Autumn in Review

It's cold and dreary outside. I've got the Michael Buble Christmas album playing. Jarling's put out their closing sign. Ohio State just trounced Illinois on their own turf, Memorial Stadium, less than a mile from here. The wind's out of east this afternoon. If you walk out into the parking lot, you can smell the humiliation.

The winner of this rivalry, dating back to 1902 (year of the first Rose Bowl, year Texaco was founded, year Teddy Roosevelt became the first president to ride in a car), gets the Illibuck. Which is basically a wooden turtle. Go figure.

What can it mean, you ask? The seasonal shut down of Champaign's favorite frozen custard spot. The yearly defeat by the Buckeyes. The... did he say Michael Buble?

That's right. Autumn is coming to an end. Since we're slipping into the holiday season, let's take a look back at the 2013 Fall Season.

Corn Maze
We returned to the Hardy Reindeer Ranch to navigate the corn maze. That night was dark and freezing. I did my time in Scouting circles as a youngster and learned this very important maxim: Always Be Prepared. Pursuant to that notion, I brought flashlights, gloves, hat, scarf, and a small bottle of Canadian Whiskey.

The maze layout this year looked like one of the guys from Easy Rider. At least before driving through Mississippi. They had six stations spread through the maze with hole punches. You wandered around with a punch card and looked for every station. We got them all. After two hours.

Here's what it looked like:

We Had the Runs
We did the Rattlesnake Master 5k/10k. This was my 7th and final race of the year. I did one adventure run, two 10k runs, and four 5k runs. It's only the last run of the year because I can't find a December race. Next year, I'll try to find something more productive to do with my time. The run was gorgeous, open prairie-land bordered by trees turned orange, yellow, and red.

Sebastian, who ran the 4th of July Freedom run with us, signed up for this one as well. Then we all went for a post run breakfast at Le Peep, the local Champaign version of IHOP. I got a bacon and potato skillet topped with cheese and basted eggs. So disgustingly unhealthy. So delicious. Also, I doused it with Cholula. Because Cholula. I rest my case.

Aine had pancakes. Of course.

The results:
James 10k - 54:37, 37 out of 83 (pretty much dead center of the pack, where I always find myself)
Aine 5k - 30:38, 69 out of 170
Sebastian 10k - 42:26, 7th out of 83 (he's sort of fast)

This is how we looked:

Bayern Stube
Means "living room" in German. A kitschy little German food restaurant north of here in Gibson City. We make a yearly pilgrimage to gorge on pork and potatoes.

They sell their beers by the liters. I kid you not. There are few things as terrifying as a liter mug of beer. I'll be honest, I wasn't man enough to order a liter of beer. I had two half liters.

Seriously. I don't have the upper body strength to lift it since we stopped doing P90X and they refuse to bring you a straw.

As you can see from the pictures, the walls are covered in animal heads, shelves full of steins, German musical instruments, and bizarre weapons. Like a flint lock pistol that's also a hatchet. Try tucking that one into your waistband.

While you wait for your meal and sip your half liter of beer, they bring soda bread and "sausage butter" to munch on. It looks like butter, spreads like butter, but smells and tastes like summer sausage. Which is sort of how I imagine heaven.

For dinner, I had the Bismark Schnitzel, named after the Chancellor because this is how he preferred it. Pork Schnitzel topped with baked apples and Gruyere. I ordered potato pancakes and saurkraut.

Ainers got pork cutlets covered with brown gravy and potato pancakes and vegetables on the side.

I didn't get a picture of her plate. This is her trying to get a picture of the tapestry behind Jessie. The artist took the time to weave an ornate hunting scene. Including one of the hunting dogs taking a steaming crap in the cold Bavarian woods.

Germans.

Say Cheese
We cut into the second pound of cheese. The one we let age three months. Let me tell you. All the difference. It tasted sharper and had a drier, crumblier texture.

This was the most successful cheese of the year.

Parting Shot
We had our first snow of the year. Baron von Flopsburg found it delightful.

Fraulein Fattywurst prefers to stay in where it's warm.

For lack of anything better to do, I decided to make flash cards of all the flags and capitals of all the countries in the world. And then learn them. I'm at 75% on the capitals and 90% on the flags. When I get these down I'm going to add the US States and Territories and probably all the disputed territories. Like Transnistria and South Ossetia. Look 'em up. They're real places. At least, they're trying to be. But probably not Cascadia, because yawn.

