| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Respect My Authoritah | ||||
| ||||
It's 8 minutes long, so if you need to skip ahead, go to minute 5:43 and watch from there. Priceless.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Friday Food For Thought
It's 8 minutes long, so if you need to skip ahead, go to minute 5:43 and watch from there. Priceless.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Culinary Throwdown: Picnic Baskets
Our hostess with the mostest, La Diva Cucina, was the winner of the last Culinary Throwdown and therefore got to choose the theme for this one.
What a lovely idea! Unfortunately, I'm currently spending most of my free time wrangling a manuscript, so I only had time to concoct a single dish. But in my mind, the sweet stuff is always the most important stuff, so here's goes my entry:
Fresh Fruit With Lemon Curd and Meringue Cookies
This is really a no-brainer, which is what you want for a picnic. Everything can be cut up and prepared a couple days ahead of time, stored in plastic containers, carted to the picnic spot of your choice in an insulated cooler, and assembled on site. I recommend serving in those el cheapo Pyrex custard dishes you can get four-for-a-buck at the local Dollar Store, because not only are they retro fabulous cool-looking, they're also tough as nails. You can cart them anywhere.
For the lemon curd, I've used Martha Stewart's recipe for years and it hasn't failed me yet. Easy to make, tangy-delicious, and super duper versatile, the curd works beautifully as a topping for ice cream, a fruit tart filling, or mixed with cream cheese for a kicked up carrot cake icing. And it's delicious slathered on toast first thing in the morning.
The meringue cookies are likewise easy to make. Ingredients:
4 egg whites (use the yolks for the curd)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup superfine sugar (regular ol' granulated will work, too, but superfine makes a crisper meringue)
Your choice food coloring
Beat the whites in a stand mixer on medium high with 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar until foamy. Turn mixer to high and beat in sugar, one tablespoon at a time until the mixture is glossy and sticky-stiff, about 4-5 minutes. Add eight drops your choice food coloring and mix until well incorporated, then pipe or dollop the meringue on a Silpat-lined baking sheet, pop into a 225º F for 1-1/4 hours, turn the oven off, leave cookies inside of another 60-75 minutes, then serve.
Take along your favorite bubbly libation and, bam, instant picnic desert without the hassle.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Everyone's a Winner
Usually, I would disagree; however, when it comes to the Valles Caldera Trail Race, then I'm fine with the sentiment. Because everyone who finishes gets to go home with one of these beautiful finishers' medals, hand-made by a Jemez Pueblo potter.
That's S.B.'s on the left—a quail. Mine is a turkey. Coolest finishers' bling, ever.
This was also the most fun I've had on a trail run, even if the course was wicked difficult. We started at 8,000 feet, negotiating the gentle ups and downs of about three miles of forest trail before emerging in the Caldera valley for a full mile of flat running.
The views were so gorgeous and I was feeling so good, I almost forgot that in trail running, what comes down, must go up. In this case, nearly two miles of slog up a section of the mountain that I swear must have averaged a 15 to 20 percent grade. Parts of the run could easily have been a scramble. Suddenly, all those Speedy Gonzales road runners who passed me in the first part of the race started to drop behind me like flies. I knew a lifetime spent hiking and running the Sandia mountains would eventually come in handy. If not in speed, then in endurance. Even if those runners eventually caught right back up to me . . . Stupid speedy people.
Then the best part of the race: another 1.5 miles of straight down hill, dodging roots and saplings and picking out footholds among sheets of scree and talcum-powder sand. I dug in behind one young gal who danced her way down the slope, following her lead to the bottom in what my Garmin told me was a 9-something min. mile pace.
The last five miles took us back through the valley, then up more high-ass hills, then back down another gentle decline to the finish line, where my step dad and S.B. (who'd finished about 30 minutes prior) were waiting to snap photos. My final time was a few minutes under three hours, my goal for the race.
