So the Admiral and I have survived Capital Conundrum 2009, The Storm Of The Decade, with nary more than a couple of pairs of wet jeans from clearing snow.

I find it personally reassuring that despite our smug confidence in all of our advanced technology that we can come almost completely undone by less than two inches of liquid and some cool temperatures.

Just my thought…

I’ve achieved a bit of a goal today: I’ve run a mile. Not all in one stretch, mind you, but a mile nonetheless.

My morning workout routine is to do 30 minutes on the treadmill. I do a run/walk. I walk at 3.6 mph, and run at 6 mph. During this mornings workout I was able to run for a mile in 1/8 mile increments. I know it doesn’t sound like much to the gym rats out there, but for a woman who has only resumed some kind of exercise after an 18 year break, I’ll take it.

Oh, and I’ve lost a total of 27 pounds so far, too.

A couple of todays random thoughts:

ACORN: Thugs Helping Thugs

Chocolate will always love you back (found inside a Dove wrapper)

The Room Store spokewoman is about the worst spokesperson I have ever seen.

Runnin’ On The Treadmill
(sung to the tune of Van Halen’s, “Runnin’ With The Devil”)

I’ve stuffed myself like there’s no tomorrow
Had my fill of “all you can eat”

My labs are bad, and my doctor’s mad
And now I can barely see my feet

Chorus:
(Oo-ooooh) Runnin’ on the treadmill
(Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!) Runnin’ on the treadmill

I found the secret, it’s so simple,
To losin’ weight: just eat less food

I got no magic, no magic drug
Just quit eatin’, stop when you should

Chorus:
(Ha – yeah) Runnin’ on the treadmill
(Woo woo) Runnin’ on the treadmill

I did a bad thing today. Or a good thing. It sort of depends on your point of view.

I was riding the ‘Glide this morning on the way to a doctor’s appointment. My route took me up I-395, and traffic was a bit thick and moving slowly at about 30 or 35 mph. I’m in the left lane just coming up past Duke Street, and it’s a bit faster than the center lane. I come upon an older, white sedan that has a tail light out. As I get along side, I look over at the driver and am shocked (but strangely, not overly surpised!) to discover that he’s reading a book while driving!

As a motorcyclist biker, inattentive drivers are a pet peeve really piss me off. Go figure. Hey, a fender bender in a car is an inconvenience, possibly followed by trip to the body shop. When your on a bike, a fender bender means you bite some pavement, lose some skin, and probably end up in the hospital, if not the morgue. Oh, yeah, and you end up having to fix your scoot, too, provided it’s not totalled. So I take the driver inattention thing very personally.

At the same time I realize they guy is reading a book while driving, I also notice that his window is partway down. Suddenly, I am so mad at this fool that I summon my most evil biker look of death and start yelling as I ride by.

“What are you, [expletive] stupid?!”
He looks at me with the kind of face usually seen on week old dead fish. I continue.
“Put that [expletive] book away and [expletive] drive!”
I am also waving my arm in a classic WTF type gesture.

As I get past him, I’m shaking my head in disbelief.

He steps on his accelerator and catches up to me and starts yelling back.
“Hey, [expletive] you!”

I am really ticked off now. There is nothing so utterly pathetic as arguing back after being caught red-handed doing something completely and indefensibly stupid. But this clown is doing it.

I yell back.
“[expletive] you, buttwipe! It’s guys like you that kill people!”

He yells something else, but my stereo is so loud I can’t really make out the words, but I’m guessing some of them start with ‘F’. Traffic takes him past me and my exit is coming up, so I change lanes in behind him. At this point I think he just crapped himself. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part.

I change lanes again and take my exit. Buttwipe has still got his book on the steering wheel, but maybe it’s an act of defiance. Perhaps later, as he reflects on the incident, he’ll modify his behavior realize how dumb he’s been and how many people, including himself, he places in harm’s way by his inattention.

Or not. Whatever. I feel better, at least.

OH MY GOSH! I have just watched the “bacon” episode of Food Network’s new show, “What would Brian Boitano Make?”, and this is the gayest thing I have ever seen on TV short of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”.

Except that it’s not Gay. Or straight, either. Allegedly, at least. No mention of boyfriends, girlfriends, partners, significant others, or kissing. Yep, a show about an apparently single guy, living in San Francisco, who throws great parties for his friends, but is seeing no one. Riiight.

