Sunday at the VMFA

A brief note regarding the lack of activity around here.  I am certainly not going to make my one post per week goal for February, but I am not going to fret because 1) a whole new month is right around the corner and 2) most of my time and energy the past few weeks has been spent on Keizo!

As has become somewhat of a ritual, he joins me stateside every spring during the rugby off-season.  This was his third trip to Charlottesville, and for better or worse, I didn't feel much pressure to create an itinerary for his stay.  We stayed quite local; eating at home quite a bit, going on my favorite easy hike, and even spending an afternoon in the library at school (me catching up on some reading, Keizo doing some reading but also fidgeting and eating clandestine snacks).

Our biggest adventure was a trip to Richmond this past weekend, where we spent the afternoon at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and then wandered Cary Street in search of some dinner afterwards.  The art museum's permanent collection is free, and was more than enough to give us slight museum fatigue.  

Scenes from our visit:

Lunch on the patio; come back sunshine!

Don't you want to touch this canvas?

Chihuly continues to intrigue me.

Keizo and I both liked this Roy Lichtenstein

Fantastic rotund farm animal statues.

Precise cubes and drape-y industrial felt.

The Art Deco/Art Nouveau Collection was my favorite overall...

..and included a whole room of Tiffany glass.

Keizo liked this Chuck Close portrait.

"[Men] with Vegetation"

Chihuly, indoors and out!

Bake Me Away

My oven got a bit of a workout this weekend with back to back days of recipes (!) that required baking.  It seemed to enjoy the exercise, since both dishes were well worth the time it took them to bake.

On Saturday, I threw together a batch of Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondies between finishing up dinner and hosting a screening of "Laughology."  <---That makes it sound much more serious than it was, i.e. friends getting together to watch a movie.  In January, I attended my first laughter yoga class, which was so unlike anything I had ever done that I went back for a second (and I am looking forward to my third next Saturday!)  Laughter yoga feels more like a summer camp drama class than yoga, no high level of flexibility required.

The blondies were a yummy end to an enjoyable evening.

After going sweet on Saturday, I went savory for Sunday dinner and followed (as much as I ever do) a recipe for Savory Sausage Turnovers from Cooking Light.  I had potatoes to use up, so I know that I had more filling than the recipe called for, but I could hardly get 1/2 cup (the amount the recipe recommended) of it into twice the amount of dough it recommended.

I also happened to look at the nutrition panel on the refrigerated pie dough, and let's just say this wasn't exactly a light meal.  I like Cooking Light because their recipes are usually pretty easy and have lots of vegetables, but I think they are sneaky, sneaky, sneaky when it comes to the nutritional information.  Usually a serving is less than half of what I would eat; and in this instance they must have used magical no-calorie pie dough for each turnover to be less than 400 calories.

Off to a bit of a rough start...

Whining aside, the unfortunate looking turnover I had for dinner was tasty, and I am really looking forward to eating its prettier siblings for lunch this week.

...but had a strong finish!