Cooking – East Coast Appetite

Summer Running, Volume 3

February 5, 2023Posted in Cooking, Desserts, Food, NYC, Running, TrainingTagged distance running, NYC, Running, SummerStreets, TrainingLeave a comment

Ed Note as of February 2023: Can’t believe I wrote this and never published it. New posts will better explain my whereabouts for the last 6 months.

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August was definitely not the training month I wanted, but I still got some running in. I didn’t make it to the gym for lifting very much, though.

I got to do SummerStreets on its final week, which was so much fun. I missed it last year (and am not sure if it happened in 2020), but this was always a high point of marathon training for me. They close down Park Avenue to car traffic for most of Manhattan and have ‘rest areas’ to refill your water bottle, try Nuun/other drinks, and see the running community. There’s other stuff like workout classes and free bicycle rentals, but I’m just in it for the vibes.

Looking south on Park Avenue from the 90’s

Met up with Gabby who biked from Brooklyn

It’s hot and humid most days (and sunny) and I feel like I still haven’t acclimatized to the heat since I wasn’t running so much of July and August. Maybe it’ll finally work for me in September?

I didn’t travel anywhere in August (and don’t plan to in September) but have a lot of conferences coming up October, November, and December plus a DC trip. Excited to run in some other places since I didn’t get to go far in Oregon.

I had a lot of treats, baked my usual galette (and finally nailed a flaky crust), and had some hot oil pizza (CT pizza is so good). I ordered way too many matcha strawberry bubble teas.

Hot oil pepperoni pizza from Colony Grill – one of the best I’ve found of this kind in the Fairfield County/New Haven area

Weeks 9 and 10 of NYC Marathon 2021 Training

October 2, 2021October 2, 2021Posted in Cooking, Destinations, Food, New York City Marathon 2021, nycm, Running, TrainingTagged distance running, marathon, Marathon Training, NYC Marathon, Running, TrainingLeave a comment

Still catching up on these! I had a couple of weeks where my running was off. Physically I was fine, but I just didn’t FEEL like running. Especially the long runs. I think knowing that this marathon won’t be my fastest (and in fact will now definitely be my slowest) made it easy to take my foot off the gas during training. I kept thinking each week that I would turn it around, but then I would catch myself stacking up my Saturday with plans (and sometimes work) then being too tired/busy/annoyed with the rain or heat waves on Sundays. I considered my prior tactic of doing midweek long runs, but wasn’t really feeling those either. I think having the first few weeks of a marathon training cycle be ‘off’ is more normal for me, but this time weeks 6-10 were the hardest.

8/30-9/5:

8/30: Rest day

8/31: AM weight lifting then 7.1 miles along my favorite route in the late afternoon.

9/1: Rest day. My friend Carla visited from Chicago and I just missed the start of the downpours from Hurricane Ida.

9/2: 3 miles around town; flooding impeded one of my typical running routes along the Rippowam River.

Post-Hurricane Ida Flooding of Mill River Park

9/3: AM bench press and Peloton ride at the gym. Then the long drive up to Northern New Hampshire to my friend’s home in the White Mountains.

9/4: 3.2 mile hike up Mount Willard.

Growing puppies and flowers at Sherman Farms

9/6-9/12:

Hmm, not much better in terms of running. In fact, even worse.

9/6 (Labor Day): 3 mile hike to Champney Falls. Pulled out the grill at night and had fun trying to perfect ribeye.

Ribeye, veggies, and pull apart garlic bread

9/7: 5 hour drive back to NYC area from NH. Finally tried the Starbucks pumpkin cream cold brew (TWICE because 5 hour drive). Exhausted regardless after I got home and did not run.

9/8: 4 mile run

9/9: Weight lifting and 4 miles including a 5K time trial. I did it as a progressive run. The 9 minute miles felt good, the 8:30s less so. Didn’t quite make it to the 8:00 zone as I had hoped.

9/10/21: 4 recovery miles

9/11: Tried the Dunkin Donuts pumpkin cream cold brew. Also acceptable and a full $2 cheaper than Starbucks.

9/12: Weight lifting in the morning, then seeing Shang Chi in theaters.

