Will you blame me?

 Will you blame me?

If the odds are not in my favor,

Will you blame me?

For not being strong enough?

For not being positive enough?

For not having enough faith?

For not having faith at all?

Many will.

A fear of fate, such a lack of control, is possibly the deepest human fear.

The elephant in the room we live around and try to avoid all while yelling about it in code.  Different voices all saying the same thing.

In the end, this:

You are never alone.

Try.

*Do the best you can with what you have*,

But also,

Accept that there *will be* times when

That best will not be enough, but is still:

Good enough.

Half Marathon Springerle

One of the things I like about baking is that it's basically the same few ingredients that create such different outcomes. So the devil is in the details of method and ratios.  Springerle cookies are no exception to that rule!  They are so much fun to bake, and are so dependant on baking skill and timing.

The recipe I use I call:

Half Marathon Springerle

3 large eggs (6.5oz) room temperature
13.1 oz King Arthur Unbleached Cake Flour
13.1 Domini Confectionery Sugar
1/2oz water
1/8t bakers ammonia (or baking powder)
1/8t salt
1t extracts or flavorings

Water for brushing
Extra cake flour and confectionary sugar in a 1:1 ratio for dusting.
Parchment paper

__________________

Dissolve bakers ammonia and salt in the water for one hour.

Whip the eggs in a stand mixer for several minutes until thick and creamy.

Add Confectionery Sugar, whip again until very thick amd creamy, 5 minutes or so.

Add water with bakers ammonia and salt, and flavorings, whip to incorporate.

Switch from whisk to paddle.

Add Cake Flour, do not overmix, try to just fold the flour in.

Mixture will seem sticky, slack, and somewhat foamy.  Form into a ball, wrap in plastic and let the dough sit for at least a half an hour.  The flour will continue to absorb moisture.

On a dusted surface, roll out to desired thickness.

Dust springerle mold, press and cut. Place on parchment paper on cookie sheets, cookes of similar size and thickness on the same sheet.

Let dry for up to 24 hours.  If you wish to observe the bottoms of the cookies, don't let the drying of the cookie extend beyond a 1/4 from the edge to allow for a foot. If you'd rather not bother with that, simply brush the bottom of the cookie with water right before baking.

BAKING TEMPS AND TIMES MAY VARY! It all depends on the type of cookie you wish to produce.  I tend to go with 325F, until the bottom of the cookie turns slightly tan.  They may be baked at lower temps, for longer, to produce a drier amd paler cookie.  Thicker cookies will need to be baked a little lower than thinner cookies, so that the inside is baked enough. Experiment and enjoy!

After baking, air dry to cool and then store

Theory of coffin bone palmar/plantar angle.

The tension of the DDFT is regulated by the *brain* of the horse as a protective and reactionary measure.

Tension of the DDFT muscular unit determines palmar/plantar angle.

The horse is seeking to either protect itself from pain and damage and or is attempting to maximize efficiency in moving its mass from point A to point B over the ground.

Example: over hard ground the horse lengthens the DDFT to reduce the impact of ground reaction forces.  Over soft ground the horse shortens the DDFT to increase tone to be able to propel its mass forward. Pain= a shortened DDFT to produce the braced gait necessary to protect the limb.

Solution for a negative palmar P3- reduce the need for the horse to lengthen the DDFT.

How?  1- Utilize a shoeing package that mimics soft ground vs hard ground.  Frog support and impression packing 2- Reduce the lever of the toe wall to engage the DDFT in motion.

Solutions for a too steep palmar angle-   Utilize a shoeing package that protects the hoof from the ground, primarily the sole.  A stiff pad/frog support pad with super soft impression material.  Do not reduce the leverage of the toe wall beyond what would be considered "normal".

I'm not particularly trained.  I barely have a base, and because so I've done virtually no speedwork. I'm heavier than I want to be.

So why am I running the New England Mountain Running series?

Because I CAN.

Years ago, when I was "serious" about running- translate- my horse was lame and I couldn't ride, I had endometriosis that was not well controlled.  It meant that I could squeeze in 19 days of running, followed by 4 days of being so grokked out on pain medication that I could barely function.  It meant that certain days were totally off the table for running, and in particular, racing.  Ya do what ya gotta do, right?  But I wouldn't be human if I didn't say that it was irritating to not be able to run a series of races.  Back then I was "into" the Mt Washington Road Race, and thus ran many of the mountain races as prep races, but never the whole series.

Fast forward to perimenopause (a relief from endometriosis that has its own special quirks- hello heart arrythmias!)  the ever increasing "grandma bod", and a sudden refusal on my part to spend time in the saddle, I've decided that it's time to drag out this particular axe to grind.

Hence, the New England Mountain Running series. I want their mountain goat status.

Three mountains down, three to go.

Because, after all these years, I CAN.

Whooeee, lookit those nice assets!

Doing the best you can with what you have does not equal making the most of what surrounds you.

