Dallas might be known for the volume of chain restaurants that call it home, but it has some awesome local restaurants, as well. You just don’t hear about them often what with the inundation of places like On the Border, Chili’s, and Olive Garden. And Dallas has an excellent museum district. On a recent visit to Dallas, I tried some amazing souffles, and visited a traveling exhibit on Jean Paul Gaultier at the Dallas Museum of Art.
So I was going to post this final holiday event during the holidays, but we actually didn’t have a chance to check it out until one of the last days in December, and then I’ve only just now gotten around to uploading the photos from it. So to anyone interested in checking it out, there’s always next year! The lights are usually on display from early December until January 1, so set a reminder for next year if you want to check it out.
For a year and a half now I’ve noticed the castle-like spires of the DC Mormon Temple poking out above the trees as I drive west on the Beltway. It’s a very interesting-looking building. So I was very excited when I heard that they host a festival of lights that’s open to the public every year. This was my chance to see the building in person!
I decided to make French macarons for some of my Christmas presents this year.
They’re a bit of a luxury to buy (but so delicious!) since most bakeries price them as though they’re big cookies even though they’re about an inch or so wide and composed largely of air, but as far as baking them goes, their ingredients cost about the same as any other cookie (unless you want to make fancy flavors using imported ingredients). What you’re paying for at the bakery is the cost of labor and expertise, as these cookies take a bit of planning and time to make, and you’re not likely to end up with an entire batch of picture-perfect cookies on your first try. Or your second or third.
I’ve created a few photo books in the past of trips taken and favorite places, but for a while now I’ve been thinking about using a photo book service such as Blurb to make a cookbook of some of my favorite recipes. While this might have been a fairly pricey undertaking just a few years ago, over the last few years photo book services’ prices have come down and their quality has gone up, resulting in your being able to make a personalized book that looks store-quality for close to the same price that you’d pay for a new hardback cookbook in a store. In fact, now that photo book services have picked up on the popularity of Groupon and LivingSocial, it’s actually relatively easy to make a book for cheaper than what you’d pay in the store if you shop around for a good deal.
Shopping around for a photo book coupon might sound like more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s not as difficult as you’d think.
In the same trip over the fourth of July weekend, we drove from Boston on to Maine, where we visited Acadia National Park. I think this might be my favorite national park yet. We spent hours climbing on the rocks along the gorgeous coastline.
While in Maine, we tried lobster rolls twice: once on the way into Maine, and once the next day on the way out. They were delicious both days, although slightly different each time. What did not change, however, is how ridiculously expensive lobster is. At every place we looked up, it usually cost around $15-17 for a bit of lobster and garnish on a hot dog bun with some potato chips or fries. Crazy.
