Recent Kitchen Adventures

Marc's folks recently were in town for a long weekend, which again gave me the opportunity to experiment with some non-Marc friendly foods. When it's just the two of us, it doesn't make a ton of sense to try out recipes that have ingredients that Marc wouldn't normally be excited about. Once we move up to 4 people, the game changes a bit.

The weather wasn't super warm that weekend and I was in the mood to make a soup of some kind. I found Tyler Florence's French Onion Soup recipe from one of my cookbooks – Tyler's Ultimate, and thought that would be a good place to start. After looking over the ingredients, I decided to change it up a bit by sautéing some pancetta along with the garlic and onions. It ended being a good call and everyone liked it. What was also excellent was that since Walla Walla onions were in season, I was able to get the sweetness of those onions to compliment the smokiness of the pancetta. We also had some tarragon growing in the back, so I threw in some of that. No idea how it was going to turn out, but it ended up being a really nice way to start off the meal.

I also was able to make some seafood (yeah!) so since salmon is still very much in season, I decided to make one of my favorite recipes with a twist. Like Marc, his parents do not like mushrooms and this favorite recipe of mine is very 'funghi-intensive.' So instead of 'Seared Salmon with Roasted Corn and Shitake Mushrooms' which is from Danny Meyer and Michael Romano's Union Square Café Cookbook, I substituted lentils for the mushrooms to see how it would work out. The lentils I purchased ended up not needing an extensive pre-soaking before cooking so that made things easier. Basically I just cooked the lentils 75% of the way and then threw them in with the corn. And shockingly enough, Marc really liked the dish with the lentils! Score! Of course, I did substitute Walla Wallas for red onions. I know, I have a problem. I love these things.

Finally I was thinking about making the Tyler's Ultimate Spinach Salad that I am a huge fan of, but opted to go in a completely different direction. I broke out Tom Colicchio's Craft of Cooking book, which I had not used in a long time, to make Chickpea Salad as a starter. Since we had that surplus of tarragon growing out back, I opted to throw in some along with the rosemary and thyme. Even though there were a fair amount of ingredients, it was actually pretty easy to make. Normally chickpeas need to be soaked overnight but again, the internet saved the day with this quick soak method (read 1st paragraph of this recipe).

Of course, we drank some great wine from Chateau St. Jean, Gary Farrell and Bella. And you know cheese was in the equation as well as some chocolate peppermint pot-de-cremes (taken from the chocolate peppermint tart recipe here).

Switching gears, I also wrapped up The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin. Compelling read regardless of your political leanings; to me, the most interesting part came when both Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist were contemplating retirement and what went on behind the scenes.

Sartorial Rigidity

Harv called this evening and during the exchange mentioned how hot it was this past week in NY and that he wore shorts to work one day. He had a good line too about when a couple showed up at his workplace. He said [paraphrased by me], "I sold them the same tombstone that I would have if I was wearing pants."

Then he pointed me to a NY Times article about shorts cracking the code and slowly making it into the workplace. Uh, "weren't they already in the workplace?" says Marc. After all, the most dressed up I've gotten at work is wearing shorts (ok, I guess I sometimes wear jeans too). I used to wear swim trunks to work as a lifeguard and swimming instructor and then I climbed around crawlspaces pulling network cable through ceilings and phone conduits. So wearing shorts is like dressing up to me.

But let's get back to that article. Harv reads a line from the story over the phone:

It was no more than a moment ago, in the sartorial long view, that a guy who came to work wearing short pants would have been shown the door — or anyway, given the address for human resources at U.P.S. All that appears to be changing.

My favorite line was:

"It seems so strange on an over-90-degree day to subject yourself to sartorial rigidity"

And for those who need a dictionary:

sar·to·ri·al [sahr-tawr-ee-uhl, -tohr-]

1.

of or pertaining to tailors or their trade: sartorial workmanship.


2.

of or pertaining to clothing or style or manner of dress: sartorial splendor.

Restaurant Dispatch from Seattle

As the regular followers of the blog know, I have been to a number of Mario Batali's restaurants and have been known to use recipes from a couple of his cookbooks on a semi-regular basis. When I first moved to Seattle, I had heard that Mario's father, Armandino, had a small restaurant/shop here called Salumi.

A friend that I recently reconnected with after many years (and surprisingly, it wasn't through Facebook or LinkedIn) told me that her husband visited Seattle and is a huge Batali fan. Of course, he went to Salumi while he was here. That was enough of a kick in the pants to get over to Pioneer Square and have some cured meat. The thing that makes Salumi a challenge to visit is that it is only open for lunch and the lines are of legend, or at least so I was told.

Given that I am in a transition week and we had some incredible lamb prosciutto (never heard of it but I know I will be getting some of this again) sourced from Salumi at another restaurant last week – more on that later, I told Marc that we should meet for lunch there before I start my new role. As expected, we waited in line for about 20 minutes and then were able to score a couple of seats – bonus, since Salumi has seating for maybe 20 people. They gave out samples of a salumi that had fennel and black pepper, which I enjoyed.

