Steven W. Siler's Blog, page 3

Keep Digging that Ditch...

It has been a great week, book-wise.  We published three this week...Signature Tastes of Phoenix, Signature Tastes of Denver, and Playing With Fires (my personal ode to Firehouse cooking). So you can imagine that I was pretty proud, and strutting around the office like a banty rooster.

Then I pulled up our publishing dates. Hello Reality Check.

We had published one book in eight months.

One Damn Book.

Granted, it was Signature Tastes of New Orleans, and grand, but really?? What have I been doing with my time?

It occurred to me like a bucket of bricks that there was a reason that we would be eating beans and ramen around the office for the next 3 months.  Because we haven't done shit production-wise. Ultimately, this falls on me. And it is a suck-egg feeling.

The day-in, day-out grind is not sexy, and is not flashy, but dammit, it does pay the bills. Says he who is drinking a protein shake instead of a meal because there aren't enough ducets in the bank account for grocery trip.

Don't stop digging.  Just put your head down and gut it out. And then we can enjoy a breakfast out.

Time to get back to work.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying...

Another stellar week of breaking the rules of corporate life.  It gives one such a warm and fuzzy feeling.  But what are the rules?  Let's just say I've figured out a couple of them...
-NEVER WALK DOWN THE HALL WITHOUT A DOCUMENT IN YOUR HANDSPeople with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they're heading for the cafeteria. People with a newspaper in their hand look like they're heading for the toilet. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.
-USE COMPUTERS TO LOOK BUSYAny time you use a computer, it looks like 'work' to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work. These aren't exactly the societal benefits that the proponents of the computer revolution would like to talk about but they're not bad either. When you get caught by your boss [and you *will* get caught] your best defence is to claim you're teaching yourself to use new software, thus saving valuable training dollars.
-MESSY DESKTop management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you're not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year's work looks the same as today's work - it's volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you'll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives.
-VOICE MAILNever answer your phone if you have voice mail. People don't call you just because they want to give you something for nothing - they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That's no way to live. Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you know they're not there - it looks like you're hardworking and conscientious even though you're being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that the caller will give up or look for a solution that doesn't involve you. The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is: "Ignore my last message. I took care of it". If your voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages. Your callers will hear a recorded message that says "Sorry, this mailbox is full" - a sure sign that you are a hardworking employee in high demand.
-LOOKING IMPATIENT AND ANNOYEDAccording to George Costanza, one should also always try to look impatient and annoyed to give your bosses the impression that you are always busy.
-APPEAR TO WORK LATEAlways leave the office late, especially when the boss is still around. You could read magazines and storybooks that you always wanted to read but have no time until late before leaving. Make sure you walk past the boss' room on your way out. Send important emails at unearthly hours (e.g. 9:35pm, 7:05am etc ) and during public holidays.
-CREATIVE SIGHING FOR EFFECTSigh loudly when there are many people around, giving the impression that you are very hard pressed.
-STACKING STRATEGYIt is not enough to pile lots of documents on the table. Put lots of books on the floor etc... can always borrow from library if necessary. Thick computer manuals are the best.
-BUILD VOCABULARYRead up on some computer magazines and pick out all the jargon and new products. Use it freely when in conversation with bosses. Remember: They don't have to understand what you say, but you sure sound impressive.

I just gave birth, and hell yes, it was messy...

Our latest ode to culinary gluttony is complete, the Signature Tastes of New Orleans. And she is a doozy. A year in the making, and due in large part to the persistence of the incomparable Paula Garriott.  And while we are comfortable with our Signature Tastes family, every new entry creates a frission of delight, a surge of panic, and a relieved "Thank God we did it" response.  For the parents out there, sound familiar?
So with that being said, I hold forth the most truthful scientific explanation of the birth of a book.  If you doubt it, try it yourself.