Morton Pumpkin Classic 2013

Last weekend I ran the Pumpkin Classic 10k. I've been training for it since June. All my hard work has come to fruition. I guess.

We woke up at 4:30, ate breakfast, drank coffee, and hit the road for the hour and a half trip to Morton on the outskirts of the great prairie metropolis of Peoria. We didn't see much in the wee dark hours, but on the trip back, with the sun in the sky, we saw that this part of central Illinois has hundreds and hundreds of windmills. I think there are two large windfarms around the Bloomington area. I had never seen so many in my life.

Morton was a quaint little town. Over 1,800 runners descended on it like carb-loading, hamstring-stretching locusts that morning to participate in the 10k. Around 7:15, we crowded into the street, awaiting the starting gun.

Look:

Extra points if you find me.

Then we were delayed for half an hour when two cars collided in the race path. During this time, I had the opportunity to inspect the attire of my fellow racers. I found multiple heinous violations.

Race Shirts - It's common knowledge, or so I thought, that you don't wear the shirt of the race you're running in. Some say it's bad luck. Some say you haven't earned it yet. Either way, it's in poor taste. You can wear a shirt from a previous race as long as it's equal to or lesser than the race you're currently running. Don't wear a marathon shirt to a 10k. These are rookie mistakes, guys. 5k mistakes. This is a 10k. Time to get serious.

Compression Pants - If you are an adult male, you have no business running in public wearing compression pants. Or performance shorts. Or tights. I don't care what you call them or how cold it is. If your top layer is bulge-producing, it is not appropriate.

Here's a list those who don't want to see that:

• Women
• Other Men
• Children
• Dogs and Cats

iPods - The jingle of my dog's tags, the honking geese flying low formations over Mattis Lake, the wind through the Swamp Oaks, rumbling cars and barking dogs and yelling children, the Indian women gossiping while their husbands play cricket in the park, loud rap music from passing cars, the buzz of dive-bombing wood bees, the chatter of squirrels. The sound of the world around me is my favorite part of running. When you jam little ear buds into your auditory canals and crank up Eye of the Tiger, you're basically encapsulating the inside and taking it to the outside which completely negates the purpose of going to the outside to begin with. But, James, you say, I get bored on long runs. If the outside bores you, you're probably the kind of person who takes portable DVD players and laptops camping. You should buy Sweating to the Oldies or Tae Bo or Insanity. You should not go outside because you are wasting it. You don't need an iPod to run. You don't need a smart phone with an app that tells you how far you've run and automatically posts it to Facebook. It's one of the few moments in your day when you can get away from electronic devices.

Also, if you're very lucky and listen carefully when you're running a race, you might hear someone toot. And that's totally worth it.

Long story short: we finally got started. The temperature stayed in the 40s for most of the run and the track was fairly flat. I came in at 53:09:04. This run was very well organized. They had electronic chips to record your time. They had each mile marked with a sign and a volunteer calling out the current time so you could monitor your pace.

Also, they took video of the finish line. Let me just say, I hustled the last 50 yards or so and then had to slow down rapidly so I didn't end up in a doggy pile just across the finish line. So this is what I look like slowing down. I'm not usually this floppy.

Finish Line (I come onto the screen at 24:08.)

Of course you want to see the before-and-afters:

Here's how Aine takes pictures. She says, stand here where the sun is directly in your eyes. Now look normal. Why are you squinting?

They gave Dude a finishing medal. I haven't taken it off since.

The Pumpkin Festival looked like it would be the biggest festival I've ever been to. It had a street full of carnival style games, a dozen different rides, food tents, arts and crafts. Pretty much everything I've ever wanted from a festival. Unfortunately it didn't start for another few hours and we had to leave. As we left town, we saw cars trying to get into Morton for the parade and festival were backed up for two miles down the highway.

There wasn't much to capture photographically, but they did have some large pumpkins. If you know what I mean.

That night we celebrated the fact that I sweated, wheezed, and grunted for six point two consecutive miles without stopping by eating some Watermelon Shrimp Curry. Sounds gross doesn't it? It also looked a little gross in the pan, but this was totes delish.

