Alumni A Cappella Show

As a recent graduate of Providence College, I had the intoxicating pleasure this weekend to re-live the forgotten revelries of academia at Alumni Weekend. One of my favorite activities that I participated in during college, besides the copious incidents of evening debauchery, was a cappella.

Providence College has three amazing a cappella groups - Strictly Speaking, which is co-ed - Special Guest, which is all male - and my old group, Anaclastic, which is all female.

Every Alumni Weekend, tons of ex-a cappella members return to the halls of the music building to create harmonious tones with their voices.

The first group up was Strictly Speaking. Strictly Speaking is the youngest of the three groups, and thus had the least amount of alums return - nonetheless, they did an awesome rendition of The Beatles Paperback Writer.
The ladies of Anaclastic were next up at bat, and we pleased the crowd with several fan favorites such as Mariah Carey's Always Be My Baby, Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek, and Gordon Lightfoot's Song For a Winter's Night.
To close the show was, per usual, Special Guest. Special Guest is the oldest of the three groups and always has the largest showing of alumni that return to sing. This year, there were easily 20-25 fellows who returned to belt out harmonies and vocal percussion that somehow cannot be forgotten over the years...In this photo, Dan Farrell sings the ultimate crowd pleaser: Sexual Healing.
In my four years at Providence College, all three groups grew in leaps and bounds. New voices came into the ranks and with them, new ideas and new ways of doing things. A cappella is such an amazing and fun thing, and I guess in a way, this post is trying to help support and show the importance of college a cappella. Groups are springing up all across the nation as more and more folks are understanding and embracing this unaccompanied genre of music. If you can join a group - DO IT! If you can go to a concert - DO IT! Either way, as a participant or a listener, you will definitely be satisfied by the totally vocal creation which is born in a cappella.

Never Underestimate the Greens...

I'll have you know that I thoroughly enjoy eating a "bloody as hell" (ahhh pulp fiction) steak smothered in french fried onions, mushrooms and gravy, but every now and again, I get a hankering, a downright desire and need, for a crisp and delicious green salad.

Salad has gotten a bad rep over the years, I think generally because most often at restaurants, it is served cheaply as a side dish and often features tasteless, white iceberg lettuce and a general scarcity of other vegetables. This image is no doubt familiar, but it's time to change all that - it's time to bring the green salad into the foreground and out of its current, dingy side dish dwelling.

I don't care how you slice it - iceberg lettuce is crunchy water, and if I wanted that, I would just pulverize some ice cubes and make a mixed drink...There are sooooo many types of delicious lettuces out there! Go and meet them at your local grocer and see what appeals to you tastes!

Personally, I love a good spring mix with baby spinach, arugula, and a butterhead lettuce, such as Bibb or Boston. My husband, on the other hand, likes a crunchier mouth feel and loves Romaine lettuce. Thus, we usual have a hearty mix of lettuces in our salads.

I heard once (I can't for the life of me remember where....maybe my mom? Maybe Rachel Ray...besides the point) that a good salad should have 5 elements - your lettuce(s) and then 4 other ingredients.

The salad featured in the photo above features:

• Lettuce(s)
• Cucumber
• Hard-boiled egg
• Cubed chicken breast, cooked in olive oil with garlic and Italian seasonings
• Carrots
• Gouda cheese

This salad was divine, and was easily as delicious as a slab of steak...and also, waaaay healthier. Other great salad ingredients could be:

• Avacado
• Nuts
• Sunflower Seeds
• Apple
• Pear
• Crab or Lobster
• Fish
• Steak
• Craisins
• Tomato
• Mandarin Orange
• Blueberries
  
• Grapes
• Cheese

The most important thing about creating a satisfying salad is to make it your own and be creative! Don't just grab a bag of iceberg lettuce and continue the terrible slog which has become the side salad, but instead, grab the green reins and design something delicious, and nutritious!

In my searching the internet for reviews of Raison D'Etre by Dogfish Head, I was surprised to find that it was reviewed relatively poorly with rankings in the high 70s and low 80s...This surprised me a lot because Raison D'Etre is one of my most favorite brews in all of brewdom...

