Chicken Bliss

Dinner last Tuesday is chicken at May and Hugh's.  We are invited along with our friends and neighbors Mike and Anita.  The evening stats with some home-made humus (courtesy of Hugh) on home-made crackers (Mary's).  To accompany those, we have an appetizer of cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and zucchini. I have not eaten much all day, so I inhale the first few bytes and they hit the spot.  It seems like the perfect start for that school night.

The evening is sold to us as a comfort food, which is an usual way of lowering expectations to indicate good but not surprising or elaborate.  Dinner might not have been a lot of work, but surprise it did.  Mary's kitchen produces a sublime combination that serves to satisfy and startle.  Very simple ingredients come together artfully to pair the warm company and conversation.  

Served over white rice, are pieces of chicken cooked along with peppers, golden raisins (plumped up to almost their original size) and kalamata olives.  That last ingredient complete makes the dish.  The olives are warm, slightly softened from the cooking and give the perfect amount of personality to the plate.  During dinner I interrogate our host to gather details about the preparation.   I have got t try this at home!

The knead-less bread (also home-made), with a nice dark crust on the outside serves to round the meal.  Ending the perfect meal for our school night is an also home-made apple pie (one of my favorites) with a hint of nutmeg.  Thanks, Mary and Hugh for a terrific evening at the heart of the Phoenix.

Doped

My ankle has been bothering me since last week.  I think I need to tweak my training schedule to ease the first long run after my last long run before a marathon.  At its current length, it puts too much stress on my joints.

Rest for a week didn't do much, so, while it does not bother me walking, after a mile running I start feeling some pressure and then a sharp pain develops.  With less than a week t go to my next race (none other than the Tokyo Marathon), I decide to go to the doctor.  Two co-pays later, I have seen my family physician and a specialist.  The X-Rays show no fracture, so I end up with a cortisone shot to the ankle.

Last night, just a few hours after the shot, I am limping.  This morning I am better, but I can certainly feel some pressure.  At this point I am giving myself no more than a 5% chance of finishing Tokyo without pain and at most 20% chance of finishing at all.  he 12 hour flight will be even longer with this over my head...

BTW, I did check and cortisone shots are not banned by the Olympic Committee.  Not that out of a field of 33,000 runners I'd be anywhere close to a qualifying finishing time to see a pee cup, but still, I didn't want to cheat.

Tonight... Italiano!

Teaming up with our friends MIke and Anita, Sharon and I invite a few friends and neighbors for an Italian meal. No, none of us are Italian, but we thought it'd be fun.

We start the night with some charcuterie and cheese with some powdered olive oil. Of particular interest was the dry beef which we found entirely by accident at the local grocery store. It wasn't the best of the cured meats, but it was different and interesting when compared with the pork.

Paired with Chianti and Pinot Grigio, it promised to be a good start to the meal. Still, the best part of the appetizers by far were the crackers. Sharon made those from scratch.

On our test run, Sharon and Anita found some recipes for the crackers online and an interesting note on one of them: "Once you start making crackers you will not stop and you will never buy them again". I can see how that would be true. The crackers were very cheap to make (flour, olive oil, water, baking powder and salt for the base).

For the day of the meal, Sharon made red pepper crackers, curry crackers and, my favorite, saffron crackers. They were all delicious.

The meal consisted of a grilled Caesar salad (we lightly grilled the Romaine lettuce and drizzled with home-made dressing and topped with shaved pecorino cheese, anchovies and croutons. Following the salad, we had lasagna two ways. Anita made a great and surprisingly light meat lasagna (with italian sausage) and Sharon made vegetable lasagna (with mushrooms, zucchini, fennel and a great white béchamel made with dried mushrooms). Yep, there were no complaints for either one of those.

Dessert was my responsibility and I opted for a lemon pomegranate panna cotta with candied lemon peel, a pomegranate syrup and some of Anita's cookies. They took a while to layer to get the desired effect, but patience paid off.

