Things I've Eaten

One of my favorite Mexican, or Tex-Mex, dishes is chile verde, that is, cubes of pork simmered in a sauce made of green chiles and tomatillos.

What's a tomatillo? Well, this deceptive little vegetable, or fruit actually, resembles a little green tomato, and it's not a tomato at all. It's related to the South African cape gooseberry. It grows in a paper-like husk and has tiny little seeds. It's a very sexy thing: It cannot self pollinate - it needs another plant to reproduce. It has a tart flavor, with a slight sweetness, actually resembling the flavor of its often-mistaken identity, green tomatoes.

If you don't know what a green chile is, just get out of here now!

OK, now I'm going to tell you how I make chile verde. And although my way is damn good - better than at that Mexican restaurant you go to, feel free to risk disaster and try to come up with your own modifications.

Ingredients:

1 lb lean pork loin (cut into 3/4" to 1" cubes)

1 cup all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

12 tomatillos (remove husks and wash, dice)

1/2 yellow onion (diced)

4 Anaheim chiles (remove seeds and white 'veins')

2 Jalapeno chiles (remove seeds and white 'veins')

(chop chiles into a brunoise [small dice: julienne, then turn and chop into 1 mm to 2 mm dice])

3 cloves garlic (crushed)

2 limes (juice)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro (chopped)

Water (or beer)
1/4 teaspoon cumin (optional)

Hot sauce (optional)

A word on chiles: Any given variety will vary greatly in 'heat'. Especially with the hotter varieties, such as jalapenos, take a little taste before you add them in - if they're really hot you might want to use less, if they're more tame, you might want to use more. If you've got really hot jalapenos and use less, add another Anaheim to make up for the lost flavor. Also, after you've handled the chiles, wash your hands with soap before you touch your eyes or other sensitive bits, or you might be in for quite an unwanted burning sensation!

Before you start all this shopping, washing, and chopping, if you want to take a quick way out, and still have a very good product, substitute store-bought green enchilada sauce for the above from-scratch tomatillo sauce. La Victoria and Las Palmas are both pretty good.

Method:

With a paper towel, pat dry the cubed pork loin, then season with salt and pepper. Let the pork soak up the seasoning while you prep the other ingredients. Put the flour on a plate and mix in a little salt and pepper. Get a large skillet started heating up to be hot enough to quickly brown the pork. Lightly dredge the pork in the seasoned flour. Heat about a table spoon of oil in the skillet and put small batches (small enough to see space between the bits of pork) of the pork into the skillet and lightly brown it all over, then set aside. Between each batch, wipe the skillet clean and add/heat a little more oil. Put the pork in a bowl and set it aside for now.

If you're in a hurry or you've just chickened out, now is when you can pour out your canned green enchilada sauce into the skillet and simmer the pork until it's cooked through and tender. You can make this sauce better with a little sauteed onion, lime juice, and cilantro.

Now back to the cooks.

Wipe the skillet clean again, and add oil to brown the onions. Remove the onions and brown the chiles. Add the garlic and add back the reserved onions and chiles and give the garlic about 30 seconds to brown, then add the lime juice and cilantro. The tomatillos will render their juice - this should be enough liquid with the lime juice to simmer, but if not, add a little water (or beer). When the sauce is at bubbly simmer, add the pork and cover the skillet. The flour on the pork will thicken the sauce a bit. If it gets too thick, add a little more liquid. When the pork is cooked through and tender, it's ready to serve. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Serve with warm corn tortillas, or wrap in burritos or enchiladas, and serve whatever other sides you like, such as re-fried beans and sour cream (OK, I guess sour cream is really a condiment, but in my world it's a side dish). My favorite side dish is beer. Now that I mention it, a little beer can be very nicely used instead of water as a cooking liquid.

Serves 1 to 4 (one rugby player or weightlifter, four Crossfitters).

