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Recipe for Taralli di LaMuraglia

Every year I make my grandmother’s Taralli – a cookie from southern Italy – for my family.  My father and I used to do it and since he passed, I have carried on the tradition.  I send them to my siblings and share them with my work colleagues. I’ve been asked for the recipe many times and decided to share it here.

There are many variations of taralli; some being savory and others sweet.  Taralli di LaMuraglia are sweet and best served with coffee or wine.

Tarralli di LaMuraglia

  • 5 lbs of All-Purpose Flour (unbleached)
  • 2 Teaspoons of Baking powder
  • 16 Large Eggs
  • 1 lb. of Butter
  • 2 lbs. of Sugar
  • 1 oz Anise oil (if you can’t find Anise Oil, use Anise Extract. One bottle)
  • 1-2 Teaspoons of Salt depending on taste

Instructions

  • Soften butter and mix in sugar in a large mixing bowl or mixer
  • Then add 2 eggs at a time until mixed thoroughly
  • Add anise oil to egg/sugar mixture

  • Add the baking powder  and salt to the flour and sift into a “volcano” onto a large board or counter top.

  • Slowly pour egg mixture into the volcano and mix in using the flour from the edges of the volcano

  • Fold together using all the flour on the board
Do not forget to bless the dough! Seriously, it makes it taste better.
  • Once dough is ready, mold into a large ball and bless it. Dad used to do this by making an indentation of a cross with his hand and then saying a small prayer to Nanni. I make the cross and ask Nanni and Dad to bless the dough and make the Taralli a success.

  • Roll into 6 inch lengths approximately 1/2 inch in diameter. Taper ends and form doughnut shapes.

Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees or until golden.

Mangia!

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It has been a minute…

It is October 17th and it has been five months since my last confession…I mean blog post.   It has been on my to-do list since May and I’m shocked how quickly the time has flown.  It took a reminder from my sister-in-law this past Sunday to guilt me to find time to do this.

Part of the reason for the delay is that I don’t have great news to share.  I haven’t been on the scale since May but I am pretty sure I weigh MORE now than I did then.   I have been hitting the gym, spent months in physical therapy for my shoulder and the results are I FEEL better and I look bigger (in a good way) but I am nowhere near my goal of losing 40 lbs and I have exactly two months until my 50th.

I’m not going to offer excuses but rather own the fact that I haven’t made enough time for cardio and my diet has been mediocre.  I will hint at the longer-than-expected recovery from my shoulder surgery for not making muscle gains in the gym but at the end of the day, it is all on me.  I WILL celebrate that I can do 20 pushups without pain,  bench press 50 lb dumbells without pain and execute all sorts of weird core exercises that my trainer comes up with (ex: deadbugs,  planks, body saws)

So, for the next two months, I’m going to focus on getting stronger, watch my diet without killing myself and get as much cardio in as possible.  I seriously doubt I’ll make my goal of 200 lbs but hey, I’ll be further along than I was a year ago.

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The More Things Change….

…the more they stay the same.  I guess Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr and Bon Jovi were both right.  With each new sunrise we think we are moving forward and making changes, but at the end of the day we end up back where we started….at least that’s how I am feeling these days.

I just passed the 4-month mark of my “Fit at 50” challenge and the scale says I have not lost a damn thing since month #2.  Stuck at 232 lbs.  My body fat hasn’t even nudged.  And this after spending hours on cardio at the gym, twice-a-week training sessions and eating cleaner than I have in years!   WTH?

Ok, so I had a minor detour with shoulder surgery and the subsequent week away from any exercise.  But that was five weeks ago! Granted, I can do very little upper body work but I’ve been hitting my lower body hard and sweating to the oldies as much as I can.  I FEEL better and people are telling me I LOOK lean but those damn numbers won’t budge.

The only thing that might explain what the scale says is that I am putting on muscle, which I am, but my body fat hasn’t changed.  #frustrated #itdoesntcompute 

I’m not giving up and I refuse to let a stupid scale ruin my mood.  Just time to get more focused, stop making excuses when I travel (and I travel a LOT) and keep eating as clean as possible.