Dinner would not have been the same without our friends (plus we would have ended with a lot of leftovers ;-) Seriously, this was another Phoenix evening with the warmth that characterized them (so much indeed that the next day we hit a high of 45). All evening we had good humor, great conversation and yet another opportunity to catch up with our neighbors.

Heavenly couscous, accidentally

I have a piece of cod, which I haven't cooked in a while and I am not sure what to do with it. So I head to the fridge and I see that there are a few items that ought to be used or they risk going bad. I pull them all out and find some couscous in the pantry. Couscous is good because it is high in carbs (runner's fuel) and low in fat, but cooked right can really make a dish.

The ingredients were spinach, pine nuts, nicoise olives, cherry tomatoes and garlic.

I decided to cook the spinach separately, wilt them in olive oil with salt and pepper and place them in a circle on the plate.

For the couscous, I chop the pine nuts and toast them. Then, in a pot, I heat up olive oil and cook the garlic chopped until it starts to brown. Then add the cherry tomatoes (whole), the nicoise olives (roughly chopped) and the toasted pine nuts. As soon as the tomatoes start to blister I add the couscous and let it get coated with the oil. Last I add some chicken stock, stir, cover and take off the stove to finish cooking while I cook the fish.

I have enough flavors already, so cook the cod in a little but of olive oil with salt and pepper. I fluff and plate the couscous in the center of the spinach and top it with the cod.

The result was very surprising in that it all came together so beautifully. Flavors perfectly balanced, all within a very healthy dish. Definitely will have to do it again.

Tokyo ready...

We are all packed up and ready to go... Well, not quite, but last week we got the registration materials for the Tokyo Marathon (and the 10K for Sharon). Excitement is building up. A few more days and we will be airborne...

Pushing my luck, after having won the last two marathon lotteries (Zoom! Yah! Yah! and Tokyo), I decided to attempt New York again. I tried two years ago with no luck, but I am on a winning streak.

Will three times be a charm? Stay tune to find out...

Going Molecular

Look closely... can't tell what it is? Powdered Olive Oil, but of course! Have ben wanting to play with this for a while... finally pulled the trigger and bought myself a half pound of tapioca maltodextrin.

Derived from tapioca, this powder has been specially designed to have a very low bulk density. It dissolves completely when in contact with any aqueous medium. This product is primarily used to increase the volume of dry mixes and frozen foods. In addition, this bland tasting maltodextrin functions excellently as a dispersant for dry ingredients in low solids preparations. Can stabilize high-fat ingredients and which can then be transformed into powders.

Mixed with olive oil ( a good extra virgin olive oil), it makes a powder that tastes just like olive oil. It is good (and fun) to put on food where you don't want for the (liquid) olive oil to run over.

Runs 4 Food in Cancun, Mexico

Taking a little break in sunny Cancun.... well, not so much, while the temp was 75 to 80 degrees, we got cloud coverage most days and even a little rain. Not that I am complaining. Back home was 10 below and cloud coverage means better running weather.

While at the resort I completed three 4 mile runs in my Bikilas. I know it isn't much, but the day before our trip started I was running the Zoom! Yah! Yah! indoor marathon, so I am even surprised I run at all (I usually take a week off after each marathon).

Anyway, this post is not about running, but food. We traveled to an all-inclusive gourmet resort, and once you lowered your standards just a bit (this was after all a beach resort), I have to say we were very impressed. A few items had a price tag (like the lobster below), but most everything else was free of charge.

The lobster was served "mar y tierra" (surf & turf) with flank steak, which I am not a big fan of, but I was very surprised by how tender and juicy it was. The lobster was grilled, something I have wanted to have since I saw Godfather II, where you see them splitting one in half and immediately put it on the grill.

One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to The Little Mexican Cooking School in Puerto Morelos,where Chef/Instructor Pablo Espinosa (pictured below sharpening his knife) delighted us with a few dishes.

The session lated several hours (four or five but the tequila shots got in the way of remembering the exact length) and resulted in a tour of mexican cuisine, techniques and ingredients.

Of particular interest were the salsas, most of them with habaneros and some of which were hot enough to require lost of agua fresca to put out the fire.

