French Foodie Weekend

Bonjour, mes amis! Aujourd'hui, Mme. Rhino a mange tres bien!! (Translation: Good day, my friends! Today, Miss Rhino ate very well). After a morning of blending together meat, herbs, and spices for TND's Swedish meatballs, I met up with Jessika and Elizabeth to see Julie and Julia.

First off, if you like cooking or eating, watch out!! Nora Ephron loaded some major food porn in J and J. I am currently jonesing to roast a chicken, simmer some boeuf bourguignon, whip up a raspberry Charlotte dessert, and bake one hell of a cake. Seriously, I'm nominating this film for foodie flick of the year. As for the film's content, I found the film cute and funny, but I have to agree with the critics, I liked the Julia Child sections more than the Powell parts. I read Powell's book and found her situation extremely relatable and her writing very humorous. I just don't think it translated as well to movie form. Anyway, very glad that I finally caught J and J.


Taunted with all the delicious food on-screen, Jessika, Elizabeth, and I left the theatre super-hungry and headed to Fontaine Creperie and Caffe in Old Town for brunch (gotta love theme get-togethers). Unfortunately for our grumbling stomachs, the service there bit ass. We waited about 20 minutes after being seated to even see our waitress (really before any beverages at all or water) and later for drink refills. Once we caught her, we did not hasten to order coffee, cider-ish wine, crepes, and more crepes. I dug into the Parsienne (filled with ratatouille, roast chicken, and brie), Jessika dined on the Norwegian, and Elizabeth feasted on breakfast bruscetta (toast topped with tomatoes, eggs, and pesto aoli). For dessert, Jessika ordered the Lemon Drop (filled with lemon cream). Meanwhile, Elizabeth and I shared Very Peachy (filled with caramelized peaches, vanilla ice cream, almonds, and doused with some peach liquor). Yum yum yum.

As if that weren't enough food for one day, we then crossed the street and ordered some cupcakes to go from Lavender Moon Cupcakery for later. Afterwards, I went home and cooked up a mother load of Swedish meatballs for TND. More pics of that to come..

My later for the cupcakes came about later that night. I sampled my lemon blackberry thyme cupcake and hummingbird cupcake as I watched my new tv on dvd addiction, Entourage. I couldn't decide which I liked better. I wanted more thyme out of the first cupcake but appreciated the blackberry frosting whereas I liked the hummingbird cake better but prefer thicker cream cheese frosting than what Lavender Moon offered. Tomorrow, after my first Grad School class (EEEK!!), I'll reward myself with my peanut butter and chocolate devil's food cupcake. I may need to investigate their vanilla bean, s'mores, and peach pie cupcakes at a later date...

The plan tomorrow: making coconut lime cake for Ben's b-day TND, healthier eating (hopefully), FIRST GRAD CLASS and, if I feel especially ambitious, Swedish meatball sauce making or apartment cleaning.

Southwestern Tortilla Bake TND

After my frenzied baking for Wes on Saturday night and Sunday morning, I decided to go relatively low-key for this week's TND and essentially made a Southwestern-style lasagna. Seriously, tortillas, black and refried beans, peppers and onions, cheese, and more cheese, what's not to like?! For a little extra entertainment, I put my newly-acquired Vegas crown into play and gave everyone L.A. keychains.

Stay tuned for even more action next week. We'll be celebrating Ben's 28th birthday with Swedish meatballs, coconut-lime cake, and plenty of refreshments ( :

Wes' Roberry Brunch

Immediately as in the night I arrived back in VA, I headed back into the kitchen and started making food for Wes' "Steal My Stuff" aka moving sale on Sunday. Given the time pinch, I made more semi-homemade dishes than hardcore culinary eats (Rachael Ray's ham and cheese scones, a Pillsbury Bake-Off tropical waffle bake that became a pancake bake when I bought frozen pancakes not waffles, and some Mama Rhino style fruit salad), but I received many compliments nevertheless. Most importantly, I approved of their tastiness ( :
Man, I love being back in the kitchen!!

Little Rhino Heads West

After a crazy and oddly busy summer, last week Little Rhino headed out to L.A. to see Sister Rhino, her bf Blankenship, their two dog tag team of Stella and Chester, and my hs friend the Livee God (don't ask how the name Livee God came about). Rhino tends to only add a day or so to a long week when traveling (and employed) so, needless to say, this was a bold leap. However, with a good cushion of leave, a stable job, and my fantastic sister and tried and true hs friend to see, I knew that my timing was perfect for my escape. Until my key broke...



