500 kilometres

Since April, I have been taking part in the Bicycle NSW Commuter Challenge.  The challenge is to cycle 500 km by December.  I suspect the aim of it is to encourage people who don't already cycle, but I played along because I was curious how long it would take.  Given that I live just under 7 kms from uni by bike path so our daily ride is 13.8 kms, I could hypothetically do this in less than 2 months of just riding to uni.

But, we don't ride five days a week.  Andy and I usually drive in one day a week, most often on Wednesdays to break the week up and keep our legs from getting too tired.  And we try to ensure that we match our errands up with that driving day -- so if we need to go grocery shopping, or stop by the post office, or bring a laptop to uni, we save that errand until we drive.  Of course, some weeks we feel really tired, or it looks really windy outside, or we come up with another reason not to ride in at least 4 times.  We always feel a little guilty, but get over that pretty quickly.

Not at all related to this post, but I don't have any photos that do.  And look how cute!

Last week I finished the Commuter Challenge, ending the week on 524.4 kms.  This took just under 4 months, but included a few weeks that we were away for our wedding and honeymoon, and a few weeks where I took a few days off uni.

I'm going to keep my own commuter challenge going until the end of the year.  My challenge is to ride 500 km in a shorter period of time than the first 500 km took me -- which shouldn't be too hard, but will motivate me.  The target I'm setting for myself is 3 months, so I will be less likely to convince Andy that it's too windy to ride, or that our veganity means our carbon footprint is already low enough.

I realise that serious cyclists would probably complete this challenge in less than a month, but let's face it -- I'm not a serious cyclist, and I probably never will be.  I like my bike for transport, but I don't go on long rides for fun.  But, given the health and environmental benefits, not to mention the cost savings, I'm happy to keep motivating myself to ride.

I'm back...

Did you notice I was gone? I’ve been out of town for two weeks. The first of December I flew down to Melbourne—in addition to being the first day of summer, it was also the first day of mandatory checked luggage screening, so flights were a bit slow all day—for a conference. After a week there, I flew to Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand for an anthropology conference. There is no way I’ll try to squeeze all two weeks into one post, because I saw and did (and ate) a whole lot in the past fortnight.

I arrived, as I said, on Monday. I checked into my room, which was a teeny single in an old nunnery-turned backpackers hostel.

After wandering around Fitzroy a bit (the hip, near-city suburb where I was staying), Kristy from Kblog picked me up and we went to the famous (at least in vegan blog land) East Brunswick Club. We were joined there by Caroline and Tim, Miss T, Cindy and Michael, Lidia and eventually Toby. I didn’t take photos because I was in a bit of shock (but check out Miss T's post or Cindy and Michael's post for photos and commentary). A regular pub with lots of vegan offerings? There were about five specials on the menu, all $10 and all vegan. Plus 5 or so vegan desserts.

Kristy and I got two meals and shared—Chicken Parma and a Bacon Cheeseburger. Both were really great, but I think I preferred the burger. For dessert, we joined the crowd and indulged in Cherry Ripe Cheese Cake. It was probably the best vegan cheese cake I’ve ever had. In addition to fantastic food, the company was great. I was given lots of advice about where I should eat while in Melbourne, and I think I got to most of the suggestions.

A possum at the uni...

The conference didn’t start until after lunch on Tuesday, so I spent the morning wandering around Fitzroy again. There’s a lot to see in that suburb. I popped in to Friends of the Earth, a radical book shop/café/grocery store. They use their window space to facilitate house sharing, and to speak out for causes.

From there I made my way past Vegan Wares, which was closed (which didn’t worry me, since I can’t afford another pair of their shoes for a while yet).

Just up from Vegan Wares was the almost mythical Las Vegan Bakery.

I filled up on home made, bottomless chai tea and a ‘Chilli Non Carne Calzone’. It was so warm and hearty and perfectly spiced, and it was the perfect way to warm up (Melbourne was freezing for a tropical vegan!).

After a postgrad day and some free conference drinks, I headed in to China Town with my supervisor and some others from the conference. Luckily, we had with us a Mandarin-speaking vegetarian who was able to negotiate the menu and order the two of us some definitely-vegan meals. We had salt and pepper tofu, Chinese broccoli with garlic, and vegetables with spring onion sauce. Again, I didn’t take any photos… I always feel a bit weird in restaurants, especially when I’m not with other bloggers. Anyways, the food was really great.

