There’s something about playing the lottery that makes you feel like “this time I’m going to win,” though most people who play regularly rarely win more than a few dollars. It’s that hope for more that keeps people coming back. One man in Virginia was thrilled that he won $600 on a scratch-off lottery ticket, but he turned out to be even luckier than he thought. Jose Flores Velasquez went to collect his winnings only to be told there had been a misunderstanding. The lottery winner had actually won $1 million, not the $600 he came to collect.
Velasquez went to the Virginia Lottery customer service center in Prince William County where he was informed of his actual payout amount, according to NBC News. The chances of winning a top prize in 20X the Money’s lottery draw is 1 in 1,754,400 and Velasquez happened to be the second top prize winner. The prizes for that particular scratch-off can range from $10 to $1 million. Winning the lottery is already exciting, even when it’s just an extra $20, but imagine finding out you won hundreds of thousands more than you originally thought. That discovery might be grounds for tears of joy, especially in this economy.
People who win large sums of money in the lottery usually have an option to take a lump sum, one-time payment or have it disbursed over a certain number of years. Velasquez opted for the one-time payment, which totaled $759,878 before taxes, which is still above and beyond the $600 he thought he won. You must be wondering what someone would do with that much extra money and his answer won’t disappoint. Velasquez told NBC News he plans “to take care of his family and possibly start his own business.”
u201cImagine thinking you’ve won $600. How nice! What a treat! … And then discovering you actually won $1 MILLION!!! ud83dude31nhttps://t.co/8TlofjLt1su201d
How the situation played out is like an episode from a sitcom. Man goes to grocery store to grab a few drinks and picks up a $10 scratch-off making him an instant winner … and then there’s more. To be in the room when he was given the life-changing news would’ve have been a wonderful thing to witness.
Had Velasquez taken payments on the money, he would’ve received it over a 30-year period, which would have totaled a little more than $30,000 a year without taxes. What average American couldn’t use an extra $30,000 a year? Weighed against the lump sum alternative, it’s safe to say that many would’ve made the same choice.
Hopefully Velasquez will be able to build a wildly successful business with the money he has won.
As a bonus, the store that sold the winning ticket got a little financial boost from the Virginia Lottery, too. Safeway, the supermarket where the lucky scratch-off player bought his ticket, received a $10,000 bonus from the lottery organization.
This week, UPROXX Sessions welcomes R&B producer and singer-songwriter DIXSON to the bathroom stage. You may know the Atlanta, Georgia native as a former contestant on NBC’s The Voice or from his collaborations with industry heavy-hitters Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa, and Pharrell.
DIXSON, born Darius Scott, has come a long way since his 2016 appearance on The Voice. The Roc Nation signee has two projects plus multiple writing credits for Beyoncé under his belt and is gearing up to release his third studio album, O04DAISY.
Today, he joins UPROXX Sessions with his upbeat groove, “Barely,” from his upcoming album. The multihyphenate artist uses the track’s hook to flex his carefree attitude and lack of control in a relationship. Flowing effortlessly between rapping and rap-singing, DIXSON’s performance is prolific and poetic, like his frequent collaborators: Chance and Vic Mensa.
Watch DIXSON perform “Barely” for UPROXX Sessions above.
UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.
With Jessie Reyez’s new album, Yessie, due out out on Friday, September 16th, the excitement is building for what the Canadian R&B/pop sensation has in store. The recently shared tracklist for Yessie stokes the fire on the album’s release with a featured appearance from Atlanta’s 6lack and a decorated slate of producers along for the ride as well.
Of the 11 tracks on the Yessie tracklist, 6lack’s appearance on “Forever” marks the only credited guest vocalist on the album. But as Reyez shared on Instagram, there’s some serious firepower behind the boards of Yessie as well. For starters, superproducer Calvin Harris adds some dance music flair to “Titos.” Meanwhile, Kehlani and Lizzo producer Pop Wansel is on the beat for “Queen St W.” producers RyKeyz and Tim SUby are featured on multiple tracks, along with others.
