DEVOUR

Farewell 2020 and Welcome to the New Year 2021!

Lisa McLeod, is an author and keynote speaker on sales leadership, culture and customer engagement. I was introduced to her through PWH® and have followed her ever since. I subscribe to the McLeod & More email and once again, she has made me think differently. I’m choosing to follow her lead. She says, “If 2020 has taught us anything it’s this: Life is precious, and once a moment is gone, you can’t get it back.” It’s true. As tough as this year has been, I have been forever changed by it. The awesome, positive interactions I’ve experienced with others remotely or in person this year will be memories I never want to forget. With that, here are some food and drink ideas for winter celebrations in the New Year. Enjoy!

APPETIZER:

Hummus with Tahini

Ingredients:

> 1 (16-ounce) can of chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) > ¼ cup liquid from the can of chickpeas > 3 to 5 tablespoons lemon juice (depending on taste) > 1 ½ tablespoons tahini (sesame paste) > 2 cloves garlic (peeled and crushed) > ½ teaspoon salt > 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

the liquid from the can. Combine the drained chickpeas, lemon juice, sesame paste, crushed garlic and salt in a blender or food processor. Add ¼ cup of the reserved liquid from the chickpeas. Blend for 3 to 5 minutes on low until thoroughly mixed and smooth. 2. Place in a serving bowl, and create a shallow well in the center of the hummus. Add a small amount (1 to 2 tablespoons) of olive oil in the well. Garnish with parsley (optional). 3. Serve immediately with fresh, warm or toasted pita bread, or cover and refrigerate.

MAIN DISH: Brown Sugar Glazed Salmon, compliments of Jen O’Reilly

Ingredients:

> 6- 6-ounce salmon filets > Cooking Spray > ¼ cup packed brown sugar (I use light brown) > ¼ cup maple syrup (be sure to get pure maple syrup) > 3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce > 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1. Drain the chickpeas and set aside

> ¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 2. Place salmon filets in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. 3. Combine brown sugar, syrup, soy sauce, mustard and black pepper and pour over salmon. 4. Cover with foil and bake for 10 minutes. Then, remove foil and bake 10 minutes more.

Tips: I usually double the glaze to have more to serve with the fish. You can also make the glaze several days ahead and just pour over fish when ready to bake. I marinate the fish in the glaze for a few hours. Then, allow the fish to come to room temp before baking. If using a side of salmon instead of filets, you will need to increase the cooking time depending on size of the salmon. Half the time with the foil, and half the cooking time without the foil.

DESSERT:

A Fancy and Eloquent Holiday dessert (but oh so easy) compliments of Khaki Weber Poached Pears with Cardamom Whipped Cream

Ingredients:

> 3 large pears (Bosc or Anjou – I have also used little seckels for brunch single serve) > 3 cups red wine, dry > 1 cup water > 2 cups sugar > 2 cinnamon sticks > 6 cloves > 1 orange zest > 1 lemon zest > 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries

Directions:

1. Combine wine, water, sugar zests, cranberries, cinnamon and cloves in a pot big enough to hold the pears in one layer. Bring to a boil. 2. Peel, half and core the pears (or peel and keep whole for most elegant presentation). 3. Immerse pears in the poaching liquid. 4. Cover with a parchment round cut to fit the pot and simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour until a knife goes through the pear easily. 5. Strain poaching liquid and store the pears in liquid in refrigerator. 6. Serve chilled.

Whipped Cream

> 1 cup heavy whipping cream > 2 tablespoons powdered sugar (or to taste) > ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Directions:

1. Using hand mixer, beat the cream to soft peaks. 2. Add the powdered sugar and cardamom and mix to desired cream consistency. 3. Serve alongside chilled pear (or pear half) on serving plate.

ADDITONAL OPTION Crème Anglaise

Ingredients:

> 1 cup whole milk > 1 cup heavy whipping cream > 4 large egg yolks > ¼ cup sugar > ¼ teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Place milk and cream in a pot and bring to simmer. 2. Whisk sugar, salt, and egg yolks together until they are pale and fluffy.

Temper the egg mixture with some of the milk then add the remaining hot milk. 3. Strain the mixture back into the pot and cook over low heat until it has thickened. 4. Cool, uncovered in the refrigerator. 5. Serve pears chilled. 6. Spoon crème anglaise onto a plate and top with pear. Add whipped cream to side of pear or on top of pear half.

COCKTAIL:

The New Year’s Sparkler, Ring in the New Year with fruit and bubbly, says liquor.com

Ingredients:

> 1 ounce berry-flavored vodka > 1-½ ounces pomegranate juice > 3-½ ounces Champagne

Directions:

1. Add the vodka and cranberry juice to a chilled champagne flute.

Top with champagne and garnish with raspberries on a long skewer.

