Our very own multi-purpose room

Our old apartment was 550 square feet and our new place is 1050 square feet. Nearly doubled! With all that extra space comes rooms we didn't have before, notably a dining room and a second bedroom. Dining rooms are for dining, which we do a fair bit of (although it would be more honest to call it "eating" or perhaps "shoveling" around here). Spare bedrooms are for house guests, which we have once in a blue moon, and children, of which we don't have any. So the question presented itself: What should we do with our second bedroom?

This is what the previous owners did: 

Things we dislike: Purple walls, off-white trim.
Things we don't have: Baby

The obvious first solution was to use the space as an office. As it turns out though, our entryway is awkwardly large and absolutely needs a piece of substantial furniture in it so it doesn't feel wasted. Enter our giant rolltop desk, printer, and other office-y things (I'll post photos of this space once it's not covered in office paraphernalia, paint chips, and other assorted detritus). 

At first, we put our bed in the second bedroom while we set up our real bedroom. I loved sleeping in that room, mostly due to the ceiling fan and the woods out the window. The closet is cedar-lined as well, which seems very fancy to me. Who does that? (Answer: The same people who painted the entire house in different colors of off-white. I guess they weren't all bad.) The room isn't well suited to be our bedroom, though, because it's kind of a hallway - it has one door that leads to the entryway and one that leads to the hallway/bathroom/kitchen. The bedroom at the back of the house seemed better to me, so sleeping there full-time was not our solution. 

He's also a law student.
Photo credit to someone on facebook

We cleared everything out and Brendan (on the right) helped me paint it one day while Drew was at work. Brendan is very tall (helpful for the high parts), very funny (helpful for the part where we spend hours together), and very kind for offering to help his dinky sister in law paint things. He also came to Ikea with me one day, which turned into quite an adventure and ended with him getting stuck in the trunk. Story for another day.

From santorini.com

Drew requested a blue room, so I searched for a blue that wasn't too dark and wasn't too "baby blue" either. The woman who helped me pick the living room color wasn't working the day I went to the hardware store to choose the blue. In response to my request for help, the hardware store guy said "Don't worry about it. People put too much stock in color choices. Just pick a blue and paint the wall with it." Thanks, dude. Really. Very helpful. I'm not very good at controlling my facial expressions, so I think he knows I don't appreciate him very much. Whoops. All by myself, I chose "Santorini Blue," which looks nothing like the blue commonly associated with Santorini.

The blue is much more New England-y than Mediterranean, which is probably good because we're in New England. Here's the room with fresh, white trim and Santorini Blue on the walls: 

Once the room was painted, we had to resume figuring out what to put in it. Too many books leads to a bookshelf on one wall:

Hitler and WWI books, banished from the living room

One of my favorite girlfriends from law school, Kate, kindly offered us her futon. Her mother told her in no uncertain terms not to bring it home after law school, so I'd like to think that we all won. Really though, Drew and I won because Kate stayed with us this weekend (upcoming post: Painting the dining room during a hurricane), we put her to work, and we got to hang out before she left Beantown (sad). 

Once the futon was installed, I decided that we had enough walls painted and enough furniture in its proper place around the house to start hanging stuff on the walls. Exciting because now we won't have blank walls! Stressful because now I'm going to put holes in the walls that will probably be off kilter and cause me headaches! I decided to start big with a photo collage above the futon. We had one of these in our bedroom at our old apartment and it was less than perfect. We nailed a bunch of photo hangers up and hung things on the wall, which resulted in lots of uneven spacing. This time, I decided to be a wee bit more precise. 

There were lots of ideas using butcher paper (which some people just have laying around, apparently), but I went old school and used notebook paper, which I cut to the size of each frame and stuck to the wall. I marked where the nails needed to go, hammered them in (sorry neighbors!) and tore off the paper. 

It worked like a charm! 

If you ever come visit us, this is where you'll stay. Until then, it's a nice place to sit and look out the window and/or read books about Nazis. Hooray!

The Bathroom, a.k.a. A Bandaid Until We Can Renovate

This is the realtor's photo, so it makes the space look nicer than it is.

