Laksa Like Food Product - A Breakfast Dish In Two Acts

A story of cooking improvisation.

ACT ONE - MUSHROOM CURRY

I had made some SE Asian inspired noodles earlier in the trip. I had some coconut milk leftover and wanted to make use of it. I also didn't want to go to the work of pounding various roots and bulbs to make a curry paste since my kitchen in Accra lacks those tools. So I did something, I've done in the past, I used my SE Asian flavors but used a Ghana cooking technique. 

Assembled were:

• Onion
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Tumeric
  
• Tomato
• Chile
• Cumin
• Black Pepper
• Fish Sauce
• Coconut Milk

 This all went into a blender and were processed until smooth. Next I took some Thai Shrimp Paste and Cambodian Style Onion Paste (Yes! I carry these things to Ghana and leave them there. They keep forever.) and quickly sauteed them in oil. I added the curry mixture, let it cook for a bit, added the mushrooms. This became a side dish for my dinner. 

However, looking at the leftovers, I was inspired to use this as a base for some curry noodles for breakfast the following morning. 

ACT TWO - LAKSA LIKE FOOD PRODUCT

(If you've ever read the label of things like American Cheese or Velveeta they will say "cheese like food product" as they don't meet the strict requirements set by law to be called "Cheese". With all my international inspired cooking, it is exceedingly rare that I EVER produce something that is 'authentic' to the original way it is made.)

The next morning, I took noodles and boiled them. I added a Maggi Fish/Shrimp cube. In went the leftover Mushroom Curry and the rest of my Coconut Milk. I took two eggs, beat them, and whisked them into the soup. This thickened the entire dish.

!"

I took one taste and said, "Damn this tastes just like Laksa (a Malay curry noodle soup). Hence, Laksa Like Food Product. 

I ate every bit of it!

Putting On The Ownership Attitude Jacket

Here in Ghana, we are continuing the process started last summer of building Theodora Ghana Virtual Assistants' ability to be an independent business...which primarily means focusing on the ability of the women in the program to manage their business. Viewed objectively, this is a massive undertaking. Viewed in context of what we've already overcome, it is no more massive than the entire project as a whole.

One of our promises to the people in the team was that Theodora would become an employee owned company. We are hoping to have our Employee Ownership Trust in place by the end of February. With that in mind, going back to the summer, I have been talking to the women about what an owner does. We've talked about the tradeoffs an owner is constantly making particularly when it comes to money. One of our people, Ann, back then coined a phrase as she was discussing why she'd made a client decision.

"I put on my Ownership Attitude Jacket!"

I warned the team prior to this visit that we were going to take 'Wearing the Ownership Attitude Jacket" to another level because I was going to institute 'open book management'

Open Book Management is a philosophy that encourages ownership and leadership to share financial information with those being managed. It goes counter to common practice in business where most owner/managers feel they don't want their employees to see what is going on in the business, in particular, how much they make. 

I'd given them the information before I arrived. And we went over it when I got here. Of course, it is not that easy to dig into numbers when you're totally unfamiliar with financial reporting. Nonetheless, the women did pick out a couple meaningful things that led to substantive discussion. Compensation was one which led to me giving them the task of developing a compensation program for the company going forward. (Good luck with that team. LOL. For as long as I've been in business, I've never met a business that was happy with their compensation system!)

Another very interesting example had to do with our hours at work. We struggle because of the need to be responsive to clients in time zones far different, offset by the advantages of having our people in an office to stimulate collaboration, work ethic, and culture. My two managers felt we'd gone too far in the direction of being a 9 to 5 culture which didn't work with the level of service we need to give to our clients. Discussing this as a team, they came to the conclusion that we needed to establish a set of rules that balanced the two requirements.

This led to a last conversation. One of my managers and I knew we had a very long day running around getting new computers and looking at potential new offices. My manager wanted to leave early, there not being anything going on at the office requiring our interaction. I was concerned about the image this presents. In the spirit of our collaborative management approach, I told the manager that we'd bring it up to the team. (This is an easy thing to do since we are small and they all sit in the same room).

I brought up my concern about how a leader should set the tone by example. And if I was leaving the office early, what message did that send to them. One of my people, Mary M, said the following.

"Michael, if I have work I need to get done, I stay late. If I have an early client meeting, I come in early. If I'm done with my work and it is early, I go home. I trust all my teammates. I know they are doing the same. It makes no difference to me if manager M goes home early or comes in late because I know she is doing tons necessary for us to succeed. I know you are committed to us. I don't need to see you in the office to know that."

