Firewater Friday - The Birth of a Blog Post

Have you ever wondered how bloggers get their ideas?  Think about it . . . some bloggers, like me, write about something or other every single day.  How do I get all those fabulous ideas . . . and all that time to cook, too!  For me sometimes it's a random thought that inspires a post and sometimes it's something like this (a real IM conversation between hubby and me) . . .

So there it is . . . sometimes that's how it happens.  And now I have a blogpost.  

Now, about those eggs.  Hubby's family has an Easter tradition where they bump their (presumably) hard boiled egg against someone else's.  Whoever's egg cracks loses.  What do they lose?  I have no idea . . . their sense of egg tapping pride perhaps?  I thought they made the whole stupid thing up . . . his family is pretty goofy (in a goodly way) and it would surprise me if this was some silly game they came up with.

Well, if Wikipedia is to believed . . . an if it's a Wiki page it just has to be true, right? . . . then apparently this is an Easter tradition that goes back a bazillion years or something like that . . . or 1979 years ago, at least.


Anyhoo . . . the egg fight is supposedly an Easter traditio wherein you are supposed to hold a hard-boiled egg and tap the eggs of other participants to break them but to keep your own undamaged.  Yeah, good luck with that!  Cheating is rampant but it's all in good fun.  


This egg tapping thing can be found in many different cultures around the world but has it's roots in pagan beliefs.  For obvious reasons, the egg was a Pagan symbol of the rebirth and early Christians co-opted this metaphor as the rebirth of man at Easter in light of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

Speaking of Easter . . . do you know how our calendar Easter day is selected?  It is always the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox (thanks to Dicky for the bit of pagan holiday info).   


So . . . go bust up some eggs!  Happy Easter or Solar/Lunar Pagan Holiday

Coconut Cream Cake 


2 oz. Pinnacle Cake Vodka
2 oz. Milk
Splash Coconut Rum


Shake with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. 

Firewater Friday - Let's call a spade a spade

To call a spade a spade is a way to describe something as itreally is.

These days it seems like everything and everybody is calleda racist for any little old thing.   I guess it’s simply the way I think but itnever occurred to me that this phrase . . . ‘call a spade a spade’ . . . wouldbe considered racially derogatory.  Andthe fact is . . . it’s NOT.  Or, at least it wasn’t . . .

 

The expression is thousands of years old.  Back when spades were implements to dig theearth and not the symbol on a deck of cards or . . . whatever else.

The original saying derives from the ancient Greek idiom ‘tasyka syka, te:n

skaphe:n de skaphe:n onomasein’  which translates "to call a fig a fig, atrough a

trough".    

Far from being an ethic slur, its thought that thisexpression was initially a sexual reference . . . a fig and trough beingsymbolic for . . . well, I don’t think I need to paint you a picture.

Anyhoo . . .

Interestingly, sometime during the Renaissance, ‘trough’ gotmistranslated as ‘spade’.    It’s not surprising,considering the ancient Greek for these words are fairly similar . . . skaphe =trough / skapheion = digging tool.

"Spade" in the sense of "negro" is notrecorded until 1928 and comes from the color of the playing card symbol, viathe phrase ‘black as the ace of spades’.

 

Frankly, I’m sick of tippy-toeing around and tired of politicalcorrectness. I think people are way too overly sensitive.  Buck up and get a stiff upper lip . . . everylittle ol’ thing is not an attack onsome other thing.  It’s just not.  Sometimes a spade is just that . . . a spade.

That is all . . . moving on . . . 

Sweet Cream Soda


2 Shots Pinnacle Cake
2 Shots  Pinnacle Whipped
8 oz. Club Soda


Mix in a glass filled with ice and garnish with a cherry.

Firewater Friday - The tower of power, too sweet to be sour, ohhhh yeahh!

Have you ever experienced what could best be described as a puckering of the salivary glands when you eat something?  The pain is right at the very back of the jaw where it hinges with the skull. It feels sort of like the glands going from zero to OMG-here-comes-a-lemon! in half a second.

This pain is usually comes on when the first bite of food hits your tongue and only lasts a couple of seconds.  Sometimes it happens when you smell a certain food or even when you do nothing more than think about it.  

It is commonly, but not necessarily, something sour that causes this reaction.   

This is what that is . . . when you eat something sour your mouth waters.  That is, saliva is being pumped into your mouth by the salivary glands. The parotids, two of your primary salivary glands, are located on your cheeks, near the jaw.  The pain is caused by the inability of the glands to discharge the saliva they are producing quickly enough.

Normally, this is a natural reaction to the foods you are eating.  However, it can also be caused by parotitis, which is a low level inflammation of the gland which most often requires no treatment. 