Of all the rooms in the beige palace, the one that offended me most was (hilariously) not painted off-white. Nope. The bathroom was painted yellow with a purple sponge paint overlay. I couldn't get a good photo of the purple sponge paint part of the bathroom, so you'll have to take my word for it. On the left is what the room looked like in the previous occupants' hands.

This is how it looked when we moved in.

Note the abnormally tall sink - 39 inches tall! I actually have to stand on my toes to wash my face. Embarrassing to admit on the internet, but true. Also note the abnormally short toilet. Next to that sink, it's pretty ridiculous. It's also low-flow, which is good for the environment but means we need to purchase a plunger (our old apartment had a toilet that flushed with the strength of a black hole. It was amazing and didn't clog one time in the three years we lived there). The floors are old linoleum and the bathtub may have actually been painted at some point. It's finish is chipping and bubbling in places in a very non-bathtub kind of way. Curiouser and curiouser... The lighting is also terrible. Thus, the award for room in most need of renovation goes to: THE BATHROOM. There is not one thing about this room I wouldn't change if I had a million dollars (or a couple thousand and a contractor, or several hundred and some DIY skills).

Close up on the gross moldy linoleum.

Even though I'd love nothing more than to rip out that linoleum, kick the sink to the curb, and buy a new bathtub, now is not the time. We can't structurally fix this room right now, but that doesn't have to mean we live with it the way it is, right? Right.

Bandaid time!

We painted the walls with "Rodeo" (a light, warm gray), bought a new shower curtain at Target, painted the trim and sink "Simply White," and hung blue towels (not because they match terribly well, but because that's the color we have).

Ta-da!

Much better! 

Until we have the money and/or skills to deal with this permanently, I'm pretty happy with the transformation!

The Bedroom, Part 1

There are lies and untruths and half truths all over the internet, and I aim to fact-check this blog so I'm not contributing to the mess. As it turns out, the color of the living room is Spiced Apple Cider, not Spiced Pumpkin. Yes, they are both delicious, New Englandy, autumnal things. Yes, they are nearly identical to one another. No, neither food item is actually the color that Benjamin Moore says they are (see swatches, below). Whatever. Spiced Apple Cider provides the backdrop for the nonfiction-but-not-Hitler-or-WWI book collection and the vase of tilted sticks.

Actual Spiced Apple Cider (from www.myrecipes.com)  

BM Spiced Apple Cider

Actual Spiced Pumpkin (HOW GROSS DOES THIS LOOK??) 

BM Spiced Pumpkin

Glad we got that sorted out. 

Now for an update on our latest house-related progress. I've been waiting to post until rooms are "done," which I realize is a huge mistake because none of the rooms will ever be "done." After we painted and arranged the living room, we tackled the "master" bedroom. I put that in quotes for two reasons. First, because of the weird gender implications of calling it the "master" bedroom and second, because it's no bigger than the other bedroom, has a smaller closet, and is the only room in the house where the windows haven't been replaced. The other bedroom even has a ceiling fan. Really, it's just the bedroom we've decided to sleep in. I forgot to take a "before" photograph of the room, but you can see the paint color here: 

Look! More off-white! With yellow undertones!

You can also see the old water damage beneath the window that we had to repair before painting. With Drew out of town, the first fix-it job in the new house fell to me. The guy at the hardware store told me to scrape off the old paint, prime the surface, smear compound all over the place, prime it again, and then paint it. He said it would look like nothing ever happened. Okay, Mr. Hardware Store Man. I can do all that. 

One evening, after staring the wall into submission, I stuck a 5-in-1 tool in a paint bubble and started prying. The scraping was sort of cathartic, in a way. There were paint chips everywhere (yes, I put down a drop cloth first). Then there was plaster dust. I was rather enjoying myself, but then I remembered that all the houses in New England are covered in lead paint and I was probably breathing lead paint dust. Gaahhhh!!! No, I wasn't wearing a mask. No, I didn't have the windows open (it was pouring rain). Yes, I do have many years of higher education and a pretty healthy dose of common sense (that I forgot to use). I did the only sensible thing and immediately googled "lead paint poisoning." I came across several very scary articles about what can happen if you inhale lead paint dust including the fact that it only takes 1/10,000th of a packet of sweetener worth of dust to poison an adult, that you will give birth to babies with tentacles, and that you will have intestinal distress forever. Worst. Thing. EVER. I immediately took a shower (to wash off the dust that was seeping through my skin into my bloodstream). Then I decided to just keep going. Most of the scraping was finished, the bedroom was covered in paint chips, and the hardware stores were closed. If I was going to poison myself, I had already done so, and I couldn't very well leave the bedroom a mess. Then I remembered the entire building had been gutted in the late eighties, when lead paint was illegal. Phew (ish). Here's a photo of the scraped and partially primed wall. 