When Reyez announced the impending release date for Yessie last month, she dropped the album’s lead single “Mutual Friend” along with it and the powerful music video, which you can watch here.
Check out the album artwork and tracklist for Yessie below.
We’re in the midst of one of the more boring periods of the NBA calendar, as teams are gearing up for training camp, big offseason moves have largely already happened, and everyone is trying to get one last break in before the upcoming season begins in earnest. That means teams around the league that are looking to gin up some publicity are able to turn to one tried and true way to do that: releasing the jerseys they are going to wear this year.
For the Los Angeles Lakers, that meant dropping their Statement Edition jersey for the 2022-23 campaign. The team did this on Thursday afternoon, and boy, it is … almost exactly the same as the Statement Edition jersey that they wore during 2021-22. There are a few little changes, but for the most part, it is a purple Lakers uniform with yellow and black elements of it.
The Lakers just revealed their new “statement” edition uniforms for 2022-23. Pretty sharp. pic.twitter.com/i59IE86fo1
You can compare that to the picture at the top of this post, which shows LeBron James in the purple unis the team wore last year. The main differences come in the numbers being black and yellow instead of yellow and white, along with the decision to eschew white altogether and go with yellow and black touches on the purple base. Anyway, they’re fine.
After expecting to release his album in December, Feid decided to drop it early last night (September 14) following a leak. Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo Te Pirateamos El Álbum includes the Colombian singer-songwriter’s recent hit “Normal” and “XQ Te Pones Así” featuring Puerto Rican icon Yandel.
In the music video for “Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo,” Feid hinted that his next album would be released on December 1. On Tuesday, he revealed that the album had been leaked and he decided to release it early as Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo Te Pirateamos El Álbum, which translates to “Happy Birthday Ferxxo We Pirated Your Album.” Ferxxo is a nickname that Feid’s fans lovingly call him by.
“A little sad that my album was leaked,” Feid wrote in an Instagram post. “I had very different plans than these, but God knows how he does his things and I trust he has the best for FERXXOOOOO.”
Feid is known for co-writing J Balvin‘s breakthrough hit “Ginza” in 2015. In the past few years, he’s carved out a space for himself as an artist with his sentimental reggaeton sound. Recently, Feid has collaborated with fellow Colombian acts like Maluma in “Mojando Asientos” and Karol G in “Friki.” His biggest hit this year, “Normal,” was certified Platinum in the US in under two months.
A surprise collaboration on the album is “XQ Te Pones Así” with Yandel. Yandel helped usher in the first wave of reggaeton’s global breakthrough in the 2000s as part of the duo Wisin y Yandel. Feid also teamed up with his longtime producer Sky for the alluring reggaeton romp “Quemando Calorías.”
Feid added that he will release another LP on December 1. Following his historic run of three consecutive sold-out concerts at Medellín’s La Macarena arena this past weekend, he feels inspired to create more songs. “I’m going to make you another album,” he said in an Instagram live. That next LP is expected to feature his highly-anticipated collaboration with hip-hop legend DJ Premier.
Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo Te Pirateamos El Álbum is out now via Universal Music Latin. Listen to it here.
The Seattle Seahawks picked up an emotional win on Monday Night Football this week. Longtime signal caller Russell Wilson led his new team, the Denver Broncos, into Lumin Field, and despite the fact that they were 6-point home underdogs in one of the most raucous environments in the sport, Seattle was able to pick up a 17-16 victory.
The win did come despite an injury to starting safety Jamal Adams. During the game’s second quarter, Adams went down with a leg injury, and in the aftermath of the game, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said that he will “have to get some work on that.” And on Thursday afternoon, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network brought word that Adams will indeed go under the knife to repair a torn quadriceps tendon.
Sources: #Seahawks star S Jamal Adams will have season-ending surgery to repair his torn quad tendon suffered against the #Broncos, his 2022 over as he’s headed to IR. Adams is still talking to doctors about the timing of the procedure, as well as who performs it. pic.twitter.com/z6b7K8iCZx
It is a brutal turn of events for Adams, who signed a contract with the Seahawks prior to the 2021 season worth up to $72 million to make him the highest-paid safety in NFL history. Adams came to Seattle one year earlier via a trade with the New York Jets. He was a first-team All-Pro selection in 2019 and made the second-team All-Pro squad in 2018 and 2020.
Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B songs that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.
Since the last update of this weekly R&B and afrobeats column, we’ve received plenty of music and news from the genre’s artists. Ari Lennox released her long-awaited sophomore album Age/Sex/Location while John Legend returned with Legend, the ninth album of his career. Bryson Tiller also made his return in 2022 with the Ying Yang Twins-sampling “Outside” and Rema unveiled the video for his remix of “Calm Down” with Selena Gomez. Lastly, DRAM kicks off a new era under his old name with “Wham!”
Here are some more releases on the new music front that you should check out:
Eli Derby — “Wicked”
Eli Derby made his official mark in the music industry with his debut EP Left On Read, a five-track effort featuring a lone guest appearance from 6lack. Six months after its release, he returns with “Wicked.” Derby uses the record to speak to a new love interest and plead for them to try a relationship with him as more than friends.
Sudan Archives — Natural Brown Prom Queen
Nearly three years after her debut project, Sudan Archives is back with her sophomore album Natural Brown Prom Queen. The project’s 18 songs cover themes that include race, womanhood, and the fiercely loyal, loving relationships she has with family, friends, and her partner. Natural Brown Prom Queen also arrives shortly before Sudan Archives embarks on her Homecoming Tour in North America and Europe.
Sevyn Streeter — “23”
When it comes to Sevyn Streeter, you can trust her to never be off her game. That’s the theme of her latest record “23,” which finds her balling at elite levels. The money is good, the body is great, and life is just peachy for the singer, whose 2021 sophomore album Drunken Wordz Sober Thoughtz is still a great listen.
Jahkoy — “Roll Wit It”
Toronto singer Jahkoy is back in action after a strong 2021 release, Tangible. He returns with “Roll Wit It,” a fun and charismatic singer that captures the initial connection between him and a woman. After dancing the night away, he shares his intention to end the night with her and add to their fun moments.
Zyah Belle — Yam Grier
Zyah Belle’s 2021 project Who’s Listening Anyway was one of the year’s most impressive under-the-radar R&B releases. This year, there’s no flying under the radar thanks to her new album Yam Grier. “Yam Grier is representative of a woman that is reclaiming her time, agency over her body and voice through the generations,” Belle says of the 14-track project. It includes excellent features from Tempest, Jordan Hawkins, Jane Handcock, and more, all of which pair well with Belle’s excellent vocals and overall direction.
Jenevieve — Rendezvous
A year removed from her 2021 album Division, Jenevieve decided it was time to treat her fans to some more music. She returns with Rendezvous, a six-track effort that will satisfy your dance and sweater-weather anthem needs. The project also arrives ahead of her gig as a supporting act on Giveon’s Give Or Take Tour.
Asake — Mr. Money With The Vibe
The afrobeats world received an excellent gift in 2022 in Asake. His year was highlighted by records like “Sungba,” which was remixed by Burna Boy, “Omo Ope,” and “Palazzo.” He builds on that foundation, dropping the afrobeats album of the year with Mr. Money With The Vibe. The project clocks in at 12 songs at just 30 minutes, but its concision just makes it more effective.
Melvitto — Ovrdose
Sticking to the afrobeats tip, Nigerian producer Melvitto also returns with a new project. Ovrdose, a five-track effort that follows his 2019 EP Summers, calls on Dayor, Gabzy, Oladapo, Wani, and Ayo Jay for a quick project highlighting the range and heights that Melvitto can reach.
Sebastian Mikael — “Overgold”
Next month, singer Sebastian Mikael will release his new EP Phileo. To kick things off he checks in with his latest single, “Overgold.” The funky record perfectly kicks off the road towards Phileo. “I wanted to talk about love not in a romantic aspect or in a cliche way, but more as love being a foundation for who we are and as a lifestyle,” Mikael says about the project. “When we move in love, we’re more powerful because God is Love.”
