I wanted to pass this message along to all of our readers still interested in running in the 2008 NYC Marathon and do not have an entry
The Jack H Marston II Melanoma Fund (Jack’s Marathon Team) has 6 guaranteed entries available for anyone interested in running in the ING New York City Marathon 2008.
For details or to register please visit www.jacksfund.org/jmt_wmm.htm by August 29. Or contact Amy@jacksfund.org
Join Jack’s Marathon Team and help fight melanoma every step of the way. Donations received through Jack’s Marathon Team fund vital research and awareness programs.
Please note: The fundraising goal has been lowered to $1000.
Amy Saletta
amy@jacksfund.org
Although I have lived in the Northeast for 20 years, I was born in the South and consider myself a Southerner. Growing up, I always got a kick out of what I’d call southern expressions. My father is chock full of them so I asked him to write down anything he could think of. He sat around with some friends the other night and came up with a doozy of a list. Priceless.
I just posted a bunch of food pics and recipes from my recent vacation - here’s the last installment.
It may be the oldest trick in the book, but I love cutting a hole in bread and grilling it along with an egg to make a “bird nest”. Always a crowd pleaser.
I also tried something new - habanero infused rice. You take an unripe habanero which I imagine is difficult to find. I just happen to have about 50 right now in Peppertown USA. They are so fresh they appear to be fake…
You take the unripe habanero and drop it in boiling water along with the rice. At the end of the cooking process, the habanero will look as if its been stewed - it will have lost all of its firmness.
If the habanero ruptures during the process, you have to throw the rice out unless you want serious, serious heat. This recipe imparts a little heat, but largely adds a smoky flavor to the rice. When I cook this again, I’ll probably add another pepper for a more pronounced flavor. I served the rice along with some quesadillas that included fresh jalapenos from the garden.
I did a quick harvest before I left to come back to NYC - here’s the bounty.
I gave a friend a bag of those cherry tomatoes which he quickly used in a Summer Harvest Pasta. He roasted the tomatoes along with brussel sprouts, then tossed with bacon and shallots in a vinaigrette. Looks amazing…
I’m headed back out for Labor Day - more food porn to come!
To put things in perpsective, I’m on vacation.The Chevy Chase kind.
At a gorgeous beach enjoying the many splendid fruits of the Shambaugh Victory Garden and it’s subsidiary Peppertown USA. I have been harvesting a lot of vegetables and herbs, wanted to share the food “pron”.
First, feast your eyes on the first pepper harvest:
This is a decent amount of action, akin to backseat groping, but is only a harbinger of things to come. Here’ the score. The jalapenos have been the fastest and the most prolific plants by far. I have 4 plants and was able to harvest around 50 peppers out of the gate. The largest of the plants has around 25 peppers on it at a time. The bell peppers are off to a slow start, but I picked a bunch of green ones to jump start production. Humans recommend that you pick the early fruits of a pepper plant in order to encourage more production. Bell Pepper plants produce around 3-4 peppers per plant at a time, and I have 10 plants. About to get funky with a capital P. I only have one Poblano plant, but it’s sprawling, halfway to a tomato plant, used a cage for support. The Cayenne peppers are just beginning to change color, not sure how long that process takes, but I think I’ll have around 30 peppers soon. The Cubanelle (sweet) are prolific, but not too large yet. And that red guy in that shiny silver pan is a Habanero. We have around 20 that are about ready to pop. I have 4 plants and it’s gonna be a bumper crop of napalm.
What to do with all of these peppers?
The first thing we did was follow a recent Gourmet recipe for Jalapeno Poppers.The fresh jalapenos from the garden are much hotter than store bought variety and not nearly as waxy. This is good eating - great with a beer on a hot summer day.
We made a quick tomato sauce using bell and jalapeno peppers. Perfect over linguine.
We harvested green beans and cooked them simply with shallots and garlic.
We spiced up my favorite potato recipe with jalapenos and pepper jack cheese. Added a great NY strip rubbed with a Montreal steak spice.
The heirloom tomatoes are pop-and-locking across 6 basil plants that have gone into hyperdrive.
Birch made an epic caprese salad this past weekend.
We made 10 batches of pesto - third no butter, third with butter, third with sundried tomato. Here’s the no butter, made especially chunky for a tuna steak cooked later that night.
To honor all of this great food courtesy of the Shambaugh Victory Garden, I built a new leaf compost enclosure to help fuel future efforts.
