Reuse and Recycle

Felicia believes in reusing, recycling, composting, and anything else that is going to help save our planet earth. Now, thanks to Felicia Fred, there is a creative way to reuse all those Bookers boxes. Just remember, you saw it here first.

Felicia's Practical Tips for Not Getting Sick

Hey kids, it’s flu season! Felicia has been hearing horror stories about some of the illnesses that have been flying around town, including references to the “super flu” and the “death flu.” Here are Felicia’s conscientious practical tips to avoid getting sick:

1. Don’t share your chapstick (didn’t your mother warn you about this one? what, you want herpes? gheesh.)
2. Don’t wipe your nose on the palm of your hand.
3. Don’t hang out with people who wipe their noses on the palms of their hands.
4. Get your flu shot. It’s not too late.
5. Hide in your house and don’t touch anyone or anything, ever.

OK, that last one is overkill. It is also overkill to put hand sanitizer on your eyebrows (no joke, Felicia saw a waiter do this at Dinosaur BBQ yesterday). The good news: alcohol kills germs. So have yourself a hot toddy or two or three, wash your hands a lot, take your vitamin C and pray to the goddess of cocktails that you are saved from all evil infectious diseases forever more.

Overheard at the bar on Saturday: “Felicia gives good lime.”

Be Felicia's Valentine

Felicia is all about the LOVE and the CHOCOLATE and the BOOZE on Valentine’s Day. Whether you are smoochy-lovey-dovey with your sweetie or cranky-grumpy-whiny and sworn off dating, Felicia’s is the place to be on February 14. Rumor has it that all the hot couples AND all the hot singles will be at Felicia’s that night. Come before dinner, for dinner or after dinner. Here’s a small sample of the chocolaty treats Felicia is making for Thursday (no paralyzing snowstorm like last year): German Chocolate Martinis, Raspberry Truffle Martinis, Espresso Chocolate Martinis, hot fudge brownie sundaes, chocolate brandy alexander pie, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and more. Pamper yourself, spoil your sweetie, and be Felicia’s Valentine.

Love Potion

How do you feel about Valentine’s Day? Are you a sappy romantic who plans to wine-and-dine your sweetie at an expensive restaurant, buy a dozen red roses and support the multi-million dollar Hallmark Corporation? Or do you buckle under the pressure of it all and at the last minute end up with the $3.99 florist special from the convenience store and a heart-shaped sampler box of gritty Whitman’s chocolate that will end up half-eaten, with just a teeny bite taken out of each piece to find the caramel but avoid the fake crisco-like maple or strawberry cream fillings? Perhaps you absolutely despise Valentine’s Day, because the only card you ever get is from your mother and it is the same one she sent you last year. If one more friend asks you about your V-Day plans, are you convinced you will explode all over them?

Fret no longer and drink this magical elixir. There is nothing like a little love potion to keep your heart company and get you through Valentine’s Day.

Love Potion

¾ ounce Amaretto Disaronno
¾ ounce light rum
5 strawberries
¾ ounce cream or milk

Fill hurricane glass or other fancy-shaped glass with ice. Add all ingredients except one strawberry. Pour entire contents into blender and blend until smooth. Return Love Potion to glass and garnish with remaining strawberry. Be Felicia’s Valentine and drink the Love.

Mixology Mondays: The Countrypolitan

If your childhood was anything like Felicia’s, you grew up on the whiskey-soaked cherries from the bottom of your father’s old-fashioneds and the vodka-enhanced olives from your mother’s dirty martinis. Oh, those were the days. Felicia loves the classic drinks (read: the ones that old people drink) but she likes to put a twist on them to launch them into our modern-day palates. The topic of this month's Mixology Monday is "variations on classic cocktails."

What can brown do for you? Bourbon can help men sprout hair on their chests and give women the courage to use a chainsaw. It can toughen you up and start a fire in your soul. If you don’t want to give up your foo-foo drinks, the Countrypolitan just might be the cocktail for you. The Countrypolitan, a creative take on the standard cosmopolitan, can act as a tame introduction to bourbon for the weak, add pizzazz to that same old whiskey that you’ve been drinking on the rocks every night for years, or dress up your favorite spirit to impress that hot babe you just invited over to your shabby pad. The Countrypolitan gives you the best of both worlds. The city mouse and the country mouse collide with cocktails in their hands. The Wild Wild West meets Sex in the City. A timber wolf and a poodle make sweet love to each other.

