The Cuisine of Northern New Jersey...

Have been spending the weekend getting back to my culinary roots. I have the upcoming week off, so yesterday at the market I picked up a bunch of cold cuts for lunchs. The first thing I did with them when I got home was make a Sloppy Joe. Now, if you're from anywhere other than northern New Jersey, a Sloppy Joe is ground beef in barbeque sauce on a bun. And until I started working at the Wicker Basket deli after college, that's what I thought it was, too. But there's another kind of Sloppy Joe, and it's terrific.

( Sloppy Joes... )

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For breakfast this morning I had another staple of Jersey cuisine, a Taylor ham and cheese sandwich. In my family we usually make these on English muffins, but I had all this deli rye lying around, so I used that. Nummy.

Can't Keep My Eyes Open...

Very tired. Was up before dawn again. Stoopid brain doesn't let me sleep in on weekends.

Wasn't planning to ride today because the weather dweebs said we'd get snow showers (!) this afternoon. Figured I go tomorrow since I don't have to go to work. Instead I spent the morning planting more tulips, this time up at the head of the driveway. Planted 45 tulips and 9 daffodils. Still have 50 crocuses and 42 tulips to go somewhere (what was I thinking?). Now I just have to figure out where that somewhere is. I could put a few tulips around the post light, I suppose, as long as I don't hit the electrical feed. Crocuses are easy, maybe just poke some holes in the lawn alongside the driveway. Maybe I could just leave the rest of the tulips unplanted and force a few over the winter.

Yeah, right...

Problem was, after I finished today's planting activities, I checked the weather again and noticed that the snow showers (!) had been pushed back till tomorrow, so if I wanted to get a ride in, I'd better do it today. So off I went.

I rode yesterday, and again today, about thirty miles total. Temperature in the low forties both days, a little windy yesterday, but calm today. Oddly enough I was colder when I started riding today than I was yesterday. I suspect it was because the wind was behind me during the first part of yesterday's ride while I was warming up, which cancelled out the wind chill effect from the motion of the bike. Today there was no wind, so I got the full 15 mph wind chill effect head on the whole ride. I'm not sure I'm gonna be riding much once the temps drop below forty or so. Yes, I am a weenie, but I was wearing five layers plus a thick layer of internal fat, and my body was still cold. The one bit of good news on the warmth department is that I figured out how to make the ear clamp not hurt my ears anymore. Turns out if you turn it upside down from the way it looks like it ought to go, it's much less squashy on the ears while still maintaining full warming capacity. Yay for small favors!