Happy V-Day!

V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. Today is the 15th annual V-Day, and this year the 1 Billion Rising campaign will raise awareness all over the world about violence against women.

Why 1 Billion Rising?

Because today, a billion women – one out of every three women on the planet – will be raped or beaten in their lifetime. In the US, every 2 minutes one woman is assaulted, and every 9 minutes one woman is beaten. Also, fyi, the 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. So that’s awesome.

What do you think women are most likely to die from?

• A. Cancer
• B. Malaria
• C. Traffic Accidents
• D. War
• E. Gender Violence

The answer is E. In fact, more women die from gender based violence than all of the others combined.

What can you do today?

Well sorry about giving you all notice day-of…it’s probably too late for you to start a rally…but there might be one going on near you! And oh don’t worry, I just went to the 1 Billion Rising Flashmob in Farragut Square. And you can watch similar events live-streaming from all over the world on the 1 Billion Rising website.

For those of you on the Twitter, you can also tweet/re-tweet (#1billionrising, #reasontorise, and #vday), and follow (@VDay, @eveensler, @AmnestyInternational, @NWLC, @UNrightswire), and check out V-Day’s Facebook page.

What else can you do?

Call on the U.S. government to ratify CEDAW! The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is a landmark international agreement that affirms principles of fundamental human rights and equality for women around the world.  To date, 187 out of 194 countries have ratified CEDAW. The United States is one of only seven countries – including Iran, Sudan, and Somalia —that haven’t ratified this international agreement. The Obama Administration strongly supports ratification, but CEDAW has never been brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

Sign the Citizens for Global Solutions petition in support of U.S. ratification of CEDAW.

You can learn more from this Violence Against Women Webinar.

Why?

1. Ratifying the CEDAW treaty would continue America’s proud bipartisan tradition of promoting and protecting human rights. Ratification requires two-thirds of the Senate to stand together for women and has no additional financial cost.
2. Ratifying CEDAW strengthens the United States as a global leader in standing up for women and girls around the world. Under the leadership of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, the U.S. ratified similar treaties on genocide, torture, and race. 
3. Advancing women’s human rights is fundamental to America’s national security interests and a cornerstone of our foreign policy. Countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women have full and equal rights and opportunity. Ratifying CEDAW would give America greater clout to help women worldwide win basic rights. 
4. CEDAW opens important conversations at home. While American women enjoy opportunities and status not available to most of the world’s women, few would dispute that more progress is needed. CEDAW would provide an opportunity for national dialogue on how to address persistent gaps in women’s full equality particularly regarding closing the pay gap, reducing domestic violence and stopping trafficking.

So there’s that. Spread the word. I will now step down from my soap box, eat some chocolate, and wish you all a Happy V-Day!

Chobani Greek Yogurt: Banana and Pear

Let’s talk breakfast. Some say it’s not necessary. Some say it’s the most important meal of the day. I say that I have always been on Team Eat Breakfast and Lord help anyone who tries to meaningfully interact with me before it happens.

Since I run before work, I eat a lot in the mornings. Don’t judge me, it usually looks something like this:

6:18 am –

• 1 shot block; or a finger-ful of peanut butter; and/or a couple chocolate chips; or a marshmallow.  (Ok so I’ll accept a little of your judgment for this…but the goal is really just some sugar of some kind to get me out the door when my eyes are still only half open.) 

8:15 am –

• 3-5 chips and salsa. Maybe some cheese involved in there. Maybe a couple carrot sticks as I pack my lunch. (I call this my “pre-breakfast,” as it is the breakfast that will get me to work where actual breakfast happens.)

9:15 am – Breakfast time! 

• ½ apple (usually fuji), thinly sliced and used as edible spoons
• Yogurt
• Frozen berries to make it extra-cold and fabulous
• A sprinkling of Grape Nuts for crunch
• Coffee (well duh) with a little cream and one splenda.

I have been enjoying a variation on this meal since umm probably junior year of high school. So it’s been about 10 years and this breakfast is still going strong.

