Thursday, July 29, 2010

A Thursday Run Full of Surprises

Still in San Diego, conference is going well. Good content, but last night’s usual post-session boondoggle delayed my bedtime to the point a morning run seems less likely. No worries, Rick, a coworker (pictured mid-boondoggle at right), offers to run with me later in the day. During breakfast we communicate via text and arrange for a 10:30 AM run. Time works great for both of us since the sessions at that time have little value. First surprise is we actually stick to doing the run.

We leave the Hilton Bayfront hotel and head past the airport to Harbor Island. Second surprise is Rick. Great runner. He keeps me on pace, although I suspect I slowed him down a bit. He complains about his legs from a run the day before, but clearly he has no problems keeping the pace, at least not on the way to Harbor Island. On top of that he has perfect runner’s etiquette, slowing down or speeding up to maintain a group pace and making room as we run along in narrow streets.

We both listen to headsets and exchange no more than 20 words during the entire run, using hand gestures to indicate turns. The run is awesome. Again I was worried about high temperature, but cloud coverage for most of the run keeps us cool. We end up doing 10.61 miles in 1:27:32 (8:15 min/miles). Great average for me.

Last surprise is on my song list. I run to a list generated by iTunes from my library that has rock, pop and blues between 85 and 90 BPM. Even so, there are always a few songs that don’t quite work. To my surprise, two songs I thought would not work end up being such motivation that I listen to them repeatedly to keep me on pace: Jim Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl and Elvis Presley’s Don’t be Cruel. Whodathunkit!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Runs 4 Food in San Diego

Spending a few days in San Diego to attend a conference gives me an opportunity to doing what I like most: running and eating.

The run this morning was 5 miles at tempo pace (for me that is anything under nine min/miles) along the San Diego harbor. Nice early morning run. Passed the Midway, a retired aircraft carrier that is now a Museum. A little but down the road is the San Diego Maritime Museum with the beautiful Star of India. Definitely a good run.

The food (pictures on the right) are some steamed shrimp balls that we got free from the Bar Manager at the Hilton where my colleagues and I had a couple of drinks and appetizers.

Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant that is really not worth mentioning, so I won't. Hoping to convince some of my co-workers to try some seafood tomorrow. We'll see.


Sunday, July 25, 2010

Carifest - This time for real

OK, so this time we got the right date (see the correction at the bottom of my post Blackjack! An easy 21 for details on the snafu). We made it to Carifest, the Caribean festival that takes place the fourth weekend in July in Minneapolis along the banks of the Mississippi River on West River Parkway between Broadway & Plymouth. We had a great time with some of our Phoenix friends. Here are some of the visual highlights…

Awesome chicken combo platter, served with rice and beans - very smoky and a tad spicy

Kim enjoying a coconut

Birdie's fabulous shoes

Fall-off-the-bone ribs - one of the best things we had...

One of the cooks who graciously and proudly posed for me

Most incredible chicken and turkey legs

Second Annual Phoenix Paella – The Paella(s)

Finally the post that has been requested by all of my readers (both of them), the details about the paella. We made three of them. On the one hand we had limitations on the paella size. We had to use all of our paella pans (technically called paellas). Thanks to rules imposed by the City of Minneapolis, we could not use gas burners in the condo (even out in the terrace), so we hooked our large burner to the natural gas take for the large one and cooked the other two on the grill.


The second limitation was dietary. We had some vegetarian/vegan attendees (who cheated miserably once they saw the other paellas ;-), so we ended up making:

  • A traditional paella

  • A chorizo paella
  • A wild mushroom paella
I will provide the recipe for the best of all three, the chorizo one. This recipe was edited from one I got a couple of years ago from Kitchen Window during the Uptown Art Fair.

Chorizo Paella

Serves many, but can easily cut in half or even less to match your paella size. Calculate about ½ of a cup of rice per person (¾ if they are the hungry type). Leftovers reheat beautifully the next day with just a tad of extra virgin olive oil on a regular non-stick pan.

