It may still be September, but it’s felt like Fall here in Baltimore the last couple of days. Dreary, overcast, rainy and cool (at least in the evenings), it’s hard not to feel the seasons changing in real-time right before you. Between the weather and my recent obsession with seasonal beers, it’s no wonder that I want to try out this Pumpkin & Gingerbread Cocktail.
Ingredients 2 oz Goslings Dark Rum
1 tbsp gingerbread essence
1 oz Pumpkin Molasses
1/2 oz chilled coffee
Splash of Kahlua
Garnish: Ginger bread cookie
Directions
Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain the mixture into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a ginger bread cookie.
There are many many WTF Halloween costumes floating around the internet. (What’s up there slutty Cookie Monster?) But I think “Down for the Count” is taking things to a new level. You know I love puns, but seriously, Amazon?
P.S. I still wanna see your smiling face. Or your sneering face. Whatever suits you. Send me a picture of you in your Ex-Boyfriend tee or hoodie. Be sure to include your mailing address so I can send you a thank you.
If you visit here regularly, you know how much I love meeting you guys, even if it’s just virtually. Kim in Portland, OR was kind enough to send us a photo rocking her new Fuzz Aldrin Hoodie and answer a few questions.
Tell us about your pop cultural guilty pleasures:
Star Trek! And all things nerdy sci-fi.
My current television one is Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series). I’d never ever watched it before, but it’s one of my mother’s favorites, and so I promised her I would give it a try. It’s really a lot better than I’d ever given it credit for! I’m also a gigantic LOST fan. Any way that this show connects with pop culture (blogs; t-shirts; parodies), I’m on it!
As far as pop music goes, I recently got turned on to OK Go; they’re so much fun. Also revisiting Michael Jackson and Madonna — I never was into them when I was a teenager, but now I guess it satisfies my pop-nostalgia!
First job?
Outside the illegal child labor I performed as a young babysitter, my first ‘real’ job where I actually paid taxes was waitressing at age 16 for the Greenery Family Restaurant in Michigan, where I went to high school.
Beer, wine, or liquor?
Oh, wow, I can take all three most any time, but typically I prefer beer.
Beer favorite: Alaskan Smoked Porter; or any good porter or stout; IPAs in summertime; pumpkin ales in the fall.
Wine: Any good red
Liquor: Vodka (recently have been trying blueberry — YUM)
If you could have a dinner party for any famous people, who would you invite?
I love space (the final frontier), astronomers, and physicists. So this means I want to invite Carl Sagan; Brian Greene; and Stephen Hawking. Thus my love, of course, for FUZZ ALDRIN!
Favorite place to visit?
Canada; also Ireland. Dream destinations that I’ve yet to visit are: Iceland; New Zealand; and VietNam. South America would be super, too.
Five current favorite songs, albums, or musical artists:
This is a very difficult question! It depends on my mood or the day of the week. Today, I’ll go with bands:
The Velvet Underground
The Pixies
Radiohead
Miles Davis
Stile Antico (medieval choral stuff)
Favorite visual artist(s)?
Vincent VanGogh, forever and ever. Also Pablo Picasso. I adore Surrealists as a rule, but love Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte.
How would you spend your lottery winnings?
Pursuing a graduate degree in theoretical linguistics; traveling the world (specifically New Zealand; Scandinavia; and parts of Asia).
Most regrettable fashion decision?
Ugh — my asymmetrical hair-cut, senior year of high school in 1985. It’s embarrassing now, but ’twas all the rage, once upon a time.
What new designs would you like to see from Ex-Boyfriend?
I love what you’ve done already! But I’m a sucker for cats and nature in general. Maybe a nice design where the animals turn tables on humans? Where the critters totally take over, reclaim the Earth? Good times.
If you want to show off your Ex-Boyfriend look on our blog and answer some interview questions I’d be much obliged. Just send in your photo. Be sure to send me your mailing address so I can send you a little thank you.
This might be one of the most mind-blowingly adorable videos I’ve ever posted. I wish my cats would do stuff like this. They mostly wrestle and pull each other’s fur off, leaving me a lovely mess to clean up.
I love salads. Actually, no, I LOVE salads. Big, dirty salads with every kind of garden veggie present, drizzled with a nice Italian or vinaigrette. But the star of a salad, for me, is always always always the tomato. So it stands to reason that in the absence of lettuce, carrots, celery, etc, a simple Caprese insalata will always be a great, simple alternative: tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil and balsamic reduction.
As the weather’s been cooling off, it’s made me crave tomatoes even more, knowing the really awesome in-season ones at the store and from my garden won’t be around much longer.
So what better way to send off the wondrous fruit until next summer than a toast with a tomato-based martini?
This recipe is from TasteOfOregon.com, and originally called a tomato martini, but I feel like that conjures images of something akin to a Bloody Mary, rather than the crisp, clean light cocktail pictured above. To obtain the tomato water called for, check out the following from Saveur.
To make:
Mix 2 parts tomato water with 1 part vodka (I bet a cucumber-infused vodka would be great with this, or perhaps Hendrick’s gin, which has a subtle cucumber flavor) in a chilled martini glass
Rub rim of glass with fresh basil leaf
Garnish with cocktail spear containing grape tomatoes, bite-sized fresh mozzarella ball, and fresh basil leaves
This recipe is pretty open to modification; I think a very teensy drizzle of reduced balsamic vinegar would be a nice addition—feel free to add your own!
For vegans, I think Teese vegan mozzarella is the best bet as a non-dairy alternative to the real thing, as the logs it comes in are most conducive to converting into balls. For the authentic look and flavor, try using a small melon-baller and soaking the balls in some lemon-water for a few minutes before garnishing.
This has been kicking around for a while (20-25 years, given the source), but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here before. But this whole scene is so ridiculous that it is the first thing I think of when someone mentions Fred Rogers to me; not the Land of Make-Believe, not marionette puppets, not cardigans and not tennis shoes. All this is missing is Mr. McFeely strolling up to do some popping and locking.
Sometimes my work can be painstaking (I’m talking to you, forest denizens and birch trees, with your gazillion little lines), but I’ve got nothing on Anastassia Elias. She creates teeny tiny itty bity sculptures inside of toilet paper rolls. Art out of trash, awesome! Admire some of her handiwork below:
our customers
