Riding To Eat, Eating To Ride

It's been said that there are basically two types of people:  those who eat to live and those who live to eat.

I think you can substitute the word "ride" for "live" and describe a lot, if not most, cyclists.  If you think I'm in the "ride to eat" category, I wouldn't argue with you!

The ride I did today proved it.  Now, we have all sorts of wonderful places to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks or anything else you can think of here in New York--and, for that matter, in my own neighborhood. But today I rode about 70 kilometers each way, and crossed a state line, to go and eat in a specific place.

Why?, you may ask.  Well, the place where I had my late lunch/early dinner is something we don't have--at least, to my knowledge, in Queens or anywhere else in New York City.  

You may be wondering what sort of restaurant New York wouldn't have.  Think about a Maine lobster shack.  It makes sense that we wouldn't have them here because we don't have lobsters in our local waters.  For that matter, I don't think any stretch of shoreline within 400 kilometers of New York has them.  

So...Imagine the lobster shack without the lobsters.  I know that sounds contradictory. So let me clarify:  The spirit, the essence of the lobster shack.  In other words, a place that serves up fresh seafood, without fuss or pretense:  what fishermen and their families might cook for themselves, and each other.

The place I'm talking about also sells fresh, uncooked seafood.  Some--like shrimps--don't come from anywhere near these shores.  But other things in the shop come from about 30 kilometers, or more, out to sea from the shop.

That place is the Keyport Fishery in New Jersey.  When I was in high school, my mother used to buy fresh fish from them every couple of weeks or so.  It's probably the reason why my siblings and I grew up liking seafood:  The stuff we ate was always fresh.  One of the best meals we ate every year was a traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast consisting of calmari, scungilli and other marine delicacies.  The fish my mother and grandmother cooked came, of course, from the Keyport Fishery.

Every once in a while, I get a craving for one of their platters or sandwiches.  Today was one of those occasions.  So I rode down to Keyport, via back roads, and opened the door to a shop and kitchen that's hardly changed in four decades.  

I went with a flounder platter.  Three large filets are lightly battered and fried, and served with KF's homemade cole slaw--yes, it tastes home made; it's not drowining in mayonnaise--and Freedom Fries.

Yes, they call them Freedom Fries.  Of course, they weren't calling them that when I was young.  But, apparently, they started calling them Freedom Fries, as so many other places did, during the Iraq War, when France wouldn't commit their troops to the effort.  One of the sons of the family who owns KF served, as a Marine, in the war.  And the family includes others who've been Marines in other wars.  So I guess I can understand why they never bothered to change the name back.  

After eating that moist, flaky flounder and savory coleslaw, I can forgive that. The fries were good, too!  

National Ice Cream Day And My First Century

“Buy one cone, get one free.”

I would’ve stopped for that, except that, these days, I simply can’t eat ice cream—or any other dairy product—while I’m riding. 

 

“Free scoop of any flavor.”

What can they come up with that I haven’t already tried?  Mongolian yak butter with wasabi soy nuts?  

“Buy one sundae.  Get second at half-price.”

What’s with all of those ice-cream sales?, I wondered.  Today brought hotter weather than this part of the world has experienced in nearly two years; I couldn’t imagine how special sales or other incentives were needed to sell ice cream on a day like this.

I didn’t take a long ride today, but I felt as if I saw more promotions for ice cream along the way than I’d normally see in a whole year of riding.  

 

Turns out, my perception might’ve been more accurate than I realized. When I got back to my apartment, I turned on the radio.  After mentioning the President Obama'sdate with his daughters, the newscaster mentioned that today is National IceCream Day.

If it sounds like one of those holidays only Ronald Reagan could have declared, well, there’s a reason:  He actually mandated it in 1984, while he was running for his second term in the White House.  Whether that helped him win the election, we’ll never know:  Even though he was good for business (theirs, anyway), I simply can’t imagine that Ben or Jerry would ever have voted for him.

Anyway, finally learning about this holiday three decades after it was decreed, I recalled a moment from my youth. (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?) It happened around this time of year, in the summer after my sophomore year at Rutgers.  I was working two jobs, taking a class to make up one I’d failed as a freshman and doing lots of bike riding.  All of that while living on pizza and “subs” and cheap alcohol. 

One Sunday in July, I decided to go for a ride.  I had no particular destination in mind, but I soon found myself—as I often did in those days—along the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath, on my way to Princeton.  Going there and back would have made for a good morning ride.  But once I got to Princeton, I saw a bunch of cyclists signing up for something at a table, and a bunch more cyclists pedaling down Witherspoon Street. 

“Do you want to ride with us?”

Why not?, I thought.  I signed myself up and paid the registration fee--$3, if I remember correctly—and someone handed me a T-shirt.

That ride was one I’d do again a year later:   the Princeton Century.  A few hundred of us, I think, pedaled from the university campus into central New Jersey suburbs, the rolling farmland in the western part of the state, and across the Delaware River into Buck’s County, Pennsylvania.

In the Keystone State, we rode into a town called New Hope.  It’s sort of like Woodstock:  once an artist’s colony, it’s now home to people who pay lots of money to say they live there.  Then, as now, its main street was lined with stores and cafes that are novel or pretentious or simply way too cute, depending on what you’ve experienced before seeing them.

A few of us stopped in one of the too-cute cafes, which turned out to be an ice cream shoppe (yes, with an “e” on the end)—the first such establishment I ever visited that wasn’t a Carvel, Baskin Robbins,  Friendly’s or an imitation of one of them. 

That shop—I can’t remember its name and, silly me, I didn’t write it in my journal—claimed to make its own ice cream from fresh ingredients.  I didn’t doubt it, as its menu featured all sorts of flavors I never could have imagined.  When I go to a restaurant or café and there’s something on the menu I’ve never eaten or drank before, that’s what I order.  In that ice cream shop, there were at least twenty such flavors.  I picked one of them at random:  Ukraninan Rose Petal.

It was the worst thing I’d ever tasted.  

But all was not lost. I finished the century--my very first--and rode back to New Brunswick.  In all, I rode 137 miles: up to that point in my life, the most I'd ridden in one day.

And today, yes, I gave in to the marketing hype and celebrated National Ice Cream Day.  I didn't try anything exotic:  I went to the Baskin-Robbins around the corner from my apartment and ordered a scoop of each of my favorite flavors:  Cherries Jubilee and Pistachio Almond--on a waffle cone, which was free with the two scoops.

I'm happy.

Eating Right During The Ride

I'm trying to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and to season them with fresh herbs--especially when I'm riding.

When I was younger, I used to feel as if I could eat or drink damn near anything during and after a long ride.  Truth was, I could:  I am still amazed at how often I ate rich, fatty foods, how much pasta and bread I scarfed down and how unhealthy some of what I ate was (PopTarts, anyone?) yet lost--or, at least, didn't gain--weight.

But I'm going to be good--or, at least, try to do better.  I'm going to pack fruit and nuts in my Brevet bag if I'm doing rides of more than a couple of hours, and one or the other if I'm going to be out for a shorter ride.  

If I want fresh herbs or wheat grass to go with my other snacks, I could always grow them:

Hmm... Mini-planters on a bicycle?  What will they think of next?