Emily Brewer, Recruiter, Food Lover, Frankie Lover

 

The Final Countdown

Posted in Lifestyle, Running on 05/25/2010 01:21 pm by Emily Brewer

If you would have told me when I was suffering from debilitating shin splints in December that I wouldn’t run one day in 2010 to date, I would have scoffed.  But here I am, 3.5 weeks out of my cast, it is almost June and I couldn’t even tell you when running will make it back into the regimen. Looking back on the past 5 months and looking forward to the next 5 months, I think it is looking like all of 2010 might be a running wash.

The countdown to my ortho appointment was an exciting stretch.  The last seven days of my castedness featured Facebook and Twitter numbered declarations daily that got my friends and family involved in the stir of excitement about the May 5th V day.  The buzz in the air was palpable (for me at least) and the day could not come fast enough!  That morning I got ready for my appointment and packed a bag with my left shoe anticipating I would walk out of the office after my appointment as a 2 legged wonder!  I was also spending the countdown week researching military style bootcamp exercise classes, the idea being since I hadn’t been moving around at all for months, I could jolt my metabolism with an aggressive exercise regimen and the 15 lbs I had gained would just melt off. Immediately! I was psyched! I had my shoe and my plan and I couldn’t wait to see the doctor!

Enter the villainous orthopaedic physician.  Laughing at my cute little left shoe, sending me to x-ray, telling me he could feel my ‘reactive tissue’ and then….telling me I would be in the boot for an additional two weeks. THE HORROR! I was so dejected and depressed.  My get out of jail card had been revoked.  I was on boot parole though, as I was told I would be able to decrease my time in my immobilizer boot over the next two weeks to wean my withered leg off of it, but for someone who was expecting to be out and doing military style exercise drills, it was a rough blow.  To top the depression sundae with a crushing cherry, I was also informed that the only exercise I would be permitted to do was the recumbent bike on ZERO resistance for 4 weeks, then the elliptical machine on ZERO resistance for 4 weeks after that, then – we could talk.  TWO MONTHS of what basically equates to NO exercise.  OUCH!  WTF!?  What about my military style bootcamp I had planned to melt the pounds away?!? Ok, ok.  In hindsight that may have been a bit naive. I can admit that.

So here I am in my 4 week period of recumbent biking and the kicker? The leg is so withered and fragile that even doing that is painful.  I was hoping to be at the gym every day biking my little legs off, and it turns out that is impossible. After 30-45 minutes of biking I rush home to ice my leg all night long.  If I ride my bike a mile on the beach I rush home to ice my leg all night long.  If I stand up too long, I rush home to ice my leg all night long.  I thought waiting for my cast to be removed was going to be the end of the ordeal but it turns out the road is going to be a lot longer that I had anticipated.  And I am going to have to flex my patience muscles in a serious way. Because I sure as heck won’t be flexing my leg muscles!

Lesson learned.  Broken legs are a marathon, not a sprint. Pun intended.

 

Pregnancy & Alcohol Do Not Mix!

Posted in Fun on 05/23/2010 12:18 pm by Emily Brewer

I have no words!

 

Pastry Fail

Posted in Food, Fun on 04/19/2010 09:19 pm by Emily Brewer

So, I love to try new recipes out from time to time, many on a whim immediately after I have seen them prepared on the Food Network. Yesterday was no different after seeing the Barefoot Contessa make a super easy apple turnover using pre-made pie crusts and a yummy apple mixture.  No problem, right?

Wrong. Turns out since I don’t bake at all, I had none of the accessories necessary for easy success, even with a pre-made pie crust and minimal ingredients.  Case in point: the dough needed to be rolled out.  I have no rolling pin.  So I took plastic wrap, put it around a bottle of Tabasco sauce and rolled my heart out!  It worked but it wasn’t pretty. Then, you just put the mixture in and seal them up with a little egg wash, right? NO problem!  Except putting the uber simple mixture wasn’t so easy as the shape was atrocious and the apples were breaking through the dough.  After I took some stuffing out and rearranged it on the pastry sections, I got it together and made a sloppy seal with some horrific fork marks on the crust.  I baked those bad boys and then pulled the hideous, albeit tasty, morsels out of the oven.

It could have ended there.  It would have been a perfectly respectable ending. My boyfriend said it didn’t matter what they looked like, as long as they were tasty.  Hmmmm, maybe he had a point. And if not he was certainly supportive and encouraging.  So, we ate some yummy turnovers for dessert and had lots left over.  They weren’t a failure, they were also almost a mild success.  And, we also have new neighbors behind us.  So, I told my boyfriend to take a plate over to them to be nice.  You know, a little ‘hello and welcome’ gift.  And who cares that I didn’t give them the nicest looking ones because after all, it is the taste that counts, right?  Totally right!

