5 K

If you know me well enough, you probably would put a question mark after my name when I say 5K! As one would have it, Ralph and I have taken up a sport that is the farthest from what anybody we know would have thought we would ever do.  But, run, we have!  We ran our first ever 5K at the Melbourne Music Marathon in Downtown Melbourne this past February.  It was equally exhilarating as it was physically draining.  We had about two weeks to train - well, it was more like walk/run just enough to have endurance to cross the finish line!  I was both excited and scared on race day, maybe more scared than excited, really.  Surprisingly, I not only finished the race but actually finished in a little over 40 minutes!

My next run was the Melbourne Strawberry Festival a couple of weeks later . This was actually how I celebrated my birthday!  Ralph didn't run with me today, so I went with a little apprehension about my will to finish.  You see, Ralph was my cheerleader and the one who kept pace with me so I would keep running till the finish at the first 5K.  Thankfully, I had several friends who celebrated my birthday and ran with me.  Not only did I finish the race, I actually improved on my time by about 2 minutes.  The ultimate prize was a super delicious strawberry pancake breakfast prepared festival volunteers! 

On March 31, Ralph, Megan, and I ran the Game Day 5K at the Viera Stadium.  The best part of the run was coming into the stadium behind center field and running to the plate to finish the race!  My goal coming into the race was to improve on my last run's time.  However, it wasn't meant to be this time.  For the first time since I started running, I had side stitches.  It came on after I drank water at the water stop and then running on a down slope.  It cut my time for the race because I had to walk for about a mile of the 3.1 mi!  Nevertheless, it was still a fun run especially that Megan ran with us.

Happy smiles after the run!

To end our season of running, Ralph and I ran at the Melbourne Art Festival 5K in Downtown Melbourne at the end of April.  There were several hundred runners who ran that day and the food at the end of the run was awesome!  We even had mango smoothies!  The course was a beast!  We ran up and back of the Melbourne Causeway -twice!  I tell you, I was cursing as I was running on the second uphill run on the back stretch!  I have never trained for uphill running and boy did I wish I did. I thought I would lose a lot of time today yet I actually improved from the last time I ran at a similar (minus the second run up the Causeway) course in February.  I finished at 39:22 which was about a minute under my first run here! 

I have no plans of running again until the fall.  It is just so hot out there.  We still do run along Lake Washington Rd. every now and again just so we would be prepared when the running season (cooler weather) starts up again.

Running is a sport that was the farthest from our minds to get started.  In fact, I have always wondered how runners can just keep on running for miles!  After getting started with it, now I understand how and why runners do it.  It is grueling, don't get me wrong, but the endorphins that rushes in after the run is so great that it energizes you.  After the 3rd race, I actually felt more active after the run!  I don't know how long Ralph and I can keep running since we are both up there in age and the knees do get a beating, but for as long as they don't totally give in, we will keep running!  Why don't you come and join us in one of these runs sometime?

Future 5K runs that we are considering on running this year:

Turtle Krawl 5K Run/Walk - Indialantic, September 15
Ghostly Geckos 5 K - Eau Gallie Civic Center, October 20
Pumpkins in the Park 5K - Cocoa Village, October 26
Ascension Eagle Pride 5k/1K - TBD, November 10
Disney Family Fun Run 5K - January 11, 2013

Bucket List Runs

Disney Princess Half Marathon - February 24, 2013

Let's get a-planting!

Entrance - BEFORE

It's been 10 years since we moved to our house.  We didn't buy the property because the house was great, but because the yard was expansive and the houses in the neighborhood are not sitting on top of each other.  It was also dotted with at least 20 palm trees, bamboos, and oak trees.  Other than the occasional mowing of the yard, we have not done much to add to the aesthetics of the yard until this year.  We hired a tree trimming service to trim back overgrown palms and oak trees.  It looks so much neater to look at now (if there is such a thing in trees!).  Before they were trimmed, Megan would say to her friends who are visiting, "you'll drive through well-kept yards then you'll see a jungle - that's our house!".

We also started to add some landscaping to the entrance to the yard.  You will see above where we cleaned out a portion of the entrance, shaped it with pavers and planted some sun-loving perrenials.  Voila!  The next picture shows what it looks like after we added plants!

Entrance - AFTER

Newly planted butterfly garden

Butterfly garden after 4 months

 What we didn't have was a butterfly garden.  So, plant it we did.  A friend said one time that if you plant it, the butterflies will come.  We added plants that would specifically attract monarch butterflies, etc.  Monarchs are starting to become endangered so why not help out nature by planting plants that would attract them to it.  True enough, before we even planted the last plant, we already saw a couple of butterflies fluttering around the plants.  A few days later, we saw a couple of caterpillars munching on the leave of a couple of the milkweeds.  I have never been more enchanted to see nature on display.  Four months later the

Monarch caterpillar feeding on milkweed leaves

plants have bloomed and thanks to the recent dousing of rain, the plants are robust and healthy looking - still!  I just love to look at the different colors every time I get out the front door and head to the car.  I always smile when I pass by.

We haven't had an herb garden in years now.  I found this broken wheelbarrow that was sitting behind a fence.  Ralph drilled holes let water drain, covered it with potting soil and planted the more popular herbs that we use for cooking, such as, basil, mint, sage, rosemary, cilantro and parsley.  The herbs have really taken off and we have pinched off several leaves from the basil, parsley and cilantro to for some of the dishes we've prepared.