The morning of my flight out, I woke up at 6AM (on a Saturday) and realized I needed to clean the litter box before I left. With an utterly unglamorous task at hand, I didn't brush my hair or teeth (a very rare occurrence for a halitosiphobic). I just moseyed outside and half-awake wearing boxers and a big tee and carrying a bag of cat shit and pee. Sexy. More sexy, my building key breaking in the lock. That's right my at 6:15AM on Saturday morning, less than an hour before I planned to taxi over to Nat'l Airport, standing outside looking like a crazed gnome and knowing my breath reeks (worst part), my key full out breaks. AAAHH!! Luckily, I finagled the remaining key stub into the lock and scurried back in *whew*.

After a five hour flight stuck in the middle seat (grrr Alaska Airlines!!), I saw my sister!!! After she left for work, I quickly got myself situated in the kitchen and made my ultra-rich five-layer bars and an ad hoc garlicky Italian dip for that night's party. Between my food, Mota's mac and cheese, and some Crumbs cupcakes, I ate well at the party and I really enjoyed beer ponging with bf Blankenship... just had to stop eventually to balance out the Miller Lite with some solid food. Much fun though.

Sunday, I ran, Fit Wiied for the first time (thanx bf Blankenship), and then headed to the beach with Sister Rhino and her bf. Unfortunately, the temps at the beach felt more East Coast Fall than Summer bikini, so we aborted plan and went to Duke's (Sister Rhino tends to stampede when hungry). We all enjoyed sharing the nachos appetizer, but I gotta say my cocktail (forgot its name) beat out all the other food I ate there. Thankfully, I came home to another half...or so of Crumbs cupcakes...mmmm. They make a damn amazing Hostess cupcake-esque creation and a banana cupcake with peanut butter frosting an filling (verrry smart idea). Though, I think that sent me into a food coma. Sadly, I fell asleep an hour or so later and missed most of Jacob's Ladder. Is it bad that this has become a semi-regular occurrence for El Rhino?

The next day, Sister Rhino and I hightailed it to Vegas where we proceeded to eat and for me fancy-shmancy drink our way through Sin City. Highlight: Dinner @ Mesa Grill. Highlights with highlight: goat cheese queso fundido, cactus pear margarita, and fried squash blossoms ( :

Back on Wednesday, the two Rhinos headed to Pete's Diner and Bar for lunch after a co-worker gave Sister Rhino a lead on the city's best mac and cheese (she's a junkie). I ordered a salad with blackberries, salmon, avocado, and new potatoes to level out all the greasiness of some of my Vegas eats. Though I did sneak many a bit of the mac and cheese. It was heavenly cheesiness. Capping off the day, Rhinos and crew tailgated at a Dodgers' game with sandwiches from Phillipe's, birthplace of the French dip. Verrrrry tasty.

The following day, after a sisterly shared lunch at Brite Spot (I'd link to their website, but all the smileys scare me), I gathered up my belongings and headed out with the Livee (one of my last surviving hs friendships). Claiming that Sprinkles bested Crumbs in the L.A. cupcake wars, she drove directly to the store in Beverly Hills to purchase the proof.

Then, we headed to the g-store, so that I could assemble my supplies for our quesadilla dinner (per her request). I love examining new grocery stores and I'm especially amused my California g-stores because they sell liquor unlike Virginia's with the states generic ABC stores. I wanted to buy some just to buy it, but the Livee God doesn't really drink and I'm too cheap to buy a bottle for a single use, so I moved on to the bee-zarre pudding section... and took a quick pic.

As a pre-dinner "snack" when we got back to LG's, we sampled our frosting "shots" (mocha and cinnamon cream cheese). The mocha was all right, I'd rank the cinnamon cream cheese as one of the best frostings that I've tasted in my life....That's right. LIFE. After dinner, we cut each cupcake in half (researcher-style) and I sampled all of them (though only a smidge of chocolate). LG insisted that the banana bested the others. I agreed that the banana's moistness and flavor gave it an edge over the vanilla/vanilla cupcake, but enjoyed my pick of the coconut cupcake (white cake with coconut frosting) the most.

On Friday, LG decided Rhino HAD TO try In N' Out Burger. At her urging, I ordered the double double, but I decided to order it "animal-style" meaning more toppings and more importantly for this condiment fiend, more sauce. After waiting a while (considering it was fast food), I tried my burger. It was pretty good for a fast food, but nearly as messy as I expected or wanted my "animal-style" order. I sampled a few as well and found them kind of bland. I love the LG, but sometimes (okay a lot of the time), I wish she shared in my adventurous eating.

