Texas Caviar, Bryant Terry Style

Well, no, that didn’t work. I’ll be going back to my normal recipe for Texas Caviar, which involves several cans of different beans, maybe a cut-up vegetable, and a healthy dose of Kraft Zesty Italian dressing. I will, however, reserve part of this weird recipe to use again as a pizza topping because it was wham-blam fantastic, last night. This is saying something, for me, as I rarely put tomatoes on pizza that I make: this purée included oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, a serrano chile, some garlic, and some parsley.

So, for any of those friends who think that all of my cooking results in dishes that I want to eat: it’s not true. I think those beans may head for the composter, soon. I’ve got more of the purée left, however. Maybe we need to make more pizza.

Along the theme of “Well, that wasn’t planned, but part of it was lovely”: I had a great run this morning, and according to my current training strategy, those 5 miles were “junk” miles: no speedwork, no hills, not a long run, nor a run to recover from another run. This is what happens when you choose to do speedwork on a Wednesday: what sort of run should you do on Friday, when you plan to do a long run on Sunday? And you did no long run last Sunday?

Here’s what kind of a run you do: You go out to enjoy the crisp morning air for an hour; to check out the branches that were pulled out of trees by the storm, last night; to smirk (to yourself) at the two people that were walking eight identical dogs; to reunite with your music collection by setting your iPod to “shuffle”; to focus on your breath; to say “Good morning!” to other morning walkers and runners; to try and figure out what is giving the air that lovely sweet smell (Wisteria?) this week; to pick up and dispose of a few pieces of garbage in the park down the street; to check out the manic-looking blooms on the Allium “Hair” plant; to learn that your skilled carpenter of a neighbor is taking a sewing class; and, finally, to come back to a smiling husband and a hot cup of coffee.