The Mixologist Myth

I'm sure every other Los Angeles-based blogger has already told you this, but we're having a freaking heat wave over here. I hate to complain about weather, cause I know some of you live in places that experince this type of mind-melting heat for, like, months at a time or whatever, but here in LA we're not really used to this sort of thing.

Before you peeps in Arizona and Texas tell me to eff off, can I just mention that it was 112 degrees yesterday? As I am now a self-employed person, I didn't have an air conditioned office to take refuge in, so I was forced, forced I tell you, to take asylum in the mall, where my best friend and I languidly wandered from air conditioned store to air conditioned store, while sipping cool lemonaides, and buying unnecessary make-up items. It was a hard. day. ya'll.

Okay, I'm not winning any friends here, am I? Here's a picture of my poor, hot cats to soften your heart a little:

My dear fiance, who had been doing actual physial labor in said sweltering heat all day, came home exhausted. Being the good faux housewife that I am, I offered to fix him a nice cool cocktail.

Now, somewhere in the midst of making tongue-in-cheek cocktail videos and creating sometimes-awesome, sometimes-revolting cocktails, I've been labeled a "mixologist". As I am not much in the way of modest, I haven't been quick to deny this, even if it's not very truthful. Hell, I've been called worse things before without denying it (hint: sometimes being labeled a "bitch" isn't the worst thing in the world). A connoisseur of cocktails? A liberal libationist? A fucking bartender? Yes, you could truthfully call me those things. A mixolgoist? Well, I'm trying my best to embody that title.

A lot of people are nervous to mix their own cocktails at home, and I get that. I used to be one of those people. But during the past year or so, with a lot of help from liquor left over from our video shoots, I've started collecting a modest amount of liquid accouterments for my at-home bar.

Proof:

So here's what I made for Colin:

4 ounces black raspberry vodka

2 ounces raspberry liqueur

2 ounces St. Germaine (an awesome elderflower liqueur that you should try!)

I shook the booze over ice, then added it to glasses with more ice and some frozen berries. Then I topped it off with some sparkling water. It was so yum! Also check out those metal bendy straws. They're one of my favorite items in my bar (you can get em here).

Being both a drinker and a gentleman, Colin kindly returned the favor by making a drink for us as well:

4 ounces vodka

1 ounce raspberry liqueur

1 ounce triple sec

Blended together with crushed pineapple, a banana, and a tropical popsicle. It was frothy and oh so refreshing!

I have no excuse as to why this beer-centric event happened later, but I'm blaming the cheese. Have you had that cheese in the tupperware? Ohmyfuckinggod it's heaven.

My point is: I'm no mixologist (at least not yet) and you can too! My best suggestion, as I know this shit gets spendy, is to buy little airplane bottles of the boozes you want to try until you find what you really like. It may not be the classiest thing in the world, but when have I worried about being the classiest girl in the room? Although if you call me that, I'll never deny it.

Tell me, what's your favorite go-to cocktail when you're sipping at home?

Gumdrops and Culottes

Happy Monday, everyone! Did you know that through the end of the year, I'll have a new cocktail video up on Food2.com? It's true! This week's video is for our Drunken Donuts, which you can watch here:



and in case you missed last week's video, for the Hari Kari Me Home, here it is:



Alie and I have also been getting some pretty awesome press, and doing some fun interviews. You can listen to us on Dan Dunn's The Imbiber Show here (which was SO MUCH fucking fun), or by downloading it on iTunes. If you have Sirius, we were on the Playboy Morning Show two weeks ago (remind me to write about the fact that we were a flight risk while waiting to go on-air in the green room). You can read a really awesome and fun interview with us on Toque here, and watch a special video we did for Lemondrop.com here.

Okay, so I'm done with the shameless plugging of myself. Personal stuff to come this week, I promise.

Here's a secret, just to tide you over.

I'm wearing culottes in this photo:

You're welcome.

Married to the Mob

Last night, on the way home from the after-party for the Blogger Prom (more on that later), was the first time Colin and I put any real life, making-plans-type conversation about what we wanted for our wedding. Sure we've been throwing ideas at each other since we got engaged, have discussed our "must haves" (his wanting his brother to give a speech, a darling vintage dress for me, natch), and even had a certain month in mind (June, because it sounds a long ways off), but we had never really settled on anything that would help us move forward with plans.

But sitting next to each other in his car last night, as he safely navigated the 1:30 am almost-empty streets of Los Angeles, a plan started to form. Now we have someplace to start. A jumping off point. I promise this isn't going to become a wedding-centric blog, just as it hasn't become an "oh my god I'm so madly in love" blog (my most recent post aside). And the details of what we've got cooking in our brains is much too much in the early stages to reveal too many details, but I'm just too fucking excited about it not to shout it to my little page on the Internet. So here are a few key words: downtown central library, flash mob. That's all I can tell you for now.

Oh also? I plan on wearing something along these lines:

How fucking cute is that???

via The Broke Ass Bride who I met last night at Blogger Prom and now have a total blog crush on

Smoke If Ya Got Em!

I don't talk about him much, do I? He proposed to me almost three months ago, and I've been wearing this lovely little vintage ring on my finger ever since. My heart skips a beat whenever I look at it. We have a happy little home in Silver Lake. We cook together a lot yet still spend too much money on eating out, and once in a while share a cigarette on our porch amongst our dying plants that we potted when we first moved in with the very best of intentions of keeping them alive.

