cheese curds

I went to the Orange County Fair the other day. This is the nice thing about having a flexible schedule- I can, for example, go to the fair in the middle of week and avoid the crowds. Let me start off by saying that I did not go on this ride:

Well, I actually didn't go on any rides. Fair rides kind of freak me out. I think it's their impermanence that sort of scares me. Anyway, even though I don't go on the rides, I still like the fair. Really, I like to go eat the food. I'm a sucker for anything that's deep fried, but just once a year. I started off with a jumbo dill pickle:

Look- it's chocolate covered bacon! Crazy! In case you are wondering, I did not eat this.

When I lived in Minnesota, cheese curds were practically an institution at the fair. The Minnesota State Fair prides itself on serving a variety of foods on a stick (hot dish on a stick, spaghetti on a stick, cheesecake on a stick, you get the idea), but I think that cheese curds are the food that truly deserve the spotlight. In fact, among my friends, it was the food that we most looked forward to eating. Seriously, you couldn't walk more than like 10 feet without coming across a food stand that sold cheese curds. They were simply ubiquitous.

Imagine my sadness and disappointment to learn that cheese curds at the fair are a Minnesota institution (and probably Wisconsin, but I've never been to a fair in WI, so this is just an educated guess). In MN, everyone loves cheese curds; in California, nobody has heard of cheese curds. When I rave about cheese curds, I get odd, puzzled looks in response.

This was the second time I went to the OC Fair, and I decided to just accept that cheese curds just wouldn't be a part of my fair experience. (I bet you can see where this story is going) But then, my friends and I found a stand that boasted "Deep Fried Wisconsin Cheese Curds." I never thought that anything from Wisconsin could make me so happy, but I was positively ecstatic. Here I am in deep fried cheesy bliss:

Cheese curds are the best thing to come from Wisconsin.
Look at that: deep fried nuggets of heaven.

While my friends devoured battered potatoes, fried frog legs, and deep fried White Castle burgers, I ate my cheese curds. The nice thing about having friends who have never heard of cheese curds is that I don't have to worry about them stealing mine. I was so excited that I had to call Drew and share my cheese curd excitement. Mmmm, I'm getting hungry just writing about this. Anyway, after all the fried food, we went to see the animals. I saw the cutest baby pigs and silently vowed never to eat bacon again.
I could not pass up a deep fried Twinkie:

I got a new t-shirt! (thanks Carol!)

d.c., days 8, 9, 10

My last couple days in D.C. were relatively low key. I was pretty tired from all the sightseeing, the previous week and I knew that I couldn't possibly see everything. Besides, I plan to go back in August and I will be there next winter quarter.

On Saturday, Drew and I slept in and went to Love Cafe for cake. We ate the Toffee Crunch Cake and it was delicious.
We took a walk around the neighborhood and came across this Obey graffiti:

Later that night, we went to El Tamarindo, a Mexican and El Salvadoran restaurant. On Sunday, we went to see Spring Awakening at the Kennedy Center. Spring Awakening is a play about teenagers, repression, and sex. It is set in the 1890s in Germany and based on the play written by Frank Wedekind. The play was controversial and even banned in Germany because it talks about sex, masturbation, rape, abortion, and suicide. The musical deals with all these issues, and is set to rock music. Drew and I enjoyed the musical, and while I think it was very good, I'm not sure it will join the ranks of RENT, Les Miserables, and Miss Saigon. Anyway, the Kennedy Center is really cool and after the play, we danced outside by the fountain overlooking the Potomac River.

On Monday, it was my last full day in D.C. I worked in the afternoon, taking advantage of the library at George Washington University. Later that night, Drew and I met up with some of his old friends at Dukem, an Ethiopian restaurant. I had never had Ethiopian food before, and it was a good experience. I forgot to take a picture when the food came, but here you can see that we devoured it.

Ethiopian food is served poured over injera, which is sort of like a crepe or a pancake. There are no utensils involved- you use the injera to pick up the food and eat it. It was good, and it's fun to share!

Well, that pretty much sums up my first trip. I'll head back again in mid-August, but for now, I'm back in California. That is all for now!

d.c., day 7

On Friday, I decided to sleep in. Drew had a lunch meeting, so I was on my own for lunch this time. I took advantage of this and went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries. It was a small restaurant that had some personality, despite it being a chain. It reminded me of In-n-Out without the long lines and the long wait.

