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Michael Ruhlman: The curious novice

Check out the full notes for “The Making of a Chef” by Michael Ruhlman

“I intended to learn how to cook and to write about how one learned.” — The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

One of my favorite writing frameworks from Shaan Puri is “The curious novice”.

In his content and courses, he points out that most people already have something to write about. You’re probably employed, so you have expertise in something. At least enough to be paid to do something.

And you have your entire life’s experience. Just by mixing those two things, you probably have something to write about that someone out there might relate to.

If you’re trying to write and learn about a different industry than your own, though, then you can’t just claim to be an expert. (Fake it till you make it has limits.)

Instead, you should take on the role of a curious novice. You’re no expert. But you’ll find a path to get there and share what you’re learning along the way.

That’s what Michael Ruhlman does in “The Making of a Chef”. He attends the Culinary Institute of America and shares his experience in his book. He wrote it in 1996. Twenty-six years later, it’s much easier to share an experience like this as you’re going along.

People are doing it all the time.

I’d love to show the transformation from today’s “before” picture to some future “after” picture. I guess if you’re entering a school, you have some confidence that academic transformation will happen as long as you’re following the rails and make it to the end.

Not easy, but the path is laid out.

If I want to write about and share this experience, I need to have a good end in mind that I’m working toward. Here’s a draft:

  • 155 pounds, 15 pull-ups
  • Kettlebell certification
  • Some sort of fitness side business

That third bullet starts to get squishy. But I can definitely focus on the first two.

First, a body composition goal with a bodyweight workout goal that requires that a bunch of other stuff is in check.

Second, something I’ve wanted for a few years now but have not been disciplined enough to track, stick to it, and strive for. I’ll do that now.

I intend to learn how to lose weight and write about how one lost weight.

An expectation you can’t create

“It is a supremely cruel thing to have your mind conjure a desire which it is functionally unable to realize. No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream.” — Upgrade by Blake Crouch

I’m writing this on the treadmill in the garage now. I’ve had different expectations with fitness and now I think they’ve gotten more realistic. Certainly much more realistic than what I used to think in high school.

My brother and I shared a subscription to Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness. Or he probably paid for it and I just read them when we lived together.

Anyway, they always promise abs in 6 weeks. Get shredded for the summer even if it’s June already.

I had some sense that wasn’t realistic. But I still was way off in my mind. I probably thought it would take 12 weeks (if I just follow things to a T…) to look like the magazine cover. Just a couple layers of fat will reveal an insane six pack.

The reality was I just didn’t (and don’t) really have enough muscle in the first place. I’ve never really set out to bulk and add muscle. I’ve just perpetually thought “first I’ll lose the fat then I can add some steak slabs onto my biceps”.

Now it’s time to start trying to add some strength and muscle. I know it’ll take a long time. Months and years, not weeks. I need to get past this golfer’s elbow and then I need to get back to the barbell.

I also want to get back to the kettlebell certification goal.

And to improve my mile time.

And wanting to do all of those things is the problem. I see it in creative work as well. There are so many different things I want to do that I settle for doing a mediocre job at all of them instead of focusing and doing a good or great job at one of them at a time.

In Nas’s MasterClass (I watched a few modules and still need to finish the whole thing…), he talks about having too many ideas. They’re like plants, each of them is telling him to water them. But you only have so much water. The discipline is being able to water a few consistently and being okay letting the rest wither away.

The mistake is thinking you can’t get things done because you have so many great things to chase. As if the accomplished people don’t have the same distractions. They do. They probably have more good ideas than you do that they don’t pursue. More options for workout goals that they choose not to strive for.

The new dream I have is building a home gym and working out with friends regularly. Unlike the quote at the start of this, I think it’s something I’ll functionally be able to realize.

As long as I don’t get distracted.

