Palm trees on the Canal

It's Sunday. We snoozed and Dexter'd, drank coffee and ate Netherlandish goodies left over from the holidays (long story!). A fine way to waste a day if you ask me, but then I got the urge to run so I did, into the dark. I had a route in mind so I set off with a water bottle and some thoughts to carry me through. And also "She's So Cold," which I'd heard just before the run and which buzzed endlessly through my brain like a fly caught in an empty glass.

Running outside at night gave me a different perspective of parts of the city that I usually only see during daylight hours. In one well-off neighborhood many large fir trees on lawns were adorned with soft white christmas lights which created a rich glow on the brick houses behind them. I also noticed fewer people about  - almost no one. During the day, the place seems rather geriatric and slow; at night, a grand neighborhood.

I thought a lot on this run about trust, at least from a writerly pov. Writers trust that readers will understand their images and phrases, and readers trust that authors will take them somewhere worthwhile. Not that every place is worthwhile, but some places are very good and worth more than others. 

For the first time this season I ran on the Canal with about a thousand skaters and considered how we trust that the ice will hold firm even as we make sharp cuts on its surface and jump on it, too. The ice won't crack and plunge us hypothermically into the water, and we won't stretch shaking hands the color of fish underbellies toward the large fake palm trees for leverage. Trust keeps us donning snow pants and tightening laces with gloved fingers and licking drips of nutella from steaming beaver tails. Trust keeps us coming back.

Cookies!

May I introduce my little nuggets of sweet protein. You can see the carroty bits more than you can taste them.

I'm going to pack a few for the spin class today. It's a class set up to raise money for the city's Rape Crisis Centre. I am impressed on a regular basis by this little studio run by bike mechanics and competitive athletes. These guys demonstrate that they care about health and social issues - and womens' social issues - and art and good coffee. I have loads of crap to do but this is a vital cause that needs our support, and I'm sure it will draw a studio full of excited athletes this afternoon, yay!

Half homemade

I got big plans for transforming these product divas. Anyone guess what that might be?

Yep - you in the back, you were right! Tomorrow I am going to makeover this ragbag collection of ingredients into a reasonable facsimile of protein cookies! Using the dry Betty Crocker cookie mix as a base, I'll add cooked mashed carrots, pb, protein powder and ground flax seeds. Last time I baked these cookies I used an organic oatmeal mix and the results were delicious heaps of hunger-staving beacons. Stay tuned.

Ran at the gym on a treadmill after work. Not because I really really wanted to but because I bought a 3 month membership and feel like I need to get some use out of it. All the worker bees land at the gym for a TM run around 5pm so the quiet gym becomes loud and packed with runners waiting for machines. Quelle drag. I had a solid 50 minute run with some intervals, then came home and finished some writing homework.

Double spin

I taught back-to-back spin classes tonight and lost my appetite. But it clawed its way back.

Class 1 was fun. It was a chance to lead a group of people I never get to see since they usually spin in the time slot I never teach in. I was revved from a catnap after work (I left early!). A last-minute pedal change kept me alert, too (thank you, green-socked woman). I was excited to see how this double shift experiment would turn out. Would I die from exhaustion or suffer a burst bloodclot in my brain? Naaaa, I didn't really think that. I was more concerned with hydration and eating enough/the right foods in the 30 minute rest in between. 

Then Class 2 got under way and I felt fine, if a bit tired. I still tried to be cheery and bossy, haha. By the end of the class I grappling and had to fight the urge to stare off into space. At about the 30min mark, I almost lost my place in the choreography but found it and scolded myself sufficiently to not lose it again! I thought of people working long shifts of physical labour under emotional and mental duress and then in comparison keeping track of how many sprints we did seemed easy as pie. I didn't get lost again. 

Now, laying down, my shins and calves feel achy and warm to the touch. Must be some geared up healing going on there. Go go gadget cell reconstruction. 

As I was locking up the studio I had an uncanny feeling that someone was still there. I searched the spinning room and the bathrooms but saw or heard nothing. It's not a large space. Everyone was gone. I think my tiredness was setting me on the edge between rationality and hallucination.  

On my way home I realized that a) my lack of appetite was a trick - how could I not feel hungry about 2 hours of spinning?! - and b) I was too tired to walk very far. I picked up a small contained of dinner at the veg place and ravaged every succulent morsel back at my place.

Rice pudding

Last night, frustrated with my limited kitchen space and the many containers of rice hanging out with nothing to do, I cooked a batch of rice pudding. I found it so appealing to make something delicious, portable (take it to work! eat it warm or cold!), high in protein and fibre AND cupboard-space-freeing that I have resolved to cook more batches in the weeks ahead.

I found a recipe on the Canadian Living web site and used the modification that replaces milk with a combination of coconut milk and cow’s milk. It didn’t require much sugar at all – just a scant 2 tbsp – but there is sweetness galore, probably from the golden raisins which swelled into fat golden grublets, haha.

My sole deviation from CL’s tried and true path (those cooks perform a massive amount of testing in their kitchen labs) was to replace white rice with a rice mix I bought at TNT – a risky move, given that it’s a diverse combo of grains, including short and long lengths and lentils and oats, all needing their own cooking times and liquid ratios. But hey, I’m comfortable with risk when cooking only for myself.

It worked out pretty well, all things considered. Most of the grains are well cooked while a few retain a bit of resistance to the teeth. Yes, it’s al dente rice pudding!

For variety I think I’ll use just one type of rice next time, probably brown, and regular milk. I found a recipe for a rice pudding that is baked in the oven instead of cooked on the stovetop, and another that calls for dried apricot pieces. I will probably make a vanilla short-grain-white-rice-with-cow’s-milk just to see what all the fuss is about (jasmine would probably work well). I have a lot of rice; I should have enough time and rice resources to perfect a tasty and healthy recipe by the time spring rolls around and I can leave my cramped kitchen for the wilderness outdoors.

If it's not Scottish....

"If you're looking for haggis," the chef of the vegetarian restaurant snapped, "you can find it out there." She pointed behind us, towards the door.

Ha ha.

She didn't realize it was Robbie Burns Day. And that my irreverent request had been a holiday-appropriate joke.

I wasn't looking to smell, let alone munch on any food containing sheep's stomach.

That's when she told me about vegetarian haggis. Now, I can find the thrill in tofu-flavoured meats as much as the next veghead. Duck and shrimp and sometimes even beef can be fun to compare to the original.

Which is why it'd be pointless to try the veggie haggis.

 Somehow I don't feel an emptiness from closing that door.

Spicy dahl

Eaket's dahl with pakoras and tamarind sauce.