bunnies bunnies bunnies

Bunnies from the Virginia State Fair.

fair sightings

More pictures from the Virginia State Fair. Some are funny signs, some are interesting, some are just kinda weird...like this man-pig playing guitar below.


$10 mechanical bull ride. If you can stay on for 8 seconds, you win $200 cash. We didn't see anyone win.
Old lady weaving a rug, or something like that.
Handy man making violins.

Sweet tea for 75 cents a cup, but you have to stand in line for half an hour. For $3.75 a cup, you could get sweet tea without the wait.
I had to try out the game where you use a bb gun to shoot out an entire red star.
I did not shoot out the entire star.
Man with a giant Stewie doll. Imagine lugging that around all day.
Diabetic funnel cake? Umm, maybe you should lay off the funnel cake...
Another person carrying around a giant stuffed toy.

Deep fried bologna sandwiches? Now that's going too far.

fair food

Virginia State Fair 2009 -- Pictures of good eats at the state fair.

Porky's BBQ was the place to be. Pork parfait, anyone?
I was debating between the turkey leg...
...and an Italian sausage sandwich. The sausage won, but I still wanted a turkey leg.
Deep fried pickles -- nope, I didn't try it. Friend L devoured it.
Deep fried mac-n-cheese. I tried one piece. It was okay. Friend L devoured it too.
Hawaiian shaved ice with blue raspberry and cherry. It was a hot day and I totally devoured all of it.

Deep fried chocolate chip cookie. I took a bite and it just tasted like fried dough. Friend L, of course, devoured one entire cookie and then I think she gave up on the second cookie.

Giant pumpkins. Nope, we did not devour these. Aren't these ginormous?

a day with natural history

My favorite things from the Natural History Museum:

1. Dum dum want gum gum.
2. Learning that a pig was a relative of the hippo.
3. The dinosaurs exhibit.
4. The ocean life exhibit and this giant Moby Dick whale.
5. The giant squid on display. So gross but can't stop looking at it.
6. This graphic display of a caveman burial.
7. The Hope Diamond.
8. Watching the tarantula man feed a cricket to a tarantula and describing the process of how a tarantula eats its food.
9. Seeing the real life picture next....
...next to a skeletal interpretation.
10. This cool movie globe:

world peace cookies

This week, I made World Peace Cookies -- cookies so yummy it would bring world peace to all who consumes it.
The full recipe can be found here at Smitten Kitchen.

Just a warning, the cookie dough will be kinda flaky and you really have to work at forming it into logs. But it really needs to be refrigerated before you can cut it into slices for baking.
Yeah, the log of dough doesn't look so appetizing, but persevere and you shall have cookies!
12 minutes in the oven and then you get a a lovely aroma of chocolate flowing through the kitchen.

mmm, these cookies were delicious. Quite a hit with the usual cookie gang too.

the week in food

For dinner one night, I was finally able to bake this tilapia over crab pre-made meal I bought from Trader Joes. And since I was using the oven to make dinner instead of cookies, I thought I'd through in some cut potatoes and roast them with olive oil, salt and pepper. It was a pretty good meal, even if I didn't make the whole thing. The tilapia was tasty and sweet, especially with the crab meat the tilapia was wrapped around. I especially liked the fact that I could throw everything in the oven, set it for 25 minutes, and go do other stuff while I waited for dinner to be cooked.

I went to another Smithsonian museum this week - the National Museum of Natural History (more photos about the museum are forthcoming). We got there at 10:30am and walked around two floors before we had to take a lunch break. We could have left the museum and eaten off site but neither of us knew what was around the area and we didn't want to use too much effort to find food. So we ended up eating at the Atrium Cafe. The prices, of course, were exorbitant and the quality was okay. I ended up getting the chicken tenders and fries, and added an apple to make it look healthy.
We managed to finish looking at everything at the Natural History Museum by 3pm and we wanted to watch the 6pm IMAX showing of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, so we had to kill 3 hours. After going to the National Archives for an hour, and then me buying a new phone, AL saw a Fuddruckers and wanted to have dinner there before we went back to the museum for the movie. What a good idea!
Above: my 1/3 lb burger naked. Below: my 1/3 lb burger with all my favorite toppings: pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, jalapenos, ketchup and mustard.
Yeah, it was a good week in food. The best part of all this eating is that when I weighed myself at the gym today, I lost 3 pounds! Booyah!

peel banana like a monkey

Are you like me when you open a banana from the end with the stem? And then sometimes the banana gets mushed because the stem-end doesn't always open when you try to break open the skin? And then you get furious that you have a half mushy banana?

Well, be furious no more! This here video shows you how to peel a banana like the monkeys do it.



Who would have ever thought that it was so simple to open a banana? Now if only I had a banana in the house to try this out myself.