Bobcat visits Part I:
13 January 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Lifting in Siberian conditions with cats, flank steak throwdown, boozing around a country peasant kitchen table with hardcore Irish people and eloquent sensualists can prove simultaneously illuminating, inebriating and disorienting.
Harrys Bar is Paris was the place for American expatriate artists to go and congregate and drink lots of firewater while talking tradecraft back in the 30s and 40s. Hemingway sat up shop there and Harrys figured heavily into my second favorite Hemingway book, A Moveable Feast. (My favorite being In Our Time He was a great short story writer and not so good a novelist) Anyway here is my consiglieris holiday travel odyssey.
Tags:Our Harry’s
By BobCat
It started with the friendly throwing down of a gauntlet in Richmond, Virginia. Marty and I were discussing flank steak in person. I cook it frequently; I love beef, and flank steak is very low in fat, as beef goes. We had already discussed it on the website and via e-mail. Here’s an only slightly exaggerated statement of Marty’s opinion at the time: it is impossible to make flank steak less tough than shoe leather. He told me to stop explaining how to make it more tender than a pair of loafers; he wanted me to appear in Waynesboro and show him that it was even possible.
We–world champion deadlifter Vondah and I–were to show up at the compound by 5 P.M. on Tuesday, December 27. This would be our overnight stop on the way from Perrysburg, Ohio to Annandale, Virginia. We beat the clock by half an hour. Upon the table in the kitchen lay two of the largest and most beautiful flank steaks I had seen in a long time. We had brought small host and hostess presents. Marty’s was a small bottle of Bushmills Irish whisky. More on that later.
But there was one item on the agenda before dinner. The Cat Herd was to arrive at five for a workout. Marty invited us to join them. We went upstairs to change. The guest room, by the way, is beautiful. A glorious bed, lots of natural light, a chair, a sofa and lots of books.
We went out to the garage gym. It was cold. The little space heater helped, but it was still cold. The members of the Cat Herd arrived individually, along with Teddy (Betty’s husband), Nick (a young, slender guy with little lifting experience but some natural strength and Jen. Squats were definitely on the agenda. Whether to bench press or deadlift was put to a vote. The deadlift won.
Everybody warmed up with freehand squats. Bars were loaded; spotters rotated. There were no belts and no wraps. Only the Cat Herd’s Purposefully Primitive deadlifts shirts, which Marty asserts have magical powers. The weight went up. Some squats might have been a little high; others clearly were not. The cats seemed impressed with Vondah’s 175 pound squat. I was. I was also beginning to get a sense of the Cat Herd’s cohesiveness and sense of purpose. An upbeat and encouraging spirit filled the garage, even if heat did not. The cats wanted their squats; they seriously wanted their squats. They encouraged one another. Their example encouraged me. I did pause squats with 315. It was, however, still cold.
Now the deadlifts. Sumo and conventional, though more conventional lifts than sumo. Marty, knowing that I had been on the road for eight hours, offered me the opportunity to sit out the deadlifts. But the feline sense of purpose had taken hold of me: “I want to deadlift,” I said. Be careful what you ask for. You might get it. I got what I asked for in spades. We all took our turns with the deadlifts. In the end, Marty told the loaders to load the bar to 385 pounds. Couldn’t let the cats down; I had to lift it. I inhaled a little of that feline sense of purpose and did. Perhaps the clearest example of that sense of purpose was Jen. She really wanted her top deadlift attempt: 260. She didn’t quite get it. From what I saw, I think by the time this article goes up, she’ll already have done it. She got lots of encouragement from her fellow felines. I mean inspiring encouragement. You should have heard Connie! I know from experience that it’s possible to do these lifts solo–to be the only one in the gym yanking up deadlifts while everybody else is belly bounce benching 135 or concentration curling 20 pounds in front of a mirror. But if ever I need an example of the power of like-minded lifters to elicit effort from one another, I’ll think of that evening deadlifting with the Cat Herd. It was still cold.
It was soon to be time for dinner. Marty had lit up a charcoal grill on the deck. He went back in and prepared some delicious sauteed asparagus. Somehow, both he and I had overlooked a marinade for the flank steak. (I usually use Wish Bone Italian dressing.) Oh, well. I’d salt and pepper the steaks and grill them. Nice hot coals; a short time on the grill. Result: flank steak raw and wriggling but noticeably more tender than shoe leather. I took the steaks inside and started slicing them on the bias. They were big steaks and this took a while. Not everyone is a fan of really rare beef, so upon request I tossed one end of one of the steaks back on the grill in an attempt to do medium. Marty asked if I liked chicken. Is the pope Catholic? Does the bear . . . never mind. Fine chicken. One look, one bite and I knew: this was Squash Your Bird! (See Marty’s blog of March 5, 2005.) I was also offered a sample of a local brew: Yuengling’s. (It reminded me of a Schumann lied: “Ein Jungling Liebt ein Madchen,” a tiny masterpiece of concentrated musical sarcasm.) I expected 12 or 16 ounces. Imagine my surprise when a quart bottle appeared. Imagine more surprise when I was told they don’t put it in smaller bottles.
When the Herd had left, some of my beer remained. Marty broke out the Bushmills. Marty had ordered some at Morton’s in Richmond, and clearly enjoyed it. (Morton’s probably demanded a helicopter, automatic weapons and unmarked bills in return.) The four of us–Marty, Stacy, Vondah and I–sat at the kitchen table and talked and sipped. I hadn’t had Bushmills in quite a while. It was good. If you read the label, you’ll see that it is a blend of a single malt and what appears to be the British Isles analogue of a small batch bourbon (a liquid Kentucky delicacy). It went quite well with the remaining Yuengling’s. Marty made some remark about offering peasant food. Fine with me, I said. Peasant food tastes good; it often comes out of tradition tempered by ingenuity and shrewdness. If you don’t have the most expensive ingredients available, you make the cheaper stuff taste good. I’m not just talking classic French country cuisine. I’m thinking more of things like fried chicken thighs and barbecue, or brisket and sauerkraut and chopped liver. Perhaps rice and kimchi. Hell; flank steak used to be cheap! As we drank and talked, cats–the four-legged furry kind–lurked about. It is no coincidence that Marty compared organizing a small group of fitness newbies to herding cats. He’s got to have gained experience with all the kitties, from shy to amiable, that inhabit the compound. Marty produced a little more Squash Your Bird. I was happy to make some of it disappear. In fact, I got too into making mine disappear to really notice who made the rest of it disappear. It isn’t just a heavy deadlift that can inspire me to concentrate.
The little group tired by 9:30. All present were accustomed to getting up anything from relatively early (Vondah and I) to Order of St. Benedict early (Marty). I got know a very friendly black cat with a loud purr before I retired, well fed and well exercised.
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