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!

I wish I were the Ace of Cakes...

I love to make cakes...I'm definitely no professional cake maker, walking around making 5 tier master pieces for weddings and parties, but nonetheless, I have a genuine passion to create decorations with frosting. Here are a couple of the many cakes that I've made over the years...
This is the most recent cake I've made - a pretty standard and simple chocolate on chocolate layer cake for my friend Sarah's birthday.

I figured out a long time ago that using gel frosting for lettering got messy and ugly quickly so I decided to make my own frosting bags out of plastic sandwich bags. You just have to fill the bag with frosting and then snip off one of the ends! SOOOOO simple! And clean up is a snap because when you're done, you can just throw the bags away and not have to worry about cleaning out a reusable frosting bag or pump.
This is a cake that was for an "Earth day Birthday" party for two of my friends that share there birthday with earth day (well, duh).
This is a cake featuring David Bowie from the movie Labyrinth for my dear friend Cait. This was such a fun cake to make, and I even made the nose three-dimensional with frosting!
I frosted this cake for a friend who really loves edamame (how could you not?!!). I love the little faces on the soy beans, particularly the singing one!
I made this Vatican City cake for my good friend Megan who is Theology major - it just seemed fitting.

The best part for me about making and frosting these cakes isn't so much to creation, but the reception. There is nothing better than seeing the smile or the laughter of a friend when you present them, say, a Vatican City in cake form for there birthday...

So, even though I might not be an Ace of Cakes, maybe I am at least a 5 of hearts? Someday though, I'll make it to the top!!

Tikka Masala Stirfry

I'm a huge junkie for Indian food, and every couple of months, I get the crazed feeling and absolutely MUST make something with some Indian flavors. Last night for dinner, my Indian itch was scratched when I made a delicious tikka masala stirfry with chicken, onion, yam, bean sprouts, baby corn and water chestnuts. This is a pretty quick meal to get together and makes hungry tummies very happy!

This recipe will serve 4-5 people
Prep Time - 10 mins
Cook Time - 30 mins

You'll Need:

• 2 lbs of chicken (can be breast or thigh meat, whichever you prefer)
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 onion (vidalia)
  
• 1 can of coconut milk
• coconut or olive oil
• 1 tikka masala simmer sauce (Sharwoods is a great brand)
• 1 can of mixed Asian stir fry, drained (water chestnuts, beanprouts, bamboo shoots, baby corn, etc)
• 2 cups of jasmine or basmati rice
• 4 cups of water
  

Spices that can add oodles of flavor:

• curry
  
• tumeric
  
• garam masala
• garlic
  
• cardamom
  
• coriander
• ginger
• cayenne pepper
• salt
• pepper

Recipe:

1. Get your chicken cleaned of any fat and cut into bite-size cubes.
   
2. Place chicken into a large skillet or wok with a hearty tablespoon of coconut oil or olive oil and set to a medium heat- a wok is ideal because it guarantees that your simmering stir fry will have plenty of room to build up and you wont have to worry about it boiling over into a sticky mess onto your cook top.
3. Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, and curry powder to the chicken.
   
4. Begin rice - Put 4 cups of water into a medium size pot with 1 tablespoon of butter and bring to a boil - add rice and turn down to a low simmer until rice is cooked - about 25 minutes.
5. Chop onion while chicken cooks.
6. Once the chicken is cooked, add onions.
7. Chop the sweet potato into relatively small pieces and add it to the skillet
8. Open up your jar of tikka masala and coconut milk - add both to skillet and mix.
9. I personally like my food very spicy, so here is where the oodles of spices above come into play...
10. TO TASTE: add ginger, garam masala, curry, tumeric, coriander, cardamom, garlic, cayenne, salt and pepper - be sensible - ginger, coriander, and cardamom are very pronounced flavors so you don't need a lot of them!
11. Bring the heat of the skillet up to medium high. Stir occasionally.
12. Add Asian veggies.
13. Serve stir fry over rice and enjoy!
    

Have Yourself a Bread Machine for Christmas; Make the Yuletide Gay!

For Christmas, my husband got me a very snazzy new bread machine. I was so excited to get it out of the box and start using it! He also bought me a really awesome book - Bread Machine Magic, by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway. This book features 138 recipes for bread machines in small, medium, and large loaf sizes. Since I have never in my life made bread before, I opted to start out with a simple loaf, and made a sweet oatmeal loaf.

This bread machine is like having your own baker in the kitchen - literally, I added all the ingredients, hit a couple of buttons, and came back a little over 3 hours later to find a beautifully tanned loaf of bread waiting patiently for me to remove it from its non-stick nest. The Sweet Oatmeal Bread came out so delicious, and quickly inspired me to make more bread! Luckily, for New Year's Eve, we were heading to a dinner and music jam party, which gave me ample opportunity to create more deletable loafs! I chose I Herb Bread and also a Sunflower Oat Bread, both of which came out perfect!
The other great thing about this particular bread maker is that it actually make bread that looks like a loaf, not like an awkward kind of rectangular block like other bread makers I have seen. I look forward to trying out all the recipes in the book and making some delicious bread!

