Stage 14 of the Tour de France was another brutal assault up the Alps from Grenoble to Risoul. Now, where the men rode wasn’t quite like the upper left picture, but then again, it wasn’t far from it.

On the food side of life, I got a real thrill hearing recently retired Tour racer and now NBCSN announcer Christian Vande Velde talk yesterday about a typical Tour cyclist’s daily course of meals. One thing that caught my ear was his – and I’m sure other racer’s – particular love for rice pudding as a healthy dessert. All right!

Though I’m a fan, I’d never before made rice pudding myself. So, I checked out some recipes, figured out my own way – and laid it down in picture book format.

As I mention in the tips at the start of the recipe you can get by clicking any picture on this page, you can vary the flavor of rice pudding incredibly easily. Here are the foundation ingredients:

Already I’ve found that adding just a drop of almond extract (potent stuff) and a shake of ground nutmeg really punches up the flavor – for me. And that’s the key for me/you/anyone – finding ways to make it all yours. More about that soon, you bet!