I forgot to take a photo of the scraped wall because I was busy panicking.

Then I put compound everywhere:

Then I primed it again and, voila! Ready to paint. Drew came home and said "nice job on the wall." As though this even comes close to recognizing the painstaking scraping, priming, compound-smearing, obsessive googling, and worrying about how our future children will have tentacles. But whatever. 

Drew had to do the high parts because I'm a midget, and now the room is a pleasing shade of gray:

Speaking of "a pleasing shade of gray," if you've never tried to find the perfect gray to paint a room, quit while you're ahead. Just as there is such a thing as "warm whites" and "cool whites," there is such a thing as "warm grays" and "cool grays." Because the house doesn't get much light, I thought it was important to find a "warm gray" to paint the bedroom so that... I don't really know. I forgot that we mostly sleep in the bedroom and that the precise shade of gray was probably not that important. It seemed crucial at the time. Finally, I was too confused about everything and, without buying a paint sample, bought a gallon of Benjamin Moore "Willow Creek," which is a brownish-gray. This could have been a disaster, but we put it on the walls and it looks like a regular gray, but is much more cozy. WIN! 

Then came the matter of furniture arranging. As previously mentioned, neither of us have any skills in this department. The room has a closet on one wall, windows on two walls, and a door on the fourth wall. Accounting for needing to open the closet door and the door into the room, we had two walls that could accomodate the bed. One also has the door into the room on it, which would have made for an awkward entry and also deprived one person of a nightstand. Not ideal. The other wall has a window on it that is 26" from the floor, which is exactly the same height as our box spring and bed, sitting on the floor. I didn't really like the idea of sleeping with my head against a window, so we were at a loss. Then Drew made a bold suggestion: What if we put the bed on the diagonal between the two windows? Everyone can have a nightstand, no one will get stepped on by a burglar when he climbs through the window in the middle of the night, and it looks kind of cool. 

BOOM. Conundrum solved. Except for the part where your pillow falls on the floor while you're sleeping (more on that later). Also, that rug is from Ikea and was $20. And I don't think I have lead poisoning. All good things.

Next up - the bathroom!

The Living Room

First, a note about color. I am from the Southwest, where everything is colorful. I love wearing colorful clothes, having colorful things around me, and one of my favorite things about this part of Boston is that it's full of houses like this one -->

(photo credit to Erika Diaz)

All the "painted ladies" were a bit out of our price range, however, so we moved into the BEIGE PALACE, where every room is a different color of not-white-not-yellow-not-brown. It's like a painted lady, but really, really boring. Even the trim is painted different colors. I'm not sure what was wrong with these people. At any rate, in a climate where it is rainy or wintery almost all the time, a girl needs some color in her life. Apart from the weird kitchen and the weirder bathroom (more on that later), painting the entire house, top to bottom, was the first priority.

The first room we tackled was the living room. Here it is before we painted it:

Drew realizing the doors don't close all the way

The entry way is to the right

From the dining room into the living room

Note the beige everywhere. It makes me want to take a snooze right there on the wood floor. But those french doors! Swoon. The doors are beautiful and add character BUT, they make the room super awkward. The left door covers the room's only light switch and makes an entire corner of the room virtually unusable. We took off the doors and, until the furniture arranging fairy gives us advice as to how to make the room work with the doors on, they're staying off.

The night the movers deposited us and our stuff in the house, we painted the entire living room (including trim and ceiling). It was raining and we were exhausted and hungry, so you can bet it was not the most fun evening we've ever had. But the finished product makes it seem worthwhile.