The class offered some participation and some of our friends had an opportunity to test the tools under the guidance of Chef Pablo. We also made the obligatory tortillas and guacamole, but also had an opportunity to explore less common dishes and beverages.

The class was followed by a full meal (something that would have been good to know ahead of time, since by the time we made it to the table we weren't that hungry any more. Still, the food was so good that we cleaned the plates. It really was a terrific experience, which happened to take place on the day in which we got the most rain (shear luck)

Along with the entertainment, meal and drinks, we got a little booklet with the recipes the chef cooked. There were, however, a few off-the-menu dishes that were worth writing down. Specifically there was a vinaigrette that surprised not only by the ingredients and ease of preparation, but also by its fresh flavor and great presentation in the way it was served.

Chef Pablo halved and pitted an avocado, cut a little but of the bottom to make a flat surface and help the avocado not roll on the plate and filled the void left by the pit with the vinaigrette. This made for a great and very simple dish. To finish it off, he added a few drops of olive oil on top of the vinaigrette and dusted the avocado with ground arbol chile.

The ingredients were quite simple. Here is a complete list:

Juice from 1½ limes (if they are too dry use 2)

¼ cup soy sauce

½ cup avocado oil (any light vegetable or canola oil will do, just don't use olive oil, as it has too strong a flavor)

2 chipotles in adobo

To prepare it, simply blend all ingredients in a mixer until a emulsion is formed. You can eat it right away. The second day is a little better and after that it starts getting a tad spicy, but it is still great. If you let it sit for more than a couple of days, the chipotles really take over and the heat is just too much.

Another nice surprise was a restaurant called las Pepitas. It looked more like a shack than a restaurant, but it was highly recommend by the cabbie as a less touristic place that locals enjoy. When checking with the Chef during our class, he also recommended a visit. So a couple of days later we payed them a visit.

We had some chips and guacamole and shrimp ceviche (a favorite of mine when in Mexico) and then jumped into the entree and reason for our visit, a whole fried fish.

You pick the fish you want from a large cooler they have in the back and pay by the kilo. The small ones were a tad too small, so we opted for a pretty large one and didn't regret it. The 2-1/2 pounds went pretty fast. (BTW, the picture below is very misleading, the plate was quite large)

All and all a pretty good trip. Got a few miles, got a full belly (several times over) and got a couple of days of sun. Just what we needed before getting back to the daily grind.

Mariana's Lentils

Last night I made Mariana's Lentil's. Mariana is my sweet, sweet sister who lives back in Spain. Last year, while visiting my family in Spain, my mother commented how my little sis (just a year younger) had over the years become quite a good home cook. Since we were planning on going to her house a few times I asked for her to make whatever dishes she felt were the best so I could sample her food. The two top choices were chicken curry and lentils.

As the days passed we missed a couple of opportunities to eat at her house and just a few says before leaving back to the US we finally got a chance to go to her house for dinner. Mariana planned to make the chicken curry, but having been a big fan of lentils all my life, I asked for her to also make some lentils so I could take them with me and have them while staying at my mother's before our return.

The chicken was good, but I am 1) not a big fan of chicken and 2) have eaten very good curries in my life making it very tough to compete. Since we ate out quite a bit in the last few days, the only chance I had to eat my sis' lentils was on our last day. Before going to the airport. For breakfast. If the Brits can have baked beans for breakfast I can certainly have lentils!

I was floored. Those lentils were unbelievably good. I mean, serious gourmet stuff. Of course you need to like lentils and the one-pot type of meals that come from mom's home (or in this case your little sister), but for days after I came back I kept thinking, I have got to get that recipe.

A few weeks after our return I asked her for the recipe. She replied with a long email including a list of ingredients without quantities ("a ojímetro", she said) and with a lot of optional ingredients. Best of all, they are cooked on a pressure cooker, so they take no more than 90 minutes from beginning to end. I rolled up my sleeves and basically added everything she listed. The result was terrific. If not the same, very, very close. I have made them twice since and they are just about perfect. They are also very healthy for you.

