we woke to a beautiful friday morning in chinatown, mildly rested and ready to take on the day. there was food to be eaten and things to be seen, and we weren’t going to miss any of it! we set off on foot through our neighborhood to begin our adventures.
today we hosted our first cookie swap at the office, and oh my, what fun it was! we all brought a couple dozen cookies and recipes to exchange and had the best time making ourselves nearly sick on chocolate and sweets.
i made brownie cookies, aka brookies. i have no clue where i found this recipe originally, but i’ve had it for years and consider it one of my favorites. they are brownie-textured but cookie-shaped and so divine and fairly easy. i didn’t take any action shots for you, for i was a bit tired at midnight last night when i was whipping up these bad boys. i do, though, have the recipe!
1 Tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks (52-62% cacao)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
in a microwave-safe bowl, melt oil, butter, and one cup of the chocolate for 2.5-3 minutes, stirring at 1-minute intervals. let cool.
in another bowl, whisk together eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla until combined.
fold melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
whisk together the remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
combine the flour mixture with the chocolate mixture and then fold in the remaining chocolate chunks.
freeze the batter in a shallow pan (such as a pie plate) 6-8 minutes until it sets and hardens slightly.
line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. scoop about 10 Tablespoons of batter onto each sheet.
bake 11-12 minutes, until the tops look dry and cracked. cool completely.
okay, i’m a touch behind on my writing, but better late than never, right? right! i’m glad we agree. so, without further adieu, i give you the first day of last week’s fifth annual dc december trip!
we flew out of atlanta around eight p.m. thursday night to arrive in our very chilly capital city at a decent hour. the trip was quick and uneventful, just how i like my cross-country treks. well, this trek was not technically cross-country, but we certainly were no longer in the south. we freshened up and joyously retrieved our suitcases from baggage claim. i say “joyously” because one year my bag was very much left in atlanta all on its lonesome. poor little guy! delta quickly delivered him to our door the next day, though, so all was well.
a $25 cab ride later, we were at the doorsteps of our humble abode for the weekend in chinatown. nathan had found a sweet townhome for our visit on vrbo, and with six bedrooms and three bathrooms, it was perfect for our large group.
we dragged our things up the stairs, in through the doors, and pleasantly found peter and shaun inside, greeting us with drinks and food. it was actually sarah’s birthday that day, so they surprised her with a dinosaur cake; how thoughtful! he was affectionately named barnabas and kept us company most of the time we were in town. the yellow cake was thickly topped with frosting so sweet that i almost had a stomachache afterwards. but! it was nothing a little adult beverage couldn’t remedy.
we enjoyed the rest of the night as we sipped on manhattans with one another. the fun was only beginning!
my garth & me!
very quickly, folks, while i have a few minutes on my lunch break! first, vinh sent me his pictures from the weekend, so check out more snaps of our lunch at sakura.
second, look at how far we walked! the weather had been so beautiful on sunday that we traveled far on foot through this little city. vinh mapped out our trek, and thinking we had walked a modest six miles that day, we were shocked to see we had actually walked 10! be sure to check out this past sunday’s post to get up-to-date on those whereabouts.
okay, day three, it is my last day in boston, so i need to make the most of it. monday, do you think you can deliver? good! it sounds like you are up to the challenge. the day’s not getting any longer, so let’s get started!
after a solid night of sleep, the city was ours for the taking. as we strolled to the fields corner metro stop, we munched on homemade egg rolls that vinh’s mother had given us before we dashed out the door. those things were crispy and warm and gone in no time. the perfect snack to get our metabolisms going.
