Almost Home

In honor of today being my second to last full day in D.C., I thought I'd share some things I will miss about my job and this wonderful city!

1. Touching History

I will most definitely miss how close I have come to some of the most interesting books and documents I have ever seen. Today I got to observe the hyperspectral imaging of 2 such documents, both written by Abraham Lincoln. One was his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation (pictured below), and the other was a copy of his first inaugural address that was typed/printed with many handwritten notes/corrections attached that flipped open to reveal the original text below. It was SO COOL to be so close to something that good ol' Abe had ACTUALLY written in his own hand...definitely one of the highlights of my time here! And, of course, there is the gorgeous Ptolemy atlas that I have been working on all summer, as well as many other cool things that some of the other interns found and exhibited.




2. FOOD!

There are some seriously yummy restaurants here! Those of you who know me well know that I tend to get incredibly specific and intense food cravings for a particular dish from a particular restaurant. Unfortunately, the following D.C. institutions are not very easily accessible from Chicago, and so if a craving strikes I will be pretty much screwed....lol. Good Stuff, We The Pizza, and Firehook provided me with some deliciousness that I will definitely miss (especially the milkshakes made from homemade gelato.....soooooo good!)! I will also miss the convenience of Eastern Market, and all of its quirky vendors. I hope to find a farmer's market back home, because Eastern Market's delicious local produce has definitely turned me into a farmer's market devotee!









3. Things to see and do!

One great thing about DC is that you are never too far away from something cool! The free museums and monuments, as well as the events put on by these institutions, provide almost endless entertainment options that are almost always free! Even though Chicago/the suburbs has tons to do as well, I will miss the Botanic Gardens, the National Museum of the American Indian, taking walks around the Capitol Building and down the Mall, and of course the Library of Congress's beautiful Jefferson building and all of its exhibits.

This week, on days of our lives...

...I wouldn't know what happened, I don't have cable. But this week so far has been pretty interesting! I did a lot of grocery shopping/appliance buying in order to make myself eat food that is good for me! The first thing I bought is a salad spinner. It basically looks like this:



Now, I'm sure you know what a salad spinner does, but just in case you don't, it is a handy device that makes it really easy to wash and dry lettuce (and spinach, and other stuff) before you eat it. I made a salad with it tonight that looked like this!:



It was okay, it didn't have any fancy ingredients, just the lettuce, some cucumbers and the dressing. I wasn't very hungry since I had pasta again for lunch, and some of these delicious Back to Nature cookies for dessert :)



They may not be the healthiest food, but they sure are delicious! :) I bought them instead of Oreos (which, surprisingly, are vegan, but I kind of wish I had never found that out lol I need to cut down on desserts!).

I also bought a blender.



Now, the first blender I bought was a total fail, so this is blender #2 after I returned blender #1. Blender #1 honestly took ten minutes to blend (by pulsing) the very small amount of frozen fruit and juice I put into it, and even then was not all broken down! I bought the blender(s) so that I could make my own smoothies instead of going to Jamba Juice all the time.



For those unfamiliar, Jamba Juice is a national chain that has mainly smoothies but also now serves coffee and some lunch sandwich type of items. I used to only get this one chocolate smoothie from Jamba back when I didn't eat a wide variety of foods, and believe it or not this chocolate smoothie is one of the WORST drinks for you nation-wide! So I have expanded my Jamba menu and now just get the all-fruit smoothies, and am trying to make my own at home by blending frozen peaches, mangoes, and strawberries together with ice and some apple or orange juice, or maybe some vanilla soy milk.

So that's about it! I've been doing pretty well with project vegan so far, the only non-vegan items I have had are the remainder of some Dove chocolates I bought before going to the movies with a friend this past weekend! My friend Holly and I also went to the Chicago Diner this past weekend where I had some (vegan, of course) roasted garlic gnocchi in sun dried tomato pesto sauce. It was SO GOOD! We also had a slice of (vegan!) chocolate mousse cake for dessert, and it was hands down seriously one of the best chocolate cakes I have EVER had!!!!!

Vegan powers---activate!!

Hello, fellow internet dwellers! Life has been rather interesting lately. I've been hopping back and forth between school and my hometown, visiting friends and also volunteering at school since I am between summer class sessions right now. I also just finished reading the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels because a) they sounded awesome and b) I wanted to read them before the movie comes out. They were hilariously awesome and I 150% recommend them!

If you are not familiar with the Scott Pilgrim story, let me give you the basics which will lead me to the main point of this blog entry. Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year old Canadian slacker dude who plays in a band and falls in love with this girl Ramona. Ramona has 7 evil exes, as in ex-boyfriends (mostly), who Scott has to fight and defeat in order to keep dating Ramona. One of the evil exes is named Todd Ingram, and his superpowers come from the fact that he is....wait for it.....a vegan!!