Marc had the lomo and provolone which was pretty tasty. I had porcetta with some sweet onions to try something I hadn't had before. Aside from the sandwich being huge, it was also really good. The porcetta was braised in Madeira, a type of fortified dessert wine, which probably made it go well with the sweet onions. A quick but enjoyable lunch. Hope to go back, or have Marc get some meat to go – particularly the lamb prosciutto. J

Other places that we have checked out recently:

  • Bricco: Again, another overdue visit to this Italian eatery in Upper Queen Anne. Have heard about this place since it opened, and once I moved out of Queen Anne, it never seemed to work out to get over there for one reason or another. It was worth the wait – the lamb prosciutto was excellent, as was the duck. They had an outstanding cheese selection. Also great quality on the per glass selections for wine and beer. Our friends over at Suzuki + Chou Communimedia told us we needed to get over there because of –
  • Chocolopolis: Yep, you know what they specialize in here. Not only did they have some very tasty truffles, but it was the first time I saw chocolate displays arranged by geography so we were able to learn a bit about the different regions that produce chocolate. They just opened a couple of weeks ago, so if you are a chocolate fan or know someone who is, check it out.
  • Ocho: This was recommended to us by our neighbors, so it only made sense to check it out with them. Cuisine is Spanish Tapas and the restaurant is located in Ballard. The food and service were very good; the wine list was reasonable and the boys seemed to like their cocktails. The only issue is that the tables were so small that we had to keep our wine glasses off of the table on the bench we were sitting on. If you go, you might want to bring glasses if you are near-sighted. No printed menus; just a very long list of enticing food options on a blackboard.
  • Wild Ginger: We've been plenty of times before but decided to go back while Marc's folks were in town. We had a stellar '05 Jayson Pinot Noir to go with dinner. As usual, the food did not disappoint. My favorite dish was the halibut with papaya, but the squash and sweet potato soup was particularly yummy. Nice pick, Dee! But the normal favorites lived up to the hype – this includes the 'seven flavor beef' and the 'wild ginger fragrant duck'.

More soon on some of the recent experiments in the kitchen.

Riding the SLUT


Hey. I'm not making this stuff up. As they built this new transportation option in Seattle recently, it was called the South Lake Union Trolley (aka SLUT -- so named by a local coffee shop). The authorities have since tried calling it the South Lake Union Streetcar (or Line), but it is too late. Who are they kidding? Attached you should see a screenshot of the Google search for 'south lake union trolley'.

Anyway, we went out tonight to celebrate Jill's new role, and she said I should try the SLUT. OK. Why not?

I got to the first stop on the downtown Seattle end and double checked how to pay. There was a machine that accepted credit cards and cash right there OR you could present a Metro pass, Metro ticket, a transfer, or pay on board. I have Metro tickets so I was going to use that on board. As I waited without seeing a trolley, I started walking towards stop #2 since I could see several blocks of the line and knew there were no trolleys coming. Just as I arrived at the second stop, the trolley passed by in the other direction -- so I waited. This stop didn't allow you to pay with credit before boarding.

When the trolley came, I hopped on board and stood behind someone else who was paying. I noticed on this machine that it only took cash at least according to the instructions. Hmmm. Where do I put my Metro Ticket which is supposedly a valid way to pay? I walked all over the SLUT looking for alternative payment methods and the only thing besides this cash only machine were some 'ticket validating' machines like you see in Europe at train stations. There were NO instructions on these validating machines. Period. Not even something like: insert ticket here for validation or anything. So I just took a seat and decided they don't really want my Metro transit payment that bad and enjoyed the ride to the other end and Daniel's restaurant.

New and exciting from the homefront.

Back in January, I took a role outside of Windows Networking to get some experience in a different area of the company. To make a long story short, it wasn't a great fit for where my passions lie and my boss graciously agreed to let me look for another position immediately (normally you need to be in a position for a specific amount of time before being allowed to look internally). It was a disappointment to say the least, but these things happen and you move on.

Two months later after lots of informational interviews, some formal interview loops, ups and downs, I am happy to report that I accepted a role this morning in a group called Worldwide Licensing and Pricing. More specifically I will be focused on our efforts around Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Group, which was chartered to lead the company's efforts to support people underserved by technology: the "next five billion people" in the world. I do read a fair amount of material on healthcare and education when I have time, so being able to match my interests with a role at Microsoft is very exciting.

Over the course of these past two months, I have learned about some really great projects that are going on in the company. I know that people do not perceive Microsoft as cool or hip, particularly in light of our experiences with the whole Yahoo! thing, but we have a ton of smart people working on some really challenging problems. I'm really looking forward to seeing some of these projects come to fruition in the coming years, particularly the ones my friends/former colleagues are working on.

Been also doing some more reading over the past few weeks:

  • My Life in France (Julia Child) – great memoir of how Julia Child emerged from eating meat and potatoes to becoming an amazing chef and food personality (before the likes of Rachel Ray took over – ugh).
  • Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember (John Feinstein) – if you're into baseball, this book was an interesting read in terms of understanding what takes place on the mound and in between starts. Learned a lot about Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina, and came away with more respect for the both of them.
  • The Art of Decanting: Bringing Wine to Life (Sandra Jordan) – ok, I know. I'm a wine geek. But we received this as a gift on a recent trip to the Jordan Winery and I found it to be pretty interesting to learn about how wine was stored going back to the Greeks and Romans, as well as how it has evolved over the years.
  • French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew (Peter Mayle) – title is self-explanatory but I did learn that there is a marathon held annually in Bordeaux. That may motivate me to train for a full marathon.

I'd be remiss if I didn't thank some people for giving me some great advice over the past couple of months with respect to the job transition, so special thanks (in no particular order) to – Chris, Kathy, Lorraine, Rob, Paul, Quincy, Cousin Claire and of course, Marc. I'm a lucky person for sure....

I've also added a link on the main page of the blog so you can keep up with some of the cool things Microsoft is doing with the Unlimited Potential Group.

Invasion from the East Coast!

So we had the pleasure of hosting my sister (Lisa), brother-in-law (Jarrett), nephew (Jeffrey) and cousin (Andrea) over the past week. Our nephew, Jeffrey, is 15 months old and is very mobile. Thus, we had to do some serious childproofing of the house. This required getting safety gates, cabinet locks, protecting the breakables and the electronics and generally moving anything that is within reach of Jeffrey out of sight. Fortunately we have a bunch of friends with kids who loaned us a ton of stuff that made life easier for everyone so thanks to GinaMarie, Kam/Doug, Robyn/Chris, Jill/Dave and Gure/Jim. Our house was overrun with toys and bottles, which was amusing for our friends to see.

