works of wanderlust

How to Plan a Local Adventure

So you’re stuck at home during travel restrictions but still need something exciting to do close to home. I don’t know where you live, but adventure lurks nearby if you know how to plan for it.

Choose Your Activity

I needed a good excuse to keep running…

…but, last year as the pandemic restrictions ramped up, the running store (where we’d been meeting and running from) shut it’s doors. It was geographically convenient and had ample parking. Plus everyone knew to meet there on certain days and times so that we could run together.

The simple approach might have been to just keep running as we were, meeting from a parking lot, and for many runs over the past year we did. Yet, I wanted something more, and I suspected a lot of the crew might start to get bored and go off on their own plans if nothing more exciting happened.

Invent a Concept

Instead of panicking or just running solo, I decided it might be interesting to find somewhere new and interesting to run as we no longer had any good reason to keep running from a closed-up retail store. I also decided I’d like to see more of the city trails that I had never bothered to check out because they were not particularly reachable on a short run distance from that store.

I called it adventure runs.

Plan a Goal

A running adventure sounds like a self-evident concept, but in fact it encompasses so much potential… and potential for disappointment.

I was working full time (I still am) and didn’t have time nor motivation to sit down and plot out full miniature courses each week through locations I’d never spent much time traversing.

Instead I set the goal as something simple: if we ran somewhere new, down a new path, in a new neighbourhood, and saw something or somewhere we’d never seen (or hadn’t seen in a long time) then the adventure run was a success.

Pick a Starting Point

The second part of that concept was picking a good starting point.

It had to have access to trails. There needed to be enough parking (since we could not carpool during the restrictions and transit was still not running at full capacity.) Later in the summer a nearby ice cream shop or coffee stop was requested for afterwards. And of course, it had to be somewhere that felt remote-ish or like we were about to embark on some crazy adventure.

Invite Willing Participants

The gimmick then became about the mystery and the invite.

We have a group chat that has been around for years with a tight knit group of runners who have often been up for exactly this kind of adventure.

I would keep the suspense up. Eventually, as the summer progressed, folks would ask in the lead up week “where is the adventure run this week?” or “what are you planning for Wednesday night?”

The rule quickly followed: “The plan would be announced the morning of the adventure run. Keep your calendar open and check your messages.”

Show Up

On our best days we had as many as a dozen or more people show up.

I always did.

Rain or shine.

If I felt like leading a run or not, I was there.

And this morning, the first good spring Wednesday post-restrictions, I just sent out that notice once again.

Season two of the adventure runs, by enthusiastic request, start tonight.

June 9, 2021
Pan Fried Mushrooms

I keep a cast iron pan near my barbecue for exactly one reason: my wife loves grilled mushrooms on her hamburgers.

I know very well that a well-seasoned pan atop an outdoor gas grill has a whole host of purposes, but when you have a system like this that ain’t broke… why fix it?

We eat barbecued hamburgers at least a few times per month over the summer, and without fail we slice up a couple cups of fresh button mushrooms, toss them into the blazing hot pan with a pat of butter and a clove or two of crushed garlic.

Recipe

2 cups of sliced button mushrooms 1 tablespoon of crushed garlic 1 tablespoon of butter

The fungi heat and sizzle and brown up with a rich, lovely aroma as the burgers grill up nearby, and everything is usually ready to eat just in time, as I swoop the plate full of patties into the house with a steaming hot bowl of grilled mushrooms alongside.

These go great with hamburgers, but I’ve been know to toss grilled mushrooms atop a steak, beside some grilled pork, as part of a veggie medley, or even just to nibble on their own.

June 8, 2021
Local Flours Sours: Stoneground Whole Wheat (Part Two)

On the weekend I was delighted to have the chance to stretch my shopping muscles and visit the local grocery store, spending some time more carefully peruse the aisles for interesting ingredients.

The result was a few small bags of flour that promised to step me out of my sourdough comfort zone and deeper into the world of local ingredients. Specifically, in part one I cracked open a small bag of whole wheat flour from Strathcona Stoneground Organics and used it mix up a batch of 20% whole wheat sourdough.

Shortly after posting part one, I also discovered that this small local flour milling business has an Instagram account where (just two days prior) the proprietor had excitedly posted about now selling her flour at the very grocery store where I’d gone grocery shopping and found it profiled on an “eat local” display.

Neat.

My dough spent Saturday night in the fridge, proofed as loaves on the counter for most of Sunday, and made its way into a 450F oven late into the evening of last night. It was just enough time to let it cool on the counter, and then wait overnight before I could slice in and give it a taste.

Behold! Monday morning fresh bread and a crumb shot as I sliced up the first of the loaves for my morning breakfast toast:

Light and airy, the small addition of some freshly milled whole wheat added a very nice colour and glow to the final product. Overall these loaves each had a rich, crispy crust that cut evenly.

Sometimes I find, particularly when using 100% white flour, that the bread is light and airy but has a weak structure that collapses under the pressure of a bread knife, flattening against the board as I slice it. I imagine it has something to do with strong gluten and balanced bubbles that give a loaf a bit more heft against this pressure. I also imagine that links back strongly to the quality of the flour used.

