Mar 16 - less excitement

What can I say ? It's hard to top a Shuttle Launch.

I went out for a short ride yesterday -- 50 miles -- because I'm going for a long ride today. While I was out Sandy and Angelika took Abby to the beach. I guess that there were a group of people/kids swimming in the water and she must have thought that it was Jason's gang because she wanted to swim out after them.

The day before I had bought Octopus at the fish store. I asked for a pound, but it comes frozen and you get what you get -- so it was 1.5 pounds -- one octopus, frozen in water. I'm thinking that there was probably a pound of octopus and 1/2 pound of water. Anyway, after getting it defrosted, I was not sure what to do with it. The tentatacles are unbelievably long -- 18 inches -- and thin. I wan't sure how to clean it either, so naturally I went online. Well, once I started to do what they said I realized that it had already been cleaned -- beak and innards removed -- so I wrapped it up in paper towels, put it in a zip-loc and into the fridge. That was on Sunday.

Yesterday, I took it out of the fridge, having found a recipe that seemed ok, and found that the paper towels had quite nicely absorbed some of the slime (moisture sounds better ?). My recipe called for simmering it in vegetable broth, lemon juice and wine, which I did. After it was tenderized, I took it out and let it cool and found that the simmering also allowed the suckers to come off and the tentacles were now only about 6 inches long -- basically they retract, if you will, once they hit the hot water. I cut it up, cross section, with each section having one tentacle, and put in in the marinade which consisted of olive oil, white wine, lemon juice, ground pepper and crushed garlic. After a couple of hours I cooked that on the barbie and it was good ! Even Angelika said that it was edible. That reminded me of Mike's comment last year when he, not a fish eater, said that the tuna was "not objectionable".

Up north we'll do it in the deep fryer ! I have to remember to ask Sandy to pickup up some Peanut Oil for deep fried turkey, french fries, squid, octopus ... oh yes, we had turkey last night, leftover from US Thanksgiving. It was still a tough bird, not having been tenderized from a few months in the freezer.

I heard from Judith yesterday that she had contracted a cold and wasn't sure about today ... and then later that she was going to cancel. My plans are still on though; I'll be leaving shortly to do that ride. I'm signed up and I'm going. I would have done the ride yesterday but for her schedule ... oh well. Today I may get sprinkled on, looking at the forecast and the current doppler. It's still supposed to hit 78F so I'll be warm.

Back to the octopus -- most people would find a recipe and then buy the ingredients ... not me ... I bought squid the same way -- once you have it my upbringing says that you shouldn't throw it out, so I find a use for it. I need to back myself into a corner !

I guess that's it. I'm focussed on the ride at this point so my mind has gone blank. I'm taking the Hummer, which is getting lighter as I drop weight. Yesterday the frame-mount pump arrived so that's replacing the other solutions. Just for the heck of it I should weigh the alternative, to see how much weight I'm dropping.

Onward.