As the 10,000 Armenians* of Mexico say, Paree akhorjhak! (buen apetito)

*If you're of Armenian descent, you may serve the chile verde with soft lavash bread or pilaf, and loud political discussions at the dinner table.

Places Where I've Left Bits of Myself III

The week before my second weightlifting meet ever, I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Curry, Sr, father of James 'Butch' Curry, USA '80 Olympian in weightlifting. Jim was a weightlifter and coach from way back, starting his weightlifting career sometime around the Late 1930s - Early 1940s. He was visiting from Queens, New York City.

Jim was one of those types you look at and the term 'old school' pops into your head. On first impression, his appearance, accent, and demeanor reminded me very much of Burgess Meredith's portrayal of the character 'Mick' in the movie "Rocky". A man's man in and out of the gym. No nonsense. That is, until it came time for nonsense! Jim had a great sense of humor and a complete lack of inhibition in sharing it.

During that week, he stayed with Butch and came to the gym with us, where he both helped coach my lifts and jumped in and did workouts of his own (at the age of 72). I had a great time getting to know him, and it became very clear to me where Butch 'came from'.

On Saturday of that Autumn week of 2001, Jim accompanied Butch on the drive to Chico, California, where the 38th annual Golden West Open would be held, in which I was entered in my second meet of my nascent weightlifting career.


As is often the case at these meets, the organizers rely on spur-of-the-moment volunteers to fill out their stable of judges. Of course, Jim was asked to officiate, and of course, he was asked to be the center, that is, head judge. Of course, Jim acceded to the request. As it turned out, Jim would judge my session. I was quite nervous, so felt reassured that there would be a familiar and friendly face among the judges.


At the time, I was still very raw in my technique. Although fairly explosive and strong at that point, I was very inconsistent at catching snatches 'in the hole' (in a butt-to-ankle squat). Although I was explosive and quick enough to power-snatch (catch the bar in a high, quarter-squat position) on at least my opening attempt, I wanted to develop my ability to do the squat-snatch, so I was intent on doing squat-snatches.


I took my first attempt. I mis-pulled and left it out in front, and the bar fell to the platform with a feeble thud. No lift.


Having missed and no-one else taking that weight, I had to follow myself, so I had two minutes to start my second attempt. I missed in front again.


Now, I was in danger of 'bombing out', that is, missing all three of either the three snatch or three clean & jerk attempts, thus falling out of contention to score a total, much less get a medal. If I was nervous before, now I was gripped with fear of humiliating myself


I stepped onto the platform. I acknowledged the crowd that were now cheering me on to make my last attempt and stay in the competition. In the same spirit, Jim gave me a little nod.


I addressed the bar, took my grip, and started my pull. I finished the pull as hard as I could and jumped down to catch the bar overhead. I had it! I made sure I was balanced and securely in possession of the bar and started to stand up. I stood up and recovered my feet into line. I'd made the lift! I let the bar down to the platform with a satisfying slam. I looked at Jim right in front of me and noticed his face was turning red and a smile was cracking onto his face. I suddenly got a sickening sensation in my gut as I realized I hadn't waited for the down signal. I looked at him, looking for mercy I knew wouldn't come, then he broke out into a full, cackling belly laugh as he held his hands out to the side with palms up, then held up his red flag to indicate 'No lift'.

Places Where I've Left Bits of Myself II

As usual, I arrived two hours before game time to give myself ample time to suit up, get taped, focus, and start my personal warm-up. The week's training had gone well, and we were ready for a tough game.

Forty-five minutes out from the starting whistle, the team got together for a quick review of the starting line-up before we began our team warm-up. It was then that I learned that we had a player that couldn't play due to injury, at one of the three positions on the team that can NOT be 'faked' at all: Loose-head prop.

