We're Almost on Hawaii Time

I planted my radishes too close together resulting in lush radish greens and very slender pickings for actual radishes.  My big tomato plant is dropping blossoms, but my yellow pear tomato plant is fruiting.  The squash is reproducing like rabbits.  I will have to leave my crops to the house sitter while we enjoy our tropical vacation.  I think I will cook all the adorable little squash tomorrow night for our last mainland supper.

sad radish harvest

I made a radish green version of palak paneer with my harvest.  Unlike spinach, the radish greens didn't cook down into a puree.  The only change I made to the recipe was the addition of ~2 tsp. of sugar to offset the bitterness of the greens.

greens save the day

When I wasn't paying attention Ian and Sophie bought two bags of Moose Munch for our trip.  I am counting on decent food offerings in SFO on our 5 hour layover so I scoffed, but I know somewhere over the Pacific I will be diving into the junk food.  I hope somebody packed some dental floss.

Sophie and I got haircuts and pedicures yesterday, and she even allowed me to take her swimsuit shopping.  We had lunch and Arnold Palmers on the patio of Black's Bar & Kitchen, and got Ian's Father's Day present.  As the type of mom who never enjoyed the baby phase, days like this are reward for all the early parenthood slog. 

Ian is busily assembling the Go Pro camera gear so he can take selfies of his surf sessions. His set up includes a leash that ensures that somebody walking along the beach at Sandy's won't look down and exclaim, "Cool, a Go Pro Camera!"  We are going to run over to the rental car place in the morning on Tuesday to pick up the car and stop at Leonard's for malasadas on the way back. 

Now it's time to mow the lawn and get those last loads of laundry done.  Aloha for now. 

even better than palak paneer

Time to Make the Cronuts

Thank you to Karen at Off the (Meat) Hook for her inspirational post which I have shamelessly copied.  The world needs to know how simple it is to make a passable cronut assuming you live in the vicinity of a Trader Joes.

You will need to be prepared to let your croissants proof overnight, and I highly recommend using a thermometer to confirm that your frying oil is neither too hot nor too cool.  Sophie's food and nutrition class found out the hard way that frying dough in smoking hot oil will result in a charred exterior and uncooked interior. 

Make sure you leave enough space between your croissants as they puff up remarkably.  I used the non-business end of a large pastry tip to cut out the holes.  The glaze was a mixture of orange juice/zest and confectioner's sugar.  Sophie recommends that you not eat three in one sitting.  I have another two boxes of Trader Joe's mini croissants in my freezer awaiting their transformation into the latest pastry craze. 

Strawberry Field for Many

Heralded by berry season, summer has arrived in D.C.  We picked early which was necessary to avoid the crowds and the heat.  We picked 10 lb. of berries in about an hour at Homestead Farms in Poolesville, MD.

I am proud to report that not a single berry went to waste.  We ate them by the handful, with yogurt, on top of homemade strawberry ice cream, drizzled with chocolate balsamic, and in the outstanding "Berry Long Cake with Ginger Crumb."   

I brought the cake to a work party, and it was a huge hit.  Maddy, her friend Rob, and Ian created a new game called "work party bingo" involving a card with commonly heard phrases/words (i.e. at a midwife party=vagina, triage,labor) that would allow spouses and family to keep themselves amused by the shop talk.  Rob is a computer science major so we will have the app in development shortly.  We sang "Peaches" by the Presidents of the United States in the car on the way home.  Peach season starts in July, and we will be picking bushels!  Millions of peaches, peaches for me. 

Currently my refrigerator is nearly bare in anticipation of our trip to Hawaii.  It will be our first trip back during the summertime, and I am looking forward to snorkeling on the North Shore and swimming with the dolphins on the west side.  

Here is a list of things we can't wait to eat: malasadas, plate lunch, shave ice, sushi, poke, dinner at Hoku's, mai tais, cheeburgers and guava smoothies at Outrigger Canoe club, kalbi at my in-laws, coconut Napples at Zippy's, Spam musubi.

Spending 90% of our time bathing suits will help curb overindulgence.  Stay tuned for envy-inducing photos.

Cape May in May

The problem with making plans in January to head to the shore for the first "weekend of summer"  is the possibility that the weather will not be cooperative and you will wish you had brought that space heater after all.  

