they are overwhelmed. If you want to help people cook, you should focus on single ingredients that taste good with salt, pepper, butter, and olive oil, because everybody has those.

There is a lot you can do with those four ingredients, I am not going to lie. I am also currently out of butter (which I regularly restock) and olive oil, which I have gotten out of using.

Things start to fall apart in Gray's replies to ashley_quan, who points out that the sesame noodle ingredients are Asian staples and that if you are going to make the dish even once a month having them is not unreasonable.

This would have been a really easy time to acknowledge that different pantries have different ingredients, and that every culture has simpler and easier recipes, even if you personally are not familiar with them.

This is someone who worked for Sanders; she was never going to be able to admit she was wrong.

It devolves and then there are different threads, where I can't capture them all.

Gray uses executive function as a reason that it is just too hard to make Asian or Mexican food, where it is much easier to do French cooking instead.

While that is questionable, familiarity is a real factor. If she is used to French cooking, then something a little more complicated might still seem more manageable than a simple stir fry.

However, when you say that sauteing vegetables doesn't sound very Chinese, that just makes you seem ignorant.

What you will see in the link is Gray suggesting adobo as being easier, except that it could easily fit within the Asian cooking that she was decrying. It's traditionally Filipino but I got my adobo recipe out of a Hawaiian cookbook, which also had a strong Japanese influence so bring back the rice vinegar!

Also, to ashley_quan's reply that chicken adobo has eight ingredients, Gray replied with a photo of a seasoning mix from famous Trump supporters Goya.

Yes, I have bought jars of sauce and shakers and packets of seasonings, but willingness to do that is one of those things that puts cooking different types of food within reach.

My favorite part came when she tried to explain how Mexican food is too complicated, like decanting the olives for making tacos:

https://x.com/briebriejoy/status/2019200627641884919

I was not the only one who got hung up on that. There were so many replies and new threads that I am surprised that no one has written it up, for clickbait if nothing else. I couldn't find anything, so I guess it's me.

Decanting is a process for removing sediment. It happens most often with wine, and sometimes with olive oil. I did some searching for olives themselves, and there was one person asking about it because when they open olives and don't eat them all within two weeks they start to see mold.

At the risk of sounding like a snob, don't let opened olives sit around for two weeks. If you do and they start molding, let them go.

I believe there is racism here, and that is not surprising. This post is really more reveling in the ridiculousness of it, so I guess I will get more serious next week.

For now, every time I open a can of olives and hold the detached lid on while I turn the can upside down over the sink to drain the liquid...

I'm decanting them y'all!

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/01/baby-corn.html

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Ableism in cooking discourse

Just to preview, the conversation that inspired this series of posts touched on ableism, classism, and racism... pretty normal.

Ableism is probably the -ism that comes up the most in cooking discourse, with some very legitimate points and some points that stretch credibility more.

Still sadly normal.

A big part of why it all happens is that aspect of dominator culture where there are always people who are eager to demonstrate their superiority and look down on others.

This frequently comes up with convenience items; someone will deride the laziness or incompetence of something like a tool for cracking eggs or packages of fruit that is already cut up.

The inspiration often comes because there are people who do not have the full use of their hands, or there is limited mobility in some other way. Someone will imagine people with unhampered physical abilities using it and question "How lazy do you have to be?"

One of the things I loved about the latest Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, is when Simone stands up and Martha exclaims about the miracle but Simone stops her: "I can walk; it just hurts."

It's not just that it is easy to not think about disability, but that when we do we often think of it very narrowly, getting mad if it inconveniences other or if it doesn't inconvenience the person with the disability enough.

(Or enjoying it when the disability works to enforce racism. Lots of ways to be wrong.)

The truth is, for there to be a profit, it often requires that lots of people who don't need the convenience will still want it. Maybe there is some "laziness" there. I do worry about packaging waste, but I worry more about us getting these ideas that people don't deserve food or that they need to suffer to eat well... I don't think that should be true.

When you realize that things you take for granted can be very difficult for others, appropriate responses are gratitude for those abilities, humility in knowing that having those abilities is generally independent of merit, and empathy for those who do not have those same options, ideally without any condescension.

The other way ability tends to come up relates to executive function.

This is not so much about having the motor skills and knowledge to be able to cook, but about being able to make a decision about what to eat based on what you have in the house, then follow through. That can also include regularly bringing in supplies of ingredients that you can use.

Just as mobility issues can fluctuate -- sometimes being more or less difficult -- executive function can as well.

I have had days where the thought of trying to come up with dinner made me want to cry. That's not common for me, but when you have enough other things going on, one additional thing can put you over the edge.

I think the important thing to remember (before we get to someone whom I am going to be judging pretty hard) is that there can be lots of differences and nuances.

