Even though I only live 40 miles north, D.C. is a destination I too often overlook—its proximity making it somehow less exciting even while its streets remain unexplored. Still, about once a year, I catch a train south without a specific destination in mind. (When I do have a destination, it always involves Meridian Park outside my friend’s apartment. Go there! There is a drum circle on Sundays, FYI.) When autonomously wandering, I always promise myself I’ll get further than the Mall, but more often than not I exit Union Station and find myself caught up in weekend pedestrian traffic. Tourists mixing with locals with slightly more equanimity than Times Square’s bustle, I fall in behind a family trying to… Continue reading »
Of Spider’s Silk and Skill
I walked through this spider’s web last night while dragging the trash can to the alley. Well, not this web specifically, but I’ll get to that. The exotic-looking-for-Maryland spider swiftly rappelled to safety as I looked on, leaving me both a little freaked out by the sticky surprise and rather crushed to have destroyed something so complex and painstakingly built. Or so I thought. This morning the web was back, bigger and better than before. Its anchors spanned the back patio–probably six feet–from tree to grill to fence column, the web floating parallel to the ground at about chest level. How could this nickel-sized creature, alone in the dark, have done such work? Life is a wonderland indeed. Thus inspired,… Continue reading »
What Is That? Banana Blossom Salad
I think there is nothing about New York I miss more than the amazing markets that populated my former neighborhood of Jackson Heights. Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Indonesian–if you needed exotic produce and quirky packaged goods, this was the place you came. If you needed anything more authentic, you could catch a flight just a few blocks north. These days some of that longing is assuaged with a visit to the H Mart just west of downtown Baltimore. This large Korean grocery offers a dizzying array of fruits and vegetables that you won’t find at your local grocery, as well as aisle after aisle of strange and exotic snacks, canned goods, packaged convenience foods, and frozen dumplings of 101… Continue reading »
Once Again Into the Wool: Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2014
I tend to lose some of my knitting motivation as spring weather forces the mercury up, but the annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival usually kicks me back into gear. Since I posted some motivational photos last year, I was going to skip documenting this round, but in the end the adorable faces were too hard to resist. (Regular readers know I have had this problem before.) This year I kept my spending to a minimum by skipping the $164-a-skein arctic qiviut I fell in lust with. Thankfully my hands got too sticky after a confrontation with a red velvet funnel cake (!!) and I had to regroup before feeling up any more yarn. I still managed to come home… Continue reading »
Let’s Celebrate! Have a Lavender and Lemon Cookie
Though I have somewhat forgotten what the sun feels like due to this three-day sheet of rain it’s hiding behind, over the weekend a picnic was considered and I found myself in need of a simple, portable, no-silverware-required dessert-type experience. Since the suggested locations included our stunning local tulip patch, my mind turned to flowers–specifically the bag of dried lavender flowers I was already stocked with. I must have googled lavender cakes and cookies and lemonades dozens of time in the past few years, but I had never followed through and actually executed a recipe. In this case, I needed something efficient in terms of time and effort, and bake-able out of what was already in the house. Giada De… Continue reading »
Spring Brunch Brilliance: Porch Waffle Party
We stored up quite a bit of cabin fever here in Baltimore this winter, so as soon as the weekend temperatures began to touch the 70s, the neighbors fell into action to get our notoriously non-rowdy porch parties back on the social calendar. While these affairs normally allow us to enjoy some wine and dessert as a summer day cools its way into evening, we traded down to morning so that we could trade up to waffles and mimosas for this season’s kick-off event. After an unfortunate electrical fire, we were also inaugurating our resident waffle mistress’s brand new iron, so it was perhaps best to get things going outside—just to be safe. As the waffle production was very well… Continue reading »
