Tales of a running hater part III: Slacker Edition

 

Nope, I haven't put these on in a week. 

Well, that didn’t last long.

Two weeks ago, I was all gung ho. At least, about as gung ho as you can be when you don’t like what you are about to take on.

In this post here, I discussed that despite my hatred of running, I was going to get more serious about doing it on a regular schedule. I picked the program, Couch to 5k. I downloaded a super helpful podcast of the program that would play music, as well as tell me when to start and stop. I joined the facebook fanpage even! Don’t I sound seriously into it?

It took me a week and a half to ruin my streak of keeping with the program.

Impressive, I know.

See, I didn’t just stop because of laziness. I came down with a cold and suddenly my weekend got super busy. I only ran two out of the three scheduled days.

But in a turn of events that is quite different from the normal me, I am sticking with it. If this nine-week program takes me 20 weeks to complete, so be it. My New Years resolution, after all, is “finish what you start.”

My first thought after missing a day was, “well, I’ll just start on the third week Monday. I ran two out of the three days this week. That’s enough.”

It made me feel like a slacker; like I was completely incapable of sticking to anything. All the people that actually enjoy running would be ashamed. And I know and love some of those running enjoyers, as a one-year member of my high school’s cross country team. It only took me one season (it took a lot less than that, but I stuck it out to the end) to realize that running 10 miles a day is not my idea of a good time.

Also, I had read a story last week of a girl who continued to run while having cancer and going through chemotherapy.

So, um, yeah. What was my lame excuse again?

So, we’re going to give it another go, starting on Monday. Couch to 5k Week 2, the REMIX!

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Some Valentine's Day tips for the dudes

Guys, in the words of Snoop Dogg, it’s time to step your love game up.

(yes, anytime I can mention Snoop Dogg here, I will take advantage)

We are four days out from Valentine’s Day, and some of you have literally done nothing towards showing your best girl you consider Feb. 14 different from Feb. 13.

This is not in your best interests. Trust me.

For some guys, I truly think Valentine’s Day is an enigma. They know it can be catastrophic to screw up, but they aren’t really sure how to not screw it up.

Before we get to some tips you can use, keep these two absolute truths in mind about women and Valentine’s Day:

Truth #1: women really just want to feel like they are worth your time and effort (and not just on Valentine’s Day, but especially on Valentine's Day).

Truth #2: women want to have the Valentine’s Day story that all their girls get jealous of when they discuss it the next day. And believe me; we all talk about it the next day.

If you only hit a home run once a year, V-day is the day to do it. Rock this day for your best girl, and it can get you several Get out of Jail Free cards.

One of the best ways to satisfy both of the absolute truths about women and V-day is simple: cook something yourself.

Getting in the kitchen — especially if you usually don’t — will make her feel like she’s worth putting in the extra mile for. Not to mention, it's pretty universal that we find men who cook incredibly sexy.

So, when she’s talking to the girls the next day, if she can say, “My man took me to my favorite (art exhibit, hike, band, store, etc) and then he cooked for me” all of her friends will burn with envy. Then they will go home and exclaim to their husbands or boyfriends, “why couldn’t you be more like (enter your name here)?!”

It doesn’t make sense to guys (and I don’t blame you) but friends burning with envy is a good thing. Believe it.

If you want something simple but special to finish off your V-day, go to the store and buy a cute container (shouldn’t be hard to find right now). Buy a roll of sugar cookie dough and some heart-shaped cut outs. Roll the dough out, cut out some heart shapes and stick on the cookie sheet. Put the cookie sheets in the fridge for at least an hour, so the hearts keep their shape when they cook. Let them cool and then decorate as you please. Stick them in the cute container you bought.

But, if you want to bring out the big guns and do more than baking, there are many places that can help.

Whatever you want to cook, there’s probably a video on the Web on how to do it.

My favorite cooking Web site in the world is www.allrecipes.com. There are videos, recipes and tips from real home cooks.  You can click on a recipe and it will have reviews from people who have tried cooking it, and many of them include tweaks and changes. You can learn a lot from the reviews, like good ingredient substitutes or how to make a dish healthier. They have a section of Valentine’s Day recipes here.

Check out www.lookandtaste.com too. They have videos for just about anything you would want to cook. They also have an awesome glossary that will tell you things like what mangoes are used for, and then demonstrate how to cut them in a video.

And if those don’t give you ideas and some help, there are oh-so many more.

Another Web site I really dig these days is Real Simple.  They have everything from food to beauty advice, and clearly, the overall goal is to keep it simple. This site has loads of easy, delicious dishes.

They also have a page here of easy Valentine’s Day ideas, which includes five easy Valentine’s Day desserts. The desserts have basic ingredients you probably already in your kitchen. One is a chocolate panini recipe which literally needs two ingredients: chocolate and bread. Honestly, there’s no downside to that.

Valentine’s Day — despite its overall lameness in your eyes — truly has little to do with how much money you spend (OK, some of you high super high-maintenance girls, and that’s a you problem. Get a girl who is more into you than sparkly jewelry). If it even looks like you thought ahead and did something that’s meaningful to her, you’ve done your job.

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Super Bowl Analysis

I said it myself, but I didn't listen.


People would ask who my pick was for the Super Bowl. My answer was always the Colts, but then I'd qualify that with something similar to what I said on twitter: "Everyone is so sure the Colts are going to win the Super Bowl. If I were Indy, that would terrify me."


Think of what little chance any "expert" gave the Saints. The build up to the big game gets pretty out of hand (and by "out of hand" I mean if some catastrophic event happened this week, we never would have heard about it) so I limit my TV time, but any person I saw predicting the outcome picked the Colts (including me in this post).