Yes, absolutely there are times when people are capable of doing more than they do.

People can also be capable most of the time but not sometimes.

People can be capable, but not want to.

People might have the ability, but not the knowledge or the motivation to get the knowledge. They might not seem to need it, like if they have someone else who cooks or they have a budget that allows frequent ordering out.

Because people need to regularly eat and things like the availability of that budget for ordering out or that other person who does the cooking might change, there can be really good reasons for having some supplies and some knowledge on how to use them (I am still very interested in preparedness and planning), but not everything needs to be a contest or a moral judgment.

If we care about each other, we should want there to be lots of options available, and be willing to help as we can.

That's not too much to ask.

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Reading and writing

I was going to title this post "But is it ableism?"

Sadly, that would imply a completely different meaning after the BAFTAs. (Though I have some thoughts on those as well.)

Anyway, ableism does come up a lot in cooking discourse. Another type of discourse that comes up a lot is things that are wrong with students.

This started with a teacher and author posting that he talks to students who want to be novelists but don't read novels:

https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/2023820821182247127

You can try reading about it from that thread, but there were so many replies that it is hard to follow.

He later adds that the students are generally taking their inspiration from video games or manga. That makes the reasonable follow-up question why they want to write novels instead of manga or video games; maybe they don't think they can, but that process would involve collaboration with artists or programmers or something; Only being able to create the story is not the end of the world.

Not enjoying novels does seem like a pity, and there is plenty we could say about the benefits of reading fiction and the influences that are causing that to become less common.

Right now, there are two different paths I want to follow. You can find both of them in the next link:

https://x.com/iproposethis/status/2024542646342209690

I had thought about Ana Mardoll before someone posted that infamous thread in the replies, but first the person offended by that: Joanna Schroeder, parenting writer who lists her excuses for not reading but still writing, and feels that Gwyn's take is privileged, if not ableist.

What she soon admits is that she does read 40 - 60 books a year, related to her work.

I don't think anyone was implying that you need to read novel to write non-fiction. With that level of reading, she should be getting pretty well-versed in the style of writing that she is doing. That makes sense.

There may be a little resentment about not having time to read for pleasure, and maybe some implication that she doesn't enjoy her work, but I don't think anything there is invalidating her ability to do her job.

On to Ana!

The first time I saw any posts by Mardoll, they seemed fairly reasonable. There was context missing and then weirder tweets until eventually I think they left the site and later got back on with a protected account.

This post -- which you can see in the second link -- is one that a lot of people were merciless about.

There's a thread going around mocking writers "who don't read very much" and I'm trying not to haul out my soapbox but... this is ableist? Not everyone can read for pleasure (or indeed at all) and some of those people are writers.

I spent some time thinking about it, wanting to give the benefit of the doubt.

At the time, the most likely scenario in my head -- focused on disability -- was someone who had once read a lot and started writing, but had suffered something debilitating that made doing so harder. I've known people who have lost a lot of their ability to function where they have to choose what they are going to do with the limited time they have.

Laura Hillenbrand might be a good example, though I don't know how much ME affected her ability to read. I know she had to make other choices for how to do things.

Regardless, if writing is your profession, you might have to prioritize that over reading, but you would probably have still read a fair amount before.

More recently it occurred to me that someone from an oral storytelling tradition might have words to put down, without having done a lot of reading. However, there are conventions like dividing into chapters and things where it is really helpful to have experience with how other people do it. That could also mean collaborating with someone rather than starting to read a lot in preparation.

Of course, back when Mardoll that, AI wasn't really a thing, whereas NANOWRIMO allows it now. I have always had an attitude about that anyway, so my first reaction is a hearty "Whatever!", but if you're going to write, write.

And also, yes, if you want to write, read. But if you want to write and have not read, why do you want to write? Maybe you actually want something different, and figuring that out will help you.

While I do think Gwyn is a bit condescending about his students (and possibly other people too), I agree that reading a lot of what you want to write is a good idea. Maybe that should be combined with reading about the field as well.

Celebrities often get opportunities to write children's books. They often show that they do not know much about what makes a children's book good.

Mainly, I hope when those students think that they want to be novelists, that it is not because they believe that is a path to being rich and famous.

I truly believe that there are many rewards to the writing process, but they aren't financial nearly as often as you'd hope.

Friday, February 20, 2026

More literature centered on Black children!

This started with an article in Esquire about James Baldwin as remembered by his nephews:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a61751831/james-baldwin-nephews/

That introduced me to the book Little Man, Little Man, Baldwin's 1976 children's novel, illustrated by Yoraz Cazac.

Of course I needed to read that, and I did. There was an introduction that mentioned other significant works, sending me to read more, but then it becomes more complicated, especially with chronology.