Any suggestions are welcomed except telling me to go vegan or vegetarian…that simply will not happen.

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Numbers Don’t Lie But They Don’t Always Tell the Truth

The first of each month brings a bit of angst as it is the day that I weigh myself.  The morning of, I get up, drink nothing, use the restroom and then step on my digital scale.  Its display celebrates waking up – pixels dancing and blinking as it reads my mass and body fat before it delivers the news.   It then instructs me to “step off” as if it can’t bear the weight of the beast that prods it out of its slumber.  Once relieved of its burden, the numbers flash and deliver what I hope to be a reward for all the hard work that I’ve put in at the gym.   On March 1, the news was….wait, let me explain.

Before I share the results, and you have probably deduced that I am not blown away by them, let me share how much work I am putting in.  I have a personal trainer twice a week, I hit the gym for cardio at least three more times a week and have largely cut all sugar and carbs out of my diet.  I have practically become a teetotaler and only have a few glasses of wine once a week, at best.  But those damn numbers barely freaking moved.

ONE.  Uno. Eins. Ichi.   I lost one additional pound and one percentage of body fat in the month of February.  That’s it.  As of March 1, 2017 I clocked in at 232 and 29%.

This is where everyone tells me that muscle weighs more than fat and I shouldn’t be focused on the numbers.  As my British friends say, BOLLOCKS.  I have 10 months to get rid of 32 more.  Numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the entire truth.

Despite the minimal weight loss,  I CAN see changes in my body, my new jeans are already loose and people that haven’t seen me often have mentioned that I look thinner.  I also FEEL better and I actually enjoy the gym.

But I really, really, really want my digital scorekeeper to deliver better news on April 1 so I have upped my cardio to an hour each time and this past week, I took part in an obsessive FitBit-driven “Workweek Challenge” with my colleagues.  I didn’t win but I’ll be damned if it didn’t push me to move a LOT more.

Next week is vacation.  The goal is to maintain the pace and keep moving towards being #Fitat50.

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Getting Ready to Surf – But First a Little Clean Up

Kalonsurf.com

See that person carving up a wave in the photo above? That MIGHT be me one day if all goes as planned.  I just reserved a week at the Kalon Surf School in Costa Rica.  I will turn the big 50 my second day there and my goal is to learn to surf during the week.  Yet ANOTHER reason to get my butt in shape.  I need the strength and stamina to spend 4 – 5 hours a day in the water and let’s be honest, I want to look good doing it.

One minor thing has been holding me back.  My shoulder has been killing me for a while…..actually for years.  I learned to live with the pain,  I gave up swimming and like an absolute idiot, I would “work through the pain” at the gym.  In fact, I am working with my current trainer because he approached me after I winced in pain during an overhead press exercise.  He convinced me that it really shouldn’t hurt like that and I should likely go to a doctor.   Did I mention that getting old sucks?

Actually, I had been to a doctor and he prescribed an MRI.  After one failed attempt that involved a broken panic button and an unresponsive technician, I did what any intelligent person would do: I waited 2.5 years to see if the aforementioned plan of “no pain, no gain” would help.  Fast forward to January of this year and we are back to the new gym, the new trainer and a new prescription for that damn MRI.

My shoulder….and a puppy?

I may do a separate post, or even blog, on claustrophobia.  I have it, as the orange one says, “BIGLY”.  I can’t get into the third row of an SUV or the back seat of a coupe and crowded subway cars are the fodder of my worst nightmares.   So the idea of an MRI freaks me out.  Let’s just say Valium didn’t do the trick and I had to go back a third time to go fully under to get the pretty picture above.

You may be asking what the hell this has to do with me getting into shape or learning to surf in a Central American country. Right now, I can’t swim without severe pain.  And if I can’t swim, I can’t learn to surf.  And since i just paid for my all-inclusive SURF vacation, I am getting the damn thing fixed on March 28th.  Nothing too major,  a little clean up here, a minor repair there and I should be good as new in a few weeks.

After that, I have no more excuses.  I will be #FitAt50 (and maybe a novice surfer with a killer tan).