That’s my first installment. More summer vacation food porn to come…
At long last, it’s The New Guy (holy crap it’s about time!) with his inaugural dofb post. It’s only fitting that Reach the Beach take top billing.
This evening one-third of Dukes: Team RTB took to the streets and bridle paths of Central Park for an evening jaunt. The run is of special significance because it marks two team members’ foray into an elite RTB training regimen; for our very own Stephanie and Kristin, it was their third run in 24 hours. They managed 6 last night, 5.5 this morning and capped it off with 4 tonight. Now that’s impressive! Meanwhile, reports suggest that Duke MFP has been knocking out two-a-days while Laura has been putting in 20+ mile days. And speed-demon Sean’s team The Chipmen rocked the Vermont 100 on 100 last Friday in a blistering 6:34 team pace, winning the Masters age group. Team Dukes will not be stopped!
RTB Training Tips:
*from now until race week, work in at least one two-a-day every week w/ 6+ mile legs
*train for your night leg: start wearing your headlamp or carrying a small flashlight on a long run each week (even if it’s a day run)
*if you don’t already own two new-ish pair of sneaks, get them; you’ll want to rotate shoes across your legs to prevent shin splints and other injuries
Many updates have been posted here about the Victory Garden’s progress and we’ve been harvesting all kinds of beans, peas, cukes & cherry tomatoes. Pepper Town USA is also going gang-busters and has been providing a plenitude of deliciousness. Last night, however, was a milestone that I relish every year - the consumption of the first vine-ripe heirloom tomato. Let me say - W O W.
Still Life With Yellow Heirloom & Green Habenero. You don’t get much of a feel for the scale of this monster, but I’d put it at well over 1.5lb, maybe 2.
First cuts - and the inside looks perfect. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with the larger heirloom varietals. They can be rather persnickety; appearing ripe only to yield an unripe or, worse, rotten center. It also doesn’t necessarily help that they have such medical-wonder proportions, one lobe can be ideal and another not quite there yet. But this puppy was showing red tasty scrumptiousness across the board.
Fully butchered and being carefully watched over by a tasty glass of rose.
We figured best to enjoy this rite of season as a caprese salad w/ fresh basil from the garden and some lovely Burrata. i was introduced to Buratta not days before by our local cheese monger at the Green Grape’s new “Provisions” store. This cheese lady really knows her stuff and I’m not ashamed to admit she has a flawless track record of introducing and upselling me into new cheeses (4/4 for the record). When she told me about Burrata, that it was a mozzarella with additional cream inside, there was nothing to be done but scarf a sample. The deliciousness met my tongue, synapses fired, a waking dream of the tomato at home bubbled up and *POW*, just like that, sweet sweet commerce was made. I greedily scurried a ball of the imported stuff home to be mated to this awesome ‘mater.
Love the Buratta and love the Green Grape’s provisions; I’ll gladly sing both their praises for making my life better.
The result. Nothing but ultra fresh and perfectly ripe, garden-good, tomato and basil, delicious cheese, some olive oil, salt and pepper. It was 3 times as delicious as it looks; damn I love summer - victory garden indeed!
This report was submitted today by a duke in fine standing and a life long lover of the swine. He’s sort of our own Andy Rooney and prone to rants that contain deep truths burried within the greasy layers of stream-of-deliciousness rambling. Also of note; the manifesto arrived burned into cracklin like some sort of delectable scroll. You’ll forgive if the translation is a bit spotty…here at HQ we were a little, um, late in realizing it wasn’t a snack delivered by secret admirer……
So after a weekend of mass pork consumption, and the onset of a mild case of trichinosis, it occurred to me that we might have somehow forgotten to pay homage to the sausage, the forgotten pork vehicle.
Bacon month turned into bacon summer and lord knows we have consumed some bacon. On top of the usual 2 pound a weekend minimum that has been set as the standing bar for the Ram’s Rest, this weekend we actually consumed 4.5 pounds of freshly cut slab bacon from the oh so sassy Smith Street butcher. For those of you not familiar with bacon, it is the pig’s way of saying thank you.
Lest I digress, back to the forgotten fruit.
In the madness of the bacon frenzy, we have neglected our friend the sausage, who has faithfully served us for so long & in so many wonderful ways. There is of course the link and the patty, who have been holding it down at breakfast since we figured out how to grind shit up. There’s also the hot dog (aka. frankfurter, frank, weenie, wiener, dog and tube steak) the most perfect $1 New York food on the planet. Like the oven at Peter Luger’s, the secret to the New York hotdog is to never change the water they boil them in, thus accumulating the flavor encapsulated in the nugs and boiled off bits from years of hot dogs. I go mustard/ketchup, kraut and onions, but I’m from here.
