Hit by a Pitch

At some point, I decided that taking two days off a week from working out was really wussy. In the interest of not overdoing it, I thought it would be a good idea to go for a nice brisk walk on one of the off days. This walk tends to happen on Friday evenings.

Tonight’s walk started as many of them do, with us encountering our neighbors’ dog who likes to jump the fence and run around the neighborhood. (Yesterday she jumped several fences to end up in our back yard, where she rolled around on the ground and refused to leave until I bribed her with a “Sadie get your ass in the house” — I mean a carrot.) After we returned the dog to her rightful home, we set off past what used to be Muhammad Mosque and walked down Curtis Street, headed toward downtown.

As someone who has always considered location (particularly the location of my home) as important as people, going for a walk in my neighborhood and the feelings it gives me have been a big deal to me ever since I started caring about going for walks. I can tell you about walks in Andersonville (Chicago) and, better yet, Oak Park. (Oak Park provided the best walks ever, including one time a little cat followed us all the way home and we drove her back to her house and left her there, but not before I saved the phone number from her tag on my cell phone and then eventually one night when drunk called them up and asked for Levi, who was the cat, and the guy who answered the phone said that the cat got phone calls all the time.) Walks in Nederland were usually too short and/or left you feeling a little like a tourist as you passed the Best Western in the middle of town and walked along the rushing creek before ending up at the reservoir. (Nederland is just as awesome as Oak Park but in a totally different way.) We walked around Wash Park a lot when we lived in Baker. This was before we had dogs. I remember one walk in particular where we spent an hour bitching about the house we wanted to buy and the way we were getting jacked around in relation to an issue with the furnace (the furnace was replaced with an overpriced model, we split the cost with the former owners, and we still live in the house today).

When we take walks, our general habit is to comment on houses we wish we might live in one day, which is most of them. Don’t get me wrong — I love our little house in the ‘hood. But someday, maybe when Soren is older and likes to spend a lot of time in the bathroom, I wouldn’t mind having two bathrooms. Ben really wants a basement (we have a partial basement that’s good for storage only). So maybe one day, we’ll have a house with two bathrooms and a basement. Maybe it’ll be in a better area for schools than we’re in now. Who knows.

We pass lots of beautiful houses as we walk through the Curtis Park Historic District. We end up by the Greyhound place, where things get kind of ugly, and turn right on Park Avenue West. Park Avenue West isn’t a good street for walking (it’s busy and not the most attractive street in the world), so we turn right on Arapahoe, the next street.

We run into what looks like a little bar. It has Great American Beer Festival (the best event in the history of events) postcards and Flying Dog stuff in the window. The door is open. We stop to gape and try to figure out what the place is. Someone from inside says, “Come in! Free beer!”

Okay. We’re out with the baby in a big giant jogging stroller, but if you really want us to come in and have free beer, we can totally accommodate you! I was relieved that the stroller fit through the doorway. There were two awesome dogs hanging out. Ben got Soren out of the stroller and a guy at the bar poured us each a Raging Bitch. For free.

This was the coolest shit, ever.

Apparently we stumbled on the Flying Dog Tasting Room. I didn’t even know this existed. (They have a big bar/restaurant at 2301 Blake Street — we haven’t been there since they moved, but the old location was always awesome, especially before/after Rockies games.)

We also enjoyed some Double Dog (this is the shit) and a little Gonzo Imperial Porter. All for free. Poured by an awesome bartender who played totally random music. Soren got a little stressed out (he couldn’t believe we took him to a bar while he wasn’t wearing pants), then tried to eat a coaster, and then chilled out and kind of had fun. He tried to eat the beer list but nobody minded. (Unfortunately, I didn’t have my phone and couldn’t take pictures.)

According to the bartender, the Flying Dog Tasting Room operates on Thursdays and Fridays, from 4 p.m. until 6-ish p.m. (read: maybe 8:00 or so if people are there drinking). It seems the policy is to offer tastes of two beers (for free!) but I have it on good authority that it is possible to get more.