Snack Mix: ddukboki chips, shrimp chips, and Flamin Hots

Did you see any long runs? I didn’t see any long runs. More to come next time.

Rebuilding (not Base Building) Update

March 23, 2021March 23, 2021Posted in Cooking, Food, Running, SnacksTagged Peloton, physical therapy, Running, Snacks, strength trainingLeave a comment

Hello again from my current mileage of roughly 0. I have a physical therapy appointment for an evaluation in April but have seen progress from doing many of my 2019-injury exercises at home and in our building’s gym. I ran Friday the 5th when the temperatures reached into the 60’s and felt amazing. The breeze in my hair! Tank top! So hopefully I get this weak left hip under control and can in fact eye a 5K or 10K this spring/summer then maybe something longer in the fall. I also want to hike more and do more trail running; all the things I listed in my 2021 goals post. I ran again on the 20th as part of an Asian anti-violence solidarity run with some teammates in the city and hit 4 miles. Seems promising?

What else am I doing, if not running? Still on my weekly RowHouse class as well as Sunday morning Zoom Yoga for Runners most weeks. Our gym got two new spin bikes; they’re sadly Echelon Connect and not Peloton, but they’ll do.

My main hobby (other than reading and attempting to watch Oscar and Golden Globe nominated new films) is of course cooking and baking. I have a catch-all Google Sheet for meal planning, but have over the last year added additional sheets to list out my cookbook collection (currently hovering around 65, half digital), pantry/fridge/freezer inventory (which was indispensable at the height of spring 2020 quarantine), new recipes I’ve tried the past year, and my current cookbook project. I’m trying to cook my way through A Common Table, the book from blogger Cynthia of Two Red Bowls. I bought it in 2019 and had already tried about 6 of the recipes but am turning it into a project this year. I’m up to two dozen recipes and use the spreadsheet to better plan it all out.

Made a bunch of potstickers for Lunar New Year

I’m also in a Cookbook Club (as well as two regular book clubs) and while we can no longer meet in person safely, we’re having Zoom meetings. I sadly missed the meeting for Jubilee, which I’ve had for over a year but still haven’t cooked anything from. Up next is Plenty by Yottam Ottolenghi. He’s famous for super long ingredient lists but incredibly well executed food. I checked out his book Simple from the library (but didn’t make anything) then bought his newest, Flavor, late last year. Still haven’t made anything from that. So some of my purposeful organizing is to get myself to cook from my growing collection. The area where I am weakest about all this is actually taking photos of my food. This used to be a thing I would do more regularly (remember all my beautiful food-centric posts from 2019?), but the light situation in our apartment (and the last one) is lacking. And I don’t quite have the commitment to do this with enough regularity to actually get a handheld light for this.

Eating at Ottolenghi’s London restaurant NOPI in 2014

I also signed up for SnackCrate, which ships a box of international snacks to your door from a different country each month. I got the Germany box first, which is mostly chocolate-based. Also doing a snack exchange with folks in other countries (Netherlands first) plus always trying new stuff from Target and H Mart.

Target has so many special/limited edition Oreo flavors

May, June, and July Eats and Outdoors

July 28, 2020July 27, 2020Posted in Cooking, Food, RunningTagged NYC1 Comment

My running volume fell off a cliff due to increases in both workload and heat/humidity and I subsequently decided not to do a June virtual race 5K since I would be off from PR pace. I mostly have been running and walking to Central Park and Morningside Park and have gotten into identifying flowers and other plants with the Seek by iNaturalist app (and also asking my horticulturist friend).

Baking hasn’t happened in the hotter weather but I am pleased with the bread and sweets I made prior to real summer.