For the rugby 'illiterate', the loose-head prop is one of two props that together with the hooker in between, form the front row of the scrum. The scrum is the eight forwards, analogous to linemen and linebackers in American football, who after minor infractions bind together with themselves and with the opposing scrum to contest the ball put into the middle of this construction to restart play. Behind the front row, the two locks, aka, second row, put shoulders to hips and bind onto the props. On the outside of the second row, the flankers put shoulder to hip and bind on. And at last, the number 8 puts shoulder to hip on one or both locks, depending on the tactical situation. The scrum is extremely difficult to do well, and doing well requires an immense amount of strength, stability, team-work, and will. By far, the props are under the most physical stress, and indeed mortal danger should anyone fail to properly execute their position. The compression of being pushed on both from in front and behind is crushing. The neck is called upon to oppose hundreds of pounds of multi-planar torque.

My normal position is lock, which I love for a number of reasons, including being a jumper in the line-outs (how play is re-started after the ball goes out of bounds). Jumping for the ball is quite a thrill: Not only do you jump, but you have lifters pushing you up even further, so you're taking the ball at about thirteen feet, and at that instant you have to do something quite athletic and often make an instant tactical decision, and feed the ball out in one of several ways - either airborne or with feet back on the ground. As usual, I was looking forward to destroying my opposite number at this and in the scrums, as well as the universal responsibilities of running, supporting runners, passing, catching, tackling, etc.

"Haz, we need you to jump in at loose-head."

"Damn!", I thought. But, then I thought, "hey, the team needs this and no-one else is capable to step up at the moment". Then I thought, "I've done this enough times so that I'm pretty good at it, and I kind of like beating a guy directly across from me, so here we go!"

We went through our warm-ups and a few dry runs of plays, then lined up for the start of the game.

The starting whistle pierced my eardrums, the kick-off commenced, and the game was on.

The guy who received the kick for the other team mis-handled the ball, knocking it on, that is fumbling it forward. This is not allowed in rugby, so with no advantage gained by us from this mistake, the referee whistled for a scrum. The two teams formed up for the scrum. It was at this point I realized who my opposing prop was.

"Shit!"

I was looking at about 400 pounds of angry Pacific Islander meat.

I hate to give in to stereotypes, but fifteen years of playing alongside and against a lot of athletes from Tonga and Samoa had taught me that not only could these guys play, they also had total disregard for pain - theirs as well as others, and seemed to rejoice in meting it out to their opponents.

I thought to myself, "My team is relying on me to handle this, and the only way I'm going to stand a chance is to rip into this guy with everything I have - every time I go into a scrum." Suddenly, I was filled with a sense of serenity and my mind focused like a laser on what I had to do. Stance, grip, body position, brace, fire out, squeeze, bridge the neck into him, sink, and push.

The referee gave the commands, "Touch, pause, engage!"

"BAM!"

I launched into him with ferocity that I can only describe as violence. It hurt. To my surprise, I lost no ground, and my positioning and pressure held it. Ball out, and off to the races.

Several minutes later, another scrum. Same thing - except this time, I moved the behemoth back about an inch.

Later, another scrum. This time, I forced the man to take a half step back to adjust.

Fourth scrum of the game. I forced him completely out of position and we moved their scrum back a couple of feet.

Fifth scrum: We were driving them backward at will, and were now in complete control of the scrummaging game.

The half-time whistle blew. We made our tactical adjustments and returned to the field. My man did not. He spent the rest of the game sitting on his ample gluteal muscles, sucking on a water bottle, with an ice pack on his neck and shoulders.

The Paradox of Courage

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point."

- CS Lewis

In the Christian tradition, the virtues are understood to be courage, prudence, justice, temperance, faith, hope, and charity.

Excluding courage for the moment, the virtues can be defined thus: 

Prudence: The quality of being able to control, manage, and discipline oneself by the use of reason. 

Justice: The state or quality in which all is rendered to each and all what is due them, including moral and legal rights as well as money or property. 

Temperance: The quality of being able to control oneself from indulging in excess. 

Faith: The self-assurance, or conviction, of things not seen. 

Hope: The quality of simultaneously desiring a thing and the expectation of receiving it. 