Ingredients:

¼ cup Extra virgin olive oil (from a jar of sundried tomatoes in olive oil)
2 onions, chopped small
10 garlic gloves, minced
4 boneless chicken thighs, cut in bite size (much juicer than chicken breasts)
10oz Spanish chorizo, sliced thin
6 cups
bomba rice (easily found at gourmet stores or online at Amazon.com)
2 cans artichoke hearts (extra small), halved
11 cups liquid (use the water from the artichokes and fill up with chicken stock)
2½ tsp paprika (sweet & hot mixed)
2 ½ tsp tumeric
big pinch saffron, crushed
1 tsp fresh oregano
salt
2 cups sun dried tomatoes, julienned

2lb little shrimp, raw and peeled
Sweet peas, thawed (or even better fresh if you can get them)
Crusty bread and halved lemons, to serve

Note on the chorizo and the rice: Don’t mess with these two ingredients. Yes, bomba rice is ridiculously expensive for rice ($4 per pound or more), but paella ingredients are really not that expensive, so go through the trouble and expense to get the right rice. Also, the chorizo is a critical ingredient adding much of the flavor to this dish. Do not use Mexican chorizo. You want the Spanish cured sausage. Palacios works great, whether mild or hot.

Preparation:

Heat oil from the sun dried tomatoes. When hot add onions and cook until they start stir to soften. Add garlic and stir for a minute or two until fragrant. Add chicken and let cook undisturbed until it starts getting a nice color turning once or twice. The chicken does not need to be cooked all the way through at this point. There will be plenty of time for that. Add more olive oil as needed. Just let it get a little of a crust.

Add chorizo and cook for two or three minutes stirring often to release all of its goodness. Add rice, artichokes and sun dried tomatoes and stir to coat with the oil.

After two or here minutes, add the liquid and follow with all the herbs, spices and salt. Give it a couple of light stirs or even gently twist the pan by holding it by the handles to even out the surface. From this point on, refrain from touching the rice any more. No stirring, poking or otherwise messing with it. If you need something to do, go grab a glass of wine.

Keep an eye on the flame to no run out of liquid before the rice is fully cooked. A few minutes before the rice is done add the shrimp to the surface and gently press them into the rice. The time will depend largely on the size of your shrimp. Couple of minutes later, sprinkle the peas over the top. As soon as the shrimps are lightly pink, you are done.

At some point during the last part of cooking you may feel like adding more stock. Don’t. Be patient and listen for the sound of a dry crisp coming from the pan. When you run out of liquid the bottom of the rice will cerate a golden crust, known as socarrat. You may check the bottom of the rice with a spoon. If you feel any resistance at the bottom you are doing good and are probably close to done.

When ready, retire the paella from the flame and cover with a clean rag large enough to cover the entire surface of the pan. This resting period is critical for the rice to finish cooking. Don’t worry it won’t get cold. Give it a good 5 minutes. This may be a good opportunity for another glass of wine.

Serve with the brad and with plenty of lemons to squeeze over the rice. Enjoy!


Saturday, July 24, 2010

The upcoming 23

Training schedule calls for 23 miles tomorrow morning :-( :-)

Part of me is excited. I love those long runs. They are really what i train for. The other part is concerned that it is too hot and it may turn out to be a lousy or disappointing run. This will be my last seriously long run before Ragnar. Finishing in less than 9:30 min/mile average would be a great boost.

Post run report: Good run. Did my usual route to Lake Calhoun and went almost 5 times around before turning back the way I came. Completed 23 miles in 3:35:12 (average 9:21 min/miles). I even managed to do negative splits. A rare things for me. Perhaps I am maturing as a runner. You know,... getting wiser with age (of after a sufficient number 0f miles). I am definitely ready for Ragnar. For details about my run follow this link.

Second Annual Phoenix Paella – The Apps

Suppose you have 40 people coming to have paella and you fear you may not have enough rice. Well, there’s an app for that. In fact there intentionally several of them. The idea was to keep the food coming so by the time the rice was ready, we would be able to satisfy whatever remaining hunger and/or gluttony remained.

