"A Party Of Special Things To Do"

We had a marvelous ( and marvelously hot) 4th of July. I started the morning off right with my very first 10k race. I'll admit I sort of regretted signing up to run six miles in July once that horrible heat wave hit us (and everyone else) but I was determined to finish what I started, even if that meant running six miles in the blazing Tennessee heat while secretly hoping/dreaming/praying the heat would let up just long enough to finish the race. No such luck though, when I toed the start line at 8am it was about 86 degrees, and it only climbed higher as the minutes passed. I'm not going to lie, even with a bottle of ice water in my hand there was a whole lot of shameful sweating, walking, and side holding going on, but I finished in a respectable 1 hour 9 minutes.

Since this was my very first 10k (and this is serious business) I decided to give the pinwheel boobies a miss this year (though I was pining for their air conditioning powers about halfway through the race) and just stuck a giant star spangled bow on the back of my head that threatened to launch me into flight most of the race.

 After a shower and a nap, we headed over to my mama's house for a good old fashioned 4th of July barbecue (she hosted, I cooked). There's currently a burn ban in our county because of the heat wave and wildfires so the "barbecue" the menu sort of morphed to accommodate our limitations. The menu; sloppy joes ( instead of burgers) pasta salad, green goddess potato salad ( recipe to come) lemon-limeade, dairy free key lime pie and dairy free chocolate cream pie ( scandalous recipe also to come). Yes I made two desserts. It's the most important meal of the day! Invite me to your house and I will prove this to you.

We ended the night by watching the distant downtown fireworks from our balcony window all curled up and cozy with a cool drink in hand, which I must say sometimes is much much more fun than wrestling the crowds.

How was your holiday?

"What's That You Got There...?" or "Katy Perry Made Me Do It"

 Happy 4th of July Everybody! I celebrated by running a 4th of July themed 5k this morning and could not resist wearing an obnoxious outfit.

The view from behind the wheel.

Mostly apples, oranges and chocolate milk for my celebratory Independence day meal (post race freebies), but it's nice to be different sometimes. Some crazy wind rolled in towards the end of the race and made my pinwheels go insane! There are some strong storms due to blow in this afternoon too so I'll plan to watch the local fireworks (if they happen) from my balcony (with a side of pizza and beer).

How did you celebrate?

Race Food

Part of the appeal of Running for the party in "The Gulch" area of Nashville is that it has a high concentration of new and overly fancy restaurants advertising in tent format trying to drum up some business. Entry fee + sweaty me  means I get to sample a lot of these places for free and see if they're really worth the Gulchy hype.

sweat marks! crooked belt! rough race

Urban Flats
A little bit fussy, it was like they hadn't noticed they were serving out of a tent. They had chili, little inch slices of dessert samples. pita slices and flat bread with three different kinds of hummus all with pretentious names you didn't understand and instantly forgot. In my universe there was the green one, the olive one, a brown hummus with sesame and some with roasted red pepper. I liked the chili, or what I could eat of it with only a fork, but it was pretty much like any other thin variety bean chili so it didn't really make up for the uppity-ness. Out of the group I really liked the olive hummus a lot it. It was completely unique tasting which is exactly what I expect from a place that's decided to name bean dip something you can't pronounce. I liked the roasted red pepper hummus too although it was a bit too sweet for the crackers I was eating it with. I have no idea what it would pair better with but I only had a teaspoon to sample so I'll worry about that next time around.

With the desserts it was clear they were using the formula of great + great = awesome, but it that was pretty hit and miss.
 Cake 1 was like a pecan pie body surfing a moshing crowd of chocolate silk. This was something clearly made by a northern person. This just tasted wrong. It's my opinion that candied pecans and chocolate should never hang out together, sin sin sin.  Really, who ruins two wonderful deserts by combining them?
 Cake 2 Mmmmmmmmmmm. Here they got it right, this was a magnificent slice of heaven. Picture a warm sock it to me cake topped with apple pie and drizzled with caramel. Perfection. They even balanced what could have been a cloying combination of sugars by lacing it with a sort of cheescakey savoriness.

Taco Mamacita
Scratch made corn chips and a selection of dips. I'm always a sucker for a real corn chips so they had me from the get go. They had regular salsa (that was alright but didn't sing) and salsa verde but what I really loved was this dip made from corn with a kind of  warm spicy white sauce. Mmm

The Pita Pit
Pretty much subway in wrap format. A basic cold cuts on lettuce and tomato wrap in a pita. We tried the Chicken Cesar and the Club and nothing about either thrilled me. Even though there's only one in Nashville (so far) they're apparently part of a chain and that's an element I think you can really taste.

All in all I'd say their selection was no better or worse than any other money saturated portion of Nashville. But stupid name or not, I'm intrigued by the Gulch, so don't be surprised if I turn up there again to run, to party or maybe even to eat.