Bunnies frolic in sun and snow

Mom's Visit to DC, January 2010

After Museum meetings, Mom and Jer explored for good eating. A great dinner at Potenza revealed that the restaurant also had a bakery cafe open from 8:00 am-8:00 pm. So the next day we went back for Morning Coffee and found them making fresh, home-made pasta.

Cutting the pasta into tagliatelle

Spinach fettucine

Homemade gelato, highly decorated

Potenza makes their own pasta, bread, grissini, coffee, and etc. We had a long chat with the sous chef who is from Puglia, Italy and before D.C. worked in Paris. sweet guy with believable credentials. He told us about the multiple "components" of the dishes we had eaten the previous evening at the restaurant. For our Morning Coffee, we shared an omelette sandwich on delicious bread and took away a bag of Italian cookies-pastaccine which were divine and the best ever ciabbata roll!

Flower arrangement at the Willard Hotel

Ceiling panel at the Willard Hotel. The elaborate ceiling has insignia from all the States.

Bench in the Enid Haupt Smithsonian Gardens

Another bench in the same gardens--note the leaves motif.

Best waffles ever!

-Mix 1 1/4 cup flour, 1 Tb. baking powder, 1 1/2 Tb. sugar.
-Add 1 cup milk, 2 Tb. melted butter, 1 beaten egg.

Variations:
-Substitute 1/2 cup canned pumpkin for 1/4 cup flour. Add 1 Tb. more sugar.
-Substitute rye flour for some of the white flour.
-Add cut up fruit or fresh strawberries or other berries.

Literary Ladies' Tea

Four of the ladies (including the teacher) from 19th Century British Authors' class came to tea at 620 Cherry. We had a sun-filled dining room, good conversation, true English scones with jam, Victoria Sponge cake (chocolate version with red currant jam filling), egg salad finger sandwiches, gluten-free pear muffinettes, Grand Marnier white chocolate dipped strawberries (brought by Anita), and cuppas and cuppas of Typhoo tea.

Plus Ca Change

Too long ago even for me, but there used to be streetcars in Denver, Brooklyn, and cities across the country. The government, wanting to be modern or something, eliminated them all. Today Denver is proposing an innovation--a streetcar! The first one would go on Colfax Ave. They are advocated because they "provide higher economic benefits" than buses and are cheaper to construct than light-rail. 

Guess how much this innovation of putting a streetcar back along city streets would cost? $10-$50 million (quite a stretch there) per mile.

Source: Denver Post, 12-3-09, Modern Streetcar on Colfax?

It's a Puzzle

It's puzzling how to do your birthday puzzle. I am near the end, with only about 10 pieces left. But they don't seem to fit in. Could the cutters in China have made a mistake?