To Be A Slave by Julius Lester (1968)

The Big Box by Toni Morrison and Slade Morrison, illustrated by Giselle Potter (1999)

Those two are pretty straightforward, but you might wonder how much they are influencing each other spread so much apart.

The Pasteboard Bandit by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps (1997*)

This was written in 1935, but it took a long time to get published.

Then, what puzzled me the most: The Brownies' Book.

I did not initially find a book called that.

In fact, it was a children's magazine, spun off from the NAACP magazine, The Crisis.

It only lasted for two years, being well-received but not getting enough subscribers to self-fund (the Depression did not help). It did influence other magazines at the time, and contained early writing from Langston Hughes, including at least one recounting of a trip he took to Mexico like the one that inspired The Pasteboard Bandit.

As 100-year anniversaries for The Brownies' Book were reached, it inspired other efforts.

A Centennial Celebration of The Brownies' Book edited by Dianne Johnson-Feelings and Jonda C. McNair

The New Brownies' Book: A Love Letter to Black Families by Karida L. Brown and Charly Palmer

A Centennial Celebration starts with the first issue, includes several scholarly articles, then ends with the final issue. The Love Letter creates new art to recreate the effect. A lot of the visual art is quite good, but some of the writings are less so, especially the play about the early contributors.

There is such a wide variety here that it is hard to make any comparisons, but the thing that may have been most important was being reminded of the necessity. When The Brownies' Book originally started, there were not many positive representations of Black children. Now there were not only stories, poems, and historical highlights, but children could send in letters and poetry of their own and pictures.

Representation still matters.

That makes it nice that one of the literary articles in A Centennial Celebration introduced me to a new book, Marley Dias Gets It Done: And So Can You! (2018),

In her own words, Marley Dias tells about getting inspired when she was 11 to do a #1000BlackGirlBooks drive after finding that all of the assigned reading focused on white boys and their dogs.

She is a kid, and the writing sounds like a kid talking, but she did something extraordinary, and something that was still necessary.

There is still plenty that needs to be done.

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Food heritage

I think I need to write two more background pieces before I get to the ridiculousness of decanting olives.

This is one of them.

I keep remembering this time in Modesto when an older couple was going to have us over for dinner. The wife asked about our likes. I didn't want to be demanding, so I responded that anything was fine, casseroles or what not.

She looked so puzzled.

She had never made a casserole; they were really meat and potatoes people.

I had a companion around then who was totally into that. I remember thinking that maybe these food preferences were regional. She was from Minnesota and while we were in California then, maybe the older couple were transplants.

Of course, Modesto was also where I got a handout for the basic elements of casseroles, so I think the one woman would have encountered them before.

Also, apparently casseroles are big in Minnesota, but they are more likely to be called "hot dish".

I'm not saying that the region doesn't play a role, but that there are many other factors, like family background or economic level or job.

My mother was Italian, but she was from the North where the sauce tends to be less meaty and spicy. Also she was the youngest and got married at seventeen, so she did not have as much Italian cooking knowledge as any of her sisters. The most complicated dish that she made from there was gnocchi, one that her father made, instead of her mother. I suspect his cooking process was more visible.

(That is gnocchi, and I learned that more from observing her than being actually taught as well.)

My parents' cultures melded somewhat over cornmeal mush. It's kind of like polenta, popular in Northern Italy, but was also poor people food, except then you add milk and raisins. (I know it's a thing, but we never fried it.)

A lot of Mom's recipes came from women she knew through church. If there was a fair amount of casseroles in her repertoire, I assume part of that was because of their convenience.

The growing popularity of the casserole in the '70s is associate by at least one food critic with "the beginning of the dark ages of American culinary culture."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casserole

It's easy to look down on someone else's food. Don't do that.

I remember reading once that you should never eat anyone's meatloaf except for your Mom's. I think I have seen that about potato salad, too.

I am not really a big fan of either, but I get that there are things that can seem right or not, and memory and legacy is a big part of that.

The message yesterday was that you do not have to cook, but if you want to and don't know how, that can be changed.

Part of that freedom is the flexibility. There are lots of different types of foods with different ingredients and different cooking methods. If there is something easy to cook, but you don't like it, or something that you love but not enough for it to be worth the effort, those points and various others can all be valid.

There is more to it than equipment and recipes.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

I'd like to teach the world to cook

This will seem like a tangent, but I promise it will relate.

There was another outbreak of cooking discourse on Twitter. This one got a little weirder. There was also some racism involved, but that part is pretty normal.

Regardless, there is some groundwork I want to lay down before getting too specific.

Let me clarify that I don't really like to cook. I don't hate it, and I get some satisfaction from being able to do it, but a lot of my motivation for cooking is really just that you can eat better and more economically that way. It can also be more convenient, though that's not a given.

My first tangent here should be that there will be people who swear it is more expensive to cook at home than to eat out.