we grabbed our charlie tickets and stepped aboard the redline, northbound to alewife. when i take public transportation in other cities, i always wonder if i look like a tourist. was i blending in because i was being accompanied (well, more like chaperoned, let’s be honest) by a local? um, probably not, especially since i was so chatty and upbeat for a monday. something i noticed very quickly about bostonians is that while they are not necessarily rude, they aren’t really pleasant either, at least to strangers. i found that my polite “excuse me’s” and “pardon me’s” went unnoticed and seemed to not be appreciated one bit. this much is true of pedestrians and even more severe for drivers. i’m convinced no one’s blinkers work and that lane stripes are more like guidelines than actual restrictions. cars seem to have no regard for those on foot, and the reverse seems to be quite the same. there was more than just once when i thought i might be nudged into an intersection and made to fear for my life. as they say, you can take the girl out of the south, but you cannot take the southern hospitality out of the girl. okay, so maybe it isn’t an actual saying, but right here from yours truly is a first-hand testimony. tell me it counts for something!
well, we had the grand idea of being go-getters this morning, hopping out of bed early to get the day started and to begin the exploring. i’d say all that was pretty much shot considering vinh had a little bit of work to do and i didn’t wake up until nearly ten o’clock. oh well! that just means with all this extra sleep we got, we’d be energized for an action-packed sunday. i know sunday is a day of rest, but when you’re in a new city and on vacation, sometimes you just cannot help yourself!
mm, who doesn’t love an 8:45 flight on a saturday morning after a night of fireball jell-o shots at the boss’ holiday party? ah, i knew i wasn’t the only one! this morning my coworker vinh and i hopped aboard delta flight 104 and shut our eyes on the two and half hour trip up to boston. we arrived a little early, were picked up by his brother-in-law, and whisked away to his childhood home.
vinh was born and raised in boston, attended tufts university, and often comes back to visit his hometown. the neighborhood of dorchester is his stomping grounds, and it was a treat to get to see the town where he grew up and spent his younger days making memories. i’ve never been to boston, and a few months ago i heard the band the 1975 was touring in the states. i was going to miss their atlanta show because i was out of town, but i saw they were going to be performing in boston. well, that about sealed the deal for me. i called up vinh and asked him if he’d like to go to the concert with me and show me around his city. his agreement was nearly instant, and so my boston adventures began!
so much to do and so little time in which to do it!
ladies and gentlemen, i present to you the easiest treat ever made by man: turtle pretzels! okay, i don’t think they’re really called turtle pretzels, but they’re something i made last thanksgiving with the family, and i never really got the name. so! turtle pretzels they will be!
this recipe is so stinkin’ easy that i am not even going to break it down into ingredients and directions. you can literally read the instructions here and be good to go!
preheat your oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit.
grab a cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. if you ran out of parchment paper like i did, use tin foil instead. place those window pane pretzels on there, just a little spaced out.
next, violently tear open a bag of rolos. i use the word violently because when i cut and ripped mine open, i had rolos everywhere. it was like an early rolo Christmas just for my tiny kitchen and me. then, because you don’t want to look too much like a mess, place them all next to the bag nicely as if they had just come out that way.
unwrap those little candies and place one atop each pretzel.
pop the cookie sheet into the oven for two minutes. only two minutes, kelsey? doesn’t that seem a little short? well, yes, in the grand scheme of things two minutes is not very long at all, and you don’t need a long time with these little guys. they just need to warm enough so that we can smash them down, which we’ll do in just a moment, if you’ll be patient.
after those long and excruciating two minutes are up, pull the cookie sheet out and press a pecan half down on top of each rolo. the reason you only need two minutes is because if you go any longer, all that caramel surprise inside the rolo will squirt right out, and that’s not what we want.
let the treats cool and harden and then store them in an airtight container. then take them to your company holiday party and watch them get scarfed up by all your ravenous coworkers who cannot get enough of your baking. happy holidays!
after my fair share of turkey and dressing over the thanksgiving weekend, i needed a recipe that was a little different and a lot simple upon my return to atlanta. as my mom and i were in the kitchen, i asked “mom, if i were your red beans and rice recipe, where would i be? i think i want to make it for dinner and lunch leftovers this week.”
in classic tori fashion, she pointed to her noggin, which meant it was going to be fun listening to her dictate it to me.