So, tonight when I got home and went in the backyard to have a glass of wine while my boyfriend BBQ’d his dinner, the neighbor was there chatting with him.  You know, filling him in a little more on who she is and what she does for a living.  And what does she do, you ask?  She is a PROFESSIONAL PASTRY CHEF. Yes. She makes desserts. Professionally.  All day, every day.  And this is who I sent my first crack at a TV apple turnover recipe to as a welcome gesture. I just hope they weren’t laughing too hard!

 

Nuff Said

Posted in Fun on 03/20/2010 04:43 pm by Emily Brewer

ummmm, yeah.

 

Pain is Temporary, Quitting is Forever

Posted in Lifestyle, Running on 01/29/2010 12:23 pm by Emily Brewer

An update on the new year and its commitments.  I was committed to stick with my running and stay consistent if I recall. But I have been sidelined with the terribleness that is shin splints.  I finally got in to see my ortho and he has me off all activities that would stress the legs, including things as simple as using stairs! There was some good news in this, there was no stress fracture so recovery should be doable. The bad news, zero impact activity for a month, then a follow up visit to decide if my leg is healed enough to start physical therapy.  Then PT for who knows how long.  This means no running for quite some time.  Which was a very hard pill to swallow.

Enter Yoga.  I received the gift of Yoga for Christmas and it has turned out to be a great thing.  It is something new, so learning its ways keeps me engaged and occupied and I have heard from the running community that the core strengthening elements will keep me conditioned and when I do return to running, might help me get right back out there with ease.  That sounds good to me since once I can run, I want to do what I can to avoid another injury!

Even though I was a beginner on the running scene, I was definitely a lover of the running scene. I appreciate the activity, but more importantly I appreciate the community. So welcoming and helpful, but most of all supportive.  I stay active in that community and even though I am not running, they are still cheering me on.  That feels good!

So I am still very committed.  Omit running, add Yoga and I can stay on track with my eye on the ultimate prize, even though that will take patience.  A friend shared a quote from Lance Armstrong who is a bit of an athlete himself: ‘Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.’

Amen.

 

5 Things Wrong with the Food Network

Posted in Food, Lifestyle on 01/14/2010 09:05 pm by Emily Brewer

First off, don’t think I am a hater.  There are few people on the face of the planet that have watched more cumulative hours of the Food Network than me. And this is over the span of at least 15 years, maybe more. From the days when Emeril was subdued, there were “Two Hot Tamales” and their thicker, more formidable counterparts “Two Fat Ladies.”  I watched Food Network to the point it drove people around me nuts and still does, but to a much lesser extent. What I immediately connected with all those years ago was cooking.  It wasn’t a place for me to get supercharged cooking competitions, angry judges randomly berating contestants and I never, ever saw a cake decorating competition. Ever. And I liked it that way.

Back in the day, the food network offered me shows that showed me how to cook new things. That taught me what ‘the trinity’ and a chiffonade was. I learned how to get more juice out of a lemon (30 seconds in the microwave or rolling it on the counter) and I learned not to overmix meatloaf for fear you will dry it out and make it tough. I learned to wipe off mushrooms instead of submerge them in water and I learned to soak greens in the sink to get the sand and dirt out.  I learned you can sear a steak on the stove and finish it off in the oven for a perfect medium rare with a great crust and I learned you never, ever rub your eyes after chopping up a jalapeno.  Heck, they even had Sara Moulton handling my business real time! I could call her LIVE and ask her questions that she would answer while she cooked! Some of these things may seem elementary to most but to me, as a child of someone who didn’t cook much growing up, it was a culinary school of sorts.

In the Survivor age of reality TV, the networks think that everyone wants a drama and confrontation laden viewing experience. I want excitement! I need friction! I need sweat, running, yelling and fear! Ok, maybe on Jersey Shore or Amazing Race but not on the Food Network. Cooking for me is something enjoyable. Something calming, a journey that teaches me, delights my senses and fills my belly.  I don’t compete against my significant other running like a crazy person around the kitchen to see who can concoct the best dish in the shortest time for a panel of judges in the living room. I often take my time, add and delete ingredients at will in each incarnation of the dish, exploring, tasting, drinking wine and more importantly – relaxing.  Which is anything but what the Food Network has become these days.