It’s so random that of all the hours of the week, we happened to be walking by this place during one of the four it’s officially in business. There’s something about really good beer and the people who like really good beer that kind of makes you love the world. We left the Flying Dog Tasting Room with a little hint of a buzz and walked home, amazed by how awesome that was, even if the baby was getting a little grumpy because he was hungry and I kind of felt like an asshole for hanging out at a bar while wearing sunglasses (I just wear prescription sunglasses when it’s sunny and we go on a walk and don’t bring my regular glasses, and I can’t see without glasses so it’s a tradeoff between being the asshole who wears sunglasses in the bar and the asshole who can’t see anything that’s more than two inches from her face).

We stopped at the local carniceria on the way home so we could get an avocado that would be ripe enough to eat right away, and then Ben made killer BLATs. (Is that what you’d call a vegetarian bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato, and cheese, plus friends sandwich?) I wait outside at the carniceria because to me it smells like raging death and I suspect the stroller won’t fit in there (Ben is a vegetarian too but not as delicate about it as I am).

Denver is awesome.

Song: Chromeo Call Me Up Mashup by Ben

There are two tricks to making really fucking awesome homemade nachos:

1. Make your own tortilla chips.
2. Think in terms of layers, like you’d do with lasagna.

I wasted many years of my life thinking I couldn’t make good nachos at home. Just so you know, I really, really like nachos — good nachos, not the crap with the liquidy cheese you get at baseball games (although that has its place, especially when you’re pregnant and baby wants an efficient jalapeno-delivery system). I tried many times. Many of these attempts involved pouring a bunch of Tostitos on a plate, spooning a bunch of refried beans mixed with salsa over them, topping with some cheese, and throwing the whole mess in the microwave. It seems like this would turn out okay, but I never liked the result.

As soon as Ben started making tortilla chips, I kind of saw the light. Making tortilla chips isn’t rocket science or anything — it’s super easy and people have probably been doing it since the dawn of time but I never thought of it. All you do is take some small corn tortillas (if you’re really bad ass, I’m sure you can make your own corn tortillas but I’ve never done it), brush a little oil on them, cut them into 6 tortilla-shaped pieces, and bake. The bonus? You won’t believe me because as a general rule, leftover nachos are gross, but I swear, leftover nachos made this way are actually good. Seriously!

So here is how you make really good nachos at home.

Ingredients

• small corn tortillas (however many you want — I just asked Ben how many he usually uses and he said he has no idea, however many you want, at least a dozen)
• olive oil (or whatever oil you prefer — we pretty much use olive oil for everything)
• salt
• part of a brick of Velveeta (I know, but Velveeta is the shit in nachos), cut into small cubes
• shredded “Mexican” cheese of some sort
• a can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• chopped onion (as much as you want)
• toppings, such as guacamole, salsa, green chili, or whatever (even fresh tomatoes if you like — I’m just learning to tolerate fresh tomatoes, so I do not use them on my nachos)

Directions

Brush both sides of each tortilla with a light coating of oil (you don’t need a ton). Stack the tortillas and cut them into six equal pie-shaped pieces. Distribute evenly on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for approximately 20-25 minutes, flipping approximately halfway through the baking process (I go for a shorter time because I like them to be more soft than crunchy — when they’re starting to get brownish around the edges, they’re probably good). Salt to taste  (I’m usually generous because these are tortilla chips and tortilla chips are supposed to be a little salty).

Place a layer of the tortilla chips on an oven-safe plate — you want to do the best you can to create a thin layer that covers the plate, allowing each tortilla to overlap a little. It’s not an exact science, but your goal is to create a nice, thin surface for your toppings. On top of your tortilla layer, place as many black beans as desired (I usually do a good handful), chopped onion, salt (if desired), several chunks of Velveeta, and a nice handful of shredded Mexican cheese. On top of this, place another layer of tortillas, beans, onions, salt (if desired), Velveeta, and Mexican cheese. Then do that again (I usually do three layers of everything.)

Update: Put four or five tortilla chips on the top layer of cheese. This will help prevent the cheese from sticking to the aluminum foil you’re about to put over your nachos.

When you have the whole mess assembled and have probably spilled Mexican cheese everywhere, cover the nachos with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for approximately 30 minutes (check them after 25 or so — you just want the cheese to be all nice and melted). After the cheese is all nice and melted, remove the aluminum foil and bake 10-15 more minutes until the top is nice and brown.

