Delicious Lighter Potato Gratin

Potato gratin is a classic dish for a reason – everyone loves it! The combination of cheese, potato and that creamy, delicious sauce is a delight for your taste buds, and will have to going back for seconds. Unfortunately, like many tasty dishes it’s not the healthiest, so this version has a couple of changes to create something a little lighter.

While there’s nothing wrong with treating yourself every now and again, it’s always good to make healthier choices where you can and this gratin does just that! Instead of cream, use light evaporated milk and cut the cheese down to just 2 tablespoons. If you really want to step the flavour up a notch, try sprinkling some french onion soup mix between layers.

Ingredients

• 185ml can light and creamy evaporated milk
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 700g desiree potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
• 1 small brown onion, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup fresh breadcrumbs
• 2 tablespoons finely grated parmesan cheese

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C and Lightly grease a 6 cup-capacity baking dish. Combine milk and garlic in a jug.
• Layer one-quarter of the potatoes over base of prepared dish. Top with one-third onion. Repeat layers, finishing with potato.
• Top with milk mixture, breadcrumbs and parmesan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until potato is tender and breadcrumbs golden.

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3 Books to Help You Create a New Lifestyle that Lasts

For far too long we’ve been led to believe that “going on a diet” and “losing weight” is something you force rather than something you learn.

And where has it gotten us? Well, according to this article, 38 percent of adults are obese, along with 17 percent of teenagers—numbers that have been increasing year over year.

That’s not how I work – which you’ll know if you’ve been reading me for a while.

We all know what happens when you force a diet or weight loss: you relapse. You yo-yo. You live in one extreme for as long as you can handle it and then, inevitably, slip into the other extreme.

That’s a hard way to live.

You know what? I’ll be honest here: to change your lifestyle is a tall order. It’s really difficult, and it takes effort. But the difference between forcing an outcome (weight loss) and mastering your diet (lifestyle) is that, at some point, the process stops being a change in lifestyle and starts being what you do, day in and day out, because that’s who you are now.

It stops being so hard, in other words. It becomes easier and easier, more and more real.

But forcing a diet, losing some weight, and then relapsing? That doesn’t get easier. That’s just giving yourself the same pain over and over (and we’ll explore why on earth you’re doing that in another post.)

Which pain do you want: the pain of continually losing weight and then putting it all back on? Or the much shorter-term pain of actually changing your lifestyle and making a habit of being healthy?

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10 CHALLENGES EVERY ENTREPRENEUR WILL FACE
Let’s assume it’s the second one…I’m assuming you’re a sane human being, after all 🙂

The philosophies outlined in the following three books will help you through the process to create a new lifestyle (and relationship with food) that’s permanent and real:

1. Antifragile by Nassim Taleb

If a mirror breaks, it is undoubtedly worse than when it wasn’t broken. This we can agree on.

When a Phoenix dies, it rises from its own ashes. It’s no better but no worse than before. It is reborn exactly the same as before.

Now, the hydra…when one of its heads gets cut off, grows two more. In other words: it doesn’t get better despite being harmed, but precisely because it was harmed. It is, as Taleb would say, “antifragile.”

Humans are hydras. You’re a hydra. All the pain in your life can make you better—if you let it.

I say this because when you’re changing your lifestyle, there are going to be times when you mess up. When you make bad choices. When you regress into what you used to be, even if momentarily. Welcome to being human. Imagine if you used every one of these “mess ups” to get better? To grow? To become more and more antifragile?

How strong and powerful could you become?

2. Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? by Ben Hunt-Davis

The Great Britain Men’s Eight rowing team [check this] won gold at the 2000 Olympics. They’d also skipped the opening ceremony, a once in a lifetime opportunity for most of them.

These two things are not unrelated. In fact, they’re 100 percent related.

After toiling in obscurity for years and years, they decided to try something totally new and completely different. (A good lesson here). They decided that every decision in their lives leading up to the Olympics should revolve around one question:

“Will it make the boat go faster?”

It’s the perfect question because it’s a “yes” or “no” answer. Something either makes the boat go faster or it doesn’t.

Now, you understand why they didn’t go to the opening ceremony. How would that make the boat go faster? It wouldn’t. It would be a late night and it would be wasted energy. It was a clear, but also difficult, No.

How does this apply to you? Well, you can ask a similar question about any decision you need to make:

“Will this help me create my new lifestyle?”

All the unimportant will be removed, and what will remain is what will take you toward your new lifestyle and toward the person you envision yourself to be.

3. The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

There’s a voice in your head, isn’t there?

When you think about it, it’s always been there.

Here’s the fascinating thing: it’s not you.

How can that be? You’re the one hearing it.

So…if it’s not you, then what is it?

It’s just a thought. That’s it. AThat means it doesn’t have to control you if you don’t want it to control you.

