March, 2010
March 29th, 2010
The Greatest Match I Ever Saw
Like most guys I know, I was a fan of professional wrestling as a kid. I outgrew it in high school but in college a friend brought me back into the fold, culminating in six guys driving to the Quad Cities to watch the 1997 Great American Bash with our shirts off and chests painted. My interest remained for a year or two after college, but by the new millennium I was done.
Over the past year or so, thanks to some friends who have organized Wrestledays I, II and III, my interest has been piqued. I’m not ashamed to admit that I intermittently find myself watching the last 10 minutes of Monday Night Raw – the show typically goes an extra 10 minutes after 10:00 and that’s when all the good drama takes place. A few weeks ago, I saw this:
Somewhere around then, someone had the seemingly genius idea that we should pool our money and order Wrestlemania XXVI. Despite my excitement at seeing Undertaker hopefully end Sean Michaels’ career, I was reluctant to pay. I agreed to spend $10 each toward the $60 cost of the pay-per-view. Soon after, I didn’t to spend the money and as people started to drop out, I thought I might be in luck. But then three people agreed to pay extra to make sure that we could watch. It was too late for me to bail, so I headed down to Humboldt Park to watch Wrestlemania XXVI last night.
Most of the night was fine – a couple of disappointing matches (Bret Hart was just sad to watch) and a couple pleasant surprises. I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my money – after all, I got to eat some leftover Timpano. But then came the Main Event. Before going on, you have to understand that Undertaker is normally just good at being badass and kicking ass. He is not one to sell his opponents well at all. This is pretty typical:
Despite that major flaw in his game, Undertaker has long been one of my favorites. Shawn Michaels on the other hand, who is one of the best showmen in WWF history, has always annoyed me. This match could not have been much better. Shawn Michaels did what he always did while Undertaker actually spent little time simply being a badass and really focused on all aspects of wrestling, including working hard to make Michaels look good. It was 24 minutes of outstanding entertainment. I don’t want to give anything away, but I’m happy to report that The Streak is alive and Shawn Michaels’ career is over. Oops.
March 29th, 2010
Running Success, But Still Wary
For the past couple of months, I’ve been training for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, which is on Sunday May 2. After a number of false starts at resuming my running career over the past year and a half or so, I was finally making some progress.
Four weeks ago, after doing a seven-mile run on Saturday, I went out for a shorter run the following Monday. About three blocks in, my lower leg started to hurt. It felt like a tight muscle so I figured I’d run it out. At the end of the four miles, it hurt even more. After some googling, I diagnosed myself with shin splints. I took some time off and did some exercises to strengthen my calves, but I was then well behind where I wanted to be in my training.
Last Sunday, I ran 6 miles on a treadmill to help preserve my legs and then did runs of 4, 5 and 4 miles over the week. At different times during the week, the side of my lower right leg hurt, the back of the same part of the leg hurt and both knees started to creak a little. I began to worry my trip to Pittsburgh would have to be canceled.
Today was a make or break run. If I couldn’t do 8 miles, I’d have to really question whether I’d go to Pittsburgh. The combination of win (12 MPH) and doubts about my knees led me to use my third and final free guest pass at the YMCA.
Well, the good news is that I successfully ran the 8 miles. Some pain about 3 miles in that I ignored and went away. And a few hours later, my legs feel pretty good. That said, I ran on a treadmill today so maybe that only counts for 7?
Many more updates forthcoming.
March 28th, 2010
Timpano? Timpayes!
After a month of anticipation, last night was the long-awaited Timpano Night. For those who don’t know about Timpano, a group that included me until a few weeks ago, it’s an apparently real Italian monstrosity made famous in the movie Big Night. The relevant scene is here (skip ahead to about 2:00 for relevant part).
Armed with recipes found here, here and here, Cisco and I had a tremendous amount of work ahead of us.
The day began with some shopping at Graziano’s, Dominick’s and Bari to get all we needed for the Timpano. We also had to stop at Hoosier Mama to pick up the Espresso Cream pie we’d ordered for dessert. At Hoosier Mama, I asked if there was lard in the crust. Obviously misunderstanding the purpose of my question, I was met with a very proud “No, we only use butter.” I then asked if they would use lard. And in the first instance of breaking news on Zemanation, I can report that Hoosier Mama is toying with recipes and hopes to have an alternative crust, made with lard, ready for the winter holidays!
Because we had a long day ahead of us, we decided to pick up some lunch. A Spicy sandwich at Graziano’s (hot capicola, pepperoni, soppressatta, provolone, tomato, lettuce, vinegar and orgeano) and a slice of passionfruit meringue pie made for a perfect meal.
Sufficiently satiated, we went about the approximately 4 hours of work getting the timpano recipe. We made a sauce:
We made meatballs:
The end result was a filling that included 2 pounds of penne, about 3 cups of cheese (sharp provolone and parmesan), 9 hard boiled eggs, 4 pounds of meat (1.5 in meatballs, 1.5 in sauce, and 1 pound of salami), and about 10 cups of sauce.
After all the prep work of the filling was done, we had to roll out the dough to about 1/16″ thick and put it in the 14.5″ wide and 4.5″ tall special ordered Timpano bowl. We then filled the dough:
And then wrapped the rest of the dough over the filling:
Nearly two hours later:
Then it had to rest for half an hour before we flipped it:
After another half hour of resting, it was time for the great revealing, followed by another twenty minutes of rest:
And then it was time to cut our epic creation:
So the question that is burning on everyone’s mind is whether it was worth it. It was a lot of fun to make, but Timpano is not a mind-blowing dish. It was good, but probably not worth the amount of work.
What was mind-blowing was the Espresso Cream Pie from Hoosier Mama that we ended the night with:
