2025 Even More Reading about Food than Last Year

Posted on January 6, 2026 by John F Croston III

2025 was my year where I read four graphic novels about making/ cooking food, and a dozen related to food, crime, and extra powers.

In 2026, I still need to read a few more books by Stephen King, Edward Carey, and Silas House, as well as books about creativity and cooking.

My 2025 Plan

Each year, the plan is to read a book every two weeks, and this year, I managed more than one book a week, since I read a lot of food-related graphic novels.

It’s way better than I planned, since I was planning to spend less time reading this year and more time learning on YouTube and other websites.

Per usual, from mid-November/Thanksgiving until the end of the year, I attempted to finish up a handful of books I was partway through, along with some shorter/more straightforward/easier-to-read books (120 – 150 pages).

NOTE – I typically read a handful of books at once. Doing so allows me to switch around depending on my mood.

The List of Books I Read in 2025

I read the following books/graphic novels in this order, for the most part, but grouped by author or organization/company.

  • The Creative Act: A Way of Being – Rick Rubin
  • The Elephant in My Backyard – A Memoir – Rajiv Surendra
  • Little – a Novel – Edward Carey
  • Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast – No 119 – Oscar Wilde
  • Pricing Design – Pricing Projects Can Feel Tricky, but It Doesn’t Have to Be – Dan Mall
  • Life of Pie – a Novel – Yann Martel
  • The Art of Asking – or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help – Amanda Palmer (reread)
  • So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love – Cal Newport
  • The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
  • Catching the Big Fish – Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity – David Lynch
  • You’re Not Listening – What You’re Missing and Why It Matters – Kate Murphy
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes- a Novel – Ray Bradbury
  • Things Becoming Other Things – A Walking Memoir – Craig Mod
  • Food Rules – An Eater’s Manual – Michael Pollan
  • Muybridge – Guy Delisle
  • Lost in Translation – An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World – Ellen Frances Sanders
  • Notes on Creativity – Ferran Adria
  • Let My People Go Surfing- The Education of a Reluctant Businessman – Yvon Chouinard
  • A Drive into the Gap – Kevin Guilfoile
  • American Sfoglino – A Master Class in Handmade Pasta – Even Funke with Katie Paria
  • The Choi of Cooking – Flavor-Packet, Rule-breaking Recipes for a Delicious Life – Roy Choi with Tien Nguyen and Natasha Phan
  • What It Is – Lynda Barry (reread)
  • How to Eat – Thich Nhat Hanh (reread)

Barbara Kingsolver

  • The Bean Trees
  • Pigs in Heaven

Dan Buettner

  • The Blue Zones Solution – Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People
  • The Blue Zones Second Edition – 9 Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest
  • The Blue Zones Kitchen – One Pot Meals – 100 Recipes to Live to 100
  • The Blue Zones – Secrets for Living Longer – Lessons from the Healthiest Places on Earth

Danny Gregory

  • The Creative License – Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are
  • Make It Anyway – More Essays on Creative Living

Do Books

  • Do Hope – Why You Should Never Give Up. – by Gail Muller
  • Do Maintain – How to Sharpen Knives, Scissors, and Garden Tools. – Gareth Heaton
  • Do Ferment – Gut Busters and Foods that Fizz. – Mathew Pennington and Nicola Cradock
  • Do Nourish – How to Eat for Resilience. – Sarah Bayliss
  • Do Sea Salt – The Magic of Seasoning. by Alison, David, and Jess Lea-Wilson (reread)
  • Do Breath – Calm your mind. Find focus. Get stuff done. – Michael Townsend Williams (reread)
  • The Side Project  Report – Do Lectures (reread)

John Steinbeck

  • Of Mice and Men
  • The Pearl – John Steinbeck
  • The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck

Stephen King

  • On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft
  • The Green Mile

Seth Godin

  • The Practice – Shipping Creative Work
  • the dip – A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