New Orleans needed three things to align to get its 31-17 Super Bowl win. Here's why they pulled it off:


1. The Saints kept Peyton Manning from getting into a rhythm. The time of possession was nearly equal, Saints 30:11 to Indy's 29:49, but the game had a feel that Manning was not on the field enough to get the offensive motor going. Remember after the AFC Championship game, what New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan said?


"With Peyton Manning, if you can't disrupt his rhythm he's going to kill you," Ryan said, "and we couldn't disrupt it enough."  


The Saints simply didn't let Manning kill them. At the end of the game, Manning started rifling 150 MPH-passes at people. Uh, that would be the definition of forcing it, my friends. They flustered Manning, and that turned out to be all the Saints really needed to do to neutralize the entire Colts team. 


2. Drew Brees played nearly perfect. It hardly seems realistic for Brees or anyone else to even dream of performing the way he did in the Super Bowl: 32-39, 288 yards, 2 touchdowns, no interceptions. He never got flustered (the Colts defensive line can blame themselves for that) and he just methodically moved his team down the field almost every series they had. His team backed him up and didn't cough up the ball 150 times like they did in the NFC Championship game against the Vikings. 


3. The Saints got their huge momentum moment. This is a team that is used to feeding off a frenzied fan base. Maybe more than any team in the NFL, they feed off of emotion. New Orleans needed a moment where they felt like, "hey, we can win this." It came at the start of the second half. 


In what could be one of the gutsiest calls in Super Bowl history, the Saints did an onside kick to start the second half. It's one of those, "if we pull this off, we're geniuses, but if not, we're idiots" moves, and it caught Indy completely off guard. It changed everything. 


If the Colts get the ball there at the start of the half, they probably score at least a field goal, and New Orleans starts to worry that they just won't be able to stop the Colts and Manning. Instead, the momentum goes crashing onto the Saints' side and it never leaves. 


My friend James, an avid Saints fan, brought up an interesting point after that onside kick. The cameras showed Dwight Freeney getting his bum ankle re-taped on the sideline. 


James said, "Do you think they went for that onside kick knowing Freeney would be getting his ankle re-taped at halftime?"  


I think that's a total possibility; they knew he wouldn't be ready right at the start of the third quarter. Either way, a brilliant move by the Saints. 


When it was all over, the Saints had their win and my friend James was sitting on the floor, crying tears of joy. When they first showed Bourbon Street, it didn't look all that crazy. But I pictured many of those people sitting together after the game was over, crying tears of joy like James was, and saying what he said:


"I never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime."

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It's the most wonderful time of the year

Sunday. You know what it is.

An epic day of awesomeness that combines the two things we hold most dear at the Concession Stand: (in no particular order) food and sports. Also known as the Super Bowl.

The game itself rarely gets me pumped up. Being from Los Angeles, I am a NFL orphan. My football fan life has been spent voting for specific players more so than teams. Maybe that sounds lame to you, but what else am I supposed to do, vote for the Raiders or Rams? Please don’t make me.

This is where my brand of NFL fandom sort of falls into a crisis. Guess which two NFL players I enjoy watching above almost any other?

That would be Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, the two quarterbacks who will be facing off on Sunday. I’ve followed their careers since they were at Tennessee and Purdue, respectively.

Am I excited for Sunday? Oh. Yes.

While I am still deciding who to actually root for in this game, I did make my food choice between the two cities this week, and that winner is New Orleans.

No offense Indianapolis. It’s not you. It’s just that New Orleans food is so unique. And so… tasty.

I tried my hand at jambalaya this week, and consulted the recipe of the Commissioner; the Tailgating Commissioner, that is (and really, what other commissioner matters?). Joe Cahn has traveled all over the country in his RV, checking out how every corner of the country tailgates. He also happens to be tailgating in Miami this weekend, where the big game will be.

Cahn was kind enough to let me interview him a few weeks ago (you can read the post here) and one of the recipe suggestions he had was for his jambalaya. He’s from New Orleans, so you know he’s not messing around when it comes to jambalaya.

He said this recipe is interchangeable with just about any meat or seafood you want to use, but I stuck with chicken and sausage. You toss it all in one pot and let it go. For someone whose cooking skills are still a work in progress, that fact is much appreciated.

The recipe: (you can see the jambalaya recipe here, or the rest of Cahn’s tailgating recipes here)

Joe’s Jambalaya

Servings: 12-15

1/4 cup vegetable oil 5 cups chicken stock or water flavored with chicken bouillon

1 ½ lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch pieces 1 tbs. minced garlic
salt and ground black pepper 4 cups long grain rice
1 ½ lbs. sausage cut in ¼-inch slices 2 tbsp. Kitchen Bouquet (browning agent)
4 cups chopped onions 2 tbsp. seasoning salt
2 cups chopped celery 2 cups chopped green onions
2 cups chopped green bell pepper

After cooking the chicken and sausage for a few minutes you remove them and start going on the onions, green bell peppers, garlic and celery in the same pot.

At least, you would have the celery if you liked celery. I don’t, and neither does anyone else in my family. If you’re from New Orleans, I’m sorry for breaking up the trinity there. My personal theory on celery is: if peanut butter can’t even improve the way you taste, you aren’t worth my time.

Ahem, but my celery issues aren’t important. Let’s keep going.

Once the peppers and onions soften, you toss in the chicken broth, the chicken and sausage, seasoning salt, and for red jambalaya, paprika.

Bring it to a boil, and toss in the rice. Bring it to a boil again, then cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Stir it well, re-cover and simmer for 15-20 more minutes, or until the rice is tender.

Then, you have pot of meaty, flavorful deliciousness that will feed a ton of people comfortably, and you don’t have to put a whole lot of work into it.

If it’s a food competition, my pick is New Orleans. If it’s a football competition, I’m going with the Colts, 31-24.

Happy Super Bowl everyone!

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