This goes back to designing a venn diagram of your assets and needs.  Assets are the things in life that you have immediate at your disposal.  Personality traits and talents, geographic location, finances, extraneous support; all the little things involved in goal setting that have nothing to do with effort. Needs are the end game venn diagram.  The skills you'll need to develop, the where you'll have to go to get what you want.

Now, if your asset diagram is pretty far off from where you "need" to be for your goal, that shows the effort.  Just how much grit you'll need to have and where you have to put it.  It also shows a level of dissatisfaction you'te going to need for your current situation in order to toggle all those various aspects to get to your goal.  And partly, that's OK.  Depending on the situation, it's GOOD to be pissed off amd require change.

But what if I sat down and drew you a diagram of your goal.  Of what it really means to you, psychologically.  Because it's never really about the blue ribbon, or the marathon, or the thing bought. It's about how they make you feel.  Connected, respected, worthy, *special*.  Basic human psychological needs.

And then what if I showed you how your assets could be best utilized to meet your needs.  Pursuing a goal is a vehicle to meet your needs as a person, and there are a lot of makes and models out there to be had.  It only makes sense to select the best vehicle for the job, but that's not what we tend to do.  Instead of making the most of what we have, we pick something and try to do the best we can with what we have; making life harder than it needs to be, and making ourselves a lot less happy than we need to be.  "Praise be the grit!" is reinforced in us constantly.  Praise be!.... someone who you aren't... yet.

But what if... Praise be! who you are.  What you have to offer.  What your life has to offer.  It doesn't mean there is no room for improvement, it's spinning the perspective so that you're working on maximizing who you are and what you have rather than having to focus on who you aren't and what you don't have.

Will it mean giving up on your current goal? Well, it might mean that you don't need it anymore.

Take the time to diagram it out. In your head and on paper.  Maximize your assets and you might find you're a lot happier.

-From Gelin, with love.

Cheryl's in the kitchen, mixin'up the...

thrush powder??

Randy knows better than to get hopeful when I drag put the mixing bowls.  No chocolate cake with chocolate frosting today!

My project as of late has been thrush powder.  I'm always looking for thrush remedies that are effective, not caustic, and not expensive.  Most of the ingredients for this I sourced inexpensively on Ebay. I also happened to have a few squeeze bottles lying around for applying the powder, but once again Ebay sellers have Yorker top squeeze bottles for sale on the cheap.

The recipe:

1C sodium bentonite powder

1 1/2C diatomaceous earth powder

4T copper sulfate powder

1T oregano leaf powder

1T eucalyptus leaf powder

Whisk together, fill bottle.

Apply to cleaned frog once daily.  Sometimes I'll spray the hoof with apple cider vinegar with some tee tree oil in it or old fashioned Listerine before applying the thrush powder.  

The Terrata

I had a dream that I went into a Dunkin' Donuts and they had a new, special pastry available called the Terrata.  It was beautiful.  It looked decadent.  A rustic apple tartish thing, but more.  As dreams are wont to go, things got bizarre and I won't relate anything more than that, but when I woke up I was convinced that at some point I would need to make a "Terrata".

An evening of baking I'm now several pant sizes larger and in utter bliss.  It's amazing.  Worth every minute, at least this once.

So here we go:

The crust:

1.5C flour

2t sugar

1/2t salt

11T unsalted butter, cold

1 egg yolk

3T whole milk  

Chop the flour, sugar, salt, butter together until the butter is smaller than peas.  Mix the egg yolk with the milk, then add incrementally to the flour mix until you have a perfect dough.  Might take less milk-yolk than you have.  Press into two disks.  Freeze one for later.  Chill the other for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375.

Roll it out, put it in a 9" deep pie pan.  Poke with fork and bake it until it's done.  

While it's cooling...

Make the caramel sauce...

1C brown sugar

1/2C half and half

pinch of salt

Mix together and slow boil for 6 minutes.  Add 1T vanilla, and boil two minutes longer.  Cool.

Make the apple filling:

4C peeled, diced apples

1T lemon juice

1T maple syrup

2T brown sugar

1 1/2T flour

1t cinnamon

Simmer the above in a medium sized saucepot on the stovetop until apples are tender to the fork but not mushy.  Cool.

Make the ricotta filling:

8oz ricotta

4oz cream cheese

1/2t vanilla

1/2C confectionary sugar.

Whip it.  Whip it good.

Make the sweet cream:

1C whipping cream

1/4C confectionary sugar

1/2t vanilla.

Whip it.  Whip it even bettah, but not to buttah.

So now to assemble:

To the pie shell first add the apple pie filling.  Top with the ricotta filling.  Drizzle with the caramel sauce.  (Use your judgement here, if you don't like things super sweet, go light, if you prefer to mainline your sugar, dump it alllll on.)  Then pipe out your sweet cream on top all fancy like.

Enjoy!