Hello Cupcake!
Hello Cupcake is locating just across the street from the Dupont Circle metro stop.
By Elisabeth Grant
Hello Cupcake is dangerously convenient. You’re riding along, minding your own business on the Red Line when you suddenly notice the Dupont Circle station is next. You think to yourself, “If I just popped off here for a sec Hello Cupcake is just one block down…” And before you know it you’re off the train, across the street, and at the counter ordering a Peanut Butter Blossom, Triple Coconut, Dulce de Leche, and Peppermint Penny. The cashier wraps it up an a brown box, sticks their adorable Hello Cupcake sticker on it and you’re on your way to being the best roommate/girlfriend/sister ever.
D.C. is awash in cupcakeries right now. Georgetown Cupcake still regularly draws a line out the door on the weekends, Red Velvet is putting up a good fight as a relative newcomer to the scene, and Curbside Cupcake has made cupcakes mobile, zooming around the city tweeting as they go. And those are just a few examples.
How do so many cupcake establishments survive? Perhaps D.C. residents just have an insatiable hunger for tiny dessert. Or maybe its that each place brings it own angle to the cupcake scene. In the case of Hello Cupcake, I think it has two specific positives going for it: its fantastic icing to cake ration (2 to 1 if you ask me) and its excellent location. Right in the heart of Dupont, Hello Cupcake is easy to get to on the way home from work or after dinner on a night out.
Pumpkin Spice Cupcake!
Like the other cupcake shops in the area Hello Cupcake offers a number of delicious flavors, including many seasonal ones. Right now for the fall they’re offering Caramel Apple and Pumpkin Spice cupcakes. Year round you can select from Peanut Butter Blossom (chocolate cupcake topped with peanut butter icing and a Hershey’s kiss), You Tart (lemon cupcake with lemon cream cheese frosting–my personal favorite), 24 Carrot (carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting), and a number of others (including gluten free and vegan options).
So as you metro home off to your Thanksgiving holiday this week, maybe pop in to the oh-so-convenient Hello Cupcake and try it for yourself. Pumpkin Spice cupcakes instead of Pumpkin pie, anyone?
Good Eats at the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
By Elisabeth Grant
There are lots of excellent reasons to visit the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). Reasons that begin on the exterior, with its unique right-angle free architecture, to what lays inside, from the Rasmuson Theater, with its dances and storytelling, to the various floors that contain the museum’s 825,000 art and artifact items. Any or all of these features could lead me to suggest you check out the National Museum of the American Indian, but that’s not why I think you should go. I think you should go for the cafeteria.
Say what?! Yes, I know the sharp memories the word “cafeteria” elicits. Memories of milk cartons, rectangular pizzas, hairnets, and mystery meats. But put those memories aside. Put even the word cafeteria aside, and embrace the Mitsitam Cafe (“Mitsitam” means “Let’s Eat,” in the language of the Delaware and Piscataway peoples, according to the NMAI web site). At the cafe you will find lunch trays and lines to the cashier, but you will also find yucca fries with lime and cilantro, blue corn bread, buffalo chili on fry bread, and grilled venison flank steak. This is not your average cafeteria.
The NMAI’s Mitsitam Cafe features “indigenous cuisines of the Americas” and is split up by region into 5 serving station, each with its own unique and traditonal options. The stations include:
- Northern Woodlands - featuring dishes like turtle chowder, honey cured duck, and corn meal crusted fried frog legs
- South America – offering Peruvian chicken, paspusas, and guava tapioca pudding
- Northwest Coast – serving up cedar-plank salmon, fiddle-head fern salad, and mussles in seaweed broth
- Meso America – including options like pulled pork, yellow corn tacos, and churros
- Great Plains – presenting buffalo chili, grilled chipotle chicken tacos, and mesquite pinon cookies
Selection of food at the Mitsitam Cafe
The options listed above are only a few of the many many delicious main dishes, sides, appetizers, desserts, and drinks offered. Check out a more thorough list in this Spring Menu PDF from the cafe, though expect some additions and deletions from the menu when you visit. While some of this food may be out of some visitors’ comfort zones, there are plenty of options that will please even the pickiest of eaters (who doesn’t love the classic taco?). Federal employees will also be pleased when they learn that just by showing their government badge they’ll received 10 percent off their meal.
So yes, definitely visit the National Museum of the American Indian for the rich cultural (and free) experience it offers. But also consider just popping in for a bite.
Rush Hour Produce
A view of the stalls at the farmers market near the White House.
by Chrysoula Economopoulos
What more could you ask for than a quick pit stop for fresh farmers market produce on the way home from work? The aromatic scent of basil emanating from my shopping bag erased any anxiety brought on by parking lot traffic caused by Betsey Johnson live at her Georgetown store last night.
Encouraged and subsequently launched by First Lady Michelle Obama on September 17, 2009, the FreshFarm Market by the White House takes place every Thursday from 3-7pm through October 29. In step with her promotion of healthy living and eating, Mrs. Obama helped secure the necessary approvals to close off Vermont Avenue, NW, between H Street NW and I Street NW (see map). Surprisingly, the flow of traffic continued uninterrupted despite this smaller thoroughfare being closed off. At least this was the case yesterday evening, though the First Lady’s presence on opening day likely caused some kinks in the flow.
This farmers market features 19 local farmers and producers selling seasonal fresh vegetables (peppers, tomatoes and potatoes galore… and that basil mentioned earlier), meats, dairy products, flowers. There was even a sign advertising empanadas, bringing a little global action to this local feast.
Tomatoes, peppers, basil, zucchini and more.
And let’s not forget the lavender products. A woman from Welsh Gardens Lavender Farm in Warrenton, Virginia beckoned me over to test out some all-natural lavender soap. She pumped a dab of foam onto my hands and rinsed it off with water poured from a white porcelain pitcher into a matching receiving bowl, leaving my hands clean and lavender-scented.
With the fall season at hand, there are also a number of other farmers markets in metro D.C. and the broader region where you can buy fall produce and other local products.
Lavender products from Welsh Gardens Lavender Farm in Warrenton, Virginia.
WashingtonPost.com features a handy “Farmers Markets 2009” tool to help you locate the nearest market on a map. The map also allows you to browse by day of the week. For those (like me) who have the impression that farmers markets mainly take place at the crack of dawn until early afternoon on weekends only, it ain’t so. I was happily surprised to see how many markets are open any day of the week, during mornings and afternoons, as well as on weekends.
So if farmers markets are your thing, check out the one near the White House to experience some of the sights, sounds, smells and tastes offered by local farms in the heart of the city. Just three Thursdays left this season!