Brief Jerky

Just in time for Valentine's Day: Edible meat underwear.

Comfy!

Note: The author says these are "Paleo panties," but they're actually less than Paleo, given the use of soy sauce and Slim Jims(!). Try this recipe instead.

Caffeinated Beef Jerky

Yes, please.

According to The Week, a U.S. Army lab is "infusing beef jerky with a coffee cup's worth of caffeine to give soldiers a jolt with their protein."

Why? To "make portable meals more appealing and nutritious" for soldiers.

And, I suppose, to keep 'em awake.

[Source]

20 Things About Kauai

A list of random things we learned during our week on Kauai:

ONE: With a kitchen (and a sister-in-law who cooks for a living!), it’s easy to eat Paleo on Kauai.

TWO: However, the farmer’s markets are overpriced; the same locally-grown produce can be found for a lot cheaper at roadside stands or even Banana Joe’s (where you can also treat yourself to a Paleo-friendly frozen treat on a hot, sticky day).

THREE: The Costco near the airport is incredible. No crowds or lines -- even on weekends! -- and tons of great stuff you can’t get on the mainland. Plus: cheap(er) gas.

FOUR: Best sources of grassfed beef: The Chevron gas station convenience store at the Princeville Center (I kid you not) and the meat counter at Kojima Market in Kapa’a. But don’t go on Wednesdays or Sundays -- they’re closed.

FIVE: We weren’t able to consume four pounds of butter in one week, but as a family, we easily polished off four dozen eggs, twelve avocados, and countless coconuts and macadamia nuts.

SIX: The least attractive sights on Kauai are Hawaii's anti-meth posters.

SEVEN: Purple sweet potatoes are tasty (and pretty!), but take forever to cook in the oven. Microwave ‘em instead.

EIGHT: Kauai CrossFit is a fantastic place to get your WOD on. Want a challenging workout in a jaw-dropping setting alongside friendly, laid-back (but firebreathing) CrossFitters? Get in touch with Jerome.

NINE: When Big-O says he’s carsick and he’s gonna hurl, he’s not kidding.

TEN: I like the citrus-y, banana-y, pineapple-y taste of soursop, but the slimy texture is a turn-off.

ELEVEN: Wild roosters are everywhere: strip mall parking lots, the middle of the highway, behind restaurants, our front yard. And they don’t limit their crowing to daybreak.

TWELVE: Lil-O appears to be immune to bug bites. Everyone else in our family? Not so much.

THIRTEEN: I'm pretty sure Hawaii state law requires every radio station to play Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" every hour, on the hour, in perpetuity.

FOURTEEN: Coconut M&Ms exist.

FIFTEEN: So do Macadamia Roca candies.

SIXTEEN: Favorite restaurant on the island: Bar Acuda in Hanalei.

SEVENTEEN: M can rip open coconuts open with her bare hands.

EIGHTEEN: Best hot tub snack: Beef jerky.

NINETEEN: This time, unlike our last couple of trips to Kauai, we didn’t snorkel, take a helicopter ride, hike to hidden beaches/waterfalls, or almost disappear off the side of a treacherous cliff.

TWENTY: But lounging around for a week with my insanely awesome family in an insanely awesome house with insanely awesome views and an insanely awesome pool was insanely awesome nonetheless.

Aloha!

Wednesday's Workout: Sweet Bali Hai

More evidence that I've become hardwired for the 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto: My eyes popped open at exactly 1:20 a.m. Hawaii time -- 4:20 a.m. Pacific time. It took me a second to remember that I wasn't in California, and that I could conk out for another three-and-a-half hours. Ah, vacation.

Still, at 5 a.m., M and I hauled our sleepy butts out of bed, threw on some clothes and drove down to Kauai CrossFit.

Today, Jerome started us off with some light stretching, and then we transitioned into a nice, blood-pumping warm-up consisting of a 400-meter run (again, along a path with ridiculously beautiful views of the Pacific expanse), and then three rounds of:

• 7 push-ups
• 7 knees-to-elbows
• 7 medicine ball cleans

And then the workout began. No long chipper today -- instead, we did something a bit more familiar to us: Some strength skill work and a short, intense triplet.