I didn't breakdown and cry though I felt like it because hearing something like that you KNOW they are owning the Ownership Attitude Jacket.

Musings On Social Impact Start-Ups In Cultures Very Different Than Your Own

Two Posts ago, I went on a tangent and began musing on perceived prospects of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking, Economic Development Initiative versus the Theodora Project. I made the statement.

"This isn't because I think the concept is bad, unworkable, or have the potential to make it. The problem is I don't have the time and the energy to make the start-up work."

Daughter #3, who has spent much of her recent career in the business start-up space, commented on her observations related to the massive amounts of time and energy that start-ups take, She further related that in the past she never questioned the costs that extracts on other parts of your life, but now she does. And she asked me to go into more depth with my related to my statement related to EDI. So here goes.

I would start by observing that not all start-ups are equal. For example, the start-ups that #3 has mostly been involved with - technology based, aggressively funded, with massive expectations for success are a special kind of artificial pressure cooker that can totally consume and grind down people. On the other hand, the kinds of small business start-ups that I have dealt with over my career, that often relate to the livelihood of those involved, have a different kind of pressure. Most that pressure is self-generated and relates to the need for the business to succeed in order for the founders to avoid financial disaster!

All start-ups take a lot of time and energy. I have always equated it to the laws of physics. If we think of Newton's First Law of Motion (special shout for extra credit from R in Madrid for using a physics reference), an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an external force. Think of the start-up business as an object at rest. It has no customers. It is not producing a product or service. There is no cash flow. The external forces that start to change this are the time and energy of the entrepreneur / founder (or plural as the case may be) and capital. In the tech rapid growth world, much more capital is used to hire lots of bodies to do things. In the small business, it is the entrepreneur / founder who applies energy and time in lieu of capital to do things. 

In both cases, there will be a steep learning curve. No matter what one has thought the model will be or the prior experience one has, there will be lots of changes and adjustments along the way until a dependable model is moving along and the amount of energy, time and money can be backed off. In the small business start-up that almost always takes about 5 years.

Now look at the kind of social impact models with which I've been working. These have all the characteristics of the small business start-up but with the added complexity of simultaneously requiring complete culture attitude change. This takes the challenge to a substantially higher level. 

As I have slogged through all the learning necessary to get Theodora to a level of sustainability, I have begun to realize why most attempts to build new sustainable business models in less developed worlds fail...people simply are not willing to put in the massive amounts of time that are necessary to change the inertia of the existing cultural models. In my personal case if I had not been so 

a) determined, 

b) obsessed, 

c) crazy, 

d) stubborn, 

e) a & c, 

f) b & d, 

g) all of the above, 

I certainly would not have gotten us to where we are today.

Hence my comments related to EDI. It is a different model. The nature of the cultural challenges and change that must be overcome are different. I can see the energy and time that will be required. And I don't have it. And even if I did, I doubt I'd be willing to make that kind of commitment again. I will try to do somethings that involve more people to see if I can get at least a prototype started. But I would have to say overall, I'm not optimistic this one is going to happen.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Rotary Event

A week before I was to head out to Ghana, one of my fellow Board Members of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking, E, sent an email out to me and the ladies of Theodora who are in our club. E's brother, Mark, a prior President of Rotary International, and now a Trustee of the Rotary Foundation was doing a tour of Africa. He was stopping in Ghana. They would be giving him a gala dinner just two days after I arrived. Our club President asked if any of our people would be willing to go as it would be great if our little Ghana contingent could be seen at such an event.

Much to my surprise, virtually our entire team with the exception of the one who is a recent mother decided to go. 

I had my own thoughts as to what would happen and I tried hard to tamp down expectations. There would over a hundred people. All would be clamoring for attention from such an important personage. Since 'E' was speaking to her Brother and Sister-in-law, I was sure we'd get a small shout out. Mainly, I wanted to show the women how one works a room such as this as none has had any kind of experience such as this.

Despite all my years coming to Ghana and experiencing "Ghana-Mahn-Time" which is like "Manana" on steroids, I cannot shake my American punctuality upbringing. So we arrived when the event was supposed to start. First thing we encountered was a classic case of Ghanaian petty power. In a very hierarchical society where those with more lord over you, many with any authority have a tendency to lord it over those they can.

At the reception desk, they didn't have a name for our reservation. We had a copy of our payment receipt but no, the person in charge said if there was no name on the list we couldn't get in. We had to go over to the side and wait until we could contact the person who'd purchased the tickets for us. I was close to pulling an 'African World Airways Meltdown' but I kept it under control and we in due course were allowed in with apologies from one of the staff leaders and glares from the petty tyrant.

