New Year's Eve Food and Drink FAQs

Another glorious year is drawing to a close, and I know that a lot of you will be celebrating tonight.  I hope that you all have a great time, and find the tips below helpful as you ring in 2013.

                         New Year’s Eve Food and Drink FAQs:

Q: What wine goes best with shots of Sambuca? 

A: Riesling.

 

Q: What’s the best snack to serve with chocolate peppermint vodka? 

A: Jalapeno and Garlic Pizza rolls.

 

Q: I’m not much of a drinker, but I want to fit in at the New Year’s Eve party I’m attending tonight.  Suggestions?

A: I recommend rum and cokes.  They taste great, and the sugary cola will give you energy and keep you going long after you should have stopped drinking.

 

Q: Times are hard.  What’s a good recipe for a tasty and zippy wine punch on a tight budget?

A: Mix 2 bottles of MD 20/20, two bottles of dollar store Benadryl, and a two liter bottle of generic ginger ale in a punch bowl or similar-sized bucket.  Add ice and enjoy!

 

                    Bonus Tips: 

• If you find yourself throwing up tonight, you probably just got a bad beer or hors d'oeuvre or maybe you are coming down with the flu; you should take some Theraflu, put on a sweater, and switch to mixed drinks at that point.  If it takes you a while to secure the Theraflu and find a sweater, pound the first couple of cocktails to catch up.

• Don’t fool yourself that you’re calorie counting tonight.  You blew it in 2012, and you’re wearing pants with an elastic waistband.  Eat all the dip you want, Tubby.

 

                                 Happy New Year, Everyone!  See you next year!   Salud!

Snow Leopards, Reindeer, Squirrels, etc.

·         If I was an Atheist, I’d keep it to myself until Christmas day.  Then, once I’d opened all of my presents, I’d jump up and exclaim “HAH!, THANKS FOR THE FREE PRESENTS, SUCKERS!!!”, and out the door I’d go, arms full.  Of course, each year I’d need to find new friends.

·         I watched a show about snow leopards on PBS; it was really good.  The narrator said that in a very rare occurrence, a natural genetic aberration causes a snow leopard cub to be born with the species’ natural yellow with black spots fur, instead of being snow white.  Although they didn’t admit it in the show, I bet when this happens, at some point there’s a gathering of the other lady snow leopards, and one of them says, “she’s not fooling anyone with that mutation story”.

·         Reindeer names Santa considered but rejected: 

Dander, Spritzer,  Retsyn, Coitus, Nixon, Hummus, Tutti and Chunder.

·         There are a bunch of squirrels in my area, and it’s always kind of sad when one gets hit by a car.  I try to make the best of it.  If I see one of the little lifeless guys in the street, I make sure no one is watching, and then put a tiny pair of dark sunglasses on him.  Later, folks walking by will see him and smile in wonder and contemplate how the heck that squirrel ever got a little pair of sunglasses.  Maybe, they’ll think, he was famous.  Or maybe, they’ll think, he got hit by a car because he was blind.

·         I think 12/12/12 deserved better attention and excitement than we gave it.  And at 12:12a, admit it, you were either asleep and missed it, or maybe you were awake and simply said "cool".   No parties, no champagne toasts, no chips and dip.  Sorry 12/12/12, you just weren’t THAT special.

·         So I spend the whole week acting all superior, mocking every Mayan I see, and then I realize that the calendar in my kitchen ends December 31, 2012, so they were only off by 10 days.  I’m feeling pretty embarrassed right now.

·         Some of you have probably been watching the original Miracle on 34^th Street movie all month.  There’s a really cute scene where Kris Kringle sings a song with a little adopted Dutch girl.  Young Susan watches the little girl and Kris interact in Dutch, and begins to believe he really is Santa.

The title of the song is "Sinterklaas." The lyrics from the movie are ...

Sinterklaas kapoentje,
Gooi wat in mijn schoentje,
Gooi wat in mijn laarsje,
Dank u, Sinterklaasje.

  I have used Google Translator to learn what the song means.

Santa Claus give me stuff

Go ahead and give me stuff

Go ahead and don’t be a tightwad

Thank you, Santa Claus.

 

                          Merry Christmas, Everyone.

The Great Toddler Snack Debate, Coveting, etc.

·         The first few times I heard the expression “Mad Skills” I thought the person was saying, “Math Skills”.  “He sure has math skills”, or “I have math skills”.  Because the context of the comment usually had nothing to do with math, I would be confused, but wouldn’t question it, because I figured I was missing something.  I’d just nod and smile, embarrassed.  Now that I know the expression is “Mad Skills” and not “Math Skills”, it all makes much more sense to me, and I heartily agree, with knowing enthusiasm and unbound admiration.

·         The TV show Glee has moved into its desperate “Next Generation” phase, like when Potsie and Fonzie became high school teachers and when the Brady kids got married. 

·         Now that the term “fiscal cliff” is being used so much, it’s pretty funny to hear how many people, even smart ones, are saying “physical cliff” instead.  It’s also curious to me that the error seems to be universally excused, like when people say “nuculer”.

·         I think it would be so strange to look out my window see a big pile of bird seed in my front yard, with a sign next to it that said “free bird seed”.    There’s no way I’d go check it out, what with all the anvil violence I’m hearing about.

·         At the mall the other day, a crowd of us gathered, clapping and cheering as we watched a guy who was dancing Gangnam style.  Man, he was really good.  Then suddenly somebody realized he was actually just choking on a tater tot.  The clapping and cheering continued through the successful application of the Heimlich maneuver (that Target Manager had mad skills) and then as the paramedics took him away.  It reminded me of that time at a keg party in college when we watched the asthmatic kid do the Worm.

·         I know that this is a controversial position, but I think that coveting shouldn’t even be a thing.  The problem with coveting is that if you actively try to avoid it, you’ve already failed.  I also think that anybody who admits to coveting deserves what they get.  If someone asks me if I covet, I’d look them right in the eye and say “nope”, even if I was totally coveting at that very moment.  No way am I falling for that trap.

·         Nobody wants to talk about this, but when it comes to dealing with toddlers, there are Cheerios parents and there are Kix parents.  I think you can’t argue that Kix parents are risk takers; why would you purposefully give a baby a snack that rolls, not to mention that it’s exactly a little bit smaller than the size of the kid’s nostrils?  There is a subset of Kix-oriented parents who just throw all caution to the wind and add cocoa puffs to the mix.  It’s just totally irresponsible, if you ask me.  Clearly, the Cheerios folks are setting their kids up for success and lower cholesterol; and even though Cheerios are round, they’re manageable.  You’ve probably guessed that I have a Cheerios bias.  I just think that Kix teaches babies bad lessons.  I bet you could do a study (I’d start with subjects in a prison or maybe on a cruise ship) and determine differences in the adult outcomes in the personalities of the children raised by these respective types.  Some parents probably mix Cheerios and Kix together, in a dangerous and confusing game of pacification without rules. I say, make up your mind and stick with your decision, create some boundaries.   And don’t even get me started on the Goldfish and Oyster cracker debate, or we’ll be here all night.