Hey guys! Guess what? Saturday is St. Patrick’s Day! YAAAAAY!

And if you are like me (a pasty pale Irish girl who embraces her heritage, dammit!) you are super psyched to celebrate!

And if you are MORE like me (a pasty pale Irish girl who embraces her heritage and is always hungry), you like to celebrate with FOOD!

So really, what better way to celebrate this most festive of ethnic holidays than by COOKING SOMETHING IRISH, AMMIRIGHT?!?

But hang on. As Dad O’C likes to say, “The Irish cookbook is the thinnest volume in the library.” In other words, there just isn’t that much “Irish food” out there (I mean, aside from corned beef, cabbage, soda bread, and potatoes, can you even think of any particularly Irish delicacies?) and, even as an Irishman (WOMAN) I have to admit, Irish food just ain’t that good. So what to do…

WELL! In a situation like this, I say play to your strength! And the strength of the Irish as a people, I think we all know, is our DRINK!

THEREFORE, I’ve devised (by “devised” I mean “found on the internet”) this super-boozy, super-fab recipe that combines a traditional(ish) Irish cocktail, the Car Bomb, and a traditional American dessert, the brownie!

The results? Nom nom nom nommmm BURRRRRRP, DRUBNK! Deliciousness with a KICK.

So! If you are like me, and want to try your hand at this nouveau Irish-American delicacy, here’s an extremely thorough, VERY serious(!), step-by-step tutorial, written based on my own experience. ENJOY!

AWESOME IRISH CAR BOMB BROWNIES!

DISCLAIMER: for maximum fun with this project, make sure you don’t even BOTHER to read the whole recipe first. I mean, WHY do that?! To be PREPARED? Or READY? Or EFFICIENT IN THE KITCHEN?! Psssshaw. Just make sure you have all the stuff available on the “ingredients” list, as well as a 9”x13” pan. And an oven. The rest will work itself out… eventually.

Ok. So you know what an Irish Car Bomb is, right?

Yeah. It’s a Guinness, with a shot of Bailey’s and Jameson dropped RIGHT into the pint glass. It tastes GREAT, just ask Pam!

Yeah, DELISH.

So like the drink, these brownies use not one, not two, but THREE KINDS of alcohol! The brownie part is made with Guinness, the cream cheese swirl is made with Baileys, and the ganache glaze is made with Jameson. Yeah baby, we are NOT messing around here!

NOW. Of all these three parts, the first one you want to make is make the Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheese Swirl.

Oh yeah. This is a multi-step project. Don’t worry, you can do it. I have faith in you. CORAGGIO, RAGGAZZI! IN BOCCA DA LUPO, EHHH?

Wait, that’s Italian. Wrong ethnicity. SHIT.

Moving on. Here’s what you do. Take 8 oz. of cream cheese and use a hand mixer (or a stand mixer if you’re rich fancy) and mix it well with 1/3 cup of sugar. When it looks pretty uniformly mixed, add one egg and 1/4 cup of Baileys Irish Cream. That’s about one and a half of those mini bottles you buy at the liquor store counter. So what do you do with the remaining half mini bottle? YOU BE A GOOD IRISHMAN (WOMAN) AND KNOCK IT BACK! YUMMM!

After you’ve taken your shot of Bailey’s, continue blending the cream cheese mixture until smooth. Set aside for later.

NEXT! Make the Guinness Brownies. Mix together 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Wait, scratch that. You probably won’t be able to find the measuring spoons in the super overcrowded “utensil” drawer in the kitchen taht you share with your two roommates. Just shake a little salt into the palm of your hand and dump it in. Who needs to MEASURE!? Leave that for those jags on Top Chef Just Desserts! Jags! Set aside.

Melt a stick of butter in a medium pan over medium heat, and when it’s hot and bubbly, add 12 oz (that’s a full bag) of chocolate chips. Now I like my chocolate like my men: DARK AND STRONG! So I use dark chocolate. If you don’t, I’m not sure we can be friends. But you can use whatever kind of chocolate (MEN?) you DO like. Stir until chocky is melty and smooth.

In yet ANOTHER bowl, beat 4 eggs with 1 cup sugar until light yellow and frothy. SLOWLY (“slowly is holy!”) mix the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, blending the whole while. This may test your coordination a smidge, but again, I have faith that you can do it. Next, add the dry mixture. Keep blending the whole time, stopping only to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Now for the fun part: blend in 10 oz. of Guinness. Ok, now I KNOW that Guinness comes in 12 oz. bottles! I GET IT! So WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THAT EXTRA TWO OUNCES?! Do you even have to ask? DRINK DRINK DRINK! Yum yum, cook’s treat!

