We booked our winter vacation to Costa Rica this week and Jake's immersed himself in hotel research. The Hotel Costa Verde features a guest room in an old 747 fuselage! Pretty cool stuff. It's a little pricey or we'd totally be booking it!
I busted out the dough hook and fired up the old Kitchenaid over the weekend to try RR's recipe for bavarian pretzels. It started with so much hope, so much promise. I assembled all my ingredients and preheated the oven. All went well until I needed to shape the dough into long ropes. I dug the dough out of the bowl and it was like glue. There was no way it was going to roll into nice, smooth ropes. I formed it the best I could and then dunked it in a bath of water and baking soda, per the recipe. Ugh - they got even gloopier and less easy to handle. Into the over they went, shaped more like breast cancer awareness ribbons than a pretzel.
The Sundance Channel show Man Shops Globe about the buyer for Anthropologie is really engaging. I thought it would be more uptight and stuffy but Keith's suprisringly down to earth. Although it's quite funny how he is so price-consious! When I was in the Durham store last, I spied a cabinet from England for $20k! I wonder what he paid...
During our weekend jaunt down to Charlotte, we headed back through Asheboro and stopped at the North Carolina Zoo. It was a little chilly (hence my wearing of Jake's blue hoodie) but a nice day overall for some walkin'. The zoo's spread out over 5 miles of pathways so we clocked some miles checking out the Africa and North America exhibits. My favorites are the elephants and apes and monkeys. It's also a kick to see all the little kids and their amazement at even the least-exotic animals! Look,mom, a SQUIRREEELLL!
