Back on the road

Greek salad pizza

But first, some food.

Greek salads have been a recent obsession. Over the past few years, as I have gone a different way with my eating habits, it has been interesting to see what has filled the gap left when I drifted away from other foods.

For example, I always enjoyed pasta occasionally. Now I eat it at least 3 or 4 times a week. I basically gave up candy, but I have zeroed in on high-cacao chocolate as one of my few indulgences.

Then we have Greek salads. When I first lost a lot of noticeable weight, questions always came about my secret forumla--what was the hidden trick that was melting off all this fat? I would rattle off all the foods I stopped eating, and all the foods I started eating. Sometimes I felt this weird need to state how much I didn't eat salads. I would say similar things about tofu.

Two years later, I eat Greek salads like they're going out of style, and I love myself some tofu, though not as regularly

Truth is, I wasn't the hugest feta fan in the past. But tastes change, and I now find the sort of tangy clumpiness of feta a textural and flavorful treat. I love tomatoes, olives, onions, peppers, and lettuce, so it turned out to be a sort of natural fit. I even started making my own Greek dressing--a little Dijon mustard, some sugar, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, oil, oregano, and lemon (there are many variations).

Today for lunch I had a Greek salad pizza. I used the dressing as both the sauce and as a finishing drizzle. I used storebought pizza dough (so sue me), and added the lettuce at the end to preserve the crunch. I've never baked lettuce, but I would imagine it turns into a wet mess.

The best thing is the little bit of caramelization of the feta. Just takes a little bit of the edge off. Good stuff.

It's not June at sunset, but it will do

This weekend also marked the end of a dark month in the life of this bike rider. According to Strava (don't worry, I just have the basic free membership and I only risked my life once to get a medal on the Vernon Hill descent), before yesterday my last ride was Feb. 2. The temperature and road conditions finally agreed with my schedule and I headed out.

It's funny--I think the slightly warming temperatures creates a sort of neat uniformity in the snowbanks. They sort of peel back at this point. Dirty, compacted reminders of a brutally cold and snowy month. But the Earth is tilting in our favor these days, and the sun is getting higher in the sky. A predicted 3 to 6 inches tonight into tomorrow has faded into a dusting. Proof, I am convincing myself, that winter is losing its bite.

 I rode just 3.5 miles yesterday and today, but it felt great. That new shifter is working great, and the Pug feels strong and smooth. It's amazing how much "shape" you lose when you take just a month off from being on the bike. I look forward to building that endurance back up. I chose a nice flat route (as flat as possible, at least), and didn't push it. And it is still pretty cold. But it was just what I needed to elevate my mood.