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.

Eating Our Way Through The Big Apple

Given the sheer number of pictures of food that are on this blog, I assure you that Sarah and I do not each weigh 300 pounds. Although it is true that we love to cook at home and pig out on vacation, we try to be reasonably healthy the rest of the time. That being said, here are some pictures of our recent trip to New York, and all of the stuff we ate while we were there.

Promptly upon getting off the bus in NYC, our first stop was the Shake Shack, which may be one of the greatest burger places ever (it at least rivals In-n-Out for me, which is really saying something). If you're ever in the neighborhood, be sure to get the black-and-white shake. It rocks.


We spent a few hours trying to walk off the burgers, primarily so that we would have a reason to go to Levain Bakery later on. This bakery was founded by two ladies who regularly train for triathlons, and wanted a gigantic cookie to eat after they finished their races. They are famous for their chocolate chip walnut cookies (on an unrelated note, I think Sarah has a future as a hand model).


Don't worry, we did some cultural stuff to try and fill the hours between meals. We saw "West Side Story" on Broadway, visited a few museums and historic districts of Manhattan, and went to a rock concert at Madison Square Garden (the real reason for our trip to New York). Here's a shot of Sarah at the Museum of Natural History.


Here's me in front of a Triceratops. I waited until the sun went down, but it didn't come to life. I feel like Ben Stiller lied to me.


Our last snack before getting back on the bus to head home was a pistachio macaroon from Bouchon Bakery in Columbus Square. Unlike the American coconut-flavored version, European macaroons are more like an Oreo cookie, and quite tasty. Aside from that, we also managed to fit in Venezuelan arepas, bagels from our favorite deli, and ribs from Brooklyn's famous Dinosaur BBQ. Yay food!

Cafe Rio Night

Sorry about the lack of posting lately. School has been crazy busy, and I haven't had a lot of free time. However, Sarah and I have done some pretty cool stuff in the past few weeks, so I'll try to put up some more pictures in a few days (especially of our trip to New York). Over Spring Break, we decided to have a Cafe Rio night. For those of you who haven't spent any time in Utah or Arizona, Cafe Rio is an amazing Mexican food place that my wife craves pretty much all the time. So if your in the mood, just ask me for the recipes. All you need to do is go to the store and buy all this crap (oh, and set aside about 12 hours to make it all).


I think the real key was to making our own pork barbacoa (the secret ingredient is Coke) and our own tortillas. They aren't nearly as hard to make as you would think, but it can be pretty difficult to find the necessary lard. When I asked for it at the grocery store, the manager told me that lard was "out of vogue."


I had the pork burrito complete with all the trimmings, and it actually came out pretty spot on. And of course we had to serve them in the aluminum trays to complete the Cafe Rio experience.


Sarah had the pork salad, and she told me I did a pretty good job with the tomatillo dressing, which basically makes or breaks the salad. So overall, it was a pretty amazing dinner, and we had plenty of leftovers.

Puppy Postscript

Hey folks! I know that many of you were very upset to hear that we had to give Pippin back to the breeder this last week. We were pretty upset to see her go as well, especially since she looked pretty tentative when we dropped her off with all those other dogs. Well, I'm happy to report that Pippin is apparently having the time of her life. When I called to check in on Friday, they told me that she was having so much fun playing with all the other dogs, that she never seemed lonely or scared, and that "she didn't seem to miss us at all" (which is actually what we were hoping to hear). So even though it was a little disheartening for a while, it appears that everything has worked out for the best and little Pip is loving her new life in the country! Yay!

Sarah's Birthday Party!

We're a little backlogged on blog posting, so I will try to get caught up on things that we have been doing lately. We seem to have dug out of the blizzard from last week, and Sarah and I are finally back at school and work. First off, I figured we should post some pictures from Sarah's awesome birthday party. It started with her birthday dinner that I prepared on Tuesday, which consisted of her favorite meal; beef bourguignon with potatoes au gratin. This time I took it up a notch and made some creme brulee for dessert. Here's an awesome action shot of the kitchen torch.


The meal came out pretty well this time, and Sarah and I had a great dinner together. It's great when times are tough to be able to have a nice meal with one another.


On Friday of the same week we had Sarah's birthday party. We made a pretty ambitious menu of lemon chicken with peanut satay dip, fried polenta cakes with chicken pesto topping, beef brisket wrapped in puff pastry, bacon cheese dip in a bread bowl, and lemon tassies for dessert. Oh, and a veggie plate we bought from the store.


Sarah helped make her own birthday cake, which is probably breaking some sort of birthday rule, but at least I decorated myself (which explains the noticeable lack of ornamentation).


Overall, the party seemed to be a success. We were so glad that so many of our friends were able to come celebrate with us. Thanks to all of you who came!

When It Rains, It Pours...

Or perhaps I should say, when it snows, it blizzards. I thought I was really clever last week when I referred to an upcoming storm in an email as the snow-pocalypse, but then every other person in DC came up with the exact same name for the storm, so I guess I am not as creative as I thought. Sarah and I have been completely snowed in this entire week. We haven't gone to school or work, and really only leave the house to take the dog out. On the plus side, we have been doing tons of cooking, which includes chicken curry, chili, cornbread, biscuits, chocolate chip walnut cookies, hummus, and macaroni and cheese.

Aside from the snow storm of 2010, we have had some other bad news as well. I found out that I won't be flying out to California for an interview with a pharmaceutical company, since they have already filled the position. Also, Sarah's grandmother has had some pretty serious medical troubles from which she is recovering.

Finally, we found out that we have to give our precious puppy Pippin away. Sarah grew up with a dog and never had any allergic reactions, but since bringing Pippin home, she has had some pretty severe allergies. She met with an allergist who told her that there was really no solution that would keep Sarah from feeling so sick, and that she will most likely develop asthma if we keep Pippin in the house. Furthermore, there's a good chance that any children we have will be severely allergic as well, so a dog in the house just won't work.

Sarah and I are both very upset to have to find a new home for the Pip. She has filled our life with joy, despite the occasional mess on our rug or torn-up homework assignment (yes, my dog has actually eaten my homework). However, we feel that this will be the best solution for everyone involved. Sarah can finally start feeling better, we'll be able to prevent future respiratory problems, and Pippin will probably return to the breeder that we bought her from, where she can live with the rest of her Cavalier puppy family in the country (the breeder still owns Pippin's parents and grandparents). So overall, although we are very sad to see her go, we know that this will be for the best.

So, Sarah and I are making our way through this week, and trying to stave off cabin fever. Hopefully things will start to look up for the Petersons as the snow starts to melt. I'll try not to make everyone who is reading this post too sad, so I'll put up some pictures of Sarah's birthday party in a few days!