Maybe I am a purist, maybe I am naive, but I think the Food Network has seriously veered away from the fundamentals of what propelled it to a maker of culinary stars, an everyday staple in people’s homes and a revolutionizer of the average American cook.  Stick to the 30 Minute Meals, the Essence of Emeril (NOT Emeril live), Everyday Italian and maybe bring back those two hot gals, the Tamales. Whatever you do Food Network, please take a look at the 5 things that have made me stop watching the channel that was such a huge part of my viewing habits for so long.

1. Cake – The 20 competitive cake making and decorating competitions you show every weekend are not interesting.  It isn’t even about cooking or food for that matter. These don’t even get eaten.  Please save this for the Pastry Channel.

2. Blood, Sweat and Tears – Aside from Iron Chef America, which holds a dear place in my heart due to the original, I don’t want to see chefs and their judges chopping their knuckles off, crying, fighting or otherwise demonstrating their bad behavior in front of me. I want to see delicious meals being prepared by capable people in a way that is informative, interesting and makes my mouth water. Chop Chopped, or have it be a real competition and not about snarky judges berating sassy chefs.

3. Gimmicks – The World’s Worst Cooks. Really?  You know Food Network, this might be something I might even enjoy watching.  Real people who struggle in the kitchen working their way towards a life of more than boiling water with the competent professional tutelage of the Food Network chefs. But there you go with that fake and false drama a la Survivor again.  To see someone in a terror over the fact they burned onions during a cooking challenge and hear them ramble on about it in a panic for 5 minutes?  And you can tell they don’t even mean it? I have better ways to spend my evening.

4. Game Shows – No one wants to see Chef vs. City. What are the ratings on this show, really?  You fly two ego-maniacal chefs from city to city to compete on an obstacle course that has little or nothing to do with actual cooking?  Eating chocolates until they puke to find the next ‘clue?’ Putting frosting on a huge and way too heavy cake that is pre-made just to carry it to a roof as fast as you can? What does this really have to do with cooking. Or food even?  Not one thing.

5. The Missing Link – Last but not least what is missing from the food network is….food. I think the network execs could stand to work a little harder to get to the bottom of why the network became such a huge success in the first place.  Not reality chef contests, not falsified nail biting food competitions and surely not 13 hours of cake decorating every Saturday.  COOKING got the Food Network where it is now.  Recipes, techniques, tips, tricks and expert advice on how real people can cook better, more interesting meals in their homes everyday.

I really hope that one day the Food Network can find its way back home to the recipe that made it irresistible in the first place. Then maybe I can find my way back home, too.

 

Plan B

Posted in Lifestyle, Running on 01/06/2010 07:05 pm by Emily Brewer

No, not THAT plan B. The ‘I can’t run anymore so I need something to keep on track with my fitness goals’ plan B.  So the shins have sidelined me, so what.  I needed something to help me out, keep me going.  An excuse to use the gym membership I pay for every year and used maybe twice in 2009? Sounds great! So I did, I went. And I decided it’s ok for me to track my gym miles there so I can stay motivated with my mileage as well.  I definitely want to keep my commitment and not lose track of the goal!

Saturday, Day 1 back to the gym. Surprisingly the elliptical gave me a pretty good workout and at times I even felt like I was running! Oh the elation! Added bonus, it felt like it was minimal stress on the shins.  Tacked on the stairmaster and some weight training and was feeling pretty good about myself!  Day 2 at the gym, more elliptical, but I started to feel the stress of it. Thigh muscle really started to bother me (I was probably pushing it way to hard to make up for being unable to run) and my shins were a little sore as well.  Ignored it, rode the recumbent bike for some additional calorie burn and ditched the weights.

Day 3 at the gym and first day back to work.  This was a huge one because I had to get up early to do it, which is hard for me.  And I did get up, and I went, and the thigh was bothering me a lot more (@badassdadblog you warned me!).  I started thinking if pushing myself at the gym as I rested from injuries that were a result of pushing myself with my running was the smartest idea.  The more I worked out and the more my body ached as the day went on, I started to realize maybe it wasn’t.

Day 4 I woke up with a slight cold and throbbing shins, thighs, hips – you name it.  Promptly decided Day 4 was a rest day. Inevitably, the ‘down in the dumps’ ensues and I start to become really frustrated by my body’s inability to withstand any fitness regimen and the feeling that I was falling off the wagon already!  Thankfully, in comes insightful friend and ‘running partner on pause’ who reminds me that most people don’t work out as hard or consistently as I have been working out.  Bodies hurt when you do that.  I thought about it and she is right (that’s you @anotorias).  Then I did something extraordinary. I cut myself a break. And day 5 was a rest day too. Because I hurt and it needed to be.