The walls are Benjamin Moore "Spiced Pumpkin" and the trim is "Simply White."

We had a little trouble with paint bubbling up in the corner - I think it had something to do with all the moisture in the air. Our choices were either to chip off the bubbled paint and start over, or to put a bookshelf in the corner so no one will ever notice (guess which option we chose???)

Then came the part where we had to arrange the furniture. I have never been good at arranging furniture. In my last apartment, my friend Jason put the couch on an angle, totally revolutionizing my life, but I escaped without having to learn how to arrange furniture. In the apartment before that (a Manhattan bowling alley - with exposed brick!), the furniture was awkward because no one helped me arrange it. In the apartment before that (a Manhattan bowling alley - without exposed brick!), my roommate and I had such an astoundingly large futon that there was really only one way to arrange things. The point, then, is that I am incapable of doing this myself. Enter the reinforcements! My dear friend Michelle and her boyfriend Jon came over briefly to see the place and I cajoled them into helping me move the couch into the living room. Both of them immediately said the couch should go in front of the three windows. I balked. My back towards the window? So the bogeyman/burglars/pizza delivery man can sneak up on me? Even so, we tried it. Far be it from me to turn down design advice from people who know what they're doing. And you know what? I think it works! (Sidenote: Please do not judge the piles of stuff in the entry way and the dining room. We're moving in one room at a time. It's driving me nuts, but we want to paint everything and can't do it any other way).

View from the dining room 

The first photo captures the couch in all of its under-the-windows glory. The table with the vase on it needs help (it's got one foot off the carpet and is a little tilty) but we'll figure it out. The bookshelf in the corner between the windows has our "fiction" library on it.

View from the entry way

The photo to the left shows the television and what is now known as "the awkward chair." I wanted the room to facilitate television-watching because, let's be honest, that's what we do in our living room most of the time. BUT, I don't want the living room to be "all about the TV" either because that makes me feel like a couch potato. I think I saw something on HGTV about "conversation clusters" and I want one of those. If there's a way to do it without the awkward chair being so awkward, I'd love to hear about it...

Never mind the messy other rooms...

Between the entryway and the dining room is the "nonfiction but not Nazis or World War I" bookshelf, which is covering up the bubbly paint like a charm.

Speaking of books and bookshelves, if there's such a thing as having too many books, we have WAY too many books. Not only do we have two giant bookshelves shoved full of books, but all the boxes in view in the dining room are full of the "nonfiction about Nazis or World War I" genre. Drew has even more in his office, which he has to clean out soon. We are literally drowning in books. We need more bookshelves and/or to start patronizing libraries. At any rate, the Nazi books are not not in the living room because I got tired of staring at HITLER and THE THIRD REICH all the time, so the Nazis have been kicked out of the living room. 

That's all for now! Next up: The bedroom!

Update on cookies, graduation, the bar exam, and questingboston's new lease on life!

Hello faithful readers! Kday and I apologize for the lapse in posting. We'd like to imagine that you have all been sitting in front of your computer screens, pining for a post about something delicious, and feeling empty inside. We know that virtually none of you care, but let's keep the dream alive, shall we?

First, an update on the cookie quest... We continued questing and eating cookies and spending time together, but stopped posting because we got overwhelmed with all things last-semester-of-law-school related. I don't remember where we went, but none of the cookies were as good as that first delectable cookie from Clear Flour Bread. They win the prize and you should go there post haste.

Then we graduated from law school! It was all very exciting and involved silly hats. Kday was a party pooper and removed her entire juris doctor ensemble prior to the photo, but I have to give her credit for her foresight. We all looked ridiculous and that velvet is really hot.

After that, Kday promptly left Boston to embark on her new adventure questing for BLTs in Michigan and/or lawyering it up. She moved into a historic building that I can't wait to see photos of (ahem, kday - photos plz).

After graduation, we took the dreaded bar exam. Aaand it was horrid. I consider myself a relatively collected human - I held it together during exams most years but this bar exam thing was rough on the psyche. Let's just say I'm glad I'm still married. We're crossing our fingers that we passed and I'm sure everyone we know is also crossing their fingers so they don't have to hear us talk about it ever again. We don't blame you.

