1. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. One of my favorite ensemble comedies, and while it’s a long film, it’s a ton of fun. If you like Cannonball Run, you really owe it to yourself to see this movie, which, to me, is far better. Note that it features some of the last on-screen appearances from Buster Keaton and Spencer Tracy, as well as the talents of Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Ethel Merman, Peter Falk, Phil Silvers, Jimmy Durante, and many more.
2. This is Spinal Tap. The rock-and-roll mockumentary to end all rock-and-roll mockumentaries. Runner-up for this, in my list, is The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.
3. Sleeper. This is the first Woody Allen movie I ever saw, and still my favorite. There are so many things that seem relevant today in this movie, which is as old as me: virtual sex, cloning from body parts, arguments over what is a healthy diet, and artificial intelligence.
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Probably the best of the Python films, even if the story isn’t quite as coherent as Life of Brian. The strung-together vignettes in this film have produced more quote-ready lines per minute than any film before or since.
5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb). A tour-de force from Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers. Yes, it’s very dark humor, but it has aged incredibly well.
6. Blazing Saddles. My favorite Mel Brooks film for multiple reasons. Some of the humor is childish and silly, other humor is very witty and makes you think. “Howard Johnson is right!”
7. Return of the Pink Panther. Really, all of the Sellers Pink Panther films going go in here (and I almost chose A Shot in the Dark), but this one is the most complete, to me.
8. The Blues Brothers. OK, so this is really a bunch of kick-ass musical performances glued together with a road-trip premise. Still, it’s hard to deny that Belushi and Ackroyd were at their most potent in this film. “Four fried chickens and a Coke…. and white toast, dry.”
9. Rubin and Ed. I don’t know many people who have seen this Trent Harris masterpiece, but it’s a ton of fun. Howard Hesseman and Crispin Glover as perfectly mis-matched in this film, which was shot in my home state and features a dead cat who “can eat a whole watermelon.”
10. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Great film, great cast, and a lot of English rain – what’s not to like?

Note that there isn’t a single cycling or skiing film in the mix, though any of Warren Miller’s chairlift unloading bits from his ski films would work, and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is funny and features a very bling red bicycle.
Any of your faves that I missed? Tell me in the comments!

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

ten on tuesday: laughter is the best medicine

Enjoy!

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

why yes – i speak sharrow

Four weeks ago, I was cleared to ride a bike indoors, and I’ve done a few indoor trainer sessions – not thrilling, but useful, as I’ve been able to work on weak points in my pedaling mechanics.

Three weeks ago, I was cleared to ride my bike outdoors for commuting, slow and steady, spinning the entire time. That was a very uplifting thing, and I’ve enjoyed every pedal stroke along the way.

Not long after, my doctor gave me the OK to ride longer distances outdoors, limited by time and intensity (i.e. no big “dancing on the pedals” climbs, no sprints, mostly a smooth spin).

And I hadn’t really put that last step to the test until last Wednesday, when the Potomac Pedalers’ “Downtown Breakaway” (DTB) ride embarked on its third installment for the season. I had my doctor’s marching orders:

- Nothing intense.
- Ride no more than 1:15.
- Spin a lot – a lot!

So I rode up to Mitchell Park, where the ride starts, for the first time this season, having walked up the first two times simply to sign people in. I said hello to all my friends, introduced myself to the new DTB riders, and shoved off with the group at 6:00pm.

And it was great!

Yes, I was slower than usual, and on the one major climb I did, I was dropped almost immediately by most of the riders. But I was all smiles.

I ended up riding “sweep,” which was good, as I was able to direct some riders who hadn’t grabbed a cue sheet with ride directions (the DTB route is, to say the least, chock full of twists and turns in its first half).

So I ended up covering 15.1 miles in 1:04, climbing a little under 1,000 feet along the way.

I followed up with some stretching, the new routine.

Since then, my doctor has approved longer rides, and I’ve been out with Chris and Ed on a loop out of Glen Echo (31.1 miles), and on this week’s DTB, where I went for 25 miles and wasn’t the last one up the Chain Bridge Road climb (though I was still far from the front).

So I’m back on the horse. By no measure am I ready to tackle big rides (especially ones with big, long climbs), but those will come around in due time. And physical therapy continues off the bike: deep tissue massage, a lot of stretching, resistance work, more stretching – this will remain the case for at least another 4 to 6 weeks.

For now, though, I’m happy to be riding again.