The conference catering was very considerate of those who had made ‘special dietary requests’. Vegan, gluten-free cakes were available for morning tea, fruit for afternoon tea, and filling pasta and rice dishes for lunch. The problem was, everyone else helped themselves to the vegan food! One day I nearly didn’t get any lunch. The final day of the conference, servers were guarding the special diets section and quizzing people on their needs before they let them get into the food. I appreciated that.

Some of Melbourne's street art.

Wednesday night, the conference had organised women’s drinks. After presenting my paper that morning, I thought I had earned some champagne. The only vegan hors d’ouevres were spring rolls, and the servers made a point to find me when they passed that tray around. Although I ate a fair few spring rolls, I didn’t feel satisfied so I went to Trippy Taco before calling it a night. This was one of the many suggestions offered to me at the EBC on Monday. The taquitos were the most highly suggested, but after eating so many deep-fried spring rolls I decided on a black bean burrito. It was huge, and considering it was only about $8 it was great value. Beans, salad, soy cheese, and some other stuff made a really tasty and filling dinner.

Thursday night was the conference dinner, which I didn’t go to. I heard from people who did, though, that the entire meal was vegan—special dietary requests or not. Instead of the dinner, I went out with some people for drinks at bars which were far too trendy for me, like this one with no sign but a bicycle on the wall.

We went back into China Town for dinner, this time to a place called the Post-Mao Café. I was with the same Mandarin-speaking vegetarian, and another vegetarian, so we filled up on Tofu with black bean sauce, Ma Po Tofu, and some kind of veggies.

Friday was the last day of the conference, and I was glad to see the end of it. It’s an exhausting exercise—especially if you don’t know anyone there and constantly have to be extroverted and meet new people. To celebrate the end of the conference, I went out for drinks and dinner with some other people I met through the conference. Another bar which was too trendy for me (called Polly Cocktail Bar) and then the ridiculously popular Vegie Bar. I ate a Tempeh Burger with peanut sauce and chips, and was relatively unsatisfied. It was good, but not great, and there just wasn’t enough of it.

I’ll save the last—and most exciting—day of the Melbourne section of my travels for another blog post. Stay tuned to see a beach, the city, more vegan food and lots of farm animals…

I <3 my bike

I’ve had my new bike since January, and I must say, I’m in love. Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs together, but on the whole we get along marvellously. Most of the downs have nothing to do with the bike itself, but rather the rides or other people. But considering we’re together twice a day (3x on Thursdays), at least five days a week, I think it’s a good thing we like each other. I’m getting better at things like using the gears, and I’m getting more confident in traffic. Plus, I’m totally super fast these days (and I’m totally super delusional, too).

The sucky things:

-the wind on the ride home.
-riding along the river means seeing lots of anglers and dead fish.
-broken glass.
-showering and dressing at uni means choosing clothes at home without seeing what they look like together… and occasionally bringing a patterned bra to wear under a white tee shirt. Oops
-asshole car drivers who don’t follow road rules.
-asshole car drivers who yell out their windows or honk their horns at female pedestrians.
-bumpy paths.
-my backpack makes my back disgustingly sweaty, even when I’m cold on the ride.
-riding on cold mornings. My fingers feel like they could fall off (luckily those days are gone now it's spring).

The good things:

+seeing all sorts of people using the river path. Dads running with prams, Mums teaching their kids to ride a bike, old couples going for a ride together…
+how physically hot my legs are when I get home. They are like furnaces.
+stretching after a ride.
+my bike ride is shorter than the bus ride to uni—and that’s not including the walk to the bus stop, the wait, and the headaches from whingy children. Plus, it saves me about $3 a day in bus fares.
+no worries about finding a parking space.
+getting into higher gears.
+all the birdlife along the river. Yesterday I saw a flotilla of pelicans!
+more productive mornings at uni following a bike ride.
+good sleep at night (most nights).
+learning how to do things like adjust the gear cables when I hear something clunking. I’ve never been mechanical in my life (and I’m still not, really), so fixing a noise is liberating!
+my appetite after bike rides. I eat so much.

Tofu, cauliflower and beetroot

Three things we’ve been eating a lot of lately.