Graphic Novel Cook Cookbooks

  • Cook Korean – A Comic Book with Recipes – Robin Ha (reread)
  • Let’s Make Dumplings! – A Comic Book Cookbook – Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan (reread)
  • Let’s Make Ramen! – A Comic Book Cookbook – Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan (reread)
  • Let’s Make Bread – A Comic Book Cookbook – Ken Forkish and Sarah Becan

Chew – Graphic Novels – John Layman and Rob Guillory

  • Volume – One: Taster’s Choice
  • Volume Two: “International Flavor”
  • Volume Three: “Just Desserts”
  • Volume – Four: Flambe
  • Volume Five: Major League
  • Volume Six: Space Cakes
  • Volume Seven: Bad Apples
  • Volume Eight: Family Recipes
  • Volume Nine: Chicken Tenders
  • Volume Ten: Blood Puddin’
  • Volume Eleven: The Last Supper
  • Volume Twelve: Sour Grapes

Never Too Small Magazine – Creative, Compact, and Joyful Ways to Design and Live

  • Volume 2
  • Volume 3
  • Volume 4
  • Volume 5 

Total Books and Graphic Novels Read

I finished the year strong, reading 66 books, of which 9 were rereads.

More Learning from YouTube

Again this year, I continued watching more YouTube to learn about cooking, shooting videos, storytelling, starting a YouTube channel, starting a small farm, etc., and taking a few courses I purchased about editing with DaVinci Resolve.

My Reading Plans for 2026

Here’s to reading about a book every week to two weeks in 2026.

2026 is the time to do more towards creating a cooking YouTube channel by learning DaVinci Resolve, but I need to put more effort into it in 2025.

Please comment if you have read any of these books, what you thought of them, and if you have any suggestions.

 

Posted in 2025, Books, Cooking, Creativity, Food, Graphic Novels, Learning, Reading, Writing, YouTube | Leave a comment

Updated Organizational Chart Examples Using HTML and CSS

Posted on October 20, 2025 by John F Croston III

Back in 2016 I was looking for the best way to code an organizational chart that was accessible and thought it was time to publish an update blog post with an additional examples and some updates. My organizational chart example page now has three examples instead of the two examples from before.

I’m hoping the accessible organizational charts page using text and are code based (HTML and CSS) instead of graphics make sense visually, but more importantly to those using assistive technology users like screen readers.

Example Charts

The first example organizational chart was created using structured headings. These were indented by adding CSS classes to make them easier to read and understand the organizational hierarchy visually.

The second version uses unordered lists that contain headings within list items that have built in indentation.

The third chart uses nested definition lists (DL), which are styled with CSS to show visually which groups or people fall under other groups or people.

Conclusion

I’m hoping one of these organizational charts works better for those using assistive technologies like a screen reader.

NOTE – I think making organizational charts this way might not work well if you have a large organization, but could be useful to smaller teams or companies.

If you use assistive technology can you please tell me if these organizational charts are helpful in conveying an organization’s structure or confusing.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Posted in 2025, 508 Compliant, Accessibility, Charts, Code, CSS, HTML, Web Standards | Leave a comment

The 100-Day Project Ten Years Later and What’s Next?

Posted on April 6, 2025 by John F Croston III

Ten years ago, on April 6th, 2015, after reading Elle Luna’s Great Discontent article titled “Elle Luna: 100-Day Project – What Could You Do with 100 Days of Making?” a while before, I decided to start my 100-Day Project.

The 100-Day Project is about doing something creative for 100 days. It could be writing a novel or short story, making comic strips, taking photos, drawing landscapes, painting portraits, creating cooking videos, writing or performing music, etc., every day for 100 days.

A guy I know by the name of Jeremy Keith wrote 100 100-word blog posts over the 100-days.

I’m Going to Paint

My first thought of doing some creative work for 100 days was painting, which I hadn’t done in about ten years.

What to paint didn’t matter before I started, but it would come to me along the way of what to paint.

In the meantime, I checked my paints and brushes, which were in good condition, and then went out to a large chain art supply store in Washington, DC, to purchase a bunch of canvases.