We drove up to Cape May Friday morning, beating most of the holiday weekend traffic.  At least that's what I like to tell myself.  It was intermittently pouring the whole trip which means the really smart people had perhaps cancelled that beach vacation.  We did have a wonderful lunch at the Maurice River Diner .  Ian was disappointed that I declined the complimentary rolls until the waitress came back with our entrees.  Now he realizes why Governor Christie needed that lap band procedure.  Diner food is hearty, and for the most part, awesome.  Sophie had the fried mozzerella.  Despite the Singapore incident where she had to lie on the floor of the hotel bathroom after eating a plate of fried cheese sticks she continues to order them at every opportunity.  

not pictured, the 30 mph gale

We were able to set up camp during a break in the rain, but it was not conducive to outdoor cooking.  We sheltered at the Cape May Brewery .  The beer was delicious.  Fortified, we wandered Washington Street Mall where, shockingly, Sophie convinced me to buy fudge.  Dinner at the Depot Market Cafe, and back to the Seashore Campsites RV Park where I lamented my poor decision re: space heater.  According to the Seashore's regulations, alcohol is OK, but intoxication is frowned upon.  Enforcement appeared to be spotty as evidenced by our neighbor's lively beer pong session.  After they gave us Buffalo wings from their fry daddy, we were able to turn the other cheek.

groovy filtered photo of me about to ruin some pancakes

Saturday dawned sunny with a steady and annoying wind.  Sophie and I took cover behind the bunker at Cape May Point while Ian got surprisingly decent dolphin photos with his giant lens.  The weather continued to improve, and we actually had a lovely beach day Sunday followed by cocktails on the porch at the Virginia Hotel.  Pimm's cup for me, an old fashioned for Ian, and, to her delight, a mocktail for Sophie.

right before I choked on a sip of Ian's old fashioned

All that bad weather worked up a serious appetite. Here are some of the things we ate: ice cream everyday, breakfast tacos with chorizo, hot dogs, s'mores, coleslaw, baked beans, pancakes, 2 bags of chips, pancakes (note to self, never make pancake batter with hot water), fudge, sandwiches, Buffalo wings, a cantaloupe, leftover diner food, toaster pastries--not as good as brand name Pop Tarts according to Ian and Sophie.  Help me make this coleslaw recipe go viral.   You won't be sorry.

I hope the library doesn't notice the sand we brought back in the pages of the books we were reading on the beach.   

wool hat, on the beach, in May--do we look like a page out of the Patagonia catalog?

with a long enough lens you can pretend you took that dolphin watching cruise

Sometimes it's easy being green

Sorry Maddy, but there's a new guacamole in town.  I modified this from a recipe I found on epicurious.com, and it's now my go-to guacamole recipe.  No laborious hand chopping and mashing-just throw everything in a food processor or blender.  

4 medium tomatillos, husked and rinsed

2 cloves garlic

2 small, ripe Hass avocados

1 cup cilantro leaves

juice of one lime

salt to taste (I used about 1 tsp Kosher salt)

The acidity from the tomatillos keeps it really green, and it is lower in calories than standard guacamole.  You could easily offset this by increasing your chip or margarita intake.  Add some chopped jalapeños if you like it spicy.

The rest of the garden is a veritable jungle, but pictured below is the sum total of my pea harvest.  Some bug, apparently invisible to the naked eye, decimated my plants.  I steamed them and added to a fresh corn salad--corn from the cob mixed with chopped shallot, grape tomatoes, fresh tarragon, bell pepper with a yogurt/olive oil/cider vinegar dressing.

Ian took a bunch of great photos on our camping trip to Cape May over Memorial Day weekend.  You can admire them in an upcoming post where I whine about the weather.

Carrot Cake for the Win!

