Fat Tuesday and Semla!

I prefer these delicious sweet buns filled w/ almond paste and whipped cream to the church pancake supper on Fat Tuesday.  My wonderful neighbor Mattias (pictured above) made some.  Being the wonderful neighbors that he and his wife Lili are, they sent out an email inviting us to partake.  Mattias mentioned that he used the recipe that his mother always used in Sweden.  

Of course I googled Semla -- apparently they sell them at IKEA!  I bet they're not as good as Mattias's.

Cheesecake and Beer!

Have you ever tried the combination?  I don't know why it's not as popular as cheese and wine.  It's one of my favorite food and drink pairings.  

After a nice Valentine concert, my husband and I went to a great local brewery called Hunter-Gatherer.  First of all, they have really good beer.  I switched this past year from the ESB to the Wheat.  

They were serving a blueberry cream cheesecake.  Yum...that's all I really have to say.  I thought that while I was sharing my little pov on baking, I might as well include this too.

Linzer Cookies

I tried making Linzer cookies for Valentine's.  I checked out a new cookbook from the library - The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri.

I thought this dough was the worst.  It was so dry and difficult to work with.  I don't know what I did wrong.  I must have re-read the directions about 10 times.  I feel like I missed out on something.  Since, I found a good looking recipe on The Joy of Baking website.  

I might try that recipe the next time I get a hankering to make linzer cookies.  I always thought they looked pretty for Valentine's day.  These tasted pretty good, but the texture just wasn't great.  One other complaint about the Malgieri recipe...there was an overwhelming amount of clove.  I love clove - but I wished I had been consuming this in either November or December ---that's when I really want my clove.  I'm probably too picky.  

I used a scalloped cutter which I thought looked very pretty.  The picture's not great.  I need to work on that.

The N'Oreo

This is my final post about the DC inauguration trip.  It's primarily about baking - let's call it my common tone blog modulation.  We had a great final evening visiting w/ Anne & Lane, watching the inaugural balls on TV and enjoying champagne and Tater Tots

Our final morning we tried the vegan bakery Anne suggested - Sticky Fingers.  I got a few treats for the trip home.  My favorite was the Mint N'Oreo.  I loved the texture of the chocolate cookie.  It was crispy, but not at all dry. The mint filling was not overly sweet and plenty minty.  It made an excellent snack for the trip back - which amazingly, was no trouble at all.

We ran into lots of folks returning home from the inauguration at all of our rest stops -- the guy we met in Wendy's said he got to sit next to Dustin Hoffman (fancy).  It was amazing that we never ran into bad traffic.  We left the city shortly after rush hour.   We started to take an alternate route for fear of heavy traffic on I-95.  After making it outside of the beltway w/ no problems, we decided to take a chance on 95.   

Back to the bakery, they had a number of savory foods that looked delicious too.  I'd love to try some of their other foods the next time I'm in town.  I did have a Sticky Cinnamon Bun for breakfast.  Very good; however, for my taste, the N'Oreo won.  

Inauguration Day

I hope no claustrophobics attempted to navigate within these crowds.  I have never seen anything like this - ever.  Our day began around 6am.  We left the place we were staying and met up w/ friends near Dupont Circle.  Together, we all walked down 18th Street to the Mall.  The trek there was probably one of the highlights.  It was incredible to see people converging from so many different paths.  Volunteers from different organizations were handing out food, nametage, buttons, etc...  We all received nametags that said: "Hello my fellow American, my name is ___."

As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by people from the National Park Service.  They thanked us for coming and told us they were glad we were there.  It was touching.  We quickly began meeting people from all over the country.  Ironically, we ended up beside a group of folks from Columbia, SC!  It took us a little while to stake out our spot, eventually we settled on on a place, probably about 4 jumbo trons back.  For a short gal, I could see pretty well.  The sound was pumped loudly everywhere.  My favorite part of the pre-ceremony music was everyone joining in singing "This Land Is Your Land," led by Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen - I choked up.  While we were singing, I noticed an elderly woman who was enjoying the music just as much as I.  There's a picture of us on our Picasa page.  Turns out she was 90 years old and came from Philadelphia - she was a Quaker.  

One of the most memorable parts of the day was the insane crowd after the ceremony let out.  I'd say it took us at least an hour to just get off the Mall.  We sought refuge up against a nearby building to try to look for other ways to navigate the crowd.  We were able to climb up on the steps to get some pictures of the madness (check the Picasa page).  Crowds that large can be kind of frightening.  Luckily, everyone was calm and patient for the most part.  We were glad we had stashed all kinds of power bars and snacks into our pockets.  I saw the satellite picture of the crowds on CNN - I'd love to have a blown up print of that image.  

We walked back to our friend's apartment and waited a while.  Got back to our place around 5 - the Metro was crowded, but not more so than during a regular rush hour.  I'm certain that would not have been the case had we not waited.  

The coverage of the parade and balls was fun to watch on television.  What an experience this has been.  I'm looking forward to getting home --  I'm ready for this New Era of Responsibility of which Obama spoke.  

  

Here we go!

Big Shoulders Ball was fantastic.  I love Freakwater.  I think I need to say that again -- I LOVE Freakwater.   I recorded them singing Signed, Sealed and Delivered on the Flip.  Will share later.  See updated pics at our Picasa album

I see the crowds walking to the mall on CNN.  We're about to go join them.  OK.  Need to run put on those hiking boots and that bright orange neck gator!  

Cake Love

This is a baking blog, after all.  So, I really needed to go into Cake Love to try their special Inaugural cake/cupcake - "44."  They were out of cake slices - I believe you may have gotten more of the yummy salted caramel that way.  However, the cupcake was delicious!  A vanilla cake w/ vanilla buttercream (emphasis on butter!) w/ salted vanilla swirl.  I met another South Carolinian in line (from Darlington).  She took my picture for me:

I also got chocolate, raspberry, and pumpkin cupcakes too.  We'll have to let you know about those later.