I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile today

The weather was perfect and the cherry trees were in full bloom. I lucked out this year! Mary Grace and Kori came out to see me off. We were all volunteering on the start line setup (5:30 AM!)so we have a guaranteed entry for next year (you still have to pay for it but you don't have to enter the lottery to get a spot). I had bib number 16047 if you want to look me up in the race results. Actually it wasn't quite a 10 mile run, "Due to an emergency, the course was modified. The measured distance was 9.5364 miles." My time was 1 hour and 37 minutes which works out to about 10:20 minutes per mile.

After setup (and before the race) we walked over to the Tidal Basin to watch the sunrise.

Art shot of the Jefferson Memorial!

Kori is good at those

Kori and Mary Grace in their official volunteer shirts

Look! Kori's as tall as the Monument!

Starting the race! I'm in the blue shorts.

This is a cherry tree on Brent and Ann's street. They are everywhere and so lovely right now. 

Halfway visitors and other pictures

Pat and Patti visited DC this week. Great to see Halfway friends and have they chance to show you a little bit of my DC. You'll have to come back when the Nationals are playing Pat and we can have the full neighborhood tour and go to a game. This time around we me at the National Portrait Gallery (it has a great atrium which is open in the evenings and a good place to meet in Chinatown), had chicken dinner at Nando's Peri-Peri, and then Pat and Patti visited my apartment on Sunday for a late lunch of arugula salad with candied pecans, split pea soup, and brownies (see the recipe for that in the last post).

The remnants of lunch

Sarah and Pat at the Waterfront plaza

Intrepid travelers Patti and Pat (with the new Sky House apartment in the background)

This morning I went on a very chilly run with Kori--it was 0 degrees C when we left. (Yes I often have to do the conversion but 0 is easy...that's freezing, the same as 32 F.) I did end up with an 11 mile run in two hours this morning though so a good workout despite the cold.

Yesterday Elizabeth and I biked to the Arboretum. It was cold and gusty then too! I guess spring isn't really here yet, although the plum blossoms are giving it a good try.

A lovely pale flowering plum.

This one is so vivid! The cherries don't get this bright.

Here's a full tree.

And here's a view of the sunny day. You can't see the cold wind though!

Elizabeth liked this sign. It looks like it's been there a while.

And for Erin I found goat milk (pasteurized) for sale at Eastern Market. It's pretty good and not goaty. 

Speaking of Eastern Market, I'm glad my favorite weekend fruit seller (the Pennsylvania orchard that sets out a table full of samples of all of their different apples) still has Gold Rush apples. They are so good! I sent Pat and Patti off with two golden apples for their train ride tomorrow.

And this is a reminder for myself. Since I finished off the last block of feta I want to remember that the Keswick Creamery feta cheese (aged at least 60 days) is really good. I found it at the Tacoma Park farmers market several Sundays ago. 

Remember this cheese maker

And their feta cheese in particular

Brownies for Theresa (and the rest of the world)

I was curious so I looked for gluten free brownies and found this recipe from David Lebovitz. When I saw the 8 ounces of chocolate in a single pan I knew I had to try it! And yes, I can report that these are a great brownie with intense chocolate flavor. I sprinkled nuts on part of mine and left part plain. You could also mix nuts in if you like. These are so chocolaty that they are best in small pieces. They are a bit more crumbly than regular brownies and you should let them cool before cutting. I won't tell if you cut one out of the corner while it is still warm though. Read David's post and be sure to really beat the batter for a full 2 minutes or more.

Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies

6 T (85g) butter
8 oz (225g) semisweet chocolate, chopped (or even part unsweetened like I did)
3/4 c (150g) sugar

1/4 t salt
2 large eggs
1 T unsweetened cocoa powder
3 T cornstarch
optional: 1 cup (135g) nuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Line the inside of an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper (or use foil if you like) so that it goes up the sides at least an inch. You don't have to grease parchment paper, maybe lightly grease foil. Preheat oven to 350º (180ºC). Sift together the cocoa powder and corn starch in a small bowl.

Melt the butter over low heat then add the chocolate. Keep heat low and stir constantly until smooth. Add the sugar and salt and stir and heat a bit (but don't cook or anything, warm but not burning hot). Stir constantly until smooth. The sugar won't melt much.

Remove from heat and touch. If not too hot (don't want to cook the eggs) beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Add the cornstarch and cocoa mix. Beat the batter vigorously for at least two minutes, until the batter is smooth. Add the nuts, if using, then scrape the batter into the prepared pan. It will be very thick.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the brownies feel just set in the center. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from the pan and slicing. 

