Museum of Fine Arts

 I realised that I haven't put up many pictures recently so I've got a store of them :) This week, I visited the Museum of Fine Arts, I found out that entry was sponsored on Wednesdays after 4pm so I went in for a quick visit. It was really nice!

I think I enjoyed it particularly because I wasn't in a rush and I didn't have an agenda either so I walked around and tried to learn about art. I've finally figured out who the impressionists are, the 2 more famous ones are Monet and Renoir, whose paintings are on the top and lower right respectively. I really like those paintings mainly because they portray light in a beautiful way and it lifts my spirits when I look at them. I'm not great with the names of the paintings, only know that the one by Monet is called the "Haystack", because I saw it at the Chicago MFA as well. Make a guess which famous artist painted the painting on the top left, shouldn't be difficult since Van Gogh's paintings are very distinctive. The middle one is by Rembrandt and the lower left is a portrait painting by a famous portrait artist Sergant. It's a really nice way to spend the afternoon...  

My first cookies!

I baked my first cookies ever! Minus those from home econs and the ones I made in secondary school from a sesame street recipe which turned out too sweet to eat. They came from a recipe for mexican wedding cookies. They tasted not bad, but I think I overbaked them because I made them too big and couldn't estimate the baking time properly. Plus, I made the whole batch by hand and I had aching arms after. Right after that, I decided to buy a hand held mixer :)

I'll be baking my second batch of cookies today! This time, it's going to be a lemon pecan slice and bake sugar cookie adopted off this website: www.joythebaker.com. I really like the website because the pictures are pretty plus looking at the stuff she bakes makes me hungry! I hope the cookies turn out better this time..

Smoke Alarm

No picture today but thought I'd just tell everyone the story of "How I set off the smoke alarm". One good thing that came out of it is that I now know that the smoke alarm in my apartment works. I must say first that it's not a result of my poor culinary skills!! I was doing everything right, except I chose to use the 2nd untested oven in the kitchen and I suspect that it hasn't been used for years... After preheating the oven at high heat, I opened it and placed the chicken on the shelf (the other oven was set at a different temperature and was holding my trays of cookies), and lo and behold! A great cloud of smoke engulfed the kitchen and quickly migrated east to the hall. I had a split second decision to make: to close the oven door or not. I made the wrong choice: leave it open, maybe the oven will cool down and the fumes will cease. As I stared in horror at the hazy gas that overtook the hall, a loud beep started to sound. I rushed to the smoke alarm by the room (my poor friend who was staying with us, jet-lagged and catching a nap was jolted awake by now) and realised that there was no 'off' button. There was no way to turn off the sound! I imagined scenes of firefighters breaking down my door, neighbours rushing out of the building. Just as I was about to climb on a chair and prod some sense into the obstinate contraption, it stopped on its own. It had an automatic sensor! I just had to get the smoke out of the apartment! I opened the door, welcomed in the freezing chill and opened the door to the kitchen which led out to the hallway. I was quite pleased with how the air started to clear but it did not last. Soon, I heard a voice in the corridor and before me stood a European lady with an irate expression advising me to close the door because the smell of the "cooking" was permeating the corridor. Sigh.. what an embarassing day. I shut the door after a short mumble about smoke alarms and clearing air, and proceeded to apologise profusely to the friend who was rudely awakened and introduced to a cold front. At a time like this, you can't possibly expect me to take a picture, right?
p.s. If you would like to know, both the cookies and chicken are well and were happily enjoyed :)

Spring?

It's officially the first day of spring! And the temperature here today's 0 degC!! Haha, so much for spring... Weather here's so unpredictable, it changes from day to day. Over the last weekend, we had warm temperatures, a berry in the amazingly hardy plant in the balcony and all seemed to be in place. But by Monday, it was close to freezing point again. It was funny when I was chatting with my mum and she was perspiring in her cotton tank top and I was wrapped up in my pullover. I'm still trying to get used to this, W obviously loves the cooler weather. When we went for a walk, I wore 3 layers with a scarf and he wore 2 T shirts only! No jacket or scarf and he was teasing me the whole way... can't help it if I don't have much adipose tissue to store warmth :P Btw, W took these nice shots

Pancakes!

I found a recipe for really yummy buttermilk pancakes! Almost as good as the ones I had at the Les Amis cafe at Botanic Gardens. I made the batter and W helped to cook them so he thinks that they are really good because he made them. I'm still trying to convince him that cooking was the easiest part. Anyway, I'm really pleased because they are so yummy and easy to make, I think I'll be having pancakes for the next few weekends :) I love pancakes!

