Farmers Market Month, Day 12-13: Cornmeal bread, passion fruit, macadamia nuts

I had a lot of stuff going on the last couple days, so no photos.

I squeezed passion fruit juice/pulp through a colander on to my apricot kefir. It was divine, but the kefir is also divine all by itself. Will not buy passion fruit again unless I have a specific plan for them.

I baked the wonderful bread again, this time with 3/4 flour, 1/4 cornmeal. It is delicious but less versatile; not a good pairing with black sesame, for instance, which is obviously a problem. It goes well with honey, brown sugar, and apricot preserves. I gave some away to neighbors (not because I disliked it, but because people are so thrilled to receive homebred bread) and will go back to all flour for my next try. I will also invest in two one-quart oven-safe bowls so I can do one loaf plain and one flavored, perhaps with the Kalamata olives I have on hand.

The California macadamia nuts are absolutely fantastic: sweet, nutty, slightly chewy, less rich than the ones I've had before, and perfect without roasting or added salt. I love them so much that I am going to either make special trips to that market just for them or, if possible, order them by mail.

My First Bouldering Class

I used to rock climb a bit. I enjoyed it but did not care for messing around with ropes, and also tend to stick better to activities I can do solo.

Yesterday I took a bouldering class at a local climbing gym that rejoices in the name of The Cliffs of Id.

Speaking of excellent names, not to mention a canny sense of their clientele, it had the Huitlacoche Taco Truck parked in the parking lot.

I was in a class with two girls of about 10-12 who just flew up the routes, plus the mom of one of them who had an easier time than me as she had a longer reach. For a while I thought the other girl was also her daughter, while the mom thought she was mine; we eventually discovered that she was a very self-possessed person who had come on her own. I used to climb and scramble a lot at that age, alone and on local easy low cliffs and crags. I could really see the advantage of being extremely flexible, extremely light, and apparently composed almost entirely of muscle.

I made it up one V0 and fell off the next two tries, the second time because it was a different route that I struggled with and the third time on the same route as the first and because my muscles completely gave out halfway up. So this is exactly what I was looking for: something extremely strenuous that I can actually max out my strength on without (too much, hopefully) risk of back injury or repetitive strain, self-directed, something I can do by myself, engrossing, absorbing, and not prohibitively expensive or prohibitively far away.

Also hopefully I will get better at it with practice. I had thought I was pretty physically fit in the sense of "can lift a fair amount of weight, can do very strenuous hikes, etc" but I nearly fell over after completing that one climb. (And today I feel like I got hit by a truck.)

I invite anyone who'd like to geek out in comments with any advice, helpful links, personal experiences, etc. I'd be particularly interested in tips on avoiding joint injuries, which I am extremely prone to no matter how careful I am with form. At the moment my knees, ankles, wrists, and elbows are the problem areas but I have had past trouble with pretty much every joint in my body.