Fun

Happy Lundi Gras!  Let the festing begin!


Tomorrow is Mardi Gras 2012 and people all over the world will partake in various festivities to commemorate the day. The real purpose of Mardi Gras is to clean out the house from all of the food and beverages that are forbidden during the Lenten season.  Modern day Mardi Gras is less about the religious aspect and more about the beer, boobs and beads; in other words the big party.  


The traditional beverage of New Orleans is the Hurricane, typically from Pat O'Brien's piano bar on Bourbon Street. It is a delish rum based drink that hits you, well, just like a hurricane: 

Ingredients:

• 2 oz light rum
• 2 oz dark rum
• 2 oz passion fruit juice
• 1 oz orange juice
• juice of a half a lime
• 1 Tbsp simple syrup
• 1 Tbsp grenadine
• orange slice and cherry for garnish

Preparation:

1. Squeeze juice from half a lime into shaker over ice.
2. Pour the remaining ingredients into the cocktail shaker.
3. Shake well.
4. Strain into a hurricane glass.
5. Garnish with a cherry and an orange slice.

(This recipe compliments of http://cocktails.about.com/od/atozcocktailrecipes/r/Hurricane.htm) 

I have also found this recipe from www.drinkoftheweek.com to add to the debauchery of the day. It will be featured at my house tomorrow night along with our traditional jambalaya and King Cake...hopefully I will not get the baby!

King Cake Martini

• 1 ½ oz Absolut Citron
• 3 oz Pineapple Juice
• ¼ oz Agave Nectar
• ½ oz Chambord
• Green Confectionery Sprinkles

Combine Absolut Citron, Pineapple Juice and Agave Nectar in an ice filled mixing glass. Shake and Strain into a cocktail glass rimmed with green sprinkles. Take a bar spoon and drizzle ½ oz Chambord so that it settles at the bottom of the cocktail glass.

Serve with a beaded necklace and a smile!

Most importantly friends, enjoy the day and Laissez les bons temps rouler!!! 

~c~

All Things French

Dear France,
Merci beaucoup.
~m~

Fun

88 Reasons We Love Psych

 For years, my friend Dawnn would talk endlessly about the show Psych. She would quote it, laugh by herself thinking about it, and shoot me one of her famous "You're dead to me" looks whenever I questioned her love-verging-on-obsession.  But one of the most underrated traits in a friend is the ability to be an enabler, and so in order to understand my darling friend's lunacy, I started to watch the show. One episode in, and I was hooked. I started to quote the show, started laughing to myself when I thought of certain scenes, and became pretty excited about the prospect of stalking seeing  James Roday at this summer's Comic-Con.  And so, on this Valentine's Day, here is our love letter (or love list, if you want to get technical) to Psych, written over yummy food and hours of inappropriately loud laughter. Shawn and Gus would be so proud.

1. Like Your High School Reunion But Infinitely Less Painful - For a certain generation, the show is full of 80's and 90's nostalgia. Episodes have revolved around "Twin Peaks," The Lost Boys, the entire John Hughes oeuvre, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Karate Kid, Friday the 13th, Tears for Fears, Michael Jackson . . . the list goes on and on. Watching the show makes you feel like you're back in 9th grade, having deep conversations with your friends about why Keith was so in love with Amanda Jones when Watts was right in front of him the whole time.

2. Isn't That What's Her/His Name? - Part of the nostalgia comes from the casting. Guest stars recreate the personas that made them so famous the first time around. Case in point: Sherilyn Fenn (as an oversexed librarian in the episode "Dual Spires," the Twin Peaks parody), Carey Elwes (as a dapper art thief that brings to mind Wesley from The Princess Bride), and Ralph Macchio (as a wimpy police officer). I could go on and on... but I won't.

3. Clever, Clever, Clever - Here's the thing. Even the titles make me laugh. Out loud. When Dawn and I were going through the list, we couldn't decide which ones to include. But in the end, the ones that made the cut were the ones that kind of hinted at the story itself, the ones that were so pop-culture fantastic, or the ones that were flat out ridiculous: "There Might Be Blood,""Shawn and Gus of the Dead," "Shawn Interrupted," Indiana Shawn and the Temple of the Kinda Crappy, Rusty Old Dagger," "Spellingg Bee," "Lights, Camera . . . Homicidio." I literally giggled while typing this list.

4. Awesome Aliases - Shawn calls his best friend everything but his name. This is ridiculous and maybe only funny to the people who watch it, but it's our list and so it makes it.

