We actually took a little vacation in February! Check out the photos from our awesome trip to San Francisco!
We actually took a little vacation in February! Check out the photos from our awesome trip to San Francisco!
Besides of course, seeing our wonderful families, this reddish egret was one of the highlights of our holiday trip south. Along with getting to see Carly’s Dad and stepmother and THE BOAT, we also swung by Greenville, SC to see Art’s sister and her family.
We stopped at a nature preserve near Cape Canaveral, which is where we caught this Reddish Egret and a flock of flying Roseate Spoonbills — which made Carly so happy she happy danced! We also made quick stops in Savannah, GA and Ashville, NC. All in all a pretty fun trip to start the new year!
It’s Art’s birthday today! How did we celebrate Art turning 41? Well with a 21 course meal at Volt! Not that we don’t love our local DC restaurants — goodness knows we do — but we’d been talking about heading out to Frederick to try out Volt for a while, and Art’s birthday seemed like a good reason. (woah — long sentence)
I started the process of trying to book reservations almost two months out, because I knew I was looking at a popular place. Turns out, I don’t have a clue about how far out you have to make reservations when a a celebrity chef is involved. Table 21, the 21 course tasting extravaganza, was booked through the end of the year. I decided the chef’s table would have to do, and I still couldn’t get anything for Saturday night, so I booked for Friday and planned to combine it with a tour of Flying Dog Brewery in the afternoon.
On Thursday my phone rang and I got the awesome notice that there had been a cancellation at Table 21, and would I like that instead of my chef’s table seats? Heck, yeah!!!
What I can say is that it was a total experience. We were a few minutes late, and missed the “flavors of sazerac” course, but made everything else. I expected the food to be killer, which it was. But I was also totally impressed with the service, especially my “no shellfish, no pork, no rabbit” requirements. The staff was fabulous and gracious about it. The few dishes that had one of the above in it, were made without and the staff would let me know each time they announced the course that mine had been made without it.
Out of the 21 courses we tried, only one was lack luster and it came at the very end (the “wedge salad,” which was something like lettuce granita with frozen blue cheese powder. Can’t really speak highly for frozen lettuce…). At that point I was so full, I was almost grateful that I didn’t to eat something.
What’s not listed on the menu below are the Hot Buttered Rum (NOM!!) and the take home treats. Art ate the take home treats in the car right after the meal. I couldn’t even look at them….
For those into the celebrity chef thing, yes we did see Bryan Voltaggio. No he didn’t come over and say hello or anything. We did get to see Sous Chef, Graeme Ritchie, and the entire Volt team in action all night. Table 21 is literally in the kitchen, so you get to see the amazingly well choreographed chaos that is a restaurant kitchen.
Table 21 Menu for 10.21.2011
My birthday was last week and Art surprised me taking me to the bar we go to just about every week. Needless to say, that wasn’t really surprising. What was surprising was that he had not only arranged for them to get me birthday cake, in the form of cupcakes from Buzz Bakery, but also got the bartenders to sing me happy birthday.
Apparently a perk of tithing my income to Churchkey is that the bartenders will take odd requests. *Note to self….(dirty thoughts). It was seriously awesome of them to do this, and the cupcakes were amazing!
I took a few pictures with the “Retro Camera” app on my phone using the polaroid like filter, which I love but for some reason turned CKDC into a Blade Runner-esque looking place.
It’s really exciting to see so how awesome the food scene in DC has gotten in the past few years. Now we even have our first true distribution brewery in DC! We’ve had brewpubs that sell the beer they make, but never one that was planning on retail distribution.
We hit DC Brau’s first open house yesterday. They were giving tastings, tours, and filling growlers.
In the true sign of what a small town DC really is, we walked in and saw Lauren, one of the managers from Birch & Barley / Churchkey, helping out behind the “bar” at DC Brau.
So far our favorite beer is the “Citizen.” It’s a lovely Belgian Pale Ale. They were out of “Corruption,” which is just not something you hear about DC usually. 😉
We’re working on the house. “We” being mostly the royal we, since Art is doing all the work. I picked the paint color, though…
If you make the slideshow full screen, you can also see the descriptions for each shot.
We came across these two red fox who appeared to be stuck together. Our first thought was that they were mating. But they were facing in opposite directions. Having not read the Kanine Sutra we were unaware if this position was even possible for coitus. The predicament went on for a few minutes and they remained entangled. We wondered if there was some glue or piece of trash or something which was keeping them together. The classic Washington dilemma then popped up: Which Agency Do I call?
311 is the city’s catch-all number; from there we could get animal control. BUT we were on Federal property managed by the National Park Service; Do we backtrack to the Park Police substation?
Thankfully they freed themselves before we became entangled in the overlapping jurisdictions. The two animals were hurting, but licked their wounds, stretched, and trotted off.
Hain’s Point Golf Course, Washington, DC
1. Olaf ponders the squash, 2. CO 411, 3. Carly du Monde, 4. Black-bellied Whistling Duck, 5. Mother-Daughter Dance, 6. Pika, 7. Olaft®, 8. They seem to be settling in quite nicely….., 9. Asher and Art movin’ to the Beastie Boys (yo.), 10. Cool eyes, dude!, 11. 90 miles to cuba, 12. Asher gives a shout-out to the DelRayBoyz, 13. Do you have to ruin every picture?, 14. Hand to hand, 15. Carly & her new nephew, 16. Derby has flopped, 17. Egretta thula yahooseriousei, 18. Southernmost Shabbat, 19. Bend, 20. Art and Derby
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
And of course, the year we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary!
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