No Knead Loaf with Charred Scallion Butter

Murray’s Cheese Birthday Gift from Friends – prosciutto, burrata, and olives

Highbridge Park; the pedestrian/bike only bridge goes from Manhattan to the Bronx

Rosé outside at Wolffer Estate Vineyard (Hamptons day trip to see Gabby outside)

Hydrangeas are my fave after tulip/rose/peony season

img_0445-1 — Not the Yayoi Kusama infinity room we were supposed to attend, but it’ll do

April Running – The Month That Wasn’t

May 12, 2020May 11, 2020Posted in Cooking, Desserts, Food, NYC, Running, Training5 Comments

So after running my highest mileage ever in March (such consistency), my running totally fell off the rails in April. (Remote) work ramped up, the weather sucked, and my desire to get out of the apartment with a facial covering on and avoid people was not there. It gave me some time to think about why I just like the act of running and not necessarily the ‘training’ for a race or trying to hit a PR. In all likelihood, I might try to train for a virtual race PR in June for the 5K (or the mile), but it also felt good to have less pressure on myself to follow a strict training plan when I was also working longer hours than usual (though without a commute) and dogsitting over the weekends. Things have let up a bit in May, that’s for sure, so I’m getting back outside and running a tick more mileage. Some weeks are only 2-3 runs and others are 5, but none are very long anymore.

I have spent so much of my mental energy and brief time outside on the acquisition of food, then cooking and baking said food at home. I’ve kept up with my Meal Planning spreadsheet and added a tab to better capture what we actually have in the pantry, freezer, and fridge (also using the Out of Milk app for grocery list and knowing how much we have of certain ingredients).

I also did a thorough listing and categorization of all my cookbooks since most are hardcover but some are on my Kindle and were sort of out of sight, out of mind. This is absolutely my idea of fun.

Like everyone else, I’ve been feeding my sourdough starter and re-growing my scallions. We’ve been taking on somewhat more complicated cooking projects because we now have time on weekdays and weeknights for things like double-frying Korean Fried Chicken, brining pork chops, marinating skirt steaks, and letting cookie dough chill in the fridge. Do I miss paying $14 for a grain bowl at Naya and eating at my desk in midtown? Sometimes. Mainly I miss the coworker camaraderie that came with it. We’ve been getting takeout of local places to help support them and avoid Seamless and their fees (and always tipping a lot).

Food photo overdrive below. Starting to wish I had a better camera, lighting, and dishes for this kind of thing.

9″x9″ tray of Banana pudding that I ate almost entirely myself over 3 days

Korean fried chicken in soy ginger garlic sauce

Bon Appetit’s shrimp scampi over linguine and broccolini

Sourdough discard pizza crust with sausage and fresh mozzerella from Faicco’s Pork Store

The Off-Season; Month 1

November 28, 2018November 27, 2018Posted in Cooking, Desserts, Food, Running, TrainingTagged ClassPass, distance running, Mile High Run Club, Running1 Comment

I read a quote on instagram that “the off-season is key for a good on-season” and have been thinking about it a lot. I’ve been focusing on recovery from the marathon first and foremost in the past 3+ weeks, but am slowly picking up the mileage again. I signed up for a race (NYRR’s Ted Corbitt 15K on December 8th) because I think I can nab a PR (last year I got off to a slow start) and might use it to see how I feel about an early spring half marathon. Otherwise, I have no races on the docket until Broad Street Run and Brooklyn Half in May. I toyed with the thought of a spring full marathon, but am already less into that idea and would like to have a solid half training cycle injury-free.

Central Park on my way to pacing a friend at the NYRR 60K

I took my Classpass off of hold and now will try to do a mix of indoor cardio, lifting, and yoga classes. So far, post-marathon, I took tantra yoga, treadmill intervals and a strength for runners class at Mile High Run Club, and a Barry’s Bootcamp Arms & Abs class for my friend’s birthday.

Other than the occasional running, I’ve been cooking and baking and eating a lot! I went to an All You Can eat Korean BBQ spot with my boyfriend, then we hit up an AYCE seafood and sushi buffet only a few days later. I made a lot of dishes for Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving: sweet potato casserole, miso butter kale, ciabatta stuffing, cornbread stuffing, Brie en croute and have been eating the leftovers ever since. I made some ooey gooey butter cake for a work potluck but haven’t been baking that much otherwise.

Poutine and deviled eggs at Jacob’s Pickles

Plate #2 of many at Port of Call Seafood Buffet in Hackensack

Friday’s Friendsgiving with two ducks and many sides

Mileage: 4 miles, 15 miles, 16.3 miles.