5. Wait For Iiiiiiiiiit!  - Again, I realize this may only make Dawnn and I laugh (and people who watch the show), but we find ourselves quoting lines from the show ALL THE TIME. One of our favorites is Shawn's excuse for mispronouncing things: "I've heard it both ways." My favorite might be the best pick up line of all time: "Heard about Pluto? That's messed up, right?" There are more. Trust me.

6. Don't Be a . . . - Feel free to use these with the naysayers in your life.

7. Malarkey, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans - Any show that uses these words in pretty regular rotation is just... perfect.

8. Foodies- Shawn and Gus think about food constantly. They talk about food constantly. They bond over food. And, just like me and my friends, I can see them planning what they are having for dinner while they are eating lunch. Some of the food mentionables include Pollo Loco, Panda Express, Del Taco, japadogs, churros, and the Psych original recipe fries quatro queso dos fritos.

9. Awesome Stuff You Never Knew Existed - This Christmas, I wanted to add to Dawnn's growing collection of Psych merchandise (friend = enabler, remember?) I found a pineapple pillow, a Psych pen, and customized pencils from Etsy that have some of Gus's more memorable aliases. Um, check out the awesome bobbleheads, magic eight ball in the show's signature color, and the pineapple stress ball. She might have a problem.

10. And those pineapples- Every show has hidden pineapples. It's silly, but sometimes looking for these pineapples happens in the most inappropriate settings. While watching The Descendants, Dawnn and I both giggled and pointed at a ceramic pineapple. Never mind that this was happening during the scene when George Clooney was finally telling people the news that his wife was never going to wake up from her coma. Yay pineapples!

11. James Roday- Finally, what's a love letter without admitting a bit of a crush? 

New episodes (#89) start February 29. 

~m~ and ~d~

Fabulous Finds

There are some days when I want to escape into an entirely different world, and usually Jane Austen is my preferred author for this escapism. Just reading certain words out loud brings a Romantic sensibility that's simply missing from my day to day life. Even words like blackguard and rogue sound so much lovelier than my modern day equivalent of douchebag and jackass. So imagine my unabashed joy at finding the Etsy store Brookish where you can find some of Austen's most beautiful lines on t-shirts and scarves.

Pride and Prejudice may be my favorite book, and I'll argue about the merits of Colin Firth's Darcy over Matthew Macfadyen's Darcy any day. However, in all of her novels, Austen excelled at creating extremely flawed men that you can't help but fall in love with. Take, for instance, the novel Persuasion. Captain Wentworth is a rather serious and sullen man who cannot quite forgive and forget Anne Elliot, the woman who succumbed to family pressure to refuse his marriage proposal. When he comes back into her life seven years later to find her still unmarried, the pain from her rejection causes him to engage in some frivolous flirting to hurt her, but it's clear (to the reader, at least) to whom his heart truly belongs.

This jersey scarf comes printed with Wentworth's confession of love to Anne:
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. The scarf is a lovely lightweight jersey which makes it wearable in a city where it's nearly 70 degrees in February. More than anything, I love that I can bring a little bit of romance into my world of bad dates, traffic, and grading.




( I'm also tempted to buy the scarf that has Darcy's proposal on it for the sole reason that I can actually picture Colin Firth saying these words. Sigh.)






~m~

Fun

What do you do when you make friends with an awesome Wonder Woman who shares your love for fashion, shopping, throwing themed parties, and occasionally indulging in work day fantasies about living in Paris? You start a blog and have an incredible time sharing ideas and laughs. So, on this Sunday when most of the world is cheering on some football game, I want to give an equally enthusiastic shout out to my partner in crime. You rock.
~m~

Beer and costume induced smiles.

Fun

Chink, chink!  It is time for another Diva-tini!  In less than 24 hours, our house will be full of screaming, dramatic little girls anticipating an entire night of movies, popcorn and pizza; in other words, we are having a slumber party.  As I was combing the internet earlier for party ideas, I just happened to stumble up on this and I thought that it would be a wonderful coping mechanism for mommy... I have provided the recipe, feel free to indulge with me or make one for yourself and empathize...  
Either way, santé!!
~c~


The French Kiss

• 1 oz. Chambord 
• 1 oz. vodka 
• 1 oz. dark crème de cacao 
• 1.5 oz. half and half 
• Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Isn't it Pretty in Pink?  Perfect for a slumber party or for  Valentine's Day. 

Compliments of Marie Clair and the list of 104 Holiday Drink Recipes.