Grilled Wings:
Top honors go to Austin Grill. (The spice is unbeatable, and the house made Ranch dressing for dipping is perfection)
Second place is Hard Times Cafe. (Great flavoring and served smoking hot temp.)

Fried WIngs:
Top honors go to Buffalo Wild Wings. (OMFG … Asian Zing, Honey BBQ)
Second place is Cluck You. (Don’t let the cover of this book fool you, made to order. When they say “HOT”, believe it.)

We had great service, that’s notable since they’ve only been open 5 weeks! Lots of patrons were sipping wine, either by the bottle or glass. Don’t let the cover of this book throw you, the inside is decorated nicely. If you were driving by you might not stop. Please do, you won’t be disappointed. Read Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema’s First Bite review of Facci.

After much searching, the winner is from the Pioneer Woman Cooks. This chick has mad skills. Here is her recipe, with pics yo! When you print out her recipe to make the soup, and you will, note I have some mods. Her recipe is simple, fast and delicious. My mods are as follows, I’m sure you’ll have some of your own.

- 1 Carrot instead of 2
- 2 Teaspoons of Season-All Seasoned Salt instead of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
- Deleted 2 Teaspoons of Jane’s Crazy Mixed-Up Salt or other salt blend
- 3 Teaspoons (heaping) of Better than Bouillon Reduced Sodium Chicken Base instead of 2 Tbs chicken base (See, I name names bitch)
- 1/4 Teaspoon Celery Salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Locally, the TDR team is very partial to the Chicken Soup at the Hollywood Diner in Rockville, Md. A very close second is the soup at Woodside Deli in Silver Spring, MD. Woodside is in desperate need of a renovation, so just don’t look too close at any one surface. Taking kids? Sit more to the front, the walls are covered in old black and white pics. Toward the front, the pics are more or less from US History, (A subject they don’t teach anymore) toward the back the pics are more or less Fluffy Soft Porn, (A subject you can’t get away from) think naked pin-up gals. All are covered in the requisite 50 year old Woodside dust. Clean the fricking pics will ya! Drives me nuts. Oy!

To be fair there are a couple of exhibits worth your time. The Star Spangled Banner is super cool and well worth it. This exhibit is nicely designed, you see the flag and then read the history on the way out. Nice. I also enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s kitchen. It is her actual kitchen from her Cambridge, MA. home. Though I can see it only being of interest to a certain age of visitor. You can hear many parents telling their kids who Julia was. A lot of blank stares and “uh huhs” ahead. “Bon Appetit!” indeed.

The other exhibit worth mentioning is The First Ladies. The docent told us the exhibit will get larger, though it’s worth the time now. Take a look at all of the First Ladies portraits around the room and see if you can tell who the first one was to actually smile. As we sport 2 daughters, the First Ladies Inaugural gowns was a big hit. By-the-by, can someone take a better portrait of Michelle Obama? It may have been updated since we were there, but it looked like someone took Michelle’s pic with a cell phone. Come on.

So that’s it. It has a few things worth seeing but I’d skip it if I had a time crunch. I recommend the Natural History Museum, especially with kids in tow. A tip on parking: The Ronald Reagan Building. Located only a block away, you can park on weekends for $10 a day. Very convenient to the museums as well as the Washington Monument. Plus, it has super clean bathrooms and decent food court. It’s a nice place to stop for a drink or food and relax.

Little Pal, “What happened to your finger?”
Erin, “Broke it playing dodgeball.”
Little Pal, “Well, at least you didn’t break your neck and get paralyzed.”

“But that (3,000lb) scanner (that I paid thousands for) still works,” puled I. “Honey, you can buy a better scanner for eighty bucks these days, who will want that old dinosaur?” sez my smart wifey. “Well . . . “ that was the best I could come back with, lame-o. So I finally caved and loaded all that old computer shit into the XT and off we went to the Montgomery County Division of Solid Waste (Recyling Center).

What a cool place. I implore you to load up your “can’t-bare-to-part-with-these-I’m-going-to-fix-them-up-and-sell-them-on-EBay-treasures” and take them to be recycled. They take electronics, batteries, metals, wood, paint, kids, paper, books, on and on. Okay, they don’t take kids, I was just seeing if you were paying attention. We dropped off all of our computer stuff in a big box labeled, “Computer stuff.” Simple. TV stuff went into the “TV stuff” box. There are people at every station to help you. Did I forget to mention we also chucked about 10 old cable boxes? Where did they come from? There are signs near the electronic drop-off targeted especially for me, “ABSOLUTLEY NO SCAVENGING!” I gotta admit, I was looking through the box of other people’s old used shit and was actually saying to myself, “damn there’s an old Mac LC, why with just a few parts I could . . .” Let’s all say it out loud together shall we. “I could sell it on EBay.” Do you know how close I am to being on Style Network’s “Clean House” ? Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad, “Hey Niecy, how’s it going?”