So here's how it works: I went up to the counter to place my order. The regular cheeseburgers and hamburgers contain two meat patties, and the little cheeseburgers and hamburgers contain one. They also serve up hot dogs, but since "burgers" is in the name of the restaurant, why would I eat a hot dog? Anyway, after ordering the burger, I get to choose toppings. The toppings are free by the way. I chose sauteed mushrooms, onions, lettuce and pickles. While I waited for my number to be called, I had the option to snack on the bulk peanuts, but I didn't. Motown music plays in the background.

Check out the food:

This restaurant, which has won lots of awards and gets a lot of notoriety, lives up to its reputation. The cheeseburger was juicy, and the fries were good too. The fries are fresh cut and fried in peanut oil. It was so good, I'm getting hungry just writing about it!

I'm going to take a moment to tell a story that at first will seem completely unrelated to my Five Guys experience. Okay, so I've observed that the areas of DC around the National Mall, the White House, and the Capitol Building are the tourist meccas. (You know these people are tourists because they walk slowly and have no idea where they are going.) However, the rest of DC is like any other city, and the locals wear nice business clothes and hustle to work.

The first couple days that I was here, I would sometimes see men wearing black dress pants and white dress shirts. I tried to avoid them, not looking them in the eye. You see, I'm normally on college campuses, and whenever I've encountered men wearing white and black, they are Mormon and they try to convert me. For some reason, missionaries like to approach me. I find this peculiar because I am the person who is normally able to evade street canvassers and the people standing on street corners trying to hand out business flyers. But for some reason, I can't shake the Mormon missionaries.

It took me a couple days, but I finally realized that those men in DC weren't going to try to get me to be Mormon; instead, those were their work clothes and I could be assured that they wouldn't try to convert me. Now, back to Five Guys. At the table next to me were about six Mormon missionaries. I know this because not only were they wearing white and black, but they were also wearing ties and name tags. I was a little nervous that they would try to convert me, but they didn't and instead enjoyed their burgers and frieds. (sigh of relief)

Thanks for bearing with me through that detour. After lunch, I decided to walk around and check out the shops. I had heard that the Columbia Heights area was a great place to shop, but I wasn't impressed. Of course, I have been spoiled in the past, what with the Mall of America in MN and great shopping malls in Southern California. Anyway, there was something that sort of resembled a shopping mall in Columbia Heights. It had a Best Buy, Marshall's, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, and a Lane Bryant (which is a plus sized women's clothing store). So, nothing too interesting.

I wandered around for a bit trying to decide what to do. I considered going into Lane Bryant. After all, I had just consumed enough calories to last me about a week, so I contemplated the possibility that I might now qualify as plus sized. In the end, I wandered around Target for a bit before heading to Sticky Fingers to read and drink coffee.

I picked up a chocolate chip cookie, pecan cookie, and a peanut butter fudge cupcake. The chocolate chip cookie was pretty good (but it needed lots more chocolate chips), the pecan cookie was excellent, and the cupcake was phenomenal.
In the evening, Drew and I went to see 'Away We Go,' with Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski. We laughed a lot. It was a good movie, very feel good and heart warming.

d.c., day 6

Today, Drew and I got some pizza to go at Pizza Pino and headed to the White House for lunch. Sort of. We sat at Lafayette Park across the street, so we had a good view of the White House. The pizza was greasy, super cheesy, and very, very good. After mopping off the grease, I sprinkled garlic powder on top. Drew says that if a pizza place doesn't have garlic powder, it's not a "real" pizza establishments. (by the way, this isn't a hard and fast rule. He says that if Domino's had garlic powder, it wouldn't atuomatically make the restaurant a "real" pizza place.) After lunch, I went back to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. I walked through the exhibit "Strange Bodies."

Next, I went out to the Sculpture Garden. Below, Yoko Ono had a piece entitled "The Wish Tree." Everyone writes a wish on a tag and hangs it on the tree. I love interactive art. There is my wish, the second tag from the right.

After the Hirshhorn, I walked through the Smithsonian Castle. There's not a lot to the Castle; it seems to serve mainly as a hub for information to D.C. and the Smithsonian Museums. There were a couple small exhibits, mainly about the history of the castle and a biography on James Smithsonian. Oh, and the Smithsonian is totally capitalizing on the Night at the Museum movie; there was movie memorabilia in the gift shop and a prop from the movie- the "pile of loot."

Again, heeding Carol's advice, Drew and I went to this vegan bakery, Sticky Fingers. I have decided that Sticky Fingers is hands down the best bakery I've ever been to. It is a cute, clean cafe that serves up coffee, sandwiches, vegan hot dogs, and quesadillas, but that's not why we went there. Sticky Fingers also serves up an assortment of baked goods- cupcakes, cookies, cinnamon buns, and brownies.