We tried making SusanV’s mini crustless tofu quiches. We used silken tofu that had previously been frozen; cut the recipe in half; used dried mushrooms instead of fresh; and used tomato instead of capsicum. Some combination of these changes led to a complete disaster—even after 40 minutes in the oven, these had not set up at all. I took them out anyways, and let them cool hoping they would firm up, but... no dice. What we had was a tasty but shapeless pile of tofu mush.

We also had roasted beetroot (which doesn't photograph well) and cauliflower baked in a garlic-cream sauce, which redeemed the meal completely.

A more successful attempt at tofu—firm, fresh tofu from the asian grocery store. I marinated it in a mixture of garlic, ginger, hoisin, soy sauce and apple cider vinegar. Then I fried it up in my kick-ass new pan and it got a little crispy and caramelised. After the tofu was cooked, Andy threw together a noodle and veggie stir fry with chilli and the leftover marinade. Yummy dinner—filling, tasty, easy.

Cauliflower was the star of this dinner. Andy found the recipe for “Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole” in The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Instead of broccoli, he used cauliflower because it’s ridiculously cheap right now. And he added some frozen spinach. This was a really easy meal that uses exactly one dish in the preparation. It was pretty good, but we both agreed that broccoli would have been better.

Next to the casserole, I made some roasted veggies—parsnips, purple potato, and carrot with black olives and capers (based very closely on La Dolce Vegan’s ‘Roasted parsnips’).

Tasty tofu mush, take two. On the way home from uni yesterday I had a little bike crash when a kid on a bike swerved into me (on accident) as I was passing him on the path. We both ate shit, and I ended up with a scrape on my arm, a sore ankle and knee, some bruises and tight muscles. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t hurt at all.

While I was whinging on the couch, Andy made dinner for me. He decided to make the ‘Indian Frittata’ from Vegan with a Vengeance which features cauliflower, but reckoned it wasn’t going to set anyways so just decided to do it on the stove in scramble form. Then it took on a life of its own—he added potatoes, zucchini, carrot, lots of spices, and used silken tofu because that’s what we had. It was good, but not great.

I managed to suck it up for long enough to throw together a quick side dish—orange and ginger glazed beetroot. I just simmered a few baby beets with orange juice, powdered ginger and salt until the beets were tender and the sauce was thick. It was really good, but next time I’d use fresh ginger.

Now, we still have 1 ½ heads of cauliflower to use before we go to the market on Sunday! What's your favourite way to have cauliflower?

Aha moments

I've always had the idea in the back of my mind that when I'm riding my bike between uni and home, I'll have lots of time and head-space to think. I envision myself clarifying thoughts, coming up with great ideas, and otherwise developing my genius as I ride.

The reality, however, has been much different. I've been riding off and on for over a year. Throughout that time I've had bursts of riding regularly and bursts of riding only once a week. Regardless of how often I ride, though, I never have deep thoughts. Instead, my mind is focused on the road or path, on not falling off my bike, and on singing songs to myself as I pedal along the river (yes, I really do this).

But yesterday something was different. As I was riding, a thought came out of nowhere about my methodology chapter. In my head I worded a sentence just perfectly. I had to keep repeating it to myself so I didn't forget it, and the first thing I did when I got home was to write it down.

The 'aha' moment may have stemmed from my immediate pre-ride activity: a Social Justice Research support group. The conversations there must have really got my mind working. Or perhaps it was the glass of wine that said conversations occurred over. Regardless, I hope I have more of those moments, because that sentence was really, really good.

Cooking for one: the first two days.

I’ve spent occasional weeks by myself since moving back to Australia, but they were only a week at a time—so I usually either ate like crap for a week, or tried to be uber-healthy. But this time is different for two reasons: one, it’s for a month rather than a week; and two, it’s the first of many months like this over the course of the next three years. So I’m trying to eat normally, even though I’m on my own.

So, Wednesday I woke up before the sun to see Andy off, then laid in bed for a little while before getting up to a bowl of muesli. I biked in to uni, where I had some pumpkin and hummus wraps for lunch. After biking home, I was pretty hungry even though it was early, so I decided to have a two course meal. First, the soup course. I made a lot, and am planning on having leftovers for the next week or so.