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7 is My Lucky Number

I knew the party wouldn’t last.  In an earlier post, I explained that the first few weeks of the year were free of travel and I was able to spend some time on this blog and share my progress. In that same post, I promised to weigh myself at the end of the month of January and post the loss or gain for all the world to see.

Well, I lied.  Work and travel got in the way and here I am 11 days later finally getting to it.  The good news is, I lost 7 pounds the first month!  The bad news; despite all my planning I was not able to get any workouts in during the two weeks of travel and I am not confident that the trend will continue in February.

That doesn’t mean I have given up.  Hardly.  I just know how important exercise is to losing weight and I just couldn’t fit it in.

No matter what the scale says, I feel really good.  My clothes are fitting better and I am sleeping a lot more.  I dare say my demeanor is improving as well.

How am I doing it?  Still eating low carb, minimizing the alcohol and hitting the gym at least 5 days a week, two of those sessions being with a personal trainer.

Working with a trainer has been the best investment to date. If you can afford it, I highly recommend it.   My roommate and I have justified the expense by calculating how much less we are spending on wine now that fitness is the focus.  It ALMOST pencils out 🙂

I’m back on my routine and despite a shoulder injury have still figured out how to get full-body workouts in.  More on that damn shoulder later but I can say this: it will not keep me from being #Fitat50!

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Progress Report – Week Three

Rocking it!
Joe LaMuraglia FitBit Dashboard – Steps

January 19, 2017

So, I am wrapping up week three of my #Fitat50 quest and I decided to share an epiphany I had this morning: it is sooooo much easier to be overweight than it is to be in shape! Easier in that there are no early morning workouts, no worry about the carb count in your meals and wine is justified as heart healthy and therefore good for me no matter the amount.

Despite me stating the obvious above, I have been quite successful on the quest thus far. I’m eating clean, staying away from booze, achieving my 10,000 step goal every day on my Fitbit and I am hitting the gym more consistently than ever. I’ve even hired a trainer!

FitBit Aria Wireless Scale – NOT MY WEIGHT!

The results thus far are encouraging. Despite warnings not to weigh myself too often I bought the scale that syncs with my Fitbit account. I’m going to weigh myself every Friday morning and report out on a monthly basis. Let’s just say I am “on track” for my goal and I am looking forward to sharing the numbers after a month.

What I Have Learned Thus Far

The biggest surprise to date is that people are actually reading my blog – or at least my posts on twitter and facebook.  I’ve had numerous messages of encouragement and a few even thanking me for “putting this out there” in a way that inspired them.  For me, that alone makes it worthwhile.  Oh yeah, and the fact that I’d like to feel better and die looking good 😉

I’ve also really tuned into what drives me – accountability and competition.  This blog is proof that I want to be held accountable and that keeps me on track.  Competition in form of challenges on Fitbit is an even more potent catalyst. I forgot how much I like to win and checking in on how I stack up to my friends on Fitbit and taking part in weekly challenges is fun and effective as hell for me. Whatever it takes, right?

My Biggest Challenges – Travel and Portions

2017 begin with three weeks of no business travel.  For me, this is unheard of.  The honeymoon is over starting next week as I start a 2.5 week slog on the road.  I am worried that being away will make it difficult to get my workouts in.  I’ve booked hotels near gyms and when that is not available I’ve recruited colleagues to commit to help me feed the Fitbit on a daily basis.   It won’t be easy but I will do my best.  I’m open to any suggestions from you all on how to stay on track.

The other issue I have noticed is portion control.  Baked chicken breast on a bed of salad with a drizzle of dressing is a good meal but TWO baked chicken breasts per meal is probably breaking my calorie count for the day.  All this exercise is making me HUNGRY.  What I do NOT want to do is start weighing my food and counting calories for every damn thing I eat.  That is just too much for me.  So for now, I am relying on willpower.  If the month-end numbers aren’t good, I may have to revisit.  In the meantime, I supplement with a meal replacement shake for breakfast, small high-protein snacks during the day and lots and LOTS of water.

Wish me luck!