Cookie hiatus

I have given up 3 valuable days of cookie production to go to Washington DC with my sweetheart for a technology conference that he has to attend (I'm going to go to the plenary session today). Washington is a lot of fun, though - we spent about 3 hours walking around yesterday in museums and seeing monuments - a couple of shows at the National Gallery: 6-ft. Constables, and, charmingly, lots of British people to see them, too; Dutch alterpieces that I wanted John to see; and photographs of NYC. Then Air & Space for Amelia Earhart's plane (I had to source a picture of it when I worked at Pleasant Company), and the National History Museum is under construction so they had moved the popular treasures of American History temporarily to Air & Space - fun and slightly appalling as well (this is important?!?), George Washington's uniform, Jackie O's inaugural cape (for over the gown), the ruby slippers, Julia Child's recipe for pain de mie (white sandwich bread), Barbie, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, sheet music and a recorded clip. We walked through the new WWII monument, and the Vietnam Wall, in the dark - and lots of people taking photographs with digital cameras, in the dark - what's up with that?

We came back to the hotel and decided we were too tired for a movie, so we went to dinner at a tapas place - Jaleo - originally recommended by a librarian friend, that we had gone to before, and it was some of the best food I have had in a long time. Oxtails with garlic mashed potatoes, chick pea & spinach stew, a little salad with anchovies, pine nuts, and capers, and a Spanish tortilla - omelet with potatoes. And a delicious glass of some kind of red, that was one of those blends of several varieties, and very soft, no harshness in it.

Before I left I managed to bake the ruggelach - don't they look luscious -

and miles of jam cookies - I have two pans this big, plus 4 smaller ones in the freezer
I also can use this time away from cookies for working on the Deb's Lunch web site, and real work checking in with my online class, and typing recipes for REAP, so time to get coffee and off to all that.