Dinner Brought to You By...

... Mount Vernon! All during our trip to DC I kept waiting for a fun treat or unique meal we might find in DC... However, I remembered after a few days of meals that when you travel as part of a tour group, you eat what I like to call "bulk meals" where the food is predetermined for you and as a result needs to be very general so everyone likes something. Which is great, don't get me wrong. I have just been left without something fun to share from DC! 
Well then it hits me that I totally missed an opportunity to share something unique and I'm kicking myself! We visited the GORGEOUS Mount Vernon, George Washington's home and peanut soup is a famous Mount Vernon dish. If you're not a fan of a "peanut butter" taste with actual peanuts in the soup then probably you'll want to pass, but it's a fun, 18th century dish to pass along if anyone is interested! Here is a link to a recipe:

Mount Vernon Colonial Peanut and Chestnut Soup
http://mountvernon.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/traditional-18th-century-holiday-recipes-from-the-mou86a22cd3ae



However, on our last night of the trip, we went to a fancy restaurant called "McCormick and Shmick's" right on National Harbor and had a fancy meal that I had to post pics of since I had nothing to show so far! This is the dish Jordon ordered - "Parmesan Crusted Flounder with Butter Garlic Sauce." Anything that starts with "Parmesan Crusted" is definitely going to be good, and this is coming from a non-seafood girl! For the record, Flounder is surprisingly mild for those of you interested in trying new fish.

Last thing I wanted to post that seemed so appropriate for this kitchen/creation themed blog.... JULIA CHILD'S KITCHEN!! Ever since seeing the movie "Julie and Julia" in 2009 I have made it a personal goal to make at least ONE Julia Child dish in my lifetime. I love cooking and baking new things - it gives me such a sense of accomplishment to create something delicious with my hands (probably because my drawing/painting/other artistic skills seriously lack) so to create something from Julia Child would be a HUGE sense of accomplishment. I'll definitely blog that when it happens... Anyway, seeing her Cambridge, MA kitchen in the American History Smithsonian was SO awesome and I was totally geeking out. I took better pictures with my actual camera but couldn't find the cord to transfer those pictures to my computer so I only have this picture I took with my phone. It's definitely NOT the best picture - there are SO many cooking gadgets in her kitchen (I was practically drooling) and this picture only captures SOME of them. However, notice the KitchenAid in the left-side of the pic. :) She has scales (of course, Julia Child had scales to measure her food) and many, many other gadgets that would be SO fun to use! In celebration of seeing her kitchen in the museum, Jord and I rented Julie and Julia last night and watched it for our date night. LOVED it! It does use the F word so when Julia and her husband are in their room sitting on the bed talking SKIP THE SCENE! It's about an hour into the movie or so. Just FYI. Okay last thing and I'll be done with this post. I learned from the movie that Julia actually had the counters in her kitchen (as seen in the pic) made higher because she was so tall and that way she didn't have to stoop over her counters when she cooked. In the movie you can see how awkward this was for her when she is chopping onions in their house in France. So without further ado... (a less than preferable picture of) Julia Child's kitchen!!!

As Julia would say...

"Bon Appetit!"

Kristi