Cake of the Week: Parfait (My New Favorite GIF)

My guess of the layers is: vanilla pudding, cake, another pudding (maybe orange?), jello, orange chocolate macaroons, and whipped cream! Though really, your guess is as good as mine.

Either way, YES PLEASE!

4-Part Sunday Fun-Day

My Sunday was excellent – after Saturday’s huge storm, the humidity finally broke and it felt like fall. A group of five (myself, three of my college ski team friends, and one new climbing friend) set out on a series of super-fun, very well-planned, challenging but relaxing outdoors activities in Virginia.

Part 1: We met in Alexandria and drove an hour to the Buzzard Rocks trail head near Front Royal, VA.  We got the day started with a brisk hike -- two miles uphill to reach the top of Buzzard Rocks (the upper part of Elizabeth’s Furnace climbing area).

Part 2A: We set up ropes (well, AJ did the setting) and tied in for some slab climbing ("slab" = a relatively low-angle section of rock; the emphasis is on balance, footwork, and making use of very small features or rough spots on the rock for friction). It was Nikki’s second outdoor climbing experience ever and she did so well! The climbs were relatively easy but definitely fun, and the view was beautiful.

Part 2B: After maxing out our slab-climbing fun, we headed down the road to the other, more well-known part of Elizabeth’s Furnace, called Talking Headwall. These climbs are much more vertical and have tricky/fun “roofs” (that’s climbing for a horizontal overhang – basically you have to get up and over something that is like a flat roof above you head –pull-up time!).

(This picture isn't any of us, but you get the idea)

Again, Nikki the new climber rocked it and got to the top of  this 5.8!

Part 3: Parts 3 and 4 of the day focused on relaxing. It was definitely not as hot as anticipated (hallelujah!), so instead of swimming in the local swimming hole, we sat with our tired-of-being-in-climbing-shoes feet in the water and it was lovely.

Part 4: Then to finish off the day we went to Christina's Cafe in Strasburg, VA, a local place with delicious sandwiches and some ahem, interesting open mic night music. We sat on the patio surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers and felt pretty pleased with ourselves for a day well-done.

Anyway, quick backtrack to Saturday: 

The city-dweller side of my weekend was equally enjoyable. Saturday morning I went for a long run down the Mall, across the Arlington Bridge, around Roosevelt Island, and back (11.5 miles!) in what might be (fingers crossed) the very last of the oppressive DC summer heat. 

Then my friend and I met up at Sova, my new favorite coffee shop on H Street, to get work done/handle our lives. Our original plan was to work at the oh-so-popular Big Bear Cafe, but be warned: they turn off their internet on weekends!!! Sova was much quieter anyways. (As I attempt to be productive this fall -- big life changes in the works! -- I foresee a lot of time spent at Sova...) I savored a large cup of coffee, a chocolate cookie with cayenne pepper, and was incredibly productive for 4 whole hours!

And that my friends, is that. HAPPY OMG IT FEELS LIKE FALL!!!!!

Best of the Week #75

So this came as an interestingly pleasant surprise – last night I discovered that the way to get better at yoga is to not do yoga for four months. Seriously, it was one of my best classes ever. In Eagle Pose I twisted no-problem. In Standing Head to Knee, I straightened my non-standing leg! My balance was awesome in Standing Bow, and I had the best Triangle Pose ever. Moral of the story? Tri-annual Bikram Yoga might just be the way to go…

In other workout news, for once I had a week completely devoid of post-work plans, which means I exercised a lot. I ran every morning (just a little bit), and then biked, rock climbed, and went to yoga. It was excellent!

My most popular post this week was “Hip Flexor and Piriformis Stretching and Strengthening.” Perhaps the fact that I’ve been doing these exercises contributed to my yoga improvements? Anywho, probably worth the read for any runners out there.

And now for some fun Friday links!

Per usual, I’m late to the trendy pop-culture party…but what the WHAT? I have no words, only emotions.
Watch the music video.

But if you want some words, here’s an accompanying article: “Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music Video Sensation.”

• Park Jaesang is an unlikely poster boy for South Korea's youth-obsessed, highly lucrative, and famously vacuous pop music. Park, who performs as Psy (short for psycho), is a relatively ancient 34, has been busted for marijuana and for avoiding the country's mandatory military service, and is not particularly good-looking.

