by Sam Tackeff | Nov 1, 2014 | Writing
Today it rained. It was cold and grey all day long.
I helped my friend Alexann pack what was left of the home that didn’t go into the two pods on their way to Colorado. We worked through the things to be tossed. The last of the cabinets. Her landlord fed us warm apple cake out of the oven. The back of the car was packed with the last of the closet items. That was an adventure that involved folding for a quarter of an hour in the rain.
There was cleaning. I felt inspired to go home and throw out the majority of my belongings to avoid the hassle of any future moves. I inherited a Swiffer. I adopted her violets. I really hope I don’t kill them.
And then, after some hours of good hard work, we were done. Just like that. The rooms were empty.
And so we rested. We drank tea, and coffee. We got carded at the wine store. “And how old are you today?” the woman behind the counter asked me? It took me a full minute to think about it. We left with a bottle of red, and parted ways, briefly, before heading towards another friend’s house to have one last celebration.
We had burritos.
We stood in the kitchen, watching Love Actually, but not really watching. We talked. For hours, about all the usual things. It was good.
We talked about blogging, about business, about creating something to support women and moms. About what it means to make a place for yourself on the internet in this day and age. I gave my best advice I could. If you want to really get into blogging. Write. Start writing now. Forget about the blog, web hosting, comments. Forget about it all, and just write. For days, weeks, months really. Write until you have enough content that you can go on autopilot and learn all the things you’ll have to learn to run a website, at least, if that’s what you ultimately decide that you want to do. I think there’s so much more out there though. A blog – it can be one piece of. But the internet, it can be scary. You have to learn, I think, about the hard things. The horrible comments. The trolling. I had to tell them about gamergate, about how the internet can be a violent place for women. It really pained me to share that. It’s a lot, really. But all this – it’s nothing to worry about. Start writing now. Just write.
I’m getting a little heavy here.
We drank wine.
Tonight I’m grateful that dear friends can be kept thousands of miles away. That the internet and modern technology bring us all together like never before. I’m looking forward to a weekly email chain. A book club where you read the books together, and don’t meet. (The inverse of our usual book club, which should have been called drink wine and talk about the gym club.) Although, on further thought this evening, I realized that we could just have book club on Google Hangout and each sit in our respective houses and crack open bottles of wine and talk about the book together. Wouldn’t that be nice?
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 29, 2014 | Fitness, Indian
I cooked tonight! I know, I know, I cook most nights. But I’ve been revisiting some of my favorite pantry and freezer meals for the past few days, and this one made me proud of myself – long on flavor, short on effort. My friend AA is moving back to Colorado, and thus I managed to inherit a large haul of freezer and pantry items. Bittersweet, but getting the spoils of a sad situation is enough to perk me up a little bit. Plus, these friends are food lovers, so we’re talking homemade frozen Momofuku buns, honeymead, a black truffle, a full jar of maple syrup…
Before we get to dinner, here are a few of the things I ate today. In the morning, I made myself an aeropress of a wonderful coffee – espresso from Karma Roasters. It was a splurge at Whole Foods, and I don’t regret it one bit. It’s a stellar coffee.
For lunch, I cracked open some of the home made liverwurst from my Walden Local Meat share. I’m always looking to add a little offal to my diet – it’s highly nutrient dense, and delicious! Given that I prefer my food as would best be presented to a five year old, I opted for little cucumber boats.
In the afternoon I was hungry, so I roasted a delicata squash from Volante Farms. Delicata are by far my favorite of the fall squashes! They are super sweet, and I personally have no problem eating the skin.
