International Women's Day

In honor of International Women's Day (which was on Friday, March 8th), I attended an interesting lunch session with speakers from three great non-profits.  Each takes a different, yet innovative, way of creating global change for good by investing in women and girls.  A few of their initiatives:


The Hunger Project
Mission: To end hunger and poverty by pioneering sustainable, grassroots, women-centered strategies and advocating for their widespread adoption in countries throughout the world.



Programs: While THP runs a variety of effective programs, we primarily learned on Friday about their efforts to create educate and activate women in elected positions in India. A 1993 amendment to India's constitution reserved 1/3 of all elected local council seats for women, but traditionally women in rural areas were subjugated both to less education, and less food/nutrition, than their male family members (check out a great one-minute video on the cycle of malnutrition here). This meant that women were filling the council seats, but were essentially only speakers for how their male family members instructed them to vote.  THP developed a 5 year training program to educate local women in areas such as developing leadership skills, breaking through bureaucracy via Federation-building, creating policy change, and increasing female voter participation. To date, the program has empowered more than 80,000 elected women officials.

Village Health Works
Mission: To provide quality, compassionate health care in a dignified environment while treating the social determinants of illness, disease, violence and neglect in collaboration with those we serve

Programs: VHW is an off-shoot of the well-regarded Partners in Health, a non-profit co-founded by Paul Farmer which revolutionized the concept of rural health care. The model pivots around the use of local community health workers, who live in remote areas and help their communities find effective health care through PIH's doctors and health centers, where other healthcare services would be a 2-3day walk away (You can read more about PiH here).


VHW is focused on rural villages in Burundi, providing programs around clinic services, nutrition/food security development, and economic development. Women are a key focus, as experience has shown that healthier, better-educated women foster healthier lifestyles among their children, families, and communities.

The story of one of VHW's founders, Deo Niyizonkiza, is told movingly by Tracy Kidder in the NYTimes best-seller Strength in What Remains.

Room to Read:
Mission:  We envision a world in which all children can pursue a quality education, reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.
     To achieve this goal, we focus on two areas where we believe we can have the greatest impact: literacy and gender equality in education.  We work in collaboration with communities and local governments across Asia and Africa to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the life skills they’ll need to succeed in school and beyond.

Programs: Room to Read focuses on several initiatives: creating school libraries, developing girl's education, publishing local-language children's books, and more. They currently have programs in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Zambia, South Africa and Tanzania.

Feeling inspired yet? If you're still wanting to learn more about the struggle of girls in developing countries, check out Girl Rising, a new groundbreaking film, directed by Academy Award nominee Richard Robbins, which tells the stories of 9 extraordinary girls from 9 countries, written by 9 celebrated writers and narrated by 9 renowned actresses. Girl Rising showcases the strength of the human spirit and the power of education to change the world - it is currently playing in select theaters nationally. (See the link for the official trailer).

Gingerly, Saucily, and Meatily

Having already fed our minds today with the Contango post, it is time to feed our bellies!  I broke out three recipes today (two of which were new to me), and all came out with a tasty-yet-pretty-easy consensus, so I am passing them on - along with lazy people (aka cooks like me) tips/comments in blue:


Spicy Italian Sausage Lentil Soup
Recipe and pic adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen, a great resource for easy and healthy (and low-carb) recipes

Ingredients:
1 pkg. (5 links) turkey Italian sausage (I like the hot/spicy kind, and used turkey sausage to be healthier)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. ground fennel (I can never find this in the grocery store, and am too lazy to grind it myself, so I just throw in some 'italian' seasoning that came with my spice rack)
1 T minced garlic (let's be honest here - I use the chopped garlic that comes in a little glass jar)
1 cup slow roasted tomatoes, finely chopped
1 can diced tomatoes with juice (if you don't have roasted tomatoes, which I never do, use 2 cans diced tomatoes, with liquid plus 2 T tomato paste)
1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas) mashed slightly
1/2 cup brown lentils (I bumped up to 1 cup)
4 cups chicken stock
4 cups water
2-3 T fresh chopped basil (optional, I am usually too lazy to buy/use)
freshly grated parmesan cheese (optional, again I usually don't bother)

Instructions:
Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400 F. Lightly grease roasting pan with olive oil, place sausages on pan and roast about 40 minutes, until skins are slightly hardened and browned. When sausage has cooled slightly, cut into half lengthwise, then slice.

While sausage roasts, heat olive oil in heavy soup pot and saute onions about 5 minutes, until softened and barely starting to color. Add oregano, fennel, and garlic and saute 2-3 minutes more. Add roasted tomatoes, diced canned tomatoes, chicken stock, water, garbanzo beans, and lentils. Simmer 40-60 minutes, until lentils are very soft and starting to slightly break apart.

Add sliced sausage to soup. Deglaze roasting pan with 1 cup water, scraping off all browned bits on the bottom of pan, and add to soup. Simmer 30 minutes more. Stir in fresh basil if using and cook 2-3 minutes more. Serve hot, with freshly grated parmesan cheese if desired.

Great with a side of toasted italian bread or pita bread!


Spicy Sauteed Garbanzo Beans with Beef
Recipe (and pic) also adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. low fat ground beef
1 tsp. plus 1 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp Spike Seasoning (optional, I used a random Tex Mex seasoning we had on hand)
2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drain and save liquid
chicken stock to add to chickpea liquid if needed to make 2 cups (I didn't need any)
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground chipotle chile powder, more or less to taste (No surprise, couldn't find this in the tiny NYC grocery store. Used normal chili powder, and served with a dash of chipotle hot sauce)
1 1/2 tsp. minced garlic
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro (I ignored this one)

Instructions:

Drain chickpeas into a colander, saving liquid. Add chicken stock to chickpea liquid to make 2 cups, set aside. (If it's close enough to 2 cups, which mine was, ignore the stock thing).