We went home with a s'mores cupcake, almond creme cupcake, and raspberry creme cupcake. We also bought a lemon coconut cookie, but that didn't make the metro ride home.

The s'mores cupcake was a fudgy chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream, graham cracker sprinkles, and a marshmallow. It was good, but it did not completely resemble a s'mores. It needed more graham crackers. The raspberry creme cupcake tasted like raspberry sherbet decided to be frosting (Drew, 2009). It was light and quite sweet. The almond creme cupcake was my favorite. The secret was in the almond extract. These cupcakes were very moist and satisfying, so if you are ever in the DC area, go to Sticky Fingers! (by the way, we ate these cupcakes over the course of two days, and they maintained their freshness very nicely!)

Drew and I stopped at Julia's Empanadas to pick up some dinner. I've never had an empanada before, but I'm always game for trying something new. They had a vegan and a vegetarian empanada, and the restaurant was listed in the Vegetarian Guide to DC.

I ate the Jamaican Style empanada, which contained beef, onion, potato, and curry. It was very good, and just the right portion.

d.c., day 5 aka a birthday with the presidents (and Drew!)

On day 5 in D.C., I turned 29. I started the day off by sleeping in. I met Drew for lunch and we went to Nirvana, a vegetarian Indian restaurant. Then I went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Now, women have been marginalized in many walks of life, so art was no different. Since women were not allowed to study art or figure drawing, it is no surprise that art is a male dominated field. Many women artists got their start through their connections to male artists in their family. When I studied art history, there was barely any mentions of women artists. And, when I was at the School of Visual Arts, we had to attend these lectures given by successful photographers in the field. They were mostly men. I complained to the chair of the photography department that this was unrepresentative. He didn't care. I was uninspired. Anyway, I was excited to go to this museum and learn the other half of the story.

There were a lot of cool artists in the museum: Judy Chicago, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, Lee Krasner, Frida Kahlo, and below, Jane Hammond. I really like this piece because the artist has superimposed her face on the bodies of popular icons that are usually male. It really made me think.

I love this quote. So, so true, and we could substitute any profession for "artist." (it says "The chief obstacle to a woman's success is that she can never have a wife. Just reflect what a wife does for an artist.")

I took my time in the museum, and it was a great way to spend a birthday. But the fun wasn't over yet. I met Drew after he was finished working, and we journeyed to the National Mall, to pick up where we previously left off. We started with the Vietnam Women's Memorial and made our way to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

We followed a path around a pond (where ducks were diving underwater!) and got a great view of the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool:
We headed up to the Lincoln Memorial, which I loved. It had quite a presence, definitely larger than life.
We left the Lincoln Memorial and headed to the Korean War Memorial. I don't really know what the Korean War was about, and neither did Drew, though maybe he should have because he did do a report on the Korean War when he was in sixth grade. Oh well. Anyway, the soldiers look confused and as if they don't know what's going on, so I'm not sure if that's what is meant to be conveyed. All right, I'm looking it up in wikipedia right now. Hang on.
Okay, well that detour didn't really tell me anything, except that each statue is around 7.5 feet and weighs about 1000 pounds. Moving on. Drew and I headed around the tidal basin to the FDR memorial. Here's yet another view of the Washington Monument:

I got lots of cool shots at the FDR memorial, but here's one of FDR's fireside chats.
The FDR memorial is quite possibly the coolest of all the presidential memorials on the National Mall. (there are only four presidents who get memorials, so I guess FDR is already ahead of the curve) I guess that when you deal with a depression and a world war during your tenure, you sure as hell better get a kick ass memorial. Anyway, the memorial was expansive and had lots of waterfalls. Besides the fireside chat sculpture, there was the infamous breadline, a tribute to Eleanor, and a sculpture depicting FDR in his wheelchair. I wonder if he would have been elected president had people known that he had polio and was unable to walk unassisted. Actually, I wonder if he could have gotten elected in the modern era. Anyway, moving on...
We continued on and passed by the Jefferson Memorial. And here's your last shot of the Washington Monument:
So, it was, in a sense, a birthday with the presidents. Drew and I hit up Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, and Washington. We had intended to eat pizza in the park across from the White House, just to round out the evening with the presidents. However, it was getting dark so we saved this for lunch on day 6. (of course, pictures to come later)