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

recovery update: day 74 (back on the horse)

But that doesn’t mean I have been ignoring the bikes.

OK, so my Pedal Force frame (i.e. “The Rudi Projekt”) is still in a box, awaiting a full rebuild. But the Jamis Eclipse (i.e. “Son of Rudi Projekt”) is still fully assembled and ride-ready.

That said, ever since I first bought it back in 2007, I’ve wanted to upgrade the components. And this past week, that’s just what I did.

Some background: I bought the Jamis as a frameset (frame, fork, headset, crankset and bottom bracket) back in September 2007, when my 2002 LeMond Tourmalet frame broke. The Jamis received its parts from the LeMond: a hodge-podge of Shimano 9-speed stuff from 105 and Tiagra lines (read: entry-level and sturdy, but not exactly light), Mavic Aksium wheels, Specialized saddle, THE handlebar and a few other bits and pieces. I had to buy a new front derailleur, which ended up being a Shimano Ultegra 10-speed unit.

And the whole thing worked rather well. The frame is lovely, and the hand-me-down drivetrain worked perfectly well.

But once I had the Pedal Force built up with a full Campagnolo drivetrain, I fell in love with the ergonomics and reliability of the offbeat (to the U.S., at least) component company. And I secretly harbored a desire to upgrade the Jamis to something similar.

One thing that stood in the way: after Thanksgiving of 2007, the Jamis resided full-time in Connecticut. And since it didn’t see a ton of riding time, there was no real drive to upgrade the drivetrain. Not that the Jamis didn’t get ridden: it was my steed on the Harpoon Brewery-to-Brewery Ride in 2009 (my longest single-day ride to date), as well as the 2007, 2008 and 2009 editions of the Great River Ride in Massachusetts (the picture above is from the 2009 GRR).

But this past summer, I crashed the Pedal Force and cracked the frame. So while I decided where to send it for repair (it eventually went to Broken Carbon, where Brady Kappius did a top-notch repair job), I brought the Jamis back to DC with me to use as my full-time road bike. Getting more time on the Jamis reminded me how much I love the feel of a steel-frame bike (or, in this case, a steel/carbon frame).

In the meantime, I had acquired a lot of spare Campagnolo parts, and realized that I was only a few pieces away from having a complete groupset to use on the Jamis. A week ago, I acquired the final bits needed to go forward with the upgrade.

And let me tell you: it has been great to do something with my bikes again, even if it doesn’t involve riding!

So, without any further ado, here’s the end result:

The new (to the Jamis, at least) groupset includes Campagnolo Chorus “brifters” (the combined shift & brake lever units) and brakes, combined with Campagnolo Centaur front and rear derailleurs. The brifters and rear mech used to ride on the Pedal Force – in fact, the handlebar, stem and brifters were transplanted as-is from the Pedal Force, and the setup is just right (note to folks who are new to road cycling: know your fit measurements, because it makes re-assembling your bike far, far simpler).

The wheels you see on the bike are the ones I also use with the Pedal Force, which are lighter than the Mavic units. That said, I plan on getting a Campagnolo freehub body for the Mavics so that I can continue to use them with my bikes (they are bulletproof wheels).

But you know what the best part is?

It’s that my doctor has given me the OK to start riding my bike on a stationary trainer – woo-hoo! It’s the first step back to riding on the road, and makes me happy.

(Thank you to my friend, Jeff, for loaning me his stationary trainer for my in situ training needs!)

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

upgrade time…

My mind wants to be outside, riding the bike, skiing, hiking or doing something very active. When the weather conspires to deliver unseasonably pleasant temperatures wit low humidity and plentiful sun, it simply rubs salt into the wound.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m enjoying spending my weekend time with sprite, going to the Dupont FreshFarm Market each weekend, and trying to make up for weekends that would normally have a lot of time committed to cycling. I’m becoming more involved with local politics, if only for an issue that has bothered me for some time. I’m going to homebrew some beer with a good friend. And I’m doing some much-needed inventory assessment of my media collections.

But this isn’t satisfying my busybody self, at least not enough to be a consistent substitute for my preferred weekend activity.

Recovery continues. I’ve gone a whole week without needing to use pain medication during my awake hours (I take ibuprofen before bed to allow for a more comfortable and restful sleep). I can walk more than 4 miles without difficulty or any lingering pain. And while there is general pain, it’s not as bad, nor is it as severe in the motions that are still guaranteed to make me wince a little. I’m going to add new exercises to my fitness regimen this week, too, which adds some much-needed variety.