My Rating - 89

Alcohol Content - 8.0%

Approx Cost - $10/six pack

Upon pouring, Raison D'Etre is a beautiful dark red, woody color. It has very minimal foam and smells very sweet, malty, and also interestingly earthy, perhaps because of the beet sugars used in the brewing process. This beer sips very sweetly, but doesn't have a strong taste of raisins - just an overall fruitiness. It also has some very gritty, organic overtones, which assault the taste buds causing an interesting kind of confusion between sweet and rustic qualities - a confusion that I love intensely. Like most of Dogfish Head beers, Raison D'Etre is incredibly rich and robust, meaning that more than one or two in a night can quickly become overwhelming; however, they do sip pretty easily up until that point. Raison D'Etre is a truly delicious beer that allows you to sit back, relax and perhaps ponder what the real meaning of being is...

Mamma Mia! It's a Homemade Pizza!

Okay, so who are we kidding? Which one of you couldn't murder an entire large pizza all by yourself after a long day of work? Pizza is an amazing gift from God, one in which I indulge in perhaps far too often...

Several months ago, we bought a pizza stone and have been making our own homemade pizzas instead of ordering out. Homemade pizza tastes INFINITELY better because you can cater your pie to your own particular tastes and likes and also, you never have to skimp on da good stuff...

Our most recent pizza making adventure featured an absolutely divine Hawaiian pizza and also a savory veggie and pepperoni invention. Both were affordable to make and also gave us leftovers for lunch the following day!

What you'll need:

• A pizza stone (You can grab one at Target for under $15.00!)
  
• A pizza peel is awesome to have, but you can also use a large cutting board.
  

Hawaiian Pizza

• 3-4 slices of Canadian bacon
• Corn meal
  
• Small container of pineapple
• Small jar of pizza sauce
• 1 lb of pizza dough (we get ours at a local bakery so it is nice and fresh)
• Garlic powder
• Mozzarella cheese (Sargento pre-shredded 2 cup bag)
  
• Pizza Cheese Blend (Sargento pre-shredded 2 cup bag)

Pepperoni & Veggie Pizza

• 1 lb of pizza dough
• Corn meal
• Small jar of pizza sauce
  
• 1/4 lb sandwich-size pepperoni
• Sliced baby portabella mushrooms
• half an onion, sliced/chopped
• A bell pepper
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Pizza Cheese Blend
• Chopped garlic

Recipe:

1. Set oven to preheat at 475 degrees.
2. Place pizza stone in the oven - It is VERY important that the stone heat up with the oven! - If the stone is cold when the pizza goes onto it, the bottom crust will stick and make the pizza nearly impossible to remove - trust me - I've done it...
   
3. Place a generous amount of corn meal onto either your cutting board or pizza peel - the corn meal acts like flourm creating barrier so that the dough does not stick to the wooden surface.
4. Stretch out you dough - I like to hold the dough from my fingers and mostly let gravity do the work of expanding the size by moving the dough around slowly in circles.
5. Pace dough on peel.
6. Coat edges of dough with olive oil.
7. Place pizza sauce onto the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border for crust.
   

• Hawaiian Pizza

1. Cube Canadian bacon.
2. Cube pineapple.
3. Place a generous layer of mozzarella cheese over the sauce.
4. Add pineapple and Canadian bacon
5. Add anther generous layer of the pizza cheese blend.
6. Sprinkle top with garlic powder.
7. Carefully shimmy pizza off peel onto the pizza stone - as long as you used a good amount of corn meal, you should have no problem with the shimmy move...
8. Cook until crust is golden brown - 15-20 mins
   

• Pepperoni & Veggie Pizza

1. Cut onion into thin circles.
2. Cut Pepper into strips.
3. Place a generous layer of pizza cheese blend onto sauce.
4. Place pepperoni onto the pizza.
5. Add a generous layer of mozzarella cheese onto pepperoni.
   
