Lesson of the day: No New Gear In a Race!

A monday morning parable for you:

One of my first races in my multisport phase was the "March Madnesss" biathlon in Central Park. It should have been called the "blue balls biathlon" because it was so ridiculously cold that day, but that is besides the point. Anyway, this being one of my first races I was really excited and overprepared. I went to my local bike-nerd shop the night before and got brand new cycling shoes, nutrition gels, gloves, and all kinds of unnecessary accessories for what would be a 20 minute ride.

This biathlon was a run-bike-run race. After the first run segment, I ran into the transition area, ready to get in and out of there as fast as possible. I rip off my running gear, put on my bike helmet, and reach down for my cycling shoes. But something is not right. The shoes dont feel right on my feet. I take them off and look at one, then at the other, then back at the first one. I must have spent five minutes in the transition area looking puzzled while everyone else whizzed by me. Finally, I figured out what was wrong: they had given me two left foot shoes.  I finished the bike portion of the race in my running shoes, cursing loudly the whole way.

The moral of this story is... No new gear in a race! I have heard this over and over, and yet I still end up using new gear and every time, it bites me in the ass. I will never learn.

Apparently this character flaw extends into cooking. For the last two weeks you have all listened while I got carried away with my visions of french macaroons, my dreams of the delicate rose, pistachio and caramel meringues winning first place in the cookie-off,  of basking in the glory of my second consecutive trophy. And yet, none of you stopped me. Not one reader commented, "hey, have you ever made macaroons before? They are not easy, you huge idiot. Why do you think we leave them to the French?" Now, I know I dont always have the best judgment when it comes to cooking, but YOU, my many, many readers, should have really known better.

It is with much chagrin that I publish these sad photos of my failed macaroon experiment. You can see how at some points they seem to be on the right track-- there were little flickers of hope-- but in the end, all of them came out of the oven flat, burnt, and humiliated.

 

Top: optimistic piping.   Above: pistachio, aka "baby poop" macaroons

Below left: what a rose macaroon should look like.   Below right: I dont really want to talk about it.

  So. I have learned my lesson: No new gear in a race! I should have picked a cookie that I had made before, or at least one that didnt call for an ingredient named "tant pour tant". In a race, go with what you know. And, above all, make sure you have a right shoe and a left shoe.

Epilogue:  With a bottle of wine and a little can-do spirit, me and my sous chef rallied our spirits and made two respectable batches of cookies to enter into the cookie-off. One of the batches will be my "decoy cookies" that I will loudly announce are mine, while the other, spectacular batch will sneakily win first prize. Below, my "gold medal truffle bombs". Note the luster dust that I got to use after all.