A ridiculously warm winter solstice

It may be the shortest day of the year but a warm front moved in to the District. We were up to 21 C (or 70 F) and I was stripping down to my T-shirt while biking and walking around. I met Tanya and walked around the holiday market and the Mall. We thought about a museum but it was too nice to go inside. Here's some pictures for you all.

After that I hit up Union Market and Eastern Market and delivered some Christmas cookies to friends. Of course I made Candy Cane Cookies and Sour Cream Twists!

The scaffolding is coming down on the Washington Monument.

It's shadow is way bigger than mine!

Here's a panorama from the north side of the Monument. The White House is behind the trees in the middle of the picture and one of the cranes building the National Museum of African American History is on the right.

It was a gorgeous and sunny day!

Proof that I was down to my T-shirt! And note that it is the Planet Money T-shirt. 

This is the Christmas tree in the park south of the White House. I think it is called the National tree while the one by the Capitol is the People's tree. But I'm not sure! There are 50 small trees for the states too. You can see a couple in the foreground.

The view down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I do like the Old Post Office Pavilion!

Research on paperwhites, or how to grow shorter flowers

Do you like to force bulbs like paperwhites? I certainly enjoy the flowers but get frustrated by floppy plants and tipped over pots. The Flower Bulb Research Program at Cornell University is coming to our rescue!

What to do
We suggest planting your paperwhite bulbs in stones, gravel, marbles, glass beads, etc. as
usual. Add water as you normally would, then wait about 1 week until roots are growing,
and the shoot is green and growing about 1-2” above the top of the bulb. At this point,
pour off the water and replace it with a solution of 4 to 6% alcohol, made from just about
any “hard” liquor. You can do the calculations to figure the dilution, but, as an example,
to get a 5% solution from a 40% distilled spirit (e.g., gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila),
you add 1 part of the booze to 7 parts of water. This is an 8-fold dilution yielding 5%
alcohol.

Then you just grow the plant as normal while watering with the alcohol solution. (click the link above for complete instructions and explanation) This is really clever. I may have to try forcing bulbs again.

Thanksgiving Pictures

Theresa and Hugh O'Byrne and their four cats hosted Nicole and me at their home in Trenton, New Jersey, for Thanksgiving. (Theresa is a former classmate of Nicole's.) I had a really great time. Thank you again Hugh and Theresa!

A cat and a fireplace

Pirate wants to know when he can start on that bird!

Theresa had a great idea when I was trying to figure out where to brine the turkey. A clean vegetable drawer in the spare refrigerator in the basement was just the right size for our 11 pound bird and it was easy to keep it cold!

Of course the task of the day on Thursday was cooking. Here's some of the results. Fortunately Ceil and Jim, Nicole's parents, joined us for the feast too or we would have had to call on the cats to help!

The Bird

The accompaniments 

The table with Theresa's lovely china (a gift from parents/grandparents with the completion of her dissertation)

Ready to eat.

I had to eat the pie before taking a picture of it.

Theresa, Nicole, Hugh

Theresa, Nicole, Sarah (taking turns to take the photo)

It's winter. I don't have any snow, but I do have glowing boats.

I think I only take pictures on the sunny days so you may get a mistaken impression. It's been cold lately and despite the weather threats last week we didn't really have snow stick in the District. Here's a mix of photos from the last couple of weeks.

Winter from my window on December 8.

Saturday (12/7) was sunny. The scaffolding is coming down on the Washington Monument.

Cranes are building the National Museum of African American History.

A nice colorful protest on the Mall. Their sign said Human Rights for Vietnam so I assume the person on the loudspeaker was talking in Vietnamese since it certainly wasn't English.

I watched the parade of boats with Tad and Colleen. This gives you a sense of it but of course the pictures aren't great.

Rockin' Santas.

A blue shark.

And Hanukkah was represented too. 

The boats were tied up at the waterfront docks later. Much easier to photograph!

T-Rex, with the reindeer boat (it has antlers and a red nose) behind her and Rockin' Santas in back.

Jerusalem artichokes (shampoo bottle for scale).

Today I'm making soup with some of the Jerusalem artichokes (also called sunchokes). I found a roasted sunchoke soup recipe on Not Eating Out in New York and it's ready to puree now. Actually I did a lot of cooking today, there is a pot of tomato soup simmering too, and a small batch of enchiladas filled with beans and roasted Hubbard squash. The Hubbard is not nearly as sweet as the kabocha/buttercup types so I'll try and use it for cooking.

I also made an extremely yellow loaf of bread--it has 1 cup of butternut squash puree and only 1/4 cup of water. The yellowness was fun, but it was somewhat fragile as bread. It never got crusty and had a fine, soft crumb. Just applesauce on top could make a piece disintegrate if it wasn't toasted pretty well. It did stay moist nicely.

Yeasted Squash Bread

Combine and let proof:

1/4 c water
1 t yeast
2 t sugar

Add:

1 c squash puree
3/4 t salt
1/4 t olive oil
1 c white whole wheat flour
1.5 c bread flour

Mix, knead, let rise 1-2 hours. Punch down. Makes one loaf. Rise 30 minutes. Bake 350 degrees, 40 minutes.

Eat a piece while it is still warm.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

You threw a fun party, thanks for inviting me. Here's a couple of pictures for folks back in Oregon. (that I copied from you!)

Chefs Sarah and Lissa are working in the kitchen, heating up the tamales. 

Check out my new Planet Money t-shirt! You can read the whole story at www.npr.org/shirt

Elizabeth is the birthday girl. I manage to coordinate in the pink shirt though.

Ann and Elizabeth and cupcakes

Gluten-free Sticky Buns for Thanksgiving

'Cause we had to eat breakfast after all! Don't worry, we ate Thanksgiving dinner too.

I was impressed. Theresa's recipe was really good even though not quite the same as wheat-flour-based rolls.

I don't think I sufficiently warned Theresa that will you, nill you I am going to take over your kitchen if I'm there for Thanksgiving! And a lovely kitchen it was too. Theresa and Hugh recently bought an impeccably restored hundred-year-old house along the river in Trenton, NJ. They invited Nicole and I to stay for the holiday and we had a great time. Jim and Ceil (Nicole's parents) drove over from Pennsylvania for turkey dinner too.