That pretty much brings us to the present. Now - the future of our little blog. Kday is in the mitten and I'm still in the Bay State, making future joint questing infrequent at best. The distance is one thing, but we also have jobs now and can't just run around eating desserts all day. Furthermore, questingbostonandgrandrapids is a little unwieldy. With Kday's gracious permission, I'm going to be the main blogger from here on out.

Here it is!

If you haven't guessed already, the new quest is HOME OWNERSHIP. Drew (remember Drew?) and I close on a condo in Boston tomorrow morning. It's on the 1st floor of a triple-decker and it's in need of some TLC. Now, there are lots of home ownership blogs out there but this one will be different. First, it will be different because Drew and I are cooler than the other bloggers (obvi). Second, it will be different because the other bloggers seem to know what they're doing. We don't. We have grand plans for this little place and will be carrying them out with help from the great folks at youtube, the orange-apron-clad people at Home Depot, and hopefully a healthy dose of luck.


So that's that. After we close, the first project is painting all the walls and trim, which are currently all the same shade of blah cream except the bathroom, which is a yellow-and-purple sponge painting disaster. Until then, please cross your fingers for a smooth closing!

Hi-Rise Bread Company: We finally made it!

Kday and I headed to Hi-Rise Bread Company (after checking the hours this time). We brought our guest quester Sarah O. along for courage due to our previous Cambridge mishaps. Again, we were all stressed and again, we all felt like we should probably be poring over some textbook, court document, or journal article instead of frolicking around Cambridge and eating cookies. (This is somewhat of a theme on this blog, in case you hadn't noticed.) Nevertheless, we pressed on. We even found great parking!

The Hi-Rise Bread Company is in an old house on Brattle Street, right near Harvard Square. This location makes it a perfect spot for hungry students and tourists alike, but it's tucked away so it feels like a bit of a secret. We walked into the bakery and saw the spread--it looked pretty good! The barista was a bit gruff and charged Sarah O. $2 for a tiny glass of milk, but we were charmed by the decor, by the creaky wooden stairs on our way up to the tables, and by the murals on the walls.

We set out our spread, much to the annoyance of our dining companions, who looked over the rims of their spectacles at us to indicate that they were doing something very important and that we were being much too rowdy. There was no "No talking allowed" sign, however, so we forged ahead with the tasting in half whispers.

This was a double quest and the two cookies we tasted could have not been more different. I won't steal kday's thunder, but the other cookie was more of the flat, gooey, melty kind found at Kilvert & Forbes. The cookie at Hi-Rise was a brick of a thing, crunchier on the outside, and fatter. We bit into our cookies and do you know what we found?

Almost all chocolate and almost no cookie! Kday's cookie even appeared to have two layers of chocolate inside. Curiouser and curiouser. The chocolate was delicious, of course--I clearly ate my entire portion--but we were flabbergasted at the cookie-to-chocolate ratio. Silly us, thinking that chocolate chip cookies should have some cookie part in them! After a few bites, Sarah O.'s $2 shot of milk seemed like a pretty good idea.





Although Hi-Rise is charming and has the potential to be a decent lunch spot, I don't think I'll be returning. It had all the worst that Cambridge has to offer (snooty dining companions, rude barista, high prices), which overshadowed the charm (hand-painted murals, creaky stairs). If you're in the market for a cookie, there are better places to go.

KDay's Cookie Quiz

I got 19/25--fairly respectable. And yes, now I want to eat all of those cookies. When spring break is over, we'll be back in questing mode.

A Cookie Quiz!

The internet officially has everything. Try the "Name the Cookie from the Picture" quiz on our favorite procrastination website and see if you can beat Melanie's score - 18/25. Beware: this quiz will make you want to consume one of each of the 25 pictured cookies immediately.

More Cupcakes!

A few days ago, Mel emailed me to tell me a critical piece of information: the Boston Globe has updated the list of cupcake shops in Boston to try. Mel and I are extremely dedicated questers, so this means we have no choice but to try these new places. When I replied to her email I told Mel that for the sake of QUESTING:Boston, we had to ingest massive amounts of sugar. We simply could not call ourselves true questers without continuing to conduct our cupcake research.

