Here, we just kept adding things to be aware of, all arising simultaneously!
That image is from my June 2023 trip through Yellowstone if I’m not mistaken. I think I might have said Grand Canyon in the video. I was there as well.
The current state of the fridge!
Wow…I’ve been on a tear when it comes to acquiring meat.
At the top, there’s a dry-aging strip loin over a dry-aging ribeye subprimal. The latter will be ready on or about my birthday, the former a week or two later.
There’s butter in the drawer just over a dry-brining tri-tip. Also on that shelf are containers of homemade bone broth and a nice piece of skin-on pork belly (since eaten).
The eggs are mostly local, though that top pack isn’t. And finally, the last visible packs are locally raised, grass-fed, and finished packs of ground beef, one with heart and liver diced in.
That’s pretty much it besides the water!
Did I forget to breathe?
No, it turns out I do it without thinking most of the time. Here we pay attention to the process.
Back to the beach meditation
Double dose of meditation!
This week, we started with Open Awareness and finished with Metta.
Oh no, exposed again!
No, not that way! What were you thinking of?
A good friend has just come down with COVID-19, and yes, I was hanging around with her over the weekend. While it seems unlikely that I would get infected again so quickly after recovering from the virus recently. But you never know.
So I’m sitting here testing again and keeping my fingers crossed.
Why am I testing? Well, besides the exposure, I had a headache today. I almost never have headaches. The last ones I can even remember having were during my bout with COVID-19.
So yeah, let’s test.
Brisket!
Today, instead of eating up the rest of my dry-aged steak, I cooked up a brisket I’d had around for a bit. It was local beef, regeneratively raised, grass-fed, and finished.
Here’s an image of the pieces i had after browning and before cooking the up in my Instant Pot.
You can see I had to cut the whole brisket up a bit to get it all in the pot.
Because I don’t eat sugars or other carbs, I couldn’t find any BBQ seasonings that would work. Instead, I went with the spices I had in my kitchen; Middle Eastern Baharat in fact.
I started by cooking the meat for an hour at high pressure, but that was not enough. I added another thirty minutes, and it was really nice!
Dry-Aged Meat Day!
I’m looking forward to having a dry aged steak later today. I’ve had a strip loin in my fridge for 37 days in an UMAI dry aging bag and today is the day!
While you can see the changes in just a few days in the above image, there’s not much visible change in the last month. That’s probably a good thing. Some of the changes could have been bad. Everything seems to have worked well though and today we’ll be cutting that strip loin into some nice, thick NY Strips.
My second real bicycle ride since all the surgery!
Check out my ride on Strava.
https://strava.app.link/aC9Z3g9cdFb
This was the second time I jumped on one of my bicycles and went for a ride since May 2022. That month, I had to get off the bike and had emergency back surgery for a herniated disc between L4 and L5. I was losing control of my legs and couldn’t walk, but oddly, I could still ride until about two weeks before the repair.
If you’ve had back surgery, you probably know you aren’t allowed to do anything like bend over, lift anything over ten pounds, or twist your back for about six weeks. So…no bicycles. Then, I started physical therapy.
That went well, but during my recovery, I discovered that my knees had finally given up the ghost. I’d had terrible knees for years. I think all the cycling had extended their useful life by years and years, but no more.
So, in January 2023, I had bilateral knee replacement surgery. That meant an even longer recovery period, though I didn’t need to be as careful as I did when I underwent back surgery.
During this time, I used an electric scooter to get around, as bicycling wasn’t a thing. At first, my knees didn’t bend enough to allow it. Later, they were just too weak to allow much riding. Of course, with therapy, everything improved. A few rides on the Biki bike-share bikes proved I wasn’t quite ready, though.
To continue my exercise, I switched to a Xootr kick scooter and worked back up to a ten-mile ride. I love my Xootr.
Then, last week, about ten months after surgery, I decided it was time. I hopped on my Bike Friday pakiT and headed out. As I recall, I rode just under thirteen miles and felt great. My, um, saddle needs a bit of work. Not the bike’s saddle, mine.
This past week, it rained whenever I thought I might head out. That’s no fun. But Saturday was beautiful, and I hopped back on and had a lovely twenty-mile ride with no issues. Even my saddle cooperated!
It’s time to start getting ready for some sort of long ride in the coming year. And if you’ve ever followed the blog, you’ll know I like week-long tours. The last one I did was a week or so on the Katy Trail in Missouri and it was a gas!