Nearly half way

Lunch at Tebay

On the M5

We're off

8000 calories

This weekend, we’re the support crew for a bunch of friends who are tackling the Three Peaks Challenge.  They are walking to raise money for The National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society and my hero and I want to do everything we can to make their challenge that bit, well, less challenging.

Though I’ll share some of the driving, my skills are more suited to the nutrition side, so for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been putting 200kcal goody bags together.  Rather surprising to see how many (few) wine gums or M&Ms there are to the bag when compared with, say, dried apricots.  But I’m not sure that overloading them with fibre is altogether a good idea – how many loos are there on Ben Nevis? 

As well as the pocket snacks, we’ll need some things to nibble in the minibus.  Having tried the ginger slices out a couple of weeks ago, I made more of them, using GF flour so that we can all enjoy them.  I also made Martha Stewart’s Zucchini and Orange cake, which is OK… but not quite in the same league! Never mind, there’s always the good old favourite Rice Krispie bars.  Is there anyone who doesn’t like those?

The Zucchini and Orange cake results in one of those strange kitchen phenomena: the half bald orange, which lurks around the kitchen for several days before someone gets tired of moving it around and throws it in the bin.  Why don’t we cut it in half and squeeze it right away?  Who knows?

The hot food presents a slightly different challenge for me.  I’ve got three sets of large ziplock bags in the freezer with hearty one-pot casserole-type food to have ready for their return from each mountain, but thinking they will want to get right on with the ascent as soon as we arrive, I’ve been thinking of more ready-to-go meals for them as well.  Enter Hugh.

I recalled having watched a programme where he made his own “pot noodles” and googled to find the recipes.  Though they looked a great idea, we had no pots to put them in and, thinking about it, would I expect our friends to carry and then return bulky plastic tubs?  After a bit of thought, I had a go with making them in the stronger, heavier freezer-type Ziplock bags and bingo!  Worked really well!  So, tonight, we’ll pack the dry ingredients into the bags and when they’re ready to go, they’ll be able to pour a cup of hot water into the bag and voila.  Five minutes later, a hot and tasty snack ready to go.  Not only that, but they might decide to stuff it in their pocket and eat it a little later.  Yes, those bags really are water-tight ;-)

So, there was just one last meal to prepare – a ribollita soup a la River Cafe.  Loads of chopping – so how handy was it to have Ben on hand to whizz through those veggies in no time?  Well, how great is it to have a guest who brings his own kitchen knives with him?!

So, I think we’re just about there.  With bags of muesli and pasta (and smaller bags of GF muesli and GF pasta!) there in the box, I haven’t actually gone to the bother of working out if we have the recommended 8000 calories per walker in there but am pretty confident that we’ll be ok.

The Support Crew challenge will be to resist joining in the feast.

Decompression

Being home after a few days away feels good, but it takes a while to get back into things again.  I’m still coming across little bundles of goodies like the one above – the linen tape I bought in M&J and a bag of lace shared with me by Jordi.

My flight was delayed because of bad weather, but my hero was waiting when I arrived at Heathrow and I’ve enjoyed a bit of show and tell.  Getting all the samples out was a good exercise in recalling the processes involved and I took the opportunity to update my notebook with a few additional samples and thoughts.

I had put all the working files, source images and suchlike on a 16GB memory stick, so now organised them a little better, discarding the files I didn’t use and copying the videos I took using my Flip during the class.  I added my classroom photos to that little bundle and found it fitted perfectly onto one of the 4GB drives we bought in Staples. My organised mind felt rather pleased about that and with the addition of a bit of appropriate notebook bling, my record of the class is complete.

The prints I made are in a separate folder, which will hopefully be added to once I get myself into gear at this end.

In the meantime, it was back to earth yesterday with a visit to the dentist.  Just before I left for NYC, I broke a crowned tooth.  Too late to get it attended to before I went, I made use of the do-it-yourself filling replacement material available in US drugstores (but never seen here?)  It got me through the week but yesterday was the moment of truth.  After complimenting me on my self-administered repair, my dentist advised that the necessary treatment looks likely to be expensive – well into four figures!

Maybe a good job I went straight from the dentist to work?