This is by far the weirdest thing you will read this month: “From Otherkin to Transethnicity: Your Field Guide to the Weird World of Tumblr Identity Politics.”

• What does this mean? An otherkin is a being born into the wrong body. Not just with the wrong parts, but as the wrong species: people who identify as otherkin believe that they are a wolves, or elves, or really any kind of being, born into a human body.
• Being otherkin, to this group, isn't just about resisting technology or being in touch with nature (though these, and other fantasy and new age elements, still form a large part of otherkin culture) — it's about being marginalized, ignored, laughed at, and oppressed. It's like being transgender. And as this otherkin group has transformed its language and its focus, so too has its scope widened. Otherkin identities can encompass fictional characters. Or nonliving, inanimate objects. Or even multiple identities — some fictional, some animal, all of them occupying a single body. Out of this widening comes new words: cisspecies. Transethnicity. Transablism. Transfat.

“The Greatest Books of All Time, As Voted by 125 Famous Authors.”

• “Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work,” Jennifer Egan once said. This intersection of reading and writing is both a necessary bi-directional life skill for us mere mortals and a secret of iconic writers’ success, as bespoken by their personal libraries. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity’s greatest British and American writers — including Norman Mailer, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Joyce Carol Oates — “to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time– novels, story collections, plays, or poems.”

I really really want my soon-to-be-born nephew to come out looking like this:

OK, full disclosure: I JUST learned that “compliment” and “complement” are two different words. For those of you who already knew that, go ahead and feel superior. For those of you (like me) who are SHOCKED right now, you’re welcome.

• Compliment -- A polite expression of praise or admiration.
• Complement -- A thing that completes or brings to perfection.

The city and country where I studied abroad (Niamey, Niger) is under water. "11 neighborhoods in Niamey have flooded." And watch a video of the destruction here.

Sign. So true: “Top ten things that would-be foreign policy wonks should study”

• History, Statistics, Foreign Language, Economics, International Law, Geography, Culture, Communication, Science. 

I follow the blog "1000 Awesome Things," and here’s a TED talk with the creator! “The 3 A’s of awesome.”

Best read of the week: This could almost be written by me (if I were funnier): “The Long Run: Notes on a Taper.”

• The six months since I signed up for the race had been a case study in chaos. I landed a new job. I hurdled time zones in a series of unplanned trips. And I consistently fell prey to an entrenched lack of self-discipline, most problematically around heeding the note I taped above my alarm clock, which in reference to my goal marathon time sternly read, “2:59, get up now!”
• With steadfast determination, I focused on the taper’s holy trinity: eat more, run a lot less, and sleep. I was bringing my A-game to all three.
• I headed back and did what I do in any high-stress, low-preparation situation: I made a list.

I kind of want these hard-boiled egg shapes. Actually, scratch that -- I really want these and just added them to my Amazon cart.

My own WTF Friday: "UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon met face-to-face with Sudanese president and international war criminal Omar Al Bashir."

• It is not clear whether the meeting marks “the UN’s moral rehabilitation of the Khartoum regime“. But if nothing else, the meeting between Ban Ki-Moon and Omar al-Bashir illustrates just how little interest there remains within the international community to arrest or truly isolate Bashir. Darfur seems to be on the international community’s back-burner. And that’s a significant victory for one person in particular: Omar al-Bashir himself.

Ooohh election season. In case you care: “What you should be reading for election news.”

• If I had to pick other news sources this cycle, I might say the New Yorker’s Political Scene podcast, and of course the Daily Show. Plus my Twitter feed.

New pet anyone? (source)

• White tigers are not Siberian tigers, but instead are an extremely rare form of Indian tiger.
• The white tiger has a recessive gene mutation that causes it to be born semi-albino. The defect happens to one in ten thousand tiger births. As the defect is only a semi-albino gene, the eyes retain some blue color rather than turning completely red. Aside from the eyes, the nose, mouth, eyelids and pads are all a reddish pink.

Video: "How to Caramelize Onions in 15 Minutes."