Carefully constructed at home, transported to Charlottesville nestled in a cooler, this was Maddy's "favorite carrot cake ever."  Layers of carrot cake, liquid cheesecake (think underbaked cheesecake), and graham frosting, topped with a white chocolate crumb.  Worth the effort?  For me, yes, if only to meet the expectations of my kids.  The best carrot cake ever?  Possibly.  I still have the trimmings sitting in the fridge, and I haven't thought about them all week.  That would not have been the case for the grapefruit pie.  That was awesome.  Especially the Ritz crust--definitely will replace graham for most of my future pie creations.  By the way, Tosi has you underbaking the cheesecake in a plastic wrap lined pan....I didn't line my pan with plastic because the thought of putting plastic in the oven just didn't sound right especially after the cutting board incident.  That time when the cookie sheet melded to the cutting board on the counter and I unknowingly put the cookie sheet with attached cutting board  into the oven where it melted like pizza cheese.  The cheesecake comes right out of the pan as long as you don't overbake.

They were all hungry like an hour later....

A belated look at Sophie's birthday cupcakes.  She reluctantly brought two dozen of them to school to share with her friends.  I say reluctantly because not 5 minutes after I left the house that morning I got a text that said, "I am worried that the pan won't fit in my locker."  She was also concerned that "I don't know two dozen people to give them to."

Age and experience have taught me that if you bring a panful of sweets to a group of middle schoolers it won't last long.  She said, "they even ate the unfrosted ones."  Those were the sacrificial cupcakes I poked skewers into to hold the plastic wrap away from the awesome ones.  Some of the kids asked her if that was real broccoli.  It was green Tootsie Rolls with blobs of green frosting dipped in green nonpareils for what it's worth.  We later discovered that Jelly Belly actually makes a product they call "peas and carrots".   

She had a bunch of girls over for a party at the house where the rain let up long enough to crack the creepy unicorn piñata.  They enjoyed watching "Premium Rush," and I overhead them saying, "Queen (of Freddy Mercury fame) has the best lyrics."  Older and wiser!

Chchchchanges....

David Bowie, were you surprised to be the singer behind everybody's graduation anthem in the 80's?  I remember that, but not my graduation speaker. 

Those leis made her extra easy to spot!

Since it never actually rained on the day of the ceremony I can be happy for the overcast skies that prevented us from sweltering as we awaited the procession of our graduate.  Ian got these outstanding pictures with a zoom lens worthy of an African safari.  My in-laws sent these leis from Oahu--it is a Hawaiian tradition to pile them up, typically high enough to obscure the recipient's face.  Maddy lost a bet to Ian that nobody else would have leis---the loser has to run with an "ajumma visor" for the next month.  She certainly had the most flowers and the only haku (head) lei.

After the final's ceremony we reconvened for the Biomedical Engineering diploma ceremony that involved more picture taking, facial cramping from the permanent smiles, and a box lunch.  Surprisingly nobody cried, maybe because we know she will be close by for the next few years while attending graduate school but probably because our nest is not quite empty yet.

Two little birds....

Some Nights I Stay Up Making Momofuku

One day your kid is lying on the floor of a surf shop exclaiming, "This store is killing me," and seemingly in a blink of an eye they're graduating from college.  In between there were ups: a nearly perfect SAT score, Rodman Scholarship and downs: public vomiting in Costco and the Haleikulani (neither alcohol-induced--she was 5 years old).  The soundtrack changed from Sporty Spice and Pickle Trough to the Mountain Goats and Astronautilis.  The diet included 5 (long!) years of vegetarianism, pepperoncini juice and boiled silkworm larvae.  The end result is one of the most intelligent, well-rounded people I have had the pleasure of knowing, and certainly one of the only ones I actually had a part in making.

How could I refuse a request for Momofuku Milk Bar's carrot cake and grapefruit pie for the graduation festivities?  It wouldn't be Milk Bar without a kitchenful of dishes and trips to 3 separate grocery stores.  I should have gone with my gut and hit Korean Korner first.  They came through with the passion fruit puree--freezer section, last package, labeled as "curuba".  Thank God for smartphones.

If you have somebody deserving of adulation, the recipe for the pie is here.  Do yourself a favor and make a little additional Ritz crumb because I find I never have enough with those recipes. I put too much red food coloring into the topping. The carrot cake recipe is actually five separate recipes, probably more trouble than most are willing to go through even for their brilliant first-born.  We will get a picture of the finished product, and I will tell you if it was worth all the trouble.   I licked blobs of the various components off spoons during the creation and I can vouch that if the sum is greater than its parts it will be celestial.

