Slow cooking the shit out of 2011

It was a culinary kind of Christmas.

Santa brought not one but TWO slow cookers. Something, or someone, was trying to tell me something:

I want meat, and I want it tender.

And so we began 2011 with a three pound cut of beef chuck roast, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook and a programmable Cuisinart slow cooker.

If you are to enter into the slow cooker way of life there are a few things you should take into consideration:

1) Do not begin your maiden meal at noon on a Sunday
2) Best to do your grocery shopping the day before so that everything is ready to go
3) For God's sake, take the contraption out from it's comfortable Styrofoam nestle of a box

Since we like to live dangerously, we opened our precious piece of meat half past 1 in the afternoon for what was quickly becoming a late night pot roast snack.

But it was hard to stop. I mean look at that thing. It begged to be slow-cooked.



We chopped a few veggies, braised the beast in the new All-Clad pan, simmered a little dry - or available - wine from our Box 'O and plopped the whole thing in the slow cooker -- setting it to a generous eight hour timer.





And away we went.

We were giddy with the idea of all that flavor and tenderness working away without us. We had hired out, or out-right stole, Cinderellas little bird and mice friends for an afternoon of free cooking labor while we hit the town. It seemed scandalous.

Four hours later we were starving and had exhausted our neighborhood activities.

We returned to our meat-smelling abode with stomachs growling and patience waning.

We watched a movie, flipped through old issues of US Weekly and, being desperate for the passage of time, tidied.

It was brutal.

We ate a salad appertif in ten minutes that was meant to kill two hours.

I began boiling water for the egg noodles with 90 minutes to go. Within 30 minutes we were slicing up that tender puppy, weak in the knees, not caring a lick to wait any longer.

I threw some flour in the cooker and jimmied together some gravy. I piled egg noodles, the falling-apart meat and the soupy gravy high in a bowl and we just stood and stared at our non-work.



Sure it was 10 p.m. but... It. Was. Glorious.

Somehow in all the commotion of those first cooking moments I neglected to pour salt and pepper on the mound of meat (Me! Forgetting salt!) so it did lack a little depth of flavor, but the tenderness made us quickly forget any such negligence.

It was indulgent and delicious and, I can say from experience, even better the next day.

Of course three pounds of chuck roast is WAY more than a couple needs, but it did get us three meals worth and its more meat than we would have normally eaten in six months.

Oh, glorious, slow cooker, I can tell we are going to have a very happy and caloric life together.

What to do when you're not running

I'm still out of running commission.

Since the marathon I have gone, somewhat diligently, to the gym, but all those machines get painfully boring.

I bop from the stationary bike to the elliptical and to some thing that makes me prance in place like a gazelle with inappropriately different length legs. I attempt to know what I'm doing with some weights, I manage some sit ups, but in the end I am BEYOND bored. I mean, it's painful.

And then I found boxing.

It's a class at the gym that I assumed was a set-to-music version of tae-bo from my VHS days. But OH no.

This is Rocky in non-contact form.

The teacher, a former boxer, is our drill sergeant and we his running, jumping, hitting peons. The first class was utterly terrifying. I have been to my fair share of gym classes, sampling a variety of classic-type teachers -- the self loathing passive aggressive, the disgustingly bubbly babbler, the plain old hard ass -- but none that use a healthy dose of yelling, deafening music and a fog horn (yup).

I was a few minutes late and boxer teacher gave me a piercing look and then pointed to the ground where I was meant to join a snake formation of students doing the "bear crawl" round and round the small, dark studio. The group was, and continues to be, mostly women and a few heavily tattooed men. After crawling and running and sufficiently breaking a sweat I gingerly pull on some slightly damp gloves and take to a punching bag that a middle aged woman, sporting eyeliner and pink gloves, is already pushing around.

Others in the class share the bags scattered around the room and begin punching the shit out of them -- literally pieces of cloth spew from the hole at the top. Meanwhile me and pink gloves are paddling our bag back and forth like a fat toddler swinging on a Sunday afternoon.

Ultimately our punching bag stints turn into 2 minute drills where we move around the studio -- doing exercises in between punching like crab walks, weighted sit ups and push ups with a hand clap in the middle, something I thought only military recruits were forced to do in muddy waters in the rain.

The 20-or-so of us make it around the studio doing the variety show of drills until we each get a turn with boxer teacher. Even from a far this look terrifying. Not knowing how to throw, land or take a punch if my life depended on it, I was shaking in my gloves, wondering if I can take the push-up-hand-clap torture over a physical tete-a-tete with this Rocky remake. Pink gloves goes first and by the end of her two minutes her eyeliner has given her proper black eyes and her breathing is moving into heart attack territory, but she's smiling. There's hope.