Breaking Bread, Not Just For Humans

People have been sharing food with strangers since ancient days, offering up the household's finest fare to mysterious travelers. Think Abraham and the three men of Mamre in the Bible and the folks who take in strangers after natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. That deep tradition of generous hospitality has long been thought uniquely human.
If so, then bonobos, those gregarious African apes, may be more like us than we thought. So says Nancy Shute, of NPR.
"The pairs that are unfamiliar with each other are the ones that shared most often," says JingZhi Tan, a graduate student at Duke University who tested bonobos' penchant for sharing food and discovered that they not only share with strangers, they even offer their fruit and nuts to an unfamiliar bonobo faster than they will feed one they know well.
Bonobos, like humans, are acutely social, and often eat together. With both species, it works. Children and other vulnerable relatives get fed, social ties are strengthened and alliances formed.
But humans also developed a rich tradition of feeding strangers, one that's embedded in religion and literature – the xenia of ancient Greece, promoted by Zeus, the god of travelers. Back then there were practical reasons for selfless hospitality. It allowed people to travel far from home in the days long before Holiday Inns and drive-throughs. Stingy hosts were reviled, but so were guests who failed to be properly grateful. When Paris made off with his host's wife, Helen, in the Iliad, that faux pas kicked off the Trojan War.
But could hospitality be important to apes? Tan and his colleagues at Duke had done experiments with bonobos two years ago that showed that bonobos would share food with unrelated bonobos, rather than hoard it. Now they wanted to find out just how far that spirit of sharing went. So they created a series of experiments with bonobos living in a sanctuary in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
The series of experiments gave bonobos the ability to decide whether they would share their apples, bananas, papayas, and peanuts by giving them control over doors in a room. (See how the researchers did it in this video.)
In the first experiment, the scientists created a setup where one bonobo was put in a room with food. That bonobo could choose to open two doors leading to two other rooms – one housing a friend, the other, a stranger.
All of the bonobos opened a door to let in another, rather than dine alone. And nine of the 14 animals chose dining with the stranger over the familiar face – the ape equivalent of a restaurant's communal table.
What's more, when the familiar bonobo was invited to join the feast, it was almost always by the stranger, who would have considered that bonobo a new face. None of the animals fought over the food, and there was quite a bit of the friendly genital rubbing that's made bonobos renowned in animal behavior-land.
Then the scientists tweaked the layout. In another experiment, the bonobos were isolated in separate cages, with food in a compartment in between. Offered the option of sharing the food without physical contact, not one of the seven bonobos tested pulled a rope that would have let another reach through to the food. The results were published online in the journal PLoS One.
So it looks like if you're a bonobo, sharing food is only worth it if it's a social event. Bonus points if you're meeting someone new. It's fascinating behavior, but the researchers say it's not clear that this is altruism. "If you're being nice to a stranger, it's not necessarily unselfish," Tan told The Salt. It's easy to see the benefits to humans in sharing a meal with a stranger, even in modern times. Good conversation, future business partners, a broader social network – maybe even romance. Perhaps bonobos see those potential payoffs in a meal shared, too.

Screw Being Reasonable...

There’s always at least one in every group. The “let’s be reasonable” guy.
Anytime a plan get’s too audacious or expectations too grandiose, that guys chimes in with his obligatory reminder that you need to slow down, think a little more clearly, and “be reasonable.”
And it usually works.
Instead of dreaming about breaking new boundaries and setting new records, you decide to play it safe. To not risk too much.  To do what an average, ordinary person would do — be reasonable.
And nothing you do is ever more than mediocre. Nothing remarkable. Nothing world-changing.
Just forgettable activity. Mindless daily grind.
And that needs to change.
If you want to be amazing you have to push back against the common sense of “being reasonable”.
It’s not reasonable to keep trying when you fail. But that’s the secret to breakthrough.
It’s not reasonable to get back when you’re knocked down by a bigger opponent.  But that’s how you win.
It’s not reasonable to give more than you get. But that’s how you build relationships that matter.
It’s not reasonable to believe in yourself when no one else does. But that’s how you change the world.
By not being reasonable. By refusing to play it safe.
By denying yourself the safety of looking like you have it all together when you’re really scared inside.  That’s the stuff of champions. That’s real guts.
And you can be that guy.
You can be the rebel. The fighter. The under-dog.
Anyone can give in to fear and doubts and peer pressure.  That doesn’t make you great. It makes you get along with other people. Other people who are losers like you could be.
Except you’re different. Today is different. Instead of choosing the easy path, you can make the choice to stop being reasonable.
To dream bigger. To fight longer. To lead when no one else is following.
Leave being reasonable to the people who call you “lucky” later.

A Jellyfish-in-the-Ass Kind of Day

This has been one of those weeks. Or so I thought.  Then I read this. And realized, I ain't having a bad day...


Bob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an email he sent to his sister.

"Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: we have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea and heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water; it's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my arse started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it, however, the crack of my arse was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my arse.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression.

When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't shit for two days because my ass was swollen shut."

