Aaron Wolfe salivates for cycling almost as much as for a big plate of homemade food. Here he’ll drool publicly and sometimes count calories with weekly recipes aimed at you finicky cyclists. Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 8 here.

Can you trust recipes from such a skinny man?

No More Running

We bike racers think we’re pretty tough. We are participants in the hardest sport in the world, after all. But when push comes to shove, we’re falling over backwards, flailing around in our cleats. Thinking I was pretty cool I went straight from a very easy last month of the season to three straight days of “cross-training.” A 5 mile run, an hour of speedskating* and a 3 mile downhill trail run later, I could barely walk. No joke. After a couple days of recovery, it was back to destroying my precious reserve of knee cartilage with two consecutive days of running. Two laps in Prospect park only takes about an hour, but despite the pain does not feel at all like exercise. **

@##=#<8,L>@##=#Throw in an mtb ride for some more knee damage***, and my 2007 training season was ready to start, with more pain. By mile 75 of the MS ride I was OTB of the chase group seriously considering whether I should race bikes any more, favoring a very sore knee.

Meanwhile, I’d been stuffing my face since Bear Mountain with cheese, meat, pizza (sometimes two a day) a significant amount of wine, olive oil on my popcorn, Pasta alla Carbonara, ice cream and chocolate. The damage came to about a pound a week, taking my scale near uncharted territory. I’m afraid to use the body fat mode until well into my base.

D and I received the dessert assignment for a dinner party, so I thought I would make Pot du Creme, after recently tasting it at a really good neighborhood restaurant in Philly, Rx . Like the crosstraining, my foray into chocolate pudding did not go well, and we ended up stopping at the bodega for banana split supplies.

It’s one thing to improvise with oil and garlic, but chocolate does not respond to the hubris of the home cook. However, a little careful attention is all it takes master this Pot du Creme recipe. ****

2 cups Heavy Cream

6 oz. Dark Chocolate, semisweet or darker.

6 Egg Yolks, lightly beaten

1/3 cup Sugar, or more or less to taste

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract, or one Vanilla Bean

1 tiny pinch Cayenne Pepper, optional

1 slightly less tiny pinch Cinnamon, optional

Whipped Cream

If you’re using the vanilla bean, and you should, split it lengthwise and scrape the seeds out. Put the pod, seeds, sugar and cream into a small heavy saucepan and bring to the verge of boiling. Remove the pods, turn off the heat, and stir in the chocolate until it’s thoroughly melted and blended in.

While stirring the yolks slowly pour in about 1/4 cup of the chocolate cream, then pour it all back into the cream, stirring the whole time. A third hand can be helpful here. If you’re using vanilla extract, stir it in now. Add more sugar now if it’s not sweet enough, but don’t make it too sweet.

Pour the pudding into 6 small oven-safe bowls or cups, cover with foil, and put them in a baking dish. Fill the dish with hot water to reach about halfway up the bowls. Place it all in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes. Unwrap one bowl and give it a shake. If the pudding has set on the edges but is still liquid in the middle, you’re done. If not cook 5 minutes more and check again. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of your bowls/cups. When set leave the bowls in the hot water for about 30 minutes, then unwrap and stick them in the fridge. Once cool, wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Don’t forget or a tough film will develop on top.

The Pot du Creme will firm up once cold, but they’re also nice at room temperature or slightly warm. Serve with whipped cream.

If you’re going use canned whipped cream, give Bill Cosby a call for his pudding recipe. To make the whipped cream, beat a cup of cold, heavy cream with a whisk, by hand. when it starts to thicken a little, add a tablespoon or two of sugar. Don’t overdo the whipping! You want it just firm enough to hold its shape. It’s better to under whip if you’re not sure. Just before you’re done, stir in a bit of liqueur. Cointreau or Kahlua would go well with the cinnamon and cayenne.

* If you’re imagining Eric Heiden, stop. Instead, picture a nearly 40-year-old unshaven man on wobbly ankles holding hands with 8-year-olds and their mothers, all strangers, while struggling desperately not to fall.

** Either running really does suck or I have really bad form, or both.

*** After my first mtb race a couple of years ago. I promised myself to never ride without knee pads again. Last week I didn’t, and I did the foot slip on the pedal that causes it to spin around at about 100mph and smack me right where my knee pad would have been.

**** What is Pot du Creme? If you’re thinking bowl of cream, you’re half right. There’s more fat from egg yolks and chocolate, plus sugar. Very delicious pudding, basically. A great way to blow the springs on the scale and wind up the off weeks.

Foraging by bike

@##=#<3,R>@##=#I love to forage for foods that are hard to find commercially or not worth the price. If it weren’t for the hours spent alone on my bike day after day, I’d probably be out wandering around alone in the woods day after day. Fortunately, I often go through the woods on my bike, and sometimes I get lucky. I found ramps in the spring, and now I’m finding edible mushrooms everywhere, including giant puffballs, which are easily spotted from the road, hen of the woods, and oysters. If you raced the Silvermine TT you might have noticed a tree full of oyster mushrooms on the right shortly after the turnaround.

Silvermine brought about another inadvertent culinary discovery. I loaded up the car for the 20-mile drive to the course and hit the coffee shop across from my apartment. They weren’t open yet but helpfully fired up a triple espresso for a sleepwalking man in lycra. Back in the car, the battery also was unwilling to wake up without help–I had left the lights on two days before. Facing the unlikely prospect of getting a jump at 6:30am on Saturday, I squirmed into the top half of my skinsuit, took three big swallows from a large bottle of chocolate Endurox, and poured in the espresso. I had plenty of time to ride to the course. In fact, the 20-mile warm-up would have been perfect, except for reserve time in case of a flat tire, so it lost a bit of effect. However, I was perfectly caffeinated and sugared up.

Mocha Endurox: Make a two-scoop-size serving of chocolate Endurox. Add a triple espresso. Shake.

You are on your own if you want to hunt wild mushrooms. * My only advice is that it’s not as dangerous as you may have been told, but if you’re stupid about it you might kill yourself or get sick enough to wish you were dead. ** Don’t try it on your own the first time. Get three different field guides, confirm, confirm, confirm, and don’t blame me. If you’d rather leave the gathering to farmers, many markets sell domesticated varieties of wild mushrooms. Maitake (hen of the woods), oysters and shitake are common. You also see in season chanterelles (summer) and morels (spring), as well as dried porcini and mixed selections. If you want to use portabellas be sure to slice off the dark gills or the spores will discolor whatever you cook them with.

My favorite dish*** so far this fall mushroom season has been a wild mushroom risotto. Make a perfect risotto and stir in some saut