Months after releasing an extended cut of his Turtle Crossing project, Georgia rapper Pote Baby returns with a vibrant record just in time for summer’s last weeks. “Slow Wine” captures the intimate moments between two lovers on the dance floor and the infatuation for each other that comes with it. With help from Simmie and Derrick Nealy, Pote Baby perfectly captures the vibe.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The climate changes at least three times in the drive from San Francisco into Tomales Bay just north of the city, and not subtly so. When I made the trip at the beginning of July, San Francisco’s famously foggy microclimate, barely hitting 60 and feeling much colder with a wet mist blotting out the sun, remained with us past the city and all along the grand red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. Still shrouded in misty grey funk when we hit the south entrance of the Robin Williams tunnel (the tunnel’s entrances painted in rainbow, like Mork’s suspenders), the sun came out at some indeterminable point between entrance and exit, squirting us out into a bright sunny summer day almost like a switch had flipped.
The sun stayed with us all through east Marin County, further inland and on the bay side, where the 101 winds past Sausalito’s houseboats (which aren’t really “boats” at all, so much as floating houses on a pier, built by artist squatters after WWII) and up through Marin’s million dollar real estate in Mill Valley, Tiburon, and Strawberry, where houses with tall windows have brilliant views of the bay from secluded hillsides, and their owners spend the weekends clad in biking spandex, hollering at motorists to share the road.
Our destination was across the strip of rugged, hilly land separating bay from breakers, all the way over in rural west Marin, as distinct from tony east Marin culturally as it is meteorologically. East Marin’s sunny warmth, in the high 80s that day, lasted until about the last 15 minutes, when, abruptly once again, the air turned cool and the landscape went from dried yellow weeds (the gold in “The Golden State” and “The Golden Gate Bridge”) to verdant green moss. You lose cell service around the same time.
Even in a state as geographically diverse as California, Tomales Bay stands out as its own esoteric little pocket. Cows graze in fields and moss hangs from trees, a bit of the steamy South right in the heart of the otherwise dry far West. One of the other van passengers noted “it looks like a French fishing village.”
We’d all accepted an invite from Humboldt Distilling to come sample their wares with ideal pairings and situations at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, California, right on the shoals of the aforementioned Tomales Bay. The hot topic on the ride over was “merroir.” It’s an industry-invented term, meant to explain why oysters, which almost always come from just a few different species, spawned in about 10 hatcheries serving all of North America, can still taste so distinct from each other.
The answer is that the oysters tend to take on the characteristics of the sea where they were farmed (and the vast majority of the oysters consumed in the world come from farms, only a tiny fraction are wild collected). Those sea conditions tend to vary wildly, from the muddy, shallow bays of the mid-Atlantic to Tomales Bay’s frigid waters, frequently replenished by Pacific “upwelling,” a process by which high winds off shore dredge up waters from the depths.
That cold water Tomales Bay oyster grow in is more sea than shore, and the abundance of cold, deep ocean water gives Hog Island’s oysters a briny, salty, fresh character (as well as an interesting cucumber note). Wine, of course, has long been considered the finest expression of the combination of the geographical, geological, agricultural, and climatic conditions that produced its grapes, such that anyone with a decent palate can tell whether the wine came from limestone-rich or volcanic soil. Which gives the wine a “sense of place — for which the French coined the term “terroir,” as the French are wont to do (see also: “mise en scene” for movies).
Oysters, of course, have much the same thing, a combination of all the particular local conditions that produced them. Only, they come from the sea — mer — rather than the ter of “terroir.” Ergo… “merroir.” It’s a perfectly cromulent word!
We were welcomed to the foggy shores of Tomales Bay (one of three California bays healthy enough to support large-scale oyster production, along with Humboldt and Morro) with an oyster shooter — basically, a double shot-sized Bloody Mary served with a Hog Island Sweetwater oyster on top — mixed up by Hog Island’s beverage director, Saul Ranella.
Vince Mancini
It may not shock you to learn that a cocktail prepared by a beverage director, specifically to highlight a liquor, made to pair with an oyster just pulled from the water of that oyster farm, and eaten in view of its habitat, was extremely good. This oyster shooter was like a further, brinier-but-wildly-fresh version of a Caesar — the Bloody Mary‘s Clamato-based cousin, which my in-laws converted me to a while back (it’s not as thick as a Bloody Mary and clear liquors pair weirdly well with seafood brine).
