I'll Trade You

When Consumer Reports comes out with a rating on restaurants or certain types of foods, I'm generally not interested. If they're assessing the performance of a type of tire or telling me which operating system works best for a computer, I value the research and opinion. But when it comes to who has the best french fries or milkshake, I'd rather find out for myself. So when Consumer Reports revealed that they thought Trader Joe's Truffle Brownies were the best store bought brownie mix, we decided it was time to put this rating to the test.

Sadly, there is not a Trader Joe's in the Roanoke Valley. It's another topic for another day, but it would be AMAZING if Trader Joe's could come to the Roanoke area in the near future. I'm looking at you abandoned Ukrops building. In the meantime, we take advantage of visiting places that have TJ's locations and usually pick up a few items to bring back home. Seeing as how my family takes a trip to the Naval Academy every few weeks to see my brother, we can count on some loot from the Trader Joe's store in Annapolis on a relatively regular basis.

A couple weeks ago, I finally got around to making these highly acclaimed brownies. The ingredients include one full stick of butter, which hurts the waistline but not the tastebuds. And when I poured the mix into a bowl, I noticed large chunks of chocolate that would be mixed in with the batter - hello truffle friends. Making brownies isn't the most complicated baking in the world, so I followed the recipe, put them in the oven, and then eagerly waited for the result. Once the brownies were finished baking, I pulled them out of the oven and again followed the instructions on the box - which included letting the brownies cool for 30 minutes! Agonizing!

After 30 minutes of drooling, I cut into my first piece and took a bite...BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! These brownies were rich, they were decadent, they were moist, they were heavenly. The chunks of chocolate really put them over the top and provided a fudge-like element. Eating them warm offered an experience similar to enjoying a hot Krispy Kreme doughnut. I quickly realized that it would be a challenge to not enjoy the entire pan of these brownies on my own. I resisted the temptation to hide them from everyone else and offered my family some. Everyone was a huge fan and I don't think the pan lasted much more than 24 hours.

Now, I find myself daydreaming about Trader Joe's brownies. They were delicious, but they could even be taken to another level. With the possibility of adding peanut butter, or caramel, or butterscotch, or coconut...I feel like Willy Wonka. I guess we'll just have to try them all to figure out which way is actually the best. Pardon me, I can hear myself getting fatter.

The Charm City

We are not in a position to be able to travel a lot, but it's usually a lot of fun when we do. Nicole and I joined the rest of my family last week and took my brother to Annapolis, MD for his induction into the U.S. Naval Academy. We had a great time in Annapolis and I'll have another post about that entire experience, but Nicole and I decided to spend a couple extra days in Maryland and head up to Baltimore, the Charm City.

Baltimore was a quick 30 minute drive north of Annapolis and we spent most of the day Friday and Saturday there. We booked a room through HI Hostels and stayed in their hostel, which was downtown and not too far from the Inner Harbor area. The accommodations were decent (although hot) and provided the basics we needed: a bed to sleep in, a bathroom to shower, and a place to park our car. We didn't spend much time in the hostel but they seem to do a good job of providing resources and things to do for guests and I'd definitely consider using them again when we travel to other cities where H.I. offers accomodations.

When we weren't sleeping, we tried to do as much exploring as we could. We visited the campus of Johns Hopkins University and checked out some of the local highlights around that area, including an ice cream shop that served veggie ice cream and the Baltimore Museum of Art. The woman working in the ice cream shop was very rude and their ice cream was nothing special (a hint of vegetable in vanilla ice cream) but the art museum was really cool (and it happened to be free). I know very little about art and find most of it boring, but it's fun to see things from other perspectives and it's usually good people watching to say the least.

Baltimore seems to be divided into multiple neighborhoods/communities and many of them have their own unique culture and identity. We weren't able to spend much time in many of the communities, but we definitely wanted to visit the area known as Little Italy. It was one of the coolest city neighborhoods I've seen. As we walked down the streets, we were hit with the amazing smells of Italian food cooking in numerous restaurants that sit in nearly every street corner. There were benches where people could sit by the street and hang out for an afternoon and a public bocce ball court where elderly Italian men challenged each other in some very competitive games. We even saw people gathering in a parking lot for what appears to be a Friday night tradition in Little Italy - there is a large sheet on the side of a building that serves as a movie screen and hundreds of people set up their chairs to have a spot for movie night right in the middle of the neighborhood. The movie night also sits between a local pizza shop on one side and a pastry shop on the other - classic. Everything about the place promoted community and family.