I go next. It's not like he's hitting us, but, rather, we are hitting him -- his upper body, even, and pads that he wears on his hands. During the first bit he instructs me how to stand and to stop Stevie Wonder-ing with my head.

After a few tries I get into a rhythm that has me feeling every part of my body (though, especially my knuckles). As we move into a jumping, hitting routine he starts to get into it.

"Hit ME" he yells, I respond with a wind up that just misses his shoulder.

"Hit me like a GIRL" he screams through gridded teeth. Is that good? Bad? I thought I DID hit him like a girl.

I throw a punch and land it. I smile for a moment, he doesn't, I get back to the task.

Soon enough the rest of the class is joining in on the calls - "Hit him!" they scream "Keep at it!" Bolstered my the sudden team-like setting I do a rapid fire round where

I'm twisting and turning and my sweat-soaked hair is whipping my neck (I never did get the hang of keeping my head straight) and boxer teacher is pushing me and I'm pushing him back and he just reeks of man sweat and I'm wondering how long it has been since I've washed my gym clothes and he yells at me to do upper cuts and the sound of my glove hitting his pad starts to echo around the room and I think my hands must be bleeding already and my stomach can't take another twist and all of a sudden it's done.

And my heavy breath mixes with some sweat and I am slapping everybody's gloves as a "job well done" and I look at myself in the mirror and I look crazed and slightly like a beast and it feels damn good.

And all before 8 a.m.

Best work out ever.

Next up: how to keep your breakfast down during 90 minutes of hot and sweaty yoga.

Twin Peaks series finale, really?

Is what I wrote into my Google search button.

I mean, what the hell, David Lynch?!

I realize I'm a decade too late but is Twin Peaks the Best Show Ever with the most open-ended series ending in HISTORY?!



Five years ago I started this journey with R in his Carroll Gardens apartment. We would watch one episode whenever I slept over there and it was mind blowing. For one, HOW was this show on prime time television?

There's rape, murder, spousal abuse, schizophrenia and good old fashioned money-motivated deviant behavior (not to mention a lady who talks to a log).

Slowly but surely we made our way through. I found comfort in Special Agent Dale Cooper, Norma and Ed, and the small pleasures of a damn good cup of Joe.

But we stopped after we found out who killed Laura Palmer. There were some rumors on R's end that the second season wasn't as good and I was creeped out enough to take a break.

Five years later I find myself with an empty apartment, a computer and the full season of Twin Peaks. Having no idea where I actually dropped off, I popped in a disk and let the story unfold again.

And, yes, the Laura Palmer storyline is the clincher. But there's clearly something else going on in this funny Alaskan town and I was instantly hooked on the whole weirdo clan.

And things were going well. With Special Agent Dale Cooper's leadership we were able to find out who killed Laura Palmer (yes, again. I backtracked). And found spice and stories of long-lost love in our favorite FBI agent's past when a former partner comes to the once-sleepy town to terrorize via chess game.

Slowly but surely "Coop" gets incorporated into the town -- is stripped of his FBI suit-fatigues and even meets and girl.

I creep toward the end of the special edition set. R returns to our new humble abode and I pop in the second to last disk. Each of the three episodes is stranger than the last but we take comfort in that one last disk sitting in it's case, reeking of answers and closure.

We get to the third episode, pop it in haphazardly on a Friday night. It's weirder than most, steering the plot into the other-worldly, mysterious part of the show that lives in red velvet drapes and characters back from the dead.

But we swallow it, putting our trust in Mr. Lynch.

Audrey and Pete go into a bank and don't come out and Coop kind of comes out of the velvet-draped dream land but we're not entirely sure and then the creepy spirit appears in the mirror and Coop is bleeding from the head and talking funny and the credits come and we're all, what the what?

Thank GOD there are more episodes.

Except there aren't.

There weren't.

The next day we take a break from unpacking and pop in the last disk ever so carefully and flick through a menu of... extras?

The realization came slow.

Wait, that was the... end?

We go back to the last disk. Fast forward a couple of scenes, see if we missed anything.

Same Dale, same mirror, same bloody head, same creepy spirit.

Same ending credits.

I search the blogs.

What was that ABOUT, I ask?

But there are no answers. Only speculation many years too late.

It had to be this way, they said.

But it's not fair.

Cooooooooop!

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!