Charity: Also referred to as Love. In this context, charity is not simply giving alms or aid, but selfless love toward others.


One thing that all virtues have in common is that they arise from the will, rather than from passion or impulse.

The virtue of courage is often misunderstood, attributing courage to people or acts that really contain none, and often leading to underestimating one's own character, power, and accomplishments as well as those of others.

There are three types of courage: Physical courage, the willingness to accept physical pain, such as that required to become a champion athlete; moral courage, such as that required to do the right thing when doing the wrong thing would be easier and perhaps advantageous; and the combination of physical and moral courage, such as the Navy SeAL who risks his life to rescue someone.

Life presents to everyone a never-ending procession of physical and moral challenges. To varying degrees, these illicit fear. Many, at feeling fear assert itself during such a challenge, quickly dismiss themselves as being less than courageous, or even a coward. Many direct such assessments at others. But if they act in the positive, they do themselves and others wrong by doing so. Here is the paradox of courage: Without fear there is no such thing as courage.

I know a young weightlifter who I've observed from her initiation into the sport. From the time she began to this very day, every time she takes an attempt, I've noticed a look of fear on her face. At first, my reaction to that was rather negative. Then, after I'd had that reaction for about the hundredth time, it occurred to me that she had been consistently pushing aside the thought that she was terrified of a 160-pound barbell falling on her head, and kept striving to do it over and over, and better and better. At that moment, I scolded myself for not seeing it earlier, and realized, this girl has courage.

One night, I was visiting a friend in Oakland, California. Suddenly, we heard a man yelling out on the street, and a woman screaming and then stopping. I looked out the window and saw a man choking and shaking a woman bent backward over the hood of a car. Clashing thoughts raced through my mind: "She needs help now." "This is Oakland, that guy probably has a knife or a gun". I knew if I hesitated, I'd guarantee my safety, but that woman would probably be a goner. I knew I couldn't live with with that, so I told my friend to call 911 and ran outside, terrified. I approached them yelling out, "Hey!"  He let go of the woman and started walking toward me. The whole time I expected the man to produce a weapon, so I watched his hands and kept myself where I could dive behind cover if necessary. He started telling me about the woman's supposed mistreatment of him, and I responded in quiet, sympathetic words. The guy calmed down. The police, amazingly, arrived and I turned over the now diffused mess to them. I was terrified the whole time and afterward I realized I was shaking. My initial reaction to that was to think I was a bit of a chicken-shit, and I was kind of ashamed of that. Then my friend, who was still recovering from her panic at seeing me run out into that, threw her arms around me and sobbed, "that was so brave!" Then I realized, it took courage to overcome my fear of injury and do the right thing.

A guy I know, we'll call him Mr K, was asked by a friend of mine in legal trouble - through no fault of his own - who thought Mr K was his friend, to testify as an eyewitness to the falsehood of accusations made against my friend, despite his being completely innocent. Mr K's testimony would have been key in keeping the problem from going any further. All he had to do was tell the simple truth, in about the form of, 'this did not happen'. This Mr K's only response was to say, "I don't want to talk to any lawyers. Good luck."  Mr K is a coward, and needless to say, he is now not considered a man, much less a friend, by my friend who was in trouble (my innocent friend was cleared of the false accusation).

Now, I could come up with examples of much greater courage, and there are certainly very obvious ones at hand in today's world, including among some good friends of mine. I could also come up with examples of much greater cowardice (not among my friends!), but, the point here is to demonstrate that we all have opportunities to engage, or neglect to engage, when physical and moral challenges confront us, and do the difficult and right thing.

As shown in the opening quote, CS Lewis understood that courage is at the heart of every virtue. None of these virtues can be practiced without courage - there will always be an easier path than exercising these virtues. Without courage there can be no other virtue.

Courage is doing the right thing despite it being difficult or even dangerous - despite the presence of fear.