Chicken Soup with Rabe, Tomato, and White Beans

So, this weekend, I roasted a chicken. I love roasting a whole chicken, and usually do it is once or twice a month, especially during the cold weather months...The great thing about roasting a chicken is that it not only gives you tons of succulent meaty morsels and an excuse to drown a plate of rich food in homemade gravy, but it also gives you loads of opportunity to create delicious soups!

I went to the market tonight with the hubby and with no real plan, we ended up grabbing some

• rabe
• 2 cans of canellini beans
• 1 large can of diced tomatoes

which all turned out to be phenomenal ingredients for a really tasty and light soup. I also grabbed an extra can of chicken stock, just in case the soup needed extra fluid.

Stock: (Made the night prior)

• Prep time - 5 mins
• Simmer time - 1 - 3 hours
  

1. Place chicken carcass and drippings from bake pan into a large pot.
2. Fill nearly to the top of the carcass with water.
3. Add a half an onion, a carrot, and one sprig of celery.
4. Cover top of water with a sprinkling of basil, oregano, rosemary, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
5. Simmer for 1 - 3 hours and taste for flavor.
6. Let cool and then strain out bones and vegetables.
   

Soup:

• Prep time - 10 mins
• Cook time - 20 mins

1. Turn stove on to medium high to high heat.
   
2. Add the diced tomatoes to the chicken stock.
3. Clean the rabe (I just used a single bunch from the market - a comfortable hand grip full) and chop rustically into chunky, bite size pieces.
4. Place rabe into stock and bring to a boil.
5. Here I added some extra chicken broth (only one can, and not at all necessary if your soup has a good ratio)
   
6. Add beans at boil and turn pot to simmer.
7. Serve with fresh grated parmesan cheese and enjoy!
   

Clipper City Brewery's Heavy Seas - Loose Canon

This weeks Brew of the Week is especially divine - It is Heavy Seas - Loose Canon by the CLipper City Brewery. I was out this past weekend at a great little establishment in Newport, Rhode Island, Pour Judgment, and was lucky enough to find that they had this hop-filled, fruity grog on tap.

My Rating - 90

Alcohol Content - 7.25%

This is quite possibly one of the best IPA's that has yet graced my lips. In this beer, Clipper City Brewery manages to create a near perfect yin and yang between two qualities which often fight to overtake one another in a beer - refreshing crispness and delirious sweetness. Loose Canon is definitely hoppy, but also features delicate overtones of citrus and floral that make the scent and taste incredibly pleasant. This beer sips easily, perhaps a little too easily, and makes a delicious evening of drinking.

A six pack of this tasty ale will run around $10 and is well worth the every single penny if you are looking to taste a crisp, hoppy beer that also satisfies your sweet tooth. Cheers!

Happy New Year - A Decade in Film

It's over! Happy New Year to all!

The big shebang has come to an end and now what are we left with? Another 365 days of timid hope perhaps...hoping that things will change...Hoping that the economy will lift her chin from the ceramic basin...Hoping for jobs...Hoping that this conflicts in the Middle East will end in peace.

Amidst this tumultuous environment, the film industry has not stopped producing amazing works of cinematography to amuse and satiate the hearts, eyes and ears of Americans . Here are a few of my all-time favorite, gold-star-receiving movies that have graced the presence of movie theater screens over the last ten years.

The spectrum is relatively broad - as some things that are incredibly entertaining are not always the most fruitful for the mind --- Although thoughtful and evocative movies are amazing, (and those too shall appear here) there is a time and a place in life when you just want to shove your face, and mind, full of potato chips and bon bons...

best in show - 2000
the perfect storm - 2000
what lies beneath - 2000
traffic - 2000
o brother where art thou? - 2000

a beautiful mind - 2001
moulin rouge - 2001
ocean's eleven - 2001
wet hot american summer - 2001
life as a house - 2001

gangs of new york - 2002
chicago - 2002
my big fat greek wedding - 2002
the pianist - 2002
the ring - 2002

school of rock - 2003
lost in translation - 2003
may - 2003
big fish - 2003
kill bill vol 1 & 2 - 2003-2004

anchor man - 2004
sideways - 2004
mean creek - 2004
crash - 2004
mean girls - 2004

40 year-old virgin - 2005
sin city - 2005
hard candy - 2005
everything is illuminated - 2005
memoirs of a geisha - 2005

thank you for smoking - 2006
little miss sunshine - 2006
the woods - 2006
borat - 2006
fido - 2006

across the universe - 2007
the orphanage - 2007
into the wild - 2007
there will be blood - 2007
once - 2007

the wrestler - 2008
the visitor - 2008
vicky cristina barcelona - 2008
let the right one in - 2008
towelhead - 2008

inglorious basterds - 2009
i love you man - 2009
precious - 2009
the uninvited- 2009
up in the air - 2009