I may even be able to ride my bike on a stationary trainer by the end of this week, so long as the pain continues to decrease.

And yes, anybody who knows me understands that I typically despise riding a stationary trainer. In many respects, I consider it somewhat fake cycling with minimal tangible benefit and a ton of boredom. I generally dislike working out indoors, even during the coldest of winter days, so I may get creative with this endeavor and set up a stationary trainer outside, on the sidewalk or at a local park, so long as it’s not raining. We’ll see….

But it still won’t be the full-on freedom package that I adore about cycling. It may be weeks before I’m commuting to work, and longer still before I’m going on club rides (a weekly ride I host starts up again in April, and I won’t be able to join the folks riding until sometime closer to May). And it will likely take most (if not all) of the summer for me to get back up to the speed and fitness of my usual riding buddies (I’m trying to steel my resolve about riding alone, which is the likely reality of a lot of my rides when I first start out again).

With my big summer goal ride now something for another year, I’m feeling the relief of removing the pressure that is involved with preparing for a big ride on a specific date, while feeling like I’m staring at a lot of unknown aspects of my summer. Will I get to do any big rides? If I can, will there be space available? Will my friends be able to ride with me, or will I have to go alone, knowing that I’m bound to meet lots of great people at the ride? It’s a lot of undefined time, which makes my mind race because it wants to fill up those days with activities on the bike – yet it can’t, at least not yet, and not with any certainty.

As you can likely suss out, I’m not all too happy about this. It makes me angry, sad, unhappy, you name it. As I tweeted last night, seeing folks riding their bikes makes me happy and sad: happy that they are out riding, sad that I can’t be among their ranks.

But I try to find the positive in all of this. I’m learning a lot more about the wonderful machine that is the human body. And I’m learning a lot about myself and certain aspects of my personality that I’ve not fully understood or appreciated until now. I will come back from this injury, stronger than before (if only because I’m a stubborn busybody), ready for any and all challenges. And before I know it, I’ll be back on the bike for the summer, and winter will return and I’ll ski once the snow flies again.

But right now, I’m impatient and frustrated. So if you encounter me and I’m a bit crabby, please realize that it’s very likely not your fault – it’s just an unfulfilled and fidgety busybody at an uneasy state of forced rest.

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

recovery update: day 26

Y’see, today I made the tough decision to withdraw from the Death Ride this coming July. Healing from my injury is taking longer than I hoped (and certainly longer than I like), and I had to make the choice: heal under the pressure of having a big event ride on the horizon, one that would test my physical and emotional mettle, without knowing whether I’d be physically healed enough for the challenge; or let it go and heal as my body tells me it should, however long that takes.

I chose the latter.

So some happy songs are on order – great timing, Carole! And, as Sarah did, I had problems limiting this list to just ten songs.

1. “Here Comes The Sun” – The Beatles. An optimistic song, with such lovely acoustic guitar from George Harrison, great drumming from Ringo, and lovely harmonies from John and Paul. Abbey Road is The Beatles’ true swan song, and this song, which opens side 2 of the LP, is so, so great.
2. “Good Vibrations” – The Beach Boys. A song that is summer to my ears: such masterful work from Brian Wilson, Mike Love and the other Boys.
3. “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” – Simon & Garfunkel. I can’t help but sing along and shuffle to this song. I’ve seen both Simon & Garfunkel and Artie, as a solo act, perform this. The latter was fun because he brought his then-four-year-old son on stage to sing it with him.
4. “Little Lies” – Fleetwood Mac. Weird choice? Well, this song reminds me of skiing in Summit County, Colorado, as it was a hit when I first went to a fall ski racing camp at Keystone, back in 1987. Good times, those.
5. “On The Road Again” – Willie Nelson. A song about hitting the road and traveling – love it.
6. “Moving” – Supergrass. Britpop, with killer beats and hooks galore, is always a fave.
7. “Linus and Lucy” – Vince Guaraldi Trio. No words, but how can you not dance to this song? Envision the Peanuts gang in A Charlie Brown Christmas as they “rehearsed” for the Christmas play: dance, dance, dance.
8. “Good Day Sunshine” – The Beatles. Another happy song from the Fab Four, this one from Paul. Sure, it’s a rather simple love song, but it’s so infectiously happy – what’s not to like?
9. “Love Shack” – B-52s. The Athens, Georgia, band’s consumate road song, and one that sticks in my craw from the old high school days. “Tin roof – rusted!”
10. “That’s The Way God Planned It” – Billy Preston. You can hear the joy in Billy Preston’s voice in this song, and when he performed it live, he would dance his way around the stage as he really got into the moment. Sure, I’m an atheist, but this is religion in song, without a doubt.