Vince Mancini
[Ranella’s shooter ingredients: Humboldt Organic Vodka, Kummel, Hog Island Bloody Mary mix, lime, and Tapatio hot sauce.]
After that, we took a tour of Hog Island’s oyster farm, founded in 1983 by three marine biologists. Oyster farms aren’t the most terribly interesting places, seeing as how oysters tend to lead a sedentary lifestyle ensconced in their own shells, mostly sitting out in their baskets, eating food and waiting to fatten up enough to be plucked out and eaten (much like your mother). But whatever bivalves may lack in action photography potential they more than makeup for in sustainability.
In an age when it’s hard to consume any seafood guilt-free (or virtually anything, for that matter), oysters are surprisingly green. Not only are they not overfished, like so much wild-caught product, the farms that produce them actually help clean the waterways where they’re grown rather than pollute them. This thanks to oysters’ filter-feeding capabilities. Of course, it takes clean waterways to produce consumable oysters in the first place, and dozens of entities are testing the chemistry of Tomales Bay’s waters at any given time to ensure their viability for food production.
Clean water, of course, is key to both making Humboldt Vodka and farming Hog Island Oysters. Which was presumably the basis of their partnership on the day. The distillery had recently announced their “Toast To The Coast” campaign, pledging to donate a portion of their sales to the California Coastkeepers Alliance (CCKA), a non-profit dedicated to fighting for clean waterways in the state.
More tastings followed, along with some shucking, led by “international oyster sommelier” Julie Qiu, who almost certainly knows more about oysters than you. As we tasted through Hog Island Kumamotos (Crassostrea sikamea), Hog Island Atlantic (Crassostrea virginica), and Hog Island Sweetwaters (Crassostrea gigas), Qiu regaled with oyster facts and handed out her self-designed oyster-tasting notebooks. Which included an incredibly thorough “flavor wheel” ranking the oysters on 16 different characteristics: Brine, umami, bright, fruity, vegetal, earthy, nutty, seaweed, buttery, smoky, metallic, mineral, body, balance, linger, and sweet. Phew.
Vince Mancini
How easily can we apply the kind of analysis usually reserved for wine to oysters? Pretty easily, it seems.
If I’m honest, I’m not exactly thrilled at the idea of trying to take extensive, clinical notes while I’m trying to enjoy an oyster. But it speaks to one of the things I appreciate most about oysters: the ritual. Any former drug addict will tell you, that part of the addiction is the ritual it requires. Bring out your little bag of tools, tie off the vein, cook the powder in the little spoon, suck the liquid into the syringe… We humans find solace, maybe ascribe meaning, to these little collections of repeated action (every religion involves ritual, some are only ritual).
While I’ve thankfully never shot heroin, I find myself being drawn over and over to the same kinds of things in my own life, whether it’s espresso (grind the beans, tamp the grinds, clean the steam wand, steam the milk, pull the espresso, pour the milk…), avocado toast, or hell, probably golf (see the hole, remember the hole, practice the swing, deep breath, waggle-waggle…). It’s the dream of doing something over and over, getting it just a little closer to perfect each time. Some perfectionists do drugs; for some perfectionists, perfectionism is the drug.
Oysters lend themselves easily to this kind of ritualism. The way you carefully insert the shucking knife into the hinge, apply pressure until it releases, then move the knife gently from side to side to create space, separate the roof of the shell from the meat, and then the meat from the bottom by severing the abductor muscle (fun fact: French restaurants don’t sever the abductor muscle when shucking, which kills the oyster, preferring to leave it attached so that it’s alive right up until the moment you eat it — which makes a kind of sense, but also sounds like a pain in the ass when you’re trying to slurp one). Then you carefully remove the lid, make sure not to spill any little shell bits into the shucked oyster; add your mignonette, lemon, hot sauce, horseradish, whatever; and slurp it down. It’s all wonderfully ritualistic. I’m convinced oysters taste better because of the ritual they require.