After looking around the store, I went with the hard-backed canvas boards. That way, I could store them more efficiently when the paintings were completed, and they wouldn’t take up as much space.

What to Paint?

Since I spent at least one day a week with friends as part of a larger wine group that had a tasting to improve my knowledge of wine, I decided to paint wine bottle shapes. The wine bottles consisted of the bottle, label, and foil cap. Nothing fancy with much, if any, shading, label information, etc.

Being a novice painter and having only taken a few painting and art classes at our local Torpedo Factory, I wasn’t going to do more than the shapes of bottles with painted backgrounds.

I started slow and got used to using my oil paints again on the first paintings.

Then, after I was used to painting all over again, I pulled out my palette knives to use them as well. At first, I painted the wine bottle shape with my paintbrush and then used the palette knife to do the background.

I enjoyed the palette knife paintings more because of the different textures I could create.

How Did It Go?

After starting it, I slept better and had more dreams, which I tend not to have had many, if any, before.

As the days went by, I enjoyed myself and began to improve.

I then had to purchase more canvases since I was running low because I did not buy all 100 in case after the first 20 or 30 days or sooner stopped.

How Many Painting Did I Do?

Around day 178 or so, which was the end of September, I was driving to An Event Apart in Austin, TX., and made it into a road trip to use up my vacation. By doing that, I could not easily paint every day with wet canvases and be in a different AirBnB or hotel room.

So I started using my iPad Mini 2 to start drawing digital wine bottles with the iOS application pencil, which was, at the start, much harder to do than painting.

After that, I kept making the wine bottles digitally even when I returned home.

How Did Digital Drawing Go?

I am still enjoying drawing wine bottles digitally using the Pencil app.

At some point, Pencil was sold, and then the new owners wanted to charge a one-time fee for features I had been using for about four years. So, I did not upgrade to the next version for nine or ten months so I could keep the one I was using.

Somewhere along the way, I hit the update ALL applications button on my iPad, which updated the Pencil app. In doing so, because it was so long ago, the new app lost all my previous wine bottle drawings, some of my coolest ones.

The number of digital wine bottles I had drawn at the point was approximately 1,761. They are likely somewhere on my iPad but lost in the application.

I sighed, shrugged my shoulders, and moved on; I could do nothing.

I started over, and currently, I have 1,698 digital wine bottles on my iPad.

So How Many Wine Bottle Paintings and Drawing Did I Make?

I did 178 paintings (need to check), 1,761 digital drawings before I lost them, and 1,698 in the current batch for a total of 3,637 wine bottles out of the last 3,652 days ( two leap years).

The number could be higher because I did not remember what number I was on when I lost the first batch of digital drawings or miss numbering them.

Either way, I’m happy to have only missed 15 days over the past 10 years.

What’s Next?

I will start a new 100-Day Project today to shoot, edit, and publish cooking videos, including music, sound effects, graphics, etc.

This project will be a bit different, more or less than a typical 100-day project, because I’m looking to spend at least 30 minutes each day (likely after work) learning how to use DaVinci Resolve (video editing software) which is FREE from the two or three courses I paid for over a year ago.

I have not been giving the editing videos the effort I need to learn how to edit quickly and efficiently.

On the weekend, I plan to spend an hour a day either learning more about DaVinci Resolve or watching YouTube videos related to food to see how things are presented, talked about, etc. Another item is testing recipes from others or taking what I think are the best parts of a bunch of recipes to see if that works.

I want to be able to create 20 or 30 videos that are four to six minutes long that tell people how to cook certain foods before I post them so I can post half of them at once and then post one a week thereafter while making the next batch.

Another thing will be to read J. Kenji López-Alt two books, “Food Lab” and “The Wok,” as references and as a resource in videos, along with Michael Pollan’s handful of food books and Harold Mcgee’s books for the same reason.

Then, I will watch food/cooking-related series such as Mind of a Chef (YouTube), Michael Pollan, and other Amazon or Netflix shows like Salt Fat Acid Heat, Somebody Feed Phil (seven seasons), Vivian Howard PBS shows (A Chef’s Life and Somewhere South).

