by Sam Tackeff | Apr 6, 2013 | Lunch, Wellness
For most people, the weekend is a time for indulgence and excess, but for me, the weekend is about relaxation, rejuvenation, and making healthy choices. For the past few months, I’ve been settling into my work rhythm, trying to balance my new role and responsibilities with my passion for being active. I feel so lucky to be working for a fitness company that allows me to leave early once a week to head to the gym – as long as I’m getting my work done – but I do really miss my noon workouts from when I was working from home. So instead of sleeping in on weekends, I try to get in a double dose, heading in both Saturday and Sunday for what feels like adult recess.
This past five weeks, I’ve been competing in the CrossFit Open, pushing myself to the upper limit of my athletic ability. Week one we tackled dreaded burpees and snatches, week two had me pushing hard with the 75 pound shoulder to overheads, week three I got in more than a hundred wall balls at 20 pounds when I had previously been using an 8 pound ball in workouts. Week four was my absolute nemesis, fighting multiple days to get the *single* rep I needed to move on to round five. 95 pounds was 10 more than my PR for the clean and jerk, and my form (not the weight itself) was holding me back. It was a collective gym effort to get me to that rep – and after days of no success, Coach Steve helped me make magic happen and I got it done. This week was a deadly combo of thrusters and chest to bars. I’ve been able to muscle a handful of chest to bars this week, but couldn’t manage them after the first set of thrusters. But I’m getting there. And with each new PR, I feel stronger and more confident to keep pushing myself. Every single day I feel thankful for how far I’ve come, and for how it makes me feel as I set about conquering life.
Unlike my grandfather, who used to barter gym time for a donut and a cigarette – I like to reward myself for my workouts with a cup of black coffee, and a highly nutritious meal. (I do think that he’d have been amused and proud of my athletic achievements, given the turnaround from my sedentary teenage hood.)
I make sure I’m getting in lots of greenery – pounds of leafy greens, especially if I haven’t been the most attentive during the week. I’ll usually cook up a large bag of collards or what Trader Joe’s calls “power greens”, sometimes with a bit of bacon, or plain with a little bit of garlic, shallot, and cider vinegar, and use them as the base for the majority of my meals.
I’m particularly fond of making salmon salad (see above, with the heaping portion of broccoli raab and garlic), or opening up a tin of sardines, and making a dressing with the fish infused olive oil and some fresh lemon juice. The photo has them served over some steamed green cabbage, and sprinkled with some bourbon smoked paprika. I try to eat little fishes at least once a week, but sometimes I’m negligent. Really, you can’t go wrong with sardines.
On cloudy or cold days, I go with soup. This was a beef, tomato, and carrot soup I picked up from Formaggio Kitchen a few weeks ago, and savored it while simultaneously reading my Kindle, flicking through Twitter, and with my computer at arms reach. Some of my habits are less healthy than others.
And then, there’s my favorite lunch staple: the avocado. I went nearly three weeks without avocado last month, and it was a travesty. Here’s my new favorite – avocado halves with sherry vinegar, salt, and a sprinkle of black pepper. If you can find a nice ripe avocado, try eating it this way, you won’t be disappointed.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 15, 2012 | Meat
Sorry for that title. Really. The puns and bad jokes are getting worse and worse around here. I’ll let the management know.
Saturday
On Saturday morning, I woke up and picked up my race packet for Sunday’s 5k. I was having a bad morning, worried that my car was dying, and then running late to Jeremy’s gymnastics clinic. I normally only go to the gym twice a week, but the focus was on handstands, and bar practice (toes to bar, kipping, and pull-ups), all of which are skills that I desperately want to improve on. Mostly for the street-cred, really.
When I finally made it (with about a minute to spare), I was psyched to see that the class was really small: D-Paine and Melody, Alexann, Mary and myself, which meant that we each got a lot of hands on attention. By the end of class, we were all working on being able to kick up into freestanding handstands, and my kipping on the bar may be getting somewhere.
When I got home, I made myself brunch: fried eggs and mini lamb merguez sausages from the butcher. I always forget how much I enjoy merguez. It’s a rich and spicy sausage common to North African (and French) cuisine, and is so completely satisfying.
