Week 18
This is my first holiday season without my grandmother. It’s the first time I can’t pick up the phone to ask if I add the sugar into the eggs before or after I whip them. I always forget and I never wrote it down because it gave me an excuse to call her.
The cookies changed over the years. Mombo (she was my MomMom but Josie gave her a new name when MomMom didn’t quite come out right) would see a recipe in a magazine and add it to the list, offing one of the stragglers from the previous year. There were always pizzelles, pecan cups, chocolate chip cookies, and reindeer antlers.
Melt away fudge was a staple too. She would hide it as soon as it was made so my grandfather wouldn’t eat it all before Christmas. In recent years, she made me my own tin of fudge to take home to New Jersey. Mombo grew up with three brothers. They would make fun of her to no end if she had any mishaps in the kitchen. She learned to pour her mistakes into the rain gutter at the edge of her parent’s house if something went awry. Sometimes the fudge turned out perfect and sometimes it was gutter fudge. When I started baking with her and I messed up a recipe beyond salvation, she would often tell me to “gutter it.” Unfortunately, my first attempt at making Mombo’s fudge this season turned into gutter fudge when I scalded the milk on the bottom of the pot.
After my fudge fail, I decided to stick with Mombo’s cookies instead. Every day this week, the kids and I have tackled a different recipe. Most of her recipes were cut from the back of packages or out of newspaper columns. There are as many clippings in her recipe box as there are hand written note cards. Even the fudge appeared on the back of the Baker’s Chocolate box. I consulted the instruction manual that came with the pizzelle iron to see how much batter to put on the press and I discovered Mombo’s note card with her recipe was copied straight from the pizzelle manual.
Click the links to the recipes.
Weekly Training Log
Sunday: OFF
Monday: SWIM Warm Up: 100s, 100p, 4x25k Main Set: 2x (2x100s, 4x50p, 1x200s) Cool Down 100s
Brad and I treated the kids to American-style tacos for dinner….the kind with the ground beef & seasoning mix. We even baked hard taco shells.
Tuesday: RUN 3x 1K with 1K rests between. I completed the workout on the road because the track would have been really lonely. Roselynn stuck by my side for all of my repetitions. I’m not sure I would have been able to push myself to complete them without an assist. I was able to keep the intervals consistent and unlike last week, I did not walk for any portion of the recovery K’s.
We made rice bowls with pork, avocado, edamame, cucumbers and red peppers for dinner.
Wednesday: SWIM Warm Up: 100s, 100p, 4x25k Main Set: 4x200s, 3x100p, Cool Down 100s
STRENGTH: 45 minute HIIT class at Architect Studios with Roy
I hosted the FbD Ugly Sweater Run and Beer Swap in the evening which meant, pizza for dinner!
Thursday: PT Continued to work on squats, running drills and core exercises.
Our week of cookie baking caught up to me and we almost didn’t eat dinner. I threw together a sloppy tray of lasagna and baked it just enough to get gooey for the kids and I to down before bed.
Friday: BIKE Warm Up 10min, Main Set 10@70%, 8@75%, 3 easy, 6@ 80%, 4@ 85%, Cool Down 4 min
This was the same bike workout I completed last week. This week I was a little faster and a lot more consistent on the build. I took the first 70% a little easier and I was able to finish the last 4 minutes at 85% strong. I watched the CNN countdown to shut down in lieu of the timer on my watch.
I ate a really late lunch after my workout. Rice bowls with eggs & avocado. Dinner was a tray of sourdough, olives, prosciutto & brie - my go-to meal when I can’t think of anything else and there’s nothing in the pantry.
Saturday: RUN 60 I love the timed long runs. It makes me leave all expectations for pace and distance on the side of the road. I can do whatever I want, run with whoever I want, as long as I’m out there for 60 minutes. I like to take these really easy as a nice treat to my body after a week of training. This particular 60 minutes was spent running with the Fueled by Doughnuts group and Jessica. I tried not to talk about bakery business too much!