The North Kitchen, Or Cutting Pie with Your Trowel

In the far away county of Orange, Virginia is the estate of the father of our Constitution. And to the South of his great mansion of Montpelier, work a rag tag team of eternally dirt covered archaeologists, slaving away in the heat and humidity, chipping away at the Piedmont Clay (Munsell color Reddish Brown, 5YR 4/6, most likely) to find evidence of former residents. They eat with dirty hands, disregarding health standards in favor of convenience.

To the north of the Mansion lies the North Kitchen, and every Thursday and Friday, one of the archaeologists sweet talks the staff at the demonstration kitchen into saving some of their delicious Madison-era style culinary treats, and bringing them to the hungry archaeologists in the field.

They bring us vegetable pie, we cut it with our trowels to share, and then put it in our dust pans to bring it around the site to the other hungry archaeologists. They also bring us strawberry tartlets, sweet breads, and so many delicious treats. God bless the North Kitchen demonstration staff. I love them with all my heart and soul, even when they give me funny looks for cutting the veggie pot pie with my trowel.

You all may scoff at my new habits, but there is nothing better than fresh bread after a day of shoveling fill from a previously excavated unit. You may never understand the joys of eating with your trowel, or out of a dust pan, or even with clay stained hands, but trust me, it is glorious. And if Mike Rowe has never done Dirty Jobs: Archaeology edition, he needs to get on that shit ASAP.

Love and miss you all!

Cupcake Gourmet

Disclaimer: this post is to appease Heather.

Once upon a time I wrote on this blog.  Go figure.

I bought a book called Hello, Cupcake, and because I'm a crazy person, I became obsessed.  Therefore, I HAD to make cupcakes for something.  The choices were between my boss's birthday and Amy's graduation party, and seeing as my boss wasn't going to be here on her birthday, Amy happily won.  And because I'm crazy, I couldn't just make regular cupcakes.

These were all of the cupcakes (and yes, some people had snuck a couple by the time I took this!)

This is a homemade chocolate cupcake with salted caramel frosting and a hard caramel candy swirl on top.  The caramel took a little doctoring, but that just makes me feel like it's my own.  And the candy took two tries, but it was yummy!

This is a strawberry cupcake with a vanilla buttercream frosting and a GRADUATION CAP on top!  It's just a Reese's miniature upside-down, an After-Eight mint, and a Twizzler pull-n-peel.  Everyone super loved them, including Jay's adorable son Aiden, who tried to shove some in my mouth.

Amy was the cupcake server, and as you can see, they went super fast!  I ate a strawberry one, but I think the chocolate ones were popular too.

So when my friend Amanda had a grad party, I made some for her too!  These are brownies with caramel frosting and the graduation caps with "SBU" on top (Stony Brook University!).  Caramel + chocolate = Delicious!

Get ready for me to make you some DELICIOUS cupcake creations when I get back!  Miss you all, and happy to bring you your sweet tooth confection of the day!

-Courtney

Lobster Fun!

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for not posting in forever, but I've been lazy/busy. This past weekend I was in Boston visiting Mike. He has been on this quest to make me do New Englandey things like going to Fenway, picking cranberries, speaking in an obnoxious accent, etc.

Last night we were trying to decide what to do for dinner and he insisted that we boil our own lobsters. I was thrilled, because I've only had the opportunity to eat lobster once before, and he was paying for it!

In case you were wondering, the lobster with the white rubber bands is Bob and the one with red bands is Horjay :-)

Making the lobster was really easy; all we did was bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil (large enough so that each lobster could be completely submerged)and cook the lobsters for about 12 minutes! We dipped ours in melted garlic butter but the lobster was so sweet it really didn't need a dressing.

The lobster dinner was a huge success and really fun to make together; absolutely a splurge and absolutely worth it!

Much Love,

Di

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREA!! WOOHOO Miss you, can't wait to see you and celebrate...live it up :-)

Chili Suggestion

I don't make homemade chili. I mean, I make chili at home, but all the spices come in a packet and I just follow the directions on the back. So this isn't a recipe, it's just a deviation from the packet instructions.

Instead of using kidney beans, use Original Flavor Bush's Baked Beans. Drain the excess liquid before adding the baked beans, but not all of it. This switch makes the chili a little sweeter than normal. It's not much, but it's a nice change from the normal flavor. The boys who ate it seemed to like it.

Also, someone else needs to get on top of this blog. Seriously.