Last Sunday I got up at 4:10am to join about 20,000 other bikers riding on Lake Shore Drive.

I was pretty nervous about the event, but in retrospect I don’t really know why. I guess part of it was just the anticipation of getting up that early in the morning. Also, I’d never riden 30 miles non-stop before. I think the longest ride I’d had before was to Sara’s parent’s house in HP–about 15 miles. Of course I did ride back later that day, but that’s still different, isn’t it? And that was a pretty leisurely ride with Sara.

The Drive was open to bikes from 5:30 to 9:45. The information packet I got in the mail after registering suggested different amounts of time to allow depending on whether you were a beginner, intermediate or expert rider. I don’t own a $1000 road bike or hundreds of dollars in hi-tech clothes (see photos for proof), so I wasn’t sure how to rate myself. Most of my riding is the 7 miles each way to work.

They said that if you were an expert rider (15mph) to allow 2:30 for the whole ride and if you were intermediate (10mph) to allow 3:30 hours, in each case with a 1/2 hour break. So I decided to allow 3 hours for the ride and an 1:15 to get downtown where it started.

I rode to the Howard El station (conserving my energy) and then took the train downtown. By the time we got to the Jackson stop there were about 8-10 bikes on my car alone. That felt good. Some non-bikers were coming home from parties, others going to work, others…who knows.

It was dark when I left but pretty bright by the time I got downtown. And the streets were full of bikes! The turnout was so overwhelming and satisfying…tandems, triple-tandems, low-riders, recumbent and recumbent-tandems, kids, seniors, disabled, families, bikes with trailers carrying boomboxes playing James Brown…I wanted to slow down and ride with that guy, but I couldn’t do it.

I raced. Not the whole way, but full of excitement, I couldn’t ride slowly (that’s often tough for me). In the end, it took me 1:52, which translates to 16mph. I only stopped once to take off my fleece and finished before 8am.
Later that day I drove a car (BOOO!), and with Sara out of town, I drove to work every day this week.

But I think I finally found a decent biking route to the new work place, so I plan to get right back to it next week.

Some great pictures by other folks on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jthorvath/2531933520/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sailorv202/2529642970/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khim/2525878369/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whateverland/2521265457/

Sara and I are designing a quilt based on a panel made up of a square and 4 triangles.

Actually, she was making the quilt, but I inserted myself into the process and got her to take a step back and look at the layout and fabric choices before cutting.

We did some layouts, then bought some fabric and did some more. It’s working well. I’ve got it set up so I can photoshop up any changes with just a few clicks. Layers and groups of layers and duplicates of layers and duplicates of groups of layers and so on.

This was the 2nd layout, before we bought new fabric. It’s got a very folky and comforting feel to me, I really like it. But the colors are more suited to sitting on a rocking chair reading a book by a fire than swaddling. And this is meant to be a baby quilt, so…it looks like we'’ve settled on design #5.

This seemed to good to be true, and like most things that seem that way, it is.

I love bread, both eating and baking it. I love chocolate the same way. Put them together and…you get a recipe from Jeff Hertzberg’s book “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”, which my mother in law gave me. [I’m watching my words since Jeff caught my first mention of his book on my blog.]

I made two loaves like this and they did get eaten. I brought one to Aissawa practice and people really dug it. But as for me, I think it wasn’t sweet enough and was too dense. I’d rather just make cake and bread separately.

Next recipe from the book I want to try is naan–I’ve got dough in the fridge right now, so get some lentils and chickpeas and garam masala and head on over…

About 6 weeks ago we bought a car, a 2008 VW Rabbit. It was about 10 times more expensive than any other single purchase I’d made to date (not counting tuition). Sara drives 35 miles each way to work, and we’d been renting a car since she started at the beginning of the year. It had to be done. And I like the car–but I hardly ever drive it myself.

That same week I bought this saw, which I immediately used to cut up the wood Sara and I had foraged by the train tracks. And since there’s snow on the ground again, despite that it is technically “Spring”, now I can have a fire!

I spent a little more time shopping for cars than for saws, but I have to admit that the sense of excitement was just about equal.

This is what my old boots look like after a day of caving. The winter sun was streaming in through our back porch and it really enhanced the color.

I used to wear these boots every day, summer and winter. Now, with no treads left and holes that go completely through the soles, I think it’s finally time to retire them. Unless I can’t find a good pair before the next caving trip, that is…

I tried the Simple Crusty Bread recipe a 2nd time and it came out much better. All I did was bake it inside a cast iron pot–like the Sullivan St. Bakery recipe–and that made all the difference.

Baking inside a lidded pot keeps the moisture from evaporating, and that gives it it’s characteristic crustiness. It beats spraying with a water bottle or putting a pan of water on the bottom rack.

WIth that minor modification, I’d say it’s a can’t miss recipe for a nice small loaf.

Bagels are more work than almost anything else I bake, so I like to make enough to last a little while. With a 4-day weekend, I had enough time to get a lot of things out of the way before Sunday ever came around. That left me enough time to attempt 3 dozen bagels.

I had just enough bowl-room to fit the 15 cups of flour, 6 eggs, 3-3/4 cups water, etc. But I hate cutting in thirds, so rather than having to cut the whole thing into ninths, I ended up with 32 slightly oversized bagels. Who’s gonna complain about that? And 32 should still last a little while. They keep well in the freezer.

I’m very competitive when it comes to cookie making. Mostly I compete with myself, because I end up eating half of all the cookies I bake, so I have really built up a reservoir of cookie memories. I’d estimate I’ve made close to 35,000 cookies in my life but I am still struggling to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

I thought I was onto something when I came up with the idea of using cashews. After all, cashews are the best nut for the job. Peanuts are great, but too dominant. I have great respect for hazelnuts, but they aren’t quite rich enough. But cashews, when baked, get a little bit soft, which contrasts well with the crunchiness of the cacao nibs. It is a delicious combination, but I think I can still do better. The previous batch had walnuts and raisins, and that worked awfully well so I think some combination of all those ingredients may work.

Back to the lab…