by Sam Tackeff | Nov 4, 2012 | Challenge
Seven weeks. It’s been seven weeks since I started the gym challenge, and today was the day I headed back in for the re-test of our power benchmark. I can’t express how proud I feel at how much I’ve progressed in nearly two months. But it’s significant. It feels really good. I was excited to get back in the gym today even though I’m still feeling a little sick and weak from this long cold. It’s good to be there, accomplishing things. If you had told me last year that I’d be doing handstand pushups, dead-lifting more than my body weight, or running races, I’d have laughed in your face. But here I am. And it feels great.
Strength: Back Squats –we’ve been working nearly every week on back squats. At the beginning of the challenge, I got to 95# for two lifts. Today, I hit a brand new max weight of #125. I attempted #135, but it was a little bit too much for this tired body of mine. That’s 30 pounds heavier than six weeks ago, not too shabby!
Benchmark WOD 1: “Fran”
21-15-9 reps for time:
Thrusters 95/65
Pull-ups
The prescribed weight for Fran for women is 65, but because I had to re-test with the same as six weeks ago, I loaded up to 45 pounds, and subbed jumps for pull ups. I eeked things out at the initial test in 9:40, and wanted to die. This time I improved my time by 10 seconds. Which… was a little disappointing. But 10 seconds is 10 seconds, and I’m looking forward to seeing how much I can improve in the next few months.
When I got home, Devon had picked me up a Barbacoa Bowl from Chipotle – meat, vegetables, pico de gallo, hot tomato salsa, lettuce and guacamole.
I then set to work doing a massive amount of cooking for the week.
I roasted parsnips in coconut oil with salt and pepper, I did the same to a delicata squash, sliced into rings. And while I was at it, I roasted a whole spaghetti squash. I also roasted a piece of lamb liver, but forgot to take a photo of it – a little too much juggling in the kitchen!
And then I made a big pot of Mel’s Chocolate Chili. The whole batch this time instead of being stupid like last time and making a half of a batch. Next time, I’ll double it.
Then, I took a dozen eggs and I baked ’em! I popped them in the oven at 325F for 30 minutes, sitting in one of my madeleine tins. You can place them right on the rack, but this makes it a lot easier!
When they were done, I put them in ice water for 10 minutes to cool, dried them off, and popped them back into their carton.
Then, I put together another braise – Maple Cider Vinegar Braised Beef.
I seared some beef shank meat in coconut oil, removed it from the pan, and then added onion, garlic, and shallot. I let it cook for a few minutes, de-glazed the pan with a quarter cup of maple syrup, a quarter cup of cider vinegar, and a cup of homemade beef stock. Nestled in a few bay leaves, and the shanks, covered the pot, and braised the meat for 2.5 hours, turning the beef every half hour or so.
After two and a half hours, the meat was tender and falling apart, and the liquid had reduced to a sticky sweet and sour sauce.
I took out the meat, reduced the sauce for another 15 minutes or so on the stove top, and put it away for a meal later in the week so the flavors would continue to meld.
Last but not least, dinner!
I pan fried some chicken thighs with salt and pepper in my cast iron, and made salads with avocado. Light and fresh! We devoured it in front of the TV watching old episodes of Dexter.
What are you cooking up this week?
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 4, 2012 | Challenge
This is a photo of Don, one of the awesome folks at my gym killing it on handstand pushups in competition. Spending a weekend watching competitors from my own gym participate was thrilling. It’s one thing watching athletes on TV, it’s another thing entirely to see people you interact with on a weekly basis completing superhuman challenges you could only dream of participating in yourself. (And by dream I mean… these challenges fill me with terror and bad nightmares… I digress.)
So I will admit utter terror when I read this week’s skill challenge:
Week 3 Fitness Challenge: Handstand Pushups
Team Effort : Total Handstand Pushups performed throughout the week.
Must be performed at CRCF, using approved scaling. Each athlete’s scaling must be approved by a coach and then upheld for the week. Any reps which are further scaled will not be counted. These must be FULL INVERSION. No Wall Kicks or Wall Climbs allowed.