So next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your arse. Now repeat to yourself "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job!" Whenever you have a bad day ask yourself "Is this a jellyfish bad day?"

Hold The Phone! No...Really.

This week, I had what would normally be a catastrophic event for most people....I broke my phone.  Not intentionally, mind you, but a perfect drop and the only rock within 20 yards, and my verbal link to the outside world was severed.

And I could not have been happier.  First of all, I found 3 dollars on the ground, and it was $2 Fried Chicken Day. Score! How can one be distraught when there's free fried chicken?

But the real glory was in that NO ONE COULD REACH ME.  It was like a self-imposed isolation that so few of us ever get.  I got more WORK done, more PLANNING done, and more RESEARCH done, than I have in weeks.  It was glorious.

This was almost a perfect test case for the disaster plan I had worked out a few months ago.  There were still a few hiccups, which I have now addressed, but all in all, this was a great thing that happened.  And the PRODUCTIVITY? Worth it!

Finally, the lasting benefit is that at least two people have given up calling me.  Now to get the remaining 67 to stop, and life will be even better...

Why am I Peeing?

I had a grand podcast conversation yesterday with Debbie and Karen of Cool Cooking.com and Book Goodies.com.  One thing that came out of that was the need for social media when it comes to promoting a book.  In short. I hate it.  The landscape has no roadmap to explain how to do it, when to do it or what do do.  And that frustrates me.

At the end of the day, I want to connect with people. Real people.  Not tweets, or twits, or status updates or GPS coordinates. Maybe someone likes what I'm doing. I thank you for that. And equally so, maybe someone doesn't like what I'm doing.  Guess what? I thank you for giving a damn either way.  So in the world that is evolving of he said, she said, shares and forwards, let's not forget it is about connecting with people. People like a Sacramento-based Karen who loves Voodoo Donuts, or a Rochester-born Debbie who is the guardian of secret family recipes. Or my story (and books)...besides, if you don't connect, I can't send you our family's wonderful pecans!

Why Do We Travel?

This week, I gave an interview about the book that started it all, Signature Tastes of Bellingham (at Village Books, don't go anywhere else for it!), and the writer, Jessica Verner and I crafted the below...it captures our motivation perfectly...


Why do we travel?

For some, it’s a break from a well-known daily routine.  For others, it’s the triple thrill pleasures of planning, experiencing and remembering.  No matter why, when we do strike out and see a new place, we always bring something back.  The airport tag on the luggage stays attached until the next trip.  The coaster from that funky little bar gets tacked to the corkboard in our cubicle.  All of it, a visual reminder lest we forget.

Here in Bellingham, that very notion has taken root in the form of a cookbook.  Well, maybe not so much a cookbook as a “Culinary Postcard”.   A recently transplanted firefighter, Steven W. Siler, came here and saw with a visitor’s eyes things that made Bellingham special: the people and the food.  So he went out and heard the stories.  He gathered the recipes. And he photographed almost everything. Rarely the food, but the sights and the people caught red-handed in the act of being themselves. And from that, the Signature Tastes of Bellingham was born.

And while the City of Subdued Excitement is a unique place, it’s not the only place that’s special.  That firefighter knew they were everywhere.  So that notion that began as a simple homage to the city has now become not just a nationwide, but an international effort. Its purpose is to capture and share those wonderful sights, those incredible tastes and intriguing places that define the area.  Thus, the Signature Tastes series of “culinary postcards” was born, to become the one takeaway that visitors and locals alike can embrace when they start a sentence with “…Remember that place?...”.

The Southern Gift of Gab

Yes, I live in the Northwest.  And yes, I stick out like the first topless bikini on a beach.  Wait, you mean ya’ll don’t wear seersucker, pastel shirts (love me some mauve) and straw hats here? And don’t say “ya’ll”? Oh well.
But my own inimitable nature is one that allows me to start a conversation with a stranger, a stranger’s dog, and on one occasion, a beautiful transvestite who was being deported (I didn’t see the handcuffs). For this I thank my Southern-ness.  Years spent apprenticing in the company of skilled conversationalists who know no fear has served me well.
I mention this, because today, in the space of three conversations, I was able to score a television interview, a radio interview, and a production meeting for Signature Tastes (the television show). All unplanned, all unsolicited, and truly a result of the Southern Gift of Gab.
So please, don’t be afraid to engage your fellow man or woman.  They have a story, and Facebook is proof enough that a whole bunch of folks want to share that story.  And it makes for a hell of a good story at times. Now about that beautiful transvestite…