• This week, I decided to challenge myself to see how fast I could caramelize onions without the "cheaty" additions of sugar and baking soda, relying only on heat and a bit of water to prevent burning. I managed to do it in 15 minutes and 22 seconds. Not bad, considering it can take over an hour to do the traditional way.

For all the Parks and Recreation fans out there, this exists: "Ron F***ing Swanson Barbecue Sauce (on a Turf ‘n’ Turf)"

• The new Parks and Rec Ron Swanson barbecue sauce was intriguing. But the idea that it's meant to be served on a 24-ounce porterhouse steak plus a 16-ounce T-bone steak, with whiskey and a cigar, was absolutely compelling.

Ok, this very long list of things says that clearly I spent WAY too much time on the interwebs this week...wasting my time so you don't have to waste yours...have a great weekend!

Alexandria Family Fun Day and 5K

The first annual Alexandria Family Fun Day and 5K kicks off on Sunday, September 30! If you’re in the area and like running, family, and/or fun, you may want to find yourself at Cameron Run Park at 8am.

(And if you’re skeptical of a “family fun day” involving running, be assured by the knowledge that sisters 1, 2, and I spent a lot of our childhoods at various running events and turned out completely normal...or something)

The day’s events include:

• Open 5K – 8 am
• 5K Walk – 8:45 am
• 1 Mile Kid’s Course (with activities along the way) – 8:45 am
• 100 Yard Tot Trot – 7:45 am

Go here to register. (Entry prices go up September 25.)

100% of the proceeds go to charities including global water projects, Girls on the Run, and services for at-risk youth and families in the area.

It may be a low-key “fun run,” but rest assured, the event is planned by runners, meaning it will be organized and all necessary logistics will be taken care of. (I know and like and trust these race organizers!)

The course is seriously beautiful – it runs through Ben Brenman Park on paved trails and around a lovely lake. Can we talk about the fact that there are real bathrooms at the start and finish!?!

And, in my opinion the best part: “A post-race meal of free pancakes will be provided by the Alexandria South Rotary Club.”

Unfortunately I will not be running this event because I will be HOME IN CALIFORNIA! But if you're around DC, I strongly recommend this race!

Go to the race page for updates, discounts, and more info. 

Cake of the Week: Blackberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Blackberries taste like end-of-summer, fingers-and-mouth-stained, arms-scratched, shady-back-porch-barbeque wonderful. 

(Not my best pictures, but I promise it's a delicious cake!)

Clearly I have very distinct late summer memories of blackberries. When I was a kid, my mama, sisters, and I would head to a friends’ house in Kenwood, CA (we’ll call them the V’s – three kids in their family too).  Anyway, we’d wear old t-shirts and leggings (blackberry bushes + shorts = asking for trouble, and Mini-Mollie was staunchly opposed to jeans). From the V’s house we’d drive to a spot previously scoped out on one of Mrs. V’s runs, empty pots and pans rattling in our trunk.  

The moms then laid big plywood boards over the ditches, giving us access to the innermost berries, and warn us to stay on the boards. We then proceeded to pick as many blackberries as humanly possible for hours on end. By late afternoon we’d be tired and sticky, dark purple juice staining our fingertips and little red scratches covering our hands and forearms and any other unfortunately exposed body parts. We’d drive back to the V’s house – those previously empty containers completely overflowing with juicy blackberries balancing on the car seats, the floor, and our laps, destined to become jams, pies, scones, or frozen for later consumption. 

This particular blackberry memory I’m thinking of took place in the evening after such a day. I sat at the kid’s table on the V’s back porch, smashing fresh blackberries into my bowl of vanilla ice cream and thinking the deep purple vanilla-y soupy mess was the absolute best thing in the world. 

And so for LORT-Emily’s birthday this year I wanted to re-create that flavor, in cake form.

This cake recipe can be adapted using any berry (the original is strawberry, and I’ve made it with cherries in cupcake form). 

Blackberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Printable recipe. 

