Our HR lady decided to do a green food potluck and invited people in the company to participate. Pretty good spread, I think. I made the cucumbers stuffed with Old Bay crab on the left. My favorites were the pesto ravioli, and the ice cream Jell-o squares.
I took the Cucumber Cups Stuffed with Spicy Crab recipe on Pinterest and modified a bit to fit my audience. Instead of using hot sauce, I put in a liberal amount of Old Bay seasoning instead because Maryland. It was a big hit!
My friend and I have been to NYC many times, but never had the chance to try Shake Shack. So, imagine our excitement when they decided to open one in Baltimore near the end of February. We decided to give it a try when the weekend was finally nice and warm-ish. There’s a lot of buzz around Shake Shack, since it went from being a small hotdog cart to a popular restaurant. But, we were disappointed with the food.
I ordered a SmokeShack burger, fries, and a mango lemonade. The total came up to $13.14! I know it’s in a tourist area, but that price demands bigger portions. Plus, the food was nothing to write home about. I’m gonna stick to local favorites, Five Guys and Z-Burger, for better and more reasonably priced food. I’m glad I tried it, though!
Last night, Carmela and her husband held a sushi lesson/boozefest at their house. There was about 20 people or so in attendance. They asked a sushi chef at Wegmans to teach everyone how to make sushi. At $15 per person, everything was provided: appetizers, drinks, sushi mats, chopsticks, condiments, and all the sushi ingredients needed. We learned to make about 4-5 different rolls, starting with the California roll above.
With the right tools and correctly made rice, sushi is very easy to prepare. I had fun, and the hosts didn’t skimp on the ingredients. My sushi rolls had combinations of salmon, tuna, lump crab meat, crab sticks, avocado, and cucumbers. That amount of (inevitably) drunk people posed an annoyance near the end of the night, when people’s skills and attention spans started dwindling. There were lots of yelling, stumbling, and throwing things about. Massive props goes to our instructor who was calm and took it all in stride.
Colorful kites surround the Washington Monument
We hosted six people visiting from the Motherland: my aunt, grandma, and their doctor friends. They timed their visit with the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., so we went there. Their arrival coincided with the Blossom Kite Festival on the grounds of the Washington Monument on the National Mall. There were SO MANY people and SO MANY kites!
Unfortunately, it was an unusually cold spring day and crazily overcast. But, all the colorful kites made up for it. I wish I brought a kite, so I could fly it along with everyone else. It looked really fun! My favorite ones were the irregularly shaped kites that looked like spaceships, or legs walking on air. (One of the legs even hit someone on the head when the kite steadily lost air. I wish I took a picture of it!)
Look, Nemo!
I’ve been to Washington, DC many times, but I never get tired of seeing the sights. There are always a crowd of tourists whenever I go there, and their excitement always rubs off on me. It’s a good feeling It was a great start to our visitors’ U.S. vacation. I’m sure they had loads of fun, too!