Conquering the Macaron!

Hey folks! Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but school has been hectic. In fact, today is my last day of class as a second-year law student! I still have finals next week, but then I'll be free for the summer. I have an internship lined up with a judge in the DC Superior Court, so that should be interesting.

But enough about me. This post is about singing my wife's praises as a first-class baker. She's tackled some pretty ambitious baking projects in the past, but a few weeks ago she was determined to make a French macaron, which is no simple task.


For my exposition on the differences between French macarons and American macaroons, you can see the post below. A French macaron is essentially a meringue cookie, and is quite fussy (like most French food). Here's a picture of a pistachio-flavored macaron that we had in New York, which was amazing. And so the quest began.


Here are the macarons that Sarah made. The entire process consisted of a number of ridiculous tasks, including but not limited to: grinding toasted almonds to dust, "aging" six egg whites by leaving them out on the counter for two days, buying a "silpat" mat so that the cookies could be pulled off the cookie sheet, making sure that the temperature of the oven never varied more than five degrees from the desired temperature, and so on.

However, I'm happy to say Sarah pretty much dominated in macaron-baking, and the end product was pretty awesome. Rock on.

Cherry Blossom Festival

This last weekend Sarah and I decided it was finally time to go out and see the National Zoo. It was still a little chilly here in DC, but fortunately all of the animals were laying out in the sun to stay warm, so we could see them.


Apparently the pandas at the National Zoo are notoriously difficult to photograph, since they are always hiding. In fact, the Zoo even has a contest to see who can get the best picture. Sarah thinks I should submit this one of a sulky panda to the contest.


The otters seemed to be having the best time soaking up some sun on the rocks. They all just sat in a pile on the rocks, occasionally rolling on to their backs to warm up their bellies. Ironically, this is how I spend most of my Saturdays as well.


Last Saturday was also the kick-off of the National Cherry Blossom festival, which celebrates the blooming of the 3000+ cherry blossom trees around DC that were given as a gift by the city of Tokyo in 1912. This year it also coincided with the Kite Festival, where people come fly their kites on the National Mall.


Plus, no Peterson outing would be complete without some cupcakes to finish it off. We stopped by "Hello Cupcake" in Dupont Circle on our way into town to pick up some snacks for the afternoon. I wanted to give mine to one of those sunbathing otters; it would have made his day.