And recently my breakfast took a major turn for the better. The lovely people at Chobani Greek Yogurt sent me their new flavors to try (text from SpeedyKate: Ummm Chobani shipped you a box of yogurts?), which is aaaaaamazing of them. I am super-psyched to be on their bloggers list because I do love Greek yogurt and I’m not just saying that.* (Remember when SpeedyKate and I ate a gourmet Greek yogurt dinner? I really do need to re-create that soup…)

The two new flavors: Low-fat Banana and Non-fat Pear. They are pretty much rocking my world. The banana one tastes like real bananas (not that fake banana candy flavor) and is sooo rich and delicious – with the addition of frozen strawberries I feel like I’m eating dessert. The Pear is milder tasting and goes SO WELL with frozen blackberries.

Normally I'm a non-fat whenever possible kind of person (because why not?), but it's only a 20 total calorie difference (140 v. 160) between non- and low-fat, and the low-fat is actually significantly better. And really, 20 calories is like 6 chocolate chips or a walk around the block, i.e. NO DIFFERENCE.

Also, I was thinking this morning that I'm probably all kinds of protein and calcium deficient...so for those of us who care, each yogurt has 14 grams of protein and 15% of recommended daily calcium. That's pretty good, right? (So says the girl who eats marshmallows before 6:30 am...)

Sadly, the shelf o’yogurt in my fridge is running low…I think I’m down to the last three, which will get me through this week. If only I could have yogurt delivered to my house on a regular basis!

*Yogurt was free (thanks Chobani!) but my opinions, as always, are my own.

Cake of the Week: Cookie Butter Cream Cheese Crumb Cake

I'm all about convenience when it comes to choosing a grocery store. In Boston, there was one I literally walked through between the indoor track and my apartment, and when I lived near Dupont Circle in DC I shopped mostly at the "Soviet Safeway" that may or may not have food on the shelves at any given time, but it was nearby! Now nowhere is super-convenient, which mostly means that I buy food a lot less frequently...but almost every week I make my way to Trader Joe's in Foggy Bottom, because there are certain things there that I like to buy: tomato and roasted red pepper soup, multigrain hot cereal, frozen in-shell edamame, crunchy salted Valencia peanut butter with roasted flaxseeds, nonfat plain Greek yogurt, and to cap off that super-healthy list: cookie butter. 

I said back in August, “I am absolutely never allowed to buy this again.” Clearly I lied, since when Jess came to visit these bars had to happen. And this peanut-butter-textured, ginger/graham-cookie-tasting, spread of awesomeness just took a turn for the better. That’s right – Trader Joe’s now makes it in “crunchy” and my world just exploded. 

With cookie butter, streusel, and cream cheese, this cake sounds super decadent, but somehow it’s really not. It’s actually more of a coffee/breakfast cake than a dessert cake and oh dear me it goes soooo well with coffee. Though if you want something more dessert-ish, you could double the cream cheese mixture, double the cookie butter, and double the streusel. Oh holy yum that would be amazing.

I got ambitious and did some fancy swirling to make the cake...but then it all got covered in streusel anyways, so clearly that step was unnecessary. Unless you made this without the streusel...OR you could make lines of streusel (my drug of choice) between the cookie butter and cream cheese so it gets kinda swirled in too? Up to you!

Cookie Butter Cream Cheese Crumb Cake

Adapted from Vanilla Kitchen.
Printable recipe.

Cake Ingredients: 

• ¼ cup canola oil, plus more for pan 
• ½ stick unsalted butter, melted. 
• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan 
• ½ cup + 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• ½ teaspoon coarse salt 
• 1 large egg 
• ½ cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk 
• 2 ts pure vanilla extract 

Crumb Topping Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup flour 
• 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar 
• ¾ ts coarse salt 
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon 
•  1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted & cooled 

Cream Cheese Ingredients: 

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temp. 
• 1 large egg yolk 
• 4 teaspoons white sugar 

And: 

• ½ - ¾ cup cookie butter/speculoos spread

Directions:

1. Place rack in center of oven, and heat oven to 350°. 
2. Lightly butter a 9 x 13 baking pan and dust with flour, and tap to remove excess. 
3. In a large bowl, whisk together egg, butter, buttermilk, canola oil, and vanilla.
4. Using a rubber spatula, fold dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt) into egg mixture. 
5. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan, and set aside. The batter is thick.
6. For the cream cheese mixture: Mix all the cream cheese mixture ingredients in a separate bowl until smooth.
7. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the bars; I did this in vertical lines in the pan. 
8. And on the other sides of the cream cheese lines I added in a line of cookie butter. 
9. If you want slight swirls, take a chopstick and gently swirl the opposite of the lines. This step proved unnecessary since it all got covered in crumbs anyways. Oh well. 
10. For the crumb topping: In a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients, pour melted butter over mixture, and toss with a rubber spatula until large crumbs form. 
11. Cover the cake in crumbs. 
12. Then transfer pan to oven, and bake for 12 minutes, rotate pan. Then cook another 10- 12 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. 
13. Check cake at 20-23 minute mark for sure. 
14. Let cake cook completely before slicing. 
15. Store in an airtight container.

