This past weekend I journeyed home, as many young professionals do, to the comforting arms of.....(wait for it)...my hair stylist. Yes, I did come home for a haircut. BUT, there were many other perks involved. 1) My cousin, whom I hadn't seen in over a year, was visiting my parents from Connecticut. 2) My close friend from my India program, Mimi, is working in DC this summer and I had not yet had the chance to see her. 3) I have many personal belongings that I stupidly decide to lug with me wherever I am temporarily living. Half of these clothes, books, photography paraphenalia, and shoes I probably don't need at all, yet I decide to bring them along with me anyway in order to create a more complete home for myself. So, this 24 hour trip home proved to be a lugging session of about half of the things I have accumulated from New York. And of course there is the obvious and probably most highly ranked reason for my travels: a hair date with my stylist who has been cutting my hair for 19 years. Yes, that's right folks. I've been with her since I was two. That is true loyalty.
After a morning of comfortable bus travel, I arrived in DC to be picked up by my mother and cousin at the bus station. Pete (my cousin) and I jetted home to settle me in and then we drove to my favorite bookstore, Politics & Prose, for some necessary fiction browsing.
After our outing we went to lunch in the Macomb Street restaurant enclave about five blocks from my house. We parked the car and walked up the street. Something caught my eye. In the place of an ancient antique store that my mother liked to frequent stood a brightly lit and painted new shop entitled "Something Sweet." Do you remember the Sesame Street interactive game "What doesn't Fit"? Well this sighting was a little like that. The series of restaurants on this strip have been imprinted in my brain so that the presence of a new shop sent off a message in my head with an appropriate robot voice: ALERT ALERT NEW RESTAURANT, MUST TRY!
I had to sneak in and check out the goods. Pete, confused but obliging, let me look even though he was ravenously hungry. The cute, but awfully mysterious shop, contained rows of neatly decorated cupcakes and hungry customers on line for a sweet treat. My eyes popped open. I scampered out of the store before my lack of will power would get the best of me and allow me to try cupcakes before having lunch.
At Cafe Deluxe, a local good ol' upscale American food joint, I dined with my mom and Pete on soups and salads. One of my best friends happened to come into the restaurant at the end of our meal for her own lunch date. I appropriately ran across the restaurant (yes, I ran), squealed and tackled her with a hug. What will continue to amaze me is the frequency of random run-ins when home for a brief vacation. If I have been away from DC for three months or even seven months, I will always run into some acquaintance or friend who also happens to be living away from home. Call it fate. Call it non-random. Call it a small world. Regardless, it's amazing and highly entertaining.
After lunch, I convinced my mother to come with me to my new cupcake discovery right around the corner. My mom, god love her, can never turn down a venture into a cute boutique, food, shoes, or otherwise. So, she's always a great partner in exploring these venues. We entered and after the anticipated oohs, aahs and "I can't believe this exists" comments, we decided to purchase cupcakes for Shabbat dessert and try some of their homemade ice cream. We bought an assortment of four cupcakes: Chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting, Vanilla with vanilla buttecream frosting, Red velvet with creamcheese frosting, and Vanilla with Chocolate buttercram and m&ms. Yum.
Mom and I shared a smooth and creamy peanut buttercup cup of icecream which ended up being almost three heaping scoops. Pete had a fluffy rocky road combo. The icecream was clearly homemade in that it lacked your typical freezer burned tastelessness from processing. It was the perfect consistency at room temperature--not too melted, not too soupy, but perfectly soft with elasticity that holds the flavors and the cold cream together. I can honestly hold one complaint for the peanut buttercup flavor: it did not have enough chocolate. Period.
As for the cupcakes, which were consumed several hours later by my dad, my friend Mimi, Pete, mom, and myself, I can say they did their jobs well. Large, but satisfying. Creamy, flavorful buttercream, and moist cake satisfied our already full palates and bellies. I would like to say that I would have preferred a richer and flavorful red velvet cake mixture. It sort of lacked the oomph that usually accompanies the blend of creamchesse frosting and the cocoa powder. Otherwise, each cake complimented its frosting and our appetites beautifully.
Check out Something Sweet at: 3708 Macomb Street Washington, DC across from Two Amy's and Cactus Cantina.
http://www.somethingsweetdc.com/www/index.php
No comments:
Post a Comment