After you chug, continue blending the beer/chocolate/flour/sugar mix until smooth and well mixed. It should smell real liquor-y and if you taste it, it will taste like booze with a little chocolate mixed in. YAY!

Take about 2/3 of this chocolatey gooeyness and spread it into a greased 9”x13” pan. It’s good to try to get chocolate absolutely EVERYWHERE when you do this. Some suggestions: on the counter, the table, your new iPhone, the crotch of your yoga pants, your sweater (I HOPE you didn’t bother wearing an apron! Those are for AMATEURS, not YOU!), the floor, the refrigerator door, and perhaps the bottom of the right foot of your tights. This makes the experience more enriching.

Once you’ve got 2/3 of the chocky stuff in the pan, take the cream cheese stuff and smear ALL of it in a layer on top of the chocky stuff. Then smear the rest of the chocky stuff on top of THAT.

Hopefully you’ve timed this so that your two roommates get home from work RIGHT at the height of your messiness. They will be extra appreciative and really glad they let you move in with them.

Now take a knife—just a BUTTER KNIFE, calm down already!—and swirl it through the brownie batter to make pretty swirls of cream cheese in the chocolate mixture. Don’t overmix it (that’s too much work!), just give it a little whirl.

Bake the brownies in an oven preheated to 375 (WHOOOPS! Forgot to tell you to preheat that sucker! MY BAD!) for about 30-40 minutes. It’s really hard to tell when brownies are done, so I just leave them in for the appropriate amount of time and hope for the best. 

While you’re waiting for them to bake, you COULD start cleaning up the kitchen… but you probably forgot to buy paper towels, didn’t you? So I would just go watch the latest episode of Dance Moms instead (Who’s on top of the pyramid?! What awesome solo is Maddy doing this week?! Has Abbey developed vocal nodes from screaming at those little girls yet?!)…  But hey, up to you.

FLASH FORWARD. When time’s up, remove the brownie pan from the oven. TURN OFF OVEN. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS. IT MAKES ROOMMATES AND LANDLORD UPSET.

Let the brownies cool completely in the pan. While that’s happening, make the Jameson Glaze! Heat 3/4 cup of heavy cream (hellooooo, cholesterol!) over medium heat until little bubbles form on the sides. Remove from heat, and mix in 16 oz. of chopped chocolate. Again, when it comes to chocolate, GIVE ME DARK OR GIVE ME DEATH! But do what you will… Stir gently until melty, then add about 2-3 tablespoons of Jameson, (The recipe says 2-3 TEASPOONS, but PUH-LEASE! You want this glaze to put hair on your chest, right? YES), and stir some more.

When the brownies are cool, pour the glaze ALLLLLL over the top of them and spread it around. Leave them in the pan while you do this, the sides of the pan help keep the glaze from running off!

Chill thoroughly. I actually put my brownie cake in the freezer for a couple of hours. When the cake is chilled to the bone, remove from fridge/freezer and cut into small squares.

Or, you know, just grab a fork and a few close friends and go to town. Wear green, sing drinking songs, knock back a few pints, speak in fake Irish brogue, and generally enjoy being a drunky-pants in celebration of THE GREATEST FREAKING HOLIDAY IN THE WORLD!!! HURRAH!!!

*If you really want to make this recipe, and would like to see it written in a more traditional form (i.e., the form in which I originally found it), you can do so by clicking HERE. Enjoy!

Hey guys! I know, I know, we haven’t done one of these in a while! Did you think I FORGOT about you? Did you think I was DEAD? Did you think I was PREOCCUPIED AND JUST GENERALLY BEING A LAZY BUTT?

Ok, well you’d KIND OF be right on the last one… But listen! I’ve been BUSY here! I have THINGS going on! I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, if you know what I mean. (Or is it ‘RODS in the fire’? ‘Rods ON the fire’? SHIT. Nevermind. You GET it.)

Anyway. Point is, I’M BACK. And I’M OBSESSED with a whole new slew of things (not the least of which is the word ‘slew’)! Of course I’m continuing to be obsessed with some old things, but you know, it’s mostly new stuff. So here you go tumbl-peeps, the latest and most up-to-date version of things I’m completely utterly one hundred percent obsessed with and can’t live without! And while I normally keep the list to just five things, since I haven’t done one in a while this edition has been SUPERSIZED to 10 glorious obsessions!

Oh yeah. YOU’RE WELCOME.

1. My juicer. I’ve been drinking green juice off and on for a while now, since I hear it’s quite good for you and can cure everything from a hangnail to cancer. Also, my stomach is a nightmare mess and has a tough time digesting, well, EVERYTHING. So drinking my veggies is infinitely easier on my poor poor tummy than actually eating them. And happy tummy = happy Alison!