I also need to admit how great it felt to just junk that stuff and move on. I now know it will be taken care of properly and that’s a much better outcome than I had planned. Plus, I now have way more room for any new projects I can scavenge! Let’s see, shoot on over to Craig’s List, and search for “used Macs.” Yeah baby, gotta run.

I wrote about it last year after the fact. I hoped to get the word out sooner this year, oops. :-) Been kinda busy.

If you have fidgety little ones (or boys) that might be more interested in (the ahem . . . lesser sports) lacrosse or soccer, you’re also in luck. Right next to the softball stadium are fields that inevitably have lacrosse or soccer games going, so that diversion is almost always there.  After (or before) the game, drop by one of our favorite haunts, Franklin’s in Hyattsville. I’m very partial to the gigantic “Franklin’s Club Sandwich” (feeds two) or the “Glorious Gloria,” grilled chicken, bacon, red onions and (I sub. provolone) for Swiss. Wash it down with a “Twisted Turtle Pale Ale,” whoa that’s good. The fun part of Franklin’s is the store that’s attached to it. It’s filled with toys from today and yesteryear and has a great selection of candy. The candy aisle used to be better, but it is still good.

Oh, they make the best Root Beer at Franklin’s. You can order some for lunch or dinner and you can take some home in a 64oz. jug. You have to pay a little for xtra for the bottle, but you get it back when you return it. It makes and OUTSTANDING Root Beer float . . . if you like that kinda thing. Uh . . . yeah I do.

Get out there and support our Terps!

Upcoming Terp Softball home games.

• 4/18 vs. Boston College (Double header)
• 4/19 vs. Boston College
• 4/22 vs. Penn State (Double header)
• 4/28 vs. George Washington (Double header)
• 4/29 vs. Delaware State (Double header)
• 5/2 vs. Georgia Tech (Double header)
• 5/3 vs. Georgia Tech

Enter RMSC practice swim group. The girls have never been part of a practice swim group, much less a swim team. This is a practice group to get one ready for summer swim teams, which I’ve been led to believe are fun affairs and not as serious as fall swim teams. Let’s hope so cuz I was ready to hurl after watching how many laps my gals went through on the first practice. Whoa, they ain’t playing these RMSCers!

After the third set of “give me 10 fifties, freestyle,” Lisa and I catch the attention of Austen as she is about to make the turn for another lap. She clearly mouths us this concise message, “I hate this.” Okay.

Austen is a junior, so she was swimming laps for a solid hour. Erin is a mini, she had a private half-hour lesson before the practice and swam about another half-hour. Having never done more than a few fun laps they impressed us. We were very proud of the effort those two gave today. Oh yes, they are very tired tonight. Hey, we get to do it all over again Wednesday, and Friday and Sunday at 8am if we want :-)

At dinner, Erin was talking about her experience today, “yeah, the lady said ‘just swim up and back 50 times.’ The way she said it made it sound SO EASY.”

Going to be tricky fitting softball and swimming together, but after all was said and done, the girls were pretty excited about swim practice. Once they get their wind it should get better. Hmmnn, now where did I put that flyer on rec league basketball?

Anyway, Camden Yard (even if the O’s play in it) is always a great place to see a game. We had to park on the other side of the Inner Harbor, but once again it was just gorgeous weather today so the walk was nice. The O’s had 2 separate ticket lines going for cash only $20 tiks on the upper level. It was a great deal, in and out of the ticket line in no time and our seats were in Sec. 348, right between home and third. Of course anytime you take kids to a ball game you feel like a mother bird because every time you look at your fledgling peeps their mouths are open. Tickets, parking, and food for 4 probably ended up being $160. I had 2 beers, my limit. Can’t miss on having Boog’s BBQ, and we didn’t. The Nats have Ben’s Chili Bowl, the O’s have Boog’s. Both are sure bets.

The Yankees hammered the O’s but good, 11-2. The newly minted Yankee, Mark “I’ll take the money and forget my hometown Baltimore” Texeira hit one out much to the dismay of the O’s faithful. It was a great old day at the ballpark. Now if my Natties will just come home.