In the afternoon, I took a pomegranate break, and spent a good 40 minutes or so picking out the jewel-red seeds one by one, popping them like popcorn.
For dinner, I had garlic-thyme sausages from the butcher, and these perfect little lamb kidneys to play with. I debated what to do with them – as the bulk of my rognons-eating occurred in France nearly 15 years ago, I was unsure what I wanted to do. So first I set about cleaning them.
I then butterflied the kidney, to assess how much I’d have to clean from it. Most of the recipes I consulted were for whole kidneys with minimal cleaning, so after breathing in the smell of the kidney to make sure it wasn’t ahem… uric smelling, I opted to do as little to it as possible. I trimmed off most of the attached fat, and saved it to render later.
Kidneys are a lusciously textured, strongly flavored (a little bit like a barnyard, in the best way) cut of meat, and stand up well to assertive spices. I debated Chichi Wang’s version of Fuchsia Dunlop’s deep-fried, huo bao slices of kidney in Serious Eats, and Nigel Slater’s classic devilled kidney recipe. Ultimately, I decided on a riff on these grilled lamb’s kidneys with rosemary anchovy butter from Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal by Jennifer McLagan.
To prep the kidneys, I drizzled them with olive oil, seasoned them in salt and pepper, and stuck some rosemary in the middle. I then set about making my dressing. Because I’m not cooking with butter (for now), I made a dressing with anchovies, olive oil, salt and pepper.
I cooked my kidneys for two minutes on each side, so they were just cooked through but still pink in the middle. They were served on a bed of baby spinach, with my garlic-thyme sausage on the side, and the anchovy dressing poured over. Delicious.
For dessert, because I was craving something a little sweet, I made a small chocolate mug cake. I’m still trying to tweak the formula – they tend to come out a little bit dry.
I went to bed early to get some sleep before Sunday’s race.
* * *
Sunday
I’ll be posting my race recap separately, but the race went well! Despite the cold, rainy weather, and a near meltdown when I woke up in the morning, no coffee, and a single banana 20 minutes before the starting line, I made it through the race, and P.R.’d!
When I got home, I set about making lunch.
I sauteed brussels sprouts with a little bit of bacon.
And served the bacon-y brussels sprouts topped with sardines and lemon juice, and a side of guacamole. This is one of those meals that you eat alone and don’t tell anyone about, but I swear it was good.
In the afternoon, I realized that I hadn’t had a cup of coffee yet, so I remedied that quickly.
Because our house was freezing, I put my oven to good use, and roasted some romanesco and cauliflower, and this ambercup squash with some salt and pepper.
For dinner, I had another off-cut from the butcher to use – lamb neck. I was first introduced to lamb neck in 2009, thanks to (top chef winner!) Chris Cosentino – during this spectacular meal at Incanto.
I wanted to prepare it as simply as possible, so I adapted this Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe.
I rubbed the neck in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and browned it on all sides in a small pot in a few more tablespoons of olive oil. I then added the juice of two small lemons and a cup of water to the pot, added about a teaspoon of dried thyme, a teaspoon of oregano, and a sprig of rosemary on top. I brought it to a boil, turned it down to a simmer, and covered the pot. I then cooked it for an hour, turning it every 15 minutes in the braising liquid. (My neck was about a pound, but if you had a larger one, you’d just cook a little longer, until tender.)
While the meat was cooking, I microwaved cauliflower for about 15 minutes until super tender, and added salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and pureed with my immersion blender. Voila! Mashed cauliflower!
I then took the lamb out of the pot, and shredded the meat – all 4 ounces of it… this was a very small lamb.
Devon got his shredded on a bed of mashed cauliflower, with a side of cheesy toast. I got mine in a bowl with the neck to gnaw on, and the rest of the braising liquid poured on top. While I would have liked a little bit more meat, the flavors were outstanding, and I’ll be making something similar soon.
Dinner was served in front of the television – for good reason (brace yourself) – it was my first time watching The Shawshank Redemption. I should clarify, first time, aside from the 50 + times I’ve seen various 20 or so minutes of it on TV*.