Usually they make this case by listing every ingredient in the purchasing quantity. If you needed to buy a new bottle of Worcestershire sauce every time you made Sloppy Joes, and you bought the fancy Lea & Perrins, that would add about $7 per dinner. However, it is a shelf-stable ingredient (it does need to be refrigerated after opening) where a small amount will last a long time, it can be used in multiple dishes, and you can get the store brand for much cheaper.

It's like when Republicans try and show prices are out of control by pricing a Thanksgiving dinner where they include a sack of flour because they will need a few tablespoons and also the turkey is organic and fresh, or Dr. Oz being outraged about the price of crudites... lots of people are spending a lot less and getting more bang for their buck.

The next area that I want to address (though it feels too germane to be a tangent) is that cooking is not some arcane lore that requires years of studying and expertise, even as it does become easier with practice.

I think sitcoms play a part in this. (Okay, this part may be a tangent.)

Once upon a time, sitcom families like the Cleavers had wise fathers and mothers who were perfect housekeepers. As things got more modern, writers and producers wanted to change that up. The first thing that happened was that many sitcom fathers became buffoons, though generally well-meaning ones.

I have seen many men express displeasure with this because it's disrespectful. Maybe, but very few fathers for my generation were as wise and caring as Ward Cleaver; biased and volatile doesn't always work for humor.

Maybe for Titus.

The other thing that happened, though, was that television mothers became notoriously bad cooks.

I don't remember seeing many women offended by this. If you could cook, it wasn't insulting you; just that one particular woman, for laughs. If you couldn't cook, maybe you sympathized, especially if you had a Marie Barone mother-in-law who was a great cook and pretty insulting.

Maybe there was also a rebellious part that was thinking it was unfair that the husband never had to cook. Regardless, I suspect that the growing depictions of women who could not cook helped make a lack of cooking skills seem practically inevitable. Besides, who has the time?

This is where it was important that I mentioned that I don't particularly enjoy cooking; there are a lot of possible shortcuts.

Sloppy Joes? I have made them from scratch, but now if I am going to do it, I use a canned sauce. (I do add Johnny's seasoning when I am browning the ground beef, and add brown sugar when I pour the sauce on.)

There are a lot of things that I know I can make from scratch -- because I have -- but I simply don't find it a good use of my time. For other foods that does matter.

My point is that cooking can be as easy or as complicated or as quick or as laborious as you want it to be.

The caveat is that you can't always choose what to simplify.

I tried making tiropita once, which I like but I only ever find at Greek Fest. I am sure there are people with different skills for whom it would be easier, but it is not going to be easy enough for me to justify making it again.

I once looked at taking an Indian cooking class and I had a cookbook. Looking through it, I realized that I was happier going out for Indian food. However, I do buy jars of sauces that are meant for using with chicken. I used them with sliced potatoes, and sometimes I will put in some apples or green beans or whatever is around. That's easy.

I did take a Chinese cooking class. I learned some good techniques from it, but the only thing I regularly make is fried rice, which is easy. I don't want to spend the time on some of the other things.

Keeping soy sauce or teriyaki sauce around isn't a problem, and sometimes I will go wild and buy some hoisin sauce or something, and that's fine too. (The stir frying I do is more like teppanyaki, so I guess more Japanese-style, and probably not really Mongolian.)

It can be a completely reasonable decision to not cook some things, but there may be other things that you could totally cook. Maybe that would take some practice or watching a video or taking a class at the rec center.

It can also be completely reasonable to not pursue cooking if it doesn't interest you. It may be worth considering whether you are getting good nutrition or spending too much, but if ordering in or going out works for you, fine.

There may be options that you have not thought about yet that would work for you.

Stay open to that.

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Career concerns

While my current term ends June 30th, I hope to finish up my coursework in April. Then I will need to enter the workforce once more.

Because my schooling is being paid for through the Trade Act, I had to submit various things when I was applying, including openings for jobs in the new field and what salaries they listed. At the time (early 2024), there were lots of good jobs available, all earning more than I had made with my previous education and experience level.

Then a horror of a human being associated with racism and violence was re-elected.

Sure, things like Linda McMahon being appointed to Education and a general hostility to knowledge were concerns, but instructional designers don't have to work for public schools. There is a large need for corporate training. I assumed there would still be opportunities in the private sector.

Well, one major corporation's cost-saving measures have -- in addition to lots and lots of layoffs -- eliminated any "unnecessary" training. This includes cutting the fairly standard yearly ethics refresher.

That is something I have taken in both the tech and health sectors. While I acknowledge that a fair amount of it is obvious -- and a lot of the examples were not going to come up for me in my positions -- I thought it was a good reminder. For one thing, they kept using examples of things that really happened. Maybe they didn't happen at your company, but someone out there either did not realize it was a violation or didn't care that much about being unethical.