Of course no one was there. The room wouldn't fill up until almost 45 minutes after the official start time. We were by ourselves.

 My team cooling our heels waiting for things to happen

I decided some alcohol lubricant would lighten the mood which it did.

 

As more Rotarians arrived, some of the people I know got me into conversations. Then as we got close to the time the unexpected happened. The District Governor, a woman who had met one of woman when she went to a club meeting with my main Ghana partner and benefactor Jonas, came to our table. Past Rotary President and Trustee Mark wanted us...All Of Us...to come to their table. 

So off we went through the room go meet PRP (Past Rotary President) Mark and his Wife Gaye. And they greet us so warmly. And Gaye insists on taking multiple pictures...all while the MC is trying to get the meeting started. 

 

 

 Me hobnobbing with the PRP

 

As we returned to our seats, I saw a couple of our women make eye contact with the lady who'd given us such a hard time and grace her with a some malicious smiles. Our women have spent a lifetime being disrespected so I can't blame them.

Then Mark was called up to do his presentation.He starts talking about how important it is for Rotary to be innovative to get new members. He talks about the move during his term to creating different kinds of clubs. He talks about his Sister's journey, she who had no interest in Rotary at all until the unique Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking came to her attention. Then Mark said,

"And we have members right here in Ghana who are members of that club."

 

And he had us stand up for recognition, the only club so recognized.

 

We were all blown away!

 

Our Rotary event experience.

Headed To Ghana - Some First World Travel Problems

I am back in Accra, Ghana for (what is now) my semi-annual trip working on Theodora Project and Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking Economic Development Initiative (EDI for short). The two projects are at very different points of their development. 

Theodora has gone beyond the stark, 'new concept, can it even work?' phase to the 'we've proven the concept, we have a working business, can we create meaningful succession and scaling.' That's pretty cool for sure as I've detailed in December. 

EDI on the other hand is absolutely in the 'can it even work?' phase. And if I am to be blunt and truthful, I'm not sure it is. This isn't because I think the concept is bad, unworkable, or have the potential to make it. The problem is I don't have the time and the energy to make the start-up work. 

I was fortunate that the fate that put me into the Theodora situation, coincided with me still having enough time and energy to do the intense work necessary to get it over the challenges to success. Now, six years later being in my late 70's rather than my early 70's, I don't have that energy and my time is running . 

Anyway, I'm not sure why I started writing on this. I will come back to it in a subsequent post. What I wanted to write about was my actual flight experience to Ghana which brought up to me just how we lose perspective in the world. 

I was able to get a really good fare on this flight but it meant having overnight layovers in each direction. That makes for a long travel time. Plus, leaving the airport to get a hotel (I still saved well over $1k doing things this way) and having to go through whole airport security thing over again.  

So this particular set of flights had a whole litany of annoying/irritating things. To note:

• Delta Airlines not seeming to be able to get its computer system to remember when your documents have been checked leading to you have to recheck them numerous times.
• Delta's app completely freezing when you go to a place requiring a special visa, meaning it is not available to track your flight details or other information.
• Running into one of the most anal TSA agents I've experienced in ages in Atlanta that made me (and others) do things in the TSA Pre-Check line require me (and others) to go back and forth between the screening gate and the line you put your belongings on multiple times, screwing up the process for everyone as a result.
• Getting Business Class seat that was incredibly hard causing all kinds of problems with my arthritic shoulders and hips.

The first three of these were all before I got on the long-haul business class flight and I was in a pretty crappy state-of-mind when I boarded my flight from Atlanta to NYC. The flight attendants on boarding asked how I was doing, and I kind of vented. And at that very moment, images of Los Angeles, Gaza, Syria, Sudan jumped into my head. And I immediately made note of that observation to the same crew members I had just bitched to. 

I won't say I immediately moved into a state of bliss. I was still annoyed. But I took my whole attitude with a distinct grain of salt.

The 'Great Feeling' In Action

Not even two week ago I wrote about how great I was feeling about he new year. If anything, that feeling is expanding and growing. I won't say every single moment of every single day is a high, but the overall sense that things are going as they should be, that good things are going to happen is unfolding day-by-day. 

