One of the reasons I really enjoy the ferry commute.

You may have heard of Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ famous book, Women who Run With the Wolves? Well, I have photographic evidence that I am, instead, a woman who swims with the ducks.

Back in April, inspired by my son’s slightly insane bike ride, I set a goal – to swim an open water distance swim. The swim I had in mind, the punishing 3.5 mi Puget Sound crossing, is not being held this year, but there are several lake swims scattered around the Puget Sound this summer.

I set my sights on the first one scheduled as a ‘maybe’. I completed it today – the Green Lake open water swim, a mile across the lake and back. My goals for the event were simple – to finish the race, and to not be last. I accomplished both, plus, I was very pleasantly surprised by my time. (Until, of course, I compared it with my 15-minutes faster high school mile time… LOL)

My wonderful mother was my companion, supporter and towel holder for the event – thank you, mom! While mom is not a distance swimmer, she is swimming a few events in August in the Senior Olympic Nationals, held at Stanford, so it was great having another swimmer cheer for me.

One woman she was chatting with while I swam asked, “If this is your daughter’s first open water event, why did she choose the mile instead of the easier half-mile?”

Sheesh. Some people. Why do people climb the TALLEST mountain in north America, or in the world, rather than one that’s half that high? If I could accomplish it – and I routinely swim more than that in training – of course I wanted to swim the longer event.

Shoot, I’d like to try the Puget Sound crossing. Catalina Island. Long Island. Maybe someday the English Channel! (although probably not) These aren’t because I love the activity so much – it’s because they’re the big mountains on the horizon worth climbing.

So, back to today’s swim. In some ways it was harder than I anticipated, and in some ways easier.

Please note that I am not in this picture, but just to the right, out of frame. This is on purpose.

The cold water, at about 68° was more of an impact than I expected. I chose not to get in and warm up, ‘warm’ being a bit of a misnomer. My initial plunge started me hyperventilating a bit and I had a hard time evening my breathing out and establishing a rhythm for about the first 200 yards.

Then I had a tough time staying on track. I know the drill, swim X strokes head down then 1 stroke head up to sight on a point across the lake, and I did 5:1, but I still tended to wander a bit, worse toward the end when I was more tired. The general lack of visibility in the murky water was a bit distracting, I couldn’t see other swimmers until I was nearly on top of them.

I got foot cramps a couple of time, which I never do in pool swimming, bit swam through those easily by just not kicking for a couple of minutes.

The distance itself was only a little tiring – and my shoulders are a bit achey tonight – but I expected that because this distance was unhelped by turns & pushing off the wall every 25 yards, like I do in the pool.

This is our finishing group. The swim went all the way across to the building at the other end, around a buoy, and back.

All in all, I’m very glad I did it. It was a low key event, 120 swimmers in the mile event, and folks were positive and supportive. I’ll do it again – maybe Lake Washington later this summer and perhaps the swim portion of a team triathlon in Olympia in September – both depending how my travel schedule works out this fall.

Zach took this Friday morning from the Bainbridge ferry as it exited Eagle Harbor – all photos and panorama stitching work are his. As always, click for larger versions.

We had this savory side dish at a Tom Douglas restaurant, Etta’s Seafood, and it was excellent – if not for New Year’s dieters. We tried the recipe this weekend and it turned out really well, a nice, dressy side dish alternative to stuffing or potatoes.

Tom publishes the recipe in his Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen cookbook, and it’s been reprinted several places on the web, so I’m sharing it here as well.

Etta’s Cornbread Pudding

Cornbread:

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus a little extra for buttering pan
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup medium-ground yellow cornmeal
½ cup grated pepper jack cheese
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons honey

Pudding:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter plus a little more for buttering pan
1 cup thinly sliced onions
¾ cup grated dry jack cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
2 ¼ cups whipping cream or half-and-half
4 large eggs
¾ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. To prepare the cornbread: Heat oven to 425 degrees. Melt ¼ cup butter and set aside to cool slightly. Butter an 8-inch square pan with a little softened butter and set aside.
 
2. Combine the flour, cornmeal, pepper jack cheese, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a second bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and honey. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. Add the melted butter and stir into the mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch cubes.
 
3. To prepare the pudding: Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Put the cornbread cubes in a buttered 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
 
4. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a sauté pan over low heat and cook the onions very slowly until soft and golden brown, at least 20 minutes; stir occasionally. Remove from the heat. Scatter the onions, cheese and herbs over the cornbread. Whisk together the cream, eggs, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl and pour over the cornbread cubes. Let sit for 10 minutes so the cornbread absorbs some of the custard.

Notes: Dry jack cheese resembles parmesan and is nuttier than regular jack; you could also use parmesan or sharp cheddar but the flavor would change. You can make the cornbread and store it in the freezer, covered tightly in plastic wrap, for a few weeks until you are ready to make the pudding. The onions can be caramelized a day ahead and stored, covered, in the refrigerator. The pudding can be baked a day in advance and stored in the refrigerator, covered – we actually liked it better the second day. Before serving, reheat the pudding, covered with aluminum foil, in a preheated 375-degree oven until warmed through.

My first Seahawks report of the year is not a happy one. The Blue Men lost to the Buffalo Bills 34-10, and it wasn’t that close.

The story of the off season for Seattle has been injuries. Oh, and the utter collapse of Shaun Alexander’s career, but that one I sort of saw coming (more on that some other time).

Over the pre-season, guys seemed to be going down regularly. No where is this more apparent than with receivers. Not two years ago Seattle had too many receivers to throw the ball to. At the end of last season, Deion Branch went down; he’s still not back. After a long holdout seeking a contract extension, Bobby Engram came back, and went down. D. J. Hackett went to Carolina. This left Ben Obamanu and Nate Burleson as the only receivers with much experience. Obamanu went down in the preseason and is done for the year. Branch is week-to-week on when he’ll be back. This weekend, Burleson went down for the year. Yikes!

So, on to the game. Matt Hasselbeck, our plucky bald QB of Chunky Soup fame, has apparently developed a bad back, and didn’t play much in the preseason. It showed. The offensive line struggled with multiple guys out during the preseason. Coupled with a new running game (Alexander being gone, Julian Jones having been picked up from the Cowboys as a free agent) and well, the offense partly to mostly sucked.

The defense played ok; two of the touchdowns scored against the Hawks came on special teams. One was an sucker punch of a fake field goal pass to a defensive end who was so wide open even I could have caught the ball. The other was on a punt return on which I swear the Seattle coverage team looked like they were hoping the guy would just trip.

So as often the case when they go back east to play, the Hawks take the loss. I am slightly contented to remember that the Super Bowl season of ‘05 they started the same way with a crappy loss in Jacksonville. We’ll see.

The next two games are at home against two of the poorer teams in the NFC, San Francisco and St. Louis. My prediction? If Seattle doesn’t beat both teams, and soundly, it is going to be a long year.

Coupled with the Washington State Cougs only taking the WORST loss in Pac-10 history, it was a pretty dismal football weekend. I think it can only get better. It better…