It then becomes hard to believe that the motivation for ending yearly ethics training is so much that it is unnecessary and wasteful as that some people want to eliminate scrutiny on their actions.

After all, when DOGE goes through and ends software licensing that causes redacted information to become easily viewable and that is highlighted through a case where the rich and powerful just keep getting away with horrific abuse, this does not increase confidence in anyone's ethics or commitment to actually learning and understanding anything.

Add to that the general apparent increase in ignorance and lack of interest in expertise, with lots of shameless lying and artificial intelligence making it much easier to obfuscate and to avoid actually doing your homework and also apparently killing a taste for literature of educational reading...

That then becomes adjacent to an area of more existential dread.

I get why the wealthy and powerful would like to keep others ignorant and averse to changing that ignorance, but I am disappointed in how little resistance there seems to be.

All of which is to say that while I am still planning on graduating and keeping notes of what I can add to my resume, I am a little worried about my chances of becoming gainfully employed.

Or my chances of not being constantly angry.

Friday, February 13, 2026

Checking in with the Pinkneys

I have not finished the Spooky Season writing yet, but we are in Black History Month and I have been doing so much with children's literature that maybe this is a good time to spend some time on that.

I also have not finished reviewing all the works of Jerry Pinkney. I have gotten closer, but he had a long career that spanned decades, including some works that are quite hard to find.

However, I did find another subset among the children.

Previously, son Myles Pinkney -- a photographer -- had contributed to two of his mother's books:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/06/spotlight-on-gloria-jean-pinkney-black.html

It turns out that Myles has also done a few books with his wife, Sandra L. Pinkney:

Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children (2000)

A Rainbow All Around Me (2002)

Read and Rise (2006)

I Am Latino: The Beauty in Me (2007)

Read and Rise was a collaboration with Scholastic and the National Urban League, celebrating reading. A Rainbow All Around Me highlights lots of other colorful objects, not just people, but the other two are very much about celebrating the beauty of children who might not automatically have their beauty and value recognized.

Sometimes it is easy to forget the progress that we have made. Less so now, but I will also write about that some next week.

Although books are not their primary career focus, they have connections through their family and they use their gifts in supportive ways.

It also occurred to me that Brian and Andrea might have new books too. They did.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/04/spotlight-on-brian-pinkney-black.html

Brandon and the Baby by Brian Pinkney (2024)

Their kids are pretty well grown now, but Pinkney still shows a good understanding of children's issues, in this case about potential jealousy of a new sibling.

Maybe by now there are grandchildren.

And She Was Loved: Toni Morrison's Life in Stories by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Daniel Minter (2025)

I remember the last time I was going through Andrea's work, I was looking for this one, then saw it was not published yet. That's been about three years.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/06/spotlight-on-andrea-davis-pinkney.html

Over the time I have been doing this, I have read a lot of children's books about very grown-up adults. This one is remarkably balanced, giving a pretty good introduction to The Bluest Eye, and it is beautiful and poetic... I was impressed.

It also reminded me that Morrison has written a few children's books herself.

We will deal with that a little bit next time.

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Along the path

Friends have asked what I want to do after I have graduated.

My most honest answer is that I want to gain all the knowledge of the world and share it with everyone without charging them.

I know this isn't a solid career plan. For one thing, my future desires include continuing to have food and shelter and going on vacations. Maybe getting into clothes that I like better.

Whatever I end up doing to support myself, that will certainly still be a hobby.

I got my BA in 1996, but of course I kept on reading and learning, taking learning very seriously.

Over time I started noticing how information could support other information. If you knew this piece over here first, when you came across that other piece it would make more sense. My ideas were mostly about putting the pieces together in a helpful order.

Once you start learning about instructional design, that's a relatively small part of it. Then it becomes more about how learning works and what conditions suit it best. What is the essence and what is a distraction? Does the information you are providing and the way you are providing it serve the desired outcome? How do you know if you are achieving the goal?

Realistically, a lot of the job is more about working with people who know the subject; then you help them with the imparting of what they know.

This is fine, as me actually getting to know everything myself isn't really plausible.

Yesterday I posted about how I would still blog. I could blog about things that I know about, even without creating a full learning module.

That can go beyond blogs. There are books and podcasts and Youtube videos and TikToks and all sorts of ways of getting information out there, some of it interesting and valid and some of it less so.

I have taken a lot of the big online classes through Coursera and other platforms. I had thought of putting out information in ways similar to a PowerPoint presentation. Those classes are a lot like that, except they usually have some quizzes rolled in and maybe some assignments.

Those are usually peer-reviewed, if anything, because if you want the instructor (or the instructor's graduate assistant) to pay any attention, you need to pay, which I generally wasn't doing.