Got your own happy songs? Share ‘em in the comments.

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

ten on tuesday: sing a happy song

1. If I never have to see Billy Crystal host the show again, I’d die happy. Seriously, the man never really hit his stride. The “insert Billy in movies” bit is tired. The medley of Best Picture nominees morphed into showtunes was mostly flat. Most of his jokes were dated (as in “this is the early-90s calling – we’d like our material back.”). And when he started to pick up steam in the third hour of the show, he deflated all goodwill with a totally dated and off-color quip about the French. Perhaps we can get Chris Rock, Tina Fey, Neil Patrick Harris or Ricky Gervais to host next year.
2. I’m happy that The Artist won for Best Picture. Let’s face it: I loved the movie. Loved it. Was engrossed the entire time (unlike Sarah or sprite), and felt it to be a wonderfully-executed study of the transition from silent film to “the talkies.” Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo and Uggie were superb, as was the supporting cast of well-known Hollywood types. Châpeau!
3. That said, I was also rooting for Hugo to win for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hugo is a glorious film, a love letter to cinema, youth and embracing life, and had it won Best Picture, I would have cheered just as much as I applaud The Artist‘s victory. The cast is superb, the imagery vivid, and the use of 3-D is spot-on and essential to the total enjoyment of the film. It’s the first 3-D film I’ve seen where I can say, without reservation, that it is an essential element to the entire piece. This is a better film, by far, than The Departed, the film that won Scorsese’s only Best Picture statue. I’m happy that it won almost every technical Oscar for which it was up, but it deserved more.
4. AMPAS still has a bias against movies aimed at children. That is why, to my eye, Hugo didn’t get any hardware outside of technical categories. It’s a shame, really, but it reflects the voting membership of AMPAS: folks who don’t really care what the public thinks and, if anything, abhor the opinions of the “unwashed and uneducated.”
5. I would trade all of the “stars reflect on why they love the movies” bits for live performances of the two nominated Best Original Songs. I mean, it was two songs! Why were there so many pre-recorded bits doing the passive-aggressive “really y’all should go to the movies, chumps” bits, instead of performances of the pair of nominated songs. That would have been, what, 6 or 7 minutes of singing, with maybe a little dancing? That would have been far better than what we got.
6. However, the Christoper Guest & crew Wizard of Oz focus group bit was top-notch! Indeed, it was one of the funniest moments of the evening.
7. The acting winners were all class acts, and all were deserving. From Baron von Trapp finally winning, to Octavia Spencer’s shell shock, to Meryl Streep’s ease and honest surprise, to Jean Dujardin’s bilingual excitement (and short soft-shoe), all four winners were gracious in victory and deserving of their awards (and no, I haven’t seen The Help, Beginners or The Iron Lady… yet).
8. The sound mixer for the microphones should be taken out back and subjected to a sonic bombardment of songs delivered by an over-amped Speak & Spell. Honestly, the digital compression artifacts were bloody awful. Some in the Twitterverse compared it to having a modem connecting constantly in the background, and that wasn’t far off the mark. The initial, official excuse was “well, the satellite is doing that,” but that’s bunk, as the pre-recorded bits were crystal clear and quiet. If the Oscars telecast gets nominated for an Emmy, then I’ll truly know that talent is no longer a requirement for reward – a sad, sad state of affairs.
9. I love that the robot known as R.Y.A.N. C-Crest was completely unnerved and unhinged by Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Dictator.” Yes, it was a cheesy PR stunt, but as usual, Cohen’s delivery was deadpan and fantastic. That he spilled the “ashes” of Kim Jong Il all over Seacrest was a bit of brilliant absurdist art, and totally ruffled the feathers of a person who is very cautious to always appear uniformly “together,” with whitened-and-capped teeth gleaming, suit pressed to perfection, and not a hair out of place. It certainly made me giggle, and if that’s wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
10. Some little details made me very happy. I loved seeing Sheila E. in the house band. Chris Rock as a presenter was brilliant. Same goes for Melissa McCarthy and Rose Byrne breaking out the mini-bottles of vokda to play “The Scorsese Drinking Game.” The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a worthy winner of Best Animated Short. Penelope Cruz’s lavender gown and 1930s ‘do were elegant and, it seems, misunderstood. Cirque do Soleil was impressive, but didn’t really have any relevance at an award show for film (again, they could have performed one of the nominated songs here). Emma Stone’s comic turn as a presenter was witty, and she towered over the tan-from-a-bottle head of Ben Stiller (he was giving John Boehner a run for winner of “Best Orange Complexion”). Esperanza Spaulding’s performance of “What A Wonderful World” was brilliant (even if, as somebody pointed out, the sentiment of the song doesn’t apply to the deceased, does it?). And who knew that, for Hollywood types, 64 degrees Fahrenheit is “freezing?” I sure didn’t.