“okay, wait just a second.” i grabbed a notepad and pen from the kitchen desk, right where they’ve always been for the past nearly 20 years, and prepared myself to take note.
i present, here, tori’s secret red beans and rice recipe in all its glory!
the measurements and preparation here made enough to feed clark and i nearly all week. his portions tend to be a bit larger than mine, but regardless, you’ll have plenty to share, or not; it’s up to you!
smoked sausage (i used a standard hillshire sausage, the stuff that comes in the horseshoe shape)
3 small cans of dark red kidney beans, not drained (or 1 large can, if you can find it in your local grocer)
*if you cannot find dark red kidney beans, light red kidney beans will do just fine
28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, not drained
one medium-sized yellow onion
salt & pepper
garlic
cayenne pepper
white rice (or brown rice, if you’re healthy, unlike me)
cook up some rice according to the package directions, as much as you think you need. i found that about 8 cups of cooked rice was the right ratio for the final product.
get out a big ‘ole pot and first dump in the kidney beans and tomatoes. put the heat on medium/medium-high, depending on how quickly you need it warmed.
slice the sausage into coins and then halve the coins so that you have quarters. coins? quarters? ha, weak money humor.
dice up that onion and then pat yourself on the back, because you’ve gotten better at dicing onions, as opposed to when you first started being an adult and half the onion went to waste because you didn’t know what to do with it.
add everything to the mix and let it get nice and hot, and then! almost drop your phone right in the pot because Lord knows you’re made of money and can afford a new phone at the drop of a hat, right? heh, that’s quite a sense of humor you have, my dear!
as you heat it up, add in salt, pepper, minced garlic, and cayenne pepper. let the flavors simmer and meld, give it a taste, and then decide if it needs more. i bet some tobasco sauce would be a pretty good choice, too.
scoop that rice into a bowl and plop a bunch of the red beans and sausage on top. finally, take it into to the office and show off to your coworkers. they’ll be jealous because this homemade meal took you all of about 20 minutes and i’ll be damned if it doesn’t look amazing!
as my eyes surveyed the shelves of our upstairs refrigerator, i happened upon a can of beer that wasn’t miller lite, a strange sight in our house. we are a miller family, thanks to mark and kathleen, and i promise i mean it in the best of ways, really!
back to the mysterious can of pale ale beer: i plucked it from its spot and read “good people brewing company.”
“dad, isn’t good people a local birmingham place?”
“yes, somewhere downtown, i think.”
“cool. can i give it a try?”
“of course!” he sweetly obliged. i popped that can open and gave it a sip, immediately thrown, for no apparent reason, by its innate hoppy taste. i typically know what i like and what i do not like, and pale ales tend to be on the latter list. however, i am determined to like pale ales because they seem so cool and trendy, a real “beer drinker” beer.
not one to shy away and let something go to waste, i poured the beer into a frozen pint glass. my hopes were that drinking it out of the can was my mistake, and to my pleasant surprise, it did go down much more smoothly out of the chilled vessel.
american pale ales are the game at good people, and they offer five varieties year-round. apa’s are known for their generous quantities of american hops that distinguish them from european or british pale ales. well, since i usually stray away from choices that are on the hoppier end of the spectrum, i took this chance to learn more about this particular beer and strive to find something i like in it. things i like about it? it’s on the lighter side and has subtle caramel tones that you can really taste if you really stop and think about it.
as i sit here writing to you, my adoring fan, i happily notice that my glass is nearly empty. i’ve drunk an entire pale ale with nearly no complaint at all! as i take the last few sips to finish it off, i pleasantly notice that it is not as hoppy as i thought. it’s just that first taste you get, right on the middle of your tongue, that catches me off guard each time. perhaps pale ales are one of those brews that you have to drink much of to really like it…? am i reaching here? perhaps, but at least i stuck with it, right? right! i’ll take a moment to pat myself on the back here.
if pale ales are your thing, and you live in alabama or tennessee, look in your local grocer for good people beer. from what i gather on their site, the pale ale is the least bitter. they’ve got a brown ale that looks like it could be a contender for me, but it might be one i try with someone else close by, so that i can kindly offer it to them in case it’s not for me.
The Atypical Journey of your Typical Family of Six
@thelondonfoxx
kelsey v 