Makes 12-16 cupcakes, one normal-sized 9-inch round cake (which I cut in half to make a short0ish 2-layer cake). If you want a bigger 2-layer cake, double the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup fresh or frozen blackberries (thawed if frozen)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. coarse salt
• 1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 2 large egg whites, room temperature

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour one 9-inch round pan. 
2. Place blackberries in a small food processor or blender and process until pureed. You should have about 1/3 cup of puree. 
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix together milk, vanilla and berry puree; set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl and just use a spoon to stir – people sometimes tell me they “can’t bake” because they don’t have a mixer…not true! Just use your muscles!), cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and slowly add egg and egg whites until just blended.
5. Add about half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add the milk mixture; mix until just blended. Slowly add remaining flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl with a spatula, until just blended.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and finish cooling completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 block (8 oz) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, room temperature
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons milk, as needed

Directions:

1. Beat the butter, cream cheese, vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar, adding milk as needed to reach a spreadable consistency.

Assembly:

1. Once the cake is completely cool (this will be easiest if you refrigerate it for a bit), use a large serrated knife to cut it in half lengthwise to make two layers. 
2. Frost the first layer, add the second on top, and cover it all with delicious cream cheese-y frosting!

And it's purple and pretty!

Printable recipe. 

Weekend Report: Operation WILD (Camping in West Virginia)

West Virginia calls itself “Wild and Wonderful,” and it kind of was! SpeedyKate and I went camping at Spruce Knob Lake Campground in Monongahela National Forest (can you pronounce that? We can’t.) for the long Labor Day weekend. 

(View from the top of Spruce Knob.)

Monongahela National Forest was established in 1920 and the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area was the first National Recreation Area designated by the U.S. Forest Service in 1965. It includes more than 100,000 acres of land, 75 miles of hiking trails, and a 25-acre lake. Go Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt – the National Parks are so great!

The choice of this location was not at all strategic – basically last weekend we decided we wanted to go camping, and worked the Google to find somewhere within range that sounded reasonably amusing and still had campsites available: hiking trails, a “mountain,” and a lake. Done done and done.

Western snobs that we are, SpeedyKate and I can’t not put “mountain” in quotes – the Applachians are much more like big domed green hills – but whatever you want to call them, they are beautiful!

We left DC relatively early on Friday, but thanks to some serious accident-generated traffic, did not make it to our campsite until late. Minor SNAFU #1 hit early on – my headlamp (for which I just bought new batteries) did not work.  But we managed to set up the tent in the glowing beam of SpeedyKate’s iPhone flashlight app (amazingly effective!) and the light of an almost-full moon, crawl into our sleeping bags, and fall asleep. 

Some time later, we awoke to the pleasant sound of raindrops on our tent tarp. No big deal – we’re Colorado campers and nighttime rain is to be expected. But those pleasant drip-drops presently progressed to pouring rain, which became thunder and lightning literally on top of us. Our one flaw in the successful tent set-up was that the top tarp was inside-out, meaning the flaps faced the wrong way, meaning SpeedyKate got rain in her face and my inflatable sleeping pad buoying me up in our personal tent-sized puddle. 

Luckily there’s very little that can’t be cured by coffee and breakfast (insert bad pun about dampening spirits here), and then next morning we were all set for an outdoorsy West Virginia day.

We hiked around the lake, and then did a long and muddy out-and-back on one of the trails. 

(No names named, but one of us is clearly better at avoiding puddles...) 

In the late afternoon, we drove up to Spruce Knob, which at 4,863 feet is the highest point in West Virginia. 

And guess what we saw??? A BLUE CRAYFISH. It is real. It’s a thing. (Aka the Blue Mountain Mudbug.) And the best fun-fact post-camping internet searching turned up: this is the only species of crayfish that walks uphill when you put it down. So there’s that. Take a moment and let your mind explode. 

Then that evening the true test of woman-vs.-WILD came: making fire in a soaking wet campsite. Turns out, I can and I did! It took a long time, and it wasn’t quite enough fire to cook anything other than s’mores on…but s’mores are the most important part of camping food anyways (and luckily I’d brought a no-cooking-necessary salad for dinner), so it was a win!

We reassembled our slightly damp tent and got in our very damp sleeping bags...

On night #2 there was no thunder, but it rained HARD again into the morning. We’re certainly not whiners, but we’re also not masochists, so after one night of camping in a thunderstorm followed by a second night of torrential rain, we considered it totally fair and reasonable to call it sleeping-bag-soaked quits. 

