Awesome books and giant forks

Whoops. Apparently I'm the WORST at telling you guys all about my trip. Previously, Lauren and I saw lots of planes and spy gadgets, and ate delicious cupcakes, as well as discovering the world's weirdest salad and an escalator for shopping trolleys.

SO. The rest of the time in Washington was somewhat less exciting.

Monday: Site visits to big businesses, including Walmart. Except we went to the wrong one on account of no one bothered to give the bus driver the actual address of the store. And then we had to stand around in the stockroom for an hour while the manager talked about supply chain stuff and I tried not to sneeze because we were standing next to box after box of laundry detergent and cleaning products. And then shopping time. At Walmart. Because that was something we desperately needed?? Oh, and after Walmart, we were dropped at Pentagon City shopping centre, where I managed to get stuck in a toilet cubicle. And lose the subway station. And message half of 20SB to tell them about it. The general response was "BAHAHAHAHAHA".

Tuesday: The World Bank in the morning, which was surprisingly awesome, followed by a couple of hours of free time. The Coolest People You'll Ever Meet took advantage of the time to to a mad dash past the White House:

En route to the National Museum of American History. The exhibits were similar enough to 2011 that I was able to steer us around all the important things in under an hour, including the First Ladies dress collection, which was all Inauguration Ball gowns. But mostly the 'important things' consisted of this stuff:

Idina Menzel's Elpheba costume. *flail*

The original Kermit

This was a "Things you'd like to see on display" suggestion board.
I nearly died laughing from this suggestion.

George W. Bush jack in the box

HARRY POTTER'S ROBES. No, I don't know why they're
at the National Museum of American History.

The afternoon was the International Monetary Fund, which was interesting but a little too financial for my brain to be able to process.

Wednesday: The Coolest People You'll Ever Meet got to skip an entire day of boring business studies classes in favour of a behind the scenes tour at the Library of Congress. And it was awesome. Well. Except for the part where we got lost finding the room we were meant to be in. AND the part where we were in a rush so ate lunch (wraps bought at the food court of a subway station) standing on the steps, and the security guards were like ".......You know you can come inside, right?" But I digress. Back to the awesome:

ROMAN LAW SECTION OMG.

You cannot even begin to imagine how awesome this room smelled

And then that night, Agatha Goodkin and I went to a bar to see a Swedish band called The Amazing. They lived up to their name reasonably well, although people + loud music + not eating dinner until 11pm = Curmudgeonly Kirsti. On the plus side, Angry Orchard cider is freaking fabulous.

Thursday: A millionty years worth of classes. All of which were about marketing, and all of which made me nearly fall asleep a thousand times.

Friday: MORE classes, including four hours about leading change which had us all nearly slitting our wrists. Oh. Except for the video they made us watch about merging two companies that kept including weird shots of the interviewer nodding in response to what the interviewees were saying. It was rather like a bobble head, only weirder. And Agatha Goodkin and I kept giggling as a result. That night was our farewell dinner. We ended up at the same microbrewery where Kat and I spent our last night in DC in 2011. And I discovered that they had GIANT forks:

A full day of business lectures will make you look MUCH older than you are.
Also, HOW ENORMOUS IS THAT FORK?!

I also got laughed at by a bunch of the guys on the trip when I ordered a peach martini at the bar and discovered shortly thereafter that it tasted very much like cough syrup. It pretty much ended up like this:

Like they can talk. A bunch of us ended up at a bar just off U Street shortly thereafter, and the guys proceeded to throw back a round of Picklebacks. *shudder* (To those not in the know, a pickleback is a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of PICKLE BRINE) Needless to say, I bailed shortly thereafter.

Saturday: A "tour" of Georgetown, which basically consisted of "Here's the main building. Here's a classroom. We're done now." Agatha Goodkin and I were not even remotely impressed with the tour leader for that. Still, Georgetown is pretty:

Once our "tour" was finished, we had about three hours of free time. So while a bunch of the others went shopping, Agatha Goodkin and I went for a walk along the Potomac:

After a rather rushed lunch, we had three hours of class about culture and social responsibility, which mostly seemed to be about marketing to different ethnic groups. Which was weird, because I don't think that's really something that happens outside the US...

ANYWAY. It was actually pretty interesting, plus there were massive boxes of Georgetown Cupcakes for afternoon tea. WIN. The Key Lime was pretty good, and the chocolate² was kind of amazing, but neither of them compared to the flavours I tried at the Bethesda one.

The trip back to College Park was...interesting. Have you ever tried to hail a taxi in peak hour on a Friday night? I recommend not doing it. I ended up in a taxi with three of the guys, one of whom proceeded to torture the taxi driver by alternating between a British and an Australian accent to prove how different they were.

And thus we come to the end of the Washington segment of the trip. Next up, FLORIDA AND ALL THE FABULOUS FRIENDS EVER.

K xx

Cupcakes and aeroplanes

Yes, it's time for me to stop slacking and give you another installment of my trip!! Previously, I hung out with Sarah at the Newseum and she introduced me to Fuddruckers.

