Habits vs. decisions: Why you do what you do. SmartBrief is partnering with Big Think to create a weekly video spotlight in SmartBrief on Leadership called “VIP Corner: Video Insights Powered by Big Think.” This week, we’re featuring Charles Duhigg, author and investigative journalist. A sharp awareness of the difference between a habit and a conscious decision could mean the difference between peace-keeping and daily riots, according to Charles Duhigg, a New York Times reporter and author. Duhigg said the intrigue that spawned his recently penned book, “The Power of Habit,” came from a trip to a small city in Iraq, where an Army Major stopped yearlong city riots by removing kabob sellers from the plazas. Without the kabob sellers, hungry locals instead would go home for food — eliminating the need to crowd the streets.
Understanding the simple habit of looking for food was a powerful tool for the major and formed the basis of Duhigg’s interest in habit formation. Fundamentals: 9 ways to be brilliant at the new basics. This column is excerpted from Jim Sullivan’s new book, “Fundamentals: 9 Ways to Be Brilliant at the Basics of Business.”
It’s available exclusively at Amazon or Sullivision.com. You can’t build a pyramid from the top down. A house without a strong foundation will not stand. And a business without fundamentals firmly entrenched and dutifully executed can wither and shrink as small as the period that ends this sentence. There are nine essential building blocks of successful foodservice companies in the second decade of the 21st century: Focus. Build Strong Teams. Serve Better. Innovation, Part 3: Your Users Want A New Product, Do You? A Small Step from Farm to Menu. A Small Step from Farm to Menu Italy - 09 Apr 12 Last week, members of the Italian Alliance between chefs and Slow Food Presidia came together for two days for their first meeting, held in Tuscany at the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity's regional headquarters. Over 100 producers from 60 Italian Slow Food Presidia and 73 chefs participated, including acclaimed chefs like Vittorio Fusari from Dispensa Pani e Vini in Lombardia and Massimo Bottura from Osteria Francescana in Modena.
The Alliance was formed in 2009 to bring together chefs with the Presidia projects: Participating osterias and restaurants commit to using local quality produce by featuring Slow Food Presidia products in their cooking and the producers on their menus. “The Slow Food Presidia products represent an anomaly among the mass of standardized flavors, knowledge and distribution," said the Slow Food Foundation president Piero Sardo. “We choose a food not just to eat well, but also to think well,” Fusari said. Grandma’s Ginger Beer. Grandma’s Ginger Beer Ireland - 03 Apr 12 On April 21, Slow Food Ireland will celebrate Grandmothers’ Day, a day dedicated to remembering and recording near-forgotten skills, and passing on the precious inherited wisdom of previous generations.
The network across Ireland will celebrate on the day with a host of activities, with grandparents around the country gathering their grandchildren to show them how to bake a cake, sow a seed, catch a fish, make butter, or keep a chicken. For the occasion, Hermione Winters, Garden convivium leader shares with us a special recipe she learnt from her Gran as a child, and has since passed on to her own children. “This recipe involves making a ginger beer ‘plant’ by fermenting ground ginger and sugar with yeast and water for about a week.
My grandmother taught me this as a child and I thought it was great fun and a tasty treat for the summer school holidays. Recipe (makes 4.5 l) Start Again Here's the fun bit. The Missing Ingredients in Claiborne’s Life.
Press Round Up 2/24. Press Round Up 3/2.