Beyond the commonly known breakfast sausages and garden-variety hot dogs I just mentioned, there are a plethora (yes jefe, a plethora) of other ’sausage’ related products that make this world a better place. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, there are over 85 varieties of sausage (with many having sub-varieties).
I’m going to stick the ‘mainstream’ varieties, and by mainstream, I mean the ones I know and like. I am certain the butcher’s son (who shall remain nameless*) knows more about this subject than I do, but his absence at the last few meetings has put his membership into question and catapulted me into a position of authority.
When I am king, you all will hang.
In the “things everybody would identify as a sausage” category there’s: Bratwurst, Chorizo, Kielbasa, Weisswurst and a million flavors of what we simply call sausage. Each has it’s own magic and will be sampled in September, now officially know as Sausage Month..
On the somewhat forgotten side, are the Italian’s contributions to the party, Capacolla (aka Gabagool as in “what? you don’t like Gabagool?”)), Mortadella, Proscuitto and Salami. Though we more often than not see them sliced thinly (and in NG’s hands by the refrigerator), these varieties start off as tubes and slabs and then are sliced after the fact. Rest assured they are real and they are fantastic. These will also be represented in the Sausage of Truth showdown in September.
Lastly, there are other regional pleasures that mainly exist in the places that deem eating crazy shit to be totally fine.
Included in this category are: bangers, smokies, scrapple, lola, linguica, goetta and frizzies. Each are odd and, in their own way ,delicious. I might propose a mixed bag event where nations are represented by their respective meats.
All in all, the sausage is truly it’s own pork champion, not some redheaded stepchild of bacon. I am resolute that, after sausage month kicks off, you will all have a clearer understanding of the power of the sausage.
I just hope the lipitor holds up its end of the bargain.
Today I finally had my chance to get out into the Cascade Mountains and hike in a beautiful location and only a 35 minute drive from Seattle.
My trip was to the scary sounding Rattlesnake Ridge , where I did not see any snakes but did see some beautiful scenery.
Hiking Time to Rattlesnake Ridge: 1 hour
Miles: 4 Round trip
Elevation gain: 1,175 feet
A group of Dukes went out Wednesday night and ran with the NYC Bridge Runners. The Bridge Runners are an area running crew that are somehow affiliated with Nike and promote running over, well, bridges. It’s always cool to take a lope that includes one of NYC’s amazing spans & it was an added bonus to do it with a bunch of new faces. The Bridge Runners have weekly runs on Wednesday night and usually offer two different options of varying length.
The Dukes showed up six runners strong and opted for the “longer” run which, while not really long, did provide all kinds of awesome scenery. I ran there and back as well, effectively doubling my mileage and upping the bridge-crossing ante (12 Miles, 4 spans crossed; 3X Manhattan & 1X BK). Great miles logged and hill training for RTB as the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges have looonnnnnng grades. All in all, an excellent evening spent running with friends and some good new runners met.
RTB:
RTB Training Report 2
RTB Training Report 1
RTB Announcement
With all the talk of Peppertown USA, I would like to throw in a suggestion for next years crop, the Bhut Jolokia.
Weighing in at 1,001,304 Scoville Heat Units, the Bhut Jolokia chili from India is considered the worlds hottest pepper. Just to put that into perspective, the Jalapeno is a weak 10,000 Scoville Heat Units.
The video below is of Gavin McInnes eating a Bhut Jolokia pepper and is AWESOME. I hope we can attempt this same stunt next season after a visit to Peppertown USA
It doesn’t take being lapped by too many octogenarians out on the road to begin harboring home-baked theories about the prolonging effects of running. The sheer number of active, fit and healthy older runners certainly eclipses what could be considered the confines of a “lucky few” gene-pool. However, much of the medical establishment has long adamantly championed that strenuous activity, and running in particular, has more profound negative effects on the aging than it does positive.
A study released two days ago by Stanford School of Medicine confirmed what many in the running community have long known - running slows the aging clock.
