“It is so constant,” says Brennan, who comes to the office on Sundays to film. “We’re literally talking about life-and-death issues and the future of the country. I feel like every part of our society right now is under some really incredible strain.”
But on a dream day spent in D.C., the veteran journalist wakes to find the news on a brief pause. “For some reason, there is no breaking news — the news has been put on hold — and we can kind of take a breather,” the 40-year-old Connecticut native says. “Not being rushed is a big part of the dream day.”
In this dream state, Brennan, her husband of five years, Yado Yakub, and their nearly two-year-old son get an opportunity to take things slow, exploring their Forest Hills neighborhood and revisiting some notable landmarks of their relationship.
We’d have a leisurely morning with the coffee we made here and a walk with the dog and the family around the block. The smoked tomato soup at Little Red Fox in Forest Hills is amazing, and my son and I have made a habit of having it and some pastries on Mondays together. In our old neighborhood in Columbia Heights there was a place called Le Caprice that had fabulous croissants. An egg and cheese on a croissant is like a zillion calories so I rarely, if ever, have them. I think the last time I had one I was pregnant.
I like being able to sit and be outside in the sunshine with our dog. Being able to go through Rock Creek Park with her would be great.
I’d like to take my son back to the National Zoo. We took him when he was quite young and now that he’s a little more interactive, it would be fun to see his reactions. Experiencing things through his eyes is pretty incredible. He likes elephants and he loves zebras.
My husband and I got married in D.C. at the Decatur House. We met here, we got married here — our wedding pictures have the White House in the background. It would be nice to walk my son and point him toward the places where we had those moments.
Being able to have a date with my husband again would be great. When we were dating, we used to go to a bunch of museums in D.C. I love going to the Portrait Gallery. I remember a really great date, when we were first dating, at the Corcoran. We went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture with another couple and we got so wrapped up in reading everything we saw that we never made it past the first level and our friends were done. We’d go back and finish it and be able to have a thoughtful conversation and not rush through it.
My husband and I do love a really great red wine. So having a nice bottle would be great. We had our rehearsal dinner at Iron Gate, and we loved it because they have that great outdoor area with the vines and it’s airy so you’re not trapped indoors.
Q By Peter Chang, the Bethesda location, is the one that we really like. It’s all Sichuan Chinese food. My husband and I both love spicy food and they use that hot numbing Sichuan pepper. They have incredible tofu skins and fried eggplant. I’m vegetarian and my husband is not, so the one kind of commonality in our palate is that we both love spicy food. The Dan Dan noodles are great. They have this thousand layer vegetable roll that’s amazing. I think it’s a bunch of vegetables ground up, made into a patty and then coated and fried with the spicy sauce.
Then we’d come back to D.C. and get some ice cream at Ice Cream Jubilee. The Thai iced tea ice cream is so good. So good. My husband and I went to Thailand when we were dating. It was a New Year’s trip the first year we were dating and it was so magical. We had incredible food the entire time. So I have this fun connection of Thai iced tea with this great moment when we were falling in love.
Our son is our nightly routine. Reading, giving him a bath and a bottle are some of the best parts. My parents send him a book every month. There’s a book that his godmother sent him from New York that’s all scenes of New York matching up with letters of the alphabet and he loves that. He has a book of unusual animals that he loves. These days, he’s so verbal that we turn the pages and he’s memorized some of the lines. We spend a lot of time doing that kind of stuff as a family.
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