P.S. I Love You

1/2 shot Bailey's

1/2 shot Grand Marnier

1 splash Creme De Menthe

Nutmeg

3/4 shot creme

ice

Mix the Bailey's, Grand Marnier, and creme together in a shaker with ice. Pour into a highball glass, add the splash of Creme de Menth and sprinkle some Nutmeg on top. Then sip slowly, sit lost in thought for hours, and realize just how blessed you are.

We all have...moments.

Moments define who we are as human beings.

Some exist as moments we want to forget. Even though they have wholly shaped the persons we’ve become.

Then there are the moments we live over and over again. The happiest and most vibrant moments our lives will ever know:

- Discovering your mom is bald when you come home from school because her chemo and breast cancer have won the fight.

- Your first kiss and the many kisses thereafter.

- Walking up to a podium in front of 2500 of your peers and family members to sing the national anthem at your college graduation.

My defining moments take shape in the form of successes:

- My mom, ultimately won the cancer fight 10 years ago. Her hair, although a consolation prize to her loss of lymph nodes, skin and tissue, grew back.

- My first kiss was awkward/shite/rushed, even. The fireworks kisses I've experienced thereafter...well...let's just say they're not all that way. :)

- My college graduation...knowing I was not only talented enough to sing one of the hardest songs in the world in front of my peers, but knowing I was singing because I had completed a double major and was graduating college at the age of 22.

This morning, Albert's great grandmother passed away.

Earlier this month, this: (http://www.inthiswonderfullife.com) amazing woman and her husband lost their child, Cohen, who was a mere 12 days old.

In March, my best friend Melissa's father had a stroke and was gone less than two weeks later.

These three moments of loss will forever define, in some small or HUGE way, Albert, Megan and her husband, and Melissa and her sisters. It took moments like these to make me realize that often, the positive moments I am so blessed with, get lost in the grunge and negative moments I let consume me. This muck overthrows the oodles (as my great grandmother used to say) I should be grateful for.

This is a reaffirmation to myself that I need to live in the moments and not only let them define who I am, but enjoy the path they force me to take.

With love and allegro,

Kristen

Paris Paradise

8 oz Bacardi 151 Proof

2 oz Chocolate Syrup

2 oz Bailey's Liquor

Mix in a blender with ice and drink for the next 72 hours straight until you actually board a plane for Paris.

I'm leaving. Yup. The 72 hour countdown has begun.

Have I done laundry? no.

Am I packed in the slightest? nope to that question too.

Have I gotten all my travel documents together...negative.

So...obviously I'm super ready to leave.

Luckily, tomorrow night is a lovely dinner with the gorgeous miss Ali Dubrow, and then an early night of packing, picking up dry cleaning, laundry, getting travel documents together, grabbing a journal from Barnes and Noble so I can document the whole extravaganza. Sleep will hopefully fit in the mix there somewhere.

Work on Saturday and Sunday will be the most productive days I've had to date, but only because no one will be in the office and I will actually have a chance to get EVERYTHING done. I can't wait for the silence that is the office on a Saturday afternoon.

In other news, WE lost this evening. And when I say "we" I mean me and my Lakers. Let me tell you...I was none too pleased with the way we were playing in the latter half of the 3rd and 4th quarters. Drive the basket and draw the foul. Although the celtics play dirty ball, they get into the paint and send shit up into the air. Most of the time it actually works. We should take a page out of the Celtic's manual.

More to follow in the next 72 hours...I'm sure.

With love and Allegro!

Kristen

Giraffe

1 part Midori

1 part vodka

3 parts pineapple juice

1 part cranberry juice

Add alcohol into a hurricane glass over ice, fill the remaining portion with pineapple juice and float some cranberry on top. Consume with the hopes that rhymes about ants and giraffes in the rainforest will be easier to come by.

My children's book is going quite well. It's a cute story about a Detective named Dan (He's a giraffe - hense the cocktail name) and his attempts to solve mysteries in the savannas. The problem, however, is that I chose to write this book in verse. Quite ambitious...I know now.

Our adorable little apartment is across the street from a Baptist church. This morning I woke to the sound of Ms. Jennifer Hudson's twin sister wailing gospel music at the top of her lungs...at 7:45. Needless to say I couldn't fall back to sleep after that. The alternative to sleep was of course, writing.

I was on a roll...rhymes flying from my fingertips. I reached a standstill, however, with this line...

"The rain fell down in thunderous sheets

....

Now although there are several words that rhyme with sheets:

Beats

Feats

Greets

Heats

Meets

Seats

How am I supposed to incorporate any of those silly words into a story about ants in a rainforest not being able to find their way back to the anthill? They don't sit down...they're ants.

Plus, although "rockin beats" has a nice ring to it, and definitely rhymes, lets be real. What child would care about the "rockin beats" of a giraffe and his fellow animals in the rainforest?

I'm stuck...

Back to the drawing board...maybe I'll have to change the line to "The rain poured through the trees with...zeal."

Zeal...obviously a five year old would appreciate the nuances of that word...oi vey.

With love and allegro,

Kristen

Start Me Up...