In the late afternoon, I headed to the gym for Olympic Lifting class. It was the previously mentioned AA’s very last Wednesday Oly class before she moves away, and I didn’t want to miss it. Plus I’ve been out of the gym for so long with marathon training, that I was itching to get my hands on a barbell and lift something heavy! I hopped on the rower to warm up, and we ended up having a lot of fun in class – practicing clean complexes and working to some max heavy cleans. I was pretty sure that I was going to have to drop some serious weight from my usual bar, but things actually didn’t go so badly, all things considered. I worked up and got in multiple lifts at 95, but couldn’t for the life of me break the mental hurdle to get past 100. The worst part is that my lack of being able to make this lift is 100% in my head. I can lift the bar easily. I can high pull and just hold it there. I can’t for the life of me drop under the bar. Despite my frustration, I left thrilled to have gotten sweaty, and it felt so good to be back in the gym.
At home, I set to work cleaning my kitchen, as it was needing a little love. I cleaned and seasoned a cast iron, and the wok (see the top picture) that I inherited, which was looking a little rusty. Dinner needed to be something easy, and I always love some basic Indian spices in my cabinet for making something warm and comforting. I opted to do a really simple kheema – ground beef and peas – which requires little more attention than browning the beef, stirring in the rest of the ingredients, and letting things simmer.
Simplest Kheema (Ground Beef with Peas)
1 pound ground beef (highest quality you can get)
1 tablespoon fat (olive oil, ghee, or coconut oil)
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons curry powder (I used Trader Joe’s Curry Powder)
a knob of ginger, minced
1 15 oz.can diced tomatoes, and their juice
pinch of sugar (optional, but helps reduce acidity of tomatoes)
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup low sodium chicken stock (homemade, preferable)
In a large skillet, heat the fat, and brown the ground beef with a big pinch of salt and pepper. When beef is almost browned, add the curry powder, and ginger, and cook for two minutes. Pour on can of diced tomatoes, peas, chicken stock, and stir. Bring to a simmer, and cook, partially covered (leaving an inch or two for steam to escape), for 10 minutes. Top with a spoonful of yogurt if you’d like.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 26, 2014 | Meat, Uncategorized
The second month of my Walden Local Meat share arrived on Thursday, and I find myself with a freezer full of meat of all types that need to be used. Every month Walden sends out a survey that allows you to mention your preferences and order any add ons. You can order the amount of meat that you’d like – starter packs start at $49, and I pay $129 a month for a full share with 10-11 pounds of meat, with several pounds of ground meat (lamb, pork, beef), sausages, bacon, and other charcuterie. This month I added a few extras: two dozen fresh eggs, a pound of chicken livers, and a tube of home made liverwurst. Liver and other offal are such nutrient dense foods, and I’m a firm believer in eating the best quality you can find – it’s a relief to be able to source high quality from my CSA!
Dinner tonight was with some of the leftover beef from last month that I reluctantly took out from the back of the freezer. (My first month I opted not to specify what cuts I wanted, and just hope for the best. I was 90% satisfied, and made sure to make requests this month!) I wanted this to work a little bit better than it did – I think I’m just not a fan of certain roast cuts of beef – despite cooking in the pressure cooker in a good amount of liquid, the meat always ends up a little bit dry. Alas, not every dish is a winner. Nevertheless, this was an easy dish to make, and with better beef, and a great barbecue sauce, it makes for a decent dinner.
Barbecue Beef with Sauerkraut. I started with a few pounds of beef (I had a 2 lb. thawed round roast, but this would be much better with brisket or chuck roast) which I seasoned with salt and garlic powder, and put it in my instant pot with a cup of barbecue sauce, a cup of apple cider, and a little bit of stock. I set it on high pressure for 45 minutes on the meat/stew setting.
To eat, pull the meat out of the liquid, and serve with extra barbecue sauce, sauerkraut, and pickles.
Pro-tip: eat your meat stew with pickles! (Turks do this, and it’s one of my favorite additions to stew or beans. You immediately get something salty, crunchy, and sour to help balance out what might be a lackluster stew, or take a great one to even greater heights. I like sauerkraut with pickles, because of the added fermented benefits!)
Walden Local Meat, Carlisle, Massachusetts.
Free delivery to the Greater Boston Area. If you commute into Boston, you could get the shipment delivered to work, and it’ll stay conveniently cold in the reusable freezer bag packed with your frozen meat and some dry ice.