It's the assignments and tests where the learning tends to really come together. Assessments.

If you just want to give information away, people may not value it, they may not do the work, and they may not actually learn.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Many years ago my friend Rose and I took some classes through the rec center, learning how to make salsas, chutneys, and flavored oils and vinegar.

Learning about the extension service, we wanted to learn more. I ended up becoming a Master Food Preserver and she was going to become a Master Gardener, but I think she moved before she could finish that.

Before that, we put the knowledge into practice. We canned pears together and we picked raspberries and made freezer jam. I later taught a class on how to make salsa, but I seem to remember her making a batch also.

You can do things with knowledge, whether someone is checking up on you or not.

Of course, you have to want to do so.

There seems to be less of that around. That's a constant worry.

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Putting it out there

While looking for the right capstone project, I put out a general inquiry on Facebook for what topics people were interested in.

I really was looking for ideas, but I also keep meaning to interact more; I am not always good about that.

I got a lot of responses, which was good for the interaction part.

The ideas were interesting, but mostly not usable.

There are some requirements for completing the project successfully that wouldn't work with most of the suggestions, at least not without the right collaborator. That's it's own topic.

I also know there are already good sources of information out there for many of the ideas. Now, if those sources are not well known, maybe that's something that I could help with, but it wouldn't make sense for me to develop a learning module on it.

The other thing, though, is I suspect with a lot of the suggested topics it is not so much that people don't know what to do, but more that they aren't doing it.

For example, with parking lot and driving etiquette, there might be a knowledge gap, but I think the bigger issue is that lots of people do not care how their actions affect others.

If such people then do not respect coworkers or other departments in the workplace, or are rude in stores or on sidewalks... well, the instructional problem isn't the etiquette; it's the motivation to care about the etiquette.

It's the motivation to care about each other.

If you have noticed problems with that, you are not alone and you are not wrong. That might be more of an issue for a support group than a learning module.

It makes the suggestion for a module on burnout understandable, and I have some experience with that. For creating a module and then testing learners on their interaction and to do so responsibly... that takes a different level of qualification.

Obviously, I will still blog about things, and I might work on creating other modules on my own time for things that I care about. For practical reasons I need to focus on graduating and projects that will contribute to that.

However, if you think that my posting about dominator culture might relate to people not caring how they treat others, you are right.

And if you think I am likely to write about dominator culture again, you are probably right about that too.

I will also keep trying to remember to post more on Facebook and look at others' posts, because that matters to me.

It is just hard to do it all.

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

School update

I have selected the topic I am going to work on for my capstone.

What's the capstone?

In the Education and Instructional Design masters program, you learn about both instruction and design. Makes sense.

There were classes that focused more on learning principles and thinking and motivation, and others that were more about design elements, then they were put together in the last class before the capstone, the Design Lab.

For that you had to come up with an instructional problem and create a complete learning module for it. In previous classes, there were mockups and segments and descriptions of approaches, but the lab was a chance to work out all of the kinks when you are doing the whole thing.

Then you tried other students' modules, giving and receiving feedback.

Now I am creating a learning module, but this time there are going to be actual learners, not other students in the same department. We will also have to research something about the impact on the learners, working with analytics to understand things about the effectiveness of the module from the results and write that up.

The process goes over three classes, but all of the assignments within those classes are related; that's the capstone.

I am working on an issue with licensed clinical social workers treating clients with intellectual disability.

That's an important part of my progress, but the real update is how long it took me to get here.

I struggled with that lab.

Part of it was the tools, most of which I kind of hate now. As I will need to continue to use them, I am going to keep working with those tools and get better at them. Will I improve enough to like them?

We'll see.

A big part of it was also life circumstances. You know how so many of those recent posts have focused on the coming death of my mother and trying to come to terms with losing her?

Yeah, there was a period where my concentration was pretty shot. That didn't help.

My transcript has two incompletes on it. They are both passed now, but they took too long.

For the first one, the technical difficulties were not my fault.

On the most recent one, I like to think that I can and should have done better, but I also thought I was going to finish my degree six months early when I was starting out.

Maybe I needed to be taken down a peg.

There have been two parts to finally making headway, both of which are important.

One is that you need to keep showing up, day after day.

I never made it as far in a single day as I wanted to (maybe on the day I actually finished the lab), but I would get something done, which could not happen if I did not show up.

The other thing is that I needed to work out the emotions. If those songs and blog posts about the songs seemed self-indulgent, they were also helpful for me.

I was able to do better work when the emotions started to resolve.

When I say you can't ignore those things indefinitely, I really mean that.

Friday, February 06, 2026

January daily songs

There shouldn't be that much to write with this one; there are already several posts.

To recap, the songs for January became a soundtrack that I worked out to tell the story of my parents -- but mostly my mother -- and me.