Don’t get me wrong, however. Brian is hugely entertaining (though the Admiral doesn’t agree on this point). It’s just that the show is very over-the-top. From his dream sequence about skating with the roller girls while wearing a sequined ice skating outfit, to the description of a food item as, “puffy deliciousness”, to the stereotypical, “Hell-OOOO-oooo!” speechisms, Brian sure, ummm, SEEMS Gay.

And that’s okay. Really. You go, girl!

It’s just that, despite the obvious, Food Network won’t let anyone from the Gay press near him. They don’t want the show to be about his “personal life”. This is somewhat at odds with the actual show, however, given that it’s filmed in his house and about his friends. I find this inconsistency bothersome. I mean, like, if Brian is not Gay then I will burn my Evil Biker Lesbian membership card.

So what’s to hide? Is FN that scared of having one show that has an openly Gay character? He could be their version of Ellen: Sexless Gay Guy. Admitting but not showing. It hasn’t hurt her, so what does FN have to lose?

Heck, having Brian come out might actually boost Food Network’s sagging credibility. Just a thought.

Do you shop with a list? We do. Lately the Admiral and I have been making grocery lists and trying to stick with them at the store. It helps me stay with my new “food lifestyle” (I’m NOT on a diet, I’ve changed my food lifestyle!) and keeps us from filling the pantry with things we’ll never use.

So Saturday was shopping day, and we arrived at Wegman’s, list at the ready. And were promptly completely derailed.

Turns out it was the Hatch Chile Festival. Not chili, that oh-so-sumtpuous bowl of red stuff, but chile peppers from Hatch, New Mexico. Did I mention that I crave anything food-wise that smacks of Tex-Mex, Mexican, and Southwest? Ooooohhhh!

So we wander up to the big display tent out front, and I am gobsmacked by the tantalizing odor of roasting chiles. It is not a burnt smell, not spicy, but sweet and deep and rich. I am transfixed and need a moment to refocus.

A Hatch chile, according experts, is simply a New Mexico varietal grown in or around the town of Hatch, New Mexico. New Mexico chilis are known for being mild and flavorful, and are prized by lovers of chiles who don’t want too much heat.

Don’t get me wrong, however: I like the burn. The Admiral, on the other hand, does not. She likes southwestern cuisine with flavor but not the heat. These peppers, then, were ideal.

The nice woman out front was selling already roasted chilis for a pretty penny, but I was told the fresh ones were inside, so it was that direction that we headed.

The inside of Wegmans is arranged with the produce right up front, with hot bars, meats, and seafood to the right, and grocery items and the pharmacy to the left. Front and center was a large Hatch chili display with bushel baskets of peppers aplenty. On the way in I had started talking salsa and rellenos, so we began picking out the freshest large straight peppers we could find.

As we are doing so, one of the Hatch crew comes up and starts asking us what we’re going to fix. I mumbled relleno, and before I could resist he handed me a recipe card purported to be directly from his mother’s kitchen and a DVD to boot. Bonus!

The Admiral and I began discussing stuffing for the rellenos. I mentioned crab and her eyes lit up! Crab it was to be. The rest of the trip was a blur, but some key purchases included some premade crab dips, lemon cake mix, and a block of cream cheese.

Later that evening a conversation with our good friend, “The Lynnster”, brought us another surprise – about 18 leftover cooked blue crabs! We brought them home with glee and spent about 40 minutes pickin’ crab. We got about two pounds of meat for our efforts – these were going to be some damn fine rellenos!

Sunday morning rolls around and the menu is shaping up: the aforementioned crab stuffed rellenos, my homemade salsa with roasted Hatch chilis, hot crab dip, and lemon cake with fresh whipped cream and a homemade blueberry sauce. Yummy!

The Admiral starts with sugar, some water, and about a cup of fresh blueberries left from the previous week. These soon become deliciously gooey, and the immersion blender finishes the trick. We strain the skin and other bits and put the sauce into a squeezy bottle and place it the fridge.