Printable recipe.

Weekend Report: And Then I Accidentally Ran 23 Miles.

Ok so my weekend was good and I did almost everything I’d planned – Wizards game (win! I’m not saying I’m responsible…but they have won every game I’ve been to), and Les Mis (Who am I? I’m Jean Valjean!)

My plan for Sunday centered on a 20-mile training run. I was actually a bit nervous beforehand, since, you know, 20 miles was about to be my longest run ever ever, and 4 miles longer than I ran last weekend. I didn’t actually doubt my ability to do it, but at the same time, how am I to know? Maybe things get cRaZy when I go over 16? 

So anyway, my team (Capital Area Runners) started at Fletcher’s Boathouse to run a looonnnggg loop up through Rock Creek Park, to Bethesda, then back along the Capital Crescent Trail.

We rolled along no problem to Mile 7, where Coach George had snacks and water (oh hello Mocha Cliff Gel!). Then into the next third of the run we began to pick up the pace, per Progression Run rules, along the closed-to-cars-on-the-weekend Beach Drive through Rock Creek Park.

The weather was perfect, Rock Creek is so nice, and everything was going well. Our initial group of about ten dwindled to three as some turning back, some ran faster, and some slowed down.  Three which, had we thought about it, did not know the route (see what I did there? Foreshadowing.).

But we didn’t think about it, we just chugged along, chatting about this and that like you do on any long running experience.

It was me, my friend Chris (who is doing Rock and Roll DC too), and CAR teammate Jamie. Luckily Jamie had a Garmin, and started pointing out at Mile 14 that we should be hitting Coach George’s second water stop any minute…but we didn’t…and we kept running, because what else can you do?

We ran past the covered bridge (wrong), past Connecticut Avenue (wrong), all the way to Rockville Pike (SO WRONG). And we knew it was wrong, but we also didn’t know what was right. As Jamie pointed out, why is it that no one ever gets lost on a run and ends up running shorter? Is this some sort of Murphy’s Law-style running rule? Luckily Chris had shot blocks and gel and water (#prepared), so no one passed out.

As on so many “lost” occasions in my life  – Bodega Beach 1992; Sea World 1997; a Target parking lot in Elko, NV, 2003; every zoo I’ve ever been to ever; etc. –  I knew where I was…the issue was that I didn’t know where the others (in this case, George and the rest of CAR) were and how to get to them.

[From the CAR newsletter this week (thanks George!): And since the technology does exist, I will be looking into the possibility of acquiring some tracking device tags which can easily be stapled to an ear or other fleshy part of the body for those of you who most frequently wander off course. I saw it on the Nat Geo channel....if they can track migrating penguins, we can track migrating CARs....."Whoa! Check this one out! The one they call Mollie wandered all the way up to Rockville while the rest of the flock never got any further north than Bethesda. Interesting."]

We were already at 18 miles when we finally turned south (on the shoulder of a freeway) over a mile north of Bethesda. The knowledge sunk in that it was going to be a 25-mile run, and I was surprisingly ok with that (I think the lack of calories may have affected my judgment.)

(Approximate route.)

Except for a couple less-than-awesome moments, we all refrained from putting on our whinypants. And if I’m going to spend 3:05 running with people, at least they were interesting people I like! We ended up walking the last 2 miles in, like soldiers trudging home from battle (“To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.”*), discussing donuts and all the food we were going to eat when we got home.

This is the run we were supposed to do. This is the run we did.

By the end I needed a hug, but a bagel from George was pretty good too...and then pancakes and 4 hours of couch-time and lots and lots of ice.

Lessons learned:

• Look at a map in advance.
• Carry food. 
• Also, 5 weeks before my marathon, I can run 23 miles!!!

*50 points for knowing that quote. If you did let me know and we can be best friends. (source)

Best of the Week #92

Oh hello Friday where have you been all my week?

