mid week hump

still riding the high from the weekend...

With the girls out of school for Vets day, we did our best to stimulate the economy. We went shopping. Not for anything crazy. The start of cross season kind of tossed out a year and a half food shopping routine. It wasn't just the racing on the weekends. It also was about the time the market closed. Much despite my brother's efforts, he was one of three owners and the other two decided they needed to pack it in. So the LLC hit receivership. And we lost the place we'd been procuring food for 18 months or so. That is a long time for a routine. And since then, with racing on the weekend and no comparable store anywhere close, things have been kind of upside down in the food procurement patterns. But heck, they managed to close before the stock market hit the sh!tter, and even if they'd made it through, they might not have made it till now anyway. I wonder if that sentence makes sense.

So the girls and I hit a reasonably smattering of stores. And then we came home and made pizza.

Pizza night. Gotta love pizza night.

And lately I've really sort of changed up how I'm making pizza. I've gone from the hand tossing and using a peel to get it directly on the stone in the oven, to cooking the dough first (with or w/o sauce) in my pre-heated caphalon pizza pan (oil on the bottom). It sits in the 475°F convection oven for 3 minutes or so, getting slightly browned and crisp. Then I put the toppings on and slip it out of the pan directly on the stone.

It gives me a bit more control with the crust. And since I've switched from buying the dough at the bakery to making it myself... well I'm making a few more pizzas. The girls love this because they get their own pizzas, full control. Last night pizza one was cheese and sausage, pizza two was mushrooms, olives, sausage, just a tiny bit of cheese, and fresh basil. Fresh mushrooms mind you. Putting canned watery crap on pizza is sacrilegious. I made a big plain cheese to satisfy my wife's preference for simple, and mine was loaded with pizza two plus a bunch of spinach. So good.

The crust turned out very thin last night. And crispy. My wife called it a cracker pizza almost. But those girls devoured most of their combinations. It was good.

We tried a local Mozzarella cheese. It was pretty damn good. Not a fresh balled in whey mozz, but it was as close as it could have been in texture and flavor. And it melted like fresh mozz. Ya know how non-fresh mozz never really browns and looks more cheesy than white. This was a pure white cheese (even with a touch of provolone mixed in) melted on the crust with a delicate browning on the surface. And man did it make a good pie.

Looking ahead, cross season is winding down. 4 weeks or so left.

Around here we've got a few choices this weekend. Saturday there is the Brockton race. Two years ago it was a crazy course. It was also the only muddy race weekends. That day it went up against the uber mud at the UNH race. It was the one pinch flat race of the year, but in the mud, my Vred 28s kicked butt, and the wheel loaned to me by C-Burke was a tufo tubular and it didn't hook up one bit, i had to slow way down just to stay under control in the greasy wet turns. That and I managed almost to pitch myself into the pond. They made changes last year. It didn't sound too much different. And this year it is going up against the Dayville race.

For a good story about the Dayville race check out legolord's write up of Beer Cross #1. It is almost the same course they used for Natz Schmatz in January. And that was fun.

And my plan for the moment is to hit Beer Cross on saturday. Besides it is $10 cheaper (or 11-12 if ya do the bike reg thing) than Brockton.

Sunday is Lowell. That famous race at Shed Park. Over the past couple years I've been going there the city has made lots of improvements to the place. It does have some great kid friendly playground equipment for them to watch Daddy (or Mommy) race around. And it is a fun course, sort of. Actually other than the steep ridable hill there i'm not a big fan of the course. Maybe it is the cinder track that turns everything black. That is the litmus test for your kit washing routine. That Black nastiness is tough to get out, even if it doesn't rain it still manages to be wet. I don't like to be negative about a race overall, and there are lots of people who just love that course, the location and eagerly anticipate the races return. Me? Not so much. Maybe because the first year they didn't score me. I finished, and IIRC they put people on the results that finished after me. But I didn't get scored. Last year, the missed the leader coming through and so I saw 1 to go for 2 laps or was it 2 to go for 2 laps... at any rate that kind of stinks. And in that very last lap I got passed by the leaders. Would have been on the lead lap if they'd gotten the lap cards right. But nope. Ah well. I wasn't having a good day anyway from what I remember. Might have been sick or something. Who knows. I suppose I could look back but, nah. I know the scoring isn't really the fault of the venue or the promoter. But it does affect the racer's perception of the event.

Like Plymouth. It was fun as hell but, seriously. Where the heck are the results? If I was almost DFL like usual, heck I might not care. But I want to see how I stacked up. I want to figure out who that IF guy was that I beat at the line for 14th on Sunday. I want to know where I finished in the Saturday race. Was I really 11th? Or did i just imagine that placing? Because I clarified with the officials that yes indeed, chris white was 288 and i was 285 and I finished behind him by 10 seconds, i know my placing. But not really who I finished in front of. Results. May they show up SOOON. please
well hey, what do you know, Plymouth North Results just showed up

Ooops, probably should have hit publish a while ago.

heddwch
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