We got the recipe from Jessie, but it originally comes from a book (Full of Flavor by Maria Elia). I suggest you try it while watermelons are still available. The original recipe called for squid and crab claws. We used shrimps. You could easily substitute chicken. Jessie modified the recipe a little before she passed it on and then I modified it a little from that. Below is the dish as I cooked it. If you want the complete un-muddled original, you can find it here.

Watermelon and Seafood Curry
Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 personal watermelon, rind and seeds removed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 inches fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1 jalapeno
• 1 tbl dried lemongrass
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 1 lb shrimp
• 1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
• 1/4 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tbl lime juice

Instructions

1. Liquefy 3/4 of the watermelon in a blender or food processor until smooth. 
2. Cut the remaining watermelon into cubes and set aside.
3. Sautee the onion, ginger, and garlic until lightly browned. 
4. Add the jalapeno, lemongrass, and spices and cook until fragrant.
5. Add everything else, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes.
6. Serve over rice with flatbread.

For reals. Try it.

My dreams of eating pumpkin pie at the finish line of the 10k proved to be bitterly false. Then we left before any of the serious pumpkin dishes were sold. Aine promised to make me some pumpkin pie when we got home. Turns out, standing the in cold for fifty three minutes and nine seconds exacerbated the cold she had been fighting all week. We'll pencil that one into the lessons learned column.

As soon as she felt better (a week later), she made me both pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread. A little late, but very tasty.

And the moment we've all been waiting for finally arrived. The cheese matured.

We ate it on water crackers with summer sausage from Rhode Island. We know a guy.

The final product had a mellow flavor, which would have sharpened had I allowed it age longer, and it was a little less dry than I desired. Next time I'm going to let it air dry for longer than two days. Aside from that, it was good. My first Cheddar. Woot.

Party Like It's 1799

We spent our Labor Day morning in Arthur, deep in the heart of Illinois Amish Country, at the Arthur Cheese Festival.

Rat Race
We woke in the wee dark hours of the morning to drive south through the corn fields to Arthur. We arrived just before 7 am to check in, get our packets, and pin on our bibs. The packets, instead of coming in thin newspaper plastic, came in nifty, reusable canvas totes.

The goodies included our bibs, our shirts, advertisements for more 5k's (There's a night run through a cemetery in Decatur in October. Woot.), and the free cheese promised by the website. Only, here we found our first sign of trouble. The cheese wasn't local or even Amish. It came from Wisconsin.

We ran. Since Arthur has a sizable Amish population and the Amish only ride horse-drawn buggies and horses tend to poop all over the place, most of the roads in town (commercial and residential) were littered with horse poop. Most of the town had a faint livestock show smell to it. We're used to running the goose crap bespattered sidewalks of Mattis Park, so a neighborhoods crusted in former horse snacks didn't bother us.

We came in at 28:08. Look at us. Sweaty.

This was the best organized and executed of 5k's I've done. Painted arrows on the streets, high tech chips on our bibs (they had the results posted 30 minutes after the end of the race), it was a circuit instead of a turn around, huge inflatable arch over the finish line, water, oranges, and bananas for finishers. Top notch run.

Cheese Festival
We noticed in the main parking area for downtown, they had a buggy parking area.

Aine made friends with a sickly, underfed horse.

The vendor area took up most of downtown. Here's where we delved into the heart of Amish Culture.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed.

I'll grant that this was the final day of a three day festival. We left before noon so we missed out on the cheese eating contest and the curd spitting contest and the buggy rides. What disappointed me was The Merch. When you think Amish, you think home grown food and fresh milk and cheese and handmade pottery and woodworking and rocking chairs and things. So I came with a fat wad of poker winnings to blow on cool Amish stuff. Most of the booths, though, had cheap jewelry, inflatable toys, and Made in China Dollar Store grade crap you could pick up at any flea market. Also a lot of fried fair food.

There was one homemade cheese booth, one goat milk booth, a cool Amish crate/pallet booth (the only woodworking we found, but quality work), and some homemade licorice. The only pottery was imported from Poland (slip cast not wheel thrown). We saw a booth with stuffed pink zebras, another with hillbilly windchimes (a strip of wood with four empty beer cans tied to it), some knitting, and let me tell you, Arthur is still abuzz about the magnetic bracelets. You can find more quality, handmade wares at the Farmer's Market in Urbana.

We did see a local beekeeper selling honey.

A fair amount of quiltage.