Bocce Ball!

Movie Night!

Along with hanging out in Little Italy, we tried to hit the other major spots in Baltimore. We took a water taxi to Fells Point, the historic neighborhood that still has cobblestone streets. We went through the World Famous Lexington Market, a market full of food vendors, profanity, and Baltimore character. We walked around Camden Yards, the beautiful baseball stadium that is worthy of a much better team. And we took in the sites of the Inner Harbor, which is the most obvious tourist spot in the city but still cool. The Barnes & Noble on the harbor is the coolest B&N I've seen, featuring a warehouse design and patios where you can sit and look out over the water.

We can't go somewhere without trying lots of food, and Baltimore was no different. Aside from the ice cream we had at Dominion Ice Cream, we had some excellent food. We decided to be crazy on Friday night and have dinner at Fogo de Chao, the famous Brazilian churrascaria. We took the healthy(er) option of the salad bar and skipped the meat portion of the meal, which saved us a lot of money and allowed us to gorge ourselves on their amazing salad bar. I'm pretty sure Fogo will receive a few "Best Thing I Ever Ate" posts in the coming weeks. And when I previously mentioned the cool pizza and pastry shops in Little Italy, I forgot to mention we visited both. I had an awesome meatball sub from Isabella's, the pizza and sandwich shop, and we tried the cannoli (which I thought was the best), cream puffs, and napoleons from Vaccaro's, the pastry shop. We could spend years trying all the other restaurants that looked good and I hope to be able to get back to Baltimore to see what other great food they're serving.

One thing that made our two days in Baltimore so enjoyable was the ability to use public transportation. The city offers bus service to the main neighborhoods and attractions on a service called the Charm City Circulator. There are three routes running through the main parts of the city with multiple stops and you usually don't have to wait more than 10 minutes for a pick up from any of the locations. The stops are well marked, the buses are clean, and the drivers are friendly. And the best part...using the Charm City Circulator is FREE! It made getting around the city very easy and it enabled us to see more of the unique things Baltimore had to offer. Being able to ride the bus kept us from worrying about walking everywhere and figuring out if we'd need to take our car and then find a place to park.  I was extremely impressed with this service and I hope many other cities will work to offer something similar to this. 

   

In all, it was a great getaway for us. The weather ended up being nice and we were able to see many different things. We hope to get back sometime and see even more! Here are a few additional pictures:

Free DMB!

I'm typically not into getting the newest CD's or figuring out the best new music, but I am a fan of free music. I try to download free songs that are available on iTunes or Amazon.com whenever they are available and keep an eye out for free promo codes that are out there. Usually, this gives me the opportunity to download some mediocre music by bands no one has ever heard of. So when I heard about a free sampler from the Dave Matthews Band Caravan Tour, I was excited to get that download.

The DMB Caravan Tour is a very small tour in terms of locations, but a HUGE show. The Dave Matthews Band sets up in a city for a weekend and they play 3 straight nights, and he's got some awesome bands along with him including: O.A.R., Ray Lamontagne, The John Butler Trio, Bela Fleck, Amos Lee, and many more. I've never been to a DMB show, but I've heard he is an amazing live performer and those other bands would be great to see as well. Too bad they will only be playing in Chicago, New York, and George, WA.

Since I'm unable to make it to the show, I will gladly take a free sampler featuring some of the bands from the tour. For the link to redeem on iTunes, click here. The code is available until October 5. I found out about this promotion from The Shoptimist, a blog through The Roanoke Times that focuses on deals and discounts. I've been listening to the sampler for the past couple days and I'm really enjoying it. I love DMB and O.A.R. and I like being exposed to some other new bands. Download the sampler and check them out!

Best Thing I Ever Ate: Strawberry Shortcake

I have had many strawberry shortcakes in my life. It's a rather popular southern dessert, a dish you see at picnic/potluck meals, and something that most people like - which makes it a dessert that is frequently made or served at restaurants. I wouldn't consider myself a strawberry shortcake connoisseur, but I have tried many different varieties in many different places - some good and some bad. I've had any number of combinations between store bought angel food cake cups, homemade angel food cakes, white cake mix, homemade shortcake, fresh strawberries, prepackaged sweetened strawberries, strawberries in sugary syrup, vanilla ice cream, fresh whipped cream, canned whipped cream, cool whip, and any other ingredient that seems like it would fit. I've sampled strawberry shortcake at church lunches, the famous Beaches & Cream Soda Shop at Walt Disney World, The Cheesecake Factory, and many other places, but I'm pretty sure I've found the best one...the version my wife makes.