Per always I’ve been busy doing many things on my weeknights, including (but not limited to): pooling, deep dish pizza, 3.5 hours of rock climbing (!!! that was on Wednesday and my hands/arms are still tired), and the Portrait Gallery’s "Portraiture Now" exhibit.

And as for this weekend, I’m looking forward to tonight’s Wizard’s game, Les Mis (I realize I’m about a month late to the table on this one), and a 20-mile run (!) followed by pancakes and a documentary. Sounds pretty great, huh?

Alright, my most popular post this week was Mocha Coconut Fudge. Oh and if you’re planning on doing some Mardi Gras baking next week, check out my King Cake Cupcakes!

And now for some Best of the Week linkage love.

OMG but really, how do I become a chocolate taster??? “Best in the Box” – all about salted caramel chocolates.

• During our tasting, two things quickly became clear. The first was that the balance of salt, caramel and chocolate is crucial. And, as Florence said, “Who knew there were so many ways to make a salted caramel chocolate?” (The full tasting report is below.) We tended to prefer the caramels that were more sparing in their use of salt, including several with just a few crystals sprinkled on top. Similarly, we all liked the confections with just enough thin, crisp chocolate to contain the caramel center. A thick chocolate shell was distracting.

Interesting essay. The only flaw in this logic is that I am the type of person who should be calling it "Washington"...but I always say "DC." -- "Two Cities in One."

• Washington, D.C., is a city of divides. There are racial divides, most notably a black D.C. and a white D.C. There are ethnic enclaves, with a Salvadoran D.C. sharing space with the Ethiopian D.C. There are the geographic boundaries that came to represent economic boundaries, like “east of the river” and “west of the park,” or the image divides between the tony Northwest section of the city and the formerly gritty Southeastern quadrant.
• But to me, the most telling divide is a verbal one — does one live in D.C. or Washington? The question reveals the indelible truth: which city you live in depends on who you are. 

I don't entirely understand how Tumblr works...but some of these are pretty funny: “32 Of The Greatest Things That Have Ever Happened On Tumblr.”

Well now this really isn’t funny. “Somalia Making Play for Lucrative Men’s Rights Activist Tourism Market?”

• Remember that time Somalia decided to arrest and imprison a woman who accused members of the police force of raping her? Sure you do. And remember when they also arrested the freelance journalist to whom she’d told her story, along with her husband, and the two people who had supposedly introduced her to the journalist?
• Well, today she was convicted of the crime of “insulting a government body,” and sentenced to a one-year prison term. Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, the journalist (who, mind you, never actually published any details of their conversation), was given the same sentence. Her husband and the two intermediaries were acquitted.

Quinoa Flakes – have you heard of these? Has anyone tried them? They're like the quinoa version of instant oatmeal...I may need to look into this.

So I realize I respond to everything with corgis this way, but BEST THING EVER. "9 Rules For A Really Big Corgi Meetup At The Beach." Haha I love that it ends with "This list was pointless. It was just an excuse to post corgi pictures. Bye!"

Me or Sister2, at Train Town (which is a real place), circa 1993. "Adorable Little Railfan Is Infectiously Elated About Her Very First Train Ride."


"The secret lives of North Korea."

• What is life like for the non-elite in this closed land? Do citizens really believe that mountains dance when a leader is born? Britain's former ambassador describes the people he knew there
• After work, they might have to attend a political meeting. When I asked my contacts what these meetings were about they told me that they did not remember. At first, I thought they were politely saying that they were not going to tell me, but I once came across an open-air political meeting at which the audience all appeared to have glazed eyes, despite the best efforts of the speaker. Perhaps my contacts were telling the truth – that they effectively entered a kind of catatonic state in these meetings, simply switching off, and genuinely could not remember what they were about.

Pretty much.

This guy is 100% bad-ass: "Rodney Jackson hikes high into the Himalayas to help snow leopards." [Sidenote: So you know the book series by Philip Pullman, “His Dark Materials” (i.e. The Golden Compass etc.)? And how the characters all have “demons” which are kind of like spirit animals? Well I’ve decided that my demon would be either a snow leopard or a mountain lion. Right?]