The plan worked. Most certainly, nobody went home hungry. A testament to good planning considering that we were around for 11½ hours.

Here are some of the pre-paella appetizers (unfortunately not all survived long enough to be photographed):

  • Goat butter with Kalamata Olives and Himalayan salt – But ofcourse, what type of salt do you put in your Kalamata Olive Butter?

  • Lemon Rosemary popsicles, a palate cleanser.

  • Saffron Turkey Empanadillas – making their second appearance in this blog

  • Veggie Empanadillas – Also a big hit. Filled with eggplant, zucchini, garlic rosemary and lots of onion.

  • Salmorejo & fried Serrano Tartlets – these were a big hit. Salmorejo is very Spanish thick sauce similar to a Gazpacho made with tomatoes, bread, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar salt and water. Recipes abound online, mine didn’t have any measurements, so better go online if interested.

  • Zamorano (sheep cheese, similar to a Manchego) and Ibores (goat cheese rubbed with Pimentón and Olive oil, sharp and a little spicy)

  • Pa amb Tomàquet – A Catalonian tradition, Bread, tomato, olive oil, salt and Serrano ham



Second Annual Phoenix Paella – The People

By all accounts, the Second Annual Phoenix Paella was a great success. This was in no small part to the warmth of the people who attended it. Friends and neighbors had a chance to enjoy each other’s company in yet another occasion. We were glad to be a part of it.

Here are a few snapshots taken during that afternoon.



Sunday, July 18, 2010

A tenner with Rob and Mel

My running schedule was calling for 8 miles this morning. Rob and Mel (on the picture at the right driving last year's Ragnar van #2) emailed and invited me to join them on a 10 mile run. I am meeting them at their place at 6:00 AM. That means, if I want to make a couple of posting on my blog (my readers demand it :-), I am going to have to get up at 4:30. So that's what I did. We are going to drive to the lakes and run there. I've always found it funny to drive to a place to go for a run... Weather forecast calls for 69 degrees and 10% chance of rain. If it wasn't for the 90+ humidity, it would be a perfect summer morning run. But I am not complaining. As Rob says, "any day you can run 10 miles is a good day" (the number itself changes, but the sentiment remains the same).

Post run note: We ended up doing 9.84 miles at 9:14 min/mile pace. Pretty awesome run! The cloud cover kept it cool enough even if humidity was high. You can see details on the run here. Congrats to Mel on her new awesome job!

Second Annual Phoenix Paella – The setup

Thanks to the little Rainman in me, planning for the Second Annual Phoenix Paella party starts weeks in advance.

The menu is nearly final two weeks ahead of time. The community room in our building is reserved (just as a back up in case it rains). Rental of tables and chairs from Adelita’s (an awesome Mexican restaurant just a few miles from home) arranged. Evites are also sent soon, to allow sufficient time for RSVPs. Having a close headcount will be critical to planning seating arrangements and planning quantities. We also had to test capacity of the three paella pans that had to be used in order to feed all attendees.

The result of all that effort was a busy, but stress free morning on d-day. Or is it p-day?

Friday, July 9, 2010

When the sun comes up, you better start running

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running."

African proverb

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share this in my blog, since it is obviously about running and food :-)


Monday, July 5, 2010

Ragnar, baby!

Ragnar is a series of relay races that take place around the US. Last year, a group of friends and coworkers signed up to run the one that runs along the Mississippi between Wisconsin and Minnesota: Ragnar Great River.

Basically, the race is team of 12 runners making their way through 193 miles along the Mississippi starting in Winona, MN cutting into Wisconsin and ending in Minneapolis.

This race was the most fun I’ve ever had running. Team is broken into two sets of six runners and ride in two vans that leapfrog each other. The first van has runners for legs 1-6, the second has 7-12. Each runner runs 3 legs for a total of about 16 to 20 miles. Best of all, the race does not stop at night, so someone from your team is always running.

At one point during the race I had one of the biggest disappointments of my life... At the Prescott High School exchange, after taking a $3 shower (worth every penny), we were supposed to be able to buy some pasta.