Instead, we went to Ben's Chili Bowl for a late dinner. Ben's Chili Bowl opened in 1958 and seems to have become a DC institution. This landmark restaurant contains a lot of history, and it's survived a lot of change and turmoil, namely the riots following King's assassination. While the rest of the community was burning and shutting down, Ben's stayed open. Since then, it's recovered, but not without a lot of help and media publicity. Also, it turns out that the owner's son decided to forgo a law career after graduating law school and instead helped turn the family business around. (again, I must have a secret obsession with lawyer-turned-entrepreneurs; see my affinity for Cakelove and PB Loco)
They really like Obama here!
And Bill Cosby, who helped Ben's Chili Bowl celebrate its 45th anniversary. (in case you can't read it, the sign says "Who Eats Free at Bens: Bill Cosby and the Obama Family, but he paid)
I ate the chili cheeseburger, which was quite tasty and had the just the right amount of chili. Not too much, but just enough so that it oozed out the sides.
And there you have it. It was a birthday with the presidents, and of course, Drew. Naturally, the former could never top the latter.

d.c., day 4

On Day 4 in D.C., I again set up shop at the Corner Bakery and wrote in the morning. For lunch, Drew and went to the Washington Deli. He knows that I have an affinity for sandwiches, and we are on a mission to test out all of the sandwich shops and delis in the area. After consulting the Vegetarian Guide for Washington, D.C., we decided to go to the Washington Deli for lunch. Tucked next to a sushi place and a fitness club, the deli served up pizza and sandwiches, both with and without meat. Drew ate the Vegan Gary Williams, with vegan turkey, cole slaw, and Russian Dressing, and I ate the falafel. Halfway through, we traded. It was good, but not as good as the egg salad from Heidi's Brooklyn Deli.

After lunch, I went to the National Air and Space Museum, two things that really don't interest me. But, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian made the museum look so cool that I had to go and check it out. Yes, I am superficial sometimes. As you can see, the museum lobby was quite large and spacious, and full of things like, well, planes of course, and telescopes and such.

Amelia Earhart got a brief shout out, but I suspect that it might only be due to the popularity of the Night at the Museum movie.

I quickly walked through the main attractions in the lobby exhibit hall, and I went to three other exhibitions. Fortunately, it turns out that the exhibitions that are interesting to me are not interesting to children. Seems that kids really like all the planes and rockets and stuff, but not the exhibit on Wilbur and Orville Wright, the solar system, and aerial photography. Here is the plane that the Wright brothers designed and flew:

I really enjoyed the solar system exhibit, mainly because I harbor a secret desire to go to the moon. When I was in the fourth or fifth grade, I did a science project on the solar system. I don't really remember what it was, but I do recall painting styrofoam balls of a variety of sizes. So while I didn't think that I was interested in air and space, I was pleased to find an exhibit on the solar system containing lots of information on planets, moons, and meteorites. (Hey! Sounds like a rock band!) I learned that Clyde Tombaugh (actually, I forgot this and just looked it up on wikipedia) discovered Pluto, and I wondered if he would be pissed to find out that it's no longer considered a planet.

After the air and space museum, I went over the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The museum contained abstract, modern, and contemporary art filled with sculptures, paintings, and installations. The cool thing about D.C. is that it has two of my favorite things: politics and art. There are museums dedicated to American Art, African Art, Asian Art, and well, you get my point. Whenever I visit a new place, I always check out the art museums.

The Hirshhorn was a round building, like my high school. In the center was a very tall water fountain, which sadly, is not like my old high school. I actually spent so much time staring at the art that I didn't finish it all and saved the rest for day 6. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here is a mobile by Alexander Calder:

Heeding Carol's advice, Drew and I went to Soul Vegetarian, this small hole-in-the-wall vegan restaurant with some neat-o character and great food. Here is Drew with country fried "steak," tofu teriyaki, collard greens, and cookies and creme cake. Doesn't he look happy? Now, Drew is a vegetarian, but we don't get into food fight because I am not. I don't eat tons of meat, but I do like a cheeseburger every now and again. It does help that I am veg friendly and like all sorts of food, both vegetarian and vegan.

I ate the barbeque tofu sub and collard greens.

We saved the cake for dessert at home. The cookies and creme cake was very, very moist and chocolate-y. So, so moist. I just want you to know that. There is nothing worse than a dried out cake that only looks good but tastes absolutely awful. This cake not only looked good, but it tasted wonderful. Drew and I are already planning a second trip.