• Rodney Jackson and his team take 20 to 30 yaks, each loaded with 250 to 300 pounds of gear, into the Himalayas to study snow leopards, which take the word 'elusive' to an extreme.
• Snow leopard territory starts at 10,000 feet above sea level and goes as high as 21,000 feet, spread over 12 countries in Asia. And they aren't easy to find. A snow leopard roams about 50 square miles of territory, Jackson explains, adding that he could go two or three years between sightings. (Another researcher who has been studying them since 2005 says he has yet to see a snow leopard in the wild.)
• Despite the difficulties of dealing with multiple bureaucracies – including the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China – Jackson says that overall conditions are improving for the mountain-dwelling cat. "I think snow leopards are better off now than they were 20 years ago," he says.

I love this. I want to be eating a dhosa in India RIGHT NOW. "A Day In India."

• It’s hard to put your camera down in India.  With so much beauty and filth, food and poverty, happiness and stress: its an overwhelming (and wonderful) place to film.  We came back exhausted, full and still overwhelmed (this time with the task of editing all the footage into a short video). Because India is a big place, and each area varies dramatically,  we attempted to construct a day across India: from north to south, from dawn till dusk.

Ok that's it. Hope you survive your Friday and have a great weekend!

February 2013 Reading List

Things have been a bit slow for me recently when it comes to reading. I'm working on a book that I’m not loving, so it’s taking me longer than expected. But now I’m almost done and looking forward to reading something good next!

I rarely plan my reading lists in advance – usually I just pick up whatever is most convenient/finds its way to me/is recommended and lent by a friend. So here is a very tentative upcoming reading list, based off of recent recommendations.

I’m open to suggestions, so have you read anything good recently?

February 2013 Reading List

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger  –

• February Book Club book. AND by the author who wrote The Time Traveler's Wife!

• Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. Their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the girls’ aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie.
• The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including—perhaps—their aunt. (more)

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin – 

• Strongly recommended by a) my officemate, and b) the world. I’m pretty excited about this one…I have a feeling it’ll only take a couple days to read.

• Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that…comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy…Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.
• Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance...Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones. (more)

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli – 

• Recommended strongly by Sister2.

• A unique and sweeping debut novel of an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War, as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men. 
• Tatjana Soli paints a searing portrait of an American woman’s struggle and triumph in Vietnam, a stirring canvas contrasting the wrenching horror of war and the treacherous narcotic of obsession with the redemptive power of love. Readers will be transfixed by this stunning novel of passion, duty and ambition among the ruins of war. (more)

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple – 

• This was my January Book Club book that I failed to read in time. SpeedyKate says it’s really good and has a copy, so I’m going to read it eventually.

• Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
• Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
• To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world. (more)

Avocado Bacon Baked Eggs

Marathon training requires a lot of running, well duh. And a lot of running requires a lot of eating – yay!  My usual breakfasts are entirely unremarkable. But post-long run breakfast? Well that is something I plan in advance and get excited about!

This past Sunday’s run was a hybrid workout/long run. When I first saw it on Coach George’s marathon training plan (2 mi ez, 4 mi tempo, 1 mi ez, 3 mi tempo, 1 mi ez, 2 mi tempo, 1 mi ez, 1 mi tempo, 1 mi ez, 16 total) my thought was, Gah! This is too complicated! I am not smart enough for this! But then a second look showed that it really wasn’t that bad: the workout is a 4-3-2-1 ladder at marathon pace, with one mile in between each tempo. With a 2-mile warm up and 1-mile cool down, it totals to 16 miles. We started at Jack’s Boathouse in Georgetown at 8am on Sunday morning and ran across the Key Bridge, along the Mt. Vernon bike path to Alexandria, and back.

Luckily I was running with people who had fancy GPS watches to tell me when to start and stop, and also to check in on our pace. Running-wise I’m a bit like a wind-up toy: point me in a direction and start me at a pace and I will maintain that exact pace for however long is required. This “skill” comes in quite handy in tempo runs. And it's the same re: eating: put delicious food in front of me and I'll eat until it's gone (not sure if that's a good or bad thing...)

So anyway, the run went well, and by the time I got home around 11:30 am I was starving in the way that only long running can make me starving. Soon enough LOTR-Emily was on her way over with avocado and bacon, and we proceeded to make the best post-run breakfast ever. 

We scraped eggy bacony avocado onto whole wheat English muffins, basking in the warm glory of my living room, watching Big Easy Express. This is a direct quote from Emily: “Avocados and coffee and bacon! Mumford and Sons and nail polish! It literally does not get any better than this!!!” Agreed.