For miles, we were running in the August heat and fantasizing about how big the plate of pasta was going to be. Unfortunately, this race is so successful that every one of the last few years, the participant roster has doubled. As a result, the kids at the high school were completely overwhelmed and run out of pasta just before we arrived. At the showers I saw a grown man crying from the disappointment. So after we took our revenge with a mountain of garlic bread we paid $2 to sleep in the school gym on wrestling mats. Ninety minutes later, Erik came to wake us up: “Guys, the other van called. They are getting close to the next exchange. We gotta go.” And off we were.

We finished in 27 hours, 34 minutes and 14 seconds. The medal is the biggest I’ve ever gotten after a race and is shaped like a bottle opener.

We had so much fun last year that we are going for an encore this year, although instead of a team of 12, this year we are going for the ultra version, with just six runners and one van. The team is getting together this Tuesday to plan logistics.

Excitement is definitely building up.


Saturday, July 3, 2010

Blackjack! An easy 21.

Here is a great recipe I like to make a few times a year. For me this is more of a Sunday dish, but today I did it on a Saturday since there is a forecast for thunderstorms for Sunday and this is a treat better enjoyed outdoors. The result is very healthy and satisfying.

Ingredients

1-24 oz bottle of Gatorade, Cool Blue
5-1.1 oz pouches of Gu, or any other energy gel
1 pair of Mizuno Wave Nirvana, size 10 (can also use Asics Kayano)
1 pair Coolmax® socks
1 pair shorts
1 technical fiber sleeveless shirt
1 cool breeze, if you can get it, it makes a great difference
1 mp3 player (optional)
1 pair sun glasses
1 running hat
1 long ass road
1 Garmin 405
1 running belt (to hold Gu and keys)
2 band-aids
Body Glide to taste

Time: 3 hours, 22 minutes, largely unattended
Yields: 1 awesome run

Preparation

The night before, load mp3 player with lots of blues. Make sure to include B. B. King’s “Chains and Things”. Charge Garmin 405 and mp3 player overnight.

If the weather is going to be hot, I sugest starting early. I got up at 4:00 Am and was out the door by 4:35. By the time the sun was peeking on the horizon, I was over 9 miles into my run. While getting dressed, about 15 minutes before taking off, take the first Gu. After that, take the rest one at a time every 45 minutes. Set Garmin 405 Virtual Partner to an easy 9:30 min/mile pace. The “easy” on the recipe name does not refer to the ease of running 21 miles, but to the easy pace that is run at. Apply Body Glide generously and band-aids over your nipples. I can’t stress the importance of these two steps. Double-knot your shoes.

Start your run and keep on pace as much as possible. Basically, take a step with one foot, then with the other and repeat until you reach 21 miles. This is the part that should be largely unattended. Other than the occasional Gu ingestion and sip of Gatorade, you really want your mind somewhere else.

When you reach the end, don’t stop immediately. Walk for a few minutes and reflect on your run. Then stretch for a few minutes (think of it as garnish).

Nutrition Facts

Serving size: 1
Calories: 500 Gu calories + 150 Gatorade calories - 2,643 calories burned = -1,993
As I said,… a healthy dish.

Note

The satisfaction following this run comes not only for the well documented endorphins released, but of having burned over 2,500 calories before most people are even up. In my case, most of these calories will make their way back later today at Carifest, the Caribbean Festival that takes place annually on the weekend of the Fourth of July along the banks of the Mississippi River on West River Parkway between Broadway & Plymouth, in Minneapolis. A great event that runs all weekend with live performances and great food. My favorite is the spicy Caribbean grilled chicken served with rice and beans. This is after all a blog about running and food.

Correction

Turns out Carifest is not on the weekend of the Fourth of July, but the fourth weekend in July. Of course, we didn't find out until after walking 2.5 miles in blistering heat and high humidity while pushing my friend's Patty Mayonnaise on her wheelchair. Well, at least we didn't miss it. We can attempt another trip there on the 24th. By the time we got there, we were so hungry that we ended up walking another mile and a half to have Fish and Chips at The Anchor.