“When Fries and his team began this research in 1984, many scientists thought vigorous exercise would do older folks more harm than good. Some feared the long-term effect of the then-new jogging craze would be floods of orthopedic injuries, with older runners permanently hobbled by their exercise habit. Fries had a different hypothesis: he thought regular exercise would extend high-quality, disability-free life. Keeping the body moving, he speculated, wouldn’t necessarily extend longevity, but it would compress the period at the end of life when people couldn’t carry out daily tasks on their own. That idea came to be known as “the compression of morbidity theory.”
Fries’ team began tracking 538 runners over age 50, comparing them to a similar group of nonrunners. The subjects, now in their 70s and 80s, have answered yearly questionnaires about their ability to perform everyday activities such as walking, dressing and grooming, getting out of a chair and gripping objects. The researchers have used national death records to learn which participants died, and why. Nineteen years into the study, 34 percent of the nonrunners had died, compared to only 15 percent of the runners.”
Perhaps not the fountain of youth itself, but an elixer almost as good. Maybe ol Ponce de Leon shoulda pulled his conquistador head out of his armor ass and laced up a set of kicks.
I spent time in Baja this year riding a dirtbike from from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas. Along the way, I heard tall tales of a creature named the Chupacabra - a bloodsucking beast that prayed largely on farm animals, particularly goats. I know everyone has been caught up with the Montauk Monster, but here’s some video taken by a cop down in Texas of what he believes is the legendary Chupacabra.
We seem to be having quite a mythical year. What’s nhhkjkkjkhxt? Nessie? Bigfoot?
Having never done battle with a group of 12 tomato plants at mid August growth, I never understood how the idea for the film “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” came about. I know now, my friends, I do.
With Pepper Town USA neatly in order, the not- so-sleepy neighbor plot to the East (?) got out of control in the last few weeks. While it’s tenders were tending to other matters, the tomato trestle system could barely contain the high summer growth. Plants were growing every which way but as intended, with fear of taking over the basil and cucumber patches– egads!
A little known fact about grape and cherry tomatoes vines– allowed to grow along the ground, they will re-root and fuse with a neighboring plant. We had about 10 vines that made it from one side of the trestle to the other side. In an attempt to get some order back, I re-tied many of the vines and even tied some over the top of the trestle system so that the tomato bunches would start to grown over the trestle with fruit hanging down from the wires– rather than on the ground with easy access for all sorts of pests.
After 5 hours of re-giggering, Victory was indeed mine. Not with out some causalities, of course. About four sections of vine needed to by cut to make room and sun for other plants- there was just no way around it. Further, two pints of green tomatoes were shaken from their branches as the re-org took place. Not to worry, my friends, they will will not go down in vain. About three weeks from now, pickled green cherry tomatoes await your Labor Day martini!
As for the rest of the garden, the green beans and Pepper Town USA are in the lead with great strides and major yields ready for the taking.
I’ll wait for the Mayor of PT to arrive before harvest, as I think he has some plans for these beauties. The green beans were harvested and went to the pasteurization tank for their last Hoooray…
The cucumber plants seemed to suffer from the tomato invasion, and are not yielding as much as I would like to see at this point. I sourced some organic vegetable food from the hardware store and stuffed their little mounds– hopefully we see a turn around.
The Sugar snap peas maybe a complete loss, we’ll have to see how they do with the bit of maintenance and the additional water. Oh, and the basil party is on. One batch of basil pesto in the freezer already!
A bunch of kids in Queen have been outfitting their bicycles with car batteries, amps, computers, DVD players and huge bass cabinets. Talk about rolling thunder. It’s all documented in a movie called Made in Queens - could be worth checking out…
With the race a mere 5 weeks out, RTB training slogs on. The squad has experienced no shortage of injuries and we’re hopeful everyone will make the start in reasonably decent shape. I know I have my fair share of morning limps and griping muscles of late, but I’m also totally stoked for this new and wild experience. I mean, what’s not to love about a 24hr straight, rain or shine road race over hill & dale complete with vans full of sweaty, stinkin’ friends plotting great deeds and the inevitable vanquishing of suds?
Anyway, it’s a little late in the game, but I came upon what looks to be an excellent training program tailored for a similar race at roughly the same time in Colorado.
http://www.coloradorelay.com/race_info/training.html
I’m pleased to report that, according to this at least, I’m largely on-point as far as my own training goes. Though I’ve been notably lazy about incorporating 2-a-days so far. Ho-hum; maybe tomorrow.
Stay tuned for more RTB info, training updates and saber rattling from our intrepid event captain: The New Guy (TNG)
DOFB