Now while fresh pressed green juice is pretty readily available here in NYC, it’s NOT the cheapest thing going, at up to $10 a bottle (UGH!). So when it became clear that my infatuation with the green stuff wasn’t going anywhere, and I was readily handing over fistfuls of cash every day to feed my juice habit, I finally decided to just SUCK IT UP and buy a goddam juicer, already!

And I did! THIS guy!

Yeah, it was pricey. But I got it on sale. And what do I love more than green juice? A BARGAIN, THAT’S WHAT!

Anyway you guys, this juicer and I? We are in LOVE and it is SERIOUS. This thing grinds through ANYTHING you throw in it, and it shoots the pulp one direction and the FRESH YUMMY AMAZING JUICE in the other. In addition to greens, I love drinking beets and carrots and apples, pineapples, even sweet potatoes! So, so good. Yes, my juicer and I will probably be married by the end of the year. Don’t worry, you’re invited to the reception.

2. The veggie burger at 5 Napkin Burger. Step aside, soyburgers. This one is made of mostly beets!

WHAT?! I KNOW. BEETS. And you guys, it. Is. SO. FREAKING. GOOD. Trust me, I harbor no illusions that this burger is particularly HEALTHY, despite the fact that it’s made of vegetables (and barley, I think? Or millet? Styrofoam packing peanuts? I DON’T CARE), especially because I get the version that’s slathered with caramelized onions and rosemary aoli (drool), but it’s an AWESOME form of my favorite culinary subset, “Vegetarian Junk Food”. YUMMY! the only problem? I’ve eaten TWO OF these little devils in the past week. But I am not an addict, NOOO! I can quit at anytime! And THIS. MUST. END. NOW. Moving on…

3. The Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcake at Sprinkles! Do I even need to explain the awesomeness of this?! I went to Sprinkles with my friend A over the weekend, and we split one of these and OMMIGOD. My only thought was HMMM, I wonder how many more of these I could fit in my mouth right now??? I decided it was probably at least 293856. So if anyone ever wants to get me a gift, just about 6 dozen of these little guys and a fork will be PERFECT, thanks!

4. ‘Dance Moms’! Ohhhh you guys, I am not proud of this. Not proud AT ALL. It is in fact with great shame that I confess to you my obsession with the infamous Lifetime reality program ‘Dance Moms’.

I know it’s awful, I know it’s probably all staged for TV, and I know that if it’s NOT staged for TV, it’s borderline child abuse, but GOOD GOD I can’t stop watching!!!

Those moms are insane! That dance teacher is the devil! Those little kids are so damn cute and talented! BUT—and this is about to get super dancer-nerdy—has anyone else noticed that the choreography always involves tons of a la seconde turns, and fouttes, and switch leaps and acro tricks, but NEVER incorporates any illusions? Are illusions out now? Are they not a hot competition trick anymore? GOOD GOD I AM SO OUT OF TOUCH.

5. Yoga Bitch by Suzanne Morrison! I got this book as a Christmas gift, and read the whole thing one weekend recently when I was sick. It’s totally entertaining, I mean just look at the cover:

Hey, we’ve all been THERE, right guys? Just hanging out in Up Dog, doing a little Pranayama with American Spirits?

Ahem… MOVING ON…

It’s a memoir written by a 25-year-old snarky, cynical, city-dwelling, death-fearing, atheist who abandons her normal life for several months to do a yoga teacher training-slash-yoga-retreat in Bali. Now OMMIGOD DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE A RECIPE FOR HILARITY! Well, it kind of is… but it’s also more than that. I related in many ways to the author’s experience, although obviously, I did my teacher training in NYC. Which is pretty much the opposite of Bali. Warning: This book will make you want to go to Bali. Real bad. Thus the next item on my obsession list…

6. Bali!

I’m ready to go! Who wants to take me?!? Come on guys, the airfare is only like $1800! But once we get there, we can stay in a fancy resort for only like $50 American per night. Thank you, favorable conversion rates! I’ll brush up on my gamelan playing and start brainstorming ways to make myself look less like White American Girl! You know, so I don’t get kidnapped and sold as a slave! Does that really happen? I don’t know! But I’m willing to risk it! Come on, IT WILL BE SO FUN!!!