An upcycled wheelbarrow used a planter for our herb garden

1/1000. Chicken Piccata

So, the journey begins with Chicken Piccata!  Before I go on, there are a few things that I realized as I started to cook.  First, I have no artistic ability on food presentation for photography.  Second, my camera is not the best for making food look appetizing even when it isn't!  Third, I wasn't sure if I should take pictures as I was cooking of simply take pictures of the ingredients and the final product.  Well, I guess I will just have to make adjustments as we go through this journey and maybe after 1000 recipes, I would have made major leaps and bounds in food photography and presentation, not to mention blogging!

I thought this recipe was very simple to prepare.  I have always shied away from cooking chicken breasts because I find them very bland and I am not too fond of it's texture either.  Surprisingly, the chicken came out just tender enough and the sauce, well, it was good but I think it was too lemony.  The problem I believe came with using only 2 chicken breast cutlets and not the recommended 5 or 6.  I was reading the recipe last night and for sure I read 2 instead of 6 so I sent Ralph off to buy only 2.  I did not adjust for this fewer cuts of chicken breast and went ahead and prepared the dish with the full recipe ingredients.   

Lesson learned:  make sure to adjust quantities accordingly especially when the main ingredient quantity changes!

Speaking of ingredients,  there was nothing in it that you won't probably have in your pantry already except for the fresh parsley and the chicken cutlets.  The latter was the only ingredient I purchased 

to prepare for this dish tonight.  The parsley came from my herb garden!

I began by liberally adding salt and pepper on both sides of the chicken cutlets and then coating both sides with about 1/4 c of unbleached flour.  Heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a 10 in skillet and sauteing the cutlets for about 3 minutes on each side until they were light brown.  If I had more cutlets I would have placed each sauteed cutlet in the oven that had been warmed to 200 degrees and with an oven safe plate to hold it.  I would them have to do same thing I did from coating with flour till sauteeing until brown.  Since I only had two, I just placed the cutlets in the oven while I added an additional 2 tbsp of vegetable oil and sauteed 1 minced glove garlic for 30 seconds or just until you smell the aroma of the garlic.  One cup chicken stock and 1/8 in slices of lemon from half a lemon  were added.  This was made to reduce for about 4-5 minutes after which the additional 1/4 c lemon juice and 2 tbsp rinsed capers were added.  This mixture was made to further reduce to about 1/3 cup for about a minute or so. 

The pan was then removed from the heat, 2 tbsps of butter was added and allowed to melt, stirring continuously.  Finally 2 tbsps of minced fresh parsley was added.  The cutlets were transferred to a serving dish and the sauce was added on top of it.

Serve immediately over linguine or angel hair pasta.  If you are feeling lucky enough, you may also serve it with a glass of Pinot Grigio.  Tonight, I added some Filipino touch to the dish and served it over hot jasmine rice.  Verdict? It was just as delectable.

One of 1000 recipes is now in the books! 

1/1000.  Chicken Piccata

A journey through the kitchen

My daughter, Erin, and I have decided to embark on a cooking adventure together.  We will be cooking/preparing all the recipes in the newest edition of "The New Best Recipes" from the editors of Cook's Illustrated.  Publishers Weekly, in their review of the book says the book is a "literal encyclopedia of recipes...is well organized and extremely clear".  This is what we are counting on, I mean the "well organized and extremely clear" part since neither of us are trained cooks!  We both love to cook (my love of cooking came way later in my years) and just the thought of learning a lot of new recipes is something we are looking forward to.  There are 1000 recipes in the book!  Given that there are only 365 days in a year, we would have to cook about 3 dishes a day if we are ambitious enough to cook all the dishes in one year!  But, we are not!  So, we invite you to share in our successes and/or failures as we maneuver our way through our separate kitchens, Erin in Chapel Hill, NC and me, in Melbourne, FL. Let the journey begin!

A reunion

Enjoying an evening of great food with great friends.

One of the reasons I went to Puerto Rico was to attend the Second Annual Reunion for my Alma Mater, Departamento de Ciencias Marinas, Recinto Universitario de Mayaguez.  It has been 20 years since I graduated and except for a few friends who I have kept in contact with, I haven't seen a lot of the other graduate students until now.  It was great to reminisce about our simple, yet fun, lives in graduate school.  Equally great was knowing that a lot of us who left the island (Isla Magueyes) have had successful careers 20 years hence.  It was heartwarming to be among scientists, professors, business entrepreneurs, who two decades ago lived in rented houses and had center blocks or stolen milk crates for bookshelves.  Kudos to all who were in attendance and to those who missed it, we hope to see you in future reunions.

With former grad school friends and Professor before the Memorial Tribute to all alumni, staff, and faculty who have left us.

I've Moved

Atop El Farro, Cabo Rojo..

    So, I've decided to migrate my original blog, http://turinganfamilyblog.blogspot.com/ to this new blog simply because I cannot get in and modify it.  I have also changed the name of the blog so that it could be more general in content.  Reading my last post from the old blog, it was written after our trip to Puerto Rico in 2008.  Well, this past weekend, we just came back from another trip to the island. There is so much to write about this recent trip but I will have to post it later. Stay tuned to my next post!