Also, a camel. Go figure.

I wanted to get more pictures of the folks in their Mennonite hats and beards, but it somehow seemed a little disrespectful to snap pictures of them like zoo animals. We didn't hear anyone speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, which is actually German, because the word Deutsche confused 19th century Americans. They were all very friendly, though. I saw a couple women in Mennonite dresses, bonnets, bibs, and running shoes which means they ran three point one miles in that attire.

We did splurge and buy a homemade soy candle because it smelled good and we liked the little spongeware dish it came in. Except it was made by some guy from a town just north of Bloomington.

So, Cheese Fest. A little bit of a let down. Arthur was a quaint little town and I wouldn't mind going back to peruse the Amish stores on Main Street sometime when they aren't blocked by vendors from Cincinnati on the festival circuit. We did enjoy the run. And the Wisconsin Colby.

Life's Been Cheddar

The Results Are In
My time for the Run4Raley 5k: 25:57

Which means I ran a 8.4 minute mile. Which isn't very fast. But it was pretty fast for me. Now we're gearing up for the Pumpkin Classic 10k in Morton. Last week, I totalled 17 miles. This week, I'm hitting 21.

Thanks, Fanks
I gave up on Dr. Fankhauser. His instructions were rambling, inconsistent and lacking in vital information. The good doctor uses well water and cultivates his own rennet from calf guts to make cheese, so he doesn't spend much time on explaining the intricacies of using store bought milk for apartment dwellers.

After ruining 4 or 5 gallons of milk in pursuit of hard cheese, I bought a book.

On the right. Cheesemaking by Ricki Carroll. She started the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, from whom I bought the rennet and the calcium chloride. From what the rave reviews say, she kickstarted the homemade cheese revolution. She writes instructions for those of us who don't milk goats.

(On the left, you'll see Empire of Liberty by Gordon Wood about the period between the ratification of the Constitution through the end of the War of 1812. I finally finished the dry ramblings of Dr. Middlekauff.)

The first thing I read was NEVER USE TAP WATER to dilute your rennet and calcium. Chlorine in tap water cripples the rennet and gives you a weak break. Also, she says, NEVER USE IODIZED SALT. The iodine kills the bacteria that give your cheese flavor.

So we did it for real this time. I got to the curd cutting phase of the cheese process.

I cooked the curds.

And drained them.

Then I salted and spooned the cooked curds into the cheese press Dad made.

I had plenty of assistance.

I pressed the curds overnight.

The next morning I unwrapped the hunk of cheese and let it air dry for 2 days.

At which point I waxed it.

I now have a waxed hunk of cheese in my fridge. In four weeks, On September 18th, I'll cut into it and taste the deliciousness of my very first cheddar.

Easy As Pie
We're still doing a homemade pizza once a week. It's actually one of the easiest and fastest dinners to make if I remember to throw some flour in the breadmaker on time. The last two have been utter successes. The first I found randomly on the internet, the second I copied from a local restaurant.

Potato, Asparagus, and Feta Pizza

Pear, Feta, and Pine Nut Pizza

It's a Citrus, Khaleesi
Pitaya. Dragon Fruit. This fruit, from a night blooming cactus, comes from South America and Asia.

You just cut it in half and scoop out its guts. It had the texture of a pear and a very mellow flavor. Too mellow. It almost didn't taste at all.

Erin Go Bragh
Or at least until the first sip. We made Irish Coffees. Only, we didn't have cream, so I guess they were Black Irish Coffees.

Aine didn't finish hers.

(And, yes, under my wallet and phone, you see the Bernard Bailyn introduction lectures to his Peopling of British North America series. If Wood is the Obi Wan of early American history, Bailyn is the Quigon Jinn.)

Home Invasion
The other morning a small spider, the size of your pinky nail, crawled to the middle of my office ceiling. It was just hanging out. Minding its business.

Then Piglet saw it. She just wanted to rip it into small pieces. Frustrated at the spider's inaccessibility, she started mrowing at it. Alarmed by the commotion, Crankles rushed in to save the day.

Then he saw the spider. And he started whining.

They have a good time hunting roaches and flies together, but this distant spider completely stymied them. She mrowed. He whined. And that noise lasted for the first twenty minutes of my work day.

Parting Shot
Life in Illinois seems precarious at times.

But this does not alarm us.