Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Fair Weather Fans

Greetings!  Many people appreciate the cooler weather which accompanies autumn. This time of year tends to be very popular for getting out to enjoy the change of leaves. Most notably, fall brings a variety of festivals, parties and lot of folks gain weight from now through the end of December. If you must be a statistic, then be an outlier that ends the trend. Take advantage of the mild temperatures and beautiful surroundings to get outside for a run, walk or hike. Then keep it up all the way into the New Year. By then, it will be a habit, a good one.

Run through the seasons.

Tom


Thursday, September 25, 2014

Left-Over Vegetarian

Greetings! I take food seriously. I enjoy gardening, cooking and, like many of you, I’m a big fan of eating. For me food represents many things, and thus I really despise wasting food. As a child and as an adult, very little edible food was thrown out as waste. I admit, my mother went farther than me. She would cut mold off cheese and drink sour milk and more. In those days we did not compost, and certainly didn’t have a worm farm. At present, I have a three tiered worm apartment complex and two compost bins. So, even the food we do not consume is returned to the cycle of gardening and so forth.
Leftovers are of great interest to me. Most times when we dine out I have food left on my plate. Regardless of company or class of restaurant I pack up the remainder to bring home for a future meal.  Another area of leftovers is the remnants after a recipe has been used for meal and enjoyed.  For many a handful of pasta, one head of broccoli, or an ounce of tomato sauce will go unused in the pantry or fridge until finally placed in the garbage or disposal. I find this equally offensive as not keeping and or eating leftovers.
Shannan is so kind, as she has more meals than not which are my creations of leftover prepared and unprepared food items. Since we have moved to a plant focused diet (not true vegans- we eat cage free eggs and dairy from non-steroid injected grass fed cows* don't you just love the guilty conscious, yet pretentious disclaimer). 

 I'll post some meals we make from leftovers. These will NOT be step by step recipes. The as the core items are leftovers. For example, last night I used a handful of cauliflower and roasted it with okra and goat cheese. That was the side dish to what I call Fridge Lasagna. We've had some lasagna noodles for much too long. They were in the pantry mocking me. So I used a 1/4 bag of spinach, a few aging strawberries, a wedge of onion along with two green peepers, two tomatoes and a fair amount of basil from the garden.  I sautéed the peepers and onions while blending the tomatoes, strawberries, basil, garlic and some spices. Then in standard lasagna form   I layered up a leftover vegetarian feast. 
Use Food wisely and Run!
Tom

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Best Laid Plans

I wrote a piece for this blog site the day Shannan and I traveled to Scotland. As noted in the post, we had a lay-over in London’s Heathrow International Airport. My plan was to take a 40 minute run from the airport. I went ahead and posted that piece last week. Here's the rest of the story. We moved through customs and to our terminal to continue on to Edinburgh. To my surprise and dismay, this was not the same terminal as we’ve had previously. This, along with a handful of other issues hindered my planned run out of the airport.   
I figured “no problem,” I'll go for a run when we arrive in Edinburgh. Again, we encountered a few obstacles. Though I was none too pleased about it, we forged on to Saint Andrews. By the time we arrived in our very quaint lodge, Shannan and I had been traveling for more than fifteen (15) hours. This included a car ride to the airport, two planes, two busses, and a taxi. As soon as we dropped our bags in our room at Rufflet's I took off for the road.
What a delight. I ran through St. Andrew’s University sporting fields, and along a nice thoroughfare into the city center. Truthfully, I was never worried about The Streak, but I was thrilled to get my daily exercise completed. The weather was chilly, windy and drizzling, a good Scottish day. The whole thing was very enjoyable and well worth the wait. 

Plan. Run.
Tom

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Airport Running

Greetings! It's a travel day. I always love a travel day. What makes it even better is today is an international trip. Like many other times, due to travel schedule and itinerary preserving The Streak takes some preparation. My current plan will mark my third time to go for a run from the Heathrow International Airport in London. There is a lovely canal that I have enjoyed jogging along previously. This time I intend to explore a new area by the waterway. As always, the real issue is getting out of the airport parking lot. It is treacherous. There are no sidewalks and cars are barreling along the road. To make it more interesting, I have the fun of remaining mindful that vehicles are moving in the opposite direction than I am accustom. This is very important when crossing lanes. 

The really fun part is to return to the airport sweating as I pass through security. That's a joy. Stop and think about it for a minute. It really is very suspicious activity. Don't hear me as complaining. Outings like this one break the normalcy of exercising every single day.

Whenever you can, wherever you can, RUN!
Tom

23 Years and Enough Blogging

Greetings! I’ve been very fortunate in my life not to have endured much in the way of inner psychological tension. The numerous posts on th...