Choosing my words carefully
In writing, and in person
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a resolutions guy. There are myriad reasons for this — they don’t work for many people; too often they are adopted too forcefully, too fast to be sustainable; they often feel like punishment, rather than self-improvement. When adopted in January, especially in places with cold, wet weather, exercise-related resolutions can feel almost designed to fail.
If you made any food-related resolutions this year, they likely involved some measure of eating “healthier,” by whatever metric you’ve assigned to that term. As a father of a daughter who, to date, is a very good eater, I’m becoming increasingly more aware of how crucial delivering positive and accurate information about food and nutrition will be as she grows up. Yes, we need veggies, and yes, we need protein, but we also need carbohydrates and fats. There’s a reason the former is at the bottom of the food pyramid.
So if you’re struggling to maintain your new food-related resolutions this year, or are just looking for another nutritious, tasty dinner for your rotation, I come bearing good news today. If that’s all your brain can handle, feel free to skip to the bottom of the newsletter for the recipe. But I’ve got a few other thoughts about the meaning of words, especially at a time like this, which mirrors a formative experience in my life a little more than eight years ago under similar conditions.
I’ve never told this story here, and never so completely in print. But now feels like a pretty good time to do so.
On the third day of the first Trump presidency, I wrote a column. It was the day after the administration’s first press conference, in which press secretary Sean Spicer held up photos of the inauguration crowd and insisted that there were actually record crowds in attendance, despite clear visual and physical evidence to the contrary. The following day, Kellyanne Conway appeared on “Meet the Press” and coined the Newspeak term “alternative facts.” It was a clear gauntlet being thrown down, that the administration felt it was entitled to create its own reality and bully the press into reporting it.
So I wrote a piece of satire. A few weeks prior, the Washington Football Team had been eliminated from playoff contention in their final game, their fate sealed by a trademark, backbreaking Kirk Cousins fourth quarter interception. I took the position of a fan of the team, who decided that I was entitled to my own alternative facts about how that game had ended. That Cousins had actually pulled through. That the team had won not just that game, but each ensuing one that I had declined to watch, and that they were on their way to the Super Bowl.
I knew this, as the piece went, because the team’s PR head and producer, a man by the name of Larry Michael (who not long after met his own reckoning), would always pick the team to win in his weekly preview show, which aired on the organization’s equivalent of state-run media. I was entitled to my own reality, I argued, finishing with a few quiet nods to Orwell — I’m fairly certain I snuck “the struggle was finished” in there — in my quest to “make the [former team name redacted] great again.”
I can’t be entirely sure of the exact language I used, because the column never ran. It was approved to run, first by my editor, then by the news director, the highest-ranking person in the newsroom. I thought he might actually have been more excited than I was about it. And then, suddenly, I was told that we wouldn’t publish it, a decision that could only have come from the other side of the editorial wall. When I asked why not, I was told that we, as a station, “weren’t ready to take that kind of stance right now.” When I asked for clarification of what that stance was (that there was no such thing as alternative facts?), I was not given an answer.
I very seriously considered telling my editor to run it or I would quit. Part of me still wishes I had. I was less financially secure at the time, living paycheck to paycheck, a consideration no doubt many journalists have faced and will continue to have to grapple with in the coming years. I think I did good work in the three additional years I worked in that newsroom, repeatedly challenging similarly dangerous statements and actions from those in power. One of my last such efforts earned me an inbox full of Nazi imagery and a phoned in death threat (on voicemail! From a listed number!), which in turn earned the caller a visit from homeland security. Don’t let anyone tell you that sports journalism is just the toy department of the newspaper.
I’ve been thinking about that ill-fated satire column a lot this week, as the new White House press secretary once again played chicken with reality in barring an Associated Press reporter from an event for their refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. AP reporters have, according to other press members, continued to be barred from coverage all week. Thankfully, unlike the feckless tech companies so overly eager to show their bellies, they’ve stood their ground.
As they should. As they must. To whatever extent the loss of this access to press conferences would somehow diminish the AP’s reputation in the eyes of their readers, they seem to understand how much more damage they would self-inflict by capitulating. If the rest of the White House press corps was anything more than a collection of stenographers, they might have thought to join their colleague outside and not bothered participating in, well, this.
Words matter. They matter in very real and pressing ways for journalists, especially as they try to navigate the two-headed hydra atop our new world order that wants to both command and undermine language. But they also matter in our day-to-day lives, in ways that it’s just as important now as ever not to forget.
