My Favorite Things

“When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel

So bad . .  .”

Rogers and Hammerstein, Sound of Music

When the weather is unbearable, when I’ve been working so many so many shifts I can’t remember the last time I ate a meal sitting down, and when the extent of conversations with my wife are emails, it helps me to remember my favorite things.  Naturally, my first most favorite things are the people I love and live with: Kristi, Sophie, and my two wonderful dogs.  But I must admit to a few material items I really can’t live without. 

What make something special?  What is it about an item that imparts value?

Both the form and the function.  If a chair is mind-blowing comfy, but looks like crap (ie Frasier’s dad’s recliner), you wouldn’t want it in your house.  The Cuisinart is a beautiful device that is helpful for certain recipes, but it is so cumbersome to use and such a pain to clean I refer to it as the “infernal device”.   A perfect tool not only does it job, but it looks like a work of art while doing it.

After reflecting on this for some time, I came up with short list of possessions that make me truly happy.   When I’ve had enough of this busy academic medicine life and run off to the Caribbean to run a combination acute care clinic and rum bar, these are the first objects that going in the bag:

1) Whiskey stones: Milled in Vermont from non-pourous soapstone, this dandy little cubes sit in my freezer until they are called upon to chill yet not dilute my whisky (or rum or bourbon . . .).  Enjoy a wee dram of the Highland’s finest with these and you are truly having a “scotch on the rocks!”

2) Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, the Collector’s Edition published by Houghton Mifflin: Put simply, this is the greatest printing ever of the greatest book ever.  Tolkien’s masterpiece established an archetype for fantasy; it is the first time that elves, men, dwarves, halflings, and orcs are put together in the same world.  It literally created a genre.  There couldn’t have been Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft without it.  Besides that, it is 1216 pages of pure epic poetry.  Invent a multiracial fantasy world for the first time with its own mythology?  Sure, no problem.  Invent not one but two unique languages with their own alphabets and syntax (elvish script and dwarven runes)?  OK, it took a little effort, but that’s just for flavor text.  But do all that AND compose the entire story into a melodic rhythm that echoes hauntingly off each page?  Genius. 

3) Shun Chef Knife:  About 700 years ago, the Japanese figured out a way to make really, really strong steel.  Instead of simply pounding the metal into the proper shape, the metal is folded and hammered out.  Then folded again.  And again.  According to legend, this was done 200 times by the greatest sword smiths of the feudal age (think Hattori Hanzo from Kill Bill).  This knife is made the same way.  Yes, that’s right- I have a kitchen knife worthy of being held by a samurai warrior.  A little bit of bushido for the chopping block.  Hell yeah!  Ok- in reality, the knife is not made in same way as samurai swords, but it is similar and the thought counts.  This knife is so sharp I owned it for exactly 5 minutes before cutting myself with it.  This knife makes any recipe an adventure!

4) Specialized Allez Model Road Bicycle: This isn’t exactly Lance Armstrong quality here.  When I bought it, I asked the bike store for an “entry level road bike”.  Although expensive, it was on the low end of what road bikes can cost.  That doesn’t matter.  The important thing is that it represents my first real road bike.  For the last 10 years I had been riding a mountain bike.  Before that, in college and med school, I had used roller blades to get around.  Therefore, this is my first road bike since I rode a 10 speed Schwinn to high school.  I discovered that bike technology has advanced quite a bit in 20 years!  I am constantly amazed by this machine’s efficiency: it is light as a feather and it carries me along like I am flying.  It almost make climbing hills fun.  Almost.  I am definitely happier on days I get to ride my bike to work.

5) The Pathfinder Game Core Rulebook by Paizo Publishing, 1^st Printing, Signed by the authors:  This one may need a bit of explaining. But it’s an explanation you don’t really want to know.  You may not think this is cool and that’s OK- this is my list of favorite things.  Go make your own.  Let’s just keep it simple: I have played Dungeons & Dragons for most of my life; I first picked up the game in its really early days, around 1980.  The game has gone through many changes over the years and now the trend is to change the rule structure about every 5 years, forcing fans to buy all new books.  Paizo, an independent publisher and having no copyrights to the D & D name, said, “Enough!” and created their own game based on the third iteration of the D & D rules.  The cool thing is that they created a beautiful book with amazing art that is really fun to read.  And the weird thing is that their crazy plan actually worked.  The veteran players all dumped brand name D & D like a bad habit and we are all playing Pathfinder now.  As of last year, Pathfinder has more players than D & D.  So there, evil publishing empire.  Way to stick it to the man.  Oh, and I have the first printing of the book that sold out in a few days.  And I have it signed by the creators.  I rock. 

6) Olive Wood Risotto Spatula:   I picked up this baby in a Hill town in Tuscany on our family vacation there in 2008.  This photo is the whole family enjoying an afternoon break in the hil town of Valpaia (that's young Sophie sitting on Kristi's lap).  Valpaia is a "factory town" where everyone works for the local Chianti winery.  Every evening that week we cooked together in the villa and drank an entire case of local wine (not Sophie).  Now, picking up my Italian spatula, I am transported back to that amazing week.  The texture and warmth of the wood is comforting - rustic and elegant at the same time.  Besides the nostalgia, I simply prefer to use a wooden spatula.  There may be more advanced tools in the kitchen, but I am solidly old-tech on this one.  It just turns the food exactly the way I want it!

7) Apple iPad and custom case: Anything I write to describe the coolness factor of the iPad is a superlative.  The sheer technological sexiness of this device is widely accepted and unquestioned.  Steve Jobs can rest easily in the knowledge that he changed computing forever.  Now that the web has matured into a part of daily life, Apple has made a friendly little window to put anywhere and peer into the cyber-universe that lies mere electrons beyond our touch.  You know those moments in sci-fi movies when the characters are handed an electronic pad to read a report?  Yeah- we do that now.  The future is here.  To take it just one step further, I commissioned a lady at the local farmer’s market to design and make a custom case for me, decorated with an antique street map of Paris.  Once people saw it, they wanted one too.  Now she can’t keep any iPad case in stock.  Order yours today!

These items make for a very pleasant afternoon of riding, reading, cooking, drinking, and watching movies.  To this list I should add one more favorite thing: College Football.  The underdog pool is only two weeks away.  Get ready, Dogs!

Fight On,

Hans