The first is my go to breakfast, and has been on the menu since I was a kid.  Back then it was prepackaged, Maple and Brown sugar variety of Quaker Oatmeal.    I tried all of the flavors back then, but would always come back to the Maple and Brown Sugar.  And over the years oatmeal has always shown up on my breakfast menu, both for the taste, and as a quick, easy and nutritional breakfast.  It wasn’t until later in life that I started working with plain oatmeal and adding my own ingredients, with the goal of adding flavor, but hopefully improving the nutritional value.  After much testing, this is what my recipe consist of.  Start with plain oatmeal, and add: peanut butter, walnut pieces, raisins and brown sugar.

Add some boiling water, and after everything is mixed, top it with some 1% milk.  The mix has sweetness from the raisins and brown sugar, and richness from the peanut butter and walnuts.

The addition of the peanut butter and walnuts hopefully adds some protein to the carb rich recipe.  When I was first experimenting with the recipe I tried to make oatmeal healthier by going with honey, but kept me coming back to brown sugar.  Probably not the healthiest option, but my sweet tooth won out in that battle.    I have found that oatmeal will keep you going for many hours on the bike, and is my go to breakfast on race days.

The next dish is the simple chicken wing.  Probably not the most healthy snack, but when done right can provide amazing flavors, but is unfortunately easily ruined by many a restaurant.    My favorite wings in Chicago can be found at my favorite Chicago Brew Pub, Revolution Brewing.  Revolution Brewing has an amazing beer menu, and a really solid food menu, that is essentially pub grub, well executed and done with fresh, quality ingredients.   Every time I visit Revolution it can be a tough decision on whether or not to get the wings, as the rest of the food is great, especially the wood fired pizzas.  We don’t always go with the wings, but they do show up on our table on a regular basis, and is easier to  justify after a long bike ride or race.  These wings have pretty much everything I love in life; spice, smoked meat, potatoes and most importantly blue cheese.  The wings are applewood smoked, and then covered with a fairly spicy buffalo wing sauce that definitely has more layers of flavor than your average run of the mill buffalo wing sauce.

The wings are then served with a side of blue cheese potato salad and some thinly sliced celery.  I normally skip the celery with wings, but the thinness of these make for a great little snack.  The blue cheese potato salad is really amazing, and the richness and creaminess goes really well with the spicy wings.  Pair these wings with an Anti-hero IPA, which is easily my favorite Chicago brewed IPA, and you have a nice little meal on their own.  As I mentioned above the rest of the food is really great, with some highlights being the Flemish Stew, and all of the pizzas.  My favorite pizza is the Smokehouse, which is covered in pulled pork, bacon and  smoked tomato sauce.  They even have a vegetarian pizza made with seitan that isn’t half bad.   So for your next race day, start off with some homemade oatmeal and finish it up with a stop at Revolution for some brew and food, to balance out your yin and yang.

To start off the new column, I thought I would start off with a new kid on the block, Haymarket Brewery. Haymarket Brewery opened the end of December, and is located at the corner of Randolph and Halsted in the West Loop, just across from Mox Multisport. The Brewmaster is Pete Crowley who has worked at Rock Bottom for over 14 years. After a few weeks getting their production going, they now have their own brews flowing. They plan to specialize in Belgian and American styles of beer, i.e lots of hops, and in the near future will have several barrel aged beers, with the brew spending time in Woodford Reserve barrels.
While watching the Bears demise at the hands of the Packers, I passed the time sampling their beers. With 4 oz samples at $1.50 to $2.50 it was easy to try them all. As of now they have 6 or 7 of their own available (plan to have 12+), not including the 20+ beer from other breweries they have on tap. Their beers included a Belgian IPA, Belgian Dubbel, American Pale Ale, American IPA, Belgian IPA, Pilsner and an Imperial IPA. There was not a bad one in the bunch with my favorite being the Imperial IPA. The Imperial IPA is definitely a silent assassin that could easily put a flyweight climber down in a hurry. At 10% abv it is their strongest beer, but somehow they were able to make this beer without the normal strong alcohol taste you sometimes get from high abv beers. While we watched the game we had a lady come up to the bar and ask for a Sam Adams. The bartender politely let her know that they didn’t serve Sam Adams, and gave her several beers to try. She ended up settling on the Imperial IPA. The bartender was also nice enough to let her know that this beer could sneak up on her quickly and to take at easy with this one. These are definitely good words to heed.

Haymarket also have a pretty decent bar food menu, and plenty of TV’s for watching games. Definitely worth checking out and the type of place that the West Loop was missing.

With the big events getting registered early is crucial.  Starting position for most categories is based on order of registration, and having been late to the registration line in the past I can tell you that it can be really frustrating to be 50 yards behind the leader before the race is even ten seconds old.  Registrations has already opened for all of these events, but it is still possible to get a descent position on the starting grid.  If you have any thoughts of attending these races, don’t hesitate and get registered now!!!

USGP Cyclocross http://www.usgpcyclocross.com/

UCI Cincinnati Cyclocross Festival  http://uci3.bikeclicks.com/Home.aspx

http://gregorymkeller.posterous.com/universal-sports-covering-cyclocross-worlds