The only downside of the visit was the trip we had to make to Children's Hospital because Jeffrey was having some issues, which ended up being the croup. Poor little dude. He was such a trooper and fortunately recovered to check out sites like the Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Aquarium, Safeco Field (unfortunately the Mariners lost in 15 innings when they had to use a catcher to pitch), Kerry Park, Lake Union, Green Lake and Thursday Night Regatta (off of the pier by the Waterfront Seafood Grill). Jeffrey also has some new friends on the West Coast – Xavier, Eneko and Nolan, so hopefully that'll entice the Behar clan to come back and visit soon. You can see pictures here, but I've also included one of my favorites in the post itself.

We cooked some great food, including my seared salmon with roasted corn and shitakes recipe, and of course, had some excellent wine and cheese (the Sottocenere al Tartufo was a huge hit).

On a more comical note, I sometimes refer to Jarrett as "JB", so I've started referring to Jeffrey as "lil'JB". As we were getting closer to the visit, I would update my status in relation to "lil' JB" arriving on my Instant Messenger status or my Facebook status. Well this led to some interesting questions from folks asking me if there was some news that I was holding back on being that my initials are now "JB". Hmmm…. Should have foreseen that happening. Nice one, Jill.

Good times for all though and that's what counts.

Could Jill Be Cheering For Another AL East Team?

So I have been closely watching the AL East race between the Red Sox and the Rays (formerly known as the Devil Rays). They have been duking it out for the bulk of the season, which is halfway over, and as of tonight, the Rays are in 1st place. And I am excited for the Rays and their fan base. I am sure you are wondering how I could be cheering for another team, let alone a division rival of my beloved Yanks.

It's simple. Teams like the Yanks and Red Sox pay a luxury tax because they are over the MLB-instituted salary cap. The proceeds from that tax go to the lower revenue teams, like the Tampa Bay Rays. Unfortunately what happens in a lot of the situations is that teams that benefit from receiving these funds do not re-invest them in player salaries, even though the luxury tax was created to make the teams play on a more equal playing field in terms of player quality, etc. (no pun intended).

Given the Rays cellar dwelling status for the past 10+ years, they have been able to stockpile top draft picks, get an ownership team that actually cares and also use that tax/revenue sharing money to secure draft picks that have a lot of potential. Case in point – Evan Longoria. To me, this shows that the system does work if owners take the money and reinvest it, unlike teams like the Royals, etc.

I don't know if the Rays will be able to hold on but since the Yanks are clearly not contending this season, I may have to cheer for them in order to prevent the Red Sox from going back to the playoffs. Unlikely scenario, but a girl can dream right?

Around the horn......

As most of you know, I am a die-hard Yanks fan. That being said, I still follow the Mets because most of my family roots for them. When I heard that Willie Randolph had been fired and learned about the circumstances around in which the message was delivered, I just thought it was such a lack of class.

Managers get to play the hand their dealt. They don't pick the players on the team. Maybe the Wilpons should have fired Omar Minaya, the General Manager, since he was the one who overpaid for some very aging veterans. Kind of like how the Mariners leadership finally woke up and fired another GM loser - Bill Bavasi. Rob Neyer talked about how this move was about 3 years too late. Couldn’t have agreed more.

Maybe Willie Randolph deserved to get fired, but how the message was delivered and the timing of that message was pretty uncool. Also how the Yanks handled the Joe Torre contract last fall was also very disrespectful. And while I agreed a change needed to be made, Torre did bring lots of happiness to many Yankee fans in the late 90s.

In other baseball news, you may have noticed that I have not been blogging about that topic as much. I think for the first time in a long time, the Yanks are in a transitional year. The good news is that I think we have 3 solid starters in their early 20s who can make a difference over the next few years. And while the team has been decimated by injuries, including the most recent one to Chien-Ming Wang, the hitting is starting to come around. If Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte can get to a consistent pace, there may be a shot as Joba develops into a starter.

But you have to give props to the management team over in Tampa Bay with how the Rays have been playing. It’ll be interesting to see if they can hold on as it is a long season. And the Yankee bats seem to like the warm weather.

Healdsburg – A Favorite Place of Ours

On a very recent trip to Healdsburg, Marc posed the question, "what are your top 5 favorite restaurants?" I thought for awhile because Healdsburg, while very small in size, has a plethora of great food options for people to choose from. Of course I had to ask a clarifying question around if 'favorite' just encompassed food, or if it included food and atmosphere (inc. service). We started with just food, so my list was (in no particular order):


So in the end, we both ended up with Top 4 lists. If we took service into account, Dry Creek Kitchen would drop off of the list based on our most recent experience. Unfortunately we were not able to hit Restaurant Charcuterie on this last trip, but the concierge at the Hotel Healdsburg enthusiastically recommended we try Scopa, which had just opened in the past month. For such a new place, there were surprisingly very few kinks that were noticeable by the two of us. If you are in Healdsburg, check it out as it's right on the square.

Our friend, Erik, who is the Manager/Sommelier at Daniel's Lake Union, hooked us up with a tour at Jordan Winery, which is in the Alexander Valley. The grounds at Jordan are gorgeous, and they do a number of food and wine events, so we saw the garden where they source their vegetables and herbs from. What made this tour different than other tours that we were on was that it was an "industry tour" so the questions being asked by the participants were very different than the typical customer tour. We had restaurant owners, people who worked at other wineries, buyers, etc. so Marc and I were able to learn a great deal about some of the business aspects of making wine. They do customer tours as well, but they are serious when they say you need an appointment. Marc and I biked up some serious hills on a lark on a previous visit, and we were graciously turned down when we asked to join a tour. So make an appointment because it is worth checking out. Thanks to Erik for the great experience!