Now, the cookie quest is not yet complete, so trying out these cupcake shops is in addition to our ongoing quest. As Mel and I are experts, we think that we can handle two quests going simultaneously. Sidenote: Now that moot court is coming to end, I will have more free time to quest, which my sweet-tooth will appreciate, but my wallet and waistline may not.

Accordingly, look forward to blog posts about the follow cupcake places.

Monumental Cupcakes at JP Art Market

Isabelle's Curly Cakes

Lulu's Sweet Shop

And because Mel and I loved the original cupcake quest so much, we may use this as an excuse to return to two of our favorite places, Sugar Cupcakes and Kickass Cupcakes.

Crema: Best Accidental Quest Ever

Today is kday's birthday, so this post is going to be partly about Crema and partly about my terrific questing partner in crime, who is currently at her moot court competition in New York.

On Sunday, kday and I decided to go quest. At 5:00 p.m., after I had spent all day working at school and she had been mooting all afternoon, she came up to my office. She told me it was time to put down the Bluebook and eat some cookies. She said we could either go to High Rise Bakery in Harvard Square or one of the places downtown. I felt pressed for time and stressed about the coming week, so told her I wanted to go to the one in Harvard Square because we could drive and park and it wouldn't take as long as messing around with the T. We drove to Harvard and immediately upon arriving in Harvard Square, found The Best Parking Spot On The Planet. If you've ever driven to Harvard Square, you know that this simply does not happen. Even better, we didn't have to feed the meter. My stress began to melt.

We walked to High Rise Bakery, which sits just off the square on Brattle Street, and it was closed. Did my questing buddy or I think to check the hours? Of course not. Coffee shops are always open, right? But High Rise seems to be an actual bakery - the kind where flour-covered men come to work at 4:00 a.m. to bake actual loaves of bread - and so I guess their clientele really aren't the 6:00 p.m.-on-a-Sunday-cookie-quester type of people. 

This photo is from www.cremacambridge.com, obviously.
When we were there it was cold and dark, but the cafe was
all lit up and cozy looking. 

But kday was not to be quest-busted. We walked into Burdick's, home of the most delicious hot chocolate on the planet and lots of very fancy looking pastries, but no cookies. (Pats self on back for exercising restraint and not buying nine cups of hot chocolate). We walked into some weird vegan place, but no cookies. I got out my iphone. We googled "best bakery in Harvard Square" and came up with a list of places. Crema Cafe was about a block from where we were standing and we decided to give it a go. We got to Crema and were delighted - not only did they have chocolate cookies, but they also had seating and a pretty cozy coffee shop vibe. We purchased our cookie ($1.75!) and sat down in 2 empty seats at a large communal table. 

I took this one but no, those aren't our espresso cups. 

Crema was started in Cambridge for Cambridgeans, that much is clear - the menu contains walnut aoli and fancy PB&J, among other Cambridgey things. On their website they state that they wanted to create a "third place" between home and work where people could go and "meet, chat, sip, read, write, watch, think, taste and enjoy" in between all the other obligations in life. We sat there and did all of those things for about an hour. We caught up on what had been going on in both of our lives, talked about The Impending End Of Law School, and did a little bit of good old fashioned gossiping. We went on a secret  side quest right afterwards, which involved several fits of giggles. 

The cookie at Crema was delicious - very buttery, crispy on the outside and rather cakey on the inside, with milk chocolate chips throughout. It was a healthy size, perfect for sharing. But the real delight of this quest was that it exemplified the reasons we started questing in the first place. First, we were both stressed at the beginning of the quest - me with my Bluebook, she with her mooting - and put it aside to spend part of the evening together.  Second, when our quest didn't go according to plan, we found a terrific new spot that we will certainly go back to. Third, we spent longer than we thought we would chatting and catching up, suddenly oblivious to the stress that could have derailed the quest earlier on. Fourth, the evening ended in fits of giggles. 

So on your birthday, kday, I want to thank you. Thank you for telling me to put down the Bluebook and quest with you every week. Thank you for being someone I can tell my secrets to. Thank you for making law school more bearable. Thank you for giggling with me. Next year, when I have to continue Questing Boston all by myself, I will think of you all the time and miss you a lot.

