Tacoma Gem

TACOMA MINI TOUR: Now that CJ is down at University of Washington Tacoma at least one day a week, we're getting to know our neighbor city to the south better. 

The UW-Tacoma campus is right in the heart of the museum district of Tacoma. Across the street are the Tacoma Art Museum, the Washington State History Museum, and the Chihuly Glass Museum.

We actually haven't been inside any of those yet, but we have done the 'poor man's' museum tour of the district, by visiting the outdoor Chihuly glass displays, for instance. This blue glass installation on a walkway between campus and the Chihuly museum reminds me of rock candy on a stick.

And I've not twice visited a building I've driven by dozens of times over the years, but never stopped inside until recently - Tacoma's old Union Station. It's absolutely beautiful.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has a web page outlining the building's history. It notes that "Tacoma's reputation as the "City of Destiny" began when it was chosen by the Northern Pacific Company in 1873 as the western terminus of the northern route of the transcontinental railroad, then under construction." 

Naturally, the railroad station and tracks helped propel the city into a center for industrial and commercial development. Tacoma's economy and population grew (from just under 2,000 in 1873 to 37,714 in 1890, per the GSA).

The first train station was built in Tacoma in 1883, and nearly 10 years later moved to the site of the current building on Pacific Avenue in 1892. In 1906, grand designs for a new Union Station got underway. Construction commenced in 1909, and the station was open in May of 1911. The station served tens of thousands of passengers in the peak of railway ridership in the 1930s, and during World War II's boom, as well. However, after the war, train ridership began to wane as more Americans embraced the car-in-every-garage dream. The GSA reports, "The last passenger train left Union Station on June 14, 1984, and the abandoned building soon fell into disrepair."

The photo below is a look back toward the station after walking across the overpass over the railroad tracks. 

Today, the building has been remarkably repurposed. It's a free public art gallery, meeting place, and home to a Federal Courthouse.

The rotunda is breathtaking, as is the Chihuly sculpture, “End of the Day,” hanging from the center of the dome.

Out windows toward Pacific Avenue, you can see part of the UW Tacoma campus.

There, you'll find “Water Reeds,” a Chihuly creation.

Below, my parents help provide scale so you can see how b

The enormous east window is populated adorned by Chihuly's “Monarch Window.”

When Annabelle and I visited, the sun and the glass created pretty orange reflections on the mezzanine.

In the upper south mezzanine is “Lackawanna Ikebana.”

Below, Annabelle points out a favorite glass element and provides scale to give you an idea just how enormous the installation is.

There are a few relics from the past down in the 'basement' of the building. 

Artifacts include original drawings dating back to when Union Station was still on the drawing board.

If you ever have a chance to visit Tacoma's Union Station in its present form, I absolutely suggest you do so!

Busy Bakers

CAKE DONUT: We're still cranking out about one cake a month for Birthday Dreams. Recently, we signed up for a request from an 8 year old whose birthday party theme was "Donuts." Interesting. We called Birthday Dreams to ask how literal that request was. Did the birthday girl really want donuts instead of a cake? It turns out that she actually wanted a cake. OK, we can deal with that.

I went on Amazon and found there are actually a number of silicone molds available for oversized donuts. I ordered a couple (not sure which one I'd like best). We went for the bigger one when they arrived.

We used our standard chocolate cake recipe and filled the mold twice, producing two donuts about 9-10 inches across. We also baked a third layer in a standard cake pan, to act as a 'plate' of sorts for the donuts. We iced the plate in light blue, because that was the birthday girl's favorite color.

We stacked our two donuts one atop the other, first icing each one with some royal icing to make it look more like a decorated donut.

Everyone knows that sprinkles make any donut better, so we carefully spread multi-colored sprinkles atop the donuts.

We toyed with making smaller, companion donuts to go with, but weren't happy with them. We thought the big donuts looked good by themselves.

CJ and Annabelle were happy to make the reject donuts disappear.

A couple days later we took on a different, pretty big baking project. Kennedy had a bake off at school and wanted some help with it. He wanted something meant to impress, so if you're like me, your mind might go to Elvis. :)

I suggested we go with three different kinds of cupcakes, inspired by different iterations of Elvis.

During his '68 Comeback special, Elvis was smokin' hot. So we made dark Devil's Food cupcakes complete with heat from chili powder. They were topped with a homemade marshmallow meringue, and spicy Cinnamon Imperials on top. 

The Aloha from Hawaii cupcakes were coconut cake and buttercream, with some macadamia nuts for good measure. They were topped by an edible orchid to represent the leis Elvis wore in Hawaii.

Annabelle made adorable bejeweled custom cupcake wrappers for each one, to mimic Elvis' iconic white jumpsuit.

                             

Last but not least were the Viva Las Vegas cupcakes. Wrapped in gold foil, they were delicious banana cupcakes topped with crunchy peanut butter, then covered in a a browned butter buttercream and topped with a malted milk ball. Fantastic!

STOWAWAYS: Enough about baking, let's talk about bees. Recently, I read an interesting article in the New York Times about a program in Wisconsin that asks residents to stow their mowers away for the month of May to allow bees to gather pollen from the flowers of dandelions and clover in the springtime. 

It sounds like a great idea. I hope it catches on around the country.

Feeding Teens

DINNER IS SERVED: As is the new normal, I'm way behind on blog posts. I blame the pandemic for disrupting our daily routines so drastically.

Anyway, we have been keeping up with some routines, and that includes heading up a Teen Feed dinner service on the fourth Saturday of every month. 

To try to help keep it interesting for the volunteers and the diners, I try to come up with a different dinner service theme every month. For March, we went with "AM//PM," and served breakfast for dinner.

For the meal, bakers made 55 servings of French toast casserole. (I found a good recipe online for a large scale, pecan topped dish, although its instructions were a little wonky.)

We prepped 9-dozen plus scrambled eggs (with tons o' cheese), hundreds of hash brown patties, and 10 pounds of pork sausage. We also provided vegan alternatives to each of the preceding items. 

We had dozens of big ol' sliced oranges, and even some fun breakfast beverages.   

Naturally, we had powdered sugar and real, organic maple syrup to top the French toast.

Fortunately, we had four super capable volunteers helping out in the kitchen this go round. They were so good at prepping and serving, that freed CJ and Annabelle up to do some deep cleaning in the kitchen. Let's just say that it had been a 'good' long time since the floors were thoroughly mopped or the microwaves were cleaned.

Last month, our Teen Feed service fell just a couple of days before Fat Tuesday, so we went with a Mardi Gras theme.

We decked out the tables in purple, gold, and green, the colors of Mardi Gras, and had beaded necklaces and other decorations spread about. 

Our menu embraced traditional Mardi Gras food. Naturally, jambalaya was the main entree. 

I found a great recipe to make an enormous batch of it. Kennedy and I each prepped some of the ingredients ahead of time, and then collaborated and combined on site.

We made Maque Choux, a creamy corn dish, as a side. 

Our take on King Cake was cupcakes covered in Mardi Gras-colored sprinkles. The students who were volunteering with us in February had fun doing that job. 

The "Dollar Store Magic" necklaces and napkins made it all look very festive for our guests. 

We even served mocktails! The hurricane, a fruity punch, is the "official" drink of Mardi Gras. We didn't add the rum to our rendition. 

Shopping for this month's feast, I have to admit to experiencing some sticker shock. According to a recent article from Patch, "Proteins like meat, fish, poultry and eggs are up 21 percent in Washington. Fruits, vegetables, cereals and bakery items are up over 11 percent. Dairy and related products cost over 7 percent more." Given this, it sure makes me grateful we have such a wonderfully generous team that keeps providing for the teens month in and month out. 

Bird Brain

 

MONKEY WRENCH : Yesterday was one of those days. Booked to the gills, with work starting at 6 a.m., plus multiple other Zoom meetings, a Tacoma round trip, a White Center run. It was a schedule with no wiggle room whatsoever.

Things got more complicated at 9:06 a.m. when CJ walked in the back door (after taking our dogs out) and announced, "There's a bird on the patio."

I was rushing to get a cup of coffee between meetings and brusquely respond, "Yeah, there are usually about 20 birds out there." (We have two busy bird feeders.)

"But this one's on the ground. I think it's hurt," CJ implored.

"Aw geez, just what I need," I think, heading out to the patio. I look around and say, "I don't see him."

"He's over there," CJ pointed.

I still couldn't see any damn bird.

"Here!" he said, walking over to a tiny greyish brown blob near the edge of the patio. Even with my glasses on, I thought it was a dirt clod. But it was pulsating. And it had a long, thin beak.

"Oh no. That's a hummingbird," I sighed and then swore. "Dammit. This is not on the schedule."

The hummer's eyes were closed and he was barely able to remain upright. I put a little patio table over the injured bird to keep the rain off him, told CJ I *had* to get to a Zoom meeting, and asked him to start doing the Google to figure out what we were supposed to do with this poor creature.

CJ enlisted Annabelle's help, and they learned they should put the injured bird in a shoebox with a towel on the bottom, that it should be placed in a warm, dry place, and that he needed to be fed frequently.

CJ and I had to head to Tacoma, so Annabelle gently collected the hummer, placed him in his temporary shelter (a shoebox from Annabelle's closet), and she babysat the bird for a couple of hours.

I wasn't able to get back home until noon. Upon arrival, I was so happy to see that our little patient looked ever-so-much better! No longer a gray blob, he had all his beautiful humming bird colors! He was hopping about his box and eagerly eating from the feeder!

Annabelle had done some research and after SO MANY calls, located a vet/wildlife rehab center who would accept the patient. The address was in Kent - which isn't too terribly far from us - 20 minutes or so, I surmised.

About 1 p.m., we loaded into the car and I punched the address into Waze - egad! The center was actually up in the Cascadian foothills in the little town of Black Diamond, some 45 minutes away.

I sighed and then swore. "Dammit. This is NOT on the schedule."

But what's one to do when a sweet little hummer is depending on you for its very survival? Well, you drive the bird to Black Diamond, that's what you do.

During the car ride, our little charge was feeling so much better, he actually managed to crawl out of a little hole in the shoebox. :0 Fortunately, Annabelle was able to scoop him up and return him to his cardboard recovery center.

We were very happy to hand the hummer off to the kind folks at Puget Sound WildCare. They immediately whisked him away to warm, safe confines, and reported he was already eating more.

I suppose we'll never know what happens next to that fine feathered fellow, but we do know that he didn't suffer a miserable death, drenched, cold, and alone, on our patio.

Last night, a friend told me Aztecs believed that hummingbirds were the souls of warriors who died with honor while fighting.

Though it was not on the schedule, I'm happy we were able to help that little soul yesterday.