Other activities on the trip included some biking around Dry Creek Valley to wineries we hadn't been to before including Bella (great wine caves and they had a dog named Mollie), Kokomo and Amphora. 

There is a great 'general store' in the middle of the valley called the Dry Creek General Store, which continues to make great sandwiches. Marc also found a canoeing company that allowed us to boat down the very pedestrian Russian River. That was fun except when the water was so shallow that we needed to walk the boat down the river, so no 'Captain Nemo' moments this time around. We picked up some great picnic food for the ride at the Oakville Grocery – good stuff. Marc also continued his love of skin treatments by getting a 'honey wrap' at the Spa at the Hotel Healdsburg. And of course, we needed to do some wine tasting in the Russian River Valley.

And we have no official comment on how much wine was purchased on this trip. J

Dessert Monster

Typically that title could (and should) be applied to me. But in this instance, Jill was definitely the dessert monster. It was like nothing I had ever seen. And really I hope not to see again anytime soon (because then I don't get the leftovers).

Jill just posted yesterday about this Greek dessert (Galaktoboureko) we had at Evvia the other day that was really good. I think we both liked the fact that it was different. It was really good, but this one is definitely better.

We had dinner at Zin in Healdsburg and I mentioned beforehand that the dessert is generally good there. Of course, so is the ravioli – every time we've been there the ravioli is simply amazing. But let's get back to dessert.

Jill ordered the peanut butter and chocolate mousse cake with zinfandel grape jelly ice cream. I don't even remember what I ordered because of what follows but my dessert was very good. As I ordered my dessert, I decided to get one glass of Late Harvest Zin from Bella to share between us. The dessert wine arrived first so I took a tiny sip and pronounced it "liquid grape jelly". Very nice stuff.

Jill's dessert was huge. Normally I eyeball what she gets and guess how much I'll get when she is "done" and offers the remainder over to me. This big dessert I figured was 4-5 decent bites at a minimum. I dug into her cake and got a mouthful of peanut butter mousse, chocolate mousse & icing, chocolate cake, and just a little grape jelly ice cream. My words: "oh, you're going to like that!"

Jill takes a bite and she looks to be in heaven. And then she takes a sip of the liquid jelly accompaniment and she is definitely going crazy. I enjoyed my dessert but in the process she consumed almost all of hers and I was missing out on my leftovers. I took one more bite of the PB&J dessert and a sip of the dessert wine. This pairing was nothing short of perfect. They were made for each other. The only thing weird is that the server didn't mention it and it wasn't suggested on the menu as you'll see at some restaurants. I think they're missing out on an opportunity there.

Well, Jill finished the whole thing so all I got was that initial bite before she started and that stolen bite as I noticed it all diminishing before my eyes. So for someone like me who loves sweet sugary dessert, you can tell that I'd be happy if the leftovers from Jill continue and we don't see such a great dessert again anytime soon.

For those of you who know Jill's friend Bonnie in New York, you may have heard about her dessert experience at Tra Vigne in Napa years ago. Well, this seems to be on par with that.

Catching up with family and friends in SF.


Marc and I had some Purple Teeth Cellars
business to attend to, which meant us taking a trip down to San Francisco. We have a bunch of family and friends in the Bay Area, so it was great to catch up. I'll let Marc cover the Purple Teeth Cellars aspect of our trip in another entry, but be assured that we have excellent news to report on that front.
Cousin Claire played host to us, which was very generous and allowed me to get some workouts in – particularly some very tough hills to run. She hosted a family lunch at her place, which allowed us to see the Stearns and Lien clans. The family also tasted some of our most recent Purple Teeth Cellars barrel samples from our 2006
and 2007 vintages (see below), and were very positive about how it was all coming out. I got to catch up with Bobby (of Team Bobby fame) and talk some baseball. He's very bullish about his A's now that Frank Thomas is back. Annie, Bobby's sister, is quite the character and keeps everyone on their toes. We also had Danny and Henry in top form showcasing bowling and acrobatic skills throughout the afternoon – who knew that Claire's place could do all of this? J
Claire, Marc and I also met up with Sally
at Fleur de Lys. Unfortunately Sally had to leave early, but we continued to soldier on through the awesome meal and drink some excellent wine, including an '02 Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru. The next night, we met up with Matt and Rebecca at Bin 38 after we had a nice dinner at Boulevard. They are making the big move to Chicago soon, so it was good to see them since we hadn't seen them since their wedding almost a year ago.
The following evening we had dinner with Anne-Cecile and Dan
at Evvia, which was one of my favorite places to eat when I lived in the Bay Area. The food didn't disappoint, but the standout dishes of the evening were A-C's moussaka with all of the flavors and my dessert called Galaktoboureko (traditional phyllo wrapped vanilla bean semolina custard with pistachio ice cream). I thought it was the best dessert I had ordered in a restaurant in a long time (more on this from Marc as well). It had been so long since I had seen A-C and Dan that this was the first time they met Marc! Can't let that happen again.
You can find more pics from our trip here
.
And my very cool cousin, Rebecca, was at the "Sex and The City" movie premiere in SF yesterday because she works at PopSugar! She is the cool chick on the right in the picture.

Heat Wave in Seattle!

The past few days in the Puget Sound region have been unseasonably warm but given that we haven't had much of a spring yet, not many people are complaining. The other reason that most people are not complaining is because the nice weather also happened to fall on a weekend, which made folks very happy. Lots of people in t-shirts, shorts, sandals, etc. Tons of people in the parks. All good.

