Every now and then, my beautiful wife has a craving for her favorite omelette.

When I told my mate Dan at Mallery's Butcher that I was using his filet Mignon in an omelette, I'm pretty sure he thought I was nuts.

I was able to get fresh farm eggs and 1/4 lb of grass fed filet mignon from Dan. I then picked up some local tomatoes from McAffreys and a great sharp cheddar cheese from Bon Apetit.

I started by putting the oven on 300, slicing the tomatoes and coating them in olive oil and seasoning them with salt and pepper. I roasted them for 45 minutes and this was the result.

I have to say that this Pizza rivaled any that I've had for a long time in a restaurant.

On a colder winter's night, this wonderful risotto went perfectly with Grass fed, Organic, Filet Mignon from Mallery's Butcher.

Just finished making this very tasty pulled pork sandwich meal for my clan. Unfortunately I'm gone for this week and I'm trying like crazy to make their life a little easier. This slow cooker meal is tasty, can be lean and is an easy make-ahead meal that can be refrigerated or frozen for a couple of days.

Unfortunately, I'm travelling again for the first 3 days of this week. One of the things I try to do is prepare as many make-ahead meals as possible for my beautiful wife so that she doesn't have to do everything while she's battling the kids at dinner time.

One of the meals I made today for refrigeration (and last minute heating) was these taco's. They are healthy at only 350 cal's per serving and the filling was made ahead of time so it's 10 minutes from refrigerator to table.

After reading and cogitating on this excerpt from "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle I decided that I just must share it. It has too many implications for good parenting and good motivation and leadership in the work environment.

The extract is from "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle. I recommend it. You can purchase it from Amazon here.




Additionally, for further scientific research, you can review this paper from Stanford.  I'd be really interested in opinions and experiences on this topic. Here is the excerpt from "The Talent Code".

"The boing phenomenon can be seen most vividly in a series of experiments Dweck did with four hundred New York fifth graders. The study was a scientific version of the fable “The Princess and the Pea.” Its goal was to see how much a tiny signal—a single sentence of praise—can affect performance and effort, and what kind of signal is most effective. First, Dweck gave every child a test that consisted of fairly easy puzzles.

Afterward the researcher informed all the children of their scores, adding a single six-word sentence of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence (“You must be smart at this”), and half were praised for their effort (“You must have worked really hard”). The kids were tested a second time, but this time they were offered a choice between a harder test and an easier test. Ninety percent of the kids who'd been praised for their effort chose the harder test. A majority of the kids who'd been praised for their intelligence, on the other hand, chose the easy test. Why? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote, “we tell them that's the name of the game: look smart, don't risk making mistakes.” The third level of tests was uniformly harder; none of the kids did well. However, the two groups of kids—the praised-for-effort group and the praised-for-intelligence group—responded very differently to the situation. “[The effort group] dug in and grew very involved with the test, trying solutions, testing strategies,” Dweck said. “They later said they liked it. But the group praised for its intelligence hated the harder test. They took it as proof they weren't smart.” 

The experiment then came full circle, returning to a test of the same difficulty as the initial test. The praised-for-effort group improved their initial score by 30 percent, while the praised-for-intelligence group's score declined by 20 percent. All because of six short words. Dweck was so surprised at the result that she reran the study five times. Each time the result was the same."

One of my favorite trees in the world is in our back yard. This beautiful Maple is naked because of Winter . It's twisting form was reaching out for the stars tonight. Beautiful calm, clear night.

Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Ham, Feta Cheese with Olive Oil and Jalapenos, Beetroot and Broccoli Sprouts on a toasted English Muffin. Yum!

My three year old, Noah, is sick and my beautiful wife is out of town. I decided I needed to take care of myself to get away from the madness of feeding a 3yo water every 10 minutes. This is what I made myself.

The recipes are below. The photo was taken with a Canon 550D, 50mm 1.4 lens on f2.8 at 200 with 1 speedlight off-camera (left), bounced off a reflector - no other lighting.

This image to me is iconic of the Australian Outback. I took it in 1983 but I love it as much today.

I originally took this portrait in late summer last year. On a trip to Brazil I had the chance to do one day of touring. This person was asking for change outside of one of the cathedrals in the city. The contrast was too poignant for me not to capture.

I retouched the portait this morning as I was not satisfied with my attention to detail in the original version.

This is also available over on 500px here. Please vote if you like it and you are 500px member.

So which country or state has the best sunrises? This is a simple one from 7am in Earlysville, Virginia. I like the frame and the color.

So which country or state has the best sunrises? Why? Prove it!

A perfect side to any grilled meal.

The use of 90% grass fed beef could make these too lean so I fix that by adding elements that moisten and  add umami flavor.

Weeknight meal with little effort. I only use organic ingredients, including the soups but it turns Stroganoff into an easy weeknight meal.

Reliving fond memories of photo expeditions when i was sixteen. The Bourke-Wilcannia road can be a desolate place.

We owned our new house in New Jersey for three weeks when we got our first energy bill from PSE&G. Five hundred and ninety three dollars! Yep, $593. $11.50 in natural gas and the balance in electricity. Seriously?

The worst part was that out of the three weeks covered, we'd actually only occupied the house for the last one of those three!

WTF?

From direct observation, I'd already determined that our thermostats were running the HVAC much too often and in the first week had replaced the thermostats on both levels with these:
 
I love them because they're smart, first of all and work very hard to save you energy but mostly I love them because they collect data and allow you to analyze and respond to what's going on.

As a good scientist, the next thing I needed to do is start to collect data. As a simple first step, I started to monitor the electric meter at 6pm every day. After 3 days, I started to collect readings at 6am and 6pm. Thank goodness I did because it became alarming quickly. After 5 days, this is what I have so far.