I’m Mr. Heat Miser

I’m almost NEVER dreaming of a White Christmas. Give me a warm Christmas anyday and I am happy. And lucky me – its going to be in the 70s in Myrtle Beach while I am home for Christmas.

Now, I do have to admit I like having a white Christmas every now again—maybe once every 10 years. Then its SPECIAL. LOL  Like in 1989 when it snowed massively in SC. I mean it was a few feet of snow. That was crazy, and we had such a great Christmas. I drove from Charleston to Myrtle Beach – what a nightmare – in my little Honda Civic. Amazingly I got all the way there without getting stuck or anything until, of course, when I turned the corner on my parents street and Kevin Hodes talked me into pushing someone’s car with mine and I got stuck. After getting us both unstuck I had about 50 feet to go to pull into this little whole my dad dug out of the snow for my car, which I then got stuck in. LOL

Greg and I made a HUGE snow woman – a snow beach bunny. Huge boobs on her and Greg had some batik dye and we painted a purple bikini on her. All the golfers staying at the hotels on the beach were driving by and stopping to take pictures. Then we went over to the Par 3 course across Hwy 17 and started throwing snowballs and just goofing around. One word of warning – if you are running through 3 feet of snow on a golf course remember that golf courses are rolling bumps and valleys.  We were both running and suddenly Greg disappeared and I couldn’t figure out where he went until I hit a valley myself and went face first in the snow. Aaaahhh, the memories. LOL

Hhhhhmmmm, that was almost 20 years ago, I guess I’m ready for another white christmas – maybe next year the Heat Miser will let it snow in SC again. But this year – WOOOOOOOHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO – 70 DEGREES!!!!

=)

Everyone ready for Christmas?

I don’t know why – but Christmas always sneaks up on me every year. It happens at the same time every year, yet damn – where did the time go. It was weeks away, but now its only 2 days away.

How the heck did that happen???

Truffle me this – Part Deux

I’m working on my holiday baking – although this year it is really holiday candy making. I have made 3 batches of ganache for the truffles; 1) Milk Chocolate with Espresso, 2) Dark Chocolate with Cointreau, 3) White Chocolate with Cherries & Amaretto. The white chocolate and cherries isn’t really working for me. There is no cherry OR amaretto flavor coming through, I’m thinking about starting over with it and doing the white chocolate with peppermint. But I can’t decide.

I also have caramels and toffee to make – so should I just start making them, or run to the store and salvage the white chocolate truffles? I need to do the ganache tonight so it will set up over night before I start tempering the chocolate for dunking. Decisions, decisions.

UPDATE 12/22/08 – I went with White Chocolate and Peppermint and they turned out REALLY good. Will post more about how everything turned out later =)

She Crab Soup

She Crab Soup at the Wharf

I love southern food. Sure I am probably biased being from South Carolina. But I love southern food. And I’m not talking fry everything up and call it done – although I do enjoy some fried food. But since I have been back in the southeast, I have enjoyed mounds of okra (cooked Linda-style), collards, grits, biscuits, sweet tea, and as of Saturday I finally got some of my favorite soup in the world – She Crab Soup. What a blessed event – LOL

For those of you who have never had any, I suggest you look for a place that has it and give it a whirl. You need to make sure they make it with a little sherry in it, or it just isn’t the same. And yes, it is made with she crabs, not he crabs. Part of what gives the soup its rosy tint is the crab roe in the soup. Charleston, SC is the home of she crab soup, and probably one of my favorite cities to eat. Oh the wonderful low country cooking they have there, my mouth is drooling just thinking about it.

Tammy was visiting again from Myrtle Beach and we spent the day in Old Town Alexandria perusing the stores and stopped in this little restaurant called the Wharf down near the waterfront and split a half bottle of Pinto Noir, some steamed clams with garlic & tomatoes, corn-crusted fried oysters with blue crab succotash. YUM! And the finale were big bowls of She Crab Soup. What a fabulous day!

Truffle me this

I’ve been to 2 cooking classes at Sur la Table in the last 2 weeks. Candy making and chocolate truffles. I know some of you are wondering WHY am I going to those – don’t you already make all those yummy things. Well yeah, but I thought I’d find out how you are actually supposed to make them and not me guessing at it.

Turns out I was doing pretty good on my own. I even made the sugared almonds from last week already – and they were yummy. However, tonight was fabulous! I have never even attempted tempering chocolate because it seemed like such a pain in the butt and very complicated. We’ll I have officially learned now, so I am looking forward to attempting it myself in the near future. So look for the new improved Meredith Truffles coming to you real soon! =)

Memorials and such

I wandered around the Mall a bit after going to the art museum. It was a beautiful fall day and there were alot of people out enjoying the day either before or after their feasts.