For dinner, after our day at the Santa Monica Pier (good times), LG and I went to Kitchen 24.. much like Brite Spot (and often compared to BS on yelp.com) a CA-style diner in Hollywood. LG claimed the lemonade rocked there, so I first ordered regular lemonade then spiked strawberry lemonade and then more lemonade (I was a thirsty child). I liked both, but after my other drinks during my trip, I found neither earth-shattering. After much deliberation and questioning the waitress, I ordered the home skillet, a real skillet coated in hash browns with sausage and two eggs nestled over top and toast on the side as well as a side of coleslaw. With some extra seasoning, I liked my hash browns (hash browns are hard to hate) and the accompanying sausage. For some reason, the toast seemed kind of lackluster more so than most toast and they only had strawberry jam (Rhino's least favorite). The coleslaw was pretty good, but needed more punch.

It would have been wise to stop after that big dinner (of which I could only finish about half anyway). However, LG raved about K24's chocolate chip cookie skillet ala mode and Rhino is never one to turn down dessert, so we soldiered on. I'll admit that the cookie concoction was decadently rich and damn tasty. Unfortunately, the combination of alcohol, chocolate, grease, and decaf coffee really beat up Little Rhino's stomach, so we were forced to desert the dessert.

Saturday, I left L.A. with many pictures, lots of souvenirs, and a slightly expanded waistline. Looking back, I very much needed my California trip and I'm glad I got in some relaxing vacation time before Fall and Grad School set in. However, I am happy to be back in home and itching to be back in the kitchen for more TNDs, miscellaneous baking, and singular sensation cooking.

Bonus pic: my new shoes.. replacements for the sharkies that beat up my ankles. Hoping for good karma ( :

Run, Eat, Stress, Cook Weekend and Lettuce-less Salad TND

This summer seems to be moving at an unnaturally fast clip. June and July both whizzed by and August feels like the Bullet Train Express...especially this past weekend.

After a rather monotonous Saturday in Microfilm and a few weekend household tasks, I headed over to Elizabeth's for a pre-race pasta dinner before the Leesburg 20K (12.4 mi) on Sunday. We feasted on multi-color pasta with sausage-laced tomato sauce and ricotta cheese and Mud Pie ice cream (guess what the Rhino contributed), yapped about a lot of stuff, and then Elizabeth promptly fell asleep on the sofa while we watched Malcolm in the Middle (classic). After her snooze during the first episode, she claimed that she could stay awake for a second. I thought otherwise. It was already 12:30 and given that the race started at 7:30 AND we needed to skedaddle by 6 to make it out to Leesburg in time, so I called it a night and slept until Grady the cat decided to do hurdles over my side at 4:30AM.

At 5AM, I woke up ready for RACE TIME!!! With Elizabeth's boyfriend Greg in tow.. or actually in the driver's seat, we headed out to non-Suburbia VA. Once we arrived on site, we grabbed our race packets (I got a free extra YMCA Summer Camp 2006 shirt ( : ), used the porta-potties (better early than late), geared up, and got going!! Both the 10K and 20K runners started together, which created a bit of a glut up until 3.1 miles in when the 10K got to their turn around. I breathed in the empty air as the pack thinned out and worked on zenning out again. With 3.1 down, I still had 9.3 left to run. You do the math.

Though the race path along the W O & D trail proved rather monotonous, I gained momentum after the 6.2 mile turn around as I worked my way past water stations and mile markers. With two miles left, my legs started complaining (it was my first 20Ker after all), but I told them to shut up and completed the race in a respectable 2:01.24. Yay!

We stayed around for the random prize drawings, but left empty handed and hungry despite a few small post-race noshes. So, we went to Amphora and massacred our three appetizers (the mezze sampler, fried zucchini, AND home fries ALL THE WAY) AND three entrees and my added fruit cup. Yeah, you read that right, three appetizers plus three separate entrees for three people. I love good eaters.

After washing up, napping, and making a quick batch of snickerdoodles, I found myself back at Elizabeth's for MORE FOOD....Specifically, her goodbye to Grady (her foster cat) fishy food dinner. Guests brought plenty of goldfish, crab, and tuna, Elizabeth made tuna cheesy pasta topped with more goldfish crackers, Greg made catfish enchiladas, and I brought Phish Food ice cream (of course). Lovely Sunday, great company, lots of tasty calories ( :

Unfortunately, Monday meant stress! I prepped the peanut chicken salad prior to lunch (once again overestimating pineapple portions), ate a quick lunch, faced a super-stressful interview, and with Mama Rhino in tow, I completed a practice run to UMD (ACK!! Grad School!!). I came home tired, headachy, and still filled a prescription AND prepped Food Network's squash and orzo salad for TND (should have waited on the goat cheese though.. the dish became more goat cheesy orzo than orzo salad). SOOO glad to have some of Elizabeth's leftover tuna cheesy pasta for dinner... with some more added cheese *wink*. Cheese heals.


