Think Kit: New Skills

Posted by lydia

Dec

2011

One of my favorite things about SmallBox are the conversations we have with each other that aren’t related to the work we do every day. Don’t get me wrong, conversations and discussions about our work are fun and rewarding. But it’s these side conversations that provide insight into the passions that help make us well-rounded people. I love learning about what my workmates love to do in their spare time.

Many times these conversations steer toward food. We have many talented cooks on the team (as evidenced by the number of tasty chills we sampled during our Chili Cookoff). Many of us randomly bring in cookies or other baked good experiments to share with the group, and we regularly share stories of our latest culinary adventures at home or a dinner out that was just delightful. Because of these conversations, I have learned new ways to prepare quinoa, made my first reduction sauce with great success, and become aware of the joy of thumbprint cookies and their infinite possibilities of variation.

Inspired by my workmates and our food chats, my goal this year is to learn to cook in a cuisine I don’t normally cook. Choosing what cuisine was easy: for Christmas, my sister gave me Madhur Jaffrey’s At Home with Madhur Jaffrey, and I’ve always wanted to learn to cook Indian food (having enjoyed it the past few years, courtesy of India Garden). Jaffrey’s book is recommended by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of The Splendid Table and a woman (and food genius) I have long admired, so I figured it’s a good place to start. My goal is to dive in, study and explore Indian food and learn all I can about the history and culture of food in India. Over the course of 2012, I’ll prepare every recipe in the book (supplementing it with the previously mentioned history and culture explorations) and hopefully (very likely) find a few dishes I can add to my regular cooking repertoire. I’m really excited for this new adventure! (And if you want updates over the year, I’ll definitely blog about it over at my personal blog: wanderlydia.com.)

So, anyone have advice in the world of Indian cooking?

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

Think Kit: If you could meet someone new in 2012, who would it be?

Posted by Justin Shimp

Dec

2011

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Filed Under: Culture Think Kit

This question is another one of those questions that I have so many different answers for and they all change depending on the day or what I am currently pursuing hobby-wise. So instead of a particular person I am just going to describe the type of new person I would like to meet in 2012.

In 2012, I would like to meet someone who will challenge me to think, question my beliefs, and inspire me to keep creating new goals for myself and staying on track with them. I am easily distracted at times because of my wide interest in many subjects. I have found myself reading a wikipedia article and then 3 hours later looking up from reading and seeing that I have 50+ tabs open for reading more into the original subject that I was looking at. Just last night, I went from trying to find out when a particular movie I had seen recently came out to reading the inner traditions of Hanukkah and its various traditions I have never been exposed to.

Emett Otter's Jugband Christmas is my favorite christmas movie

So in 2012 I would love to meet someone that I could share my interests with but also someone that could help me focus more on some of the other things that I want to accomplish. Some of those things include recording more music, drawing more, and helping out in my community.

Lots of my friends already fill this role but I say the more the merrier!

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

Think Kit: Looking Forward

Posted by tyler

Dec

2011

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Filed Under: Everything Else

There are a number of things I’m looking forward to in the next 365 days (my last year living in my 20′s, the presidential race and election, seeing if the Mayans were right, and more). But the thing I’m most looking forward to, I’ve been waiting for my entire life. The Super Bowl is in my town! Granted, the home town Indianapolis Colts won’t be playing in the game, but it’s been a dream of mine to go to a Super Bowl at some point in my life. I won’t be attending the game, but all of the festivities in Indianapolis for an entire week is the next best thing! I cannot wait.

One thing that is often surprising to people when they get to know me is my deep love for sports. I apparently don’t come off as a sports fan, but if I’m listing things that I know the most about in life, sports is in the top two. Particularly professional football.

The countdown has begun, the Super Bowl village is the epicenter of awesome. I cannot wait. I plan on visiting the downtown area nearly every day during that week just to be a part of it. It might be frigid in February, but they’re going to have heaters lining the streets apparently. It quite probably will be only time we get to play host to the big game, so I want to take full advantage of the opportunity to participate. I also realized that there’s no better way to improve your roads and put your city’s best face forward than to host a party like the Super Bowl. Road construction has been going on all over Indianapolis at what seems like a feverish pace for quite a while now. So if nothing else, it will be good to not have to dodge the orange cones and merge into one lane on a 4 lane highway any longer – assuming everything’s done by show time.

If you’re in town during the first week of February, I hope you’re able to get downtown to participate in the Super Bowl festivities. Maybe I’ll see you there!

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

Think Kit: Tradition

Posted by sara

Dec

2011

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Filed Under: Everything Else Think Kit

Many, many moons ago, I received a Christmas ornament from a woman named Annie. I was fresh out of college and working as a barista in a busy coffee shop in Chicago. Annie became a regular customer for a few months, though she never once ordered coffee.

She visited for the sole purpose of dropping off gifts for anyone working behind the counter. Didn’t matter who, she just liked to give presents. Sometimes it was a pack of ramen noodles or a stack of literature picked up in a hotel lobby. One day near Christmas, she gave me this glass ornament she’d bought on clearance at neighboring Anthropologie.

By most accounts, she was a crazy lady. Her husband had passed away, and she shuffled the streets of Chicago in his old clothes, her petite frame swallowed up by an extra large tweed overcoat, boat-sized leather loafers she could barely keep on her feet clopping with each step. Aside from gifting random things to complete strangers, she also burst into unexpected shouting, often of the profane sort. These other things got her cast out of most the businesses in the neighborhood, my old workplace included.

All of her craziness aside, I get inspired by her zest for gift-giving every year. It’s become an annual tree-trimming tradition that the first ornament to go up is Annie’s. I have no idea what became of her.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.