chard

I've always wanted to try chard and finally at the farmers market I bought some this weekend. Dark green leaves with pink veins leading to the pink stem. Well, I learned you cook the stem and leaves separately and that's what I did. The leaves were cooked down with some oil, garlic, salt and pepper. The stems I chopped up and parboiled. After that I tossed with some olive oil, covered in parmesan cheese and baked. Not surprisingly, I liked the baked dish better. It was a nice meal after my 6 mile run.

Running and Burgers

I'm preparing for the Hamptons Half Marathon next weekend. My training schedule has been a bit off due to my vacation, but I've started up again -- on Monday it was 3 miles, today I ran outside for 46 minutes. I'm slowly building up time. Still, my back has been acting up. I'm thinking of doing something like acupuncture to deal with the pain or maybe pilates to help strengthen my back muscles. We'll see.

Last night I went to Good Stuff Eatery again. I had the fries, declined on the shake, and tried the Barn Buger which has pickled radish, carrots and cilantro for an asian theme. It was interesting, but frankly there is something wrong about a carrot on a burger.

Holiday's Over or What I Did Over Summer Vacation

Two weeks off from work went by quite quickly. I feel like I spent a lot of time in airports (of which the Singapore airport is officially my favorite airport ever) but it was a nice trip to Seoul, Singapore and Bangkok. Didn't do much running and frankly my training schedule is off, but did do a lot of walking -- granted to various food places. 

The food in Singapore and Bangkok was great! Stephanie's friend Adrian took us Americans to a great Malaysian hole in the wall restaurant. The food was cheap, spicy and YUMMY! We basically went up to the counter and pointed out things you wanted to try -- typically you could get about 3 or 4 of the dishes that the people would put on a plate of rice -- curries, stir-fires, fish balls, this really spicy tofu and potato dish that I ordered because it didn't look spicy. Lesson: looks can be deceiving.  I also tried chicken rice which is apparently famous in Singapore -- rice cooked in chicken broth and served with cooked chicken and some greens. And a trip to Singapore would not be complete if I didn't go to the Hawker market -- I went to Maxwell Road Hawker market in Chinatown where steamed buns, curry rice, chicken rice, sugar cane juice and other tasty treats awaited. 

I just wish the camera battery had not died, otherwise you'd see all the things I ate -- perhaps this is actually a good thing.

The one thing that I didn't get to try was Mister Donut's Tofu donut in Seoul. We walked past the sign on our way to dinner. I had hoped to go back and try it for dessert but that didn't work out. Later I tried to find the shop again but was unsuccessful. Next time!

I did check out Singapore's Asian Civilisations museum. In the China exhibit there different words or theme highlighted -- one of which is filial piety. I got a kick out of it because -- let's face it -- I tend to follow the opposite!