It is a literal playlist on both Spotify and Youtube, both called Farewell. (The Youtube one is missing "The Long Walk Home" for reasons I discuss in that post.

I listened to the music a lot, often while writing the blog posts but also while writing in my journal and thinking about everything. It has helped me come to terms.

I'm not saying that process would work for everyone, but I am grateful to be drawn toward healing in the way that works for me. I hope you can find the ways that work for you.

If ignoring the hurt seems like the way to go, I am familiar with that one. I can't even rule it out as an important temporary step, but it's not a lasting solution.

A lot of this has been about moving the needle from unbearably sad to bearable. That's worth something.

I have felt a lot of love while going through this. I extend it to you now, with whatever you are going through.

Songs and posts:

The divisions aren't quite perfect. They couldn't be.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/musically-all-about-my-mother-and-my.html

1/1 “New Year’s Day” by Reggie and the Full Effect
1/2 “59 Sound” by The Gaslight Anthem

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/fly-my-thoughts-va-pensiero.html

1/3 “Va Pensiero” from Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi, performed by the Berlin Opera Orchestra
1/4 “Triumphal March” from Aida by Giuseppe Verdi, performed by the Budapest Symphonic Orchestra

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-little-bit-more-on-music.html

1/5 “Volare” by Domenico Modugno
1/6 “Come Prima” by Tony Dallara
1/7 “Lonely Boy” by Paul Anka

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/butterfly.html

1/8 “Un bel di vedremo” from Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, performed by Maria Callas

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-flight-of-butterfly.html

1/9 “Coming to America” by Neil Diamond
1/10 “The Living Years” by Mike + The Mechanics
1/11 “The Holy City” by the Tabernacle Choir

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/hooked-on-culture.html

1/12 “Rondo Alla Turca”

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-about-my-father.html

1/13 “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/ruptures-between-1981-and-1995.html

1/14 “Theme from The A-Team by Mike Post
1/15 “Take On Me” by A-ha
1/16 “She Works Hard For The Money” by Donna Summer

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/bon-jovi.html

1/17 “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/from-1995-to-2011.html

1/18 “You’re A Friend of Mine” by Clarence Clemons & Jackson Browne
1/19 “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor
1/20 “Vacation” by The Go-Go’s
1/21 “Joy and Pain” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock
1/22 “The Big Bang Theory Theme Song” by Barenaked Ladies
1/23 “Howlin’ For You” by the Black Keys

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/into-home-stretch.html

1/24 “The Long Walk Home” by Glen Campbell*
1/25 “Won’t Give In” by The Finn Brothers
1/26 “Time To Say Goodbye” by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli
1/27 “Torna a Surriento” by Luciano Pavarotti
1/28 “A Better Place” by Glen Campbell

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/nearing-end.html

1/29 “Hourglass” by Mary J. Blige
1/30 “Je Ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf
1/31 “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair” by Debussy, performed by Walter Morse Rummel

Thursday, February 05, 2026

But also Jim Croce

When I was working on the "Farewell" playlist, "The Long Walk Home" kept making me think of "I Got a Name" by Jim Croce.

It's not unusual that one musical passage reminds me of another -- that can lead to mixing fun -- but I wanted to look into it more.

I foolishly tried looking up "I've Got a Name", but found the correct title and the artist.

I never knew a lot about Jim Croce, but somehow when the ads for his music played, the ones that stuck in my head more were "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "You Don't Mess Around With Jim". I wasn't surprised it was his, but I hadn't thought of it.

There were two things that stuck out immediately as I read about the song.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Got_a_Name_(song)

First is that it was rare for him to record songs written by other people. This one spoke to him and his relationship with his father, who had not lived to see his son's success (which apparently he did help fund, but more as a lesson or a long shot than as a show of confidence).

Maybe that hit a little close to home.

In addition, the word "posthumously" stuck out.

That's when I read about the plane crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Croce

Not only was I Got A Name a posthumous release that did really well, but You Don't Mess Around With Jim -- although it was already out -- did not go to number one until after he died.

It's not only that his father didn't really get to see his success, but neither did Jim.

Some of the songs suddenly seemed more resonant, especially "Time in a Bottle".

"There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them."

It was more poignant learning that a letter he wrote just before he died told his wife (and songwriting partner) that he wanted to be done touring and do other things.

I had just seen a post from his son because it was Jim Croce's birthday (his birthday was January 10th and I looked the song up on the 14th or 15th).

A.J. Croce was almost two when his father died.

That hit too.

It sounds like Ingrid kept Jim a presence in A.J.'s life, and he has toured playing his father's music (as well as making his own music), which I think must lead to some feelings of closeness, but it's sad.

For all of the pain we have now, we did have a lot of quality time with our mother.

