Our friend Brian Berry is pedaling in the Paris Brest Paris ride that started today. It’s a 1200km route that must be completed in 90 hours. That’s about 750 miles in 3.75 days. That’s about 200 miles per day. The ride is every 4 years. Brian has ridden it before, though I can’t recall how many times. He  does a lot of long distance riding. In the past when Brian and his wife have come to visit, he generally leaves their home in Woodstock NY on his bike at about 2am and she drives up. It’s about a 250 mile drive to where we lived the first time they did this. The second time, he slacked off and only road to Burlington – just 230 miles. That’s about a normal day’s ride for Brian. He thinks nothing of riding through the night with lamps. He’s a nut.

Brian also often rides in the “BMB” (Boston Montreal  Boston ride) also 1200 km and goes almost right by our house.

RUSA (Randonneurs USA) also has lots of great info on PBP and the riders from the U.S.

Every summer, when strawberry season comes around, I have to look through my collection of old Food & Wine magazines for my favorite recipe. Its a Strawberry Tart and I know enough things about it that I should be able to find the recipe on www.foodandwine.com or just by googling. One of the interesting things is that the article was about Katrin Theodoli, then owner of the super luxury yachts Magnum Marine, and recipes she whips up in the little galley of the yacht when she’s cruising the seas with kings and queens. Granted, you could solve a lot of problems in the world for the cost of some of these higher end boats; but still, I’m grateful for the recipe.

[Wendy, I hope you’re reading this one!]

So since I decided I would ensure I could find the recipe more easily by just putting it here on my blog along with the reminder that it’s in the June 1997 issue: “Outdoor Entertaining”.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 sticks of cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 1/4 cup seedless strawberry jam, melted
• 1 1/2 pints strawberries, hulled and halved lengthwise

STEPS

1. In a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg and pulse until incorporated.
2. Preheat the oven to 375F. Butter a 10 inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat into a disk. Roll the dough between 2 sheets of wax paper into a 12-inch round. Transfer the dough to a cookie sheet and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes. Peel off the top sheet of wax paper, invert the dough into the pan and peel off the other sheet of wax paper. Fit the dough into the pan and chill again for 10 minutes. Prick all over with a fork and bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes or until evenly golden. Let cool on a rack.
3. Transfer the tart shell to a platter and brush the bottom with the melted chocolate. Refrigerate until set, about 10 minutes. Brush half of the jam over the chocolate. Arrange the strawberries in the shell, cut side down, overlapping them slightly. Brush the berries with the remaining jam.
   

One of the things I am looking forward to during my summer at home in Vermont is participating in the Dragon Boat Festival/Race/Fundraiser. The even raises money for DragonHeart Vermont (for breast cancer survivors) as well as for the VNAs Hopsice and the Vermont Respite House which provides care for terminally ill patients.

In addition to being able to help these organzations, it is a fun day. I have been paddling something or another all my life, from war canoes, kayaks and canoes at the age of 7 at summer camp, to rafts on Class 5 waters in West Virginia’s Gauley River to kayaking all over Lake Champlain with my hubby.

The dragon boats are beautiful and have teams of 20. Check out the site and the pics! Come out and cheer us on this August.

I have found myself with no travel plans for the entire summer and I am thrilled. Last summer I was hardly in Vermont with a hectic travel schedule that began, well, in March with DevConnections, then two trips in April, a user group and DevTeach in May, TechEd and then my Moncton/Nova Scotia/Newfoundland trip in June, 3 user groups in July, 1 in August, 3 in September, Bulgaria and more user groups in October, DevConnections in November and then Redmond to visit Microsoft  in December. That’s not just the summer, it was the whole year, wasn’t it? So now that I have finished up my crazy spring 2007 travelling (DevConnex in late March, then Seattle area in mid April and Las Vegas (MIX) in late April and Montreal for DevTeach last week) I am done.

No TechEd.

No user group trips.

No conferences.

It will all start up again in the fall, but for now I am looking forward to a long and beautiful summer in the place I love with the man I love and the doggies I love. 🙂

We’ll see how long this plan stays in tact….

Bob Dylan is my hubbie’s A#1 favorite musician so I was very happy to get tickets online just as they went on sale this morning for his July 1st concert at the Champlain Valley Expo (aka the fairgrounds) outside of Burlington Vermont.

I can’t wait until Rich gets home so I can tell him my big surprise! 🙂 (Since he doesn’t read my blog, I know the surprise is safe here…)

We have had some gorgeous snow reappear in the past week. Friday was an historic powder day at Mad River. I went on Friday and skiid like sh*t. I was so disheartened. Rich went yesterday and came home to say it was the best skiing of the year. Since it snowed more last night and today; and since Mad River was allowing weekday pass holders to ski for free this weekend,  Rich and I went again today.

On our first run, Rich took me into the woods. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat in the woods but, while I didn’t swoosh straight down through the trees, I didn’t have to pause and get my courage up between every turn like I usually do. It was actually fun. And nice powder!

Then when we hit the trails, something amazing happened. I started skiing the way I know I can ski, but rarely  seem to pull off except on the groomers. I ski on telemark skis – freeheel. I switched over from being a very experienced and confident alpine skiier of 30+ (on and off) years to tele about 5 years ago but never really regained my confidence.

But today my ski legs returned and I was just bopping down the hill doing what felt right. When I looked at (and blogged about) this great video of some tele guys at Mad River from Friday earlier today, it nearly made me cry to see these guys skiing the way I know I should be skiing. Perhaps it was watching that video and keeping that in my head, rather than the image of me really sucking! Who knows. But that’s how I finally got to ski today and it just feels so good! 🙂

If only I had been skiing more frequently this year and this had happened earlier, because sadly, today was the last day of the season for Mad River.

So next winter, I have to start all over again. Oh well. At least I can end this season with a big smile!

I decided that I’m finally ready to make the move to a PocketPC Phone. This means buying a new phone and upgrading from a $40/month plan to an $80/month plan. But Verizon just does not seem to want my extra $40/month. I re-upped with them for another 2 year contract last summer (there was a mixup which is why my phone’s end date and my contract’s end date are not in synch) and if I want the upgrade discount on the phone I have to wait until June 2007. If I want to upgrade my monthly contract I have to wait until June 2008.

I understand the 2 year contract is a good thing for discouraging clients from cancelling, but I just don’t get Verizon telling me that my options are either to purchase a second plan while continuing to pay for my $40/month plan for another 18 months and paying $250 for a phone when NEW customers that have NO history with them and NO loyalty can get the phone for $79.

Sounds ass-backwards to me.

There is a woman in France who owns three of my parent’s newfies (see them at TadoussacNewfs.com) . She is very serious about training and showing them.  These dogs have so much fun doing lots and lots of water training and showing and Bouba, the youngest of the three that came from my parents, has made a big name for himself in Europe! Today my parents told me that he is now ranked as the #2 Newfie in all of France, which in the crazy world of dog showing is a really big deal.

I know that this cartoon in the New Yorker this week sadly comes close to home to many people that I know.

Tomorrow night Patti Smith is being inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Rock on.