Hockey wife's hockey night (one of the many)...

Spring, that beautiful time of the year when you can stroll around the city with your fiancé and have a relaxed coffee and just enjoy. Or alternatively you can have that coffee by yourself either at the rink or at home watching your fiancé chase the pock on TV. 

Hockey life has it's own climax each year when the playoffs start. It's an intense finale for another intense year of training, games, sweat, stress and joy. A bunch of mixed emotions while still loving each second of it. It's not only intense to the players but to their families as well but if you love the game, you learn to love the hockey life as well. 

When the clubs change, so do the social circles around them. You meet new people every year, some you make friends with for a season, some for life. These are the people who understand what the hockey life gives and takes and how things roll around the game. There has been many seasons when together with the partners of the players we've been watching the playoffs and finals keeping our fingers and toes crossed for our team till the very last minute. 

This year I have been cheering for our team on my own as I've been pursuing my career this past year which has meant living in different cities. I love watching ice hockey and can get pretty loud when commenting the game especially if at home (usually at this time our dog gives me "the look") so in that sense perhaps it's for the best I have nobody around to hear. It's a great sport and a lot of fun to watch.

Our team made it to finals and for today's game I made some healthy kale chips to keep my nerves down while watching the game. There's two games left after tonight so it's safe to say that the rest of the week's plan is based on these :)

Nerve Cooling Kale Chips

serves 1, time 10 min

a couple branches of kale

2 table spoons of oil

salt

lemon pepper

garlic powder

piment d'espelette (or chili)

Set oven to heat up to 160C. Wash the kale branches and dry with paper. Rip the branches to pieces (throw the central, "wooden" bit out). Mix oil with the spices on a large bowl and throw in the kale pieces. Mix until all the kale pieces have some oil and spices to them (not too much so they don't burn). Spread on a paper covered oven plate so that chips are not attached to each other. Let cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes until crisp.