7. Booty shorts and bra tops! Ok, so I’ve been doing Bikram for a little over a year now. And here’s the least you need to know about that: IT IS GODDAM FREAKING HOT IN THAT ROOM. Now I am, in some ways, a modest person. Ok, so that’s kind of a lie. I’m not particularly modest, I’m just sensitive about my… oh, how you say… wobbly bits. You know, those less-than-rock-solid parts of my body that are ummm, WOBBLY. So I tend to keep them covered. Which means that for the whole first year of my Bikram experience, despite the ridiculous heat, I only ever wore full tops. Everyone else was dressed like sex workers at a brothel in Saigon, but there I was in my long shorts and my loooooong tank top. Sweating like a pig.

One day last month though, something just sort of CLICKED in my brain, and I thought HMMMM, I’ve been doing this for a year now. Maybe it’s time I get over my body image ISSUES and just show my stomach already?

And then. One day. I DID. And you guys, IT WAS NOT TERRIBLE. Not at all. So now I’m into wearing as little as possible in class. You know, things like this:

Yes, I’ve joined the Saigon Brothel of Bikram yoga girls. And I couldn’t be happier. Which brings me to my next point…

8. Yoga! Still. Again. You get it. But seriously, you guys, I’ve been doing a LOT of thinking about my practice, and I sort of recommitted and repurposed myself in the yoga realm for 2012 (Resolutions! Life changes! Goal sheets! Yadda yadda…), and bottom line, it has been going great, and my practice is changing, FAST! If this is really your thing and you want to hear more about my CONSTANT QUEST FOR SELF-REALIZATION AND THE PERFECT TRIANGLE POSE!, you can follow my other blog, you know, the yoga one. Or you can ignore. UP TO YOU! CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!

9. Ridiculously long “duster” earrings!

I was killing time in Urban Outfitters last week and I stumbled across these super-long borderline-crazy ultra-glam earrings.

And they were on sale.

FOR $5.

!!!

You guys, NOTHING at Urban Outfitters costs $5! Well, except these earrings. So you see, I couldn’t resist…

And here’s the thing: long earrings=instant glamour!

10. Scent-Elate! A and I stumbled across this little hell’s kitchen outpost one evening after yoga on our way to dinner (Veggie burgers. See #2). I heard some vaguely Eastern sounding music and smelled incense coming from the doorway, and since these are magnets for yoga girls, I was pulled in as if by a tractor beam.

As the name would imply, this place sells lots of things that smell good. Oils, incense, soaps, lotions, all manner of vaguely hippie-ish smelly stuff. It’s awesome! Even more awesome, the dude that works there will talk to you, and get a sense of your personality, and then recommend various oils and scents, and in the case of A and I, he’ll even combine and layer them to make new ones! He gave me a blend of Lakshmi and Atma, and he gave A something that made her smell like spicy orange cookies (MMM!), and told us to wait a few hours for the oils to blend with our skin, and then see if we liked them. Well, I liked mine enough to go back and buy them the very next day! It was a quick $50 to smell like a hippie, but HEY, if I had been buying Chanel, it would have been like $100 just to smell pretentious!

Besides, Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and abundance, so really I’m considering this an investment. Who knows, it may prove a rather auspicious purchase after all…

NAMASTE! aka, THE END!

“Ugh. Would that Christmas could just be, without presents. It is just so stupid, everyone exhausting themselves, miserable hemorrhaging money on pointless items nobody wants: no longer tokens of love but angst-ridden solutions to problems. (Hmm. Though must admit, pretty bloody pleased to have new handbag.) What is the point of entire nation rushing round for six weeks in a bad mood preparing preparing for utterly pointless Taste-of-Others exam which entire nation then fails and gets stuck with hideous unwanted merchandise as fallout? If gifts and cards were completely eradicated, then Christmas as pagan-style twinkly festival to distract from lengthy winter gloom would be lovely. But if government, religious bodies, parents, tradition, etc., insist on Christmas Gift Tax to ruin everything why not make it that everyone must go out and spend $500 on themselves then distribute the items among their relatives and friends to wrap up and give to them instead of this psychic-failure torment?”

~ from Bridget Jones’ Diary, by Helen Fielding.

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So yeah, I’m behind on my Christmas shopping.

Discussing Bikram yoga, popularity and the social structure of ‘girl world’, showtunes, AND The New Kids On The Block! WHAT?!? How did I even tie so many things together?! Well, it was MAGIC…

Ok, not really. But sort of! I guess what I’m saying is you should JUST CLICK HERE AND READ IT. 

Enjoy, tumbl-people!  Happy Thursday!

A day late due to the twice-yearly Northeast Society Of Periodontists (NESP) meeting yesterday. Yes, I got to listen to conversations about bone grafting material and “new directions in implantology” all morning! Ommigod are you SO JEALOUS?!? But whatev, it’s twice a year and I get paid so who cares. AND it gave me more time to think about this week’s obsessions!  Ahhhhhh!!!! So in no particular order, here they are!

Parks And Recreation - Ommigod. You guys, this show is just SO GOOD. I’ve recently acquired this new service you may have heard about called ‘Netflix’ and I’ve been watching Parks And Rec from the very beginning and jeeeez it is HILARIOUS. Laugh out loud, snarf your diet soda funny. AND smart. In the words of my friend Becky, “I heart Ron Swanson, HARD!”.

If you haven’t watched this show, you simply MUST. You can do so over the aforementioned new service called ‘Netflix’ but I hear it really is quite exclusive…

My haircut lady and haircuts in general - Ahhhhh after quite literally ONE YEAR, I finally got my hair cut! It was SO NECSSARY you guys. It was all the way down below my bra strap. It was so bad that when I woke up in the middle of the night I couldn’t roll over most of the time BECAUSE I WAS LAYING ON MY OWN HAIR. Terrible. Why did I wait so long, you are probably scratching your head and wondering!?!

SIGH.

You guys, to be frank, I was just LAZY. Getting a haircut takes TIME. And PLANNING. And MONEY. Three things I didn’t want to part with. And I’ve been putting it up so much for Bikram anyway that I didn’t think it mattered much.

Until a couple of Bikram friends intervened and said I simply MUST do something about my “ballerina hair” because I looked like I should be wearing pink tights with plastic shorts over them and pointe shoes. BUT COME ON, I said, WHO DOESN’T LIKE TO LOOK LIKE A BALLERINA?!? THEY ARE DISCIPLINED AND BEAUTIFUL AND LIGHT AS FEATHERS AND HARD WORKERS! THESE ARE ALL THINGS I’D LIKE TO BE SEEN AS!!! But my friends just stared at me, nonplussed, and insisted that I DO SOMETHING WITH MY FREAKING HAIR. So I did. I guess I’m easily susceptible to peer pressure.

But here’s the thing: THEY WERE RIGHT!!! My hair lady (Sandra at Jean Louis David) is a miracle worker, and tamed my unruly mop within minutes! It’s now shorter, shaplier (sp?), and less ballerina-y, and I AM IN LOVE WITH IT!!! Thanks Sandra, and I guess sort-of thanks Bikram friends. Though I still maintain there are FAR worse things in the world than looking like a ballerina.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - I’m not normally a big reader. I just can’t sit still that long when I COULD be DOING SOMETHING like yoga, or writing, or shopping, or snacking, or looking in pet store windows at cute puppies and talking to them in crazy baby voices. Or what not. But I read a review of this book in one of the Entertainment Weekly’s in our bathroom—Oh yes, we keep a PLETHORA of reading materials near the toilet at all times. Just one reason I love living here—and I was HOOKED on this book. 

Being a cheap-o, I went to Amazon.com and read a few pages of the book to make sure I was really into it—OH! Yes, you can read lots of pages of LOTS of books on Amazon.com! Did you know that? Now you do!—and I was, and so I haven’t bought it yet, but I will probably part with the $900 and purchase this hardcover monster on the way home from yoga today. HURRAH FOR JAPANESE FANTASY-WORLD FICTION!

From The Choirgirl Hotel by Tori Amos - Jesus Harold CHRIST, Alison, Tori Amos AGAIN?!?!?! Well yes. You see this week the piano/vocal score to From The Choirgirl Hotel that I ordered OVER THREE WEEKS AGO finally arrived - woohoooo!!! Very exciting. So far I’ve only had about 11 minutes to look at it, which was enough time to play the first three pages of “Playboy Mommy”…

…but this weekend (cracks knuckles) IT’S ON!!! Next up: “Playboy Mommy”, “Northern Lad”, and “Black Dove”. Perfect fall songs!

NaNoWriMo - November is National Novel Writing Month! Did you know that?!? Well it is! And in honor of that, thousands of schlubs like you and me across the globe pledge to write novels—yes, full novels of 50,000 words or more!—between November 1 and November 30! OBVIOUSLY I have signed up to do this because I am not busy enough at all. At the moment I’m up to 1759 words. ONLY 48,241 MORE TO GO!!!

My novel is a steamy thriller set in a yoga-meets-film noir world! It’s yoga with film noir specifics! Or maybe film noir with yoga specifics! WHATEVER. It’s going to be KICKASS and there will be lots of lying, deceit, manipulation and MURRRRRDERRRRRRRR!!! It’s going to be a bestseller, I have no doubt. I’m already casting the movie adaptation in my head…. WAIT FOR IT.