by Sam Tackeff | Sep 13, 2012 | Challenge, chicken
The start of any challenge can be, well, challenging. I’ve been easing myself into things, cooking at home every night, making Pinterest boards with dinner ideas, and stocking up on necessities. With a few exceptions (mostly chocolate), I’ve actually been eating challenge-friendly food for the past week, so I’m hoping not to lose my mind too quickly.
In the morning, I started my day with a light breakfast – a sliced banana with a few spoonfuls of almond butter. Typically I like to eat a little bit more protein for my breakfast (and usually, it doesn’t even look like breakfast), but I was going for a run early, and didn’t want to overload myself. Now that I’m doing shorter, more intense workouts, I usually don’t like to eat much before exercise because I find that my stomach doesn’t cooperate as well as I’d like.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for a race. Let’s be clear, I don’t race. I don’t really run. At the gym, I spent months barely getting through 400m. warmups, because I had been sedentary for 8 months. But for some reason, I caught the crazy, and signed up. It was the middle of the night, I blame exhaustion. And so now, I have a little over a week to get ready for this thing, and so I’ve been running 3-4 miles a few times a week, in addition to two days a week of CrossFit.
Before convincing myself otherwise, I headed out to Fresh Pond to run (very slowly!) around the path. This place is pretty magical.
Fast forward to lunch, and I was hungry again. Steamed kale, and smoked fresh kielbasa, with a large side of raspberries. Kielbasa is one of those “minimally processed” foods I’m willing to partake in for this challenge – but I made sure to choose one with no additives or sugar. This is the turkey kielbasa from Trader Joe’s. It’s a little on the dodgy side of the “happy meat” requirements I subscribe to, but it’s really good. I just need to get the sausage grinder attachment for my KitchenAid.
In the evening, I got to pick up Devon from the airport, and we headed to the store to pick up dinner. Every so often we do the “choose your own salad bar meal” at Whole Foods, and this was one of those nights. Except, in anticipation of hungry afternoons this week, I opted to buy two rotisserie chickens (the second is half off), and shred the meat for the fridge.
I put together my dinner: spinach salad with lemon vinaigrette and raspberries, and a chicken leg with some mustard to dip. After shredding two chickens (and eating a quarter of one as I worked), this was all I could manage on my plate.
Before heading to bed, I froze one of the chicken carcasses in the “miscellaneous bones for stock” bag, and put the other in my very small slow cooker to make some overnight chicken broth.
One day down, 59 to go!
by Sam Tackeff | Aug 15, 2012 | Local stores, Lunch
Yesterday I met up with a lovely woman named Anna for coffee at Formaggio Kitchen. She brought along Alex, her sweet mellow baby and we sat outside and talked for a good long time while Alex ate cheerios and keenly observed trucks and dogs and bicycles.
Having worked busily in my very small office this year without much reprieve, I’d forgotten how nice it is to have long conversations with new people. It re-charges you. Inspires you. Makes you feel like skipping down the street, which you avoid doing when you are an “adult” because someone will look at you disapprovingly. Don’t worry about them – they can live their miserable lives – you go ahead and skip if you feel like it! Have that coffee with someone new. You won’t regret it.
Before heading home, I picked up this sandwich to go.
Anna’s Big Jim : ham, salami & cheddar or Swiss on ficelle. Pressed in the panini press. Usually I get the ficelle with sesame seeds on it, but they were out. It looks huge, but it’s actually quite modestly sized – that is my smallest salad plate. It’s a perfect combination of bread, cheese and meat, and reminds me of Paris in the summertime.
by Sam Tackeff | Aug 13, 2012 | Random
The power went out in our neighborhood as I was cooking on Friday night. I momentarily panicked about all of the beautiful Copper River salmon that their marketing board sent me as part of the Fresh Catch Crew. Then I panicked about the many containers of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in our freezer. Then I walked outside and took this photo. Then the power came back. Thank you, freezer deities.
Lunches: 1. Fregola salad with fresh tomato and basil from Formaggio Kitchen, with a quarter of a rotisserie chicken. (Pictured). 2. A bowl of baked beans. 3. Devon made an amazing sandwich with roast beef, ripe tomatoes, melted cheese, and a chile-garlic-caesar dressing on ciabatta. It was masterful.
There was a trip to IKEA where we finally got some lighting for under our kitchen cabinets. And some fabric covered in ships. We didn’t get any Swedish Meatballs, but we did head back to Pho So 1 Boston in Randolph for the second meal there in two weeks. Their Bun Bo Thit Nuong – vermicelli noodles with grilled beef – is spectacular.
We watched Mark Wahlberg in Rock Star. The supporting cast includes members of both The Verve Pipe and Third Eye Blind. We watched several episodes of Agatha Christie’s ‘Hercule Poirot‘ with David Suchet. We watched team USA win the gold in Olympic Basketball. Were you watching? It was pretty thrilling.
I went to CrossFit and am still aching from a running WOD and lots of Curtis P’s.
We finished three out of the four containers of Ben and Jerry’s in our freezer. Do yourself a favor and find some of their new ‘Chocolate Therapy’ if you can.
Happy Monday, everyone!
by Sam Tackeff | Mar 30, 2012 | Lunch
I’ve fallen in love with Canal House Cooks Lunch.
Every day the wonderful women of Canal House, Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer, post a photo of their lunch. These meals are beautiful and put together with real intention. After seeing theirs, I’m always inspired to make mine more interesting. I got to work from home today, so the bowl is filled with leftover bulgur and green bean pilaf (with tomato sauce), and some Rancho Gordo Cargamanto Cranberry Beans, and topped with a fried egg. Underneath the egg there is also leftover Mast-o Khiar, a Persian yogurt dip with cucumber and dill from Sabzi.