Heat 1 tsp. olive oil in a large deep frying pan over high heat, then add ground beef, crumbling into pieces as you put it into the pan, and seasoning with Spike Seasoning if desired. Use a metal turner to stir and break up the meat while you start to brown it, about 3 minutes. When meat is fairly broken up, add chickpeas. Keeping heat high, saute meat and chickpeas together until meat is well browned and chickpeas are quite brown and starting to pop, about 10 minutes. (If the mixture starts to stick turn down the heat a tiny bit.)

Add ground cumin, ground chipotle chile powder, and minced garlic and cook a minute more. Add reserved cooking liquid (with added stock if needed to make 2 cups). Scrape the bottom of the pan with turner to loosen any browned bits, season with salt and pepper, then reduce heat and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 5-10 minutes. (The liquid in mine took more like 15 mins to reduce)

Turn off heat, stir in chopped cilantro and 1 T olive oil. Taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper, then serve hot. The picture shows a giant bowl of this stuff, but I found it a bit heavy (though delicious!). Probably a ramekin-sized serving is plenty, served with bread/salad/yogurt sauce/something a little less intense.

Ginger Cookies

 Adopted from Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa)

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (Too fancy - I just used normal iodized salt that I had)
1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup unsulfured molasses
1 extra-large egg, at room temperature (I just took mine from the fridge - oh well!)
1 1/4 cups chopped crystallized ginger (6 ounces) (Mine was actually candied crystallized ginger from Trader Joe's. Worked just fine, and was pretty darn cheap)
Granulated sugar, for rolling the cookies

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper (I ignored - cookies did fine without greasing or parchment paper).

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and salt and then combine the mixture with your hands (What?? Didn't see any point to mixing via hand - used a wooden spoon). In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (I don't have one - though I drool over the thought of a non-NYC kitchen where one wouldn't take up 2/3 of my available counter space - so I just used a normal hand mixer and it was fine, though after awhile it was sticky enough I was afraid it would burn out the dinky hand mixer motor so mixed by hand - good exercise!), beat the brown sugar, oil, and molasses on medium speed for 5 minutes. Turn the mixer to low speed, add the egg, and beat for 1 minute. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula and beat for 1 more minute. With the mixer still on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the crystallized ginger and mix until combined.

Scoop the dough with 2 spoons or a small ice cream scoop. With your hands, roll each cookie into a 1 3/4-inch ball and then flatten them lightly with your fingers. Press both sides of each cookie in granulated sugar and place them on the sheet pans. Bake for exactly 13 minutes. The cookies will be crackled on the top and soft inside. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 1 to 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Yum, these were good! But very serious on the ginger - don't attempt if you don't like ginger/gingerbread!

Contango

Gold Contango: One of our recent portfolio trades was a "contango" - where you believe that the price of a commodities future is higher than it should be (meaning it is higher than you think the "spot," or quoted, price will be in the future). 

One of the underlying terms in buying/selling futures is the idea of the "spot" price versus the "futures" price.  The spot price is simply the price of a security at any given time. The futures price is the expected price of a security, which is estimated using the spot price and the future time frame.

Generally, people are willing to pay more for a commodity in the future than they are now, since buying later saves them the cost of transporting and storing whatever the commodity is (grain, soybeans, oil, etc).  This means the future/forward price is generally higher than a spot price to buy today, but as the future contract nears its maturity date, the price will drop to the current spot price (theoretically).

Making money on this strategy is a contango trade: Say an investors determines that the price right now to buy gold in 12 months is much higher than the actual price to buy gold in 12 months will be.  The investor essentially expects the value of the 12 month contract to decline over the course of the 12 months, so the investor shorts the 12 month contract. In order to protect themselves against general movements in the price of gold, the investor also goes long the current spot price (i.e. 'buying' gold at today's price, and betting that the value of the contract to buy gold in 12 months will decrease).

Still sound confusing? Perhaps a Wikipedia graph will help - essentially we see the forward/future price declining for a given contract over time (as it gets closer to delivery date). By shorting the future/forward, the investor makes money.

Of course, this all depends on the rather giant assumption that no macro economic (or other factors) will cause the value of gold (or whatever other commodity) itself to change.  If the perceived value of gold changes, it can throw off both the spot and the forward curves, making it difficult to profit.

The opposite of a contango is a "backwardation." This is where the future price is perceived as too low compared to the current spot price. The strategy here would be to short the commodity at today's price, and go long the futures contract.

Short Euro/USD: One of our other macro trades recently was to short the Euro in EUR/USD futures contracts. This happened to be very profitable since the trade was put in right before the Italian election, whose results brought a group of anti-austerity politicians to power.  Seen as a blow to Euro-zone economic stability, this weakened the Euro.  The trick with currency and commodities trades is that movements can be quick and rather fickle; once profitable, we closed the position (thankfully, since the Euro since started to rally  bit).

If none of the above spot/future babble made sense (or worse, put you to sleep), at a bare minimum you can now impress (or frighten) your friends at cocktail parties by throwing out the term contango.  Heteroscedasticity is also a fun one, but that's a story for another post...