Enough with the dramatics. But it was weird, right? Has anyone seen it lately? If not, I implore you to check it out again. Seriously, how was this show on prime time? And how did the TV-viewing public allow Lynch to get away with a series ender so full of cliff hangers? If only I had been there, old enough, to watch it. Mr. Lynch would have heard from ME -- in frantically written letters sent on torn out sheets of school book paper penned in different colored ink. He would have read my wrath. But now, I'm too late. And I'll never have Special Agent Dale Cooper back. (sigh) I even tried watching the 1991 SNL episode where Kyle McLaughlin hosts. It wasn't the same.

I'm even renting the weirdo movie that acts as a precursor to the series because one blog wrote there were some allusions to what happened at the end. I'll take anything I can get.

xoL

Birthing the marathon

Running a marathon is, I've decided, a lot like giving birth.

True, I have yet to have an actual baby. But considering the anticipation of said event and the physicality that comes along with it, I'm going to go ahead and say the comparison is not a stretch.

Thus, my marathon birth story.

*Spoiler alert* I won.



How amazing is this guy? Yup. Running buddy.

Alright, so I didn't quite win it. But I finished. I think my time was 4:37 minutes - give or take.

But let's back up.

I was talked into running this puppy by my friend who has run three other marathons. I love Chicago, I love this friend and I've always wanted to try so sign up we did.

You may recall my trials and tribulations with training. It worked out well, in the end as I was unemployed and could contribute larger chunks of my week to hitting the open road. Then I got injured. Then I recovered. Then I got a job and training got pushed to the back burner but I managed to clock in 18 miles the week before so away I went.

Friend and I had a hotel right by the starting line and after a lovely day of distractions with Chicago friends and a hearty meal with my family who flew in for the even, we made our way up to our room for a short nights rest.

Up at 5:45, we dedicated an hour to stretching and preparations and made it down to the starting line just as they were blocking off some entrances. We squeezed into the 10 minute mile slot along with a couple thousand other people and...walked a crowded slow distance up to the start.

It started off great, as I'm sure these all do. It was a beautiful, if super toasty, day and the crowd was already thick and excited at the 7:30 start. We meandered through the crowd of runners in the loop and made our way up to the lakeside and into my old neighborhoods Lincoln Park and Lakeview. We even passed my old street (twice)!

Lakeview was definitely the most rocking of the neighborhoods, what with Boystown to support the runners in the Trannies-in-costume-dancing-to-Lady-Gaga category.

Friend and I ran side-by-side until about the halfway point. She was having some knee problems and we gradually drifted apart (sniff) until I couldn't see her anymore.

Then I saw my parents. It was somewhere between miles 13 and 14 and my dad popped out of the crowd and ran with me for a moment offering me sips of water and dates. Brilliant. It was also a lovely distraction. He told me they would be around miles 17 and 20, so it was always something to keep me going.

Turning west I tried to keep an eye out for Chicago friends who I knew would be hanging around the Diversey/Greektown area or thereabouts but, sadly, I never saw them. The crowd thinned in parts in the western neighborhoods but there were always people around and I was never not running in a crowd.

Around mile 16 I started to get a pain in my knee - a familiar one, that annoying IT band strain. But it was early and every so often it would go away so I just ran on.

Just as he promised, I saw my dad around 18 and then somewhere in the early 20s when things were starting to go downhill. At this point I was just running through the knee pain but it kind of provided a distraction from the regular old body pain that was starting to present itself with little bursts. I tried to keep up the eating but it seemed the last thing I wanted to do.

The latter part of the course weaves itself around the south side. Whenever I thought we were starting to run back north we'd take another turn and head south again. But it wasn't bad. Ignorance was bliss as I had absolutely no idea what was up ahead.

Between miles 20 and 23 I had this flash of optimism. I was getting down to a handful of miles and the crowd was getting thicker and more supportive. I even braved a sip of beer around 23. I had my ipod sitting with an hour long mix for motivation back up and somewhere around this time period I turned it on. I totally misjudged the type of music I would be up for. Some advice: less 80s and 90s ballads and more Beyonce. I think it was around 22 that 'Halo' came on and I literally got chills as I rounded a corner and saw the loop in the distance. The mix took a dive from there but it was a really nice 2 minutes.

And then 24 hit and there seemed absolutely no possible way that I could run two more miles. Like, none. The crowd was awesome but downtown Chicago just did not seem to get any closer. I was to the point of hobbling with my knee. Actually, when I ran it was better but whenever I stopped for water a shooting pain ran up my left leg.

Also at this point I had no idea how slow I was going. How long was 2 miles? 20 minutes? Please kill me, 40 minutes?