3 parts vodka

1 part tequila

1 part absolut kurant

1 part dark rum

Mix all together, shake with some ice, and get ready to write...a la Gay Talese.

The lovely Miss Ali and I had Indian food on Thursday evening for our catch-up sesh *Read...3 weeks of our lives that we needed to divulge in a period of about two and a half hours*.

The food (Mango Chicken Curry) might have been the BEST thing I have ever tasted, but I digress...

Among me synopsizing the Grey's finale, along with dishing about a boy, my long winded topic of conversation for the evening related to my excursion at the Los Angeles Passport Office. Don't be jealous. I know...it sounds fascinating.

SO fascinating, in fact, that Ali's beyond brilliant idea to write about said line at the passport office is just what I'm going to do.

Let the tackling of the seemingly mundane commence...

With love & allegro,

K

Norwegian Iceberg

3 parts Vodka

4 parts Sprite

1 shot blue Maui

Fill glass with ice, shake ingredients together, drink SUPER cold and with some warm Norwegian Christmas cookies that I may just make in June.

When I talk about something right before I fall asleep, it's all I can think about the next day.

i.e. : Last night Albert and I were discussing the fact that I am ridiculously white. Translucent...even. This conversation was spurred in tandem, however, with the fact that I am Norwegian. Now, let's be honest. There are very few things that *common people* know about Norwegians other than their Viking-ness and freakishly tall figures (enter...me, the 5 foot 11 inch blonde amazon).

What I know of being Norwegian, however, is the fact that we cook some MEAN pastries. I mean, MEAN. (for those of you that weren't paying attention, I used the word "mean" twice with two totally separate "meanings"!) ;) I crack myself up.

WARNING: The following images are not for the hungry or feint of heart.

Sand Bakkels - Basically a cupcake paper made entirely out of shortbread. You fill these with whipped cream or peppermint ice cream. My grandpa makes them by the dozens. My brother can eat at least 7 in one sitting. The best part is that it is mere impossible to eat one without getting whipped cream on your nose.

Try.

No really.

Fattigman - Deep Fried Cookie Dough covered in powdered sugar. When I was too young to deep fry (knowing I would do exactly what my mother feared) it was always my job to put the freshly fried cookies inside a bag full of powdered sugar and shake until the little bow-ties were smothered in it.

Krumkake - This fondly reminds me of every Christmas dinner I've ever experienced at my Grandparents' house. My Granny (a 6 foot 2 inch Viking, similar to myself) to this day, asks me to help her in the kitchen with the stuffing of custard and berries into the little waffle cookie cones. Any portion of the cones that brake, I get to eat.

It's a tough life.

Finally, the delicacy we have the most often at our house...

Ebelskivers - These are breakfast.

I know...right?

Ebelskivers are traditional little puff pastries (almost crepe like) covered in powdered sugar and *traditionally* Lingonberry Jam.

Salivating Yet?

You scoff at the silly names, but all you really want to do is go steal my mom's Sand Bakkle pan and bake...

be honest...

With love and Allegro,

Kristen

Writer's Block

3 parts Bourbon

1 part day old, cold as hell, coffee

Pour into a mug and try to squelch the never ending fear that the story you are writing won't be good enough.

I have writer's block.

...Not in all capacities. I can still blog. I can still recount the amazing night I had on Friday in a six page, very detailed spread. What I can't do? Bring a plot to fruition.

I have this preconceived notion that the first piece I write, has to be the one. The piece that will land me at on the New York Times Bestseller list, AND Oprah's Book Club within mere weeks of its publication. I'm blessed with the potential and the drive to do it. Hell, my six page spread took me less than an hour last night. The problem is that every plot I envision, every idea I start to map out, leads to self-doubt. I realize that the story that I'm developing sounds too similar to _____ movie or is too closely related to ____ book.

I have never chosen failure as an option. I will not now.

With love and Allegro,

Kristen

Star Wars

The perfect drink to mix with the ambitious Yoda, Darth Vader, StormTrooper and Boba Fett sugar cookies I am about to attempt...

1 part Southern Comfort

1 part Amaretto

1 part Sweet and Sour Mix

1 part Sprite

Mix all together and serve at a nerdy party. Or...at the cousin's fourth birthday for the adults that are indulging his Star Wars obsession...

My baby cousin is turning 4 in about a month and a half. In order to celebrate his birthday I have decided part of his gift will be a plate full of these babies....

via these cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma :)

The only problem with said adorable cookies is the frosting portion. Looks hard, no? Before I get the final versions off the ground in July, I'm going to attempt some practice versions once or twice. Pictures of the disproportionate and disfigured little guys to follow...

Along with the awesomest sugar cookies of all time *that's right, awesomest*, this evening I have decided to be ridiculously ambitious and attempt not one, but two different cupcake recipes.

This one...

Blueberries and Cream Cupcakes (Extremely tasty and practical for breakfast tomorrow morning)

and this one....

Tres Leches Cupcakes: not necessarily practical for breakfast, but let's be honest. Tomorrow is Memorial Day, I'm not working, so obviously that's an excuse for eating the afore pictured cupcake anytime I damn well please. :)

MMMMMM...

Love and Allegro,

K