by Sam Tackeff | Jan 2, 2013 | Challenge
I have a lot of thinking to do in the next few weeks – and by thinking, I mean putting myself out there and making things happen. Getting started is usually my weakness. Once I commit to something I’ll charge forward with full force, but determining what I’m actually going to get started on is always a challenge.
Fortunately, starting my morning is less of a challenge. This one commenced with coffee, spiked with a little bit of eggnog. I’ll be sad when Crescent Ridge eggnog season is over, but I’m probably better off without it! After several months of successfully drinking black coffee to start the morning off, it’s fair to say that I’ve regressed, and I blame it all on the nog.
Brunch was a banana pancake. It’s been several weeks since my last, and I was craving it so much that I actually defrosted a frozen banana as we had none fresh in the house. I topped it with some chocolate hazelnut butter for good measure.
Here’s a little trick for you – after making some chicken stock last night with the bones from our dinner, I woke up this morning and strained the bubbling broth in my french press. It works well in a pinch!
It was a quiet sort of day. I worked from home getting some errands done, progressing, and took a Skype call with a start-up in Brazil. Don’t get excited – I’m not moving to Rio anytime soon, but it was nice to make the connection!
Here’s some of the afternoon light in my apartment.
After working on my growing list of to-do’s, I headed to an early evening Crossfit class. It’s so nice to be able to make it in on weekdays again! The workout of the day was split (like usual) into a strength component and a more traditional circuit workout. We warmed up with a rotation of jumping jacks, leg-overs, squats, and various stretches, and practiced our lifts with PVC pipes before getting to the good stuff.
A. 3 Push Press + 2 Push Jerk + 1 Split Jerk
Build to a max in 15 minutes
For this one I shared a bar with Alexann, and we started working up the weights – first a set with the bar (30#), and then a set with 60 pounds, and another with 70. After that, I’m not sure what happened, but my brain got in the way – four lifts into the #75, I just couldn’t quite do it anymore, so after a few more goes, the #70 was my max. I’m certainly strong enough to lift heavier – just have to retrain my mind to get me there!
B. 2 x AMRAP (as many reps as possible) in 8 minutes
5 Handstand Pushups, 6 Pistols, 7 Pull-ups. Rest 4:00 between AMRAPS
Apparently, lifting was making me tired! For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing great with handstand pushups. I have a bit of a challenge though, because I have a hard time kicking up to the wall without my glasses falling off. I have no problem taking my glasses off and doing it, but if I’m doing it quickly in a workout, it gets disorienting not actually being able to see. My “solution” is keeping my glasses on for a WOD by pushing up from a headstand. It’s tiring and not very efficient. I managed a measly 3 rounds the first 8 minutes, and 2 rounds the second – the pushups were killing me!
Despite a pathetic score, this workout was great.
After all of the fun, I headed home to make dinner – gingery beef, broccoli and carrots. No real recipe here – I simply heated some coconut oil, cooked a little garlic, threw in some thinly sliced sirloin with some Red Boat fish sauce. Once cooked, I took the beef out, added the broccoli and carrots to the pan, and a little bit of chicken stock, and steamed the vegetables. While they were cooking, I made a sauce of stock, garlic, ginger, lemon juice, red pepper flakes and coconut aminos. I added a little bit of sahlep (orchid root powder) as a thickener. It works just the same as cornstarch! When the broccoli was cooked, I tossed the beef back in the pan, and added the sauce and cooked it just for a minute or two.
For dessert, I served myself a little cup of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Caramel Buzz, a leftover treat from New Year’s Eve. Along with the eggnog, once this is done I’ll be taking a break from the stuff for a while!
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Finally, one last photo. This is Jim, a.k.a. “Hoff”, one of the lovely folks I’ve had the privilege to get to know over the past many months at Charles River Crossfit. I found out tonight that he died last week, at 61, and it was a true shock. Jim was one of those people who always had a smile on his face, and a kind word to say. He’d come to the gym in his flip flops, and power through any workout with everything he had. He’ll be so deeply missed.
by Sam Tackeff | Jan 1, 2013 | chicken, Pantry Staples, Turkish
Why, hello! Has the first day of this new year treated you well?
Our celebrations were quite low key last night because we’ve both been a little under the weather. We started out with the movie Haywire, but despite my serious strong-girl crush on Gina Carano, the film committed the cardinal sin of bad action films: it was boring. So boring, in fact, that I turned it off after twenty minutes. We salvaged the evening with pizza, ice cream and several episodes of MI-5, and made it (reluctantly) until midnight.
Once we realized that the world wasn’t ending, we passed out and slept in until 10. Glorious!
Today we gathered ourselves and ventured out into the world. Devon needed snow boots, and I hadn’t left the house for a while. We drove to the L.L. Bean outlet, ate lunch at the salad bar at Whole Foods, and came back to work on a few new projects, draft some more resolutions, and think about my word of the year. For dinner, I thought I’d set us straight with some salads and roast chicken.