Hanging out

Some friends came by to visit last week and we were out for lunch. Boston's supposed to be famous for its lobsters and clam chowder so we headed to a nice seafood restaurant for lunch. I decided to skip the lobster (no way I was finishing that on my own!) and had a really yummy clam chowder. I must admit that I haven't had any lobsters since we've been here.. somehow, I don't really fancy seafood cooked western style. Give me chilli or steamed crab anyday! 

As for the statue, that's John Harvard sitting in the Harvard Yard. Notice a gold sheen on his left foot? That's because everyone rubs his foot when they visit, I have no idea why.. We postulated that intelligence somehow gets conducted from that foot. I didn't rub it though so it didn't benefit my IQ score at all.. 

Carrot Ginger Muffins

We had an eventful week- it was W's bd and he loves carrot cakes so I followed a Martha Steward recipe for carrot ginger muffins with an orange cream cheese frosting :) It turned out yummy! Was quite pleased actually and W liked it alot. In fact, we had extra frosting and we gobbled it up as well. Can you tell that we're already putting on weight? 

Chocolate Lava Cake

I baked my first chocolate lava cake! Didn't get a good picture because I was trying to hurry W to eat it before it gets cold :) It was really easy to make too! Just don't ask me for the recipe because the amount of calories that goes in there is scary...

Glass Flowers

I visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History yesterday. A sec school friend of mine is studying at Harvard and she could enter the museum and bring a friend for free :) I got to see the famed glass flowers. Yep! The flowers you see in the pictures are completely made of glass! When she told me that we were going to see glass flowers, I was thinking of artistic type glass flowers akin to the glass sculptures hanging off the walls in Ritz Carlton (I obviously didn't understand the meaning of natural history). When we got to the exhibit, I was thinking to myself, " Where are the glass flowers?" It took me a while to realise that these were the glass flowers: they were so life-like in texture and in colour, amazing! I think my friend was more entralled with the flowers though, she used to teach bio so she was pointing out the cross sections of the ovaries and other bio-related stuff to me and frankly, much of it was greek to me. When we looked at some natural drawings of fish at another exhibit, the drawings were just too life-like for my liking... maybe I should go to the museum of fine art instead.. hee hee.

Yummy Quiche

I baked my first quiche!

Now that I've kinda figured out how to make tart pastries, I thought I'd give the quiche a try. It was surprisingly easy to make, I made an olive oil pastry and added spinach and bacon. Only thing was that the dish I used was a little too big, which explains why my quiche looks so flat. Oh well, I've come to realise that there's a steep learning curve to cooking. I'm glad that I've finally started cooking though :) Maybe I'll be able to rival my sis when I get back!

Smoot

When you walk along Harvard Bridge, you'll stumble upon this strange graffitti on the ground. What in the world is a smoot? An ancient unit of measurement? It turns out to be a 1958 unit of length in the form of freshman Oliver Smoot, who was rolled head over heels over the entire length of the bridge. There are markings on the ground indicating every 10 smoots and the bridge measured 364.4 smoots plus an ear. This famous MIT prank has been preserved through the years as a testament to MIT's innovation and leadership in technological discoveries... Stories like that make me wonder what I missed in my university education but let's not go down that path... 

MIT

This is the famous MIT, where you bump into geeks and techies at every turn of the corridor. Cool place and as usual, I'm impressed by the beautiful architecture. Many of you would have already heard of the famous MIT pranks, how they doll up the dome based on current trends. I've included some of the pictures of the pranks so you'll get a better idea of what I mean. It's really funny.. haha :) I think it also gives me a peek into their philosophy of study hard and play hard. We got to know this guy who graduated from MIT and he was telling us abt this competition he entered where they program a robot to play WOW and the competition is to find out whose robot wins. I was just wondering why anybody would do that since the purpose of playing a video game is to enjoy the process of playing. I think I just don't get it.

Snow Storm

I'm going to hold off some interesting stories to bring you live news on the snow storm. W says that the Channel News Asia site mentioned the storm. Well, it's been snowing since last night. Snowed lightly the day before, stopped and returned with more gusto last night. When we got up, everything was covered in snow. There's supposed to be 10-15 inches on the ground by the end today. Thankfully for me, I'm warm and toasty at home. Of course, poor W has to trudge through the slosh to get to work. School, even the colleges, are closed for today. When I first heard snow storm, images of hurricanes and cyclones came to mind, but I've found out that the snow storm is our equivalent of the thunderstorm except that this has potentially worse complications. The snow really impacts the pp who have to commute to work, who live in houses or in the suburbs. During the last major storm, electricity supply was cut off at some suburban places, not to mention the increased numbers of accidents, the restricted mobility, the shoveling and the cold.. Just when we thought that it was getting warmer here. At least this tropical girl is admiring the view of her winter wonderland next to the heater...