Carrot, Apple & Ginger Juice

It’s juice time again.

I like ’em real thick and juicy.

That actually does not pertain to how I feel about my juice, I have just been listening to a lot of 90’s music lately. Like…a lot. Like…I might have spent over an hour looking up music videos from the 90’s on YouTube last Friday. No big deal. Subsequently, I have had the song Baby Got Back stuck in my head for days. This only becomes awkward when you start singing it subconsciously in the checkout line at the grocery store. The woman in front of you turns around after you get to the “L.A. face with a Oakland Booty” part of the tune. You make eye contact. You stop singing. You think about winking at her but realize that just perpetuates the weirdness. Don’t make it weirder. It’s too late, you already winked. She probably thinks you’re hitting on her. Oh man, you can’t recover from this one.  Not. At. All. You could try to explain that you have just been listening to a whole lot of 90’s music lately, and you were not singing the song directly to her. You could try to explain that you sometimes just wink in awkward situations, or you could lie and say you had something in your eye. The explanation of your behavior will only make things weirder. You grab your groceries and pretend like you forgot something in the produce section. You wait until this person leaves and find another check out line. Whew. Yikes. Get out of there. […]

The Whiskey Sour | How To Combat Awkward

Hey, Friends! Let me introduce you to the peanut butter to my jelly, the spaghetti to my meatball, the polar bear to my top hat! This is Peter. He is my husband. He usually sits idly by eating my recipes and humoring me by laughing at my jokes. Today he wants to talk to you about booze. Take it away, Pete…

I didn’t grow up drinking hard alcohol. To be clear, I also didn’t grow up (from childhood) drinking. I’d probably be surlier and have more scars. When I started drinking, it was generally beer that went down my gullet, probably due to the Dutch blood pumping through my veins.

It wasn’t until I met my wife’s parents for the first time that I really acquired a taste for something more refined. Sure I’d downed some watered-down vodka tonics and dabbled with gin in college. I even insulted an old, Danish family-friend by suggesting his 30-year old Scotch tasted like rum (I was all of seventeen at the time). In essence, my alcoholic reference shelf was stocked with beer until my mid-twenties.

Gina first introduced me to her parents far before any standard of social norm or traditional scheduling. We’re talking about three to four weeks after our first date. And this wasn’t a matter of “hey, my parents are in town would you like to come to dinner?” Rather, this was “hey, I’m 400 miles from home and I’m sitting awkwardly across from your imposing, Italian father in their beautiful home.” […]