04 August 2008

Cupcakes, Cougars and Macaroni and Cheese.


Cupcakes:

Georgetown Cupcakes--in a word? Divine. I found myself speeding along Rhode Island Avenue driving a white minivan with a 16 year old co-pilot in order to get these cupcakes. We needed to get to Georgetown in a hurry. There is no easy way to get there. And my piloting a minivan is hilarious at best. (No. I am not the Cougar. There was a real cougar.) My intern and I had to get to Georgetown to pick up two dozen delectable cupcakes for a reception.

It didn't take us all that long to get to M st NW, and then, of course, there was wall to wall traffic. But our collective calm and persistence paid off. We reached the storefront, ready to purchase a variety of cupcakes. My personal favorite? The red velvet cupcake. The cream cheese icing is the perfect combination of whatever it is that makes cream cheese icing perfect. I'm not a food writer, so go with me here.

The only annoying thing about the whole experience was a woman who took ten minutes to pick out ONE cupcake and debated for another minute about whether or not she should spend an additional .50 on a box. She worried that the cupcake would not be wrapped perfectly by the young women who worked there.

Let me say this. The women who work at Georgetown cupcake are professional, bright and seem to be on some kind of mission for cupcake world domination. I am pleased to have done business with them.

Now, I wanted to pitch this woman and her boyfriend (who was carrying thousands of dollars of expensive clothes for her) out on the street, but we (meaning I) must be patient--even for an entitled jerkface with huge Ralph Lauren bags draped across her entitled shoulders!

On to the Cougar.

Well, it turns out that the cougar spotted on my university's campus was actually just a house cat bred with a Serval Cat--a large cat of the African savannah. The cat in question does weigh 45-50 pounds and I can understand why someone might think it was a cougar (or even a leopard). So no one should get mauled. I hope that the cat gets fed and returned to his (or her) home. I'm sure that the cat is scared and hungry. (And not sitting on a computer like this one photographed below.)





And now for the Macaroni and Cheese.

I made Alton Brown's baked Macaroni and Cheese. I think that next to my grandma's recipe, it is the best mac and cheese available. Next time you have a dinner party, request that I make it. It's not too hard to make and I end up looking like a kitchen genius.

Well, my coffee has kicked in, I'm actually looking forward to the start of the school year and all of the changes that are going to take place for me at work, and I have some Serval watching to do from my window.

I wonder if it would sun itself on a car, like city cats do?

4 comments:

Essentially Me said...

That cat is cool!!! If I wasn't allergic to cats, I'd want that one as a pet! I'd walk it around the neighbourhood to scare all the kiddies!

Anonymous said...

Can you just make the macaroni for me? It never tastes as good as when I make it myself!

finer thing said...

cupcakes and cougars....could this blog be any better?

finer thing said...

I forgot to add that I think Alton Brown is a cook for people who were good in chemistry lab,;) not the kind who could be heard saying:

"Is there supposed to be a precipitate...we're waaaiting..."

or

"You hold this with the tongs and I'll scrape it off (the crucible) and put it all back in there."

or

"Sigh....I guess we're going to have to pretend we invented something in our lab reports again..."

....

LLH and I were ready to write Alton some mean web comments when the waffles failed.