I hope her recipe is not a secret, because I am about to share it with the world...

Mariana's Lentils

(10 good servings, can be cut in half)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup olive oil
• Two large onions chopped small
• Two bay leaves (edge lightly burnt on a flame to bring up the flavor - great tip!)
• 5 or 6 garlic cloves
• 1 green bell pepper chopped small
• 1 red bell pepper chopped small
• 1 large leek (white and light green parts only) sliced fine
• 4 oz spanish chorizo (hot or mild), sliced thin and each slice halved
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed large
• 2 large carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 lb dry brown lentils
• 1/4 cup parsley, minced
• 64 oz chicken stock plus a little more (about a glass)
• Salt to taste

Preparation

Heat oil in pressure cooker. When hot, add onion, garlic and bay leaves. After they start to soften, add peppers and leek. Cook for a few minutes and then add the chorizo and cook a little longer to get the veggies to turn orange from the paprika in the chorizo. Optionally, and diverting from Mariana's recipe, you may add a teaspoon of sweet smoked paprika if you want.

As the veggies start to get soft, add the potatoes and carrots. Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the lentils, parsley and salt to taste (I added a little pepper too). Stir as you cook for another couple of minutes and then add chicken stock, stir and close the pressure cooker.

Cook on medium until the pressure cooker starts releasing steam. The time to cook will vary from pressure cooker to pressure cooker and depending on the type of lentils. Mariana cooks them for 20 minutes. For me 15 or 16 are plenty or they will get too soft. I would start with 15 and then cook a little longer if needed until the lentils are tender. When done, adjust salt (and pepper if you used it).

The lentils will look a tad soupy. The flavor and thickness will be better the second day, so it is better to make them a day in advance. After you have made them the first time and if you go again, you can adjust cooking time and amount of stock, but give them the extra day before you decide. They have a way to thicken overnight.

I like to serve them with croutons (home-made, please). When you get tired of eating lentils that way (unlikely), you can add a little bit of milk and puree them in a blender for a pretty darn good variation (also with croutons, of course).

Thanks go to Mariana for sharing her recipe which could not be kept a secret and should immediately and automatically become patrimony of the human kind. Thanks, Mariana.

(I apologize for not having a picture for this post, but I made them last night and didn't think about making a post out of this until this morning.)

ZYY Race Report

Two weeks ago today I finished the very awesome Zoom! Yah! Yah! Marathon. It's taken me a couple of weeks to report since I went immediately after the run on a trip to Cancun. But that will be the theme of an entirely different post in this blog.

Zoom! Yah! Yah! is an indoor marathon held on the suspended track of St Olaf College, just a little over an hour south of the Twin Cities. The race is limited to 45 participants and requires a lottery to be selected to participate.

The picture below shows the track that runners need to run 150 times for just a tad over the intended 26.2 miles (and that is if you get to run all on the inside track, an impossibility if you plan on passing anybody). The continuous turns are known to have brought some extra stress to the runners ankles, but knowing that in advance there are ways to take the turns to minimize the effect.

Also to minimize the potential for injuries, runners change direction every 30 minutes. When that tie comes, the organizers place a cone on the track and participants run around the cone.

To this point, to the readers of this blog (and anybody who hears about this race) this may appear like a very boring race. Au contraire mon ami, this turned out to be one of my favorite races. Here is why... Given the limited number of runners, the fact that every runner has their name on a tag on their back and that, thanks to the changes in directions every 30 minutes, it doesn't take you very long to know every runner. So you are constantly getting support or giving it to the runners.

It is also obvious that with this track, there are no hills and the weather is nearly perfect (a tad warm in my opinion, but definitely bearable). This is also advertised as the marathon with the most water stops (150), but it fact it has up to 600. Each corner of the track has a set of tables where runners are permitted to setup their very own refueling stations with anything they may need. I just used one of them. Used to carrying my own gatorade bottle, it was pretty awesome to be running for 4 hours and never be more than 90 seconds away from a bottle of water, a bottle of gatorade, GU, body glide, nipple guards, an orange and even chapstick. You missed in on the last lap? never mind, take in on the next one 90 seconds later.