For this soup, I just boiled one potato and one carrot in 3 cups of veggie stock, with a bit of wakame thrown in. This was all blended up, the heat was turned off and I threw in the kernels from half an ear of corn. In my bowl, I mixed in a little scoop of miso (I’ve heard it doesn’t reheat well, so I only added the miso to a single serve). Creamy, flavourful, and healthy!

Then, my second course was quick. I simply sautéed some sliced zucchini and some sliced portabella mushrooms. After they were cooked I mixed in some balsamic, and sprinkled on salt and pepper. Notice the small plate? I eat much less when Andy’s not around.

Thursday was not a good day. I woke up, did a bit of interview transcribing (tedious would be an understatement), and then went to pump up my bike tires to head to a feminist group meeting—but my back tire was 100% flat. So I walked instead. Later on at uni, I had the leftover sautéed veggies, combined with half an avocado.

I came home a bit early so I could get my tire fixed. I don’t know the first thing about fixing bike tires, so I decided I would just take off my back wheel and walk up to the bike shop. Unfortunately, removing the back wheel was not as easy as I thought it would be. Some greasy fingers and a few f-words later, I made it to the bike shop to find out I had a big chunk of glass in my tire. The guy patched the tire, changed the tube, and sent me on my way after warning me to keep an eye on it, since it will need replacing soon. When I got home, I realised getting the stupid wheel off the bike was the easy part—getting it back on, now that’s where the f-word was really needed. I eventually got it, but then screwed up the gears somehow. I was riding around the driveway, swearing and changing gears, then comparing my bike to Andy’s to see where I’d gone wrong. I still don’t know what I did, but it’s fixed, anyways. I felt a little proud of the grease all up my arms and the fixed bike.

Whinging aside, I definitely worked up my appetite for some comfort food. So I pulled out my well-used copy of Hot Damn and Hell Yeah and made his recipe for Taco and Burrito Filling. A base of TVP mince makes it really meaty, and I added portabellas for extra flavour. I turned the other have of the avocado into a quick guac, and opened some corn chips and had a really yummy, filling, and comforting dinner.

I think I can handle this cooking for one business. And I (semi) successfully fixed my bike without any help. I rock!

My shiny new...

I’m pretty much a tight ass. I don’t like to spend money on things. Generally, if Andy and I can live without something, we do. When we do purchase stuff, it’s either used, or reduced to clear.

I bought my bike at a garage sale for $10. It’s too small for me. It squeaks. When we were changing a tire one day the back brake broke. It’s hot pink, and rusty. At first, I thought it was the bomb diggity. I felt so punk riding around on such a piece of trash. I didn’t even need to lock it up, because you’d be crazy to steal it.

But, with petrol prices going up, Andy was thinking about getting a bike to ride to uni. After looking around at a few shops, we both agreed it would be completely unfair for him to wizz around on a flash new bike while I chugged away on the old gal. We considered buying cheap bikes from Kmart or Toys R Us. But after a few conversations with Andy’s cycling-fiend brother, we decided we should get a proper, bike shop bike. Because, in some cases, you really do get what you pay for. Anyways, we both feel better about giving our money to a small, local bike shop rather than an American corporation.

And what a great decision it was. The guy at the bike shop spent probably 2 hours total talking to us about different types of bikes, the brands he liked best, what we needed it for, and you could tell he wasn’t trying to rip us off. We felt comfortable with him, and we liked the looks of the bike he suggested, so we ordered two of them--mine in 56 cm, Andy's in 60 (he's super tall).

Andy and I are now the proud owners of two Kona Dews (dew dew, heehee). It’s sleek, it’s sexy, and it’s so much easier to ride than my old beast of a bike. It's a commuter bike, so it has many features of a racing bike but without all the expensive extras. With tires that are designed for asphalt, and a frame that makes pedalling much easier, I envision a lot more bike riding in my future. And every time that Andy rides his bike is one less car ride.

Photo from Kona website

In terms of petrol costs alone, it may take a while for these bikes to pay for themselves. But, when you factor in the health benefits (we both spend a lot of time sitting in offices at uni), environmental effects, and all those other unquantifiable benefits, I think we’ve got an incredible value.

And anyways, sometimes when you spend money, you get good deals. In addition to the bikes we got a helmet, lock, and pump all for half price, and our first service is free. All up, I think it was worth spending a bit of extra cash. But I’m still not paying $5 for veggie hot dogs.