All those times you’ve made poor diet choices, all those times you’ve craved something sugary, all those times you’ve said “fuck it” and gorged yourself numb…I’m willing to bet they’re all because of the voice. Because it told you to do something and you obeyed.

Your voice is not you. It’s just a thought. Your thoughts do not define you. Because you have infinite thoughts and if each one defined you then there’d be infinite Yous. But there’s only one you. The witness behind your thoughts.

How’s that for life-shifting insight?

Now, you can take a step back and realize that you can simply observe this voice rather than do whatever it tells you.

For example, it might say, “Oh, my god, I really want a donut.” Then you, the witness behind that thought, can take a step back and simply observe that these thoughts are happening. If you really pay attention, they’re actually quite funny. Since they don’t define you, you don’t have to act on them. In fact, then you can make the choice you really want to make and that you know will make you truly happy: a healthy choice.

Isn’t taking a step back from the voice worth getting good at?

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Don’t Let Your Dissertation Run Your Life

A Ph.D. student recently came to me to talk about exploring different careers. He lamented that while in graduate school, he gradually stopped doing everything in his life that was not research related. In undergrad, he was an avid outdoor adventurer, climbing mountains and rafting rivers. He loved volunteering with kids and the elderly because he could see his impact directly. But over time as his research project developed, he left these parts of his life behind because he “didn’t have time.”

Let’s compare this to the nonacademic world. For many, work is driven by deadlines. You have to produce something by this date and time in order to: a) please the client, b) please your boss or c) move on to the next part of the project. But in academe, all deadlines are “as soon as possible.” There is a never-ending sense of urgency. Do you have that chapter finished? If you’re not getting results, you should work harder and stay later. How many of us are guilty of analyzing data or writing a paper while on vacation?

When it comes to careers, the spread of research into your time will hold you back. From graduate school, you will gain a degree, technical skills, broader research skills and subject-matter expertise. But if you allow research to take over, you will be missing these important aspects: working with people outside your field, seeing what different careers actually look like, having experiences other than your research, developing key transferable skills, building a network of people who can refer you to jobs -- as well as maintaining and enhancing physical health, mental health (read the research if you haven’t), a social life and an understanding of who you are in the world.

I recommend that you seek out opportunities such as the ones below to get outside of your office, lab or library. Advocate for yourself with your research mentor and negotiate that you need a number of hours every week to pursue specific activities. Or just stop working late every night and coming in every weekend -- and see if anyone even notices.

Teaching and outreach. One of the most common activities for graduate students is to teach undergrads or other graduate students. Your department may require you to be a teaching assistant, or you may participate in outreach to local institutions. Even so, consider what you are gaining from the experience. Are you better at managing people, managing timelines, conveying complex ideas to novices, training, coaching or building rapport? Consider teaching new lessons or taking on additional responsibilities so you will have experience with spearheading and taking initiative.

Committees. We’ve all ignored the emails from the department administrators asking for volunteers for various committees, but what did we miss out on? Planning a symposium or conference can give you experience with working on teams, dividing responsibilities, holding each other accountable and organizing. Inviting faculty members for a weekly speaker series can help you improve your abilities to convince others, manage a budget and handle logistics.

Professional development. Many campuses offer opportunities to develop skills supplemental to or outside of your research. Seek out those workshops and programs to learn to negotiate, manage a team, lead, be a faculty member at different institutions, apply for grants, search for jobs, present and talk about your experiences. Writing is a vastly transferable skill, and you can find courses to help you write for the news media, policy organizations, regulatory affairs, federal agencies, patent agents or users of a product.

Volunteering. Academic research can often feel disconnected from the populations it’s meant to serve. Volunteering for local organizations is a great way to reconnect with people and have a direct impact through doing something small. Plus, you will gain abilities in communicating with other people who come from different backgrounds, building trust, active listening, understanding the needs of others and fulfilling the needs of clients.

Hobbies. A peril of thinking about your research all day, every day is that you lose opportunities for inspiration. When we allow our minds to change focus, it can help us reframe problems we’re working on. Tapping into your creativity can allow your brain to work in different ways and make new connections. So unearth that guitar from the closet, use a camera that’s not on your phone, take a cake-decorating course, design websites, read a sci-fi novel or blog about bad movies. When applying for jobs, you can mention hobbies on a résumé or in an interview to be more memorable.

Sports and physical activity. I gained 20 pounds in graduate school. Many graduate students exercise less and eat fewer healthy foods. Get your fitness back on track by joining an intramural sports team or finding a pickup basketball game at a gym. Camp and hike at nearby parks and trails. Not only will you build teamwork and coordination skills and reduce stress, but you’ll also have good topics for small talk when networking and interviewing.

Meeting professionals. Are you unsure of what careers best suit you? Or do you want to learn which companies match your interests and values? The best way to accomplish both of those tasks is to meet people who are in such careers. You can attend networking events or you can target individuals through LinkedIn and your current and previous institutions’ alumni associations. If you ask about shadowing opportunities or trying out a portion of their work, you’ll be able to write about your experience in an application and speak knowledgeably about the job in interviews.