For most of my oyster-eating life, even the act of getting them was part of the ritual. It was so hard to spend $3-4 per oyster when you could drive an hour and get them in bags of 50 or 60 for 50 or 75 cents per (sadly they’re more expensive than that now). Plus, you’d miss out on the experience.
Having since moved inland to Fresno (which is still pretty close to the sea relative to the rest of the country, but feels like another world from coastal California) I have yet to consume an oyster in the city where I live. In 2020, I took my wife to Tomales Bay for oysters and my friend who was supposed to join us stood us up. Thus leaving me with 70 or so oysters and a wife who, as it turned out, doesn’t enjoy oysters quite as much as I do. It took me two or three days, but I ate most of them. There’s a strange thing that happens when I eat oysters: they make me happy but not full. I can enjoy them in almost unlimited quantities and still eat a regular-sized meal directly afterward. I’ve never felt bloated or sleepy after eating one.
I learned plenty from Qiu, but if there was one thing I retained, it’s that maybe I’ve been too precious in my oyster consumption. Yes, you can get food poisoning from eating raw oysters, just as you can from eating damned near anything. But Qiu estimates that she’s eaten upwards of 7,000 oysters in her lifetime (and she seems detail-oriented enough that I’m inclined to believe her) and has never gotten sick, not even once. Considering oysters are bivalves, whose entire physiology is designed to be able to close up and survive inside their own “house” (so to speak) when the tide goes out and with it the water they need to survive, and that they’re literally alive right up until the moment you shuck them, they’re actually pretty safe.
Any FDA-regulated oyster farm has its water tested constantly and is highly regulated. As long you’re getting oysters that have been kept refrigerated (below 40 degrees Fahrenheit) and are still alive when you shuck them (the shell should be closed or should close when you tap on it) there’s relatively little to worry about. The whole “don’t eat oysters in months that end in R” adage, while weirdly pervasive, is outdated in the age of oyster farms and refrigeration. Basically, if it’s dead, stinky, or looks dry* (ie, not plump, juicy, and glistening**) when you open it, don’t eat it.
I still remember what a professional fish grader at an ahi auction in Hawai’i told me when I asked him how one grades fish: “You were built for this,” he said. “You have an intuitive sense of what makes meat look healthy and inviting. Trust those instincts.”
I’ve applied that rule of thumb every single time I’ve bought any kind of meat since, and the same thing seems to apply to raw oysters. If it looks vibrant, plump, and fresh, it’s most likely because it is. If it looks, smells, or tastes weird, don’t eat it, or stop eating it. Qiu also keeps an updated list on her website of farms that will ship direct to consumers, in case you don’t trust that your local supermarket kept their oysters cold from farm to display. Qiu suggests chipping in with some neighbors or friends to save on shipping fees.
As the tour and the shucking seminar came to a close, Saul Ranella presented our final cocktail: a vesper cocktail made with Humboldt Organic vodka, a house kina, and dry vermouth blend, with nori and two kinds of roe (smoked trout and paddlefish caviar). Normally I probably wouldn’t go for a drink with two kinds of fish egg and seaweed in it, but everything about this weirdly freezing July day in California telegraphed that this wasn’t a normal day. It was an experience; a ritual. And under the circumstances, all that brine hit the spot, the perfect accompaniment to some barbecued Sweetwater oysters.
Vince Mancini
If you’re at all oyster curious but on the fence, I’d recommend barbecued oysters as a gateway. For a while when I was younger, I ate raw oysters mostly as a way to prove that they didn’t gross me out, even though, admittedly, they have a not un-snot-like texture. After a while, they became a vector for horseradish, and a while after that I came to genuinely enjoy the flavor of raw oysters themselves (preferably with a nice mignonette). Oddly, the rawer and fresher a seafood, the less “fishy” it tastes. And raw oysters are about the rawest, freshest seafood you can eat.