NOTE – This next 100-Day Project might not be in the whole spirit of the original, but it will get me there in the end if I make it a habit to practice every day.

I plan to take notes of my findings in notebooks or digitally and track how much time I spend during the learning process. The goal will be to spend 20 – 30 hours a month.

Yes, I will continue to draw more digital wine bottles. It’s a thing I do before bed each night. Some might call it a habit.

Posted in 100 Day Project, 2025, Cooking, Drawing, Editing, Food, Health, Painting, Videos, Writing, YouTube | 1 Comment

2024 Reading List with Lots of Books about Food

Posted on January 9, 2025 by John F Croston III

2024 was my year where I read six books about making or cooking food, and one about compost, which helps grow food.

In 2025, I need to read a few more books by Edward Carey, Silas House, creativity, and cooking.

My Yearly Plan

Each year, the plan is to read a book a week, and this year I managed two books a month. It’s not bad for thinking I was going to spend less time reading this year and more time learning on YouTube and other websites. I spent too much time watching creators to see what was going on in their lives, more than the ones teaching me things or letting me learn from them.

Again, from mid-November/Thanksgiving until the end of the year, I attempted to finish up a handful of books I was partway through, along with some shorter/more straightforward/easier-to-read books.

The short, easier-to-read ones are between 120 – 150 pages and smaller in size. So I can read them in a few days or a day, depending On how much time I have. The others are 250 – 400 pages and are more involved, and I need to pay more attention while reading them.

NOTE – I typically read a handful of books at once.

Reading more than a book at a time allows me to switch around depending on my mood. If I need light reading or have time to read through something a bit denser that needs more attention, I can.

My List of Books I Read in 2024

My list of books is in the order I read them.

  • Edith Holler – Edward Carey
  • The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Steal Like an Artist – 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative – Austin Kleon (re-read)
  • Show Your Work -10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered – Austin Kleon (re-read)
  • Keep Going – 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad – Austin Kleon (re-read)
  • Start with Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek
  • The Botany of Desire – A Plant’s-Eye View of the World – Michael Pollan
  • Crying in H Mart – A Memoir – Michelle Zavner
  • Persepolis – The Story of a Childhood – Marjane Satrapi
  • Persepolis 2 – The Story of a Return – Marjane Satrapi
  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life – Mark Manson
  • Desert Oracle – Volume 1 – Ken Lake
  • Compost – Transform waste into new life – Charles Dowding
  • Never to Small – Creative, compact, and joyful ways to design and live – Never to Small Magazine
  • It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be. – The world’s best-selling book by Paul Arden
  • Dignity – Desert Oracle Books Joshua Tree, Calif. – Ken Lake
  • Everything is F*cked – A Book about Hope – Mark Manson
  • The Bean Book – 100 Recipes for Cooking with all Kinds of Beans – Steve Sando with Julia Newberry
  • Feck Perfuction – Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life – James Victore (re-read)
  • The Crossroads of Should and Must – Find and Follow Your Passion – Elle Luna (re-read)
  • Do Breath – Calm your mind. Find focus. Get stuff done. – Michael Townsend Williams
  • Finding the Mother Tree – Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest – Suzanne Simard
  • Diet for a Small Planet (50th Anniversary Edition) – Frances Moore Lappe
  • Do Smoke – A modern guide to cooking and curing. Jen Goss and Scott Davis (NOTE – I finished the last 26 pages on the morning of January 1st and was too tired to stay up on New Year’s Eve. )

Total Books Read

I finished the year strong and managed to read 24 books.

More Learning from YouTube

Again this year I continued watching more YouTube to learn about cooking, shooting videos, storytelling, starting a YouTube channel, starting a small farm, etc., and taking a few courses I purchased about editing with DaVinci Resolve.

My Reading Plans for 2025

Here’s to reading about a book every week to two weeks in 2025.

In 2025, I plan to continue to spend more time learning how to shoot, edit, and add special effects/graphics to videos to start my YouTube channel. It didn’t turn out that way last year, but I need to put more effort into it in 2025.

