Milk and cookies*

Glory Box - Portishead
Teardrop - Massive Attack
Don't Cry - GNR
Let's Stay Together - Al Green
Try a Little Tenderness - Otis Redding
Wicked Game - Chris Isaac
Can't Help Falling in Love - Elvis
One - U2
I'm on Fire For You Baby - April Wine
Downtown - Peaches
Gimme Sympathy - Metric

*Because pain and pleasure go together like milk and cookies.

Headwind

I just discovered that a website I have followed for years has been renamed. Recipezaar.com is now Food.com, and yeah, it still serves basically the same function as before, storing and offering millions of recipes. The original site in the 90s was a collection of hyperlinked pages without images, and over the years I read and downloaded books' worth of recipes. It's been redesigned many times since, but the new name and appearance are dramatic changes. It's like arriving at your office building and finding that your job is the same as before but you're working for another company (with a lamer name. Food.com doesn't sound or look nearly as elegant as a name with "zaar.")

This morning I overslept and missed the group run, so I ran the 18k on my own (on 5 hours of sleep). The misty weather was ideal for a long run.




I didn't feel a breeze on the first half of the run, but I definitely felt a headwind when I turned around for the second half. I think this poor tree lying across the bike path might have been the victim of some harsh gales.

Off

She's a twister, he said
a real firecat
amber eyes spitting
image of her mother
crazy is as crazy does

she drank gin in her lincoln
parked in the driveway
curled up on his sofa
when the migraines hit

he thought she had kids
god knows where
no friends to speak of
ex husbands fighting
the law or
the devil
or both

She packed up one day
daggers glinting in her tiger eye
I guess I'm off, she told him
and she was

















~Curried quinoa pilaf with cashews and ginger
and a ghost in the teaspoon~

Herring

‘Twas a fine day in Holland
The sun shone so bright
on my face
until shadow
Took over the light

Looking around me
I saw a tall girl
with an object
in her hand that gleamed
Like a pearl

A grey-silver herring
Did hang from her claw
held high
and then
she opened her jaw

And the fish disappeared
In a gulp and a blink
“I’m into whole foods”
She said with a wink!

Wafelling

Overheard on the sidewalk:

"I don't know what to think, but I feel like I hate her."

Whatever feels right

How do you know if you're running so-called properly?

In spinning class yesterday, several people asked the instructor about proper arm positions and back posture while on the bike. We had been discussing how the position of the knee, hip and foot are instrumental in determining the most effective bike set up for each person, so questions about the rest of the body seemed totally relevant and helpful. The instructor, however, didn't respond with similarly technical answers but with vague statements that are open to interpretation. "Keep a neutral spine. Whatever feels natural," she said.

I guess the same applies to running. You can take note of technical aspects like your stride length or what you're doing with your elbows, and you can quesion these and possibly change them, but only if you notice them first. Knowing how you feel when doing anything (as well as nothing) is really important. Overall, if it feels right, it probably is.

World food fact #2455: Bakers in Denmark know how to throw down pastry, chocolate and caramel into something resembling ecstacy.

Unorthodox

I was this close to backing out of sprints with the running group. Motivation is melting these days, but in the end I joined them and had a great run. I overdressed out of fear of feeling chilled, but when pratice was over it was cold enough for the jacket that had been laughably extraneous an hour earlier. It wasn't the easiest workout - 2(600m x 4) - but it was mercifully short, and in no time we were stretching to finish off the workout, and then I was pedalling home in the dark, no bike lights and tons of traffic, gritting my teeth and hoping for the best.

Along the way, I rode by the house where in summer guys linger on the concrete step and smoke sheesha. The air is perfumed with apple tobacco, sweet and unusual to me, fooling me into believing I am elsewhere for a quick second.

This summer in Hamilton I sampled an unorthodox ice cream flavour created by a girl with an ice cream machine and a dream: white chocolate, vanilla and apple. My tongue continually stumbled upon tiny apple pieces buried within the creamy white chocolate. A heavenly combination.

peanut butter cup

More rain this morning. Droplets of rain clinging to my glasses. Hordes of delighted ducks squawking on the bike path. The pungent smell of wet dog lingering in the breeze....

I bought a different brand of protein powder and road tested it in a Peanut Butter Cup Protein Shake.

• 1 scoop of powder


• 1 banana


• heaping spoonful of good quality cocoa (Dutch processed is best. Yo, Richard!)


• a tablespoon of peanut butter


• a drop of sweetener (honey, agave, etc)


• splash of chocolate milk

This new powder is very dry and soaks up more liquid than previous powders I've used, so I added a lot of water while mixing. Cold coffee would probably also work very nicely.

Jiggles

I dig morning runs, but I can only manage to wake up in time once a week at best and I'm comfortable with that. But now, after being on vacation in a different time zone for the last few weeks, my body clock is sufficiently re-wound to allow - nay, force - me to run at a very early hour. So, being awake and soon out of bed, I get on with the chore of getting ready to run. While doing so, I can't stop thinking about the staggering amounts of cheese and beer, etc, I consumed in Europe, shudder, consider the resulting jiggles, grit teeth, and tie the running shoes a little tighter. All of this emotional and physical self-abuse to run in the rain. As this grey scenario illustrates, my mornings have been torturous.

Some items that jiggle naturally and beautifully are shiny tea jellies.

















The exact nature of these entities is a mystery to me, although I have grasped that they contain tea and possess a, uh, jelly-like consistency. Do jelly fish have a similar texture? I ask because I will never actually eat an animal that seems more like a thorny rose bush than a delicious sea morsel. (The vulnerability of the scallop is much more endearing, isn't it? They just lie on the plate, relieving you of any worry of retributive stinging.) Anyway, I was given these two jiggly lumps by my server at the Affinity veggie resto in Hamilton as the final course of my Texas-sized meal. My dinner mostly consisted of burdock root, which was new to me and as mysterious as I would later find the jiggling lumps. Breaded, deep-fried, swathed in a thick sauce and dotted with sesame seeds, the taste of the burdock root was overpowered, but who cares, that dish hit the spot.