I got back to the motel about 15 minutes before Lauren arrived. When she did, we headed to the Applebee's next door to the motel to take advantage of the half price appetisers and the $1 brownie bites, and were met by the least enthusiastic and quite possibly surliest waitress of all time. She pretty much threw the cutlery at us, and literally slid my drink across the table at me. And then she didn't come back for half an hour. Coming from the land of "HAHAHAHA, TIPPING WHAT'S TIPPING?", I thought it was pretty hilarious. Until Lauren reminded me that I had to tip her...

The following morning, we had breakfast at the motel (YAY, FREE THINGS) before plugging in Lauren's trusty GPS and heading out towards Dulles to the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Centre. If you get the chance, you should really go. Because it's pretty freaking awesome, and I'm not particularly into planes. Of course, I failed to plan ahead and had totally the wrong lens on my camera, so most of my photos were taken on my phone. Still, you get the idea:

Felix the Cat on a plane? Awesomeness.

STOVL Propulsion System

Blackbird. It was freaking awesome. And pointy.

Ridiculously tiny Nazi helicopter

Concorde. There was no way to get the whole thing in the frame at once.

The Enola Gay. It was absolutely ENORMOUS.

Space Shuttle Discovery

The great space stingray?

Best mailbox EVER

Discovery

Discovery's heatproof shield thing

The hangar from the outside

After several hours of "HOLY CRAP, LOOK AT *THAT* ONE!"-ing, we ran out of planes to look at, and headed into Bethesda to get lunch. After spending approximately a thousand years stuck in roadworks, we found ourselves at a restaurant with the world's most bizarre salad:

Stolen from Lauren

Yeah. Mixed greens, angel hair pasta and wontons. Mmmmmm... 

Needless to say, we quickly decided that we didn't fancy anything on the menu, so headed next door to a Thai restaurant with far less...confusing...food. When we'd had our fill of delicious Thai food, we headed down the block towards the REAL reason for our visit to Bethesda:

Yup. THAT HAPPENED. We queued for about five minutes to get in the door, most of which was spent reading the menu and going "OMG, HOW DO I DECIIIIIIIIDE????". We ended up getting two each, because OBVIOUSLY. I got double milk chocolate birthday cake, and mint cookies and cream. Lauren had caramel praline crunch and red velvet:

And then we sat in the car and shoved cake into our faces like there was no tomorrow. I can't speak for Lauren's choices, but mine were freaking AMAZING. Quite often, I find that the cake part of schmantzy cupcakes can be a little dry and disappointing. These were not even remotely that. Totally worth the visit. 

Back in College Park, we took a little trip to see Testudo:

Then headed to Columbia Heights for dinner, because that was how far we got on the train before we were too hungry to go any further. After dinner at a pizza place where we got stuck in a queue behind people who didn't understand that a beer called "Chocolate City" would be stout-like, we headed to Target, just for the hell of it. 

I found this special piece of hilarity:

Which came in a pair with a matching suitcase:

And then we discovered that the Target was TWO STOREY and that there was a special escalator for the shopping trolleys. INSANITY. And awesomeness. 

On Sunday morning, we headed downtown for a little trip to the International Spy Museum. Being a Sunday morning at around 10.30, there were tons of people in suits and ties or twin sets and heels. It took me a good ten minutes to work out why: that they'd been to church. Clearly, the eight years I spent at church schools was TOTALLY worth the money!! 

Anyway, the International Spy Museum didn't let you take photos, so I can't share the awesomeness of the James Bond exhibition with you. In summary: the museum was fun, and I would make a truly TERRIBLE spy. 

And we finished off the weekend with lunch at an Irish pub. In Chinatown. Because that's how we roll. 

Next up, more classes, the Library of Congress, and Georgetown. Yes, there were more cupcakes. OBVIOUSLY.

Has anyone else ever seen an escalator for supermarket trolleys? Because WHUT.

K xx

101 in 1001 #33

It's been a while since I posted about my 101 in 1001 project. It's still ticking along, slowly but surely! I need to do a mass post some point in the near future to cover a bunch of things that are in progress or not really worth an entire post to themselves. But for now, I've crossed off number 33 - teach Little Miss A to bake.

Sure, this was only her first attempt at baking anything, so I imagine it'll be a long road. But hey - I'm crossing it off anyway! It was all thanks to me showing her a photo of the very first cake I ever made, and her getting incredibly miffed about the fact that I did that when I was six, and she's currently seven, and how come SHE hasn't made a cake all by herself yet????

So when she was here the other day, I took her down to the supermarket, and we bought a gluten free packet mix. I helped her with the more complicated words in the instructions (like 'margarine'), and she did everything herself (except the oven related stuff), including measuring the milk and cracking the egg and chopping the butter. Warning: if small children wielding sharp(ish) knives makes you nervous/think I'm an irresponsible aunt, look away now:

She was super excited about the fact that a) she was baking and b) I let her use a knife:

Okay, so she didn't make the icing all on her own - buttercream is kind of tricky when you're seven, you know. But she'll get there soon enough!! The decorations, on the other hand, were all her. And she was incredibly proud:

Understandably - they're pretty impressive!!

