Of Good Stuff and Poinsettias

After the flurry of last-minute Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, and post office runs we've all undergone this past week, it's nice to take a break from these pre-Christmas stresses and take time to enjoy some of the pre-Christmas pleasures.  Which is exactly why I dragged Patrick to the U.S. Botanic Gardens today to view their holiday exhibit.

But before embarking on yet another episode of hometown tourism (another wonderful oxymoron of my invention...), we decided to fuel up at Good Stuff Eatery, this burger joint we'd been wanting to try for awhile and is conveniently situated just down the street from the Botanic Gardens.

I must admit, before trying this place I was filled with high hopes.   First of all, it is owned by Top Chef Chicago participant Spike Mendelsohn (who will also be participating in the upcoming Top Chef All Stars) and his family.  What's more, according to their website, they feature "[h]andcrafted burgers, handcut fries, handspun shakes, and farm fresh salads made with the highest quality ingredients."  Sounds like my kind of place.

When we walked in, the place was just the right amount of crowded -- bustling but with a table or two still open.  We found one on the second floor near a window that had a nice view of our car :)  After browsing the menu, Patrick decided on his usual:  Bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg (his favorite since eating it while studying abroad in China).  

I opted for the free range turkey burger with muenster cheese, avocados and tomatoes on a whole grain bun.  Sounds good, right?  Well, sadly all I can really say is disappointing.  The bun came smashed and crumbly, the burger itself was dry and tasteless, and the avocados were mush :(  

The fries were also a little too soggy for my taste... you can tell in the picture that they look sort of sad and deflated.

Not what I was expecting for a place that boasts the "highest quality ingredients."  I'm not usually a picky person, but I was just not feeling it :(  On the other hand, Patrick's fried egg burger "Spike's Sunnyside" was excellent.  I guess the moral of the story here is when it comes to Good Stuff Eatery, go for the real deal and not the turkey burger... at least they had a nice assortment of sauces to go with it (I do love my sauces)...

I am willing to give this place another shot sometime and the benefit of the doubt since it is the day before Christmas Eve and I know people have other things on their minds... plus their portobello mushroom burger with panko bread crumbs is calling me.  But I'm hoping next time I will have a better story to tell.

After we had had our fill, we headed to the Botanic Gardens which is located next to the Capitol.

Their holiday display - The Garden Railway - was particularly impressive.  It featured miniature models of exotic and ancient monuments from around the world made of plant materials.  All of these models were connected by a maze of train tracks with various little trains circling around the room.  

See if you can guess what all of these monuments are:

In addition, they had several similar miniature displays of DC landmarks...

The Supreme Court

I love the detail here

The Lincoln Memorial

The White House

The Washington Monument

The Botanic Gardens

The Capitol Building

And of course, there were plenty of interesting plants to behold... like this twisted tree:

... and these crazy cactuses (cacti?) that almost appear to be alive and wriggling:

Here I wanted to get a picture of this hedge taking a picture of me but Patrick didn't seem to get it so I settled for a straight-on pose.

I think it's actually holding poinsettias in its hands.  If you look closely (you may not be able to tell from these pictures), poinsettias crept up a lot in the displays which lent a particularly Christmas feel to the visit.

Well I hope you made it this far as I realize how picture crazy I went today (the guy at the front door did tell me to take a lot of pictures).  Anyway, Merry Christmas everybody! And safe travels for all those journeying elsewhere for the holidays.

oo,

Rewinding and Unwinding in Sunny LA

I've developed this strange habit of prefacing "LA" with "sunny" every time I talk about it (hence the title), but from what I hear, LA is all but sunny of late.

Fortunately two weeks ago when I visited Mikala, there was nothing but sun.  The day after my parents left DC, I was more than happy to relinquish my role as tour guide and take on the role of tourist.  Well, kind of.  After living there for a good year and a half, I guess I wasn't so much interested in sightseeing as I was in some good ol' relaxation.  Which probably worked out for the best considering that Patrick and I both ended up feeling under the weather while we were there (I'm convinced Patrick brought back some foreign bug from the frigid depths of Russia, although all that sightseeing I did in our own local frigid depths the week before probably did not help either).

Speaking of Russia, I have you to thank for giving me the idea to take a trip to LA in the first place.  Originally Patrick was supposed to be there from November 30 until December 19th.  With me being unemployed still, that is a whole lot of time to fill by myself!  So rather than subject myself to two inevitable weeks of Korean dramas and ramen noodles (wow, that sounded so uncharacteristically Asian of me), I decided if I was going to do nothing, I might as well do nothing in LA.

Of course once my ticket was bought for December 6th, we learned that Patrick's trip was cut short and he would be returning December 4th.  Whoops.  But it worked out because In-N-Out was tempting him, and we had $800 in free travel vouchers from United from a bump we took over Thanksgiving.

Sidenote:  I recommend taking the free travel vouchers when they are offered.  It's worth an extra 2+ hours of your time.  Patrick and I together have received over $2000 in free flights this year alone, not including the trip we took to China/Korea for free using frequent flyer miles!