Happy Birthday to the best questing buddy on the planet! 

Kilvert & Forbes: Barely Baked Brilliance

Getting into Quincy Market is a challenge, there's no doubt about it. First, there's usually some acrobatic group or mime on stilts or untalented group of middle schoolers playing brass instruments in front. Giant groups of people inexplicably stop to watch whatever it is that's going on, even though they don't really want to. It's best to stick out your elbows and push through these people because they're generally tourists and aren't in the same rush that you're in to get into the market. They must not know all the delicious stuff that's in there, because I have no idea why any reasonable person would rather watch a very quiet man on stilts than eat cookies and clam chowder and lobster rolls. Even if you successfully get into the market, you still have to get past the slow moving crowd that congregates around Starbucks. Despite the fact that these tourists ought to be properly caffeinated and a little quicker than the mime-watching tourists, they are still very, very slow. But it's okay, because you can see the beacon that marks your destination:

Cue the harp music, it's Kilvert & Forbes Bakeshop. Now, the Forbes part of Kilvert & Forbes refers to John Forbes Kerry, Massachusetts' esteemed senator, relatively awkward presidential candidate, and co-star of the best Jib Jab video ever.   In 1976, Senator Kerry was practicing law, which he apparently found "quite predictable and very boring." He thought that owning a bakery would make things better and so he and his business partner opened a bakery in Quincy Market, named it after their mothers, and ta-da! Kilvert & Forbes was born. Their sweets were baked according to family recipes and apparently, the new owners (Maggie's Sweets) still use them to this day.

Now. Senator Kerry. I was dismayed to hear that you think being a lawyer is predictable and boring. Kday and I have been promised thrilling adventures and epic suspense by our respective future employers, so we're not sure what you're talking about. *Cough* [Reconsiders career plan]...

We do, however, agree with you on one crucial point: COOKIES ARE A GREAT IDEA. Always. More to the point, Senator Kerry, your mom really knew her stuff when it came to cookie baking. Look at this spread! Now, I have to confess. I have been a Kilvert & Forbes cookie monster since before I moved to Boston. Every time I came up from New York (the other place where they keep all my favorite foods), I would purchase an M&M cookie. Indeed, this cookie quest was directly influenced by my desire to see what other cookie magic Boston had up its sleeve. At any rate, our chocolate chip cookie was delicious. We took it to my house, where we shared it with Drew.

It had a very nutty flavor, as though it had been baked on a pan that had just held some of the walnut cookies, all of which had a truly spectacular amount of walnuts on them (in a "would you like some cookie with your walnuts" kind of way). The chocolate chip cookie was oh-so-perfectly baked, soft and bendy in the middle and crispy on the outside. I still prefer the M&M cookies to the chocolate chip cookies (and certainly to the low fat options that Maggie and her misguided friends have introduced to the shop - ptooie!) but the chocolate chip cookie was still excellent. At $3.25, it was a bit expensive, but it was giant and easily shareable so that made up for it.

Moral of the story: If you are in Quincy Market, be sure you shove past the tourists and get yourself a cookie at Kilvert & Forbes. Tourists leave Boston, but cookies are forever.

Boston Chipyard: Cookies We All Can Make

Two Fridays ago, Melanie and I set out to Faneuil Hall for what was going to be one of our most epic quests ever. Our plan involved not one, not two, but three cookie shops in one outing. There were two reasons why we were feeling so ambitious. First, Faneuil Hall is far away from where we live, so it just seemed the most convenient to do all the cookie shops there in one outing. Second, we did double-features for cupcakes, and we are always looking to one-up ourselves, so doing three in one evening seemed like the next logical thing to do.

Upon getting to Faneuil Hall, we first bought a cookie from Kilvert and Forbes. Melanie will write a full post about that extremely delicious cookie shortly. We then set out for the Boston Chipyard. Tucked away in the back of Faneuil Hall is this cookie shop. After trying to purchase 3 chocolate chip cookies (we were being thoughtful and buying one for Mel's husband), we learned that you can only buy them by the half dozen or dozen. So we got 3 chocolate chip cookies, 1 oatmeal chocolate chip, 1 peanut butter chocolate chip, and 1 double chocolate cookie.

