A Morsel of St. Patty's Day

First off, Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Or...as Paul says..Happy St. Paddy's Day.  I tried to tell him it is Patty like Patrick - but he assured me it is Paddy as is Pádraig.  Touché!

I don't remember if we wrote about it on here or not, but last year we tried to go authentic Irish with soda bread and brisket.  The soda bread (recipe compliments of Mary Vaca!) was great.  The brisket was pretty good - but probably still the most expensive piece of meat we've ever bought.

So this year we are taking a slightly different angle.  We're saving the soda bread for the weekend when we'll be home.  And we're skipping the brisket, hoping that the Irish pub we're going to tonight has good Irish food.  If not, we'll go to a different butcher and have brisket with our soda bread this weekend.

Instead - I made a few Irish-esque treats for work.  First, to be culturally sensitive to our Muslim colleagues who don't drink, I made shamrock sugar cookies with green frosting.  They were delicious!  Although, like other attempts to be culturally sensitive, I found that many (not all) of the Muslim colleagues preferred the second treat:  mini-chocolate Guinness (stout) cupcakes with Bailey's Irish cream frosting.  Delicious little bite-size treats! 

Finally - the best of all...a Chocolate Guinness Stout Cupcake (full-sized) with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting and....drum roll.....a Chocolate Whiskey Ganache filling!  Hmm!  I think there are enough calories in this to count for a weekend's worth of treats!  The top picture was sent from my phone to let my friend know to come grab one.  And then I forgot to take a picture until I was half-way done with mine.  Oops.

I used to wonder why my roommate made treats to give away at work and now I know....first, if you keep them at home (which we've done with 2 cakes now) you start to notice that your stomach doesn't feel so flat in the morning.  :(  But more importantly - you should see the looks on people's faces when they try them!  The big surprise in these treats (to me) was the reaction to the cookies.  Three or four colleagues said they were only going to break off a small piece...and then came back for the rest of their cookie.  Another three colleagues asked for the recipe!  Another said I should be selling these cookies!  Another said it was the best cookie they'd had..."when is the next holiday!?!" 

Maybe 25% of what they said is just them trying to make me feel good...but I can tell when you are just trying to make me feel good and when you really do like my food. 

If I may pat myself on the back for a moment - I made the cookie cutter from scratch!  And I didn't even slice open any fingers in the process.  Also - the cookies really did taste like those ones you buy at the store that have the powder on the bottom and are super super soft and thick.  And...do you see the swirls in the frosting on the cupcakes?  Finally got that right!  But...so you know that I don't think I'm all that and a box chocolates...it took me three tries to get the right shape for the cookie cutter...and one batch of frosting just slithered its way off the cupcake...and the cookies probably should have been thicker.  (Ha!  No one even touched the box of thin mints on my desk - do you think that means I can have them all!?)

The answer to when the next holiday is?  Tomorrow!  It's Purim!

Leave Me to the Vultures!

Oh the things we do to make friends. While talking with a coworker at the Embassy either Paul or Jen mention that Jen's bike had just arrived, that she enjoyed biking around the city and the park, and that Jen had done a triathlon. All true. The coworker invites Jen to go on a ride with she and her friends on Saturday morning. Great! Opportunity to make new friends!!!

So at 625am on Saturday morning the coworker picks up Jen and her bike and they head out of the city for the long ride. Fast forward 2 hours - "Leave me to the Vultures!" Jen is thinking, "I don't think I'm going to make it back to Tel Aviv," "I am NOT a biker"..."Bike for sale"..."Free Bike"..."I should be protected from this by the UN Declaration of Human Rights!!"...."Throw bike off of balcony!!!"

Although Paul and Jen were reassured that these ladies were slow bikers, 20 years Jen's senior, and this would be a shorter ride - they didn't understand that this was coming from the equivalent of a marathon runner! Imagine taking your 1986 tricycle on a hundred mile ride with Lance Armstrong. That is how Jenny felt. (Really she had a road bike (from the 1980s) and the ladies weren't quite Lance - but pretty close!)

The 40 kilometer ride (~2 hours) up and down hills wouldn't have been so bad if Jen had had all of the professional gear the other women had. What was she missing? The shoes, the pedals, the biking shorts/pants, the shirt, the jacket, the gloves, the glasses, the headband, the pump, the spare tube, the cushioned seat, and the (on average) $1,000 triathlon bike. (Compare the bike to the right vs. my bike)

Why in the world did I think I could do a 40 kilometer ride with my old bike, running clothes and my Target helmet? I don't know. It was crazy! I almost died! (exaggeration...I almost gave up, threw up, and then collapsed).
But I was saved :)

About 20 miles into the ride - Jen's bike broke. Yes, broke. The wheel was crooked, the chain fell off, something bent. Thank you God! The other women (save one) biked back to get the car and came out to pick me (and the other) up and drive us to the end. During breakfast after the ride (remember - this is 7am on a Saturday!) the women were joking about how I must be thinking how old they were...true - how did someone that much older than me just make me feel so out of shape! These women are amazing! They vowed to take me to a bike shop and get me back out there with them on a better bike...and training for the Tel Aviv triathlon.

Eeek! Do I really want to be turned into that serious of a biker? Can I really compete in this triathlon against these women?

On the positive note - it was a great experience! I saw the country-side, got a great workout and met some really nice women! I'll update later on my decision to keep biking with them or do the triathlon in May.