Avocado Bacon Baked Eggs

Printable recipe. 

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1 medium or large avocado
• 2 small eggs
• 2 sliced of bacon, cooked then crumbled
• 2 English muffins or slices of toast
• Salt, pepper
• Hot sauce (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Cut avocado in half and carefully remove the seed (like this). Scoop out some of the avocado to make room for the egg.
3. In a medium baking dish, try to rest the avocado half inside the edge of the dish so that the avocado doesn't tilt over. We used tin foil to fashion a little avocado nest so it doesn’t tip and spill egg everywhere. 
4. You can crack the egg directly in the avocado, but it might overflow and make a mess…so instead, crack the egg into a small bowl and then use a spoon to scoop out one of the yolks and place it into the hole of the avocado. Then spoon the egg whites into the avocado hole utill it's full. 
5. Salt and pepper the eggs and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Watch the eggs! Ours went from raw to done very quickly. 
6. Cook bacon however you want (we used a frying pan). Crumble bacon on top of your avocado/egg.
7. Enjoy!

Oh don't worry, in actual practice there was extra bacon on the side!

Printable recipe. 

Cake of the Week: Black Forest Cake

This is my first Black Forest Cake experience and ummm hello, lets just say that it will not be my last. I was asked to make it for a birthday party, but all I knew was that it involved chocolate, cherries and alcohol.

I worked the Google and this is what I learned:

• The Black Forest (Schwarzwälder) is the name of a mountain range and forest in Germany. 
• Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte is "Black Forest Cake" in German. Good luck pronouncing that. 
• The Austrians use rum.
• The Swedes make a Black Forest Cake with layers of meringue and chocolate and no cherries. 
• Kirschwasser or kirsch is a flavored brandy made with sour cherries.
• In Germany, Kirschwasser as a mandatory ingredient, otherwise the cake is legally not allowed to be marketed as Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.

My main take-away: It can be whatever I want it to be as long as there’s chocolate cake, cherries, whipped cream, and some sort of alcohol. Imagine it as a boozy Cherry Garcia sort of cake experience. Aka YES.

I mulled over the possibilities and devised a plan of action:

I started with one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes: Vegan Chocolate Cake. (It’s delicious I swear! It just happens to be vegan.)

I made Martha Stewart’s Cherry Filling recipe. Black Forest is often seen with maraschino cherries, but this recipe uses frozen then thawed fresh cherries. YUM.

I was unable to find kirsch, so I opted for the easy route and went with rum instead. I don’t think anyone was disappointed. The resulting cake definitely wasn’t as boozy-tasting as expected, so in the recipe below I’ve included some variations if you want a stronger alcohol flavor.

Then I topped it all with Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting. This recipe never gets old.

This is the kind of cake that gets better the longer it sits. I made the cake layers and cherry filling last Thursday night, then post-Friday morning workout and pre-work I made the whipped cream frosting and assembled it all for the party Friday night. And clearly ate an inappropriate quantity of whipped cream pre-breakfast well duh.

One major downside is that this cake did not cut nicely at all. The chocolate cake is super moist and delicious, but that means when you try to cut through whole cherries it all kind of goes to pieces. If you want a prettier-cutting cake, I suggest finding a more sponge cake-ish chocolate cake recipe. OR you could make it as a trifle. That would be AMAZING.

Despite the messiness, I'd say the cake was a hit. A certain friend left the party before the birthday girl cut the cake. He expected there to be leftover cake saved for him...nada. Lessons to learn: Stay for the cake!!!

Black Forest Cake

Printable recipe. 

Cake ingredients:
makes 24 cupcakes or three 9-inch round cakes

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• ½ cup rum or kirsch (OR more alcohol and less water – it just has to total to 2 cups)

Cake directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line three 9” round pans with parchment paper. (Warning: This recipe tends to stick, so I strongly suggest you go for the parchment paper.)
3. In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, water, rum vanilla extract and vinegar.
5. Slowly whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients being careful not to over-mix. The mixture will be quite wet, but that's ok.
6. Pour the batter into all 3 pans evenly. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick or knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then remove from pan and cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. I recommend putting cakes in the freezer for an additional 30 minutes or in the fridge overnight before frosting the cake, it will make them easier to handle.