But before leaving we went on a lovely hike along Seneca Creek. It was so pretty! 

And then had a whole extra day in DC to relax. It was a great long weekend. Happy Labor Day to you!

Best of the Week #74

Guess what I’m doing this weekend? Leaving the city behind and going camping in West Virginia! Yes that’s right, Operation SpeedyKate and Mollie Conquer the Wilderness (shorter version: Operation Wild) will soon be under way. I’m super-psyched to leave the city for a whole three days!

But before I go, here’s a Best of the Week for you.

My most popular post this week was Pizzeria Orso and Thai Crossing. Because both restaurants were A-MAZING.

Mango Sticky Rice me NOW please.

Remember the Ryan Hall commercial from the Olympics? Well this person spent waaaayyy too much time thinking about it. "An Audiobook Marathon: How Far Does Ryan Hall Travel While Listening to the Unabridged Odyssey?"

• In a recent commercial you've seen 115 times, American marathoner Ryan Hall listens to The Odyssey as he runs, all thanks to AT&T's impressively expansive 4G network.
• The inevitable question: How many miles did Ryan Hall cover while listening to Homer’s epic poem?
• If only the answer were that simple. A close reading reveals that Hall, not known in running circles for taking shortcuts, seems to have skipped some of the performance. When the commercial starts, the time on his phone is 8:07 a.m. When he begins listening to Moby Dick (a 21-hour audiobook in its own right), the phone reads 7:12pm. That means that Hall, if he never hit pause along the way, listened to 11:05:00 of The Odyssey. What happened to those missing 2 hours, 13 minutes, and 46 seconds? Given that the gap in the Watergate tapes ran just 18.5 minutes, this AT&T commercial leaves us to ponder whether Ryan Hall is seven times trickier than Nixon.

A little political violence for your Friday: “Democracy and Coups: Taking Civilian Control of the Military for Granted.”

• Of course, the challenge is how to get from a to b: how to get from a weak democracy with a powerful military to a strong democracy with a military that holds a narrower conception of its own role in the society? Time, and hard work. Legitimacy and norms do not happen overnight, no matter how much international organizations like NATO try to inculcate civilian control of the military. Birthing these norms requires powerful individuals to be strong enough to decline power and to refrain from taking it.

This sauce was on everything in Costa Rica and we were mildly obsessed with it. Now I want to make it! Or just go back to Costa Rica…

Thank you McSweeny’s -- this is hilarious and also makes me uncomfortable on multiple levels: “It’s Naked Time.” I’m sorry I’m not sorry.

• You want to see what thirty-five minutes of elliptical machine a month can do to a man’s body? You’re about to.

I wish I had sweet moves like this kid.


I love coffee in all forms. “15 Healthy and Creative Ways to Get Your Caffeine Fix.”

• 6. Balsamic Coffee Reduction -- This tasty glaze is an easy and delicious addition to any salad (and especially tomato and mozzarella based ones). Combine 1 cup of coffee, 1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and the zest of a lemon to a small saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat until the mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon. Drizzle away!

“10 Food Lover Problems.”

• 2. When 24/7 fast food joints shutdown their ice cream machine because it’s nighttime. Milkshake or ice cream cravings are intense and passionate, so the only real way of halting such powerful desires is the actual consumption of one.
• 7. Trying to distinguish the difference between sheer boredom and actual hunger. At times they can be indistinguishable, resulting in minor gluttony.

And that my friends is that. HAPPY LABOR DAY!

Literary Bite: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I have no new book to post this week because I’m still chugging through Moby Dick. Therefore, in keeping with the looooong-reads theme, here’s my review of Anna Karenina from back in 2010. And oh so timely!  –  it’s going to be a movie this fall – here’s the trailer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

A month ago, my book club chose to read Anna Karenina, which is quite the solid brick of literature. It’s 817 pages of Leo Tolstoy-ness, so you’ll understand why I haven’t blogged about reading in a while.

I’m a fast reader, so I have to remind myself that not everything can be finished in a week. Anna Karenina took me a whole month to read! That’s the longest I’ve spent on one book since I read A Suitable Boy back in 2004 (which happens to be one of the longest books in the English language). It’s the kind of book that you just settle into, get comfortable, and realize that you are going to spend a lot of time with these characters.