I've been working very hard in my spiritual practices to focus on trust and gratitude. It has been an interesting practice. For the longest time I have been a believer and practitioner of 'visioning'. This is the creation of detailed pictures or word descriptions of what you really want to achieve in all aspects of your life. It has been a very positive thing for me. I've shared it with many others and they've also had positive results. But for some reason, it feels that is not what I should be doing now. What feels right is to NOT vision, but to just TRUST. And that's what I'm doing. 

The house remodel is finally, with a quickening pace starting to come together. We are hoping to actually start construction sometime toward the end of March!

I finished the Book. Segment Six. Typed the words 'The End' after finishing the last chapter after five long years.

I am getting leads on really interesting (and potentially high paying) new business. My existing clients are doing well and lots of fun to work with. 

Wife is definitely feeling better and better. We are going to forego any travel for now. Make sure she is really healed, and focus our energies on getting the house project done.

Theodora received a nice big donation from an ongoing donor that will allow us to finally get the computers we've needed and into a better office environment. 

I am off to Ghana tomorrow and will have a lot to write about from there. 

So while the outside world goes to hell, my personal world seems to just be growing and prospering. I don't understand it. But I trust in what is happening and am filled with gratitude.

Book Nearing Completion

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a post about my finally getting back into writing the latest installment of my fantasy book series. Now I am almost finished with the drafting of this, the sixth book in the series. It has been an ordeal. As I mentioned last year, the first four books came forth like a volcanic explosion with me writing four books in just two years. Then the fifth book took about three years. I've been working on this one on and off since 2019. I am sure all the creative energy I put into Theodora was a major factor why this took so long. 

However, in the last couple of months, I've finally overcome some block and I've been writing at a steady pace that has not been there for quite some time. I'm hoping to wrap up the last chapter before I go back and edit before I head off to Ghana late next week.  

I've already started thinking about where I will take things once this book is finished. Up until now this has been a linear series. However, I have so many different characters with so many different potential story lines to explore, I'm considering taking a page from one of my all time favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, and create books that focus on individual characters and their specific stories/challenges. 

Feeling Great About 2025

Despite a political environment both domestically and globally that should be having me in permanent depression, I don't feel that way in the slightest. In fact, going into 2025, I feel buoyant.  

Why? you might ask.

Well one is I am on the upswing of my 'Groundhog Day' work cycle. This occurs roughly every third year during my transition life. (The cycle is roughly, realizing I have to work to travel the way I want, throwing myself into work, going on some trip that makes me wish we could travel as much as I want without having to work, letting my work slip, realizing I don't have the money we need to travel, throwing myself back into work.) This time, however, things are being supercharged by breaking of the wave of Baby Boomer business owner exits. 

This wave has been predicted for some time. But the pandemic and people's incredible ability to procrastinate has pushed it many years beyond when many expected. But, as the front edge of the Baby Boomer wave is now it their 70's, life is catching up. People are finding that 'stuff' happens, death, disease, burnout, etc. leading them to finally not being able to put things off. Unfortunately for them, by this time there options are severely limited. Plus it takes a good amount of expertise to carry off even those options. AND there aren't a whole lot of people around (especially here in New Mexico) who have the ability to help people work through those limited options. One of those few people is me! So I'm finding there are all kinds of opportunities. 

In addition to that, Theodora Project, is ready to go to its next phase (I wrote about this in December). We have a number of interesting new avenues for driving our growth. And I have a team that is carrying most of the weight. 

We are getting close to finally getting the house remodel project started. Most of the pieces are falling into place. We hope in a couple of weeks to have all the estimates so we can look at setting an actual date to get started!

Lastly, Wife's health is slowly but steadily getting better. It has taken much longer than we would have hoped. But her progress is definitive. We still won't be traveling for a while, but we see that we will be able.

So, all kinds of exciting stuff going on. It is shaping up to be a fun year.

Redemption In The Form of Latkes And Pizza

Like the proverbial youngster riding a bike or a horse, if you fall, you just need to get up again. So the holiday week was marked by more cooking, and successful cooking!

We started off with Latkes (Potato Pancakes)

In years past I've had issues with too much liquid coming from the potatoes and onions. This year I made sure I squeezed and let drain the potatoes. And I took the shredded onion, mixed it with the eggs and added a small amount of flour. A small batch that I could cook quickly made a difference too.

 Great results!

 On New Year's Eve we made pizza

What was interesting was we were using a lot of the same ingredients as the lasagna - the same sauce, same cheese, same sausage. But totally different proportions and the crust compared to the pasta, led to completely different results because our pizza turned out great.

We were very remiss in documenting our process 

Wife rolling out the crust

 Final results - Meat and Vegetable