speedvegan

1. Last week was the company holiday party. You may have read my tainted thoughts on it. Well, I’m here to say I was pleasantly surprised. One of my co-workers, who made a platter of portabello-goat cheese sandwiches on homemade rosemary-olive-oil bread, brought in a special sans-cheese one for me. I was super stocked when I realized I’d have something other than baba ghanoush to eat. Another co-worker brought in a Whole Foods vegan German black forest cake. What ? Dessert too ? I was totally floored. Totally. It turned out to be a great party and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

2. Did you watch the 2010 Ironman World Championship recap on NBC this past weekend ? No ? Well, someone’s broken it up into 10 parts and uploaded it to YouTube. Here are the links:

• Part 01 – What ? No Chrissie ???
• Part 02 – Missing the swim cut-off hurts. A lot.
• Part 03 – “If you wanna be functional at 80, you better damn well pay attention at 40.” – Lew Hollander, Ironman
• Part 04 – Is it just me or is Macca a bit arrogant ?
• Part 05 – Ironmoms are Rockstars !!
• Part 06 – Even though I already know the winner, I’m rooting for Julie Dibens.
• Part 07 – Mirinda Carfrae is one fast chick !
• Part 08 – The Energy Lab sounds like hell on earth.
• Part 09 – A bit of history repeating.
• Part 10 – The midnight crew.

My favorite definition of the race in this video is “one long, tedious conversation with yourself.” This can be said about any endurance event and I am sure it is especially true during an Ironman.

3. So what do triathletes do in the off season ? Well, I never learned how to knit, so this weekend I went to an arts and crafts store and got myself a starter kit. Here’s all I have to show after hours of pain and frustration:

All that pain and frustration aside, I actually enjoyed the bit of knitting I did this weekend, so I will continue to work on it. My goal is to eventually knit a scarf for my mom. Don’t expect this to turn into a knitting blog, though. I barely have time to read these days so this scarf project could take all of 2011. We shall see.

4. The weather seems to be holding up, so we’re going camping ! Yay ! That means we’ll be opening presents on Friday morning. Got any Christmas vegan breakfast ideas ?

5. Speaking of food, I’ve been making apple pies all season. The latest one, which we finished last night, was SO yummy, but I’d like to try something new next week. I was thinking pecan pie. I found this recipe which looks promising. What do you think ? Have you tried any other good vegan pecan pie recipes ? If so, please share !