But I’m not a doctor . . . so what do I know?

Absolut® Orient Apple Vermont


OMG! good . . . very delicious . . . very dangerous!

2 Parts Absolut Orient Apple

1-2 Teaspoons Real Maple Syrup

2 Dashes Bitters

Garnish: Orange Zest

Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled withice.  Stir and strain into a martiniglass. 

The tower of power, too sweet to be sour, ohhhh yeahh!
Macho Man Randy Savage

Firewater Friday - Allow me to ladle you a piping hot bowl of . . .

If a meal is served tome 'piping hot' I know if I gobble it down with utter disregard for its extremehotness I should do so with full knowledge that it's going to burnthe taste-buds from my tongue and scald the flesh from the roof of mymouth.  

Piping hot . . . what doesthat mean anyway?  A reference to plumbing?  If you’re in thevicinity of a burst steam pipe, it will get your attention  . . . and, I promise, it will hurt.

Nope, that’s not it.  

Does it come from theScottish tradition of ceremoniously serving food on special occasions accompaniedby the playing of the bagpipes?  Certainlythat food could be considered 'piped in'.

No, not even close.

What ‘piping hot’ refers tois the sound sizzling hot food makes as steam escapes from it . . . the sound isreminiscent of whistling teakettles and high-pitched musical pipes.

One of the first literary referenceswas from the second of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales - The Miller’s Tale (1390)

Absalom in his attempt to wooAlison . . .

He sang as tremulously asnightingale;

He sent her sweetened wineand well-spiced ale

And waffles piping hot out ofthe fire . . . 

Now a pipe dream . . . that's a whole other thing. It, too, has nothing whatsoever to do with plumbing or musical Scots.  It has everything to do with pipes . . . opium pipes.

You puff on one of those suckers you'll have dreams like no other . . . pipe dreams, as it were.

Absolut® Orient Apple Breeze

2 Parts Absolut Orient Apple

2 Parts Cranberry Juice

1/2 Part Fresh Pink GrapeJuice

Combine all ingredients andpour over rocks in a highball glass. 

Firewater Friday - Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down

When I was a kid I thought that Mexican jumping beans werethe coolest things. What could be neater than a little bean that bouncesaround?

Okay, so I was an easily amused child.  I admit it. 

They usually came in a little clear plastic boxes with ffour or five beans in them.  They areabout the size of a kernel of corn or a small bean.  Picture a little bean that moves a fractionof an inch every 15 seconds or so . . . pretty exciting stuff, huh? That'sabout as exciting as jumping beans get.

It wasn’t until I found out what they really were . . .  and what mad them jump . . . that they became lesscool.  WAY less cool.  Icky even.

The thing that makes these beans jump is a tiny mothlarvae that lives inside the bean. The moth lays its eggs in the flower ofthe plant, and the eggs are incorporated into the seeds. The larvae then eatout the interior of the bean and live there. When the larvae move, so does thebean. Eventually, the larvae turn into moths that emerge from the beans torepeat the cycle.  Unless, of course,their stuck in a little airless plastic box . . . then they justsuffocate.  

when i

Firewater Friday - What the dickens?

A Gimlet . . . or other such cocktail. . .  if you drink too many your headhurts like the dickens.

What the devil is a Dickens?? 

I thought it had something to do with thefamous author.  I just didn’t know whatthe relation was.  You might be surprisedthat the phrase has nothing to do with Charles Dickens, as I assumed itdid.  And, since there isn’t anycorrelation that explains that!

But that doesn’t clarify what the dickensthe dickens is.  Way back in the day whenknights were bold and maidens were fair and all that rot, dickens was a euphemismfor the devil.  It started out as devilkinsand was eventually shortened to dickens. 

Along the same vein, dickens is very muchlike deuce . . . as in What the deuce?!  . . . deuce is another old English name for the Devil.

So, there you have it . . .

Walk straight, my son - as the old crab said to the young crab

I’m going to plagiarize Hubby by sharing one of his favorite anecdotes.

When he was a kid, his family had a vacation home on an inlet in southern New   

Jersey.  They would spend the summer there swimming, fishing and crabbing.

They would take skipping rocks to a whole new level.  Instead of using flat stones like everyone else in the civilized world, they used the crabs they caught.

They would take the crabs and lay them on their back on the palm of their hand.  And, then they would rub their belly which would relax and hypnotize the crabs. 

They would then take the crabs and fling them across the water.  As soon as the crabs hit the water they would wake up and their legs would flail as they skipped along the surface of the water.

I'm not sure if that's cruelty to animals or not but it must have been hysterical to watch.