Cheesecake Factory Strawberry Shortcake

Since we've been married, my wife has become a very good baker. She practices making all sorts of things - cookies, cakes, breads, cupcakes, muffins, and she appears to have mastered strawberry shortcake. She is always looking at different blogs and websites for recipe ideas and found this version of strawberry shortcake from a site called Vintage Victuals, which is full of awesome and creative recipes. Nicole has made the strawberry shortcake numerous times for different people and everyone loves it, including me. It's a simple list of ingredients and simple to make, but I don't think you can beat the flavors. Put together an amazing shortcake biscuit, fresh strawberries that macerate in sugar, vanilla ice cream, & whipped cream and you have an outstanding dessert, especially when you get the biscuit hot out of the oven. We had it as our dessert for Memorial Day and it was a big hit, even though the Bisquick was a little old. Nicole made another batch the next day with fresh Bisquick and everyone was extremely impressed.

The ingredients list is pretty small and consists of things we normally have sitting around the house:
 -Strawberries

Nicole's Strawberry Shortcake

 -Sugar
 -Bisquick
 -Milk
 -Butter
 -Vanilla Ice Cream & Whipped Cream

Here's the link for the rest of the recipe: strawberry shortcake and I encourage you to check out the other things on the site. Major props to Ellie at Vintage Victuals and to Nicole for making the best strawberry shortcake I've ever had.

Oh Snap

Nothing says "I Love You" like this...

I don't consider myself to be very good at coming up with creative gifts, especially for Nicole or my mom. I am decent at finding practical gifts I think would be useful for a person (sometimes things they don't even think of), but that can lead to some weird gifts. Examples: one year I got Nicole a mini ladder to help her reach things in her closet; another year I got my mom a laptop cushion; & I think I bought Nicole a hairdryer once. Maybe they aren't, but those feel like weird gifts. All of them were functional and I think they all got a lot of use, but they aren't very sentimental. I'm not in to giving the popular gifts of flowers, spa/massage days, or any of that packaged junk you can get in Bath & Body Works. And when I've tried to be creative with making a card or something like that, it usually backfires and the card is so bad that it looks like I forgot and tried to do something at the last minute.

For Mother's Day this year, I decided to try something different. When Nicole and I were married, one of her friends gave us a photo book as a gift, and I thought it was a great idea. She used a website to format everything and was able to make a book full of different pictures of us - and it had a lot cooler design than the old-fashioned photo album. And while I like putting pictures online as a way of having easy access to them from anywhere, I love the idea of having photo books you can put around the house with pictures from different things you've done. So as a Mother's Day gift for my mom and for my grandmother, I used Snapfish to make a photo book for each of them.

I put together different pictures of my brother and me from all different stages of life and was very pleased with how it turned out. I was able to find baby pictures, old family pictures, sports pictures, and all sorts of other random photos that came out great. I used a scanner to get the printed shots uploaded to my Snapfish account, and the quality didn't suffer much at all. I also took some images from Facebook and saved those to my Snapfish account and didn't have any trouble with image quality in those either. Snapfish made it very easy to get all the photos I wanted and they provided a ton of variety in the layouts of the images and the ability to customize things. It was a good balance of not being too formal, while still looking professional. Another plus is that there always seem to be various discounts and coupon codes online for purchasing Snapfish products. So for once, I was able to come up with a cool, sentimental gift that wasn't corny and my mom and grandmother both really liked their books.

While this isn't a commercial and I'm not brand loyal, especially when it comes to photo books, I had a very good experience using Snapfish. I look forward to creating more photo books in the future and it's a gift idea I'd certainly recommend.

Le Chocolat

I have some serious chocolate updating to do! I'm living in chocolate capital of the world (I don't care what Belgium says) and I've been trying tons of different kinds of chocolate, but I've been terrible about writing about it. There is quite a variety of chocolate to be tried here and I've even sampled some other Swiss & European specialties.

The Japonais bar was a bit of a let down from the expectation I had when I found it in the store. It's milk chocolate with Japanese-style honey cookie crumbles and creme as a sort of filling with the chocolate. First, I have no idea if there is anything Japanese about it. Second, it basically tasted like Crunch bar with better milk chocolate. Okay for flavor but rather disappointing.

The Europeans love their chocolate with nuts. (Insert crude Europe joke here). The milk chocolate filled with pistachios was very good, but VERY sweet. The milk chocolate is already sweet and there is a caramel-y filling along with the nuts. I think pistachios are probably an acquired taste, which I happen to like, but I probably wouldn't give this one as a gift.