I guess that's why I don't write much about it. I worry that happiness isn't much of a drawn when it comes to blog fodder. But I'm happy. I'm done with dating forever. I changed my life completely last Valentines Day when I asked the cute, tall, curly haired fellow on the smoking patio for a cigarette even though I don't really smoke, and then handed him my phone number unprovoked when I left.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like right now had I not had the courage to speak to him. But then I remember that I've never been that type of girl -- the type to not do something, to not put herself in a possibly uncomfortable position despite great risk to her self esteem. Life is for the living, I strongly believe. If I could give one piece of advice, if I dare become that happy asshole blogger for one second, the kind who pretends to have all the answers, that would be my piece of advice: be bold. Do something. It's so worth it.

Peanut Butter & Jealous

Oh hey, remember that time I made an video series for Food Network's Food2.com with my best friend Alie? Well it's finally been unleased onto the world, starting with this video for the Peanut Butter & Jealous.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning to film a segment for the KTLA morning news, and I'm throwing a party tonight for what could turn out to be a hundred friends and strangers, so you'll have to excuse me for not being more eloquent and...jesus, I can't even think of the word right now. Naptime.

Of Cocktails and Videos

Mine and Alie's cocktail demonstration at the LA Times Food & Wine celebration was a hit, and despite the sweltering heat (that's mid 80's, which is "sweltering" when you're from California), we had a great turn out for our demo, and an even greater turn out when we started passing out samples (natch). I had such a great time, and am SO relieved I'm not someone who cowers when addressing crowds.

The launch of our cocktail series for Food2.com premieres this Monday, September 13th, with the Peanut Butter & Jealous (although I've seen the video floating around the internets, for those looking for a sneak peek). Alie and I will be doing press all week, and bright and early on Monday morning (that's 4:45 am, which is early when you're from ANYWHERE) we will be filming a segment for the KTLA morning news. I'm thinking of cutting out the middle man and just mainlining some coffee that morning.

Deets to come, as well as ever-important posts about stuff other than the videos, but in the meantime...here's a video! Turns out one of my bloggy crushes, one miss Caroline on Crack (who is the THE. BLOGGER. when it comes to the Los Angeles and beyond cocktail world) was in the audience during our demonstration on Sunday. She filmed us making our Umami Up, and posted it for all to see. Yay!

She also wrote about our demo here.

Hope you're all well and happy! More to come, but for now, I have a sick fiancé to take care of.

New York Trip - Part 1/2

Alie and I are home from New York, with stories to tell and photos to show. Unfortunately, the computer with all the uploaded New York photos is currently being a jerk. I'll have to forage for the few photos I have in my inbox, on my phone, and those I've already posted on my Tumblr. Hope ya don't mind.

It was an amazing, probably-life-changing trip. I love New York more every time I visit, and I have to say that this trip topped all others. We went to the AOL building to film a segment for the awesome website Lemondrop, dropped by the Sirius offices to meet the delightful Lea of Cocktails With Patrick and record a segment for her upcoming show, and took important meetings in tall office buildings with a bunch of awesome people.

More details to come, but please enjoy these photos in the meantime.

Our VERY FIRST Dunkin' Donuts experience. Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

If asked, Alie will gladly tell you about our harrowing experience with a gypsy cab, and about how we ended up - not at Chelsea Market where we were headed for an important meeting - but somewhere in Chinatown called Cherry Market, and no, we do not want to pay you, Shady Gypsy Cab Driver, twenty extra bucks to get us back to Chelsea Market, thankyouverymuch.

She will also tell you that it was all my fault, which technically it totally and completely was. Personally, I'd rather focus on the above photo, which makes me look oh-so cosmopolitan as I run to catch a YELLOW CAB. Lesson we learned the hard way in New York City #45: never get in a cab that ISN'T YELLOW.

On the stoop of our awesome little East Village sublet, which we found via Airbnb thanks to a tip from a friend. Sublets, you guys! That's the only way to hotel, in my opinion.

I've been a fan of Howard Stern since I was a kid, so this was a big deal for me. I kept hoping he'd walk out of the door and maybe give me a high five at least, or even better, pose for a photo with me that would make me the envy of every big brother and fiancé I have [one of each]. Sadly, he was off that week, so we only got weird looks from passersby.

More photos and stories to come. This month is sure to be an exciting, highly bloggable one, and I'm looking forward to sharing all the happenings with all you lovely peeps.

This coming weekend, for those of you in the LA area, finds Alie and I demonstrating some of our new cocktails on an actual stage at the LA Times Food & Wine Celebration (with a She & Him concert, to boot!). Please ignore the fact that we're scheduled to go on at the same time as one Miss Pioneer Woman. We're passing out free samples of cocktails, and she isn't. So there.

And on September 13th, we're terribly, stupidly excited to present the first of 12 brand new cocktail videos which we made for the Food Network site, Food2 (bookmark our page at www.food2.com/drinks).

We'll be doing tons of press and awesome events for the show (see the aforementioned Lemondrop and Sirius radio visits), as well as hosting some guest-bartending gigs which I hope to see some of your pretty faces at.

photo by my awesome sister Leah

Have I mentioned how happy I am lately? Because I am. Endlessly, deliriously happy.