A grammarian's lexical choice; It's supposed to hint at the variety of topics I cover in my posts (plus my gender). A little convoluted & punny, but it amuses.
A Goodbye Dinner for Bridget – We’re sad to see you go!
Hello it's Gwynie doing another guest entry today.
In honour of our good friend and squash compatriot Bridget’s departure, I made dinner at the Normandy House. Grilled lamb chops with a honey balsamic dressing from the Food Network Giada De Laurentis’ show (I saw this one evening as I pedaled on the bike at the gym) with couscous cakes and a tzaziki cucumber salad. Bridget brought some amazing bottles of wine which we enjoyed tremendously.
2 cups couscous prepare per instructions on box (I used chicken stock instead of water)
¼ cup cilantro chopped
1 egg + 1 yolk
1 ½ tsp ground coriander
1 lemon, zested
¾ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp ground pepper
2 tbs flour
¼ cup olive oil
Mix ingredients, sprinkle flour on top and stir till incorporated. Measure ¼ cup mixture into patties and sit on plate and/or baking tray. Chill once all the patties are made, this can be done ahead of time. I accidentally planned a bike ride with another friend so I had to prepare everything the night before.
Heat oil on medium heat and fry 4 at a time until crispy brown on both sides (3-4 minutes). Drain on papertowels.
The wines that Bridget brought were a perfect accompaniment to the food.
Chateau St. Jean 2007 Sonoma County Chardonnay oaky and round buttery mouth, with generous fruit
2002 Chateau La Coustarelle Cahors Grande Cuvee Prestige darkly intense nose of berries and licorice, chewy mouthfeel and smooth tannins.
2000 Chateau Chasse Spleen Cru Moulis en Moulis a fine inky black Bordeaux smokey and challenging end to the meal. Served with chocolate, apple slices and meyer lemon.
How was the tournament??????? you ask. My apologies for not blogging sooner, it was a combination of zero network access and being super busy squashing away. Here are my thoughts on the Howe Cup
I arrived more than 4 hours late due to weather holds for flights into the East coast. Exhausted and delirious, I agree to an early morning rise to check out the courts before our matches started at 10:30am. Uggh I can't face breakfast, it's really 5am for me!
The Fairmount Athletic Club is massive, with 12 international courts (and 2 hardball doubles courts). 10 courts are on the main hall with 4 more international singles courts off to the side next to the ladies locker room, 2 of which convert into more doubles courts by dint of moving the walls outward. Wow I've never seen so many women (200+ =high estrogen levels) all playing squash. It was really inspiring to see the superb athleticism (some of the leanest women ever) and intense competition. The balls were just flying around like bullets.
The weekend was spent watching, playing, scoring/ref'ing SQUASH. (And of course fueling up to play more squash altho the supplies were somewhat limited as you can see by the shot of the bananas as green as the Granny Smith apples) Wilda called them "Investment Bananas- you take one and wait for it to mature".
Well to cut a long story short-
the A team came 4th
the B team came last
the C team came last
But if you insist on reading the details, here's the gory story.
Friday
B & C teams' matches started at the same time so we couldn't cheer each other on.
The order of play was 5/2/4/3/1. Our first was against Baltimore.
Everything went so quickly I didn't get a chance to record all of the individual scores. The Baltimore B team was heavy duty. My match was 3-0 to me. But we ended up losing 4-1. I think the combination of the late nite arrival and the early morning start was a bit too much for us all. Rohini pulled a muscle quite dramatically and had to be carried off court. She managed to play out the game but it affected her thru-out the rest of the weekend. Since we lost the first round and the B's were set up in a knockout draw, we didn't have any games till Saturday morning in the consolation draw.
The C team fared slightly better in games but ultimately lost the match against Boston. Carrie won her match decisively and Wilda lost 3-2 (10-8 in the fifth) a real nail biter. Penny also took her opponent to 5 but was unable to clinch it. Elaine lost 3-1 and Ma lost hers 3-0.
But Ma cheered our spirits by rocking out on her squash racket air guitar.
Now it was up to the A team to represent against Boston in the evening. Kristen, Kim and Deb lost to tenacious players. Nikki held up her end to win 3-0. Mei Lin's game was the most interesting where halfway thru the match both Boston and Mei Lin pronounced the referee useless and demanded replacements. hahaha. Especially when the referee was a Boston team mate. Still Mei Lin destroyed her opponent, who was not pleased.