Nothing flashy or fancy about the Splendor bar - just high quality milk chocolate. It was creamy and full of flavor and had great texture. Eating milk chocolate like this makes it nearly impossible to go back to a Hershey bar.

I think it's impossible to come to Switzerland and not have a Toblerone bar at least once. I had the classic bar of milk chocolate with honey and almond, and I finished this one quickly. Normally, I'm not a fan of honey and chocolate, which is popular here, but the almonds add some saltiness to keep it from being too sweet.

In terms of major Swiss chocolate companies, I think Lindt is the best Switzerland has to offer. Fortunately for us, there is no shortage of Lindt products in the U.S. And yes, a Lindt Chocolate Truffle is just as magical in Switzerland as it is at home.

I was intrigued by chocolate filled with champagne truffles and ended up being disgusted after one bite. It had Champagne in the name, it smelled like Champagne, and somehow I thought it wouldn't taste like Champagne. Genius. The worst thing about this bar was that it tasted bad even after I swallowed it. I ended up giving away most of it to some people who were big fans.

I have a new favorite chocolate chip cookie. Nicole made this one night for an event we were having and they were AMAZING. The cookies were thick and they had big chunks of chocolate in them and I think I had about six. The best part about these babies - she's making them again tonight!

We stumbled upon a high-end chocolate shop in Geneva a couple weeks ago and were blown away with how fancy it was. It was a very tiny store and there was only one person working but they probably had a hundred different types of truffles. The employee put on a satin glove before touching any of the chocolate and everything was very precise. It was way out of our budget, so we got the smallest piece of chocolate we could find - milk chocolate with pistachio. It was delicious and you could tell it was very high quality. The flavors would fill your mouth as you chewed and it was something where you literally savored every bite.

Nicole surprised me with treat from the grocery store. I don't know anything about Movenpick, but they seem to be the Haagen-Daaz of swiss ice cream and they have many bizarre and creative flavors. We got the Swiss Chocolate flavor and it met my expectations. It even has shavings of chocolate blended in to add some texture.

God bless the French. We spent a day in Annecy, a French town near Geneva, and sampled as much of the local cuisine as we could. We knew we couldn't go to France and not have a crepe - so we stopped at a street vendor and got a nutella crepe, a grand marnier crepe, and a gauffre, which is a heavenly French waffle that is covered in powdered sugar and tastes like a funnel cake. I pigged out on the gauffre and Nicole liked the nutella crepe so much she went back and got another one.

Ovomaltine seems to be the European version of Chips Ahoy or Oreo. Nothing special - although it might be good in a Blizzard or milkshake. Someone notify Dairy Queen!

Apparently, this is the Swiss drink. There is no shortage of Coke in this country, but Rivella is more local. It's a carbinated drink that tastes similar to coke but has a citrus sort of flavor to it as well. It's not bad - but it's also nothing special.

I bought this at the store but I haven't opened it yet. I've had it before at the Coke Lounge in Epcot and I think I remember liking it. It's a type of Coke that Coca Cola sells in Europe and it has an orange flavor to it.

There's many more crazy things I've tried but I think that'll do for now. Looking forward to trying some South African food in a few weeks!

My Life is a Box of Chocolates

I've had a tough time adjusting to the food here. We went from choosing our own food and having the freedom to be really picky and really healthy to eating food on a base. Lots of starch, lots of red meat, very few fruits and vegetables, and lots of butter and oil. It's tough to shop at the grocery store because everything is very expensive and it's hard to tell what you are buying when everything is in French. However, I have decided that I won't miss the opportunity of enjoying the chocolate while in Switzerland. Swiss grocery stories have entire aisles for chocolate and there are all sorts of chocolaterie shops where you can try different things - so I'm going to try as many as I can! Here's some of the stuff I've sampled so far:

I picked up the equivalent of chocolate pudding at the grocery store - and the Swiss have this stuff figured out! It tastes like a Frosty from Wendy's and it's rather cheap. 

This is actually a brand of chocolate from Latvia. The company is called Laima and someone gave me a dark chocolate bar with hazelnut - which goes great with a shortbread cookie.

This next one is the Nestle brand that's sold in Switzerland and it's called Cailler. Nestle's headquarters are based in Switzerland and I tried their classic milk chocolate bar. Very good and very similar to the milk chocolate from Ghirardelli.