Strength Skill:

• Strict Shoulder Presses (3 sets of 5)

Yeesh. Strict presses have never been easy for me, and I still haven't yet hit my goal of pressing my bodyweight overhead without using my legs to boost up the barbell. But I think I've figured out why I can crank out a good number of handstand pushups but remain unable to press the equivalent weight on a barbell above my head: It's 'cause strict presses demand a greater range of motion. I think. I haven't tested out this theory yet, but I'll bet that I can press a heavier weight with my hands starting at top-of-head level than I can when the weight starts in rack position across my shoulders.

Metcon:

Three rounds for time:

• 30 overhead kettlebell swings (53lbs / 35lbs)
• 25 wallball shots (20lbs / 14lbs)
• 20 pull-ups

At first, even with the RXed weights, this seemed pretty manageable. In the first round, I managed to crank out all 30 kettlebell swings unbroken, and felt damned good as I walked over to my medicine ball. But as I began hurling that ball up against the wall, my hammies caught on fire. After the first 15 reps or so, I paused to stretch out my legs -- and for the remainder of the WOD, I'm not sure I strung together more than 5 wallball shots in a row again. Some of the folks in class got through all the wallball reps without stopping(!); they were already well into their pull-ups by the time I stumbled over.

Thankfully, my arms were fresh enough to get me through the pull-ups quickly. But then it was back to the swings and wallballs for Round Two. As M later put it: "Before I was done with the second round, I was already thinking about how the fuck I was going to get through Round Three."

It was a doozy, but on the whole, this WOD was right up my alley. I've always found wallballs to be challenging, but they're also a fantastic full-body movement -- and one I need to practice more anyway. And kettlebell swings and pull-ups are two of my favorites.

Result: 16:10 as RXed.

Over on the other side of the box, M went RXed with the kettlebell swings. It was great to see her heaving around the 35-pounder like a pro -- especially considering that just six months ago, she was tentatively swinging a half-pood (18 lb) kettlebell and declaring that it was "HEAVY!"

Given our schedules, M and I hardly ever get a chance to exercise together these days, and I've really enjoyed sharing this experience with her here on Kauai -- from the pre-workout protein-and-fat fueling to the post-workout breakfast of sweet potatoes, eggs and meat.

And that's not the only great thing about CrossFitting on vacation: Today, once we got back to the house, my recovery protocol consisted of sitting in the hot tub and sharing copious amounts of beef jerky with my six-year-old and then watching him practice underwater handstands in the pool.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Beef Jerky Purse

I'd eat that.

[Source]

CaveGirlCheats

Over at the excellent CaveGirlEats blog, Liz posted a list of foods she knows she ain't supposed to eat under a Primal diet, but does anyway. As she puts it, these are "the things I incorporate into my regimen frequently that were *prooobably* not available to your typical Cave Person. They’re my Primal Fudge-ems."

I have a list, too, but some of mine aren't just fudges -- to a strict Paleo eater, they're just out-and-out, off-the-rails cheats:

• Insane amounts of Omega-6-heavy nuts;
• Obscene quantities of black coffee (preferably cold-brewed);
• BCAA powder;
• Vinegar;
• Tasty things I stick in my jerky marinades: tamari, Worchestershire sauce, canned chipotles in adobo sauce (which has added sugar);
• Dairy -- including yogurt, (pastured, grass-fed) butter, ghee, and cheese. Glorious, glorious cheese;
• Consistent with my Rule No. 5, I'll eat anything else that looks too awesome to pass up.

Lastly, I'm not all that careful about my bacon sources. If it's bacon, it's going in my mouth, dammit.

Animal Planet Plate Lunch

What -- you didn't believe that I'd actually go eat a big plate of animals for lunch?