6. Place onion, baby portabella mushrooms, and pepper onto pizza as desired.
7. Place chopped garlic generously onto top of pizza.
8. Carefully shimmy pizza off peel onto the pizza stone - as long as you used a good amount of corn meal, you should have no problem with the shimmy move...
9. Cook until crust is golden brown - 15-20 mins
   

Flying Dog Brewery's Raging Bitch

Flying Dog Brewery packs a sweet and crisp punch in its saucy new brew, Raging Bitch, which was created to celebrate their 20th year in the business of beer. With whimsically beautiful yet slightly crazed label artwork by Ralph Steadman, Raging Bitch is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also a delightful feast for the taste buds.

Style - Belgian-Style IPA

My Rating - 90

Alcohol Content - 8.3%
This beer if a clear, dark honey color and has a very thin layer of white, crisp foam for its head. Although it has a relatively high alcohol content at 8.3%, it is incredibly easy to throw back and you may surprisingly find yourself sufficiently relaxed and refreshed more quickly than you had perhaps intended! Raging Bitch has a very fruity nose of mostly tangy citrus, but it also features a very sweet, almost plummy scent that is incredible and pleasant. It has a crisp sip because of its high amount of hops, but finishes pretty smooth and fruity.

A six pack of Raging Bitch runs around $12 and will definitely satisfy you hop heads out there. Flying Dog Brewery has proven themselves as masters of their trade with this new introduction to celebrate their 20th year. Congratulations and cheers!

Sister Restaurants - Kabob and Curry and Rasoi

Providence is a really awesome city for many reasons - one of them being the delicious eateries on nearly every corner and all those others restaurants hidden away in plain-view nooks and crannies.

Two great restaurants are Kabob and Curry, located on Thayer Street, and Rasoi over on Hope Street. Theses two restaurants have the same owner and both feature a tasty assortment of Indian dishes.

Kabob and Curry

Food - 4/5 - lots and lots of appetizers and entrees that are all delicious and perfectly spiced!

Drink - 3/5 - awesome tamarind margaritas and several imported beers

Service - 4.5/5 - very attentive without being pushy or overbearing

Price - 4.5/5 - very affordable

Ambiance - 3.5/5 - can be pretty crowded and noisy - a bit impersonal, which isn't always a bad thing...
Kabob and Curry is situated right in the center of Thayer Street, which is right by several colleges including Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design. This fact means that Kabob and Curry is always bustling with a young, happening and hipster crowd. Also, this young crowd is relatively thrifty, meaning that prices are very reasonable.

Rasoi

Food - 4.5/5 - much more diverse menu with loads of interesting, and uncommon entrees

Drink - 3/5 - usual fare - some beer, some mixed drinks - very nice bar seating area

Service - 4.5/5 - speedy and friendly

Price - 4/5 - pretty affordable

Ambiance - 4/5 - nice open space - can be crowded and still feel very personal

Rasoi is an example of one of those hidden in plain-view restaurants. It is located right off of Hope Street, a street which cuts through the East Side of Providence and features several other phenomenal eateries. The food at Rasoi is heavenly - I am normally in complete euphoria when I eat here, and perhaps you will be too! Rasoi features a more diverse menu than Kabob and Curry and I always like to try something new when I go - I think my favorite thing is the Lamb Pasanda - highly recommended!

So, if your up for an Indian adventure, get out to either one of these restaurants and feast your face on some scrumptious grub!

Victory Brewing Company's Hop Wallop

This beer is almost too divine. It definitely delivers on the promise of a "wallop" of hops. Although it is too decedent to be a really good beer for an entire night of drinking, Hop Wallop is an awesome beer for sipping.

My Rating - 90

Alcohol Content - 8.5%

This beer pour like honey, but has waaaaay more sting than its bumblebee-sweet appearance might lead you to believe. Hop Wallop is for true hop junkies - for those addicts out there that crave the ridiculous sensation of fruity and tart grenades exploding on their taste buds with the persistent fervor of a toddler. Therefore, I love it. This beer has a really nice tart, dry quality about it, which makes sipping very crisp and enjoyable.

A six pack of Victory's wallop of hops runs around 9-10 bucks - pretty reasonable to score a fix of mind-altering hops - right? So get out there and treat yourself to some Hop Wallop tonight!