And spend time with them I did! This book accompanied me to Costa Rica and back to DC and then home to Tahoe – not to mention many many inner-DC trips on the metro and busses.

Though it’s long and solid, it’s really quite a breeze. Anna K. (as I so fondly refer to it) reminds me of a Jane Austin or Charles Dickens book, with a wee bit of philosophizing thrown in just to remind you that you’re reading Russian literature.

Like Dickens’ books, Anna K. was originally published in installments in a 19^thcentury Russian magazine. For readers today, this means that the chapters are short and concise, which I think really kept the story moving. Compared to his other books, Anna K. is Tolstoy-lite (even thought the book itself feels like carrying a brick in my purse!), and is supposed to be a good introduction to his writing.

The story is about the tragic love of the title character, but also just as much about Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin ("Kostya"), who is Anna’s brother’s wife’s sister’s suitor (are you confused yet?). Both stories run parallel and intermingle within the Russian elite. I actually preferred Levin’s story to Anna’s, minus the parts when he philosophizes about the state of the Russian worker/farmer. But the dull parts are short and interspersed within the narrative; so don’t let them dissuade you!

Go here for a complete plot summary. But I actually recommend you don't - the story is easy to follow and will be better if it's a surprise!

I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. There were some I liked more than others (Dolly, Kitty, Stiva). I will warn you in advance – the names are TRICKY! I suggest you read the note on names in the front of the book. Also, read the end notes as you go, it will make some parts make a lot more sense.

Check out this character list to clarify as you read.

Since this is kind of an impressive academic book, let’s talk about themes. According to Lemony Snicket, "The central theme of Anna Karenina is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy."

That sounds pretty solid to me. I thought a theme was the unreasonableness of love. Levin comes to that conclusion at the VERY end of the book (page 797-ish I think).

Anna K. is one of those impressive classics that you just want in your reading repertoire – so I suggest you read it! Good luck!

Cake of the Week: Cherry Vanilla Bran Muffins

Remember that beautiful smoothie I made last week? Well, you may recall that there was a muffin involved - in the interest of making that "part of a complete breakfast." (Sidenote: Mini-Mollie always wondered what the heck "complete breakfast" meant in all the cereal commercials...was that just me?) 

Anywho, you all know that I love breakfast. And I love baked goods (obviously). So a + b = c, I LOVE muffins! Homemade muffins are essentially healthy cake. If I tell someone I ate a piece of cake for breakfast (which may or may not happen on occasion), they get all shocked and judgey on me. But a muffin for breakfast? Totally acceptable. 

And these little guys are the perfect accompaniment to your usual yogurt or smoothie or apple. 

I was inspired by the gi-normous bag of fresh juicy cherries I bought last week. And I've been in the healthy muffin mood recently...so the decision was really quite easy. The original recipe called for dark chocolate and dried cherries...which is normally totally up my alley. But if fresh cherries are an option you just have to use them, and for some reason white chocolate struck me as a good idea. So I planned them out mid-yoga, and Cherry Vanilla Bran Muffins were born. 

Cherry Vanilla Bran Muffins

Printable recipe. 

(Yield:  12 large muffins, 16 small muffins)
Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tsp almond extract (or pure vanilla extract)
• 1 c wheat bran
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c white chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups fresh cherries, pitted and halved
• Cooking spray or paper liners 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.  
2. Beat together the eggs, oil, honey, milk, and almond/vanilla extract.  
3. In a separate bowl mix together the bran, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  
4. Slowly stir the dry ingredients into the wet, then stir in the chips and cherries until just mixed (do not over-mix). 
5. Bake for 15 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out slightly moist with just a few crumbs (careful not to overcook so they won’t be dry).

These muffins are best fresh out of the oven. I froze some in the interest of prolonging my muffin availability, but unfortunately they kind of dried out. So if you don't want a lot of muffins at once, make a half-batch at a time to maximize your muffin enjoyment. 

(This is a re-post. I originally posted this recipe in July 2010.)