It took 29 minutes in a pyrex pan, a metal pan would probably cook faster. 

Super Ultimate Pie Day

3/14/15 9:26:53

God said, let there be a circle...

Kori in her pi shirt

And there was pi!

Cherry, pear & raspberry, mini blueberry cheesepie, mini pecan, mini apple cranberry

Mushroom tart, chicken pot pie, butternut squash and caramelized onion tart (with and without cheese)

Jenny's getting pie

Key lime pie martini with graham cracker crumbs on the glass! 

We had great fun cooking, thank you Kori! And thank you to Janet, Mark, Jenny, Elias, (and Catherine although she's too little for pie, good entertainment though), Mary Grace, and E for helping us to eat it. I didn't even get a picture of Mary Grace's tangy lemon cream pie.

March at last!

Finally, warm enough to go for a comfortable run when I got home this evening! Time to get back to my favorite Tidal Basin loop. There was a lovely pink sunset too (although the cherries are totally bare still).

On Sunday Elizabeth, David, and I did the 31-mile Vasa Ride that ended with blueberry soup. 

That's in contrast to the beginning of the month...

March 1 Ice Storm

March 5 Snow Storm

I walked home from MedPAC

Castle in the snow

And I learned that there is an Amsterdam Falafel Shop in L'Enfant Plaza now

Still plenty of snow left on Friday

Pictures of January

Let's start at the end (yes, I know it's actually February) with a picture of tonight's dessert. I invited Kristie, Kevin, Colleen, Beth, Loren, and Rod over to help me eat Sticky Toffee Pudding (aka date cake) from the Smitten Kitchen's recipe. I really didn't change anything, although it had to bake 10 minutes longer in my glass pan compared to Deb's metal one. I'm not going to reprint the recipe here, go read her post if you want it. The only thing I did differently was to serve it with pumpkin cream rather than whipped cream, so I'll list that recipe. Unfortunately you can't actually reproduce it unless you have the right squash to start with...

Pumpkin cream 

1.5 cups sweet and smooth pumpkin (squash really) puree
0.5 cup sour cream
1/2 t pumpkin pie spice (use my blend!)
Mix thoroughly and refrigerate at least an hour to let flavors blend. Scoop out and serve...with anything!

The problem is this recipe requires starting with the right kind of pumpkin to cook into puree. This has to be creamy smooth puree that you want to eat with a spoon straight out of the food processor. If all baby food were this good we never would move on to anything else. A perfectly ripe butternut squash might work, but even then many of the ones you buy in the store really aren't ripe enough. I don't think buttercup squash would have the right consistency either, as delicious as it is for other things. My gray pumpkin from the farmers market in October (yep, it's been sitting in waiting ever since) was wonderful though! It was clearly a C. moschata variety rather than a C. pepo. I saved some seeds if anyone wants to try planting them.

Sticky toffee pudding with pumpkin cream

Now that you're hungry, here's some other pictures from the first month of 2015.

Elizabeth, Dave, and I saw the Lincoln Magna Carta at the Library of Congress. You can see a picture of the parchment online so I took a picture of the people instead.

 It's a great exhibit so you should check out the online gallery for Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor.

I liked this story

Here's Roosevelt's letter

A run down the Mall on January 25--really nice day

Dad needs something like this for a post hole digger!

First foray into the Hertzberg/François slow rise refrigerator bread. Thanks Theresa for the cookbook!

DC License Plate BU 2597 you are totally parking in the bike lane. ALL of the bike lane. This was at 2:12 pm on January 11, 2015. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Online musings: you can't really blame the IRS

So bouncing around on the internet I come across interesting things. Some of them I want to share (and remember myself later). Do you think "online musings" is a good unifying title for these posts? These two relate to taxes...

Do you have tax questions this year? You probably won't be able to get help from the IRS. Congress cut the IRS budget by $350 million below last year and staff reductions mean that the National Taxpayer Advocate estimates that only 43% of callers will be answered by an IRS agent. Oh and by the way, lower staffing and enforcement at the IRS will cost the government $2 billion in lower tax revenue because more people won't pay the taxes they owe.   

Relative position and expenditure cascades--everyone is spending more money in an arms race for relative economic position. This is one big part of why it is harder to be a median incomer earner now than it was 40 years ago. In 1970 you could cover the median rent with 40 hours of median-wage work a month, now it will take you 100 hours. Robert Frank suggests we tax consumption rather than income to blunt this arms race and mitigate the inefficient behavior patterns exacerbated by inequality. That would also encourage more savings and investment. I think it's an interesting idea.