Insert Clever Title Here

I am hoping that these will be the last cupcakes coming out of my kitchen for awhile.  Sophie wants to bring them in for her birthday tomorrow.  The cupcakes pictured in this post are a representative sample of the 372 vegan mini-cupcakes I made for the D.C. Birth and Baby Fair.  Not pictured are the 3 dozen coconut lime cupcakes I made for the Cuatro De Mayo party we had.  We also set a tablecloth on fire at our party, and that was before I had even a sip of margarita.  

I made carnitas and carne asada for tacos, pico de gallo with mango and borracho beans.  Everybody had at least 2 tacos, and I still have literally pounds of meat left over.  I made ramen for dinner last night because I am officially tired of tacos.  Friday I have to host the Korean culture lunch at Sophie's school.  My Korean neighbor has agreed to make some mandu, and I think I will bring in kimchi even though I am pretty sure nobody will be willing to try it.  Ian is putting together a slide show of a bunch of our pictures from Korea, and I will bring in the miniature kimchi pot I currently use to store rubber bands.  Middle schoolers can be a tough crowd, and I hope I don't embarrass Sophie too badly.    

Sophie ran a 5K this past Sunday, and it was unseasonably cold (45F) at the start.  She never performs well in the cold, but as we watched her finish with a tremendous burst of speed I remembered why I love to race.  There is no better feeling than the finish line in sight, heavy legs buoyed by the huge bubble of joy in your chest.  We took her to see "Ironman 3" as a reward.  At 10:00 a.m. on Sunday we had the theater nearly to ourselves.  It was enjoyable movie although in my humble opinion, not worth the extra money to see in 3-D.  

Tonight I am going to see a dear friend who is visiting from Hawaii.  Fourteen years ago she was one of the first people to meet Sophie when we brought her home.  Her dog, Maka, once held my cat Makoa's head very gently in her mouth.   We will reminisce about the time in Savannah where Piki drank half of Ian's Guinness before he realized what was happening.  We will drink a toast to these dogs who have since crossed the Rainbow Bridge and to friendships that have traveled around the world and back.

25 Pounds

2835 servings of sugar, or 42,525 Kcal.  Enough to provide caloric balance to an average person for 21 days.  How long will this sugar supply last the Lees?

Sophie contemplating eating sugar by the spoonful and heard saying "they probably won't notice"

Nice Buns

If you have a little time on your hands and some basic ingredients you should never run to the grocery store to buy the hotdog or hamburger buns you forgot.   You should make these.  I started them at 3:00 last night, rode my bike to the grocery store--to buy hamburger, shaped them when I got home, mowed the lawn, baked them and had dinner on the table by 6:00.  Jennifer Reese says they don't make good hamburger buns, but she's just being humble.  They make terrific hamburger buns as you can see from the picture. 

My Cuatro de Mayo party is fast approaching, and I have 8 lb. of pork shoulder waiting to be turned into carnitas tonight.  Naturally there will be margaritas, and my secret recipe involves frozen limeade concentrate--it was given to me by a friend who is actually Mexican.  It makes me feel OK for not juicing a bunch of limes which is a total pain.  Anyway, it was $1.29/can and located directly below Bacardi "margarita mix" ($3.29/can).  Another opportunity to feel superior, the first two for riding my bike to the store and bringing my own bags.  We have a piñata that I am going to use for decoration (it will be filled and killed for Sophie's birthday the following weekend).  Pom Diggity is terrified of it so I hid it in the guest bedroom for now. 

The beans have sprouted in the garden, 5 days!  I planted 4 sesame plants down the way from the squash.  I remember them growing like weeds behind our pension in Sokcho, and I hope they don't take over.  We had our third salad from my lettuce crop with dinner last night.  So far nobody has accidently eaten a slug or anything traumatic.

I just signed up for my introductory Cross-Fit session on May 14th.  I lied and said that I had no Cross-Fit experience because my Cross-Fit experience involved one Cross-Fit workout and then not being able to move for 3 days.  I am in a rut fitness-wise and hope this will shake something loose.  I promise not to go Paleo on my poor family--they would miss my buns.

Nice buns.

Little Boxes

We finally got our act together and planted the garden this past weekend.  It is my first attempt at a "real garden."  I constructed two boxes--one 2'x4' and one 4'x4' and filled with Mel's Mix.  Thanks to our good friends Sunny and Elizabeth we have custom-built cages that I can set over the top of the beds to keep out the critters.