(Via)
I’m not sure what I was expecting. Actually – I was expecting to be let down. There’s no way that the movie (#1 rated on IMDB of movies of all time) was going to be that good. But it was. Thank you Stephen King, Frank Darabont, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and everyone else involved in this motion picture for being awesome.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 28, 2012 | Challenge, Running, Seafood
Lately this middle of the night thinking has been getting me into trouble. Last week, before running my very first 5k, my aunt suggested that I should run the Tufts 10k – she had run it a few years back, and loved the camaraderie (all women!) and the very flat course.
10k? 6.2 miles? Me? Ludicrous. Insane.
And then I woke up in the middle of the night yesterday and thought to myself… Can I do it? I bet I can do it. But… can I really do it? This went on for about two hours, until I had sufficiently sleep deprived myself by the morning to become irrational enough to attempt this feat.
I set myself a goal. I’d run it slowly and comfortably, with a target of 75 minutes, about a 12 minute mile pace, including regular walk breaks. If I finished in that amount of time, and didn’t feel like death at the end, I’d sign up immediately for the race. My idea was, if I can do it well, I can shave 8-10 or more minutes off my time on race day, based solely on the energy of the crowd, and I’d have a time I was happy with.
My second goal was to see if I could run without music or a podcast. I’d never done this before, and was half-convinced that I’d not be able to make it listening to the sound of my own footsteps.
So I set about running. The race course is beautiful – you start at the common, run down Beacon towards the Mass. Ave. bridge, head over the river, run down Mem. Drive one way, and then the other, come back over the bridge and then down Comm. Ave. back to the park. I altered the course slightly to avoid crossing too many major streets, but this is what it looks like on the map.
I ran, and ran, and ran. Slowly.
The first mile I could feel the banana and nut butter from breakfast. I breathed through the stitch, and slowed down some more.
My splits were 11:42, 12:20, 13:01, 13:56, 13:12, and 12:59, although each of these included a few minute long walk breaks, and a few stops at streetlights to avoid getting run over by a car. I made it to mile 5 without music, at which point I put on a podcast because I was a little bit bored with the “Can I do it?… I guess I can do it? … I’m doing it!” loop in my head. At the end I finished not in my goal of 75 minutes, but in 80.
So that was it I thought, I’ll just wait until I get faster. Maybe the end of the fall.
And then I thought about it.
I just ran 6.2 miles. That’s about 3.1 miles more than I was doing before.
My body isn’t distraught. My legs feel…fine.
Why the hell wouldn’t I run in this race? Because I don’t think I’ll run it fast enough?
Bad excuse, Sam.
This is how people miss out in life, assuring themselves that they’ll do it at some point in the future. Why not do it now, when I already know that I can do it?
So… the moral of the story is, I’m now registered to run my first official 10k race. In 9 days. It was nice knowing you.
After tackling my adventure, I grabbed myself an iced tea at Starbucks (right by the Make Way For Ducklings!) before heading back home. This tea might be the worst vice I have going on right now.
Lunch was a salad of my favorite Trader Joe’s product: sardines in olive oil! I made a huge plate of spinach, sardines, bell pepper, carrots, avocado and homemade mayo, with a good squeeze of lemon.
For dinner, a friend mentioned that I had eaten beef the past three meals in a row. I wouldn’t notice these things if not for the blog (I had to go back and check), so I went to the store and picked up some Dover Sole. I love fish but forget how easy it is to make. I cooked this simply in some olive oil, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and some Turkish fish seasoning from Formaggio Kitchen, which as far as I know contains sumac, rosemary, peppercorns, and some other mystery spices. It goes great on pretty much everything.
Because it was late, sides came from the Whole Foods salad bar – mashed potatoes for Devon, and butternut squash and Italian zucchini for me. Here’s my dinner:
Because I was still hungry, I inhaled a spoonful of coconut butter as my “dessert”. Virtuous, I know. After dinner we watched the final episode of Top Chef Masters, where my very favorite contestant won the show. Well, well deserved! I was thrilled!
Have you done something ludicrous lately?