Meanwhile, we start roasting some peppers over a low flame on the stovetop. This is slow and tedious, but we get a couple done. I chop them fine for the salsa, along with about 9 roma tomatoes. Also into the salsa goes red onion, cumin, garlic, salt, lime juice, red wine vinegar, the strained liquid from some rehydrated and pureed Anaheim and Ancho chilis, fresh chopped cilantro, Tiger Sauce, a bit of sugar, and then parboiled and chopped tomatillas. Into the refrigerator to sit and let the flavors develop.

I decide that the stovetop roasting method is not going so well, so a quick Google search reveals that roasting can be done with ease in a 450 degree oven. We only have seven peppers left, and as it happens, they all fit on a toaster-oven sized baking pan, so into the convection toaster oven they go.

Regardless of the convection effect, they finish at somewhat different times, so I open the oven, pop a couple out and into a plastic bag to finish steaming, rearrange the remainders, and given them some more time to roast. After about fifteen minutes they all seem done, and I place the last few into the plastic bag for another ten minutes. The house now smells amazing – roasted chiles! I am in heaven!

Now for the peeling, and it’s surprisingly simple. The steaming in their own heat in the plastic bag has done the trick, and the skins peel off with ease. All we need now is the stuffing.

I’ve softened a brick of cream cheese along with the contents of a store bought roasted red pepper crab dip. To it all, I add cumin, salt, pepper, Tiger Sauce, and some of the strained pureed dried Anaheim and Poblano peppers, and then the prize – about 8 ounces of the blue crab meat from last night. I mix it thoroughly and spoon it into a zip lock bag to use in piping.

The Admiral and I pipe the mixture into the now-skinless peppers. Our technique is not perfect, but we manage. As it turns out, the classic relleno recipe uses cut sticks of hard cheese inserted through a slit into the pepper body – no gooey mess required. Regardless, we refrigerate our now-stuffed chiles so they’ll set up.

We also have a problem – leftover mixture. Not only that, but we made two different versions of the stuffing, the other using a fine herbs version of the store bought crab dip and more cream cheese and crab meat. We decide to do two things: Borrow a couple of tomatoes from a good friend and neighbor with a garden (shout out to Todd!), and use the herb-spiced mixture as a hot crab dip by placing it into a small glass dish topped with panko and grated parmesan. Meanwhile, we hollow out the two tomatoes and stuff them with the last of the crab and red pepper mixture and set them into the toaster oven at 350.

Our guest on the way, we start the actual final cooking process. The Hatch guy’s recipe calls for separating four eggs and whipping the whites to stiff peaks. The Admiral is a whiz with a mixer and starts that going. Meanwhile, I misread the recipe and try to combine the four yolks with a half cup of flour. This does not work. Really. I dump the yuckey mess in the trash. After re-reading the recipe four times, I figure out that the half cup of flour is for rolling the rellenos, and I should mix one tablespoon of flour into the yolks. I finally get it right, and then fold the whites into the yolks. Before fiddling about with the eggs I have poured about a half inch of oil into a skillet over medium high heat on the stove.

We take our rellenos out of the refrigerator and roll a nice big one in the flour and then dip it into the egg mixture. It comes out about three times its original size! I suddenly see the light – these will fry up VERY fluffy and light. I place it into the oil and let it cook on one side. As the smell of the frying relleno fills the kitchen, I am likewise filled with confidence.

Time to plate. Each of us get two rellenos and part of the stuffed tomato. Blue corn chips go with both the salsa and the crab dip, and we each fix our drink.

I start with the chips and salsa: good flavor and depth, chunky but with some sauce – nice! The hot crab dip is utterly delicious – a hint of crab spice, creamy with lumps of backfin, nice crab flavor. Now for the stuffed tomatoes – I was a bit worried because they weren’t overly ripe, but they were amazing! The flavor in the tomato itself was full and rich, and the reb pepper spiced crab mixture really came through.

Now for the star, the relleno itself. I cut a bite from the end of one of the rellenos. It’s tender and the batter nicely fluffy, with the crab mixture oozing nicely. The taste? Out of this world good! The roasted pepper has developed a rich smokiness, the filling has great crab and southwestern flavor, and the light batter provides the perfect balance. P-p-perfect!