Every Tuesday, I head over to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market's Prather Ranch stand for a Farmhouse Burger -- beef patty, ham, bacon, fried egg, no bun, extra lettuce, and a pile of fresh sauerkraut.

Sometimes, when I feel like something a little lighter, I add slaw:

But today, I just polished off the meat with a side of homemade venison jerky.

I love animals.

Me!

Who woke up at 2 a.m. to check on his beef jerky? (And by "beef jerky," I mean beef jerky. Really. It's not a euphemism for anything.)

Me!

Who couldn't go back to sleep?

Me!

Who's now up and heading out for some bleary-eyed 5 a.m. deadlifts at the CrossFit box?

Me!

Who's totally going to conk out as soon as my morning flight takes off for New York?

Me!

How to Jerk Your Meat

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Step 1: Buy some flank steak or London broil -- the leaner the better. (Trader Joe's flank steak: $6.99/pound.) I didn't this time, but go grassfed if you can.

Step 2: Lay out each steak on a flat surface and encase it in plastic wrap. Freeze the steaks, making sure they stay flat.

Step 3: Before slicing 'em up, let the steaks defrost just a little. Using a sharp knife or a deli slicer, cut the steaks in 1/8-inch thick strips. Slice along (not against) the grain.

Also: Trim off the fat.

More after the jump...

Making Jerky

In the past month or so, I've made four or five batches of jerky with a box fan and air conditioning filters, but this was the first time I used Lego Duplo blocks and wire racks instead of the filters. They're a huge improvement -- not only can you cram a lot more jerky on the racks, but the air flow's much improved, too. Plus: No more visits to Home Depot to raid its stock of air conditioning filters. And I no longer have to pick off the paper fuzz that sticks to the dried jerky.

I've almost gotten this down to a science. And with a vacuum sealer from Costco, I'm thisclose to producing dried meat that'll survive a nuclear holocaust.

Link Dump

It's been a while since my last link dump, so this is going to be a big one. In no particular order:

Take your vitamin D.

And a cold shower.

Jesse Jackson Jr. made the list of The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful People (on Capitol Hill) – not because of his involvement in the Rod Blagojevich scandal, but because he’s a “fitness nut” who converted a racquetball court in the Congressional gym into a “space dedicated martial arts, yoga, Pilates, and the P90X exercise program.”

“Toning” shoes = snake oil.

You can work out anywhere – and not having shoes is no excuse.

Here’s how to run an ultramarathon.

The China Study is bunk, so eat some meat.

I’ve successfully made my own beef jerky. Is pemmican next?

Mark Sisson’s about to unveil his Primal Blueprint Fitness program, which will center around Workouts of the Week (WOWs) posted every Monday on his site. From the description, WOWs sound a lot like CrossFit Workouts of the Day (WODs), which led one reader to ask Sisson to distinguish between the two. In the comments section of his blog post, Sisson responded:

There will be some similarities between WOWs and WODs, but some distinct differences, too. Most notably, we’re working on constructing WOWs that:

a) occasionally use specialized equipment, but with a focus on workouts where you can use ANY kind of weight (where a dumbbell, kettlebell, weight vest, heavy rock, etc. will do equally well)

b) occasionally use specialized equipment but with weightless (i.e. bodyweight) variations also provided

In other words, Sisson's WOWs are going to be very similar to WODs, but updated less frequently, and with less equipment to buy.

Lastly, it appears that I may be an addict. (And if you’re reading this, you’re probably one, too.)

Jerky

I love Prather Ranch's Cowboy Style Beef Jerky, and am lucky to work within spitting distance of the Prather Ranch store in the San Francisco Ferry Building. The jerky contains no soy, and the only sweetener listed in the ingredients is pineapple juice. But it's pricey as hell.

After reading this blog post by The Paupered Chef, I'm thinking about making my own jerky. It actually sounds kind of fun to do it the Alton Brown way, using air conditioning filters, box fans and bungee cords. Perhaps it's time to unleash my inner MacGyver. (Or more accurately, my inner MacGruber.)