Unlike traditional media, the rules around words on social media are much faster and looser. People will claim all sorts of things and face only as much pushback as the user base that sees them is willing to muster. The fragmentation of our media consumption to include this wide range of voices can be helpful, but it also exposes us to a torrent of unchecked information. For a general audience that doesn’t have newsroom- or journalism school-grade media training, that can spell disaster.
I don’t talk much about Instagram, but I want to highlight three trends that I’ve noticed recently, all driven by young(ish) women, that run the gamut of good, bad, and misunderstood elements of self-improvement, covering both mental and physical health. Let’s start with the bad.
Just like with our physical health, our culture carries so many warped notions about what makes us mentally fit. I recently stumbled on a young woman (a college student, I believe) sharing advice for how she keeps up with reading books, certainly a noble ambition. Her innovative solution? To have ChatGPT summarize them in paragraph form, then read the summaries, at a pace of five “books” per day.
As both a writer and a teacher of college writing, I just want to be perfectly clear: this is not reading. There is a fundamental difference between having read something and having it summarized for you so that you’re able to say that you did. I can’t believe I have to actually type this, but words matter for having been read.
You might acquire more information using this technique, but you absolutely don’t learn more. There are no lessons that amassing these factoids teach you. It may allow you to enter into a cursory discussion about the book, but it won’t prepare you to participate in any meaningful way, because you actually have no idea what you think about what was written (never mind trusting the accuracy of a program that notoriously hallucinates information).
The second type of reel you may have also noticed, the “what I eat in a day” reels that athletes and fitness folks will often share. These can be a mixed bag. Some menus are full of powders and other ultra-processed additives (often promoted at a discount, via the account); many are clearly not enough actual calories to sustain a healthy diet. I remember one influencer “treating” themselves to a gussied up date — as in, the singular, bit-sized stone fruit — for dessert.
Others are more realistic and, even, important reframings of the ongoing debates over what is and isn’t “healthy.” Some tell of how they used to be too skinny, that they didn’t understand the value of whole fruits, vegetables, and grains. That they’re stronger and have more energy because they are eating more, real food now. Amid everything else online, these messages are encouraging, especially coming from young women.
Then there’s the third kind of reel, many of which I have saved — new ideas for home cooked meals. One account in particular has been a true help. I’ve intentionally omitted names and links from all the accounts I’ve referenced so far, but I do want to highlight and encourage you to follow this one.
A former personal chef, Natalia Rudin focuses her efforts mostly on simple, delicious, healthy meals, and recently ran a series dedicated to the things she cooks at home. While I’ve made variations of a few of her recipes, one has stuck with me, and has become the basis for the recipe below.
When making it for the three of us at home, I omit the hot pepper, and I tend to use a different leafy green for my base. But the beauty of the recipe is that it is sturdy enough to handle a wide range of subs and swaps. It is truly healthy — balanced, full of whole, nutrient-dense foods — easy to make, and much tastier than you’d guess at first glance. But don’t just take my word for it. Make it yourself.
Emmy’s green bowl
1 white or yellow onion, diced
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch/bag leafy greens (collards, kale, spinach…others may work, too, but these are what we’ve used so far)
1 can white beans, rinsed*
1 cup pearl couscous*
1.5 cups chicken stock
1 lemon
Ricotta cheese, to top
Olive oil
*You can really sub almost anything here, so long as you cook it appropriately. We’ve used farro instead of the couscous and chickpeas instead of the white beans. We’ve done three ingredients and just scaled up the amount of greens. You can really go wild and tailor to your tastes here with what you’ve got in the cupboard.
Boil a pot of salted water. In a Dutch oven, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat, then add the diced onion with a pinch of salt. Saute until translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and pearl couscous and stir, 1-2 minutes, until garlic is fragrant and couscous starts taking on a golden color. Add chicken stock, stir, and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover for 10 minutes.
Add your greens to your boiling, salted water pot and blanch for 1-2 minutes, depending on the sturdiness of the green (less for spinach, more for collards). Remove greens from water and place into ice bath to stop cooking. Once cooled, place into a blender with a couple ounces of the blanching water and blend until smooth. When couscous is nearly cooked, add beans to pot and stir to combine. Add pureed greens to the pot, stir, and season generously with salt and pepper. Once the mixture just starts to bubble, kill the heat, squeeze in the lemon and stir to combine. Serve in bowls topped with ricotta cheese, and extra olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste.