We heart Baltimore.

Ben had Friday off (have I mentioned that I LOVE his every-other-Friday-off schedule?) so we decided to spend the day in Baltimore. We love Baltimore. And it takes less than an hour to get there, assuming no traffic. Although somehow we always end up there when it's cold. We still have so much exploring to do there, but on Friday we hit some new areas of town. We passed so many interesting neighborhoods with so much character and fantastic architecture...I wanted to explore more and take pictures with the Diana, but we'll save that for a warmer day.

Our first stop was the Baltimore Museum of Art. It's FREE! And we were the only people there. Along with lots of museum security that kept a close eye on us. On Elsa. The girls actually enjoyed the museum and Amelia was really intrigued by the art. They had a good collection there. Elsa had to be restrained in the stroller or held to prevent the loss of important artwork. But she liked looking for paintings or sculptures of animals and making the corresponding sounds. We actually managed to stay there for 2 hours and saw all of the exhibits. Sometimes Amelia was taking longer than I was to look at things. I loved it.






(The only art we were allowed to touch.)







We were headed to a pizza place for dinner but passed by this diner and knew we had to stop. It's called the Paper Moon Diner. Fun decor and fun atmosphere. The menus were made out of old library books. There were strange things hanging everywhere. It kept the girls entertained. And we felt redeemed from our depressing lunch at a darkened, smelly Applebees a few weeks ago when a momentary lapse of judgment lead to our poor decision to eat there, followed by a strong resolve to not eat at chain restaurants when possible.












(Elsa is captivated by the ceiling.)

After dinner, we discovered that we were right next to Charm City Cakes, home of the Food Network's Ace of Cakes show!



Our final stop was the Maryland Science Center at the Inner Harbor. On Friday evenings during the winter, the admission is greatly discounted. Score! And strangely, it wasn't crowded at all. (For the locals: the Baltimore Aquarium is also discounted on Friday evenings in the winter...I can't bring myself to pay full price there.)

Everyone had a blast at the Science Center. Elsa was happy that she was allowed to touch everything. (And too often was found licking things.)














Amelia thought the bed of nails was so cool. And a rare photo of her wearing pants! Only agreed upon because it was so cold and she still wore a dress with them.










Uncovering dinosaur bones. Elsa spent most of her time in the dinosaur exhibit "roaring."

Betty Crocker was right.

I spent the weekend experimenting with chocolate chip cookie recipes. Whenever I use real butter, which the experts always say to use, my cookies flatten out. So I decided to try a recipe with butter, and then the same recipe using margarine and see what happened. People are always claiming to have found the perfect recipe, like this one at allrecipes.com. (Now, the perfect recipe really depends on your own personal tastes. I happen to like my chocolate chip cookies soft and chewy.)

Over 3,000 people have rated this particular recipe, each with a different opinion. And over 400 photos have been uploaded, each looking VERY different. Clearly, not everyone is doing the same thing. It's impossible to know what works best when the comments are so varied: eggs MUST be at room temperature, bake at 335 not 325, refrigerate for 24 hours, refrigerate exactly 36 hours, don't add any extra flour, be sure to add extra flour, bake at 375, melt butter, don't melt butter, add less sugar, etc.

I have to say, the batch I made using butter spread a lot more than the batch with margarine. Note the difference:


The butter batch. Tasty, but too flat.


The margarine batch, with one butter cookie for comparison. Getting better...

But I still wasn't pleased with the results. Then I realized that I needed to return to the classics: Betty Crocker and shortening. Shortening got a bad reputation with that whole trans fat thing, but they now make it without the trans fat. Now I'm no food scientist (although my dad is) but I would say that butter, margarine, and shortening are all bad for us in some way and should all be used in moderation (hopefully consuming 6 warm cookies from the oven is moderation?) and I'm never setting out to be healthy when baking.

So I broke out my old Betty Crocker cookie recipe. When I was a kid, I made chocolate chip cookies ALL the time. And I used this Betty Crocker recipe which calls for half shortening and half butter (I used margarine...we never had such extravagances as butter when I was a kid). My cookies always turned out perfectly. (Except the time when I was 8 or 9 and made them by myself for the first time and used salt in place of sugar.) Why I have been trying other recipes over the years I'm not sure.

Perfection:




Round, soft, and chewy.


And delicious.


Don't forget the milk.

So here it is. My perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe (altered slightly from Betty Crocker). However, there is a good chance that this won't be YOUR perfect recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Betty Crocker, my changes are in red)

• 2/3 cup shortening (I used butter flavored Crisco)
• 2/3 cup butter or margarine (I used butter)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (I double the vanilla)
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 (12 ounce) package chocolate chips

Directions:

Cream shortening, butter, and sugars in large mixing bowl; blend in eggs and vanilla.
Combine dry ingredients and add to butter mixture. Mix until well blended.
Stir in chocolate chips. (And no need to refrigerate this dough...because really, who wants to wait for that anyway?)
Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets. (I like parchment paper.)
Bake at 375° for 7-10 minutes until golden brown. (I bake at 350°)

Note: For a softer, rounder cookie add 1/2 cup flour. (Definitely add the extra flour...makes a rounder cookie, but doesn't make it too cakey.)

I usually half the recipe and it makes about 2 dozen cookies.

I'm loving the Diana Mini.

I'm pretty happy about my first attempt with the Diana Mini. (What the heck is a Diana Mini? Click here to find out.) I got a few pictures I loved and a few with some strange results that I liked and a few with strange results that weren't that cool. It's fun to get a roll of film developed and not really know what to expect.






(This was a fun effect...I didn't advance the film and did a double exposure.)

Girls Night

Amelia and I got to go out on a fun date Saturday night. She was very excited about getting dressed up and putting on her lipstick. We met some other moms and daughters at a musical (Geppetto and Son) that was done by a local Children's Theatre. It was really fun. On the drive down, Amelia said "it's so quiet in here...Elsa isn't making noise and Dad's not trying to talk to you...I like it." Before we went to the play, Amelia got to choose somewhere to go for dinner. She chose Chik-fil-A. We also did a little shopping and I let her pick out the cheapest thing in the Disney Store, an Ariel water bottle. She was thrilled.

Natural History Museum

Saturday morning we headed downtown to the Natural History Museum. This is one of our favorites and it had been awhile. Elsa loves animals so we thought she would really enjoy the mammal exhibit but I think it freaked her out. I'm not sure if it was our close proximity to the animals, or the fact that they were real but not moving. But she had fun running around and enjoyed all the other exhibits. Amelia really liked the geology, gems, and minerals exhibit as well as the insect zoo.