Tomorrow (the 23rd) Jamba Juice is giving away their latest thing, the "small" smoothy.
Small means 16 ounces. That's two cups. A pint. Half a liter, roughly. That's a small? It's 350-600 calories, depending on which kind you get...
Anyway, it's free, so go get one. Between 3pm-6pm and it'll actually cost you a dollar.
One of my favorite restaurants in the world is Aquavit in NYC. And it's not just because they serve nine different kinds of herring.
Anyway, Marcuss Samuelsson who's the chef there is going to be at Draeger's tonight. I'm very excited...
Check out details here.
(several hours later...)
Well, I have to say that the class experience was absolutely sublime. My only complaint is that my classmates were too quick with their food thereby depriving me of the chance to rob them of it when I was done with mine.
Everything was fantastic. The evening proceeded roughly like this:
Marcus started out by talking about Scandinavian cuisine, how it evolved, why he thought it wasn't more popular than it is, how he plans on changing that (sort of) and his basic approach to cooking, combining flavors, constructing dishes, etc. Our three course meal was going to be representative of his "New Scandinavian Cuisine".
As a side note, I'd had brunch at Aquavit with Ben (who was taking this class with me) and I had dinner there once with Mark. Both were fabulous. So my expectations were plenty high.
First course was "Lobster Rolls Wrapped in Pickled Asian Pears" which were served with a frozen citrus salsa. The accompanying drink was a shot of mandarin vodka with what seemed like an ice cube but turned out to be ginger ale granite(!).
I watched Marcus make this perfectly ordinary lobster salad filling (cringing when he added cilantro as I normally hate it) and yet I could not believe how amazingly it came together. The tastes all blended, complementing each other, playing off of each other, each distinct yet none overwhelming. I didn't even mind the cilantro. The side salsa tasted like highly flavored citrus granite. A touch of fish roe on the salsa tied it into the seafood rolls nicely. And the pickled fruit wrapper nicely echoed the fruit in the salsa. Yum!
Second course was "Salt-Cured Duck Breast". I've never met a duck on a dinner plate that I liked *except* when I tasted Mark's duck at Aquavit last year. Tonight's duck was truly amazing. First of all it had a nut vinegrette on it made with nuts and duck fat(!) that was out of this world. The two accompanying sides were coconut milk bock choy and sweet potato made with some slightly spicy soy sauce. Every single bite was like a song of flavors in my mouth.
Some red wine was served with this, a red, possibly a Cab (I gave mine to Ben after tasting it).
For dessert we had "Miniature Chocolate Ganache Cakes". These were incredible delicious slighty undercooked chocolate cakes (so they were moist in the center) but it's what they were served with that blew me away... Beets. Yes, they were accompanied by a sweet beet syrup (with tiny chunks of firm beets) and a very tart yoghurt sauce. Even Ben who normally doesn't like beets at all ate every last bite and frankly I had to work really hard to keep myself from licking my plate (and everyone else's).
After dinner Marcus hung around answering questions, chatting with folks, and signing his book.
I'm looking forward to later this week. We'll be flying to the East Coast for my dad's 70th birthday and the four of us are going to Aquavit for dinner. Luckily Marcus will be back from his West Coast Tour by then and will cook for us again. I can't wait. If you're ever in New York, of if Marcus is ever in your town and if this sounds at all like your sort of thing, don't miss it.
Yesterday I completed US Half Marathon. I signed up with Team in Training again this year as a mentor (helping others achieve their running and fundraising goals) so for myself I picked a half-marathon. I've previously done two marathons and they are just too punishing on both my body and my spare time.
Anyway, 13.1 miles just doesn't seem all that bad, except this course was hilly as all hell, and after the first hour it got rather hot. I felt like I had jelly-legs by mile 9. I finished, and did lots of icing and got a massage, but today I still feel like a small truck hit me. More recovering definitely called for.
If you haven't already donated to LLS, please do so, they are a very worthy organization:
http://www.teamintraining.org/participant/kamsky-122363
PS if it's not obvious from the fact that I ran this event -- the MRI showed no fractures or serious damage whatsoever.
I guess it's cause I love the pain.
I mean they aren't like most teams -- they can't lose early and get it over with. They've gotta give you hope.
That way when they lose it'll hurt that much more.
I had an MRI yesterday, which was a first for me. I have a pain in my foot and to rule out a stress fracture I was sent to get it MRI'ed.
I had to lie perfectly still for over 20 minutes. Apparently if you're getting a chest scan it takes longer and you're in the MRI tube head-first. I don't think I could handle lying in a dark loud tube with almost no space around me, being perfectly still for 40 minutes... Being sick generally sucks.
Not being completely healthy sucks. For example, today I had a rather painful procedure done. The pain was so bad that afterwards my body went into shock. I fainted and floated around not full consciousness for almost an hour. That's scary stuff.
However, falling down while you faint is kind of neat because it doesn't hurt at all. It's like your body turns into jelly and so hitting the floor is kind of gentle, smooth process. I think people get hurt when they fall down because they are tense and trying not to hurt themselves. Of course, I'm only talking about falling from heights like five and a half feet.
Another amazing thing is how quickly your body (and brain) forgets about such incredible pain. I mean this is probably why some women sign up for more childbirths after having one. That's one signup list you won't see me on.
The other thing that sucks is my foot. My foot pain is either a stress fracture or a neuroma (some sort of nerve damage/inflamation). Either way it's not looking so good for the 1/2 marathon I've been training for which is in 10 days.