Washington DC - Things to Do

So I’ve decided to add yet another angle to my writing portfolio – Washington D.C – things to do. I figure that since I am new to the area and learning all there is to do here I might as well share what I learn as I go along so that if any of you plan to visit here in the future then maybe I can give you some hints or tips of what to see and how to see it.

So my first little outing was to some of the Smithsonian buildings. Now to break it down for you – I was a little confused at this – the Smithsonian is not just one museum but a plethora of things to do.

Founder of this world renowned cultural education, James Smithson was an English scientist who devoted his life to research in chemistry, mineralogy and geology. The funny thing is that even though he never visited the USA, he bequeathed his estate of around 15 million dollars to establish the Smithsonian Institute, what he said to be an institution for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge”.

The first Smithsonian building, The Castle is actually today nothing more than an information centre with an over priced cafeteria. But still worth a visit to explore the garden and see the Castle Exterior which is pretty regal – and you can nab some free brochures.

For some pics click HERE


So, next on the Smithsonian list was the Free Gallery of Art. Now don’t get me wrong, I do have culture and do love to do Cultural things, but there are some things that are not really very high on my list of things to do. I love art museums when I find the art interesting. I love ancient relics when they have an interesting story behind them. But there are times when to me a piece of broken porcelain, is simply just a piece of broken porcelain.

Never the less, I gave it a try and to my pleasant surprise actually learned a few things.

The Freer Gallery of Art actually boasts an internationally renowned collection of Asian Art and is home to the world’s largest holdings of works by American artist, James McNeil Whistler.

Now the one room which did actually draw my attention was the Peacock Room. The story behind it is that in 1876, a wealthy ship owner asked James Whistler to advise his architect on a color for his dining room shutters and doors. The architect had actually designed the room around a painting by Whistler, The Princess from the land of Porcelain”. Whistler proceeded to cover the ceiling with Dutch metal or imitation gold leaf, over which he painted a lush pattern of peacock feathers. He then gilded the walnut shelving and embellished the wooded shutters with images of four plumed peacocks.

For Pics click HERE

Baked (supposed to be crispy) Potato Wedges

Well folks we'll call this one a success. For me, the potatoes could have been crispier but The Other Half really liked it so that's what we'll judge it on right.

So here go's:

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions
What You'll Need:

* 3 to 4 large potatoes
* seasoned salt
* olive oil
* a baking sheet

Step 1 - wash the potatoes under running water

Step 2 – cut the potatoes into wedges (and with this I cannot stress how important I have found it to have really good kitchen knives!)

Step 3 – lightly grease a baking pan with cooking spray or olive oil and place wedges neatly onto it

Step 4 – sprinkle more olive oil over wedges

Step 5 – sprinkle both sides of wedges with seasoned salt

Step 6 - bake in oven at 400 degrees (approx 220 Celsius) for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Half way through the cooking time, flip the potato wedges over to ensure the most crispy and golden potato wedges.

Food!

So in my quest to become a Domestic Goddess I have decided to add a little of my kind of creativity to it and start blogging about my daily meals and menu finds in the hope that a) people will know that I'm learning and my mom will be proud of me and b) maybe I will be able to help others as so many have helped me.

So I start tonight - not today, unless you want to know how to make left over spaghetti with cheese and ketchup for lunch? No, tonight I will be making BBQ chicken with crispy potato wedges. The BBQ chicken should be easy enough, it's the potatoes I'm worried about as the "Crispy" part is pretty essential, otherwise they're just potato's aren't they, and what's so Goddess about that?

The idea is that if this is a success and I find it pretty simple and stress free to accomplish - and of course if it gets the approval from The Other Half, then I will share the recipe with you lovely people tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Domestic Goddess - Help Needed!

So I consider myself very lucky that for the past couple of months (or forever) I’ve been very spoilt with home cooked meals and planned menus. I now find myself in the dilemma of being the one having to plan the menu’s and cook the meals. Now I have to say that I do consider myself a good cook when it comes to complex gourmet type dishes and dinner parties, but the whole cooking for two thing – everyday - does not come easily for me. I am uninspired to think of something different to cook every day and I am also terrible at planning ahead. I therefore suck at doing the whole monthly shopping thing and therefore always find that I never have what I need in order to cook what I want.

The Other Half realizes this about me and so sweetly offered to go to the grocery store on his way home from work and do a big shop. So I now find myself with heaps of frozen chicken, frozen fish and a few other things in bulk – like chips and salsa…

So I thought I might as well make the most of it and I tried to do a fish dish the other night. Now for those that know me, you may recall that I don’t do very well with stinky food stuffs, let alone cooking stinky fish. And I have to say that this frozen fish was pretty stinky. But I pushed along and I have to say that it all actually looked pretty good. I couldn’t actually eat it but hey – at least it looked good. The Other Half ate it and said he liked it – but bless his heart, he probably just didn’t want to hurt my feelings – at least he didn’t die of food poisoning!