We then set out for the third cookie shop, only to find that it was closed. With our three-cookies-in-one-night plan foiled, we set out back into the cold to Mel's apartment where we ate dinner and then began enjoying our cookies.

Quite simply, the Boston Chipyard is selling something that you don't have to buy. The bite-sized cookies had a crunchy texture and just weren't that delicious. After taking one bite, I said "this tastes like something that came out of my oven, and that I overcooked." Now, I'm not a terrible cook, but I'm not trying to make my living selling cookies. If law school doesn't work out, I guess I could consider this career change....But right now, that is neither here nor there. I don't want to spend money on something I could make. As Mel and I discussed these mediocre cookies, Mel yelled "there's only one chip!!" I looked at her, and she held the evidence in her hand. There was only a single chocolate chip in Mel's cookie. That is completely unacceptable. A good chocolate chip cookie has the correct ratio or cookie to chocolate, and a single chocolate chip is just insufficient.

If you're in Faneuil Hall and craving some sweets, you can skip the Boston Chipyard. It's not worth the caloric intake. Instead, walk over to Kilvert and Forbes and buy a much larger, more delicious, and more unhealthy cookie there that is worth all the calories.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie: A Bit of History

The epically snowy winter is putting a damper on our questing but never fear, loyal followers. We'll be back at it once there is no longer a blizzard every week (literally). In the meantime, I thought I would research the chocolate chip cookie.

We got the idea for this quest from this website, which lists the 50 Most Fattening Foods in the 50 States. The chocolate chip cookie is the most fattening food in the Commonwealth (at least according to these people) and I've got to say that alongside things like "livermush" (made of pig head parts, from North Carolina), Eskimo Ice Cream (involving reindeer fat and seal oil, from Alaska), and the "Luther Burger" (donuts + meat, from Georgia), Massachusetts made one of the better contributions to the American waistline. Sidenote: My home state of New Mexico contributed frito pie to the list, which would make a really great quest. At any rate, look at the slideshow. It will make you want to brush your teeth and go to the gym.

Back to the quest at hand.

The Toll House Inn 

The chocolate chip cookie is a "drop cookie," as distinguished from molded cookies, pressed cookies, etc. It was invented, like most delicious things, by accident. Ruth Wakefield owned the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts and she stumbled upon the recipe one day. There are conflicting accounts of her motivations (thanks, Wikipedia). One story, propagated by Nestle, indicates that she was trying to make chocolate cookies and ran out of baker's chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of chocolate and hoped they would melt into the dough and, voila, the chocolate chip cookie was born. She apparently sold the recipe to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips (good cook, bad businesswoman). Story #2 gives Wakefield more credit as a cook - she was already the author of a cookbook and no stranger to the melting properties of chocolate, and would never have thought they would melt into the dough. Apparently, the "accident" occurred when the vibrations of a mixer caused a bag of chocolate to fall into a batch of cookie dough and only the protestations of a savvy employee (obviously the source of story #2) kept Wakefield from tossing the whole batch into the garbage. Either way, Toll House Cookies were born. GIs asked for them in care packages, people wrote letters to Wakefield asking for the recipe, and the national chocolate chip cookie craze began with a bang. Then we all got fat, which brings me to the 1990s.

In 1997, a third grade class from Somerset, Massachusetts proposed that the Commonwealth adopt the chocolate chip cookie as the official state cookie. The legislature, after many long hours of debate and tastings, obliged. The state beverage (cranberry juice), state bean (Navy), state dessert (Boston Cream Pie), state donut (Boston Cream), and state muffin (corn) welcomed the chocolate chip cookie into the fold.

And here we are! Questing for the official state cookie of Massachusetts is a fitting final quest for kday and I, who will soon part ways (she will take up residence in the home of the BLT and I will stay here and continue eating my way through Boston). We are excited for our adventure, which will include a day of face-stuffing at Fanieul Hall, where Boston keeps many, many cookies (including John Kerry's favorite) so stay tuned!