Alton Brown’s 90s recipe: Food and media, mix well

Check out the full notes for “The Making of a Chef” by Michael Ruhlman

“Alton Brown worked in television until about the same age, foresaw the potential for food television programming and enrolled at the New England Culinary Institute in 1994. He created and sold his show Good Eats to the Food Network in 1999 and has become one of the most popular personalities on the network, hosting a variety of shows and documentaries and writing several excellent books on food and cooking.” — The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America by Michael Ruhlman

I’ve been reading “The Making of a Chef” while going through a bout of chickenpox (old school, I know). I’m on the better end of things where the scabs are falling off.

In the middle, though, I watched FX’s The Bear for my sick-day binge. One of the characters went to CIA (Culinary Institute of America). It’s a line or two in the show — Michael Ruhlman wrote a book or two about what it’s like to go through CIA.

In The Bear, Sydney (the character who went to CIA) has worked in top kitchens and has the foresight to see that she doesn’t want to do that for the rest of her life. She tries to open a catering business and her path eventually leads to applying to the sandwich shop in The Bear.

Alton Brown was able to see how media and food would mix in the future and took the long view of it and is still on the Food Network today as a result.

If you saw how websites and food would mix, you might be able to pay for your 3-star Michelin meal with the revenue from your recipe site with a bajillion ads before the ingredients.

If you saw how social media and food would mix, you might not need to pay for that fancy meal yourself at all. It’d be comped along with the lay-down first class flight there.

Just make sure to get that Boomerang!

Garage Gym Build 2022

June 4, 2022: Wall painted, ceiling half painted, rack on the way

This feels like the calm before the storm. I’ll continue updating this post as the build goes on.

Eventually I want to make this into a video but I thought it’d be good to just start writing some things down. I’ll start with a summary of what I’ve done so far.

March 2022

  • Closed on house and got the keys
  • Bought 6 horse stall mats at Tractor Supply
  • (Inhaled some amount of rubber fumes driving the mats an hour to the new home)

April 2022

  • Moved into new house, found out the garage wasn’t level. And like, much worse than the usual slope you’ll find for water drainage.
  • Bought a Rogue Jammer pull-up bar for the office
  • Bought a Superfit treadmill for under the desk in the office

  • I used 2 horse stall mats on our patio to do kettlebell workouts (I have very fond memories of this actually and need to get back to doing it.)
  • Got rid of a BUNCH of cardboard with a haul away service

(I decided I needed to get some small daily tools going.)

May 2022

  • Sick for a couple weeks—slight setback right when I felt some momentum
  • Leveled an 8’x12′ section of the garage — this was by far the biggest piece of the garage gym puzzle and the one that frustrates carpenters and people who like to do things “The Right Way”. I used a DIY method combining of wood, roof shingles, and tongue & groove subfloor (demonstrated by Chris Duffin). I don’t have or know how to use a saw, don’t have a pickup truck, etc.

  • Painted one wall with black chalkboard paint and started writing some back-pocket workouts on it (things to do in 15-25 minutes including a warm up that can be good for any day)
  • Ordered a bunch of Rep stuff
  • Spent waaaaaaay too much time watching other people tour their garage gyms or watching other people working out in their garage gyms—letting all the Rogue Rogue Rogue branding get to me eventually
  • Canceled the Rep order
  • Ordered a bunch of Rogue stuff
  • Visited Washington state (where I grew up) and tried out my brother’s home gym and also my other friend’s home gym

June 2022

  • Moved the treadmill from the office to the garage
  • Bought a Husky workbench as a standing desk for the treadmill
  • Started receiving pieces of the Rogue order

  • Painted part of the ceiling white
  • Bought 3 more horse stall mats & 6 smaller horse stall mats (4’x3′ and 0.5″ instead of 6’x4′ and 0.75″)
  • (Again inhaled some amount of rubber fumes—this time seemed worse but it was probably about the same and I just forgot how bad it was the first time around.)
  • Took a BUNCH of styrofoam and cardboard to the city dump

Okay now that it’s a big list it’s more than I thought. And more writing than I planned. So I’ll end this first edition of the post with this.