Places Where I've Left Bits of Myself

Like many people, I began my sports career toddling on the family room carpet and breaking stuff. Then the playground, the sidewalks and streets in front of my friend's houses, feats of ill-advised daredevilism on bikes and scooters, pick-up games at recess and after school, and then organized (so to speak!) sports in the community and in school. I soon realized that beyond their benefit of giving me a way to associate and bond with my peers, and to occasionally impress my friends - and girlfriends - from time to time, I really, REALLY loved finding the capabilities and capacity of my body and mind, and shattering erstwhile limits.

When I saw a friend or high-profile athlete do something amazing, I would immediately set about learning to do that thing. I had a friend who grew up playing soccer. He not only could kick grass-cutting rockets with either foot, he could do the same off the outside of his feet, putting a nasty, hard outside break on the ball. So I drove my mom nuts slamming a soccer ball off the side of our house for hours, until I could do it too. At one point, I was preoccupied with baseball and throwing breaking pitches. I'd walk to the local store and spend hours at the magazine rack reading over and over this short book by Bob Gibson, pitcher for the St Louis Cardinals, on pitching. I'd practice the grips, mechanics, and throwing endlessly. Then my mom got me a baseball. Just kidding. I got pretty good at throwing various breaking balls as well as throwing pretty damn hard for an eighth-grader. When I saw Brazil soccer star Pele do his famous overhead scissor kick for a goal, like the rest of the world, my breath was taken away. So, I commenced to try to recreate that myself. I spent hours and hours week after week throwing a soccer ball high in the air, letting it bounce, then launching my body into that aerial laid out backward trajectory, and attempting the scissors kick. I got to the point where I could execute it at will - if the ball was served up just so. When I actually executed one in a game - for a long pass rather than a goal - I was filled with a huge sense of accomplishment and joy. And my friends were stunned and impressed to my satisfaction.

Once I got to high school my music career kind of took over for a couple of years, which was a great thing: I was playing at a professional level in high school and was selected to be one of three trumpet players in California to perform with the All-State Honor Orchestra. My freshman PE teacher, Mr Ferro, was awesome. He took us through units in wrestling, gymnastics - including trampoline, and, yes, weightlifting, all of which I think really helped develop body awareness and control as well as general strength, conditioning, flexibility, and confidence. Then I transferred to another high school, which was where my young music career blossomed and I made the All-State Orchestra. But, I missed sports and went out for the varsity football team, on which many of my friends, including some of those involved in music, were playing. Of course, the best thing about playing varsity football was that you didn't have to march with the band, wearing the geeky uniforms, and and play lame 'football music' during the pre-game and half-time shows!

This was awesome! It was hard too: I was a 185-pound player with only pick-up game tackle, and touch and flag football experience. Still, I learned to take on guys bigger and stronger than myself, and learned some valuable lessons in courage. Still, I needed to get bigger and stronger, and this is where I threw myself into the weight room for what became a pretty much habitual activity to this day.

I matriculated to the University of California, where I realized that a 190-pound walk-on offensive tackle wasn't going to get very far. So, I tried going out for Cal's world-class crew team. This was an awesome challenge. This is where I first learned about unknown, untapped potential, and how to push through severe physical and mental distress to find new levels of performance - or in competition to defeat your opponent. If anyone doubts how hard crew is, try getting on the Concept 2 rower at your health club or Crossfit and try to pull a 7:00 minute 2,000 meter piece. Not gonna' happen. But crew guys routinely do 6:30 or better. Getting to that level of fitness and output required two practices a day most of the year, including sprinting 75 rows of bleachers at Cal's Memorial Stadium twenty times for one workout, going on 1:05 intervals; running from the Cal campus to Grizzly Peak (about 6 miles and 1,000 feet of elevation); and of course lots of time on the water. Morning practice started at 6:30 in the morning. Then I learned that rugby practice started at 3:30 in the afternoon.

OK - I didn't really take up rugby because of the more attractive practice time, but that was a nice change - I never got used to rising before the Sun.