We ended up having a pretty busy weekend in that on Friday evening, we caught up with Jill, Dave and Xavier, which was a fun time per usual. On Saturday, I had a running workshop that was related to the book that taught me that shin splints were evil – ChiRunning. It was a long day just because it was in the 90s, but it was pretty informative. They did a video analysis of each person so we could see our major areas to improve on in terms of our form. But there is so much information that it is hard to remember everything, so I just took away a couple of things that hopefully will help me to continue prevent injuries. I have a heel-toe strike, which is also another common cause of shin splints, so we worked on some drills that will hopefully help me get out of that habit.

Marc was a trooper again, in that he had the pleasure of doing housework while I was working on my leg kick. That could not have been fun given how warm it was. Ugh. What a guy. On the plus side, we then caught a Mariners game and it was a treat. The weather was nice, there was a big crowd and to top it off, the Mariners won.

Sunday turned out being another sunny and warm day, although not as warm as Saturday. That was good since I was running in a road race known as 'Beat The Bridge', which benefits JDRF. The race was a 5 mile/8 kilometer run around the University District in Seattle, and it was a relatively flat run. Running the race was a no-brainer given my passion for raising funds for JDRF and the fact that I have been training a lot. I ran with the family of a colleague of mine. His daughter has Type 1 diabetes, just like my cousins do, and they are targeting to reach $15,000 in their 2008 fundraising efforts. Richard, my colleague, seemed pretty confident that the 'Team Emma' was going to get there, which is awesome news. Congrats to 'Team Emma'!

The event has a bunch of different races to cater to all kinds of athletes and ages. Six of us on the team were running the 5 mile/8 kilometer race, so we had a good group. Now the whole point of the 'Beat the Bridge' concept is that you need to get over one of the local bridges within 20 minutes of the gun going off, which is about 2 miles into the race. I didn't think that would be a problem for me, but all of our team did so I used my trusty Garmin to pace us all. Well it turned out that I didn't need to use it because we had Emma's brother, Luke, running at a pretty quick clip. Luke is 12 years old and with about a ½ mile left to the 2-mile mark, he asks me how long we have until the bridge and how long it will take us to run it. He then tells me he wants to sprint it! Hello! I'm old here….

So we are the first of our group to get over and we wait about a minute for everyone else. Little did I know that I was kind of like a race baton and another person on the team wanted to put the pedal to the metal. This time, it was a teenager named Margo. She had her mix (apparently she didn't know what she wanted to listen to, so she downloaded something like 90+ songs to her iPod) and was cruising. The last 3 miles were spent with me trying to keep pace with her. Margo was also pretty fast and ran a great race. She finished about 10-15 seconds before me, but I didn't care. I finished in 44 minutes and 45 seconds, which I was really excited about. And that includes the minute that we waited at the bridge for the rest of the team!

I did tell Marc before the race that I wanted to target a 9-minute mile since this is a much shorter race, and I did it thanks to the kids! Maybe I should hire them for races and they can work in shifts. Hopefully that won't violate any child labor laws. The rest of the day was spent attending a post-race breakfast for Team Emma, doing some reading and then attending an impromptu party next door. It ended up being a great weekend.

Just finished a great book on entrepreneurship that I would highly recommend to anyone who is thinking about a starting a new business venture. No, it is not a business textbook. It's more of a memoir of what this person went through and the lessons he learned along the way. It's called Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. The book is a pretty easy read and while some of it may appear to be common sense, it is amazing how many people throw that same common sense out the window when it is their own business venture.

Cousin Claire also sent a good article about how another prominent athlete, Jay Cutler, is adjusting to recently being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. It's worth a read and it is awesome how he wants to get involved and help kids once he gets things under control.


Another road trip – Vancouver, BC!

