Playing with Fire

Flambéing is the most fun part of making Poulet à la Normande, a chicken and apple dish from Normandy that recently appeared in the New York Times (here). The instruction "use a long kitchen match to light the liquor on fire" is a good one to obey! The flames did shoot around 2 feet high as noted. A short match would be a bit too scary.

As it happened, I had a jug of local cider that I'd been neglecting and therefore allowing to ferment in my refrigerator for a few weeks. Perfect! I also had the recommended pearl onions and sour cream to finish the sauce. The apples cut in chunks and a chicken that I cut up myself, as shown, were the remaining ingredients. 

Eating the chicken is of course almost as much fun as setting fire to it. In the bowl at right, you can see my smooth sauce containing the cider mixture from braising the chicken, the sour cream, and some cornstarch to thicken it. On my plate you can see some of the sauce on bread, as well as on the chicken. The recipe recommended a side of salad, but we had carrot sticks and bell peppers for crunch and color. Other than setting fire to the liquor, it's not really a particularly difficult recipe compared to other classics from France.

December in the Kitchen

In my December kitchen I'm resuming my cooking adventures and day-to-day prep. Yesterday I returned from another trip that included food prep and cooking in other people's kitchens. I think I've done this for the last 4 months -- or is it the last 6 months? I love to travel!

As always, I brought back some magnets from my trip, which started with Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh and continued with 10 days in Virginia with side trips to Washington, D.C. The three new magnets in the photo are from the exhibit "Stuart Davis: In Full Swing" at the National Gallery of Art. Davis's works really appeal to me, and I was fascinated to learn many new things about his life and how he created art.  

A room from the Stuart Davis exhibit, which we saw last Thursday.

But back to my kitchen: I have a new water-boiling pot, replacing the one that was getting cranky and that had a broken water filter in the spout.

Morning coffee.

Fruit and vegetables: first thing I buy when I replenish my kitchen supplies.

In December I'm committed to a few cooking adventures as well as efforts to have good and healthy daily meals. For one, I hope to make a recipe that I read in the New York Times cooking section: Poulet à la Normande. We also have some plans for Christmas and Chanukah cooking.

A Magnificent Kitchen in Pittsburgh

As I mentioned, we began our trip on Thanksgiving, where we arrived at Aparna and Joel's house just as they were beginning to cook the turkey. Their kitchen is entirely new: Aparna designed the remodel, including considerable rearrangement of the floor plan, with incredible creativity. Here are a series of photos showing how many people can be cooking at the many new workspaces and enjoying the new picture window with a large dining table.

Check out lots of links to blogger kitchens at Bizzy Lizzy's Blog HERE.

Dinner for a Hawk

This hawk had just caught a mouse, and we watched him eating it around 4 PM today.

We saw the hawk as we were walking at Dyke Marsh and at Belle Haven Park near Alexandria, VA.

Alexander Calder in Washington, D.C.

In the newly redone modern art building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, they've dedicated one tower room -- above -- to Calder's beautiful works. Though each piece appears to have required a great deal of effort, Calder was incredibly prolific, and I've seen many of his works elsewhere as well. A gigantic sculpture of his, for instance, is installed in the Senate Office Building.

Calder's sculptures have always intrigued me. He could twist a wire and it would be a horse, and cast a silhouette of a horse. He could shape metal plates or wood forms and wire them together into fascinating assemblages -- mobiles. Now, over 80 years later, it seems as if mobiles must have existed forever. They didn't! Calder invented the mobile and showed them in art shows in the late 1920s -- his creation was named in 1931 by Marcel Duchamp. Though there were other instances of hanging kinetic sculptures, he created this modern version.

"Rat."

Calder's depiction of the dancer Josephine Baker really
captures her famous ability to move, I think.

A red metal Calder mobile hangs in the huge atrium of the newly renovated building.

A version of this work, "Fish," is in the Calder room at the National Gallery. This one and the two that follow
are from the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum, which faces the National Gallery across the Mall.

"Vertical Constellation with Yellow Bone."

"29 Disks"

Changing from Calder: This sculpture is titled "Legs" by Louise Bourgeois.
I loved the way the Hirshhorn guard just happened to stand beside it.

Art work designed for taking a selfie, in the National Gallery atrium.

Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Art

The sculpture garden at the National Gallery of Art in Washington includes a beautiful restaurant and a skating rink, surrounded by wonderful, large works of sculpture. We had lunch there this afternoon. I've always enjoyed their selections of salads, sandwiches, and pastry.

Miriam and Alice rented some skates and then enjoyed two hours
on ice while we revisited the annual nature photo contest at the Natural History Museum.

Ten years ago, we visited the sculpture garden and skating rink with Miriam,
who was not yet a skater but hoped to learn sometime.

This morning we also visited the Hirshhorn Museum, which will figure in a later blog post.

Rooftop Garden, National Gallery of Art

From our visit to the Mall in Washington D.C. two days ago.

Dinner

Gingerbread cake that says "I Luv Family" and has all our portraits on it.
Note: the stylized artwork by two teenagers is purely intentional.

Omelet and baked potato with the same toppings -- tomato, bell pepper, parsley,
cucumber, ham, sour cream, etc.

A Dining Room Painting

Berthe Morisot, "In the Dining Room." From yesterday's visit to the National Gallery of Art.

Washington, D.C.

Union Station, Washington, D.C.

This morning we took the commuter train into Washington's Union Station. It's a train station in the grand old style. Really impressive! 

We spent a bit of time looking around the station until the National Gallery of Art was scheduled to open. From around 10 until 3 we were inside the National Gallery, where we saw various exhibits and explored the recently renovated East Building including its rooftop terrace. That will be the subject of another post. 

Model train display for Christmas.

The station's food court.

The entrance, decorated with Christmas wreathes.

The Capitol lit by morning and afternoon sunshine.

The sun shone beautifully all day until around 3:30, when it went behind a cloud. Above: morning sun from the esplanade (or whatever it's called) in front of the station.

The capitol after the sun went behind a cloud. Soon afterwards, we took the train back to Virginia.

The Washington Monument.