BAHAHAHA!!! The reason I found this so funny is because about a month ago I read this book:



It is called "The Kind Life" and was written by the actress Alicia Silverstone, notably of "Clueless" fame. Half the book consists of literature/her personal story chronicling the health benefits of becoming a vegan or even of becoming a "superhero" (that's right, get it now? lol) by following a macrobiotic diet. The other half is recipes, which are (obviously?) all vegan.

One of the reasons that I read the book is that my awesome friend Holly (find her blog at http://meatlesswithmia.blogspot.com) recommended it to me. About a year ago (can't believe it's been that long!) we made the cupcake recipe from this book and it was SO good!! Completely vegan, i.e. no animal products involved, and they were SUPER delicious!! Most of you know that I am a (mostly) vegetarian who occasionally eats a hamburger or a steak (maybe once a month at most), but you may not know that I am super seriously considering becoming vegan for the following reasons...

Now, this next part might get a little personal and health-related, so if you're not one to be into topics that might be considered "too much information" you may want to skip the next paragraph...lol

Reason 1: personal health

I have never been a huge fan of eating meat. Like I said above, I'll have a burger or even a steak every now and then, but texture in food really affects me and I very much dislike the texture of meat. Despite this I do eat lots of food made with animal products, such as cookies, bread, cakes, muffins, ice cream, and most notably, cheese, usually accompanied by macaroni (lol). Unfortunately over the past 3-4 years I have noticed that animal foods, mostly dairy, have been giving me extreme stomach cramps and unusual....bathroom events, we'll leave it at that. These cramps and other symptoms have been getting worse and worse and worse, and I have also gained some weight which is bad for my back (a whole different story, but suffice it to say I have a herniated disc and being even a little bit overweight is not good). So, as a personal experiment, I followed Alicia Silverstone's suggestions and noticed an IMMEDIATE improvement to these symptoms. Because of this, I have decided (even though it may be hard for me!) to try to go vegan!

Reason 2: animals' health

I'm not going to get all preachy, but we all know that there are some less than ideal conditions in many factory farms and it pains me to know that any animal is being mistreated. I DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT condemn anyone for eating meat, I don't necessarily even think that it's wrong, but I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge that this is another part of the reason why I have decided to give up meat and other animal foods for good.

So there you have it! I will probably blog some more about recipes I try, any health benefits I enjoy, etc. etc. I highly recommend "The Kind Life" if you want to learn more about the benefits of a vegan and/or macrobiotic diet, as Alicia Silverstone does a great job of presenting her case without seeming like one of those crazy paint-throwing PETA activists, lol. Maybe I'll even get some crazy vegan telekinetic powers, just like Todd Ingram!!! hahaha :)

Spunky Dunkers!!

So this has been an awesome weekend!! It was one of my very good friends' birthday, so a friend and I drove to Chicago to attend her awesome beach birthday blowout! Here is a picture of my friend's dog sleeping on the car ride home: she was SO tired after playing on the beach with other people and doggies!!



After we came home from the birthday party we chilled at home for a little bit, then my brother came by to sell us some awesome kitchen knives. I bought an ice-cream scooper, though :) so after we bought some kick-butt knives, we decided we wanted to go to this place that my brother has been talking about FOREVER called Spunky Dunkers! It is a donut shop, and let me just address this really quick, Blogspot is telling me that I am spelling donuts wrong lol but is it doughnuts or donuts? I prefer donuts.

Anyway. So this place was SO GOOD!!!!!!!!! Seriously the best donuts I have EVER had, even though I'm not really a huge donut fan. I got a chocolate cream puff donut, a chocolate donut, a vanilla cake donut with chocolate frosting, and......oh yeah, a chocolate buttercream filled donut! Are you sensing a theme? I really enjoy chocolate. They also had a HUGE selection of donuts, including one that was like a Girl Scouts Samoa cookie (chocolate/coconut).

Below are pictures of Spunky Dunkers! I really enjoyed the whole dive-retro feel of it, from the 50's style sign outside (with many letters burned out!) to the counterspace diner-esque part inside. It was very tiny and super inexpensive, and smelled even better than Krispy Kreme. Seriously. That combined with it being open 24/7/basically 365 makes it pretty much my favorite thing about the suburbs.

Cute Food

ZOMG! So, when I blog, I realize I do not always sound like the most sophisticated person around. That's okay with me. But these adorable pie pops (see below) have reduced me to the vocabulary of a....monkey, or something. lol they are super cute! Someday soon I'd love to try making pie pops, as well as cake pops and/or cupcake pops, which I learned about from the Bakerella blog (http://www.bakerella.com). I am posting a few pictures below but you should totally check Bakerella out, as well as EpiCute for more super cute food! :)