Week of Fail: Mango Flop-sicle and Fitness Debacle

MANGO FLOPS:

Well, fail happens.  A double-helping this week at GHT.  Let’s start with the food, then move to the fitness.  A well-intentioned effort at mango popsicles.   Gone wrong.  Nice pic, eh? Well, they didn’t taste good.  

Thanks to the kind folks at the National Mango Board I had a shipment of mangos after Camp Blogaway.  (I’d hot-link to the Mango Board too, but I think they usually prefer shout-outs for things that actually worked.)  So I’ve been playing around with the bounty of mango goodness and thought a nice popsicle would go over well with the family.  

I surfed around for a few recipes — all very simple, and as we discussed last week simple with fruit is usually good.  So just three ingredients – ripe mango flesh, vanilla yogurt and a little squeeze of agave nectar.  Into the Vitamix, into the pop molds, into the freezer.

A few hours later, ready to roll.  And then the big moment – slipped out of the molds, a quick pic for the blog, and rock-and-roll.  And it went great, until that last part.  The big lead-up!!! And then!!!  The sad trombones….

Fail.  The little one nailed this one on the head:  “Daddy, it’s too much of one thing.  It needs something sour.”  Right on, tot.  Right on.  Daddy’s proud.  Lime juice is the answer, my little friend.  Lime juice.  We squirted a cut lime over the pop to see what happened, and it worked.  So next time — citrus to the mix.  

Also — texture.  I obliterated that thing in the Vitamix, and the result was boring in its smoothness.  Next time I’ll reserve some small diced chunks to fold into the puree before freezing.  That would add a little bite.  And for Daddy’s pop?  Maybe a shot of Patron too ….  Now we are talking.  

The Mango Flop Takeaway:  Yes, I really got these pop molds to do boozy ones like bloody mary pops that you’d invert into a good bloody in place of ice.  This is what happens when your parents don’t let you get the ice cream man when you’re little. Deviant frozen treats.  

FITNESS DEBACLE:

Trying to mix up the workout routine, and on the advice of another attorney (can you tell this is not going well already?) I decided to try out a jump rope class with Michael Olajide, Jr. at Aerospace – a boxing gym on West 13th in the MePa.  I’ve been known to skip a rope, and was looking forward to the class.  Here’s Michael – he was very pleasant and welcoming when I got there: 

But then he tried to kill me.  Or rather tried to make me kill myself.  I knew I was in trouble about a minute into the half-hour AeroJump class.  (Internal dialogue: “Hmm – this is odd.  Why am I out of breath already? Why do my calves hurt already? Oh no – I have 29 minutes to go?!?!?”)  

As in SoulCycle, the front row was killing it.  Fortunately I was smart enough to park myself in the back row.  But there was no low lighting, really nowhere to hide.  I hit some of the doubles and the crosses, but the combos put me in a world of hurt.   The woman beside me full on stopped for a good five minutes.   Her rope at her feet, staring vacantly.  Gasping.  Oddly, even the slow jumps were as difficult (or more) than the fast ones.  Skipping rope, people, is a skill.   And as it turns out, it’s also one of the top calorie-burning exercises.  And man, did I burn a few calories.  Well, awkwardly. With a significant amount of sweat.  It was a pretty shameful spectacle I put on back there.  

The class was sustained – song to song, no break.  At one point, everyone put down their ropes and picked up mats – I followed.  We got on the mats — and the leg lifts started.  It was about then, in my disoriented fatigue, I realized the jump rope class was actually over and I had inadvertently stayed for the next class.  Oh no.  AeroSculpt. Too late to leave now — the punishment would continue.  Lots of core work – with some positions I couldn’t even obtain, much less hold.  Wow.  Nuts. 

The Fitness Takeaway:  This was 60 minutes of ridiculously punishing bad-assitude.  I shall return.  Next week I’m bringing my game — I plan on mostly sucking instead of totally failing.

• Aerospace NYC
• bloody mary popsicle
• deviant frozen treats
• Fail
• i think a margarita pop with japepeno would kill it
• jump rope
• mango posicles
• MePa
• Michael Olajide
• Patron
• Shaming yourself at jump roping is the NKI