The smaller bed has a crook-neck summer squash.  In the larger bed are two each of tomato, eggplant and pepper (jalepeno/banana) plants.  I direct sowed some okra, bush beans, radish, beets and Swiss chard.  We'll see what comes up.  Maybe just weeds, but since I have no idea what an okra sprout looks like that might be initially rewarding as well.  

The new garden

Vintage Cakes for Old People

Two easy cakes from Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  Not pictured is the Italian Cream Cake--coconut cake layered with milk chocolate ganache, that I left to tide Ian and Sophie over during my absence last weekend.  All delicious, and you could even serve the blueberry skillet cake for breakfast.  The recipe for the Texas Sheet Cake is here, and it is almost like a frosted brownie that requires minimal effort and lots of powdered sugar.

I think I am just about recovered from my race.  I can rise from a seated position without screaming a little, and the thought of going up and down the stairs doesn't make me rethink how badly I need to use the bathroom.  I had such a good time in Charlottesville with Maddy that I would do it all over this weekend.  We had lunch at Moto Pho Co (review to follow), shopped the downtown mall--marveling at the $300 jeans and $78 t-shirts at Eloise, and bought Sophie this book at a used bookstore.  I ate a late dinner at Fleurie on Saturday night, seated right next to the hostess stand.  Since I was the hostess' mother, it was the best seat in the house.  After a chicken liver/brioche/caramelized onion amuse bouche I had the lobster bisque and rack of lamb.  The chef slipped me a seared scallop and a raspberry macaron on the house.  It is a charming little restaurant serving classic French cuisine with a modern flair.  The lobster bisque was not the clunky, under-seasoned abomination that you see on most menus these days.  You could actually taste the tarragon and the consistency was soupy, you know, like a soup.  Not the sludgy, melted ice-cream texture I have had the misfortune to eat in other establishments.  The Pastis ice cream alone would bring me back in just for dessert and coffee.  

On the to-do list this week: make hundreds of mini cupcakes for the D.C. Birth and Babies Fair, finish up my raised beds for the garden, return to running and menu planning for our "Cuatro De Mayo" party.  We bought Maddy a ticket to Thailand for her graduation present, and the web research had me wishing for Asia again.  I had to make do with some tandoori chicken, chapati and that carrot salad from Burma.  I found some pre-ground shrimp powder which made it even easier to make.  I bet Burmese housewives would buy pre-ground shrimp powder so I don't feel like a complete slacker.  Time to chase the rabbits away from my peas....

Texas Sheet Cake

Bel Monte 25K Trail Race Report

Woefully undertrained, I was anxious all week about this race.  The course profile and race times from the previous year left no doubt in my mind about the difficulty of this trail.  It was a chilly (~40F) and breezy at start time (0630), and I was ready to get moving.  The first two miles were slightly downhill on the pavement, and this contributed to relatively quick start and spaced everyone out nicely prior to turning onto the trail.  I remember thinking (correctly) that this would be painful on the way back.  Initially the trail had a gentle descent to a creek crossing (think mid-thigh, about the temperature you would expect for a mountain stream in April) at mile 3.25, then the uphill started. 

possibly the last time I smiled for the next 3 hours and 24 minutes

I was initially stuck behind a dude that had doused himself with some sort of body spray that morning.  I passed him on the seemingly endless uphill section.  Five miles into the race and still climbing, I was very happy about my decision to do the 25K instead of the 50K.  The trail was steep enough and/or technical enough with rocks that there was a lot of walking involved.  The last 1.5 miles to the turn around were relatively less rocky, steady descent.  Meaning they were a steady ascent on the way out, ugh.  My legs were so hammered by the uphills that the downhills became equally painful.  After nearly falling 5 or 6 times at about mile 10-11 the race became about staying upright.  I was never so happy to see pavement for the last two miles even though it was all uphill.  My estimate for my finish time was off by nearly an hour.  I wound up 27th overall (out of 72) and 7th overall woman.  More importantly, my "old enough to be your mother number"--the number of people I beat assuming I had been 18 when they were born, was 7, and no woman >46 years old finished ahead of me.  A huge thanks to Maddy for accompanying me to the race and waiting in the cold for me to finish.  Kudos to Bad to the Bone for putting on such a great race.