So the point of this blog is to enlist some help from my darling readers.
Please post or send me one or two of your favorite recipes. Now please people, keep them simple. I’m looking for things that I can make as everyday dinner kind of things. But also, feel free to throw in something exotic or exciting – we love trying new things.

Looking forward to trying everything out – and I promise to let you know how it goes!

The Ikea Experience

So we have moved into our new house, much of our furniture was unable to actually make it into the house, and we now need to furnish the apartment – on a budget!

Off to Ikea we go. Now I’ve heard that this place is and experience, but really, I had no idea!

We arrive with a vague idea of what we want but with no idea of how many options we would have!

To paint the picture – Ikea is a super huge store that offers absolutely everything you can think of when it comes to furnishing your house or putting on the finishing touches. I mean everything!

It is laid out with various rooms on display to give you ideas as to how you want to do your rooms and then there is every possible option to make it your own. You look around for hours and get ideas and then when you’ve made your decisions you simply write down the product code and other info and move onto the next step.

The next step is actually getting your stuff. Now when you are writing down the info of the furniture you write down the isle number and bin number. I was not entirely sure what this meant when I was doing it but I was soon to find out.

Basically you make your way into this HUGE warehouse, with countless numbers of Isles and Bins where you – yes you – find your items. Everything is flat packed and it is up to you to put it onto a cart and go checkout.

Now we were most happy to discover that most of our items actually fitted into the boot (trunk) of the car! Ok I have to admit that even though I will never admit to liking the Camry due to the lack of excitement it offers, I am becoming increasingly impressed with what it has to offer – in this case – boot space. We only had to have a few longer items delivered which was also a pretty painless experience.

So all that was left was to get everything home and built – which was my job. Yes I was partly dreading it but pretty excited as I’ve always considered myself a bit of a handy-girl. So borrowing a tool kit from The Neighbor, I got to work.

I have to tell you that even though the tasks were pretty simple considering, it was still exhausted! It took me a full two days to put everything together.

I have to give credit to Ikea in that their stuff is good, the experience was great and thankfully, the instructions were simple! I have plans to go back this weekend and maybe get a couple of extra’s.

The U-Haul Experience

Ok to paint the picture – we are moving up to DC with more than a little stuff, most inherited. We have a Toyota Camry (yes I know – boring!). So needless to say we needed help. So to U-Haul we turn…



We picked up a rather large truck and a full flat bed trailer and have every intention of doing this all ourselves. We manage to pack the truck and load the car onto the trailer and off we go!




About 3 hours into the drive we realize that the gas is going down faster than we anticipated and we now have the mammoth task of getting this rig through a gas station – thank goodness for Americans and their Truck stops.



14 hours later and about 4 more tanks of gas we find ourselves almost into the city. Now comes the thought that even with “The Other Half’s” amazing truck driving skills, there is no way we are firstly going to be able to maneuver this all through the downtown DC streets, and secondly if we do, there is no ways we are going to find space to offload the car off the trailer.

So an abandoned parking lot we find and proceed to offload the car there. We then drive the final few minutes in separate vehicles. (I will not get into the fact that I got caught at a red light and left behind with an almost dead phone and no idea where I’m going – I got there eventually).

We finally arrive at our destination (a few minutes apart because of my detours). We are very happy to discover that there is a barely used alley behind our house where we can park and offload the truck – which we proceed to do.

So as we are unloading we discover that the majority of our inherited furniture does not actually fit through the door of the apartment and we are forced to leave it in the truck and find something to do with it the next day. (I’m gonna take this opportunity to throw in an “I told you so”).

Next day arrives and we are up bright and early to find a furniture store to buy the furniture and then return the truck and trailer. All I’m gonna say is that the odds were against us on this particular morning and the furniture now sits in the U-Haul storage facility (minus half a glass table cause I broke it).

The bottom line is that I am still in two minds as to whether I will ever use U-Haul again due to some complications. The final moral of the story is that I hope to not have to move again or a very long time!

The Big Move - It's Happened!

Ok so it’s been a little while since I’ve written and a lot has happened. I think I’m gonna document all my little experiences as a part by part series so expect a lot of posts coming up!

So the biggest news of all is that we are now safe and settled in Washington DC. For the details of the trip see (The U-Haul Experience).

As you know I was more than a little nervous as to what I was getting myself into as I was moving to a city that I had visited for a mere few hours and moving into a basement apartment which I had not seen.

Well I hereby consider myself pleasantly surprised. Our new home is adorable. I find adorable a fitting word as yes it is pretty small but for us it is perfect. It’s a one bedroom basement but with lots of light and just enough space. For more details on the décor see (The Ikea Experience).

Although I have not yet fully explored the neighborhood, from what I can judge it is fantastic. I have sampled two of the local little restaurants which were excellent and our street is so quaint and actually very similar to London – except the sun has been shining constantly since we moved in.

So as you can see I am a very happy puppy right now and all that is left to do is find a job! Our next furniture purchase is also gonna be a sleeper couch so please come visit!