Category: Food

Back to the grind

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

Bilbo Baggins’ Road goes ever on and on, but mine came to a halt on Sunday. Monday I spent in the usual post-expedition fog, and today it was time to get back to business.

Herself lacks my interest in the culinary arts, so it’s a given that when I come home from a road trip there will be exactly jack-shit in the house to eat. After we burned through the steak, spuds and salad it quickly became apparent that someone would have to replenish the pantry, and as usual that someone was me.

Muchos grassyass
The Turk' catches some rays in the backyard.

So today, I hit the grocery — and man, did it ever hit back. Two hundred smacks down Whole Paycheck’s organic rathole for tasty bits of this and that. I should just sign over my Velo checks to these dudes and be done with it.

The good news is that the week’s menu will include fusilli draped with a spicy all’arrabbiata sauce full of red pepper flakes, capers and black olives; kung pao chicken with white rice; sausage and cheese enchiladas in red sauce with Mexican rice; chicken quesadillas; and chicken enchiladas in green sauce with a side of roasted potatoes in red chile. Can you tell I’ve been to Santa Fe recently? Yeah, me too.

Meanwhile, the Turk’ has been enjoying plenty of outside time since my return. Getting him in a harness is like sticking a hand in a running blender, and since he’s mostly my cat he’s mostly my problem.

No worries. I’ve been getting my furry brother hooked up so he can live the feline dream in the backyard, hunting grasshoppers and enjoying the last few days of summertime in Bibleburg.

Return of the Interbiker: The last good breakfast

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Sausage and cheese enchiladas
Sausage and cheese enchiladas at the Guadalupe Cafe in Santa Fe. The wait for a table was hitting 45 minutes when I got there, and worth every second.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Well, the last one that I didn’t have to cook, anyway.

I swung through Santa Fe post-Interbike and noshed at the Guadalupe Cafe, which frankly was batshit crazy at 11 a.m. Sunday, with the sort of line one associates with banks giving away free money.

And small wonder, because the food is always stellar.

I had my usual, the sausage and cheese enchiladas with a side of papas smothered in brick-red chile, and two cups of coffee.

As I ate, I thought briefly about putting a condo on the credit card and never going home. But then I realized that the cats would miss me terribly (yeah, right) and Herself would be eating out of cans while her kin hunted me with baseball bats, and I ain’t talkin’ catch-and-release here. Plus I’d already had a week of waking up without her around and that’s about six days too many.

So I gassed up and beat it for Bibleburg, arriving right around dinnertime.

To atone for my sins, per Herself’s request, I grilled a flatiron steak from Ranch Foods Direct and mashed up some spuds with heavy cream, butter, chives and parsley; she assembled a massive salad and we enjoyed a couple drams while I regaled her with tales from the bike show.

This morning it was what we call “smooshy eggs,” which is basically eggs boiled medium-hard, peeled and mashed with butter, salt and pepper, with spelt toast, java and juice on the side. Lunch was leftover dinner.

And tomorrow? Man. I’ll be lucky to slap together some toast and cold cereal. Someone around here needs to hit the grocery. Guess who? Home again, home again, dancing a jig.

Beans ‘n’ booze

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

Herself and I dined out this evening with a neighbor and some of her out-of-town family, with whom we have become friendly over the years.

There was wine afterward on our back deck, and as it was getting dark nobody noticed (I hope) the half-assed mowing job I did yesterday. Miss Mia Sopaipilla and Buddy the Wonder Dog made brief appearances to rave reviews, but Turkish refused to leave his dressing room, citing obscure union regs about dogs and cats and never the twain shall meet outside the Thunderdome, and certainly not while the party of the first part is wearing a ridiculous purple harness and leash, which is the only way the big galoot gets outside since collecting a nasty and expensive abscess while at large and unfettered.

All in all, it was a pleasant way to end a day of making bricks without straw at PharaohNews. A casual glance at the interwebs at midshift unearthed a few small-helmet types aghast at our lack of investigative journalism. This is not unlike complaining that the free blowjob you just got from the unemployed barmaid didn’t include a free shot of top-shelf tequila with an artisan-beer back.

Getaways, groceries and grifters

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

There’s nothing like that first day after the Tour folds its big yellow tent and life gets back to normal.

I got out early for a two-hour ride northeast on Highway 24 and enjoyed a tailwind to Falcon. The headwind on the homebound leg wasn’t outlandish, and I considered stretching the outing to three hours before remembering that there was nothing to eat in Chez Dog, someone having been a little lackadaisical about grocery-shopping lately.

So I rolled home, made a list and headed north to Whole Paycheck, pissing away a car payment on bits of this and that to keep flesh on the bones. Last night’s “dinner” involved a tin of smoked oysters, cheddar, crackers and a salad, and that’s just not enough to keep a renowned cycling journalist at the top of his game.

Now it’s raining for a second consecutive day, which is excellent. It’s been hotter than the high-flange hubs of Hell around here lately, and this takes the edge off, as does a little effervescent Austrian rosé.

Alas, we may all be reduced to drinking feeble American lager out of red-white-and-blue cans if the “mine is bigger than yours” contest ends badly in DeeCee, as seems increasingly likely.

These overfed, undereducated pustules afflicting the body politic should be compelled at gunpoint to hold their slapfests in small-town bars and beaneries, in the company of the simple folks these rich fucks profess to care about. Maybe after a few vicious beatings administered by work-hardened knuckles they’d realize their cushy gigs are about people, not politics.

• Late update: Kevin Drum sure wasn’t impressed by either Obama or Punkinhead tonight. I listened to the first few minutes of Obama’s bit while cooking dinner and I wasn’t exactly hearing a clarion call to arms. As for Punkinhead, I unplugged his ass before he even had a chance to start lying. My patience has its limits.

Pizza, love and understanding

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

It’s been heavy lifting over at VeloNews.com this weekend. You know you’re in for it when the memo describing the tasks to be performed bears the subject line, “Glad I’m not you. …”

Cactus flowers
I slipped out for a quick ride and saw that the recent light rain had lit up the Palmer Park cacti.

Tour de Suisse, Route du Sud, Ster ZLM Toer, Giro del Trentino, Giro della Toscana, Nature Valley Grand Prix, Harlem Skyscraper Cycling Classic, Nevada City Bicycle Classic, Tour of America’s Dairyland, Tour de Grafton, Tour de Beauce, the Race Across America — I’m telling you, the party never stopped. I’m still waiting on stuff and here it is wine-thirty already.

Speaking of parties, I had to quick whip up another tub of pico de gallo for a friend’s 60th birthday yesterday, between bouts of frenzied pixel-pushing, and naturally I was missing a few key ingredients and had no time to leg it to the store. So I subbed a couple jalapeños for the missing serranos and some Deschutes Twilight Summer Ale for the traditional Mexican beer and you know what? It didn’t suck.

But I could do with a break from the kitchen tonight, and thus Herself will be fetching a Luigi’s pizza home after her stint at the local Humane Society, where she spends a couple days each week helping lonesome critters find happy homes.

Me, I’m still helping Mr. Microsoft find a few typos that spell-check can’t handle.