So the original half-marathon that I was targeting to race was actually the BMO Vancouver Marathon in the beginning of May. Given all of my previous training woes, I had no expectation that I would have actually been able to run Whidbey 3 weeks earlier. After Whidbey, Marc and I went to NYC to spend some time with the family and see some friends. Unfortunately, Marc and I were not at our best which made the trip more difficult than we both would have liked. I ended up losing something like 5 lbs. in 4 days with some kind of intestinal thing, and Marc had an earache which got worse on the flight from Seattle to NYC.
On the positive side, we did get to spend some time with our nephews, Harrison and Jeffrey, as well as my parents and siblings, so that was good. We also got to see Gina, Chris and their 2 sons, as well as Maryanne, Grant, Bonnie, Holly, Mark & Siu Yun, although it seemed like I was in the bathroom for most of the time. Anyway I should mention that we had an awesome tiramisu at Union Square Café with my Mom (really light and fluffy, and not too heavy). Not much else to report on the food front other than the fact that what I did manage to eat at Buddakan was excellent, but I needed some assistance from Mark F. to finish off my plate. For our return, I can't remember the last time I was so happy to get home and get into bed right after a flight. Yeah, it was bad. And what was worse was that I had the Vancouver ½ in a couple of weeks so losing weight like this was not good.
I did a couple of training runs, light workouts, etc. to try and battle my way through until we left for Vancouver. I finally started feeling better around the time we went to Chris and Robyn's for dinner – of course, Robyn made this AWESOME peppermint chocolate cake – which was a week before the race. We left for Vancouver and encountered massive traffic on the main road from the Canadian border to the city of Vancouver. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to have 7 highway lanes merge into 1 (yes, ONE) lane. The weather was looking ok for the weekend so once we got there, we headed off to dinner. Here is the restaurant rundown:
Fuel was, by far, our favorite restaurant. The service was good, the food was awesome and the tables were not on top of each other. The dishes were eclectic without being over the top. I particularly enjoyed the amuse bouche that had an apple with a sprinkle of rosemary and pecorino. Very flavorful. If you go to Vancouver, BC, you should check out Fuel, and maybe even allow some time before dinner to walk around the neighborhood. Rain City Grill was the 2nd favorite, and only because Fuel was so excellent. The food was very good, as was the service. We were given a great table, which had an unobstructed view of the sunset over the bay (one of the best so far this year, we were told). Villa del Lupo was solid, and if you want good Italian, this is the place. But Fuel would be the place I would go back to in a heartbeat.
Our server at Rain City Grill enthusiastically recommended the cupcake place across the street for dessert, and given that the sunset was so awesome, we picked up some cupcakes and sauntered over to the beach. These cupcakes were all of that and a bag of chips. Moist, flavorful, mmmm…. Made me think of Magnolia Bakery from the West Village before it was "outed" by 'Sex and the City' creators.
On to the race. Got up and took the bus to the race start. Just having been to one race made a huge difference in terms of what to expect – i.e., bathroom lines, etc. As I was finding a place to start, guess who I run into? That's right – "6-1"! I kid you not. She said that she did more hill training after our last race, which I thought was funny. We traded spots back and forth throughout the race, and I smoked her on the nasty hill that went up 200 ft. in about ¾ mile, but she caught me on the flats towards the end. She got me in the end by about 5 seconds. Marc was awesome running around from place to place, snapping pics and ensuring that I was fueling properly. It ended up being a beautiful morning and the runners were treated to some great mountain views. Unfortunately this also meant that it was a bit warmer than I was dressed for.
I finished in 2 hours and 9 minutes, which beat my previous time by 2 minutes. The basic deal was that I checked my watch towards the end of mile 12 and noticed that I had a chance to do this under a 10 minute/mile pace. So I pushed as hard as I could. I probably looked like "the little engine that could". I finished, worked my way through the insanity of the area around the finish line and walked towards the hotel to meet Marc. This was probably the best thing I could have done to help my legs so they wouldn't stiffen up. Of course it was weird to feel like you had a full day already and it was only 9:30am. I went down to the hot tub after the race and it was jammed with a bunch of other racers sharing stories. Good times.
My massage later on in the day was nice, but the look on Marc's face after his chocolate wrap was even better. All in all, a fun weekend and a good race for me.

Breaking news – Richie Sexson makes contact

Marc and I had the pleasure of attending last night's Mariners game, where we watched them not only lose again, but also not score any runs. Come to think of it, the Mariners have not scored any runs for 22 innings. That is 2 ½ games for your non-baseball fans. The crowd was pretty quiet, which is the norm for a Mariners game unless the Yankees or the Red Sox are in town. But Marc and I were sitting back and enjoying our Thursday night out when all of a sudden, chaos ensued.

Some background here – Richie Sexson, the guy who grew up locally who came home to play for his favorite team 3 years ago, was up at bat. Now Sexson was brought in to be a clean-up hitter and was given a pretty sizeable contract with the hopes that he would deliver. I remember being at 2005 Opening Day for Sexson's 1st game as a Mariner and he cracked 2 home runs in that game. I remember thinking, "wow, it only goes downhill from here". Never expected that slope to be so steep.

Sexson batted .205 for the 2007 season, which is pretty bad for any major leaguer, let alone for someone pulling in $15 million bucks per year. Yes, one could argue the same about Jason Giambi, whom I think the Yanks should just release and be done with him, his steroids baggage and his bloated contract. Anyway back to Richie. This year Richie is batting .209, which is again dangerously close to the Mendoza line.

OK, back to last night. So we're in the 4th inning, and Felix Hernandez (pitcher for the Mariners) was having a wild night. He hit a couple of guys, but it was pretty clear that he just couldn't find the strike zone. It was possible that the Rangers pitcher, Kason Gabbard, might hit one of the Mariners in the usual "gotta protect my players" mentality that permeates throughout baseball. Up comes Sexson, who is 6' 8", and a pitch comes in high at the level of his head.

He then literally charges the mound with his helmet in his hand and throws the helmet at the pitcher. I don't know in all of the years that I have been watching baseball that I have seen someone throw a helmet at someone like that. It was crazy. Dugouts emptied. Bullpens emptied. I immediately said to Marc that was the best contact Sexson had made in the last 2 seasons but too bad it was with his helmet and not his bat. And Marc and I had the benefit of replay based on where we sit, and the pitch was high but right down the middle!

I think he gets suspended for at least a week because of the helmet and not just charging the mound to throw a punch. You would also think that a fight like this would galvanize the Mariners. Just like the infamous 2004 brawl between ARod and Jason Varitek, which turned it around for the Red Sox – still think my grandmother's death was related to that event as she was a lifelong Yanks fan. But no, the Mariners didn't muster any runs even with runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Not good.

Once again, you can't make this stuff up. That fight probably generated the loudest ovation that the Mariners received all year.

More to come on our recent trip to Vancouver, BC. Stay tuned.

I Was Wrapped in Chocolate!


