Tag Archives: Mount Vernon

A Dash To The Finish Line

Posted by Bean Pie and Baking in Cooking School, Stories About My Life, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , ,

You know what they say about time flying…it’s mid-April which means I’m just about one month out from Final Exams for the Spring semester. It also means that my time in Maryland is coming to an end; I am measuring in weeks now instead of months. Granted, there are enough weeks left that “months” is still plural, but barely.

I’ve been thinking about the things that I haven’t done: I should have gone to Washington, D.C. more often, I should have gone to Manhattan more often. I never went back to Mount Vernon (George Washington’s house) even though I bought the annual pass and pledged in an earlier blog post to recreate the menu from the “Hoecakes and Hospitality” exhibit…and Monticello still calls to me. So does Charleston, Savannah, and Miami.

Ah, well. There are the things I should have done, and then there are the things that I actually still have to do and I can sum those things up with two words: study, and pack. I’m past critical mass and into the downward swing of this adventure. Soon it will be time to wrap up one phase of my life and drive due west from where the sun rises to where the sun sets: back to Northern California.

But, before I change frequencies, I have things to do and people to see.

I’m in the throes of designing all three of my final exam projects: a 3-tier wedding cake, a tropical themed plated dessert, and a sugar showpiece with confection. These last three classes are very different from my other baking classes. Those classes were all about production, organization, and time management. We made what the chefs told us to make.

In comparison, these classes are design classes. I have to actually produce the designs, of course, but it turns out that the design component itself takes about a million hours more than you would imagine — certainly I spend exponentially more time designing the piece than I would ever spend making it. For every timed practical that I have 3 hours to produce I’ve probably spent at least 15 hours designing it, scaling it and testing it — probably more since I over-think everything which means my research is exhaustive. And, I mean that in the truest sense: I am exhausted by the time it’s done. So, these last three projects will be very much on my mind from here on out.

It will be a dash to the finish line.

Fondant Easter Egg (1)

The Ice Cream Man Might Drive Me Crazy

Posted by Bean Pie and Baking in East Coast Food Finds, Good Eats, Stories About My Life, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , ,

There is an ice cream man who drives his truck around my area every afternoon around the same time. He plays all the standards — “Happy Birthday”, “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” —  but he adds in some some new stuff, like “Guantanamera” for ethnic flair. I thought this was charming the first few times, like the folks who play the Peruvian pan flutes to Simon and Garfunkel songs in the subway station. Now I just want those kids to get their ice cream and move along.

Because of this, apart from distracting me from Very Important Things, like checking Facebook, I find I think about ice cream much more often than before. I like ice cream, so this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And, I have dabbled in making ice cream in the past, but I’ve never thought it prudent to consume a high enough volume of ice cream that I could justify making it more than once every other month or so and by the time that time rolls around I’ve usually impulse bought some Ben and Jerry’s or Haagen Daz on sale and the space in my freezer reserved for ice cream is full up.

But ice cream has been on my mind again since Maryland rolled out an official Ice Cream Trail map a month or two ago. As reported in an article by NPR’s food blog, The Salt, it seems there are a handful of local creameries who have turned to small batch ice cream making. Yum. This is the kind of trail I can get behind.

Also on my radar is something new Mount Vernon is trying out. Mount Vernon, for those who don’t fancy the historic homes of the Founding Fathers like I do, is George Washington’s estate. It’s located outside of Alexandria, VA, and is just a hop, skip and a jump (and about an hour via the D.C. beltway) from where I live in Maryland. I like to go there, and I insist that every out-of-towner who falls into my grip go there, too.  I’ve been a few times. But, I hadn’t been to Mount Vernon since I returned East-side last summer, so when I saw they were doing a Colonial Ice Cream Making demonstration, I knew it was time. So, I bought my annual pass (oh, yes I did!) and off I went.

One of the cool things about Mount Vernon is that it receives no state or federal funds. According to Wikipedia, Mount Vernon  “is owned and maintained in trust by The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.”  The name alone kills me — The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association — what spunk! I could go on and on about Mount Vernon, but for now I’ll just stick to ice cream…

So, from August 4th-September 1, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon visitors can watch as costumed staff members recreate the 18th century ice cream making process on reproduction pieces. I arrived at 11:30 (naturally!) and they were on their last go-’round. They seemed vaguely surprised at the turnout. They had a table set up with a brazier for roasting cocoa beans, a metate for grinding the shelled nibs into a paste, various spices, etc., for flavoring, and the ice cream making device — a bucket tucked into another bucket — itself. You can click on the photos below to see them larger, and in slideshow format.

It was a pleasant, short (about 20 minutes) demonstration that made me marvel at the amount of muscle power cooking and baking — and everything, really — took back then. It made the sheer volume of entertaining the Washingtons did that much more impressive, especially after seeing the kitchen, which is relatively small. It definitely made me want to go back and take the Dinner for the Washingtons Walking Tour, a special tour of the estate from a culinary angle which includes a trip to the basement (NOT part of the regular mansion tour!) and concludes with a tasting in the greenhouse. I was so busy with the regular mansion tour, and the gift shops, and having lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant, that by the end of the afternoon I hadn’t finished touring to my satisfaction and will need to return. Thank goodness I got that Annual Pass!

They also have an exhibit running through August 2013 called “Hoecakes and Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington” which walks you through some of the recipes, instruments, tableware, etc. that the Washingtons used for entertaining. Also available are a handful of recipe cards of favorite dishes and drinks of which I have a mind to recreate at some point in the near future (I’m still pondering whether or not to tackle sturgeon). For now, I’ll keep my eye on the ice cream prize: touring it via creamery, making it, eating it and, if it’s any good, sharing it, so stay tuned.