Anyway, to interrupt my rambling, here are my favorite highlights from the trip... (unfortunately all the pictures are on Mikala's camera and her electricity is out, probably a result of all the storms they've been having, so I will try to post them later):

• COOKING!:  It was nice to have a cooking partner again.  We made chicken milanese with a tomato and fennel sauce found from a Giada recipe (here) and a shaved brussels sprout salad found from a food blog I've been following (here).  We also made and decorated gingerbread cookies because 'tis the season for that.  
• MOVIES:  What better place to watch movies than in the movie-capital of the world?  We saw Tangled 3D in the theaters -- such a cute movie!  It was a classic Disney story with a modern twist.  Then I ended up watching Love and Other Drugs by myself (literally... there was no one else in the theater) while Mikala was at work and Patrick had gone back to DC.  Even though this story had some problems (like trying to be about too many things at once), I thought it was a good movie and worth seeing.   On Netflix Instant Watch, we also saw The Bounty Hunter (meh), and I re-watched two of my favorites, Julie and Julia and The Proposal.  
• 70 and 80 degree weather:  Enough said :)
• In-N-Out Burger (the real reason for Patrick's visit):  I seriously love this place and wish they would expand to the East Coast.  It's all about the special sauce...  
• Conan O'Brien:  Definitely the highlight of the highlights.  Patrick and I went to see a live taping of Conan's new show at the Warner Brothers Studios, consolation for not getting to see The Big Bang Theory for which I had tried but failed at getting tickets... We actually didn't get tickets in advance for this show either.  We stood in line at 10AM for standby tickets and got lucky.  Sarah Silverman was the guest along with musical guests She and Him which I guess is Zooey Deschanel's band as she was the one singing.  We ended up with corner seats which weren't too bad considering our tickets were standby.  You can just barely make out our figures amongst the shadow-draped audience in one of the shots.  I believe they posted the show online here but good luck spotting us :)  Conan of course was hilarious and it was a fun experience overall.  Also, seeing the crew walk around and communicate via walkie-talkie brought me back to my production assistant days in LA... 

Now I just have a few more days in DC, then it's off to Nebraska for my last trip of 2010!  Since I love giving highlights so much (apparently), stay tuned for my top 10 highlights of 2010.  Until then, enjoy the rest of the year :)

oo,

My Role As Tour Guide

As I mentioned before, my parents were in DC a couple weeks ago and since Patrick, who knows this city inside out, had to fly to Moscow for the week, I had the distinguished honor of acting as tour guide.  "Acting" is the key word as I still have lots to learn about this city despite living here for a year and a half (probably because I just blindly follow Patrick along everywhere and let him do the leading).

I asked my parents ahead of time what they wanted to see.  Naturally, their response was "whatever you want to show us!"  Not helpful considering that this city is crawling with tourist sights.  We only had about two and a half good days of sightseeing so I decided to hit up the major spots and save the rest for their next trip.  Here's what we were able to fit in:

• The Capitol Building.  We lucked out and got a private tour of the capitol that I had set up through Nebraska's Senate Office.  We also got to sit in the Senate gallery while they were in session.  Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures while we were inside :(  But here's my mom and me standing outside the Capitol.  Did I forget to mention there was torrential downpour that morning and even a tornado watch?

• The White House.  There are many disadvantages to visiting the city during the first week of December (the cold weather being the main one), but a major plus side is getting to see all of the White House Christmas decorations!  The tour was amazing but the decorations were particularly awe-inspiring.  Each room had its own Christmas tree that was decorated by a different organization.  Unfortunately no cameras were allowed on the tour.

• The National Archives.  The most notable documents we saw here were the Bill of Rights, The Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence.  Most of the documents are too faded to read now but it's still neat to see them up close.  Again, no cameras were allowed, but here is a shot of the beautiful exterior: 

• The Library of Congress.  Aside from being the largest library in the country (by law, two copies of every copyright is sent here), it is also probably one of the most impressive architectural designs in the country (unfortunately my pictures don't do it justice).  We took a tour that lasted over an hour and most of it was explaining all of the architectural nuances of the building.  My dad was more interested in learning that National Treasure actually was shot inside the building and that the "Book of Secrets" from the movie used to be on display but later was moved someplace else.

• The Newseum.  Patrick and my favorite museum here even though admittance is $20 per person.  Doable considering that virtually everything else here is free. My dad liked the gangster exhibit and my mom liked the Elvis display.  Other notable features of the museum are a section of the Berlin Wall and a piece of the World Trade Center.

• The National Museum of American History.  My parents also really liked this one.  Mostly known for the Star Spangled Banner, the First Ladies' dresses, Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers, Julia Child's kitchen, and Abraham Lincoln's hat. 

• Arlington National Cemetery.  I've been here multiple times but I still get chills watching the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (maybe that also has to do with the fact that it was freezing outside).  We also saw the Kennedy's gravesite and Robert E. Lee's mansion at the top of the hill which offers this stunning view of DC (and Pierre L'Enfant's tomb aka the architect of DC):

• The Lincoln Monument, The Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the WWII Memorial.  Yep, we braved the freezing temperature and saw them all.  If we look cold, it's because we really were.

•  The Museum of Natural History.  Definitely the highlight of the entire week.  You may recall my earlier post about the carpet convention.  On Friday night they held a private dinner party at the Museum of Natural History.  They had buffets of food and tables set up among the displays.  We were able to eat a delicious dinner (complete with a mashed potato bar) and then wander around the exhibits afterwards.  It was a blast.  They also had some HGTV hosts around as special guests during the convention (Chip and Tanya), so we took our picture with them.  Also, my mom had to see the Hope Diamond display twice.  

HGTV guy

HGTV girl

The Hope Diamond

The night would not have been complete without the obvious "the museum is alive!" jokes from my dad.  Which makes this picture particularly amusing...

oo,