Filling ingredients:

• 2 pounds frozen black or dark cherries, thawed, drained, and juice reserved (I used a colander and pressed the juice out of the thawed cherries into a large bowl.)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons kirsch or rum
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

Filling directions:

1. Whisk reserved juice, sugar, rum/kirsch, and cornstarch in a small saucepan until smooth. 
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 8 minutes. Let syrup cool slightly. 
3. Combine syrup and cherries in a medium bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use, up to 2 days.

Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting ingredients:
Yield: about 3-4 cups frosting. Enough to generously frost one cake and have leftovers.

• 1 teaspoon gelatin powder
• 4 tablespoons cold water
• 2 cup whipping cream
• 1 speck of salt
• 8 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (I don’t know how absolutely necessary this is, but it can’t hurt and I’m paranoid about my whipped cream melting.)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla or rum or kirsch

Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting directions:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in small bowl to soften (about 5 minutes). 
2. Scald 4 tablespoon cream; pour over gelatin, stirring till dissolved. 
3. Refrigerate until consistency of unbeaten egg white (about 30 minutes, but check it so it doesn't become too firm.) 
4. Using a hand-mixer, beat until smooth.  (If you accidentally let it get too firm in the fridge, just beat it for longer, it should loosen up). 
5. Add remaining cream and beat until it reaches whipped cream texture/thickness. Add salt, sugar, vanilla (or rum or kirsch), and cream of tartar; beat in gelatin mixture. 

Assembly:

1. Spoon a little less than ½ the cherry mixture over the first layer of the cake.
2. Use a piping bag to create a whipped cream wall (to keep the juice from running down the sides). 
3. Spread a bit of whipped cream on top of the cherries. Place second layer on top and repeat.
4. Add the last few cherries (about ¼ cup) to the top of the cake and frost generously with the rest of the whipped cream. 
5. Shave dark chocolate on top -- I just use a vegetable peeler. 
6. Refrigerate until serving. 

Printable recipe. 

Weekend Report: Skiing Whitetail

Saturday morning, after hosting a Friday night dinosaur-themed birthday party (yes, you read that right), I got up at the crack of dawn to go skiing at Whitetail, PA.

The dinosaur party was for SpeedyKate’s friend, and our apartment is now covered with blow-up dinosaurs, dinosaur flags, pin-the-horn on the dinosaur, and random hard-to-find mini dinosaur toys.

The food was dinosaur themed too, if you think dinosaurs eat coconut curry soup and lots of hummus and spinach artichoke dip… (They lived millions of years ago! Who’s to say they didn’t love some carrots and dip and Black Forest cake?!)

But let’s talk about skiing. In an echo of our October camping trip, my officemate and her husband (Tracy and Mike) and I met up for a little outdoor adventure. We drove to Whitetail, which is only an hour and a half from Arlington! So close! And nowhere near as terrible as anticipated!

People say such horrible things about mid-Atlantic skiing. They tell me I’ll hate it (condescendingly: Mollie, this isn’t out west, it’s really small and icy.), and that skiing around here isn’t worth my time. I understand that perspective. I have skied in many an epically awesome location, so I know what good skiing is like. But I also just straight-up 100% love skiing. Any time. Anywhere.

I’m no snow-snob – I keep my expectations low, and when offered the choice between “bad” skiing and no skiing, there is really only one way to go! I just see bad conditions as a challenge (how perfectly can you turn on bullet-proof ice? What about choppy moguls? What about dodging between out-of-control newbies?), and really only whine about the temperature, because above all else I am a Northern Californian whose winter-time happy-range is 25-40 degrees.

Saturday was Mike’s second day on snow ever and he did super-well! We started making a movie, but then my phone(/camera) died, so it will have to be continued on another ski weekend in the near future…

Tracy and I made some bold decisions...

The convenience amazed me the most – we skied 7 hours (until 6pm! Night skiing under the lights!) and were home in DC by 9. Just in time for me to inhale some food like a zombie and collapse into bed (you know when your body is so tired it’s buzzing? Does this happen to other people? If not then please disregard my crazy...).

And I needed the rest because Sunday morning I was up early again, ready for the next long run in my marathon training venture. I actually have a post-run recipe to share (best. thing. ever.), so I’m going to hold on the details until tomorrow or Wednesday. For now I’ll say that I had a great run, was exhausted, and finally dragged myself outside for some Super Bowl action…which was disappointing to say the least…

But luckily I care A LOT more about skiing than football, so my weekend was a WIN.