So: are there any things you found great – or lacking – at the 2012 Academy Awards? Let me know in the comments!

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

ten on tuesday: oscar isn’t a grouch (except when he is)

The morning leading up to the injury was lovely: skiing with friends at Berkshire East ski area, on a bluebird day where the snow was nice and firm at first, and had just hit a bit of a “spring corn” consistency by 11:15am.

And that’s when I went down. I was on a flat traverse back to the base lodge, skiing with my pal, Liam. I turned a bit to the left to see where he was, and my right ski turned sharply and caught the outside edge. It acted like the fulcrum of a lever, and when the edge caught in the softening snow, I went down quickly and hard.

THUD!

I kept twisting through the fall, rolling out the landing on my butt, back and head (thank goodness I wear a helmet every time I ski). My right leg released from the ski binding, but my left leg went up with my momentum in a bit of a cartwheel motion, ski still firmly attached. That momentum was enough to damage the adductor muscles and tendons in my right leg (yup – it’s a groin injury, like you read about with basketball and hockey players).

It didn’t feel like much at first, so I went up for another run. But partway down that run, pain set in, and I couldn’t bear substantial weight on my right leg. It hurt “like a sumbitch,” as they say out west. So I called it a day. Steve, my friend who instructs at Berkshire East, had lunch with me, then helped me get my gear into the car.

The drive back to sprite’s folks’ place in Connecticut wasn’t bad – linear motions of the leg didn’t hurt at all – but the next few days were spent with a lot of ice, handfuls of ibuprofen, and a lot of rest. The drive back to DC was OK, even if getting into and out of the car was tough.

Now it’s been a little over a week, and I’m stir crazy. You see, the healing process for an adductor injury is slow. Rushing back into action often makes the injury chronic, so it’s best to wait out the pain and gradually get back up to speed.

And as much as I try to be patient with these things, I’m really not that kind of guy. It’s very tough. It makes me bitter, restless, and a bit of a grump. Sure, I can channel my anger into rebuilding my one bike, upgrading the other, or doing other things that need to be done.

But I really want to ride my bikes – after all, I have a big ride that requires training. I would love to ski, even if all the good powder is falling hundreds of miles from DC. I’d like to be able to walk more than a mile without having to ice my adductors afterward.

So bear with me while I vent. This, too, shall pass.

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

feeling deflated

Yup: I volunteered at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Utah.

My official position there was FIELD-OF-PLAY | SPORT | ALPINE SKIING | SNOWBASIN – quite a mouthful. What it meant is that I was part of the course crew at the Alpine Skiing speed venue at Snowbasin, Utah, about an hour north-northeast of Salt Lake City (my hometown). My job was to help keep a section of the women’s downhill, super-G and combined slalom course as fair as can be from racer to racer. It involved buffing snow, setting up and maintaining safety fencing, and making sure that my colleagues were all on the same page, and that we, in turn, were on the same page as the chief-of-race.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? And there were hundreds of us on the mountain for these events.

It meant getting up at 2:30 in the morning on event days (3:30 on training days), meeting my carpool to drive up to a remote parking lot around 10 miles from Snowbasin, hopping on a bus (often a loaner WMATA MetroBus) still bleary eyed, getting off at the resort, going through “mag-and-bag” supervised by the National Guard, meeting my crew chief and fellow crew members in the base lodge, putting on my ski boots, grabbing my skis from overnight storage, hopping on the lift at 4:20am (5:20 on training days), getting to the summit, grabbing a shovel or rake (or sometimes 2 or 3), and skiing in the dark to my section of course.