I tried a bite of this bread plain (prior to toasting it and slathering the rest of the slice with strawberry jam!) and the wheat and the sour flavours paired nicely into a bread I could easily consider snacking on, just plain or with a bit of butter… and I probably will sneak back to the kitchen later this morning for a slice.

What’s the takeaway?

My goal was to make more effort to dabble in flour blends with my sourdough, and in particular find some local ingredients. I wrote a few weeks ago about the Gift of Bread and how sourdough is one of those near-perfect things to prepare and give to someone. I can only think that one steps a bit closer to perfection to give a loaf baked from ingredients sourced locally. And knowing that the taste and quality is made even better for the effort helps.

I’ve got a lot more sourcing of flours to do. I have a couple nearby farmer’s markets, a healthy collection of well-stocked grocery stores and small fresh markets, and who knows where else I may track down some interesting ingredients.

Now go bake some bread.

June 7, 2021
On Detours

Sunday Runday and it felt a little like old times as we plodded through busy spring trails, dodging bikes, dog-walkers, and fellow runners along the river valley trails.

A few of the run crew have found themselves in an urgent training predicament. With the local restrictions lifting quickly and thoroughly, an ultramarathon that most figured on being postponed again seems to be running. A few of the run crew signed up to do signficant distances through mountain paths. A few of the run crew need to get back to their 2020 stamina levels in the next few weeks. A few of the run crew are a bit panicked.

Not me. I’m just enjoying my minimal-race summer agenda, but I promised to train with them all no matter what they need to accomplish.

So we planned on a twelve to fourteen kilometer Sunday run.

Plans don’t always work out.

Busy trails. Improptu plans. Spontaneous pathfinding. These are the ingredients for adventure.

The first ten kilometers went without a hitch. We climbed the aphalt ascent from where we’d met and parked our cars that morning, looped through a local park as we traversed the weaving network of winding paths. We crossed the river on the sidewalk portion of the new bridge stopping for a photo. And we traced the trail to the foot of another long hill…

… where we stopped and contemplated our options.

To the right an asphalt trail cluttered with people led on a long slow ascent out of the river valley to a familiar neighbourhood. To the left a narrow dirt path ducked under a guardrail and dropped along beside the river, showing no signs of human life.

The trail was true for the first few minutes. Then deeper into the route bits of it were washed away from the spring runoff causing us to take careful footsteps along sloping, sanding ledges barely as wide as our shoes. A corner opened up into a mud pit, which we trod through with reluctance (and a few choice curse words) and led to a steep drop gleaming with a gaping outflow of slippery orange mud dropping off of a sharp ledge that fell three meters into the murky river water below.

The six of us stopped and debated our options.

We were now about half a kilometer down what seemed like either a risky or dead-end path, and the choice was to continue on and hope we weren’t further blocked ahead, or turn back and take the alternate route up the people-cluttered asphalt hill.

Detours and tracking back on your path are unfortunate side effects of taking risks in running as in life. Is it better to cut your losses and try a different approach to get somewhere, or stubborningly forge on and hope for the best?

As we traced back, climbed the hill and then found a path back into the valley that would eventually connect back up to the trail we’d lost we wondered how much our detour had cost us. I stopped my watch at sixteen kilometers as I hobbled back to my vehicle at the end of the run. It was a small bit more than I’d planned to run today… but also a whole lot more adventure, too.

June 6, 2021
Local Flours Sours: Stoneground Whole Wheat (Part One)

My sourdough starter turned two years old a few weeks ago. I didn’t make much fanfare about it, but it has given me cause to think more about my baking lately.

Fine-tuning a recipe and process that works consistently for me has been a sourdough journey that has spanned nearly half a decade now, including multiple starters, a trip to San Fransisco, and routine baking through a global pandemic.

While I have found occasion to vary my flour compositon a little bit, I’ll be the first to admit that I have not strayed far from “big flour” products, in particular the kind that come in five kilogram bags from the grocery store.

With summer upon us, restrictions easing, and an emphasis on buying local, I suddenly find myself in the position to seek out, learn about, and experiment with a broader range of flour varieties.

This afternoon I found a small package of whole wheat flour grown, ground and packaged just a few kilometers down the road at a rural mill called Strathcona Stoneground Organics.

I figured this was a great excuse to kick off a new series on this blog I’m calling local flours sours, where I do some hunting down of a locally produced flour, bake some sourdough with it, and then do some casual evaluation on the outcome of the bread.

It’s not going to be an endorsement of the flour or a scientific-slash-professional evaluation of the product itself, but hopefully it inspires others to venture beyond the baking aisle in their grocery store as much as I hope it does for me.

For now, I’ve substituted 20% of the standard white flour in my sourdough recipe with one hundred grams of the richly aromatic flour from this little brown bag, and the dough is just starting its day-long journey towards the oven.

Check back for part two in a couple days.

June 5, 2021

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I’ve been writing meandering drivel for decades, but here you’ll find all my posts on writing, technology, art, food, adventure, running, parenting, and overthinking just about anything and everything since early 2021.

In fact, I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about just about anything that interest me. Enjoy!

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