What was that? Did you say, "wrapped in chocolate"? Yep. If you've never been wrapped at a spa, it is probably hard to imagine. If you have gotten a wrap, you probably have a pretty good idea already. But imagine me, the chocolate lover, wrapped in chocolate. Do you see that smile? Ask Jill how big the smile was when I walked out of the room.
This whole thing was a surprise for me, from Jill, for my support during her two half marathon runs. Let's not forget she also got a massage, but that seems well deserved after running over 13 miles. The only real surprise here is Jill knew what I was going to go through but she didn't bring the camera or take a photo on her phone when I walked out with that huge grin.
The Nefér Spa is located next to the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver BC. We dropped by to fill out the forms and Jill finally told me what I was getting – the chocolate body wrap. So let me detail the process for those who are curious.
First, they rub a combination of sea salt and ground coffee almost everywhere you have skin. This is called exfoliation and was slightly uncomfortable but at least it smelled really yummy. By the end of this part, I felt like I had been at the beach all day and someone had dumped cold coffee all over me while I slept on the sand.
Next, they towel off the grit which takes a while.
Then they get out the good stuff. A bowl of cocoa butter, chocolate powder, crushed rose petals, etc. This smells good and is entirely edible. This is applied as a coating to your skin. Chocolate everywhere and it smelled so good.
The next step involved wrapping the plastic on the table over the chocolate along with a blanket and some towels. This allows the body to absorb the natural minerals and moisturizers in that great chocolate sauce. This was fairly relaxing and while I was wrapped up, I got a head/scalp massage.
The next step involved unwrapping the plastic and turning on the table shower with about 6 faucets. Sadly, the chocolate was washed away. What was incredible was how soft and smooth my skin felt after this part.
But wait, there's more. After I toweled off, I was moved into a traditional massage room where they rubbed on an almond/hazelnut moisturizer to help seal in the wonderful effects of the chocolate experience. It was at this point that I walked out with a huge grin and probably the softest skin I've ever felt.

More Spring Snow in Seattle?

Back at the end of March, I mentioned some spring snow in Seattle. Well, the past few days we have flirted with more snow in the second half of April! What? We aren't sure how much it stuck because we went to NY for a few days where the temps were in the upper 70's with low humidity. That was a nice escape. But on the car ride back from the airport today, there was white stuff falling in spots on the highway. Unbelievable.

How did it happen?


A number of you asked about the approach I took to training for the ½ marathon. I'll share some thoughts with the HUGE caveat of:
I am not a medical professional, nor do I play one on TV. I am not a professional running coach, personal trainer or athlete, for that matter. I am sharing what worked for me, but would encourage anyone who is thinking about doing this to work with a medical professional at a minimum to see if you personally have any health risk factors that could be exacerbated by training for something like this.

 The first thing I'll add is that I targeted the ½ marathon because I felt it was a doable distance that wouldn't impact my lifestyle too much. When I lived in NYC, I knew plenty of people who did the NYC Marathon and they had to adapt to a certain lifestyle particularly in the last couple of months with the long runs on Saturdays, etc. I knew I wasn't ready for that, plus I like to work in stages. Start at the ½ and see how I feel after that.

 Well it took me a lot longer than I would have liked to get to Sunday. Some of the delays were due to getting married, lots of travel, moving, etc. Unfortunately some of the delays were due to injuries. In a few of these instances, I was able to rectify the problems in a few weeks without taking drugs or causing any long-term issues physically. But I had a nemesis – namely, shin splints. Or 'Evil Shin Splints', I should say.
Yes, I had orthotics. Yes, I went to a specialty running store to get my sneakers. Yes, I cooled down and stretched properly. Yes, I did weights and core exercises in addition to my running. Still couldn't shake them. So at the start of the year, I called up Lesley and said that I wanted to resume working with her but I wanted to try something different. Something along the lines of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Since whatever I had tried up until that point had not worked, I told Lesley that I only wanted to run 2x/week and do the remainder of my cardio essentially on the elliptical, along with core/weight workouts. She signed up and we worked out a very conservative, but focused, plan.

 One of my friends, Denise, recommended a book that she really liked that she thought could help called Chi Running. I don't recall the exact wording or phrasing, but there was an "AHA!" moment in the book that basically told me that my real enemy was the flip flops that I was wearing around the house constantly. I don't want to bore you with why wearing flip flops cause shin splints, but needless to say my shin splints went away after a couple of weeks of not wearing them. And coincidentally, I found an article in Women's Health magazine a couple of months later espousing the same words.

 One of the tools that became invaluable to me was my heart rate monitor. These gizmos have pretty much progressed into being mini-computers on your wrist. I picked up a Garmin Forerunner 305 because Lesley used it and this way we could e-mail workout data back and forth to each other. Plus it stored so many different tidbits of data that it helped me gauge my progress. There are definitely less expensive models out there by Garmin and Polar. I used a Polar on in the past and found it to be very helpful, but the Garmin was what I wanted because of the sync up with Lesley.

 I've talked about Lesley a few times but let me add some context here. Lesley is my running coach. I'm sure some of you may laugh that I hired someone to help me run, but there was huge value to me. When I first started running again in late 2004, I kept getting the same pain that I had when I ran on the treadmill back in NYC. I had no idea why. Plus I felt that running was always "hard" and I wanted to be like one of those people who make it look so easy running around Green Lake. Lesley hooked me up with a great sports medicine doctor, physical therapist, and identified a number of stretches that would help nip some of the injuries in the bud.

 We would communicate on my workouts in terms of what worked and what didn't. She also coordinated group runs so I didn't have to run alone, which is a big issue in the winter in Seattle when daylight is so scarce. Anyway lots of people use running coaches for different reasons – accountability, education, improvement, whatever. The point is using one worked for me because as I started to amp up the intensity and mileage on my workouts, the guidance was helpful (i.e., the best gel for me to consume while running – trust me, this is important as you add mileage, or race day tidbits). If you can swing the costs (pricing varies based on a number of factors), I would recommend getting one but that's just my opinion. Plenty of people are able to just tie up their sneakers, run 10 miles and never have any issue. Unfortunately I am not one of those people.