Countrypolitan

1.5 ounces of Woodford Reserve bourbon
½ ounce of Cointreau
½ ounce of sweetened lime juice
1 ounce of Cranberry juice
lime wheel

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Today's Mixology Monday is being hosted by Jimmy's Cocktail Hour. To learn more about Mixology Mondays, check out The Cocktail Chronicles.

Groove Woodworking

Leah finally has a spiffy online woodworking portfolio! You can check it out at:


www.groovewoodworking.com

Gin Facials, Fungal Toes and Mullet Cafes

Vote today! Remember Felicia’s motto: you can’t complain if you don’t vote (a.k.a vote or shut your pie hole).

Another hard day at work: Felicia just wasted an entire afternoon playing on the internet making anagrams. She discovered that some of the creative anagrams for “Felicia’s Atomic Lounge” include:

Gin Facial Outcomes Lie
Single Loco Mafia Cutie
I Ice Mi Cola Fungal Toes
Cocaine Ills Tofu Image
I Go In Mullet Cafes. Ciao!

You, too, can throw away your day searching for anagrams for your name at www.wordsmith.org/anagram. Those of you at work right now, keep an eye over your shoulder for the bossy boss in case you have to quickly change your computer screen. And don’t blame Felicia if your day is unproductive! At least you are having some fun.

The Red Planet

Many people who are curious about Campari take their first sip from a friend’s drink, and follow it with displeased facial contortions and the incredulous remark, “How can anyone drink that stuff?” Any seasoned mixologist will respond that Campari is an acquired taste, a true roller coaster ride for your palate.

What exactly is Campari? It is a bitter Italian aperitif created in 1860 by, no surprise, Mr. Campari. It is comprised of a mysterious mixture of herbs steeped in alcoholic spirits. Some known ingredients include quinine, rhubarb, pomegranate, ginseng, bergamot oil, orange peel, cascarilla bark, and a red dye made from – eek – bugs. It sounds a little scary, yet this classic beverage has been adopted in American culture as a sexy drink.

There are lots of ways to drink Campari, Campari and soda being the most common. The ever-sexy James Bond has embraced both Negronis (Campari, gin, sweet vermouth) and Americanos (Campari, sweet vermouth, soda). In Japan, Campari is served with pineapple juice and grenadine. Campari has even been used as an ingredient in sorbet.

Felicia has concocted a slightly sweet Campari cocktail that teases you with a variety of subtle flavors. From the aroma to the first sip to the surprising finish, this cocktail will delight you with its complexity and leave you feeling sexy.

Red Planet

1 ounce Campari
¾ ounce Grand Marnier
1 ounce fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
club soda
orange wheel

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add Campari, Grand Marnier and grapefruit juice. Top with soda. Garnish with orange wheel.

The Sazerac

In the spirit of Mardi Gras, Felicia cannot resist writing about one of the most famous New Orleans-based cocktails: the Sazerac. Sazerac drinkers are fussy, which is probably one of the reasons that one rarely finds the Sazerac on a cocktail menu outside of Louisiana. The tradition of the Sazerac goes back a long way, to the times of apothecaries and absinthe. The making of this drink is quite specific and almost ritualistic; you will be shamed by most mixologists if you suggest substitutions to the required ingredients and techniques. Stray not from these instructions, and with only one sip you will feel like you are gaily parading the streets of New Orleans.

So put on your Mardi Gras beads, make yourself a Sazerac, throw doubloons out your window at passersby and try not to lose your shirt. As Stephen Sondheim wrote (possibly about Felicia?): “She has a weakness for Sazerac Slings…”

The Sazerac

¼ ounce Pernod
2 ounces Old Overholt rye whiskey
3 dashes Peychaud or Angostura bitters
¼ oz simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water) or 1 tsp sugar
lemon twist with white pith removed

1. Fill an old fashioned glass with ice so it can chill.
2. Fill a shaker halfway with ice and add whiskey, bitters and simple syrup. Do not shake; instead swirl the liquid around in the shaker until the shaker is frosted on the outside.
3. Discard the ice from the old fashioned glass. Pour Pernod into the old fashioned glass and swirl it around, tilting the glass, coating the sides and bottom of the glass. Discard excess Pernod.
4. Strain the contents of the shaker into the Pernod-coated old fashioned glass.
5. Twist the lemon peel over the drink and rub around rim, and then discard lemon peel.
6. Drink and enjoy.