Then, whatever you do get, you just have to do the best you can.

Wednesday, February 04, 2026

Nearing the end

It was hard to know how to conclude.

I guess it would have to be.

I have been listening to a lot and reading and writing a lot. I know that things work together, but sometimes there are specific parts that stick out.

Reading in The Myth of Closure by Pauline Boss, there was a part about making meaning and coming to terms. Sometimes maybe the answer is just a life well-lived, and that can be enough.

That actually fits.

My mother was was working class, not particularly educated, and certainly not rich or famous. She was not perfect, but she was good. She kept going when things were hard, she cared about people, and she lived according to her values.

That's pretty good.

That led to two of the last songs:

1/29 “Hourglass” by Mary J. Blige
1/30 “Je Ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf

If time is running out and there is a reckoning, are you going to be okay with your choices?

I loved "Hourglass" from the first time I heard it, closing out a documentary about Mary J. Blige.(That was My Life from 2011, but I watched it in 2021.)

"Je Ne Regrette Rien" has been around a lot longer, but I don't think I had heard it before the Dove commercial.

That depicts a more adventurous life than Mom's, but it's still true. She doesn't have to regret anything.

As I was thinking about that, it became true for me as well.

Caring for her has been emotionally, physically, and financially hard. I always knew it was the right thing to do, so that's what I did.

That may be the ways in which we are most alike; we had a lot of differences. Most of our conflicts came because of those differences, but we are also alike.

I wouldn't have regretted it anyway, but I feel like the burnout is finally clearing up, and I am in school and getting closer to graduation... there is a new sense of possibility.

Yeah, there's going to be pain along the path; what's new? But there's going to be joy and good things too.

That made the right choice for closing obvious.

1/31 “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair” by Debussy, performed by Walter Morse Rummel

Well, obvious to me.

The title indicates one thing, but the image that music evokes for me is something like floating down a canyon. The end of the gorge is approaching and the view is going to open up, but for right now all you know is that there is light ahead, but not what the light will show.

I am feeling more ready for what's next.

Tuesday, February 03, 2026

Into the home stretch

Those first traces of memory loss were present as we were working out details with the knee surgery, but it was easy to brush them aside.

She was only not taking in details about the surgery, which was stressful and scary. She had not lost any past memories yet.

That was only the beginning.

The chronological order doesn't work as well here, because things become more disjointed.

Let's start with the two songs that use Italian, "Torno a Surriento" and "Time To Say Goodbye" (which is partially in English).

One of Mom's cleaning customers was always influencing her music tastes, which was how Mom ended up with The Phantom of the Opera with Sarah Brightman and with Andrea Bocelli. (Also Il Divo and Yanni Live at the Acropolis. I bought her the Three Tenors.)

When I hoped singing practice would be a good way to fend off the decline, these were both songs I tried. I had better luck with "O Sole Mio" but the journey aspect of these songs works for me for representing when I became her full-time caregiver in 2016 and when I took her to Italy one last time in 2017.

I am also using two songs by Glen Campbell; that doesn't sound like me.

On the other hand, reading about the Wrecking Crew and then watching the documentary -- including the documentary extras -- sounds a lot like me.

There were some interview segments with Campbell in the extras, and there was a familiarity to the way he was talking... I was not surprised later to find out that he had dementia too.

I later found a documentary about him and a memoir from his wife that dealt with the disease, as well as new music.

The first song I heard was "I'm Not Gonna Miss You." It resonated with me and I understood the approach, but it's a little too raw for my personal soundtrack. The other two songs work better, especially as they indicate a journey and something after.

Notice that asterisk with "The Long Walk Home"? Both of the songs are from the album I'll Be Me, which I appreciated a lot.

After he died (7 years after!) there was another release, Duets, where different artists sang "with" him. I am not sure that he had any input into it, but there are some really good musicians participating and I guess it's a nice idea.

However, the original version of "The Long Walk Home" with only Glen Campbell is not available on Youtube except to premium members. It looks like someone else had tried to post it and it was taken down. You can only get the version with Hope Sandoval.

Look, if I had any interest in that curiously flat and grating version of the song, I would hide better versions too. I listened to it, trying to see if I could bear to share it. I shared a link to Spotify instead.

I guess I am just lucky that he'd actually shot a music video for "A Better Place."

I have written about "Won't Give In" before, and a lot of those feelings still apply.

I'll link to that, adding the context that it was after I'd had one really hard time and couldn't write anymore, or really enjoy anything.

As things started to get better, new music sparked creativity and joy. I was writing a lot, and I needed that, but also there was a lot of death (and fighting against tyranny) in the work.

Ultimately, how it worked for me was helping me to be okay with death and loss, that there was still value, and it was really important to cherish people and the time you have with them.

Good thing I had worked that out already.