Of course, a raw oyster is still going to have that snot-like texture. If you haven’t learned to love that yet, a barbecued oyster is a happy medium. If you grill an oyster just until the shell pops open (they make a nice sizzle when they do, which is fun), then pull the lid off and throw some garlic butter or something in there, you get an oyster that’s cooked just enough to have some chew to it, but not enough to get the fishier, muddier taste that oysters can sometimes take on when they’re cooked too much. I don’t love them quite as much as fresh raw oysters, but they’re pretty close.
It was still cold enough for a jacket by the time we left in the early evening, the hours that are usually the hottest part of the day in a NorCal summer. After consuming at least two dozen oysters, I felt weirdly energized. Eating anything else in such quantities would put me to sleep. 15 minutes into the drive home, our cell phones vibrated back to life and the hot sun clicked back on, unmistakable signs that our reverie was over and we had entered real life again. Probably another language has a word for this feeling, German or Russian. Would it someday be possible to recapture the feeling of that escape? Could we conjure it back into existence with a simple ritual? Find it in a cocktail glass or inside a shell?
Charley St. Cafe executive chef Dan Churchill has a lot on his plate. On top of operating a restaurant in Manhattan, he drops nutrition knowledge for his YouTube series “The Healthy Chef,” on shows like Drew Barrymore, in his books like Surfing The Menu, and when creating recipes for stars like Chris Hemsworth. But despite this heavy workload, he still finds time for his passion for outdoors running and once again is training to do the New York Marathon in support of City Harvest.
Courtesy
There’s a reason that Churchill makes time for running outside. It’s not only a great workout but it’s also an amazing way to find your center — since it’s one of the few exercises that you can’t really do while staring at your phone or television. Whether you are running for 15 minutes or running for a few hours, those moments are yours and being spent to improve your general well-being. So it’s no surprise that many people who start running keep running, and eventually want to take on bigger and bigger routes.
Long-distance running can have amazing benefits like increasing your overall endurance, muscle power, heart health, and mental toughness. It also helps train your body to use fat for fuel. Many people who start participating in long-distance running see an enhancement in their sleep quality. When put up against a mediocre session in a dark, cramped gym, long-distance running wins. But if you aren’t providing your body with the right nutrition and hydration, you can miss out on all of those benefits.
For many adults, finding time for a run is just like finding time for the gym: difficult. The moment of opportunity is usually in the morning before the responsibilities of the day start to kick in. Stopping for 15 or 20 minutes to make a proper meal can seriously cut into that window, so one strategy is to make sure that your food is ready to go already when you wake up. That could mean an already-prepped meal in the fridge or a helpful tool that marathon runners use called energy gels — which are little carbohydrate-rich packets that deliver a perfect punch of energy.
Courtesy
“I have found that people doing long runs and even marathons don’t find out about energy gels until late in the game,” says Churchill. The chef also notes that the taste can be a little surprising to first-timers, on top of the fact that our palate can change over the course of a longer run. “They wait until really late in their training to try them out, and they can take some getting used to. Even if I am running for an hour I will take an energy gel with me.”
In addition to the New York Marathon, Churchill is also participating in Sydney’s Running Festival this month, which means he is well-versed in the perfect breakfast to eat before a big run or marathon. We got him to share one of his favorites below.
Courtesy
OVERNIGHT OATS
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: N/A… 8 hours to set
Skill: Easy
Health Facts:
Chia seeds contain all 20 amino acids and also contain plenty of fiber for digestion. Not only do they house essential proteins, but they ensure nutrients pass through the body efficiently
Ingredients: (Serves 4)
– 2 Cup Rolled Oats
– 4 Tbsp Chia Seeds
– 1/2 Cup Coconut, Shredded
– Pinch of Salt
– 1 Banana, Mashed
– 1/4 Cup Maple Syrup
– 4 Cups Almond Milk
Toppings:
-Almond Butter
– Sliced Banana
-Walnuts
Instructions:
– Combine all ingredients into a bowl and put in the fridge overnight or for a minimum of 8 hours
– Serve in the morning in separate bowls and top with almond butter, sliced banana and crushed walnuts
Get more great recipes and tips on fueling for running or a marathon on Dan’s site here.
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This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