150 is a high number, but they go really fast. More so given what I think is the best feature of this race: the lap counters. Each runner is assigned a lap counter. Somebody who not only keeps track of each and every one of your laps (and records all 150 splits), but will also provide support in the form of cheers (often very loud ones) and keeps you going when you need it most. These volunteers don't come from heaven (although it felt that way at times), but are students of the St Olaf College who are also enrolled in the Track and Field program.

Mine, pictured at the right was Kristen. Kristen, a 5:40 miler, was pretty awesome during the entire race. She dutifully kept track of every lap writing the time on the finisher certificate. She also reminded me to take GU and let me know every few laps if I was running ahead or behind of my planned time.

In the meantime, she also managed to take a few shots with my camera to be able to add pictures to this post. More so, Kristen, petite as she was, had the biggest lungs of all the lap counters. She shouted at the top of her lungs on every single one of my laps to get me going.

Prior to the race, in talking with another one of the runners who had completed this race before, he mentioned that you do better at this race than you do in others in part because of the lap counters. You don't want to slow down not to disappoint them.

Before the start, when we were discussing the details of the race, Kristen told me she would have to leave around 10:30 AM (4 hours after the start) to go to work. Her coach would take over her duties since I was expecting to finish about 20 minutes after that time. When I had 18 laps left, I was aching to take a little walk. Just a lap. Knowing that I was going to be a little faster than planned, I suspected that Kristen would stretch her time at the track to see me finish. What really kept me going without taking a walking step was not wanting to make Kristen too late for work.

The result was a finish time of 4:03:45 (Kristen was hardly late by a few minutes). Thanks, Kristen! You really made the race! I hope one day I get to return the favor.

The picture on the left was taken by Kristen as I finished the last few steps of my last lap. At this point, every lap counter (all 45 or however many remained after some runners finished), chant your name in unison as you run the final lap. The very awesome medal shows a runner with the head spinning due to the many, many laps run in circles. In addition to the medal, runners get a T-shirt with every finisher name and their time on the back. That should be coming in the mail soon.

To top it all, Kevin Helliker, a Pulitzer Price winner writer of the Wall Street Journal was at the race to write an article about indoor marathon running. Whoddathunk it that my one and only (and very unexpected) appearance in the Wall Street Journal would have been due to me running a marathon! The article includes some shots and a short video. You can see me very briefly in the video (Starting in second 6, you see me with a white sleeveless shirt and red shorts taking a corner, also at 1:50 you can see a close up on my legs in the red shorts running in front of the camera. I know, not much, but what did the Wall Street Journal say about you?)

Kudos go to Dick and Dennis for organizing a terrific race and for being on top of everything, including providing excellent response when one of the runners collapsed during the race and had to be airlifted to the Twin Cities (he is doing fine now).

Scott and Tim, if you are reading this, we GOTTA do this next year. You are going to love it.

Team Ortho's 2011 Polar Dash

Sharon and I signed up for the 2011 Team Ortho Monster Series. The series is a total of five races including (as selected during registration) , a 10K, a duathlon, and three half marathons.

As a side note I will say that I passed on signing up for the full Minneapolis Marathon and instead selected the 1/2 marathon option. This race takes place in June and last year it was in the mid to high sixties. I like running in the low 40's, so I was pretty miserable and almost decided to stop running marathons altogether.

After the runner's amnesia sunk in, I decided to instead stop running summer marathons and keep running them in cooler weather. Speaking of cooler weather, the first race of the series was the Polar Dash. A 10k on January 11. A very cool 17 below windchill. Even so, had a ball. We run it with Mike and Anita and then Sharon and I headed to Elsie's for breakfast. A bowling alley in Northeast that has one of the best good ol' American breakfasts around.

Anyway, tomorrow I am heading to run Zoom! Yah! Yah!, the indoor marathon at St Olaf College. Less than 24 hours later we will be on a plane to Mexico for a well deserved retreat. It may take some time for me to provide a race report for that race.