Blue Ridge Parkway: mostly I just saw my feet during the race

Boston, a nation grieves with you.

When the explosions turned a dream into a tragedy in Boston yesterday I was running with my daughter's running group.  I came home to the shocking news of loss and terror at the finish line of our nation's greatest race.  

This latest incident hit  close to home.  A quick perusal of Facebook reassured me that those near and dear to me were out of harm's way.  As a runner and marathoner, I know how tightly knit this community is, and I am shocked and saddened that some individual or individuals chose to steal the joy from so many.  When I race this weekend, Boston will be foremost in my heart and mind.  

Alpaca Time

A huge debt of gratitude to my coworker who is not only a brilliant and compassionate clinician but also an alpaca-owning, lattice pie crust-making Renaissance woman who invited us along to shearing day.  Sophie and I left the house in the pre-dawn darkness and drove to West Virginia to spend a day that we are unlikely to ever forget.  Since our alpaca handling skills are minimal, our job was sweeping up and bagging the "garbage fleece."  We started with the cream colored and worked our way to the darker colored alpacas.  The shearer was a brawny man whose bulk belied the grace with which he wielded the clippers, fleece falling away in plush sheets.  The alpacas were firmly yet gently restrained, and though some protested mightily spitting and vocalizing, not one was nicked or injured.  The whole procedure took about 6 minutes, and they stumbled to their feet looking like oversized Q-tips.

Trussed!

The shearer said he can typically shear ~80 alpacas a day.  Some of the fleeces were carefully laid out onto shower curtains--destined for "fleece judging."  As we moved into the fawn alpacas, the fleeces ranged from a light café au lait to milk chocolate and begged to be touched.  Alpaca is one of the warmest and softest fibers--my coworker felts some of the fleece into boot liners.  You can take your fleece to a wool mill where they can process it into yarn for you. Some of that "garbage" fleece did wind up in a bag that I carried home with plans for making thrummed mittens.

Dust!

Sophie enjoyed correcting me each time I said, "llama," eating the potluck lunch, and bonding with the crias (baby alpacas).  She lobbied unsuccessfully to take one home in the truck bed.  Alpacas are social animals, and we would have had to bring home at least two. 

Lust!

Our drive included a round trip on White's Ferry--in operation since the 1700s, and a must-see if you live in the D.C. area.  Covered with dust and smelling distinctly of the barnyard, we were greeted joyously by Pom Diggity and Makoa on our arrival home.  My week's work will involve some research into cleaning my bag of fleece so my mittens won't incite similar excitement.

Trust!

recycled

I have a hard time throwing food away.  Luckily my family has not suffered from any food-borne illness as a result of my thrift, and it was Maddy who gave me the idea to use leftover French fries for hash.  It is rare to find a "leftover French fry" in my house, but pictured above is a mixture of  sweet potato fries, scallion kimchi (from January?--kimchi doesn't go bad), and Swiss cheese with a fried egg.  I think I have already mentioned using whey from my weekly yogurt production instead of stock in my butternut squash soup--I won't make it any other way now.  It took me weeks to finally toss the Thai red peppers (packaged 1/25/13) that were wasting away because I won't ever cook enough Thai food to use 2 cups of them. 

We braved the crowds and went down to the Tidal Basin last night to see the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms.  They were magnificent.  Ian took at least 100 pictures.  Then I had my second meal of the week at GBD.  Beer pairings for doughnuts and fried chicken?  You are my kind of place.  Sophie said, "You should get a job here."  It was their opening night for dinner, and we left totally sated and ready to become regulars.  It is a good thing I did that 30 mile ride earlier in the day. 

I just made reservations to attend my 25th college reunion.  I plan to make sure I don't look like somebody who eats doughnuts and fried chicken on a regular basis.  I can't wait to show off Ian and Sophie, and Maddy if she wants to join us.  The last time she went to a William and Mary Homecoming she was in a baby carrier. 