Dessert time: The Admiral has done her baking magic yet again: lemon cakes in mini-bundt molds, and they’ve been cooling on a rack. A couple of years ago one of my brother gave me a Liszt CO2-powered whipped cream dispenser which is now full of heavy cream. Bundt on plate, a shot of whipped cream, and remember that blueberry sauce we made earlier? A drizzle over the cake and around the plate. Voila! Dessert – simple and light, but with great flavor: the sweet berry sauce is the perfect foil to the tartness of the lemon cake!

So what did our guest think? Why, three thumbs up, of course!

Fifteen hundred. One thousand five hundred. One point five K.

This is the number of Calories I have decided to limit myself to consuming in a single day. Yep, I’m going on a diet.

Anyone who knows me personally can attest to the need for same. Especially my doctors. Extra-especially the Admiral. As I am fond of telling my friends, somewhere in here is a slinky blonde trying to eat her way out. This is your big chance, Barbie – start gnawing!

So what does a 1500 Calorie per day diet look like? Well, it’s not as bad as you might think. And bear in mind, I am a foodie, so I shall not sacrfice too much in the way of actual flavor. Here was my intake today:

Breakfast was a single Activia drinkable yogurt at 120 Calories. I had black coffee (I’ve been drinking it black for years) so that was a freebie.

Lunch consisted of a homemade chicken salad sandwich which was made of half a chicken breast, boiled and shredded (90 Cals), one slice of pumpernickel rye swirl (80 Cals), a couple of tablespoons of light mayo (70 Cals), a medium banana (105 Cals), and a light yogurt (80 Cals), for a total of 425 Calories.

Dinner was baked rigatoni with sausage meatballs, a green salad, and a couple of pieces of bruschetta. Here’s the breakdown:

150 – pasta
180 – meatballs (total 2 ounces)
10 – parmesan cheese (just a light sprinkle)
90 – shredded mozarella and provolone
50 – sauce
========
480 Calories

50 – salad greens
10 – four sliced cherry tomatoes
60 – dressing
90 – croutons
===========
210 Calories for the salad

150 – 2 slices bread
50 – topping
===============
200 bruschetta

890 – total dinner Calories
425 – lunch
120 – breakfast yogurt
60 – Dessert (a Reese’s snack size thingy)
================
1495 Calories!! Hooray!

It’s Sunday at 12:15 PM. I’m watching Sandra Lee make a spinach fritatta. It looks so-so, but the previous recipe, a sausage and mushroom bread pudding muffin, was something I might try.

I’ve already eaten my brunch – a Cajun-style omelet with crawfish, onions, sausage, bacon, and spicy red potato chunky hash browns, all topped with cheddar jack, salsa, and a dash of two different hot sauces. The Admiral has just tried another FN recipe: pumpernickel toast, lightly buttered and topped with bacon and orange marmelade. My omelet was wonderful as usual, and I tried a bite of her sandwich – it was better than I’d imagined.

I’ve just learned that the premiere of Melissa D’Arabian’s new show, Ten Dollar Dinners, is next – I’m going to watch. Of all the contestants, I liked her best, though I admit to also liking the somewhat unpopular Debbie because of her Korean background. I’ve decided to blog the show more or less live.

Meanwhile, Sandra is doing something with poached eggs, which has given me an idea: Take the mushroom and sausage bread pudding muffin she made a few minutes ago, slice it in half, and top it with a poached egg and Hollandaise. Now you’re talking! I’m getting hungry all over again just thinking about it.

Now some British guy is hawking a gadget called the Titan Peeler, a supposedly improved version of the old peeler tool. I always marvel at how these gizmos are geared towards people who can’t cook. These devices save neither time nor money and are no substitute for basic knife skills. For those with limited storage space, such useless toys take up valuable room and contribute to clutter. Just give me a good, sharp set of knives any day!

My wait is over: the intro is now on for Ten Dollar Meals. It has great photos and good dialog about her days spent in France. The featured item is a potato bacon tort. My interest is piqued on two points: the tort photographed well, and it has bacon.

The show opens with dessert prep. She’s making an applesauce granita and she seems both nervous and rushed. She does, however, make the point that the dessert is extremely simple and quick to make. She pops it into the freezer to solidify and moves on to the next thing.

The first step of the potato and bacon tort is to render the bacon. She is more smooth here and mentions that she keeps her bacon in the freezer, cutting off strips against the slice as needed. This is useful if you only add bacon as a flavoring in another recipe, but not so good if you want to fry it in strip form – it would have to defrost first. Good to know, though.