The next few weeks…

  • The rest of the Rogue order comes in and my cousin is visiting for a couple days. He just graduated physical therapy grad school so maybe he’ll be interested in helping me put the rack together. But I also think going to the Warriors watch party would be a muuuuch better use of our time.
  • I definitely want to find time to level the other half of the garage
  • I want to get some cardio equipment. Current thoughts: loved using my friend’s Rogue Echo bike but I also want some longer sessions. So I’ll probably get a Peloton first (and I think my wife will also use it more) along with a Concept2 Rower.

(I’m realizing this definitely needs some photos… next time!)

July 4, 2022: Set up, but with golfer’s elbow

I’m writing this in the midst of planning the next 12 weeks of fitness, gym stuff, etc.

  • I’ve had rack set up but also have golfer’s elbow and, of course, having a new space with some toys makes it difficult to do the best thing for golfer’s elbow: which would be forearm stuff and then otherwise not really using that arm all that much.
  • I want to get some other kind of cardio machine still. I thought I’d have them in there by now but I have so much indecision and decision fatigue. Still not really all that sure what to get. With golfer’s elbow, it seems like laying off rowing and the air bike with the arms might be a decent idea. And getting a new rower or air bike would go against that. I sort of want a recumbent bike because it’s something I know I’ll use. But more and more people I talk to have a Peloton and are very happy with it. These have been people with home gyms with racks so I thought they’d push more for an Echo or Assault Bike, so it was a case of “Oh. Maybe I should listen to them.”

The Psychology of Money: Your experiences do not explain the world | YouTube Short

I’m starting to re-post the Shorts that I’m making on the blog here with some extra thoughts. I want to build up a library of Shorts and get that rapid practice in with an audience.

For a couple years now I’ve taken for granted that I have some subscribers on YouTube. Still being under 1000 feels somewhat embarrassing when considering I’ve had the channel for 5 years now and actually have published something like 150+ videos at this point.

This is one of those times where I agree with two sides of an argument. I’ve published that many without building up a large audience. But I still believe the people who say, “Hey just do 100 videos and you’ll improve along the way and find an audience.”

Making a bunch of stuff is the only reliable way. I definitely learned a bunch of stuff and the main mistake I made is being inconsistent with it. If I stayed weekly then it’d be more like 250 videos by now and they’d be of better average quality.

In any case, it’s not too late.

This one has a book quote from Morgan Housel’s “The Psychology of Money” and how the sum of your personal experience with money is so small compared to the sum of everyone in the world’s experience. But your perspective toward money is something like 80% based on strictly your own personal experience.

This goes for a ton of stuff—I saw this most when learning to train Booster (my Labrador) as a puppy. Any advice online was pretty much “Oh I did this and it worked” or “Oh I did that and it didn’t work”. (Everything else is “Take your dog to the vet or likely they’ll be ded by morning.”)

And I noticed I’d then just latch on to whatever advice worked for someone else and then start moving toward that kind of training. Then I’d just start telling other people what worked for me.

The conclusion I’m trying to get at is—it took me forever to draw that eye animation so I was hoping this video would do better.

Steph Curry: Bad misses vs. Good misses | YouTube Short

Steph Curry doesn’t seem to miss.

When he does, he hopes that it’s missing long or short instead of left or right.

  • If you miss long or short: It’s an easier fix. Your touch is a bit off. Use your legs a little more or less.
  • If you miss left or right: Your mechanics are off. This is a little harder to diagnose. There are more factors to account for that could be causing you to miss left or right.

What’s the life lesson here?

If you’re learning a new skill, pay attention to how you mess up. Talk to an expert to learn if there are better types of mistakes than others.

  • In writing, having a bunch of typos is easier to fix than writing about a bad premise in the first place
  • In weightlifting, having too much weight on the bar than you can actually handle is easier to fix (just remove some weight) than bad form repeated over years
  • In design, a small visual bug at the end of the process is easier to fix than finding out that you’ve been designing for the wrong type of user from very early in the process

If it’s easier for a robot to fix (typos, weight programming, debugging), then it’s a good mistake to make.

That said, Steph Curry’s value is probably that he still knows exactly what’s wrong and how to adjust when he’s missing left or right.