When we were in Nyon today, we stumbled across an awesome chocolate shop called Rapp. They had an amazing selection of pastries, truffles, and chocolates, and I couldn't resist trying one of them. This was a chocolate mousse cake with white chocolate shavings. It was a great mid-afternoon snack and it reminded me a lot of the chocolate mousse from the Cheesecake Factory.

The latest addition to the menu is a Caramel Milk Chocolate Bar. The brand is Frey, which is considered to be one of the most popular and best value in Switzerland. I haven't tried it yet but I have high hopes for this one.

I'll be sure to update when I try more different flavors and brands!

The Award Goes To...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which is the fairest Disney park of all? Is it the Magic Kingdom, where you can venture into places like Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Frontierland, and others? Could it be the Animal Kingdom, where you can experience thrilling rides and then watch beautiful animals in what feels like an African wildlife reserve? What about Epcot, where you can experience cultures and cuisine from around the world? Or maybe it's the Hollywood Studios, with it's thrilling rides and rich history of cinema and entertainment.

As someone who has been fortunate enough to attend all four Disney parks, I can genuinely say that I really enjoy all four of them. I've been coming to Disney my entire life, and I have probably changed my mind about which park is my favorite as many times as I've been to the parks. I wouldn't consider myself to be a person who absolutely adores anything and everything Disney, but I always look forward to any opportunity to visit any of the parks, even if it's crowded or bad weather or both. I've been to the parks with my family on vacation, with friends for a night of hanging out, on romantic dates with my wife, and I've gone by myself - and I always have a great time no matter who I'm with - although some more than others.

I truly believe that each of the parks has something that everyone can enjoy. Whether it's exciting rides like Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom or Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom, you can find thrills at each of the four parks. Maybe you're looking for fun interactive shows, like Turtle Talk with Krush at Epcot or The Indiana Jones Stunt Show at Univerisal Studios. Or perhaps you want to go to a park where you can enjoy the food, which all of the parks have plenty of great options for quick service or more formal dining. I guess the only thing the parks don't really offer are rides that will scare you to death and leave you in pain and feel like you should go throw up - but if that's what you're looking for, find a different park because Disney isn't really looking to provide that kind of experience. If you are looking for something like that, I'll throw in my recommendation for Islands of Adventure at Universal - leave Six Flags over anything for the rednecks and thugs.

Now, onto my answer to the question I originally posed, what's the best park? While I understand it's a matter of opinion and people enjoy different aspects of each park, my personal favorite is Epcot. At one point in my life, I think Epcot was my least favorite of the four parks because I felt like there was nothing to do and there weren't any great rides. Now that I've gotten older and I have different things I want to enjoy, Epcot has many of the things that really appeal to me.

For me, Epcot features the best ride out of all the Disney parks, which is Soarin'. Soarin' is a simulated glider where you feel like you're flying through various scenes in California, and the ride does a great job of appealing to various senses to provide an awesome experience. I've ridden Soarin' enough times to know all of the scenes and what will happen, but I still look forward to when I'm next in line to buckle up for the flight. It may not be the fast-paced thrilling experience you get with Rockin' Rollercoaster or Everest, but it's still my favorite.

The other key for me that puts Epcot at the head of the class is the numerous dining options that are offered. I can find a great meal for a decent price in The Land, where much of the food is grown on location, or I can sample the food from the various countries featured around the World Showcase Lagoon. Although I don't have budget for it, I would love to be able to eat in all the restaurants in the countries at Epcot. If I'm looking for a fancy meal, I have options like Le Cellier Steakhouse in Canada, Tutto Italia in Italy, or a number of other great restaurants. If I want something quick, I could head to the Yorkshire County Fish Shop in England or the Fife and Drum Tavern in America. And if I'm needing something sweet, there's my favorite French bakery Boulangerie Patisserie, which holds a special place in my heart. If you can't tell, food is a big part of the experience for me.

Finally, I always enjoy the nightcap at Epcot, which is the fireworks show, Illuminations. While it's probably not my favorite show (Wishes wins by default since I did propose there), I really enjoy the setting at Epcot, the music, and the actual fireworks. It's cool to watch fireworks over the water with the combination of the countries lighting up at various points throughout the show. I could be biased, but I think Disney has this whole fireworks thing figured out.

Like I said, my opinion on why Epcot is the best park could be countered by someone else who has ten different points on why Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, or Hollywood Studios is the best Disney park. My hope is that when people come to Disney, they take advantage of every opportunity offered and they find things that make each park a great experience for people of all ages.

-BD