Lets talk memorials for a second. The WWII memorial is HUGE. Don’t get me wrong WWII was huge itself, but man that thing is big. And why is it stuck right in the middle of mall? All of the other memorials are along the side to keep the mall area open, but not this. Why is that? And what was there before they built this? I’m sure something that had a purpose of some sort. I remember reading about DC when I was in school and how everything was laid out a certain way and for certain reason – don’t ask my what they are now – no clue. But sticking a monster memorial in the middle of the mall seems a bit off if you ask me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a WWII memorial, but why there?

And where is the WWI Memorial? Guess what, there isn’t one. Well not a National WWI memorial. There is a small one that was dedicated in 1931 for the people in Washington, DC who lost their lives during WWI. I guess there aren’t alot of people out there to contribute to a WWI memorial any more.

I like the Korean War Memorial. I can visualize those guys tramping through Korea. You really see a full regiment. And I like the faces etched in the marble looking back at you when you walk by. I could have taken a ton of photos of just that from different angles.

Then there is the Vietnam Memorial. I think it is interesting that the 3 soldier bronze statue was erected after much controversy that the wall of names wasn’t significant, or not depicting the heroism usually found in war memorials. I think that the Vietnam Memorial is arguably one of the most profound memorials. I find it to be extremely emotional, the simplicity of listing of all the names lost during that war in such a graphic format really shows the toll a war takes on a country. And what about those 3 soldiers made specifically to show a caucasian, latino, and african american. HHhhhmmm – what? no asians fought in the war? Or would people think that they were showing vietnamese soldiers and get in a uproar over that?

And speaking of Asians – anybody want to put up a memorial depicting the camps established during WWII to house all the asians who must be in collusion with the enemy because they look like them or came from there once upon a time?? Probably not since we seem to be doing some of that again since 9/11. I think it might be a good reminder to some to be wary where you tread, we’ve been there and it wasn’t such a great idea. History does repeat itself.

Enough of my ranting for now. My camera battery died before I got to the Vietnam women’s memorial or I’d have pics of that too. About time someone remembered the women! =)

Here are some pics from my wanderings.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

On Thanksgiving I went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum – and its not just art my Americans. I’m not sure why you would call it American Art Museum as opposed to just Art Museum, but who am I to say?

I spent 3 hours there and it turns out I really only made it through half way. There is another building that I didn’t even get to. One day I will make it over to the other half. But for now you get a little synopsis of what I did see. One thing that I enjoyed immensely was actually 2 girls that were going through the museum. I ran into them twice and the same conversation was going on both times. The one friend was really getting irritated with the other, who kept saying over and over – loudly – “So WHO decides what goes in here? I mean, what makes it special enough to be in THIS museum? Why that painting?” I wonder that as well sometimes. But art is subjective and who knows the inner workings of the curator and why they have certain things on the wall. They should just go on one of the docent tours and maybe they’ll find out.

A couple of things that I think about at the museum:

• Marble statues – I am always amazed at the detail of marble statues, how do they get some detail out of a freaking rock. And what if you mess up? Its not like you just paint over it. Bronze statues are casts, and you have time to work with the mold before its finalized, and wood is an easier medium to work with – but solid rock – hats off to you.
• Brushstrokes –  I love seeing the paint on the canvas and the strokes that put it on there. I want to touch all of those paintings SOOOOO BAD. But I really didn’t want to get arrested, so I just took some close-ups so you could see. Its the textures and also what combination of colors when into making the whole.
• Why? - Okay, I’m with the girl. Sometimes I wonder why certain things are in the museum as well.  Is this just the best example of that style that the museum just happens to have.  And what makes that artists stuff better than someone elses? Because for gods sakes I could do that – but is it just that they did it first? I know art is subjective, and some peoples art is other’s garbage – still you want to know why that particular thing is in the museum.
• Art can be fun – I wonder how many people look at some of these paintings and really don’t see them. There are a few things that just strike me as funny and I happen to giggle a little going through the museum, which some people just frown on completely – because “art” is serious stuff. PLU-eeeze. Art can be funny – and get over your stuffy selves and realize that.

Anyway, that’s my take on the Art Museum. Check out the pics with my commentary.

Everyone look over their right shoulder - NOW! =)

I also slipped into the American History Museum for a bit. In case you want to know where everyone takes their kids on Thanksgiving in DC, its to the American History Museum. Of course it recently reopened, so that didn’t help. It was PACKED. So I took a quick gander at Julia Child’s kitchen – how could I pass that up?? And then I left. Too many people for me.