Next, she tells a story about how she got the recipe for her pie crust. It seems it was presented to her by her French mother-in-law with some amount of ceremony just prior to her wedding. The story is interesting but there seems to be no real punch line, so the ending falls flat.

The technical demonstration of making the pie crust mixture goes well, however. Melissa talks about the importance of very cold butter and a quick trip throught the food processor, a point upon which she differs from her mother-in-law. It seems simple enough, even to me.

Back from break, and she actually rolls out the crust. I don’t bake much and have never made a pie crust, but I am suddenly filled with confidence to try this. Her presentation could be just a bit more polished, but she’s making it seem doable by mere mortals such as myself.

She finishes the tort prep with the potatoes, bacon, sauce, and shredded cheese, and pops it into the oven. I find myself wishing she’d have spent just another moment on pinching the pie crust. I would have enjoyed seeing a bit of detail on that.

The tickler at the end of the segment is about a secret vinagrette recipe from a Parisian cafe owner. At the show opener she also referred to a secret pie crust recipe, so I think she has overused the “secret recipe” reference, however, and it comes off a bit forced.

Back from the break, and she’s making the vinagrette. But I am now pleasantly surprised! The vinagrette looks amazing and the secret ingredient is unexpected: soy sauce. It’s not just some shaken up oil and vinegar, but seems more rich and complex than what I had thought. I would try this, too.

We’re back for the plating and tasting. The tort looks great! The salad itself could be from a bag, though there’s nothing wrong with that – I do it all the time. Melissa definitely “sells” her meal with appropriately ecstatic looks of joy during the tasting.

She fluffs the granita, spoons some into a small dish and adds the maple syrup yogurt sauce. It looks delicious. She tells a story of testing a number of desserts with her family and how they liked this best, and she is amazed because it takes literally two minutes to prepare – perfect for a busy cook.

So how did she do? Well, there were clearly some jitters in evidence. Who wouldn’t be nervous shooting the premiere episode of their own show? Regardless, she delivered. The food looked good, there were plently of useful tips, and I was inspired to try something out of my comfort zone, which is exactly what I expect from a FN cooking show.

FWIW, while I’ve been translating my notes, I’ve also been watching a bit of Big Daddy’s House, hosted by last years NFNS winner, Aaron McCargo, Jr. What a contrast! Aaron mumbles his way through his show while making such pedestrian fare as fried porkchops and chicken chili. He has no star power whatsoever.

Melissa D’Arabian is definitely worthy of the title Next Food Network Star, and I look forward to watching her develop her niche at FN. You go, girl!

There is soccer in the family, and has been for years. The Admiral has been playing since she was, well, young. When we met she played in an outdoor league, then she played indoors, then she quit and later took up fencing, then back to indoor in Woodbridge, and finally, plays in a women’s over-30 indoor league in Manassas. Whew! It’s tiring just to write about.

So I’ve taken to going to her games and watching for about a year now, and with all the comings and goings, gotten to know some of the players in the league. The common question to me has been, “So why aren’t you playing?”

Simple enough question, that. The answer? Another story.

I was one of those littler kids when I was young. I started school a year early because all the other kids in the neighborhood were, even though my birthday was in September. I was always smaller and weaker than other kids in my class. Sports were never my forte. In junior high and high school I was picked near the end or dead last for every team.

My most recent sports experiences have been less than stellar. About ten years ago I joined the “fun” softball team at the office. We played on a vacant field in the business park. I was first base. I was fine if I didn’t have to run much and I could catch some. Heck, once I even made a double play.

But I also got injured. Twice. The first time I took a softball hard in the left shin. It swelled immediately. I used ice, but the bad news was that it developed into my first cellulitis infection. I almost ended up in the hospital.

The second injury was more comical. It was a hot summer day and it hadn’t rained in a while. The field was dry and the paths between the bases filled with fine dust and dirt. I was at bat and got a so-so hit, so I ran as fast as I could for first which, frankly, wasn’t all that fast. At any rate, I managed to outrun my legs and did a face plant two thirds of the way to the base.

I came up looking like I’d dove into a bag of whole wheat flour – covered in light brown dust. My glasses were broken, I had a scratch on my forehead, and a good cut going on my knee – blood and dirt were running down my leg. Though I patched up without incident and kept playing, the league disbanded soon after because the field was turned into another office building. I haven’t played sports since.

Until two weeks ago, that is. Between the constant questions about why I wasn’t playing, my doctor pleading with me to get some exercise, and the realization that it just looked, well, fun, I decided to give the indoor soccer a try.

But would I play on the Admiral’s team? Oh, no. For one, they actually want to win, so the thought of silent rides home in the car with the Admiral after I’d blown a key play were just a bit too frightening. Besides, some players on another team that I’d gotten to know invited me to play with them. They’d teach me, they said.

So with about six weeks to go until the new session started, I bit the bullet and got on the treadmill. This from the woman who couldn’t jog half a block without huffing more than a herd of steam locomotives.

It was hard at first, but I gradually built up some endurance to the point where I could do a two mile walk/run in under thirty minutes. Not much by athletic standards, mind you, but pretty good for my 50 year old overweight diabetic self.

So as my soccer debut approached I became more nervous. Would I be able to last on the field? Would I totally embarass myself? Would I be even a little bit competitive?

Opening night finally arrived. As luck would have it, we were playing the most foul tempered, aggressive team in the league, lead by a woman known as “Tanorexia”. Great. We arrive early and I look around. There are only six of us – no subs. I’ll have to play the entire game without a break. Aaargh!

I dicussed the situation with my teammates and they told me that when I get too winded to just walk off the field into the box. This meant they’d be shorthanded on the field. As luck would have it two more players arrived late, so there would be subs after all. Good thing, too, because I only lasted about four minutes at a time on the field before I was winded. Furthermore, we were beaten badly – 9 to 1. But I had fun! I took a couple of shots on goal and managed to knock down one of the other team. Kewl!

Meanwhile, the Admiral has been talking smack that I would never, ever score on her. More precisely, hell would freeze solid first. My team, in response, decided to work out a play or two to help me score.

The schedule had our heads up match as the second game of the session, which was last night. I was nervous and the Admiral confident. “Never happen,” she says, referring to whether I score on her.

We arrive at the place early. Her team is giving me a good-natured hard time. My team is mostly, umm, absent. I’m worried. Finally, five other actual players show up. I’m told to stay on the field even if I’m winded, just not to run as much. Riiight.

The game starts. Lora, one of my team’s more experienced players, puts me at forward and tells me to stay forward of the half-field line and run towards the goal when we’re on offense. Simple enough. Except that just a few minutes into the game I’m winded already.

Just then, Edie shows up! Hooray, Edie! She says she’s here just to sub for me. God bless her!

I take a short break, but Edie’s right there pushing me back onto the field. I’m gaining a little confidence. I take a couple of passes, make a couple of kicks, challenge some of the other team. Nothing amazing, but I feel like I’m kind of contributing. Half-time comes and I realize that I’ve played probably fifteen of the twenty-five minutes. Definitely better than week one.

The second half start with the score at two-zip. We have the zip part. Regardless, we’re playing okay. I continue to position myself at the top of the goalie box when we’re on offense, and head back toward mid field when we’re on the “D”. I even manage to have a “two-touch” moment, I catch a pass, control the ball for a moment and make a decent pass to a teammate. Woo hoo!

One more short break and I’m back on the field. The score is now four to nothing. I keep heading for the goal, when Edie has the ball and is heading downfield. I head for the top of the box again, and I am wide open – the Admiral’s team has decided I’m not much of a threat and has been ignoring me. Edie passes me the ball and I give it a half-baked wiff towards the goal, right at a defender who bumps it back my way. I give it a boot, and in slow motion it gooooeees riiiiigght paaaaast the Admiral iiiintoooo the gooooaaaal! I’ve scored!

I throw my hands in the air and scream, “YYYEEEAAHH!” My whole team starts yelling! The spectators start yelling! Even the other team starts yelling! For all I care, I have just won the World Cup! I finally turn towards the Admiral, who kinda smiles at me and tells me to get back to my side of the field so we can kick it off.

The rest of the game is a blur, but I remember staying on the field to the finish. I am completely exhausted but thrilled beyond belief. The ride home was good. The Admiral confessed that I did exactly what I should have, and it was her defense that let her down.

I’m addicted now.