Luckily, TND once again went off without a hitch. Everyone ate well, drinks abounded, and TND newcomer Mary easily mingled with the crew. Let's hope she's a keeper (she's moving to Crystal City this weekend!). She still needs to meet Wes, Ben, and the rest of the crew and Celeste approval is still pending, but I feel a TND expansion at work ( :

In other happy news, my new jogging shoes came last night!! They're beautiful and very Rock N' Roll ready (got them on major sale too). I want to name them Jaws and Sharkie, but is that too cheesy?


Next week: I'm in LA visiting my favorite sister Rhino and my favorite high school friend. Yay vacation!! ( :

Pie-tastic Tuesday

I baked sooo much this weekend that I could not contain it in a single blog entry. I now present you with Round Two: Pie Time!!!

I love eating pies and I love making pie fillings. I'm not as big on putting together the pie crust or rolling it out. However, with Food Network's supposedly fool-proof sweet pie crust recipe, a seemingly simple cheese crust recipe at hand, and a ready-made Oreo crust, I felt up to the challenge. I'm not sure if I followed all of the directions for pie crust #1 entirely correctly, but it came out surprisingly well AND with plenty of crust to spare (a first for Miss Rhino). The cheese crust for Paula Deen's tomato pies produced less dough, but tasted good and covered two pie tin bottoms (good enough).


I chose to pair the FN crust with the magazine's adjoining peach pie filling given their summer abundance (still want to try the green tomato and blueberry fillings though). Once I popped that bad boy in the oven, I began layering up my tomato pies with tomatoes (OBVIOUSLY!), fresh basil, and green onions. Then, I seasoned them up with salt and pepper and finally slathered a mixture of cheddar, mozzarella, provolone, and mayo over the top of each and gave them a turn in the sauna. So, by Monday at dinner, I had three pies down and only one left to make. EARL MURDERS ME BECAUSE I'M HAVING AN AFFAIR PIE!!!

That's when things got messy. I could have held off making the last pie till Tuesday, but it seemed sooo easy, so around 11 I gave in. As I watched Mystery Diagnosis (one of the best shows on tv EVER!) or actually during its commercials between eye blinks, I set to work. Following an ad hoc combination of recipes, I mashed together blackberries and blueberries, added sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, tapioca, and a smidgen of lemon juice and then overstuffed the mixture into its chocolate crust. I should emphasize OVERSTUFFED. My Frankenstein baking created an oozing, bleeding pie which required multiple spatulas to pry off its underlying cookie sheet. MWAHAHAHA!!

In the end, all the pie went over quite well with my TND crew. They even asked for leftovers of Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having An Affair Pie. Although, I think that was mainly because its center looked like bloody murder and because of its kick ass name. At any rate, I'm taking the compliments and already planning for next Tuesday. Sensational Salad TND!! Very excited!! ( :

And on Sunday, She Shall Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies..

When I heard about Sar Sar's annual pool party, I thought of two things: Can my miracle bikini still work its camouflage magic on my body? And, YESS!! I get to bake desserts!! I am happy to report that miracle bikini still fits reasonably well (still wish I had a bikini spare though) and I happily baked up a storm on Saturday and Sunday morning.

After a day at Mother NARA, an interlude with the elliptical, and a short hop to the Teet, I set to work on Paula Deen's five-layer bars. First, I patted melted butter and graham cracker crumbs (I could have bought ready-made crumbs..but grinding crackers proved far more therapeutic) into a parchment-lined cake pan. Next, I poured roughly a cup each of chocolate chips and butterscotch chip, a half cup of pecans, and a cup or so of shredded coconut over the crust. Finally, I poured a 14 oz. can of condensed milk over the whole thing and popped it into the oven. A half hour later, dessert bar perfection ( :


The next morning, while it rained outside, I stirred up some chocolate chip cookies from my old school Pillsbury cookbook. I managed to avoid a cookie Pangaea this time. I did not get four dozen cookies out of the recipe as it promised, but no one complained about my slightly bigger chocolate chippers. Most importantly, the newly-hired Sara enjoyed her "Yay! You're employed" cookies. Success!!

Sara threw a great pool party too (as per usual). The Nematis provided plenty of food (again as usual). I happily took advantage of the pool and played a fun if not terribly competitive or successful game of pool volleyball with an increasing cast of players, talked with friends, and watched Lilo and Stitch (the best modern Disney). Good times. Strangely, the Dominos' Pacific Veggie Pizza even made its way into a dream I had last night (I asked for extra feta in the dream though). I wish my dream would come true, but that's a discussion for a completely different blog.