Green tea macaron made with "aged" egg whites: nobody died

The city that never sleeps

As promised, a selection of NYC pictures for your perusal.  There is an additional gallery in the Travel section of the blog.  It seems like more than just 10 days ago....especially after my weekend which involved 48 hours in-hospital call.  That means I was in the hospital from 8 a.m. Saturday through 8 a.m. Monday.  Only 5 hours of that was devoted to sleeping.  It also involved handing a new baby to his mother, and that always makes it time well spent.  When I climbed onto my bike to ride home, it seemed as if spring had sprung overnight in Washington, D.C.  Filled with bonhomie I detoured to GBD for some fried chicken and doughnuts which were worth the 3 extra miles of pedaling.  GBD is a new restaurant in Dupont Circle--"golden brown and delicious."  Expect a restaurant review soon....Sophie will not be denied!

No soup for you!

Back to the Big Apple....We checked a lot of NYC boxes on our trip: MOMA, Chelsea Market, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Momofuku Milk Bar (twice!), Eataly, FAO Schwartz, Dylan's Candy Bar, Carnegie Deli, Spiderman (nobody fell), The Village, Chinatown, Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times Square, the Staten Island Ferry.  We stayed in midtown here.  If you are military or retired military I would highly recommend it.  We did a lot of walking, but the 7 day transit pass came in very handy.  The subway system in NYC is extensive, relatively clean and 24/7.  There is no faster way around Manhattan in my opinion.  We did not venture to the other boroughs, maybe next trip.  We took the "Vamoose Bus" from D.C. to NYC.  Sixty dollars round-trip--comfortable seats, timely departure, Wi-Fi and a working toilet.  Again, highly recommend if you live in the D.C. area.

The Spotted Pig

We had a lovely meal at The Spotted Pig made even more special by cast of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" sitting two tables away.  Danny De Vito really is that short.  Ian and I shared a plate of the sea bass crudo.  I had the crispy pig ear salad with a side of nettle mascarpone polenta.  He had a burger.  Sophie had the prosciutto/ricotta tart which she pronounced, "delicious but it's too rich to finish."  That same person had dessert at Milk Bar not 30 minutes later.

NYPD in Times Square

We enjoyed Spiderman despite our last minute back row seating.  Times Square was garish and crowded, just like you would expect.  I have never understood the hoards who vacation in NYC that flock to eat in chain restaurants and shop in the same stores available in their malls back home.  People in Japan probably feel the same way about Americans at Tokyo Disney.  Our first meal in NYC was at Momofuku Noodle Bar where we made sure to try the ramen and the pork buns.  The staff was cheerful and friendly, snapping a picture of the Lees grinning giddily at their good fortune.

I will leave you with a recommendation for a sweet little coffee shop on Lexington (near our hotel--so 38th streetish).  Lucid Cafe was like falling into a wormhole to Seoul.  Run by Koreans--friendly and delighted by our ability to speak three words in Hangul.  We had coffee there every morning.  They make a mean flat white, and they totally deserve your business.  

Bok Choy at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Lemon Fresh

I started these preserved lemons about a month ago, and I hope they are ready.  There is no visible mold growth which is reassuring.  Surely no bacteria have survived this acidic/salty brew, right?  We shall see.  I made a salad for dinner last night with the type of stuff that survives in your refrigerator when you forget it's there.  I used some old carrot/ginger dressing (you know the kind you get in Japanese restaurants) I had made ? days/weeks ago, thinly sliced white cabbage, crumbled feta, peanuts and chopped cilantro.  Sophie had seconds. I don't remember where I got the salad dressing recipe, but I know I just plugged "ginger-carrot dressing" into a Google search.  You shouldn't wait until you come back from vacation and haven't gone grocery shopping to make it.

Today it's back to work for afternoon/evening clinic.  The weather is annoying--sunny but windy and cool.  I bought some annuals and herbs/lettuce at the nursery yesterday.  They spent the night in the truck bed to keep them out of reach of the rabbits until I can get them planted in containers.  Plus, it's supposed to drop into the 30's tonight.  I am rethinking the raised bed garden this year because I don't know who will take care of it when we are in Hawaii in June. 

I am not going to comment on our NYC trip other than to say it was wonderful, and we definitely ran out of time.  Ian took hundreds of pictures which he will cull down to the finest for the blog.  In the meantime, enjoy this incredible stop-motion video: