spring weekend report
Apr. 30th, 2007 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittenscribbleWhat a gorgeous weekend! I feel as if I had been let free for my mandatory "outside" quota before being shut back in the cubicle. Now it's back to good old windowless walls, fluorescent lighting, humming ventilation. The weekend was much better...
We started out Saturday morning by making luxury scrambled eggs; I'd heard awhile back that slow cooking over low heat makes for great scrambled eggs, but I hadn't had the time or patience to try it. The recipe is indeed luxurious, producing eggs of incredible tender fluffiness and flavored wonderfully with fresh herbs. I'll have to try it again with the cream cheese and heavy cream; I used milk instead of cream and left out the cream cheese altogether (poor planning). Still marvelous. We had it with bacon cooked Alton Brown style -- on a sheet pan fitted with a rack, placed into a cold oven; oven set to heat to 400 degF for about 12 to 15 minutes -- and had strawberries, mango, and diced tomato on the side. Such a wonderful breakfast.
Then K and I checked out Maryland Day 2007 (as he pointed out, it's been ten years since we first started there). Aside from quick focused in-and-out trips, I hadn't really been back since graduation and it was fun to walk around campus, re-familiarizing ourselves with the paths and buildings, gaping at the renovations and new structures. We didn't get there until after noon and so I missed a bunch of morning stuff that I had wanted to attend, but it was still fun. The new and improved Stamp Student Union is very impressive. We took a break to sit in the Hoff (a very modern theater-auditorium now) and watch the cricket World Cup for a while. Cricket looked pretty silly at first, but then I really got into it as K explained the rules and order of play. The crowd was very pro-Sri Lanka, approving sound rippling through the room with every Australian mistake.
We also checked out the new engineering building, which is full of shiny steel and exposed wiring and reminds me strongly of MIT, all angles and self-conscious techiness. We even managed to find the new fab lab, which is very shiny and probably brings much joy to my old microfab professor. Then we sat in the football stadium, watched a scrimmage match, and waited for B to call.
We were supposed to help B move in the afternoon, but it turned out he wouldn't be ready for hours yet. So we went to Mandalay in Silver Spring for dinner. Wasn't as good as I remember from the days that they were in College Park; my pickled mango curry was so pickled that the whole dish tasted vinegary, and K's hot pepper curry was so spicy as to destroy all flavor. The trip wasn't a total waste, though, since we stopped by a used book store right across the street. Picked up some cheap out-of-print sci-fi/fantasy that I'm looking forward to reading.
Then B called up and said he was ready to move. Highlights included a huge Ikea bookshelf and some plush couches that were really too large for the stairwells, and also making sure that someone caught the cat whenever we needed to open the door. Everything got safely into the new condo, and B rewarded us with sushi. Mmm, late-night sushi. I rather liked the Inner Harbor roll (crab and Old Bay), which I'd never seen before.
Sunday opened with a visit to Eastern Market, where we found some empanadas to munch on (and I did not, despite severe temptation, buy any pretty printed skirts). (edit: holy cow there was a fire at the Eastern Market last night. I hope the vendors recover; I love that place.) We then headed over to the Shakespeare's Birthday Open House at the Folger. Saw a bunch of performers that we recognized from MD Rennfest, and the Shakespeare outreach group "Bill's Buddies" was just fantastic. Lots of fun activities for kids, too.
Then it was time for dragonboat practice, so we headed down to the Anacostia docks. K waited patiently on the shore (with a bunch of East Rising's personal effects) while we got used to being on the water again, and tried to keep in time with each other. Clumsy paddling ensured that both sides of the boat got good and wet; I swallowed rather more of the Anacostia than I really wanted to. Between the hard rowing and the hard benches, I am a single massive ache from shoulders to back to thighs right now.
K and I finished off the day by visiting the fish markets along Water Street. It's always neat to walk along the docks and stare down into the floating storefronts and their piles of seafood, though it's a bit intimidating to shoulder your way into the crowds and demand service. I was tempted by the smell of crabs and Old Bay, but in the end K won out and we bought a pound of shrimp to eat by the harbor, among the tourists and hopeful pigeons and kids with fishing poles. We followed the shrimp with vanilla ice cream and wonderful fresh buttered rolls, bought from the stand where they were giving away free samples of banana-walnut cake. (The cake was to die for, and I don't even like walnuts. Or bananas.)
Speaking of dragonboat, the 6th annual Washington DC Dragonboat Festival is coming up on May 19-20. Come down to the Potomac for a fun weekend of dragonboat racing; we've got teams visiting from New York, Ottawa, and Taipei that are sure to kick our asses. (Particularly those scarily synchronized Taipei rowers, who blew everyone away last year.) Also, my little brother will be performing with East Rising in the opening lion dance ceremony.