Had Mother Nature not kicked up gale force winds that coated every surface of our bodies—including our eyeballs and the insides of our mouths—with grit, we would have hung out for the post-race festivities. I feel bad for the race organizers, as just about everyone was doing the same thing, but it was nearly impossible to even stand upright in those gusts. Too bad, because with the exception of some decidedly lacking aid stations, it was a great race.
Even better? This is the first Sunday in eight weeks I haven't had to wake up and head out for a long run. Hellllllllloooo, Sunday. I almost forgot what it was like to be this lazy.
That's S.B.'s on the left—a quail. Mine is a turkey. Coolest finishers' bling, ever.
This was also the most fun I've had on a trail run, even if the course was wicked difficult. We started at 8,000 feet, negotiating the gentle ups and downs of about three miles of forest trail before emerging in the Caldera valley for a full mile of flat running.
The views were so gorgeous and I was feeling so good, I almost forgot that in trail running, what comes down, must go up. In this case, nearly two miles of slog up a section of the mountain that I swear must have averaged a 15 to 20 percent grade. Parts of the run could easily have been a scramble. Suddenly, all those Speedy Gonzales road runners who passed me in the first part of the race started to drop behind me like flies. I knew a lifetime spent hiking and running the Sandia mountains would eventually come in handy. If not in speed, then in endurance. Even if those runners eventually caught right back up to me . . . Stupid speedy people.
Then the best part of the race: another 1.5 miles of straight down hill, dodging roots and saplings and picking out footholds among sheets of scree and talcum-powder sand. I dug in behind one young gal who danced her way down the slope, following her lead to the bottom in what my Garmin told me was a 9-something min. mile pace.
The last five miles took us back through the valley, then up more high-ass hills, then back down another gentle decline to the finish line, where my step dad and S.B. (who'd finished about 30 minutes prior) were waiting to snap photos. My final time was a few minutes under three hours, my goal for the race.
Had Mother Nature not kicked up gale force winds that coated every surface of our bodies—including our eyeballs and the insides of our mouths—with grit, we would have hung out for the post-race festivities. I feel bad for the race organizers, as just about everyone was doing the same thing, but it was nearly impossible to even stand upright in those gusts. Too bad, because with the exception of some decidedly lacking aid stations, it was a great race.
Even better? This is the first Sunday in eight weeks I haven't had to wake up and head out for a long run. Hellllllllloooo, Sunday. I almost forgot what it was like to be this lazy.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Everything I Need to Know in Life I Can Learn From the Desert
1. Once you hit temps in the triple digits, there really is no difference between 100º Fahrenheit and 110º. It's all hot.
2. But it's a dry heat.
3. Sweat is nothing but air-conditioning.
4. It's nearly impossible for wild critters to sneak up on you. Unless they swoop down silently from the sky. But that's only bad news if you're a rabbit. Or a squirrel.
5. Stare for 45 seconds at an image of blue skies and red rocks, then look at a white wall. Coooooool.
6. Next to porn, the best way to get rich quick is to appropriate the traditions of our Native desert peoples and recast them as healing remedies for spiritually bereft upper middle class women with revolving credit.
Yah-tah-hey, have you aligned your chi with Great Spirit today?
Happy Birthday, Shamu!
Greetings and best wishes for a wonderful birthday, brought to you by the Great Southern Utah Slick Rock Squirrel. A rare sighting, indeed, because in Utah, squirrels most often go by the name of Hawk Jerky.
Enjoy your special day!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Utah Bound
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
— Robert Frost
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
— Robert Frost
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Overpowered by Funk
It's election day in Nuevo Mexico—primaries for governor being the most importante vote on the docket (seriously, does anyone ever pay attention to who's running for Under Sheriff? Secretary of Tea? Judge of the Court of Knuckleheadedness?)
The Demobrat candidate remains unopposed although the Republitards have put up a slew of candidates, two of which are talking head Party Dolls a la McCain and Palin and one of which needs to still hone his public speaking skills before he trots himself back out in public.
The two remaining candidates I actually believe are truly worthy of the office. Which means they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected.
Same as it ever was.
What's up in your part of the world?
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