Free to decide

I was half-heartedly thinking about riding in a Mountain Equipment Coop ride this morning but the Knitter's Fair is on.  What to do?  What to do?

The first would have been good exercise and a nice bike ride.  The second, a reward for the big bike ride last weekend and a morning surrounded by yarn.

In the end, it was not hard to choose.  The sudden cold weather and rainy skies, combined with the lure of all things knitting, made the decision even easier.  And now my yarn-buying diet is over.  Although, given that I had to travel an hour to get to Kitchener, could I lump the purchase under the category of travel yarn buying?  A bit of a stretch.

I didn't go too crazy.  Just a few skeins, one sweater quantity, a couple of sets of needles and two really nice bags from Alison Ruth Designs.  And I prevented myself from buying more than four balls of Silk Garden.

I was able to show Rae from Stix & Stones my Foolproof from her knit-a-long.  And hi to Gail and Susan who I saw in line at opening and then never again.  Hopefully they had as much fun as I did.  What am I saying, of course they had as much fun as I did.  Who wouldn't?

Escarpment Blues ...

… and greens and grey, grey, grey roads.  And lots and lots of hills.  Yesterday I participated in the Halton Epic Tour.  It is a bike ride through parts of the escarpment in Southern Ontario.  I rode 80km, at times wondering why I signed up for this.  It is not something I normally do … sign up for these things.  I prefer to hop on my bike and go for a ride from my house.  For as long or as short as the mood governs.  On nice flat roads.

I should also say that I've never been the sporty sort.  I realize the benefits of exercise for the heart so, like taking a medicine, I exercise most days.  But this summer, after really enjoying the Ride for Heart on the Don Valley Parkway in June, my usual summer enjoyment of cycling took on a more obsessive flavour.  I have been riding at least once and usually twice every weekend.  I rode before work until the recent shorter days put an end to that.  I rode a bunch on our vacation.  I have even ridden in the rain!  And I signed up for the Epic Tour.

So off I went yesterday morning and made it through my chosen distance.  I won't say it was easy.  It wasn't impossible, because I have been riding a lot but it was difficult because I live by the lake and there aren't hills readily available to ride.  You have to seek them out.  Which I have done to a certain extent.  But not to an 80km hilly ride extent.

I really only felt like packing it in once.  It was at the top of one of the lesser inclines and I stopped to get a breather and a drink of water.  One of the girls doing the same thing mentioned the upcoming big decline.  If I had the choice between a steep uphill and a steep downhill, I would choose the uphill.  I associate this with a childhood arm break during a flying downhill attempt.  Given I was 9 at the time, I really should have overcome this but, not being the sporty sort and a big chicken, this still hasn't happened.  So after I confirmed that the downhill was worse than the switchback one at the beginning of the ride, I felt like crying and quitting.  I think the only thing that saved me was the check of the GPS that said that there were only 13km to go.  I had to finish.  So off I went, riding both brakes all the way down the big hill.

I automatically assume people that go in these things are the athletes, fitter than fit.  But I realized that there were more people like me than the others.  This became really clear on the: dreaded-the-entire-ride-by-everyone second last hill.  When approximately 75% of the riders were walking it, I knew I wasn't alone.  And it felt good.  And I could cheer the people who were riding it without feeling like I was a failure for not being able to do it myself.

Once at the top, a drink of water taken, I hopped on my bike again and continued, up some more hills, to the finish line.  Happy to be done.  Happy that my husband was waiting at the finish line cheering me on.

I told myself a couple of times on the ride that if I finished, I could go to the Kitchener Waterloo Knitters Fair next Saturday.  It conflicts with a Mountain Equipment Coop Ride in Burlington.  Which one should I choose?  At this point, it will be the knitting but we'll see what next Saturday brings.

Whiskey in the Jar

It never fails that my biggest harvests are ready on the hottest day of the year.  So yesterday, I contributed to the unnecessary burning of fossil fuels by:

1. Decreasing my pile of tomatoes to make my most favourite savoury relish … tomato jam from Food in Jars.  After 5 pounds of tomatoes, I still have a good number for munching. And this jam in January is like a ray of sunshine on your tongue. 
2. Justifying the extra peaches I picked up at the Farmers' Market on Saturday, I whipped up Peach Barbecue Sauce from Williams-Sonoma.  Any recipe that includes a half cup of bourbon can't be wrong.  And peaches and whiskey just seem to make sense.  I was a bit hesitant about the called-for cupful of Worcestershire sauce.  It sounded like it would be overwhelming but it blended in really well with the peaches and bourbon.  We had the sauce on barbecued chicken and it doesn't have an overpowering flavour but instead enhanced the flavour of the chicken.  Yummy.  And four jars on the shelf for another winter pick-me-up.
3. Using some sour cherry rhubarb jam from last summer that I boiled too far, making it relatively unspreadable on top of my peanut butter toast, I used Eat Your Books to locate the recipe for Rye Crumble Bars from Molly Wizenberg's blog Orangette. These are fantastic.  The jam provides a perfect contrast to the shortbread crust and oatmeal topping.  I can't remember how many jars of this jam I made but I'll be watching out for them in the jam cupboard to make this again soon.
4. Further decreasing the pile of tomatoes, since the oven was on anyway, for lunch I made the Sweet Cherry Tomato and Sausage bake from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home book.  This recipe was also found through Eat Your Books, my favourite cooking website.  I am exploring so many recipes that I just wouldn't have found the old fashioned way.  This was a tasty wrap to a very satisfying morning of cooking.