I poked around a bit to try to find out why rubbing it's belly makes it got to sleep.  I didn't fun much, but what seems plausible is that being held upsidedown boggles their itty-bitty nervous systems.  but, then again . . . who doesn't like to have their belly rubbed?

_____________

Triple Orange Sour


1 1/2 fluid ounces vodka
1/2 fluid ounce triple sec
2 1/2 fluid ounces sweet and sour mix
1 1/2 fluid ounces fresh orange juice
1 slice orange


Pour vodka, triple sec, sour mix, and orange juice over ice into a cocktail shaker. Affix the lid, and shake until the outside of the shaker has frosted.


Strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice, and garnish with a slice of orange.

If cats could talk, they wouldn't

Hubby and I rescued a kitty from an animal shelter about 6 years ago.  She was (and still is) cute, fuzzy, stripy and endowed with some serious cattitude.

When we got her home we put her in between us on the couch.  We were eating dinner . . . Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and corn . . . and she immediately stuck her face into my mashed potatoes.  She was (and still is) a meat and potatoes kitty.

As far as cattitude goes . . . she got it in spades.   She looks all cute and sweet and innocent but beware!   She’s a bapper, a bopper, a chomper, a stalker and a chaser.   She’ll give you dirty looks when she’s pissed off, shark eyes when she’s on the attack, innocent face when you know she’s done something evil.  She’s a lot of fun. 

So, I came across some fun facts about cats and I thought I’d try to apply them to our fuzzy baby girl.

Ambidexer-Cat?

You probably never thought about a cat as being either left- or right-pawed, but over 40 percent are either lefties or righties. That means there’s quite a few out there who are ambidextrous. Luckily for them, they can probably operate the can opener with both paws …

Yep, she’s ambidexercat for sure.  When she goes in for the bap its all paws on deck.  Bap bap bap.  Thank goodness she doesn't have thumbs.

Warm or Cold?

Food that is. Cats don’t like their food too hot or too cold. They like it just right. And for them, just right is room temperature, just like their prey would be in the wild. Cats are indeed the Goldilocks of the animal world.

True . . . the Fuzz likes her food room temperature.  If I give her something out of the fridge, she’ll let it warm up before she eats it.  And, if we give her nibbles from our plates, she’ll let it cool off before she goes for it.

In Living Color

Cats see in color, so your new paisley frock in orange, purple, and yellow won’t be lost on them. They also have fantastic night vision, and only need one-sixth of the light humans require to see. So don’t go getting your cat night-vision goggles.

I don’t know if she’s a fan of my purple tee-shirt or not, but she can definitely see very well in the dark.  Bap bap bap.

What’s in a Name?

A group of kittens is called a “kindle” (yes, just like that fancy new electronic book device available now), while a group of adult cats is called a “clowder.”

Well, since she’s only one cat then I guess she’s a clowd.

Meow?

We all know the meow sound, whether it’s questioning, scared, happy, or imperiously demanding dinner. Curiously, cats only meow at people, not at other cats.

This is interesting because I’ve actually only heard the Fuzz meow twice since we’ve had her . . . an outright meow, that is.  She’ll whine and yowl and growl and even hiss on occasion.  It’s funny that when she’s talking to you she almost always ends in a question.

Four-Legged Mood Rings

Cats are highly intuitive creatures, and they are more than able to pick up your mood, especially from your tone of voice. They know when you’re yelling at them (though they often don’t seem to care). If you need your cat to calm down, try speaking to her in a soothing, loving voice. You’ll be amazed.

She may know our moods but she doesn’t really give a sh!t.  But if one of happens to be under the weather she tries to make us feel better by becoming a cuddle-kitten.

The Ultimate Strawberry Lemonade


(makes 2 pint-glass servings with ice)


3/4 cup sugar
2 large lemons, microwaved for 30 seconds
2 cups water
1 cup of frozen strawberries, microwaved for 1 minute (you could use fresh, but I think the frozen works better here)


In a blender squeeze the lemons and add the rest of the lemon, rind and all. Pour in the water and sugar. Add the strawberries. Pulse until everything starts to come together and the rind is starting to be processed. Remove the blade (or place the entire contents of the blender into a microwavable pitcher) and microwave for another 2 minutes. You can do all of this on stove top if you’d prefer, but the microwave is easy and quick. Refrigerate for about 1 hour, then strain into glasses loaded with ice. Enjoy!


**Note: I like to microwave the lemons to release more of the juices, and microwaving the strawberries does the same sort of thing. I like to microwave it all together at the end to release more of the oils in the lemon rind as well as dissolve the sugar. Any of these things you could do on a stove.**




Add some vodka, ice and blend for a Seriously Ultimate Strawberry Lemonade!