The New Normal – Hybrid Industry Events

Make the Most of a New and Necessary Format

By Rachel Bailey

As COVID-19 vaccines become available across the United States, the loss of lives and strain on our healthcare system will hopefully decrease soon. As that happens and as conditions become safer for greater social interaction, many organizations in our industry are likely hopeful that in-person conferences can resume. Such events help facilitate sharing of important information and provide opportunities to foster relationships with our business partners and customers. The ability to share information and strengthen relationships seems more important now than ever. However, we will likely need to continue practicing social distancing guidelines at large indoor events for a while. When that becomes possible, in order to safely maximize the impact of such events, many organizations may choose to adopt a hybrid of face-to-face (f2f) and virtual engagement.

Hybrid engagement for large conferences will require complex communication technology. Event planners will need experts on-site to help ensure that both f2f and virtual audiences can hear and see speakers deliver the same content at the same time without the distraction of audio feedback and other technology complications. Planners will also want to ensure that in-person attendees and virtual attendees can see and hear each other.

Hybrid events will also need event leaders and speakers who can engage and inspire in the new demanding format. (Super speakers!) The biggest challenge is the need to engage both sets of audience members at the same time. This is a lot to coordinate especially with challenges of connectivity, including real-time delay for virtual attendees, and security. Opportunities for distraction are also particularly great for virtual attendees. It is a lot easier to appear politely engaged while multitasking online (i.e. checking email, completing reports, and searching for information, goods and services). But if attendees check out, they won’t get the benefit of attending, and therefore likely not even register next time.

Will the effort needed to overcome such distraction and pull off a successful hybrid event be worth it? Besides the fact that we might not have a choice, my experience has taught me that the investment in safety and technology pays off.

How do I know? In 2007, I got involved in creating and managing online education for sales and marketing representatives in our industry. (Shout out to Share Moving Media!) Starting in 2019, I returned to in-person classroom interaction, teaching communication skills at the University of Georgia (UGA). Then, the pandemic hit.

UGA is one of only a few colleges across the country that kept its campus open this past fall semester. Because the school took rigorous effort to outfit its classrooms to accommodate CDC guidelines for indoor activity (including highly accessible sanitation

stations), I was able to experience hybrid teaching. While I can’t recommend the format for engaging young children, it is my favorite format for engaging adults. The hybrid format allowed me, as an instructor and speaker, to engage with my audience in a more customized way. More specifically, I was able to get to know them better quicker, and thus, adjust to their learning needs quicker.

The hybrid format for me meant that for each scheduled class day, one-third of my students joined me live in the classroom for f2f instruction, while the other two-thirds of my students joined us virtually through Zoom. I engaged a f2f audience and an online audience at the same time (while also wearing a mask). It was exhausting at first. But, like anything else, I got the hang of it. And I even learned some new instructional and public speaking skills.

Engaging a Masked Audience

Personally, I think that wearing a mask is not so bad. But… wearing a mask takes on extra complications when trying to engage two audiences at the same time while lecturing about a process that significantly involves the mouth, sound coming out of it, and facial expressions meant to enhance comprehension of that sound. This meant I had to use more of my body to communicate emotions that my face might have otherwise conveyed. Of course, it also meant I had to project more, speak more emphatically, a little slower even, and enunciate my words more.

But even more complex was the fact that I could not rely on conventional forms of audience feedback. Those of us who host webinars are used to what it is like speaking to cyberspace and imagining that your audience is attentive. Add to that the experience of also speaking to a live audience whose facial features you can’t read. Not only did I have to exaggerate my speech, verbally and nonverbally, I had to encourage my audience to do the same. I did that by establishing a shared language of gestures. Often, I would ask for a thumbs up or thumbs down to ensure comprehension or if they wanted me to go deeper into a topic or if they were ready for me to move onto a new one.

Seeing and Hearing Each Other

One of the biggest challenges of the hybrid format is integration of the virtual audience with the f2f audience. In my classroom situation, the live audience could see each other, me and the online group, but the online group could only see me and each other. I think that was the biggest drawback. To overcome this issue, I encourage organizations who plan to host hybrid events to find ways to help the virtual audience see and communicate with the f2f audience. One way is to encourage f2f audience members to log into the virtual session as well, so that both audiences can see other’s faces. However, f2f attendees will need to mute their audio to avoid audio feedback. Because audio needs to be muted and unmuted selectively, the use of chat features is important to ensure audience members share their insights with each other. To comprehend multiple streams of conversation that inevitably develop, speakers need to set chat rules to organize what gets contributed into the chat box. Having a moderator to help manage the chat box makes this much easier.

Another way to enhance engagement is to have a camera that can capture speakers as they move around the room – or at least move around the staging area. In my situation, I had to stand stationary behind a computer console because that is where the camera eye was. This limited my ability to engage both audiences. It limited my movement in general, but it also hindered the view