 So this is what I am going to tell you worked for me:
  • Hiring the running coach.
  • Buying a heart rate monitor (if you have a running coach or are thinking about it, talk to a coach about what watch they use so you can e-mail data back and forth)
  • Buy running sneakers at a specialty running store. This is not the time to skimp and go the cheapest route. These stores place a lot of emphasis on service and generally have excellent return policies (i.e., if after a couple of weeks the shoes still hurt, they probably will take them back). Replace the shoes regularly depending on your mileage. Don't wear these sneakers to run errands – use them as running-only sneakers.
  • It may be worth it to find a sports medicine doctor or podiatrist to get a prescription to bring to the running store (i.e., if you overpronate, the salesperson may identify a certain shoe that will work better for you based on the doctor's recommendation).
  • Cool down – as you get older, cooling down takes on an increased level of importance. This is what I do.
  • Build up the workouts slowly and stick to the schedule. Rome was not built in a day. I did most of my workouts in the early morning. It stunk. I hated it. But I also knew that realistically that was the only time I would guarantee that the workout would get in. The 5:30am runs in January were horrible. You know it's bad when you get back in the car at 6:30am and the temperature gauge reads 27 degrees.
  • Don't be a hero. Find someone to run with, or run in a very public space with people around during the day. If I did go out on my own, Marc always knew where I was going to be. I also ran with a cellphone (no, I didn't take calls during runs J).
  • Injuries happen. They suck (I know this isn't a family friendly word, sorry). They can derail the best momentum and they can happen even when you are doing everything "right". You have to let your body recover and get back to it.
It's awesome when you achieve your goal, so I hope this helps.

“Hey 6-1!”

So for those of you who were wondering how Sunday went, it went really, really well. It actually went better than I ever could have expected or hoped for given it was my first effort at the half-marathon. The only thing I was really concerned about going into the race was how I was going to contain my adrenaline since that was an issue in the Mercer Island race last month, and I knew there would be no way I could maintain that same pace for 13.1 miles. Lesley offered some tips on how to keep focused and relaxed, but the one thing she said that I should keep in the back in my mind is that I should believe in my preparation. And there was no doubt I felt ready after the last couple of long runs and the crazy Precor session.

Marc and I had the opportunity to drive the course the day before the race. Even though I knew where the hills were and made a "cheat sheet" for the race, this was a big help. Knowing certain landmarks to look for ended up being HUGE for me on race day. We also scoped out where Marc would be cheering me on to make sure I was eating and drinking at the right times. We were ready!

The day before the race was in the 70s and gorgeous, but we knew that it was supposed to rain late morning and be much cooler on race day which I welcomed. We had mid 40s and clouds at the start of the race, which is actually perfect race weather. And there was a slight hill at the beginning of the race, so that warmed you up right away. I was glad I wore shorts. There were 5 hills, and the 3 worst ones were essentially in the 2nd half of the race. Grrrr…. But I knew what to expect and tailored my fueling strategy so I could attack the hills with some gusto.

At around the start of mile 4, another woman comes up next to me and just says, "hey, we can run at the same pace" but she was clearly joking because she was way taller – as in 6ft 1 in. So she ran ahead and as I was working my way passing people on the worst hill of the course in mile 6, I saw her ahead. My mission was clear – take her down, in a figurative sense of course. J So I get up alongside of her and yell, "Hey 6-1!" She was clearly amused and said she would get me on the flats and downhills later on. No issue there as good natured chatting helps relax things. But I noticed that clearly my training on the hills of Seattle was paying some serious dividends. Lots of people walking. Not me.
So I saw Marc, re-fueled again, drank some Tiger Woods Gatorade (hey it was the Sunday of the Masters and Tiger normally does well on those days so I was going to take any karma I could get, and yes I wore a red Nike shirt), and continued on. I was so pumped that I ran so well on the toughest uphill that I went after the downhill pretty hard. As I started the next uphill, I started to feel "that same downhill" in my knees and quads. I knew I would be fine, but I also knew that I was too aggressive on the downhill. Lesson learned. And wouldn't you know it, I caught "6 1" again on the hill and stayed ahead of her for the rest of the race. There were a couple of other women who I kept pace with and we joked later on in the race that red wine/red meat was in order later on (more on that from Marc).

As I hit the final hill in the final mile, I was looking for Marc and sure enough at 12.25 miles, there he was! He ran with me for about a ½ mile, which was cool because it made me forget about the hill. Marc then left to get the car ready as the finish line was going to be chaotic. I told him that he should get the ice bag ready for my knees. He ended up having to jog in between stations to catch me! What a guy. Marc was beyond supportive as I trained for this event. I'm a lucky gal, but I'd like to think I knew that before Sunday.

And I kept my heart rate in check pretty much throughout the race by thinking about my nephew's birthday party in New York that was going on at the same time. While I was sad that I was not there, I knew he must have been having a great time so that kept me relaxed and smiling.
Oh yeah, I finished the race in 2 hours and 11 minutes. This comes out to a smidgeon over a 10 minute mile for the duration of the race. And Lesley looked at my stats (I capture everything on a heart rate monitor) and noticed that my pace per minute was within 10 seconds of my 10k time (1/2 the distance essentially), which was awesome! Seriously, I was really pleased. It didn't hurt that I finished about 5 minutes before it started raining either.

Anyway I would be remiss if I didn't give a big shout out to Bruce, my father-in-law, for inspiring me to get my running sneakers on. About 3-4 years ago, Bruce ran his FIRST marathon in his life. He was 60 or 61 years old at the time. So if Bruce could do it, I knew that I had no excuse to get out there and give it a go. Thanks, Bruce!

Thanks to everyone for the warm words and encouragement along the way. All of the advice and cheers definitely helped, particularly Michael's post-race treatment (yes, it involved the steam shower – Harv will be proud).