This is one of my favorite meals because it’s simple, light, and relatively foolproof. Which of course means that I had my first kitchen failure of the year – I started my chicken skin side down in my greased pan, but the skin decided to stick nearly entirely to the pan when I flipped it over. Alas! Good thing that rosemary and oregano infused chicken minus the skin still tastes good!
I topped my salad with some tomatoes, a few baby mozzarella balls, good black olives, and some rolled up slices of pastırma, a Turkish cured meat. I made a dressing with some of the pan drippings, some of the olive oil that I keep my black olives in, and a little bit of sherry vinegar. It was a solid start to the year!
After dinner, I grabbed all of our bones and put them in my little workhorse Crockpot to make a light stock overnight. I’ll probably use it for some soup lunches through the week. Nothing fancy, but you can never have enough chicken-water in the house. Meat tea!
To top it off, we had kazandibi, a sweet Turkish dessert which means “bottom of the pot” and features a lovely layer of caramelization over a rich thickened milk pudding. In Turkey, pudding is by far one of the most popular forms of dessert, and pudding shops are more ubiquitous than pastry shops.
I picked up a few of these at Sevan in Watertown, and since they aren’t the easiest to make well at home, they were a real treat. Traditionally you’d top them with a dusting of cinnamon and maybe some ground pistachios, but since I’m impatient, I ate it cold from the fridge with nothing on it.
After dinner, I set to work making one of my favorite kitchen resolutions happen: wash all dishes and wipe down counters before going to bed each night. Nothing like waking up in the morning to a clean kitchen and feeling ready to start the day on the right note!
Here’s to a wonderful new year ahead of us!
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 30, 2012 | Wellness
I’m taking a break from errands and typing up my lists of intentions (and maybe even putting off a little workout) to provide you with this!
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Friends, one of my goals for the new year is to create some e-courses revolving around good food, health and happiness – but I’m not quite there yet! So, I thought I might share with you a few e-courses that I know will be stellar that other people are leading in the next month or two. Many of them are starting in just a few days, so if you are inspired, sign up right away! All are under $100, and some are free! I’m not taking all of the courses (even though I want to!) but I’ve taken courses or worked with every one of these folks in the past – and none of these are affiliate links* – consider them all highly recommended!
Charly’s Delightfully Well E-Course – I went to high school with Charly but fell out of touch, and I’ve just been so thrilled at how wonderful a life she is creating for herself and sharing with others. She’s a health coach, yoga teacher, and writer, and would be a wonderful guide. (Note, this starts in two days, so you’ll have to sign up by the 31st!)
An online cooking class at Stone Soup Virtual Cookery School – Jules of The Stone Soup offers these wonderful video cooking classes, as well as some excellent pdf’s that I find myself buying (often). I really enjoyed ‘Mastering the Art of Cooking on a Budget’.
A Whole 30 or the Balanced Bites 21 Day Sugar Detox – for folks interested in a Paleo eating style, these two courses are some of the best ways to ease into things. And by ease I mean, well, cutting out processed food 100% is never easy, but you’ll be munching on fabulous whole foods, planning your meals, and eating better than you have in a while. {I hear that Nom Nom Paleo is going to be the cruise director for the next Whole30 – which is reason enough to jump aboard!}
Rachel Cole’s Ease Hunting – Rachel is a beautiful human being, inside and out. She’s hosting a course from February through March, and it will undoubtably be wonderful. I spent a moving afternoon with her and other women in Providence last year on her Well-Fed Woman Retreatshop, and it was one of the best things I did all year.
Chookooloonks Create.2013 – Karen Walrond is an excellent guide, and I’m excited for this course on intentional creative pursuits. Her blog is one of my favorites, and I’ve enjoyed some of her photo-courses, journaling advice, and general creative inspiration. She makes me want to go out there and DO.
Are there any courses that you’ve signed up for that I should know about? (Or that you are leading? Plug them in the comments!)
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 20, 2012 | Lunch
This weekend I started finally unpacking boxes, and putting cookbooks up on the shelves. At some point I’ll have to find a place for this bookshelf that isn’t hit by the sun, but fortunately, the winter light at this latitude doesn’t pose much of a bleaching risk. I still need to organize the books, but it’s a relief having them in plain sight. I’m debating arranging them by genre, color, size or by publisher. Ideas?
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Last week was a very long week. It qualified as a ‘Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week’, culminating with the terrifying news of kids getting slaughtered. I’m angry, devastated, and there are no words appropriate in this situation. It took me a week to post this because there was so much to process and I was hoping to say something meaningful, but indeed the words still haven’t come, and I’m not sure they ever will. My own experiences this week seem trivial, but I wrote them out to let go of some of the stress, so here they are:
We officially announced that we are closing down Tasted Menu, the startup I’ve been working at since moving home to New England. It’s painful to let something go that you care deeply about, nurtured, and put so much of yourself into. I’ve been overwhelmed by the kindness of friends (and even strangers) expressing their sadness and support.