Top with a little sour cream. Serve homemade salsa (recipe here), guacamole, and/or green chili on the side.

Pictures of the process are behind the cut (like all pictures I take of food, they suck), on the off-chance they might be useful because I know I’m not very good at writing recipes.

Update: If you want to put fake meat on your nachos instead of black beans (I highly recommend!), follow the instructions here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Song: One Mic by Nas
_______
Although I work out all the time (at least an hour, five or six days a week), I usually don’t write about it here (unless I have to bitch about someone who dares to speak to me at the gym) because I think blog posts about workouts are pretty much the most boring thing in the world (and don’t get me started about blog posts that chronicle everything someone ate that day). I mean, do you give a shit that on Wednesday, I went to the gym and ran intervals to try to build up my speed and on Thursday, I went to the gym and lifted x number of weights x number of times? You do not. Once my workout is over, I don’t even care what it was. Nobody does!

So I’m reluctant to talk about running, but I’m going to do it anyway. Running and I have never been pals. Although I work out all the time, running (even snail’s-pace running) gets me really out of breath. I’m top-heavy with broad shoulders — I don’t have a runner’s body and probably am better-suited for rowing or swimming or some other crap I’ll never do. There’s also this thing called “runner’s trots” and, well, yeah, that.

When I was a kid, running was the bane of my existence. In grade school, sometimes we’d have to “go run a lap” after recess. I hated this. I remember running miles or whatever in high school, and I was always one of the too-cool-to-give-a-shit kids walking at the end of the pack, because I didn’t give a shit but also because I sucked at running. I remember going for runs a few times in college, but it was pretty rare that I managed to squeeze in any strenuous physical activity with all that drinking.

Now, my runs often go something like this:

Minute 1: Okay, I can do this.
Minutes 2 – 20: [puff puff puff gasp] This sucks.
Minute 20: Did somebody just lodge a knife into my left shoulder blade?
Minutes 20 – 30: [puff puff cough cough, glance at watch or treadmill timer every 30 seconds]
Minute 30: Hello, knee. Thanks for letting me know you’re there!
Minute 35: I’m totally going to have the poops.

I learned many years ago that the trick is to run slow and to gradually build up time. For example, Ben and I have been going for 35-minute runs the last couple Saturdays (with the jogging stroller, which, holy crap not good). Next week, we could do 40 minutes but not 50. This helps with the whole runner’s trots thing, but doesn’t eliminate it.

I try to do all these little psychological things to fool myself into thinking that running doesn’t suck. I bought the shoes pictured above a few months after Soren was born. I didn’t put his birthday on them for any profound reason — like, I’m not thinking about running for my glorious joyful health and for my child or any of that shit. I put his birthday on my shoes as a reminder that no matter how far/fast/long I run on any given day, it can’t possibly suck as much as giving birth. On 10.25.09, I gave birth to a baby in my living room after 25 hours of labor. That was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life and, unlike running, I couldn’t control when it happened and how long it took. At least running isn’t childbirth.

When Ben and I run outside, I try to look at the sky and the trees and how beautiful it all is, or think of how as citizens of Denver, we’re obligated to be doing physical activity outdoors so we don’t become the only fatties in the state or whatever stupid shit pops into my mind. None of it really helps. Mostly I just think about how I can’t breathe and wonder how many minutes of this crap are left.

(The one thing that does help, and that I don’t do when I go for a run with Ben and Soren but always do when I run on the treadmill, is listen to really good music. “One Mic” by Nas, for example, is an awesome song for running. Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” works, too, as do Ben’s mashup mixes. I’ll post a playlist sometime.)

Sometimes after a run, I feel awesome. Those are the times I’m glad I still do this even though it sucks. Sometimes after a run, I feel like I’m going to pass out and die. Those are the times I think I should just give up running because I’m never going to be good at it and I’m never really going to like it all that much. Although I know better, sometimes I think about running a marathon one day. That’s probably the stupidest idea I’ve ever had, but sometimes you want to make a stupid idea work, just to see if you can do it.