Please comment if you have read any of these books, what you thought of them, and if you have any suggestions.

Posted in 2024, Beans, Books, Cooking, Creativity, Farming, Food, Fun, Graphic Novels, Learning, Rancho Gordo, Reading, Research, Tiny House, Writing, YouTube | 1 Comment

Lo Mein Recipes

Posted on May 15, 2024 by John F Croston III

Last Thursday ( May 9th, 2024 ), I talked with my father about his first hole-in-one, which he had gotten that day after playing golf for 78 years since he was seven.

He’s 85 now.

At the end of the conversation, he mentioned wanting to know how to make Lo Mein sauce to save money from buying the dish instead of making it himself. He asked if I found out or knew how to tell him. 

Research of How to Make Lo Mein

So that Friday night, I started searching on YouTube for people I follow who have made Lo Mein.

I ended up with seven or eight videos to watch and one or two more recommended by the other videos. I made sure to take notes to send to him, which is what most of this blog post is from.

In the process, I learned the big difference between Lo Mein (saucy) and Chow Mein (drier and crispy noodles).

In the e-mail I sent him were notes to the e-mail that he should watch all the videos and take notes to see what he liked about one version and the next.

Here are are those YouTube videos on how to make Lo Mein and Chow Mein, which are similar, but Lo Mein is saucier than Chow Mein.

NOTE – The recipes are tend to be in the video description, or you might need to open them on their website.

Notes about the Videos/Recipes that Follow

  • There might be some upfront costs to purchase some of the sauces, oil, vinegar, etc., but you should have them for a while. You can likely pick these up at places like Wegmans or your typical grocery store nowadays, but you could find them cheaper at an Asian grocery store.
  • The Asian-style noodles they recommend have more chew for most of them than spaghetti noodles.
  • There are two sauces most of them use besides soy sauce: Oyster sauce and/or Hoisin sauce.
  • Watch all of the videos to see what each one offers and to get an idea of what you might want to do or tweak the recipes, which are primarily in grams.

Reminder

  • Some of the videos might be geared toward an audience of 20- and 30-year-olds, but not all.
  • The humor, sound effects, and music might be loud but not too bad.

Videos

The Cheapest Noodle Dish Ever (Chicken Chow Mein) | But Cheaper – Joshua Weissman (6:32)

 

Do me a FLAVOUR and try this tasty Lo Mein Noodles recipe – Yeung Man Cooking (8:36)

REMINDER – He’s a vegan cook, but you can substitute whatever you want.

Classic Takeout Lo Mein In 15 Minutes! – Aaron and Clare (10:35)

J. Kenji López-Alt

Cantonese Soy Sauce Chow Mein (Easy Pan-Fried Noodles) – Kenji’s Cooking Show (16:39)

Vegetable Lo Mein – Kenji’s Cooking Show (18:17)

NOTE

  • He shoots his videos with a GoPro camera on his head.
  • In case you’re wondering why the kitchens differ, he moved from the second videos house to the first one.

How to Make Lo Mein with Jet Tila | Ready Jet Cook With Jet Tila | Food Network -Jet Tila (11:35)

NOTE

  • Kenji takes a bit more time to explain how to prepare the vegetables, etc., so you can prepare them more easily than the others.

The Woks of Life

How to Cook Lo Mein Noodles (Raw vs. Pre-cooked Lo Mein Noodles) – The Woks of Life (11:53)

REMINDER – This video explains the difference and how to cook lo mein noodles. I found it very useful.

Chow Mein – Setting the record straight! – The Woks of Life (12:01)

 

NOTE – He takes a bit more time to explain the difference between fresh and dry noodles and how to prepare Chow Mein noodles, which are drier and crispier.

Further ARTICLES – The Woks of Life

Conclusion

Hope this was helpful and if you have any other foods You need to know more about maybe I can help figure it out for you or with you.

Posted in 2024, Cooking, Food, Research | Leave a comment