As my course section was smack dab in the middle of the mountain, my crew didn’t have the luxury of skiing under the floodlights that covered the venue. We skied “by feel” down to our section and immediately got to work on the day’s task. We moved fences. We shoveled snow. We boot-packed loose snow, then raked and shoveled it into a smooth consistency. We talked with coaches and officials from all over the world (I had a “side business” of trading official start lists with coaches, in exchange for unique and rare pins). We would occasionally get to talk with athletes (including Picabo Street, an old mate from junior racing days).

And we had a TON of fun.

We did this for two weeks straight, as our events vied for time with the figure skating, hockey, bobsled, luge, curling, nordic skiing, jumping, biathlon and other events. Our work day was usually wrapped up by 3pm, so the volunteers could take advantage of what the Olympics had to offer from an entertainment standpoint.

And there was a lot to do during this “downtime!”

Downtown Salt Lake City was transformed into a 24-7 party. Concerts were held in conjunction with the medal ceremonies. Each Olympic committee from each participating nation had its own “house” with food, drink and festivities. The locals were almost all in good spirits (even those who fought, tooth and nail, to prevent the Games from coming to SLC), and the out-of-towners each brought their own enthusiasm to the mix.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking at my box of memorabilia from the Games. I still have the uniform, even if it’s a bit too big these days (I discovered long-distance road cycling in the intervening years). I have a large pin collection, populated not only with team pins but also pins that refer to Utah’s quirks, as well as ones that were only issued to the volunteers. I still have the commemorative watch, though I need to get its band repaired. I have a stack of newspapers from the Games and the previous year’s World Cup, where I also volunteered. I have a couple of “spectator kits” from the opening and closing ceremonies (neither of which I attended, though I was at the dress rehearsal for the opening ceremony). There’s a pile of ticket stubs from various events and concerts I attended. And I have a lovely bronze medallion, minted by the same jeweler who made the athletes’ medals – it’s lovely.

You can see pictures snapped by my fellow volunteer, John Risley, here (I’ll also be posting pictures of other memorabilia in this set – keep checking for that). And just to show that I still have (and occasionally wear) the uniform, click here.

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

citius, altius, fortius (10 years ago)

1. New England clam chowder. And not just any recipe for this dish, but the version served at Market Street Grill and Market Street Broiler in Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s the best chowder I’ve ever had, and they have been generous enough, over the years, to let the recipe into the wild. Here it is, from the source.

2. Chili. I’ll argue the chili is a form of soup or stew, so it fits in here. Chili is a year-round staple at The Burrow, and the recipe is almost always improvised: sometimes with beans, sometimes vegetarian, sometimes with corn, etc. The inspiration for my recipe is the 1977 Texas Chili Cookoff Champion, “Buzzard’s Breath” (as found in the Chili Madness cookbook).

3. Borscht. And I’m not talking about the sweet, chilled beet-and-cabbage soup you find in a New York City deli. I’m talking about Russian peasant food: beet based, with either a beef, oxtail or mushroom stock, with onion, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms and cabbage, slow cooked to a lovely perfection. It’s simple peasant food, and topped with a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream, it’s perfect winter soul food for me.

4. Chicken and dumplings. Simplicity again: basic chicken soup with egg-and-flour dumplings added shortly before plating.

5. Cream of broccoli. Reminds me of ski season, as it was the most reliable soup at the old Inspiration Station at Solitude Ski Area. In a bread bowl, it was perfect lunch fare.

6. Tom kha gai. This Thai soup is a marriage of chicken, coconut, lemongrass, scallions, hot peppers and oyster mushrooms. I dig it.

7. Icelandic lobster soup. I recently discovered this, and it’s awesome: basically a tomato chowder with chunks of lobster in it- yum!

8. Kjotsuppe. This is a basic lamb and vegetable stew, standard European fare. It’s filling and very tasty, and my mom used to make it often.

9. Gazpacho. Cold tomato soup? Bring it on – especially if it’s spicy!

10. Lentil stew. I’m partial to the Moroccan recipes and their spices.

(Honorable mentions: Campbells Bean & Bacon; tomato bisque; beef pho; miso with dried tofu and shredded nori.)

How about you: any soups you must have that I must try?

This is a post from randomduck.com. Copyright © 2012 R.D. Riet. Covered under Creative Commons.

ten on tuesday: soup-tastic!