I’ve been interviewing, trying to find my next new project, the next thing that will have me thrilled to wake up each morning and go into work. It’s simultaneously exciting and draining. There are so many formidable people out there doing exciting things.
We are reaching the end of Startup School, and I had to pitch myself in front of a few hundred people. Admittedly I’m not afraid of getting up in front of a crowd, but after six weeks of massive daily input my nerves were fried. And pitching yourself is much more difficult than pitching a product, giving a talk, or making an announcement – but I think it went well.
Coupled with a few unrelated issues including my car’s starter being “finicky”, and some massively bad luck with several external hard drives, this was certainly a week that tested me – but the reality is, there is so much that I am grateful for, and I’m truly lucky for the life and opportunities I have.
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When we first moved to San Francisco, Wednesday evenings were my dinners alone, the nights when I’d eat “girl food”, load up on leafy greens, and eat through the odds and ends in the kitchen. While I’m not particularly fussy about what goes into these meals, the goal is always to find some sort of balance, and get a nice mix of salty, bitter, sweet and savory. It’s my favorite way to nourish myself after a week of stress or poor food choices.
Yesterday I put together one of those meals for lunch. Into the frying pan went a huge handful of parsley that had been sitting in the back of the fridge neglected and semi-frozen, some leftover cooked red cabbage, and a scoop of Italian Salsa Verde, with capers, anchovies, and olive oil.
At the last minute, I heated up the last bit of roasted carrots, and added them to the bowl, and topped it all with a few eggs. Another one of those odd meals that I find comforting and satisfying.
Before I leave you, here’s some afternoon light coming in. For those of you prone to worry, I urge you to grab a camera and search for some light. Cheers me up every time.
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 2, 2012 | Quick and Easy
It’s cold.
I thought I’d be used to it again, or at least tolerant by now. I was deluding myself.
One observation of the season is the ritual progression of coats. I started out with the fleece, quickly moved up to my cheerful red peacoat, and then to my more stylish puffy coat, then to my “prepared for a trek to the Arctic” puffier coat, and today I had the fleece under the puffiest puffy coat and I was still cold. Ah, New England. I remember the days where I used to wear my flip flops past first snow. What has become of me?Oh yes, I’ve become weak.
What, you ask, have I been busying myself with in this frigid weather?
School! Boston Startup School. I alluded to this a few weeks ago before I dropped of the face of the earth – it’s a six week program to sharpen your skills, network with fantastic people, and make deep connections with the Boston startup scene. It has been busy.
Spending my entire day in school has shifted my cooking schedule, so I’ve been making many meals in advance to make sure that we are well fed. I roast vegetables every week, and I always try to hard boil a dozen eggs. When I’m in the mood, I’ll bake them in the oven, but this week they went in a pot on the stove. After they were cooked, I rinsed them in cool water, dried them off, put them back into their carton, and made sure to label them! Usually they last me until the next weekend.
This week I also roasted some carrots for lunches, and steamed a pot of cauliflower which I blitzed into cauliflower mash with a large knob of butter, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
Our dinners have been mostly simple: chicken thighs with sautéed broccoli, a pot of chili that lasts a few days as needed.
One night I roasted sausages from the butcher shop and served them with some broccoli that I steamed and finished off in the sausage pan-drippings.
Another meal was a bowl of ground beef seasoned with cumin and chili powder, sautéed spinach, salsa and avocado. Devon’s favorite meal is refried beans with all the fixins’, so he got the same dinner plus some bonus beans nestled in two grilled tortillas. I typically like serving us both the same food, but I don’t mind tweaking like this for our preferences.
Another night we had pork tenderloin seasoned with herbes de Provence, mashed sweet potato, cranberry sauce and some out of season asparagus. While I used to have panic attacks about eating out of season vegetables, I now do so unapologetically if it means something green other than leafy greens and root veg in this northern climate.
And sometimes, fatigue wins out.
Yesterday, there were these green beans which I roasted with olive oil, salt, thyme and lemon slices at 400 for about 35 minutes. I wish I could tell you I ate a rounded meal, but they ended up in a bowl with some leftover ground turkey, and a large spoonful of yogurt. It was a little weird.
Dessert was in order, and included a run to Target which involved picking up not one, but two pints of Ben and Jerry’s: Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, and the curiously good Strawberry Shortcake Greek Frozen Yogurt. Yes, I know, it isn’t health food.
Here’s one last picture for you – Boston Harbor, taken from the Waterfront by the ICA. That water is not warm.
Hope you all have a lovely Monday!
