Three flavors of kettle corn (for the jigsaw party tomorrow), baby ginger (for ginger ale, likewise), purple seedless grapes, muscadine grapes, cherry tomatoes, tiropita, spanokopita, beet and red pepper spread, pita, figs, shishito peppers, and a framboisine.
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fabrisse at the US Botanical Gardens to see the corpse flower -- it hadn't bloomed yet, but it was at 93.75 inches, which is enormous. Also, it apparently stank badly, but I've been stuffed up (mild hayfever, maybe?) so the only scent I really noticed without rubbing leaves was from the allspice tree later on. I did get some photos, which I may put up later. The staff had part of the frill from the blooms early in the week on display as well, which was interesting to see, as well as another species of Amorphophallus -- the Kyushu Voodoo Lily, which was much smaller but still an impressive size.
We went to NMAI for lunch at the Mitisam Cafe -- she had the Plate of 4 Colors, and I had Salmon with Peach compote. The peach compote was savory as they'd add chile pepper (powder, at least) to it. It made for an excellent accompaniment to the salmon, and I think next week if the peaches are still cheap at the market, I'll try making peach salsa with some of the fish peppers I have. She tried their peach agua fresca, which was pleasant, and I had the pineapple ginger, which was superb.
Afterwards, we went up to the third floor for the exhibit The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire. It was amazing to be able to see khipu close up, among other things -- I could actually see the difference in thread colors and the handedness of the knots that I'd only read about previously. I rather want a SF/Fantasy story where the Inka are used as the basis, instead of another fake-European medieval fantasy...but that's probably as much research as an alternate history novel where the Mongols conquer Europe all the way to France...
Met with
fabrisse at the US Botanical Gardens to see the corpse flower -- it hadn't bloomed yet, but it was at 93.75 inches, which is enormous. Also, it apparently stank badly, but I've been stuffed up (mild hayfever, maybe?) so the only scent I really noticed without rubbing leaves was from the allspice tree later on. I did get some photos, which I may put up later. The staff had part of the frill from the blooms early in the week on display as well, which was interesting to see, as well as another species of Amorphophallus -- the Kyushu Voodoo Lily, which was much smaller but still an impressive size.We went to NMAI for lunch at the Mitisam Cafe -- she had the Plate of 4 Colors, and I had Salmon with Peach compote. The peach compote was savory as they'd add chile pepper (powder, at least) to it. It made for an excellent accompaniment to the salmon, and I think next week if the peaches are still cheap at the market, I'll try making peach salsa with some of the fish peppers I have. She tried their peach agua fresca, which was pleasant, and I had the pineapple ginger, which was superb.
Afterwards, we went up to the third floor for the exhibit The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire. It was amazing to be able to see khipu close up, among other things -- I could actually see the difference in thread colors and the handedness of the knots that I'd only read about previously. I rather want a SF/Fantasy story where the Inka are used as the basis, instead of another fake-European medieval fantasy...but that's probably as much research as an alternate history novel where the Mongols conquer Europe all the way to France...