We started out Saturday morning by making luxury scrambled eggs; I'd heard awhile back that slow cooking over low heat makes for great scrambled eggs, but I hadn't had the time or patience to try it. The recipe is indeed luxurious, producing eggs of incredible tender fluffiness and flavored wonderfully with fresh herbs. I'll have to try it again with the cream cheese and heavy cream; I used milk instead of cream and left out the cream cheese altogether (poor planning). Still marvelous. We had it with bacon cooked Alton Brown style -- on a sheet pan fitted with a rack, placed into a cold oven; oven set to heat to 400 degF for about 12 to 15 minutes -- and had strawberries, mango, and diced tomato on the side. Such a wonderful breakfast.
Then K and I checked out Maryland Day 2007 (as he pointed out, it's been ten years since we first started there). Aside from quick focused in-and-out trips, I hadn't really been back since graduation and it was fun to walk around campus, re-familiarizing ourselves with the paths and buildings, gaping at the renovations and new structures. We didn't get there until after noon and so I missed a bunch of morning stuff that I had wanted to attend, but it was still fun. The new and improved Stamp Student Union is very impressive. We took a break to sit in the Hoff (a very modern theater-auditorium now) and watch the cricket World Cup for a while. Cricket looked pretty silly at first, but then I really got into it as K explained the rules and order of play. The crowd was very pro-Sri Lanka, approving sound rippling through the room with every Australian mistake.
We also checked out the new engineering building, which is full of shiny steel and exposed wiring and reminds me strongly of MIT, all angles and self-conscious techiness. We even managed to find the new fab lab, which is very shiny and probably brings much joy to my old microfab professor. Then we sat in the football stadium, watched a scrimmage match, and waited for B to call.
We were supposed to help B move in the afternoon, but it turned out he wouldn't be ready for hours yet. So we went to Mandalay in Silver Spring for dinner. Wasn't as good as I remember from the days that they were in College Park; my pickled mango curry was so pickled that the whole dish tasted vinegary, and K's hot pepper curry was so spicy as to destroy all flavor. The trip wasn't a total waste, though, since we stopped by a used book store right across the street. Picked up some cheap out-of-print sci-fi/fantasy that I'm looking forward to reading.
Then B called up and said he was ready to move. Highlights included a huge Ikea bookshelf and some plush couches that were really too large for the stairwells, and also making sure that someone caught the cat whenever we needed to open the door. Everything got safely into the new condo, and B rewarded us with sushi. Mmm, late-night sushi. I rather liked the Inner Harbor roll (crab and Old Bay), which I'd never seen before.
Sunday opened with a visit to Eastern Market, where we found some empanadas to munch on (and I did not, despite severe temptation, buy any pretty printed skirts). (edit: holy cow there was a fire at the Eastern Market last night. I hope the vendors recover; I love that place.) We then headed over to the Shakespeare's Birthday Open House at the Folger. Saw a bunch of performers that we recognized from MD Rennfest, and the Shakespeare outreach group "Bill's Buddies" was just fantastic. Lots of fun activities for kids, too.
Then it was time for dragonboat practice, so we headed down to the Anacostia docks. K waited patiently on the shore (with a bunch of East Rising's personal effects) while we got used to being on the water again, and tried to keep in time with each other. Clumsy paddling ensured that both sides of the boat got good and wet; I swallowed rather more of the Anacostia than I really wanted to. Between the hard rowing and the hard benches, I am a single massive ache from shoulders to back to thighs right now.
K and I finished off the day by visiting the fish markets along Water Street. It's always neat to walk along the docks and stare down into the floating storefronts and their piles of seafood, though it's a bit intimidating to shoulder your way into the crowds and demand service. I was tempted by the smell of crabs and Old Bay, but in the end K won out and we bought a pound of shrimp to eat by the harbor, among the tourists and hopeful pigeons and kids with fishing poles. We followed the shrimp with vanilla ice cream and wonderful fresh buttered rolls, bought from the stand where they were giving away free samples of banana-walnut cake. (The cake was to die for, and I don't even like walnuts. Or bananas.)
Speaking of dragonboat, the 6th annual Washington DC Dragonboat Festival is coming up on May 19-20. Come down to the Potomac for a fun weekend of dragonboat racing; we've got teams visiting from New York, Ottawa, and Taipei that are sure to kick our asses. (Particularly those scarily synchronized Taipei rowers, who blew everyone away last year.) Also, my little brother will be performing with East Rising in the opening lion dance ceremony.
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indeed both incredible AND edible
Date: 2007-05-05 04:04 am (UTC)Re: indeed both incredible AND edible
Date: 2007-05-07 01:04 pm (UTC)I tried the double-boiler method yesterday and I have to say that I prefer the nonstick pan; the texture of the eggs comes out about the same (yay for slow cooking over low heat!) but I can control the curd size a lot better with a spatula than a whisk. And it's easier to clean afterwards, too.
Alton Brown is the man.
Re: indeed both incredible AND edible
Date: 2007-05-07 11:52 pm (UTC)