Here’s the thing. I don’t really do “tumbling towards a wall” well. I don’t do cartwheels, and I can’t see the wall let alone six inches in front of my face if I take off my glasses. So I spent the first half of the week assuming that I’d just be that jerk letting down my team mates.
I woke up in the morning, and I was sick for a second day in a row with a killer headache and a low fever. But I decided to go into the gym anyway. I wasn’t aching, it was a strength day at the gym (low cardio), and my plan was to take it easy. In the past, I’ve found that breaking a sweat tends to actually break my fever, so I crossed my fingers and prayed.
When I got into the gym, I was a hot mess. I didn’t feel weak but my headache was miserable.
Strength
A. Push Press – 8 min. to establish a 1 rep max (I took it easy, and only worked up to 70#)
Rest 5 min.
B. Deadlift – 8 min. to establish a heavy set of 3 (Good set @ 135. Not so good at 155. Won’t count it!)
Rest 5 min.
WOD: “The Legend”
21-15-9 reps of:
Unbroken Thruster 95/65 (I scaled to 35#)
Unbroken KBS 1.5/1 (I scaled to Russian Swings – only to eye level instead of over the head.)
*Rest as needed between sets. The sets MUST be unbroken, if you break a set you have to drop and do 10 burpees AND start the movement from scratch. Don’t break, this is a mental game and we don’t want to see massive underscaling to complete quickly. This should be your “usual” scaling.
Result: 13:36. Sweating, miserable… and fever broken! Never have I been so happy to finish!
And suddenly? Just as it came, the headache was gone. Except in it’s place? Insanity. In the next hour, I hung around with a patient group of folks, attempting to make it into a handstand. An hour… of just falling towards the wall. Over, and over and over again. An hour of slamming my palms down on the ground because I didn’t quite get that you could do this smoothly and efficiently. An hour of my glasses flinging themselves off enough times that I finally gave up and prayed that I’d be able to attempt this feat semi-blind. Until suddenly. I GOT IT. And I got it again. And dear sweet lord I was doing handstand pushups. And knocked out 50, because, for once in my life I had surprised myself so much that sheer ecstasy was fueling each rep. So now I pretty much have no excuses left in life… because I. can. do. handstand. pushups. I’m not really sure what is happening here, but I’m guessing that it’s a good thing.
* * *
Okay, enough about that. This is a food blog. I assure you that I’ve been doing some good eating. When I got home from my morning adventures, I set about making this lunch. In the middle of the night, I had filled my Crockpot with beef shanks, garlic, peppers, onions and spices and then let it go through mid morning. By lunch, I fished things out, and mixed my falling apart shanks and vegetables with some leftover Rao’s tomato sauce.
In the afternoon, I realized that I hadn’t had my coffee, and that I’d really like a small cup. I drank about half – for me, the act of making the cup of coffee, the aroma, and clutching the cup with warm hands is often more important than the coffee itself. This is probably an expensive habit given all of the overpriced coffee I drink, but I’m unapologetic.
At night, I met up with a high school friend for tea at Porter Square Books – a bookstore/cafe hybrid that is one of my favorite places in this city. This may have been the first time I’ve been there without leaving with half a dozen new things to read – but we were too busy catching up to browse.
By the time I headed home it was dark and too late to cook – so I headed to Super Fusion II to pick up Japanese food! After a month of craving our favorite takeout, I finally caved, and indulged in a big plate of sashimi – tuna, yellowtail, salmon, and scallops, over an extra portion of daikon. Instead of soy sauce, I used my own coconut aminos.
I wish I could end this here, but I have a blasphemous admission. After a few bites of some really excellent sashimi, I realized that what I really wanted was warm food. So I did the inconceivable – I took my fish into the kitchen, seasoned each piece with salt and pepper, and seared them off. And that’s my dinner plate – some mighty good fish.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 29, 2012 | Braises, Meat
Waking up to the whistle and hiss of old metal heaters in our house just starting to kick in, I’ve been thankful these past few nights for my L.L. Bean comforter. Summer has left us, and we are on to crisper weather and shorter days. Fall necessitates comfort, warm sticky stews, roasted root vegetables, bowls of mashed potatoes, spice breads, and poached fruit.