Weekend Report: Pizzeria Orso and Thai X-ing

I did things this weekend – ya know, the usual seeing the friends, going to the places, doing the vatious endurance exercises and outdoorsy activities. Any regular Eat Run Reader knows the drill. But it’s not every weekend that I hit the culinary jackpot and eat at two amazing restaurants – so this is a Weekend Report of food: Pizzeria Orso and Thai X-ing to be exact!

I’m pretty sure I consumed more in two nights than I did in the entire preceding week, and I have absolutely no regrets because every bite was so worth it.

The food adventures started on Saturday with a post-rock climbing excursion to Pizzeria Orso. We left the Great Falls rocks (i.e. the aforementioned outdoorsy activity) as it began to rain and made our way to Falls Chruch, VA (a bit outside of my normal neighborhoods, but totally worth a return trip). We expected good pizza, but sweet monkey pumpkins! the pizza was delish but I hardly had tummy-room for one piece due to the preceding assortment of small plates we tasted (read: inhaled).

(BLT Gnocchi and Fried Calamari)

The restaurant is casual and from the outside looks like nothing particularly special. But once inside you watch the pizzas go in and out of the wood-fired oven and smell the everything-awesome-about-Italian-food and swoon. Executive Chef Will Artley might be my new favorite person.

So what did we eat that was so good? WELL LET ME TELL YOU.

BLT Gnocchi - spinach gnocchi, truffled-cream, applewood-smoked bacon, tomato
Sophie’s Meatballs with Creamy Polenta
Fried Calamari - basil aioli or marinara sauce

Artley described the the BLT gnocchi as mac and cheese crack, saying that diners come in and order plates and plates of it. The sauce was rich and cheesy, but the gnocchi itself was incredibly light. Yummmm. So yes, it was good, but I think my “crack” of the afternoon was the meatballs and polenta. The polenta especially – I don’t know what he does to make it so creamy but holy meatballs it was far and away the best polenta I’ve ever had. And the basil aioil with the calamari. Sigh. I need more of that in my life.

Pizza-wise we got three – the Orso (mozzarella, pecorino Tuscano, fontina, grana, ricotta, garlic, prosciutto), the Orso Bianco (mozzarella, pecorino Tuscano, fontina, grana, ricotta, garlic, prosciutto), and the Verdure (tomato, basil, eggplant, sweet peppers, onion, capers, mushrooms, mozzarella). Mine was the Verdure, which was good for people (i.e. me) who prefer pizza with less cheese and more veggies. But for cheese-lovers I think the Orso Bianco was the best.

Epic food excursion #2 occurred on Saturday. Thai X-ing is the best Thai food I've ever had ever and I cannot stop thinking about how delicious it all was. For the uninitiated, Thai X-ing is a DC legend. It's super-tiny (accommodates 25 diners total) in a row house and you have to call weeks in advance for reservations. LOTR-Emily's boyfriend did just that, and invited her best friends along for a birthday surprise!

"Does it feel as though you're entering a Thai speak-easy? It should...There's always a whiff of confusion in the air, not unlike the dinner party where you show up earlier than the host expected." (WaPo review).

The menu is prix-fixe and it's all chef's choice. It's BYOB, and Sundays are vegetarian night. Just sit down, relax, and expect the servers to bring you a Thai  feast of deliciously epic proportions. 

Since there's no menu I can't tell you exactly what we ate, but it definitely started with Chef Vigsittaboot's signature appetizer: Green Papaya Salad (green papaya, julienned tropical fruit, halved cherry tomatoes, crisp green beans and crushed peanuts), and ended with the even more famous Mango Sticky Coconut Rice. 

\

For six people we had four huge entrees, and as a non-vegetarian, I can promise you that you won't miss the meat. Everything was spicy in a wonderfully flavorful way, and the hottest dishes were balanced out with cooling cucumbers or bits of fruit. 

My favorite dish was probably the most simple -- pumpkin in creamy red curry. 

Our other entrees included a spicy string bean stir-fry, pad see ew (i.e. thick noodles), and some sort of sweet and sour tofu with soybean sprouts and fried garlic and peppers. 

Even the rice on the table was special -- it was a mix of earthy beans and redish-brownish rice (does anyone know what this is? I need it in my kitchen). So. Good. 

To quote LLC:  I want it all again. A million times.