When we'd finished, she told me that next time, she wants to make a recipe that doesn't come from a packet. I think this whole "teaching Little Miss A to bake" thing is off to an EXCELLENT start!

K xx

Dessert Day: Pinterest edition

Today, I headed over to Deidre's for another installment of Dessert Day. It's been a while since we had one, what with her having surgery and me starting back at uni. We ummed and aahed for quite a while about what we were going to make. Eventually, I figured I'd delve into my Pinterest boards and see if there was any inspiration there.

Surprisingly enough, among all the pictures of puppies and shoes, and the patterns for TARDIS sleeping bags (TARDIS SLEEPING BAGS!!!!!!), I found a couple of things that fit the bill perfectly.

We ended up making two of them: orange creamsicle cupcakes, and lemon raspberry bars. Of course, we had to make a few modifications so that they were gluten free. We replaced the base for the lemon raspberry bars with one of Deidre's own concoction - a mixture of butter, gluten free flour, sugar and almond meal. We used frozen raspberries, because fresh ones cost a bazillion dollars. And contrary to the claims, the cupcake recipe only made six. Or at least it did the way WE made them!

In typical Dessert Day fashion, there was much consumption of cheese and crackers and dip, along with a few near disasters (namely, me trying to separate eggs. Sometimes, Dessert Day is very much like My Drunk Kitchen, but with far less alcohol... One of these days, we should vlog Dessert Day so you can see just how incredibly inept we are!!)

The icing on the cupcakes is less than expertly piped, and far more yellow than in the picture I pinned. I'm not sure if the bleached status of American butter is to blame, or if it's actually some kind of marshmallow fluff instead. And the raspberry bars aren't the prettiest looking things on the planet. But they both tasted pretty damned good, so that's all that really matters!!

Hopefully by the time the next Dessert Day rolls around, I'll have my replacement 50mm lens and will be able to present some slightly lighter (read: better) photos!

K xx

Diddle dee dee, potatoes

Happy St. Patrick's Day, kids! Hope you're all getting your drink on (if you so desire) and generally enjoying eating food that's been dyed abnormal colours. If you have no idea what the title of this post relates to, check out this video.

Aaaah, Danny Bhoy. I could watch that clip a hundred times and it would still be hilarious. (And yes, I know it's horribly stereotypical. And no, I don't think Irish people actually say "Diddle dee dee, potatoes". Just go with it, 'kay?)

Anyway, over the past few days I kept thinking that I should bake something for St. Patrick's Day. A quick search of Pinterest revealed the following options:
1. Green velvet cake.
2. Guinness cake.
3. Any number of things requiring mint chocolate chips, which are only available in North America.
4. Whisky flavoured stuff.
5. Baileys flavoured stuff.

The third one was out automatically, because of the mint chocolate chip issue. 2, 4 and 5 were out because of BLURGH. And 1 was out because anything that calls itself food and requires an entire BOTTLE of food colouring to make should not exist.

So I kept ending up back at square one. But then I woke up this morning with an epiphany - IRISH CIDER.  Which led me to Googling "cider cupcakes", and I'm pretty sure most of the recipes probably means the American definition of cider (i.e. non-alcoholic), considering they required you to use 3 cups of cider and reduce it. Proper cider is WAY too expensive for that kind of activity, thank you!

Anyway, here's what you'll need for the cupcakes:

Proper Irish cider and everything.

Start by putting 2 teaspoons of baking powder in a bowl:

Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon:

1/2 a teaspoon of salt:

And 1 2/3 cups of plain flour (I used gluten free):

Mix it all together and put it to one side.

Put 125g of softened unsalted butter into a bowl:

Add 2/3 cup of caster sugar, and cream it together:

Then add two eggs, one at a time, and beat in between additions:

Add in about a third of the flour mixture, and mix it in with the beater on low:

Then add in 1/2 cup of cider. The mixture will look REALLY vile when you've added it. Kind of like porridge:

Mmmmm, cider

It's kind of...congealed looking.

Repeat with another third of the flour, another 1/2 cup of cider, and finally the last of the flour.

Scoop it into a muffin tin filled with cupcake liners, and bake at 180 degrees (350 Fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Mine took a little longer, because they're gluten free, and that seems to be the way of things!)

When you take them out of the muffin tin, the bottom of the cupcakes will seem puffy and you'll freak out that there's a layer of uncooked batter in there. Don't be alarmed. They ARE actually cooked. It's just that the combination of the baking powder and the carbonated cider makes them a little...gassy. (TOTALLY makes them seem appetising, right??)

Let them cool, and then ice them as you see fit. I kludged together a cream cheese frosting using 75g unsalted butter, 125g cream cheese, 2 cups icing sugar, and 2 tablespoons cider.

NOM

But when I iced the cupcakes, they looked kind of boring.

So I mixed up a thick paste out of icing sugar and water, and added a blob of gel food colouring:

Wheeee, neon!

And piped shamrocks onto the top!

They're pretty delicious, guys. Although I think next time, I'd add 3/4 cup of diced apple to the cake batter to give it that little extra something.

So there you go - St. Patrick's Day cupcakes! What are you doing for St. Patrick's Day?

K xx