Then I started to see it. The crowd was a mass of color ahead of me. The mileage markers started to count down in kilometers, which helped me gauge the distance not at all. You had to turn right, run up a slight hill and then take a left and head in to the final mini stretch. People were screaming, just yelling their heads off for every runner trying to make it up that mini mountain. At one point I look over and this woman who had already lost her voice yelled, 'You're my hero, I could never do this.' And that got me over the hill.

When I rounded the corner and the giant red finish line was clearly in front of me I started to laugh cry and, I think, said 'oh my god' a few times until I got looks from nearby runners. But, I'm sorry, are you really going to finish this thing in silence?

I crossed the finish line with arms raised, like friend told me too, and totally and completely wept. Man it felt good.

Then it felt terrible and then I was given water and cookies and bananas and bagels and a cape of some sort and told to grin in front of a camera (I can only imagine out framable that one was) and wander TWO miles down to where family and friends would be reunited. That walk must have taken as long as the marathon. I was dazed and limping and feeling slightly ill just trying to retain a tight grip on all the goodies I was shoveled.

Finally, at the designated meet-up spot, I saw my Mom and brother and have never been so excited. They hugged me, sweaty and all, and it was the best moment.



My Dad, who was trying to find me up by the finish line, returned and we compared stories. A little while later, from out of the crowd like a sweaty little angel, appeared friend! She finished despite running on a bum knee for the entire second half of the marathon. I limped up to her and we hugged and both cried and it was hilariously emotional and awesome. We treated ourselves to free massages, very slow showers, a clean change of clothes and a panini and french fries afterward.

It was a crazy experience and I was surprised by the emotions and all I kept thinking is, why would anyone ever want to do this again?

And yet, as the days passed and my aches and pains faded it was really just the anticipation and excitement and shared experience that remained. I tried running the other day and got 10 minutes into a job before my IT band acted up. So it's going to be a longer recovery, but I'm OK with that. I did what I had to do. I finished/won and have my life back now that training isn't a top priority. But with the New York marathon happening this weekend it's hard not to think if maybe that's a possibility sometime in the future.

A long way in the future.

Happy running.

xoL

Ode to a Dad

Growing up, my Dad has been many things to me.



A tickle monster
A storyteller
A sailor
A captain
A coach
An athlete
A pusher
A know-it-all
A teacher
An adviser
A cheerleader
An intimidator
A snowboarder
A type-A personality
An audiophile
A Canuck with acute American political beliefs
A broker
A road biker
A planner
A fan
A support

He's not really a chatter, though he won't think twice to tell you what's on his mind. He's a straight-to-the-point kind of Dad who will tell you how it is and not cushion the blow. He's a dedicated, hard-working and loyal friend, colleague and team mate. He loves a good political joke (especially one that might rag on "my president") and will laugh out loud at clever commercials. He's a fair-weather sports fan but will always return when the seasons anew. He's a bit of a wimp when it comes to movies - no terror, suspense or gore - but that's OK, because so am I. He's a die-hard Leonard Cohen fan and thanks to him, I'll be one too. He's got calves that have taken him on 100-mile bike rides and maybe one day, together, a marathon. He's a fantastic speech writer and impressive consumer of news (so to keep his know-it-all status, of course). He's a grill master of the cooked-raw variety. Though his list of home-cooked menu items are few, his Christmas waffles are hands down the best I've ever tasted.

As much as he jokes that I must have been swapped at the hospital, I know I am my father's daughter and I have never been so proud to be.

Yes, my Dad has been many things but tomorrow, though he'd shake the label off, he is a superhero. And it's just one of the things I love him for.

xoL

Training day: Longest and finalest run, T-minus three days

Here we go party people.

What was once 16 weeks has dwindled down to a measly four days.

Saturday was my last attempt at a long run and it was, dare I say, a success.

I clocked in 18.75 miles.

I ran from Greenpoint to Williamsburg, across the Williamsburg bridge, across Broome Street in Manhattan and an already bustling Soho, up the West Side (lovely), across 106th street, into Central Park (where I saw, I kid you not, a gaggle of dogs doing circus tricks, a rare bird show and the end of a half-marathon race), South through the winding park paths, East across 59th street (the bowels of the tourist industry), across the Queensboro Bridge, down through my new hood (Long Island City, people, get into it!), across the Polaski Bridge, and back through Greenpoint ending and at an early Halloween celebration in McCarren Park.

Sure I wanted to chop off my throbbing legs, but I survived and it was enjoyable.

Now I just have to tack on a teen tiny seven (SEVEN?!) more miles come Sunday and we're golden. Pooped, but golden.

I have become completely and totally paranoid about injuries but I'm trying to take it easy. I'm fitting to do some sprints tomorrow to keep the stamina up, a Bikram yoga class Thursday night and a leisurely run Friday morning before jetting off to good ol' Chi-town.

I feel the potential to forget my sneakers in Brooklyn is so real I can reach out and touch it. The more I think about the possibility the more it seems they will sit this trip out. To prevent this first-and-last-marathon-ending scenario I have left post-it notes around my belongings as reminder. My belongings, at this point, comprises the remains of a suitcase in the corner of a living room, but you'd be surprised how many helpful notes can be tucked into the corners of said luggage.

SHOES, screams one piece of paper. SNEAKS yells another. DON'T FORGET demands a third. I may have even set an alarm on my phone.

Hey, this is serious people. By Friday, if I forget these puppies, I should bypass the plane and go straight to the mental hospital for surely this is a case for earliest-onset Alzheimer.

Should anyone be interested in tracking my progress/near-death experience you can try out the Runner Tracker as provided by Bank of America. My bib number is 43542. It may not actually activate until I register on Saturday, but try your luck. Now, no judging on my less-than-stellar times. The goal here is survival. Survival and beating Katie Holmes's time (no offense, of course, to Ms. Cruise, but that was pretty brutal and please just put me out of my misery if I'm running for five hours and 30 minutes).

A lovely friend mentioned the coincidence that the marathon date is 10-10-10 and this year I am 10+10+10 so it must be good luck. Let's hope she's right!

xoL

Gettin' low

I had my first New York low point.

Alright, it's not my first.

And certainly won't be my last, but it was a special kind of low that clearly needs sharing.

It was Thursday, 7:30. I had just forfeited my credit card to the most depressing New York Sports Club location (midtown West) - a narrow subterranean place that houses enough post-work tension to actually block natural light. It was September 30th, the last day to squeeze into a deal to join for $20, and with the gym's proximity to my work being inescapably convenient (and I do so want to spend as MUCH time as possible in midtown), I resigned myself to the inevitable.

But I was in a rush. Having fled work for the gym, and now the gym for the subway and what was to be my second attempt at a pre-marathon bikram yoga class, time was not on my side.

But my tum rumbled and the bikram class did not start until 8:15, spitting me out into the dark, all sweaty and starving, at 9:45.

I stopped into a vaguely-leftover-chinese-food-smelling corner deli to grab a Cliff bar (blueberry crisp) -- guaranteed satiation for a yoga class or, should the opportunity arise, a mountain climb.

I bopped and weaved out the deli and down the street to the subway that would take me to another subway that would take me to Williamsburg.

It was 7:40 and empty for a post-work commute. Not being able to wait, I fumbled for the Cliff bar packaging wavering between a rip-down-the-side and the potato-chip-bag opening. Deciding on the latter I pulled the two ends with full force and witnessed the granola-nugget launch out of the packaging and onto the subway platform 30 yards away like a faulty grenade.

And there it sat, all tasty and kind of sticky, on layers of New York history that comprised, at best, human bodily fluids, rat excrement and boat loads of garbage, taunting me. Without slowing down I bent over, picked up the target, placed it in my purse, bypassing the multiple garbage cans, and walked to the end of platform debating my dance with the unhygienic devil.

My belly rumbled as the subway screeched into the station. The doors opened, invited me in, and I took a seat on the wide, blue bench, clutching by bag like a stolen treasure. I made it one stop before I ripped a chunk of my sodden treat and popped it in my mouth, swallowing the morsel whole.

The mood in the train cab changed. The woman next to me shifted down a notch. The kid with the kid-sized backpack stopped talking to his buddy. The garbage-bag-guy at the other end of the car picked his shoulders up a bit seeing as his former roll as Most Desperate member of current society had recently found a new soul.

I didn't take another bite. I tried not to think of the bite I took. I made a list of slightly padded excuses in my head should anyone following this pathetic show ask what the hell I was thinking:

I hadn't eaten all day
It was my last two dollars
It barely touched the ground

All of these things were false. But I digested that bite. I got off the subway at my designated stop. I threw the evidence in the first garbage can. Stopped into Ed's Crazy Corner Deli, picked up a substitute and walked away from the whole situation.

And I'm still breathing. I didn't even puke or anything. I hit a low New York point and I survived. If I can eat a treat off of the subway floor and live through the night to blog about it, I'm sure I can expect great things ahead.

That's how it happens right?

Or maybe I should just pack more treats. Or remind myself that I am not, despite homelessness and near poverty, a bum.