Oh Mackenzie!

Back from a weekend in DC, staying with the oh-so-lovely Karen. Festivities and eating included: Bravo! Bravo! for monthly meet-in happy hour; Fuddruckers for "before I get too drunk" dinner; Lucky Bar for a round of Royal Flushes; Sharon's for a night cap; returning borrowed furniture via Zipcar; new 'dos at Paul Mitchell the School (even minus 9 inches of length, I love it!); Sushi-zen; Man vs. Wild, Monopoly, tic-tac-toe, pyramid, dots, and wonderful company at Jeremy & Beth's; Mass; Dim-sum at Mark's Duck House ("Why, oh why, my little siu mai, Do I love you so?"); Target (the best store ever); and then home again (dinner at Fridays with Ben).

And after you browse through the links galore above. . .

Thanks to a recent post by Cybele on Tastespotting, I've been enlightened to Mackenzie Limited. And, if I weren't in such a bind with money these days, I would definitely throw a party this weekend catered by this company. The food just seems like the kind of classy food you'd serve at the celebration of your 50th wedding anniversary at your Victorian-era mansion - which you inherited from your father, who inherited it from his father, and so on and so forth - a black-tie event, of course. I don't even know where to begin to tell you about all the wonderful food they have for purchase (and which I want to taste) on this site. Perhaps the Gravlax Caviar, that is probably the cutest presentation I have ever seen. Or maybe the Chocolate Truffle Bars, which I just want to sink my teeth into regardless of how many calories it has or how many cavities it will give me. Or perhaps even these adorable Cappuccino Cups, for which we have famed chocolatier Christopher Norman to thank, and whose cups and saucers are edible. In any case, you all know how much I love chocolate and just food in general, so this site is wonderful. Perhaps I'll indulge myself a little for my birthday - which is coming up - in like two months (don't forget or it'll just sneak up on you like a ninja).

In other new, the latest Hay Hay It's Donna Day! is being hosted by Peabody (over at Culinary Concoctions by Peabody). I'm going to try to create something for this event, just so I can start getting my feet wet in the food-blogging world. I haven't decided yet if I'll make a sweet or savory cheesecake. Savory would be something different, but this creme brulee cheesecake is almost screaming for the "Tran-touch" (I'm not sure what that comes off like, but I know how I wanted it to sound in my head). Perhaps a torch to the top and some berries would be just what it needs. In any case, the deadline for posting cheesecakes on my blog/submission of recipes to the competition is March 17th. I figured that I can take this week to decide what I want to make and next week to make it. Hopefully, it all turns out pretty good. I probably won't win because the other bloggers participating have been doing this for quite a while, and have been cooking for longer, but I'd still like to participate.

And in un-food-related news, in addition to participating in the 34th Annual One Day Hike at the end of April (only 50K, not the 100 K that Karen and I had originally planned), I will be starting to train for the Richmond Spring Triathlon, which will be held at the end of August. All is not lost with the latter event because Ben said that he would do it with me, and I will be signing up for membership to the Hampton YMCA later today. YAY! Tran's getting back into shape. Actually, "back into" makes the assumption that I was once IN shape, which is not completely true. So the correct thing to say would be, "YAY! Tran's getting into the best shape of her life!"