Imagine you are the hiring manager for a company, and you’re interviewing two candidates. One has strong research skills from a top university. The other has not only strong research skills from a top university but also experience working on team projects, the proven ability to communicate research findings to nonexperts and over all seems more at ease. Whom would you hire?

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Washington ‘swamp’ sucks life from Trump trade strategy

Donald Trump won the US presidency vowing to rip up decades of trade policy and drain the Washington “swamp” of lobbyists and “globalists” as part of his America First push to bring back manufacturing jobs.

Yet six months into his administration, the swamp seems not only undiminished but to be swallowing up his strategy on trade.

“I think with trade, the swamp is still there in full force,” says Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of Nucor Steel and Trump campaign adviser on trade policy, and an economic nationalist who has confessed his disappointment with the president’s failure to deliver on his grand promises.

Mr Trump and US officials continue to pledge bold action on trade. There are signs of a toughening line on China, with the administration considering whether to launch a probe into Beijing’s intellectual property and technology-transfer regime. On his third day in office Mr Trump also delivered on his promise to pull the US out of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by the Obama administration.

But Mr Trump’s trade threats are greeted with growing scepticism by pro-trade members of the business community, who have won a number of battles by exploiting divisions inside the administration.

Democrats have also spotted a vulnerability in the president’s failure to deliver on one of his campaign’s core populist promises. Senate Democrats unveiled their own trade policy proposals on Wednesday, including curbs on Chinese purchases of US companies, as part of their bid to lure back blue-collar voters who backed Mr Trump.

Democrats have also been emboldened by Mr Trump’s tangled plans for the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. After threatening in April to withdraw from what he still regularly calls the “worst trade deal”, Mr Trump’s administration will later this month embark on a renegotiation that, according to its own publicly released objectives, appears likely to result in few, if any, significant departures from US trade orthodoxy.

Mr Trump is also facing an uphill battle in the Senate from both Democrats and Republicans for his plan to install former congressman Scott Garrett, a long-time conservative opponent of the US Export-Import Bank, as its new head. Mr Garrett has previously called for the bank, which provides finance and help for US exporters, to be shut down.

But the biggest frustration for economic nationalists is the delay to the plan to clamp down on steel imports, which officials promised in late June was just days away.

The plan, which involves using a cold war-era law that allows US presidents to invoke national security to restrict imports, is aimed primarily at forcing China to cut the vast steel output that has driven down global prices. But it has become bogged down in an internal debate fuelled by lobbying and counter-lobbying from steelmakers, the broader US business community and US allies and trading partners in Asia and Europe.

The steel scramble has pitted advocates of a tough approach, such as Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, and economic nationalists in the White House, against pro-trade figures such as Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs executive who leads Mr Trump’s National Economic Council. It has also has seen Mr Trump’s US trade representative, former steel lawyer Robert Lighthizer, who is said to be increasingly close to Mr Cohn, remain conspicuously on the sidelines in what some see as a sign of his scepticism about the exercise.

Mr Ross complained to members of Congress at a recent private briefing that the plan was now facing “complexities”, including the clashing interests of steel producers and users and threats of retaliation from trading partners such as the EU.

The result, according to people briefed on the discussions, has been the morphing of a bold plan to impose a single tariff of as much as 25 per cent on imports into something far more complicated.

The most likely scenario now is an elaborate system of quotas and tariffs that would exclude imports from Canada and Mexico, they say. It would also include a 90-day period for businesses to lobby for the exclusion of certain products and for the administration to mount a new round of negotiations with other steel manufacturing countries.

Mr Trump himself has created potential problems by repeatedly saying the steel move is intended to combat “dumping” by countries such as China. By doing that, trade lawyers say, the president has hurt the US case in the event of a challenge at the World Trade Organisation.

Under WTO rules countries can only use approved measures for individual products to combat dumping — the export of products below cost. But Mr Trump’s targeting of “dumping” claims and his plan to use the cold war-era law appear to violate those rules, lawyers say.

“No one should be surprised when other WTO members point to the administration’s own statements to show that this . . . violates the WTO,” says Gregory Spak, head of the international trade practice for law firm White & Case.

Some in Washington see Mr Trump’s slowing trade agenda as a sign he is being forced to confront the complexities of both governing and the global economy.

“It is not the morass of Washington, it is economic reality that is beginning to hit him in the face,” says Daniel Ikenson, head of trade policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

But some damage has already been done, Mr Ikenson warns. Mr Trump’s protectionist threats have changed global norms on trade by encouraging other countries to follow a similar path, he says.

The president’s withdrawal from the TPP has also hurt US competitiveness in countries such as Japan, which last week imposed temporary tariffs of up to 50 per cent on imports of frozen US beef, he points out, adding: “There has been a big cost to all this.”

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