Wilda was recruited to play for the New York D team, since they were missing a D4. She played very well, confirming her position on the C team. All it takes is a couple of elastic bands to improve her game!
Dinner was inedible for Wilda due to allergy concerns and the A team couldn't eat before an evening match. So after the dust had settled, we headed to Maggiano's for dinner. There the portion sizes were so ginormous that you could split a half order of an entre between 3 people. It was pretty generic spaghetti factory style food, nothing to recommend it except for the company and the location (within the mall complex).
Saturday bright and squirrely.
We were up against the New York B1 team. I had watched them the night before and was very impressed with the level of play, particularly B4 whom I was slated to play (in other words I was sweating bullets I was so nervous). Imagine my surprise when I won the first game 9-0. I won 3-0. Rohini won her match. Jacinta managed to go to 5 but couldn't finish it hampered by her injuries. Jocelyn lost to an aggressive B5. Losing 3-2 in the consolation bracket meant our last match would be Sunday 9am, the playoffs for the losingest team.
Against Philadelphia our C team suffered a crushing blow 5-0. Carrie managed to win a game, but everyone else lost 3-0. Philly had a particularly deep team and the home team advantage. That was all for the C team since it was a knock out format.
Our A team also played Philadelphia, it was very close. Kristen, Nikki, and Mei Lin won their matches. Deb and Kim lost theirs. So they advanced to the semi-finals vs National Capital a Washington DC team from our friend Norman's club. Unfortunately DC had an extremely strong and formidable team, where the ex #1 national champ was playing A2! So our girls got spanked soundly and retired to the 3/4 playoffs on Sunday.
Saturday night was the awards and party at Kildare's. Despite the large boat of a car that Carrie had rented, it was still a tight squeeze getting us all in. Then with complete disregard to the GPS unit, we drove in circles trying to find first Kildare's and then somewhere Wilda was not allergic to the food. Dinner was great fun, and the party afterward a blast also.
Sunday
In the morning the B team had our playoff for last place against Philly B2. Again I won my match 3-0. and Rohini won her match, but altho Jocelyn managed to snag a game we did not prevail, losing 3-2 for last place :^(
To our dismay the A team was up against the Boston team whom they'd played previously. So they shuffled the play order around to get more games against new people.
I can't tell here, are we losing?
it was a lot of fun, good rallies etc, but the A team bombed conclusively and took 4th place.
I return victorious and undefeated, my team however was the losingest team, so it didn't really count that I won all my matches (altho it does mean I get to gloat over my teammates, that's all that matters)
I also played Laurie who played at B3 and beat her 3-1. So it seems I played in the
wrong slot. oh well now we're calibrated to the exalted heights of East Coast squash for next year. I have some tremendous squash to try and channel.
It’s been 24 hours since I played in my first squash tournament in 20 years. I’m still feeling the glow. The tournament was held in Santa Clara. It's at a swanky club in the same network as our home gym the SF Bay Club. The Decathlon Club is so swanky, there's a river running thru the foyer! (Sorry I forgot to take photos)
We had a whole contingent of players from the Bay Club entered and Wilda, Gwynie and I planned to stay down in the area and make a weekend of it (thanks to Carrie for the great suggestion). Despite our best planning efforts, we spent some time circling several expressways in the vicinity of the club due to poor directions.
We'd entered a range of divisions based on our levels, and it looked like we'd have several matches each day. Gwynie and Wildy had early games, mine was a little later in the afternoon, so I was their cheering section. Ahh the memories came flooding back with the sounds of the ball ricocheting off the wall, the squeaking shoes and junior players keeping score and ref'ing the games.
The team went on to do very well.
Gwynie won the Women's C division
Rohini won the Men's 4.0 division (beating the winner of the Men's 4.5 division)
Wildy came runner up in the Men's 2.5 division
I came runner up in the Men's 3.0 division
Of course now I can say that I knew we'd have a good time. Tournaments are always a challenging time mentally and emotionally more than physically. We've worked hard with purpose and I think this is the first of a long series of tournaments.