So now I was about to start the most significant part of my athletic career. I knew Cal Rugby had a tradition of excellence. I also knew that Cal's rugby team had quite a few football players who played rugby between the end of the football season and Spring practice. Clearly, this wasn't going to be easy, but I looked forward to testing myself by these standards. As I did earlier in my life, I emulated exceptional players in order to improve more rapidly. I'll never forget before my first game with the second team, as I watched the first team play, I saw Greg Bracelin, a linebacker for the football team who went on to play in the NFL for the Broncos, Raiders, and Colts, streak across the field covering across on defense and clobbering the ball carrier. During my game, I recognized a similar situation and did the same thing (OK, maybe I wasn't quite as quick or explosive at that point, but I made the play and destroyed the ball carrier, making him give up the ball). I thought to myself, "this game is awesome!" I played four years and earned the honor of starting, thus qualifying as a varsity letterman. This was indeed an honor because those four years were the first four years a collegiate national championship was held for rugby, and Cal won all four. As many know, Cal has since added to those for a total of 26 national championships out of the 31 held. I went on to play for the storied Old Blues RFC, which won five club national championships and was the most dominant and successful American rugby club ever. Indeed, for several years, the Old Blues supplied about half to two-thirds of the United States team. Playing with these amazing athletes was an incredible experience. My team-mates made me a better player just about every time I stepped on the pitch with them for training or to crush our opponents. There were several years in which I never played in a losing effort. The overall win rate of my twenty-year Cal and Old Blues rugby career was well over 80%. Of course, what happened after games and on the road was epic as well, but that's a story for another time. Let's just leave it with the quote from Samuel Johnson, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

 Then, while I was in business school, the Old Blues merged with Hayward Rugby Club. This led to a loss of identity, and Old Blues Rugby Club went into dormancy. After twenty years, I thought, "do I really want to play with a bunch of guys I don't know for a club whose culture and record are way different from that that I loved all these years?" At about the same time, I asked my old friend, Butch Curry, '80 Olympian in weightlifting and fellow Cal alumnus, for some help with my Olympic lifts, which I'd been doing to train for rugby. He convinced me to try competition in the sport. Thus, my rugby career ended and my weightlifting career began.

I was lucky to get into the sport with Butch and his coach, three-time USA Olympic Team coach Jim Schmitz, and the famed Sports Palace team. This exposed me to a number of great athletes and coaches from a number of nations and sports. During this time, Dave Spitz trained with Jim for awhile, and I got to know Dave pretty well. Dave went on to found California Strength/American Weightlifting, his endeavor to improve the level of weightlifting in the USA. He brought in his friend Alex Krychev, Olympic Silver Medalist for Bulgaria, and together they recruited the famed most successful coach ever, Ivan Abajiev, also of Bulgaria. They recruited some top talent from the USA and a couple of lifters from Bulgaria and the experiment was on. Later, Dave built a supporting structure in which kids, collegiate, and pro athletes would come in to take advantage of Dave and his athletes' experience to raise their own games. This provided the basis to run a full-time weightlifting team of elite athletes, who help support their aspirations to international success by coaching other athletes. This is where I've been training for the last three and a half years. Here, my game is inspired by training alongside exceptional weightlifters Donny Shankle, Jon North, Spencer Moorman, Rob Blackwell, Kevin Cornell, Brian DeGennaro, and until recently, Max Aita, Caleb Ward, and Jared Ederton, and of course, with Coach Glenn Pendlay. These guys all  make me better every time I watch them or pick up a bar on the next platform. Indeed, I make personal records at a rate I never did before I had the opportunity to train with these guys. And I'm now stronger than I was at any time during my rugby career and youth - not something I ever expected I'd be able to say at age 52!

I made official clean & jerk and total PRs recently at the Tommy Kono Open. Come and see us at the Redwood Empire Open in Cotati, California this weekend (8/27/11) - I'm planning on making at least one PR.