Positive notes: pleasant surprise in my iPod shuffled song list: I’m Real by J Lo. It had been a while! Arrival of my new Garmin GPS runner’s watch, although it was bittersweet because I can’t use it just now.  Looking back on what I accomplished in 2009 and feeling successful.  Professionally I did better than I ever have to date, and I ran almost 300 miles.  300 miles!!! No joke. From zero to runner in 12 months.  For all you hard cores out there that probably seems like a drop in the bucket, but as I look back on it – for me – it is an impressive number. And I congratulate myself for it.

I said it myself, it is a marathon not a race. But the second I replaced running (and I DO mean the second) with something else, I pushed that too hard too.  I am noticing a theme here. The shins are still throbbing so I am trying to push my long term vision for this goal out a little more so I stand a chance of actually achieving it. More trouble with patience but work with me people. I’m trying here!

 

And So It Goes…

Posted in Lifestyle, Running on 01/02/2010 12:11 pm by Emily Brewer

Day 2 of 2010 and reality steps in.  I tried to start off 2010 with what I wanted to be a great run yesterday.  New year, new commitments and all. I got out on the road and the shins were immediately bothering me again even after a 2 day rest.  The serious problem came in at mile 1, when my shins were so painful that I considered turning around and limping home but didn’t want to stop the run.  Then the decision was made for me as my muscles joined in.  The muscles in my lower leg became completely rigid.  It was so painful I could barely stand, let alone walk and I could not stretch them out as it just made it worse.  So I turned around and started walking back to the house, very frustrated and disappointed and in a lot of pain.

I have a tendency to get down when I can’t keep my running up.  After much discussion an advice last night I am trying to remember that this is about the long haul. I know it will sound cliche since it is in reference to running, but this is a marathon, not a race.  And keeping your body healthy and injury free is essential if running is a habit you want to continue. Yet runners are the first people to ‘power through’ injury and pain.  I never understood this before I started running, but I definitely get it now.  To miss your run, to not be able to get your mileage in is really tough to swallow.  Also, for someone who sometimes has trouble with patience, it adds another level of difficulty to waiting a week or maybe even two weeks to get back out there. But what I needed to get out of yesterdays incident was my body was trying to tell me something important.  Something I wasn’t listening to before when I could ‘power through.’ It felt the need to kick the message up several notches, and I need to listen.

So I will wait, I will be patient, I will pay attention to my body and I will let my legs heal because eventually my muscles will develop. And I will be able to run longer, faster and with less pain because I did this right.  Because I was patient. Because I heard the message my body was trying to send about what it could safely handle.  See, so many lessons for me in my journey to becoming a runner! Who knew?

And now, if you’ll excuse me…I will limp off to the gym to try and keep these lungs in shape. So I am ready when I can finally get back out there!

 

A Real Person Runs

Posted in Lifestyle, Running on 01/01/2010 03:55 pm by Emily Brewer

Today is the first day of 2010 and yes, I am going to make resolutions like I always do but this year I am going to call them something different. I am going to call them commitments. And I am going to be dedicated to staying true to those commitments, even when it sucks and even when it is really hard.  I think that is a great change of perspective for me in general and a change I can credit learning from running. So this year, I am going to blogging a lot more in general but more specifically about my journey becoming a runner. And maybe even completing a marathon.

Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not committing to getting to a marathon in 2010.  I was naive last year and thought I could start training in January and run a marathon in April.  Running has since schooled me in a serious way.  Starting to run on a regular basis has been one of the bigger challenges of my life for many reasons.  First and foremost, running sucks as much as it is addictive and awesome.  It is really tough, conditioning when you start is like torture, if you run into a problem you can’t just stop and get off the machine like you can at the gym (you have to get back home!) and it can be REALLY tough on your body. Especially if you don’t know the proper mechanics of running.  How to stretch, how much to stretch, how to run properly and how to avoid injury. Also, running is so addictive I usually don’t want to do ANYTHING else, so it is tough to learn balance and why cross training is important too.

One blessing running has brought to my life is an amazing community.  As a self confessed social media addict, I enjoy having ‘friends’ out there in the Twitter-verse, Foursquare-verse, Facebook-verse and everything else-verse.  People who share my interests, work in my industry or share my political views.  It has expanded my community and it has often expanded my views in many ways as well.  And the running community has been the most welcoming, supportive, helpful and wonderful community I have ever joined.  You don’t have to be a pro, a marathoner or a triathlete.  Even when I couldn’t go more than 2-3 miles and very slowly at that, they were there.  Helping me get better, faster, stay motivated and work through my problematic injuries and issues that trip me up all the time.  Just because!  That is pretty great if you ask me.