Around this time of year I start thinking of cooking traditions again, after exploring out and about all summer long, I long to be home in the kitchen, the oven filled with roasting vegetables, or the rising batter of my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cake. One of my favorite fall dinners is my mom’s Osso Bucco (braised veal shank). When she cooked it, the house would smell delicious for hours, and the reward would be a big meaty treat in each of our bowls. We’d impolitely gnaw down to the bone, and loudly suck out the wobbly marrow.
When chilly air hits us, this is the first thing I want to make. It’s a wonderful project for a Sunday afternoon, requires minimal effort and leaves plenty of time to curl up with a good book while you wait for supper. This stew is largely put together with bits and pieces in my kitchen, but that’s sort of the beauty of it – you can make it how you want. I use lots of carrots, but adding potatoes would be good too. Finding quality pastured veal is difficult, so usually I’ll substitute beef shanks, but you could even make this with stew meat and you’d be rewarded at the end.
To start, I turned the oven to 350 F. These are cross-cut beef shanks I picked up at M.F. Dulock, which I seasoned with salt and pepper. I then heated up my big skillet over medium heat, and cooked some onions in a little schmaltz (chicken fat!) with some La Quercia pancetta.
Then seared off the shanks, a few minutes on each side.
I then took out the meat, added a large chopped carrot, deglazed the pan with some stock and tomato sauce (I used Rao’s Marinara), nestled the meat back in, added a handful of whole garlic cloves, seasoned it all with some dried porcini mushrooms, rosemary and bay leaves, salt and pepper, covered it, and let it cook for a few hours.
After two hours, I added some thickly cut carrots, and cooked it until they were tender, about one more hour. Devon got his served over a big bowl of mashed potatoes.
I got mine with an extra serving of carrots. To finish off the dish, I added the winning combination of parsley and lemon zest, a sort of deconstructed gremolata.
beef shank stew
serves 2 – 4
1 tablespoon good fat (I used schmaltz, you could use butter or olive oil)
1 small onion
1 ounce pancetta, chopped
2-4 large beef shanks (1 per person, 3/4 – 1 lb. each)
1 large chopped carrot
several whole cloves garlic
1 cup tomato sauce
a few cups homemade chicken stock
water (or one part water, one part red wine)
a few dried porcini mushrooms
a bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon. dried rosemary (or a sprig of fresh)
3 large carrots, chopped into coins
for the gremolata:
zest of a lemon
a small handful of parsley, chopped
Start by turning on your oven to 350 degrees. Season your beef shanks with salt and pepper, and set aside. Heat up the fat in a large heavy bottomed skillet or large dutch oven over medium heat. Chop up your onion and add to the pan with a good pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes and add the pancetta, and a few grinds of fresh pepper from a mill if you have one. Stir about for a few minutes as you chop your carrots, and set them aside.
Raise the heat to medium-high, push aside the onions and pancetta, and place the shanks in the middle of the pan, searing them off a minute or two on each side to brown them. Then, take the meat out, and set aside. If you have four shanks, do this in batches to avoid crowding the meat to get a good sear.
Lower the heat back to medium, add the carrots to the pan, and cook for a few minutes until just slightly softened. Add the stock to the pan to deglaze all the sticky brown bits, stir, and add the tomato sauce. Put your beef shanks back in the pot, add the garlic cloves, and add a few cups of water just to make sure the shanks are almost covered.
Stir in a few dried porcinis, a bay leaf, and a 1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary, or preferably a sprig of the fresh stuff. Bring to a simmer, cover, and pop in the oven for two hours. After two hours, add the carrot coins or other vegetables you’d like (potatoes would be good), and cook for another hour until the carrots are tender. Serve as is, or over a heaping portion of mashed potatoes. Top with a generous zesting of lemon, and some chopped parsley.
The next day, add some extra cooked meat you have on hand, or use the meaty broth to poach a few eggs in. Here’s mine on day two with some crumbled pork sausage.