So this year I am going to talk more about my running among other things.  Because I am a real person who started running and that still amazes me.  What I mean by that is I am not athletic. I don’t LOVE working out, I kinda hate it actually.  Running didn’t and doesn’t come easy for me at all.  I struggle to keep it up, make the time and remain motivated everyday. I also struggle with my body and am constantly fighting against pain and injury that threaten to derail my efforts and goals. The fact that I have stayed on course and overcome these hurdles has been something of a surprise to me.  So I want to share the experiences of a REAL person who runs and what that journey is like.  It has changed my life in a lot of ways that I think is worth talking about.

Happy 2010 everyone!

 

The Trip to the Taj Mahal

Posted in Fun, Travel on 12/23/2009 12:16 pm by Emily Brewer

Sunday was reserved for the trek to the Taj Mahal, or “the Taj” as the locals call it.  I use the word trek because it is a 4.5 hour drive from Delhi, so it ends up being a 13 hour excursion. I would love to regale you with tales of the harrowing drive that would put you right there with me, in the moment, but it was so ridiculous that would be impossible.  I will tell you that the highways in India are just as scary as the city streets for different reasons.  There are less cars per square inch, but they way they drive is so much scarier than the city drivers.  And you are going 60 MPH which adds another ‘interesting’ element to it.  Let’s just say imagine huge trucks, smaller cars, what seem like electric powered mini-cabs, motorycles and carts being pulled by CAMELS all sharing the highway. And by sharing, I mean really sharing.  Like if things aren’t working out the way they would have hoped on their side of the road, they just move to the other side of the road, into opposing traffic and barrel towards you until they have to swerve at the last second. And they do, but not before you have bitten all your nails off, soiled your pants and cried a little.

We had to stop to pay a tax to go from one state to the other.  The area was filled with people looking to sell little trinkets, people with monkeys and one guy with a cobra.  Yes, a cobra snake right outside the car window.  My friend made the mistake of snapping a picture and then things got crazy.  They guy wanted to be paid for said photo, but who in their right mind would open the locked car door in a foreign country to give the guy with the deadly snake some money?  What if it wasn’t enough?  What if he decided he wanted more.  The poisonous snake kind of gave him the upper hand in any dispute, so we opted to not be friends and leave the door locked.  I still think that was a good call.

We finally got to the Taj and were met by a friend of our driver who was there to give us a tour.  I was surprised by how many locals were there to see the Taj.  It wasn’t filled with tourists but Indians who had come to see the monument.  They definitely have a completely different concept of personal space and even standing in line to get in was a little harrowing.  The security guards are not worried about complaints as they are in the US, and they were screaming and frisking and throwing things and oh yeah, screaming.  Women and men had to line up separately (as in many places in India, including the airport) and you just basically hope you get thru.

The guide was very happy that in a group full of women that we had a man present, as he would only address him for the most part.  The ladies were kind of an annoyance to him, which was ok because he was definitely an annoyance to me.  One great thing about him though, he did bribe one of the guards to let us cut the 2+ hour line to get inside the Taj to see the replicas of the tombs. In my opinion, that made him worth his weight in gold and affirmed why everyone hates Americans.  It was also nice to get a bit of the history of the Taj, but more importantly, the surrounding buildings like the mosque, guest quarters and the burial areas of his other wives.

The story of the Taj is a great and terrible one.  The Emperor Shah Jahan built it for his 4th and favorite wife, Mumatz Mahal.  Apparently the other 3 wives never gave him kids, but Mumatz died when bearing the Emperor his 14th child.  For that reason he wanted to build her the most beautiful tomb ever built, and I think he succeeded.  Indian myth states that he wanted to make sure that no building more beautiful would ever be built, so he cut the hands off of all the craftsman who built to Taj so they could never again build something like it.  My coworkers told me that little gem. Not sure if it is true but it is definitely an extraordinary story.

Since the drive was such a long one, we had to leave about 2 hours after we got there to go back to Delhi.  We thanked the guide and paid him for his services, and then got back on the road for the white knuckled drive home.  While the day was definitely a hard one with many hours of travel, crowded spaces and ‘Indian’ toilets, I am glad I went.  It isn’t every day that you get to see one of the 7 modern wonders of the world.  And it was definitely a wonder.  One of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen and such a wonder of engineering for the time.  A must see for sure!

 
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