Happy Hour: Irish Maiden

I love St. Patrick's Day for so many reasons.  You can't beat the Kansas City St. Patrick's Day parade and I could live on cabbage.  I used to obsess over Irish step dancing when I was younger.  Clovers are adorable.  Oh, and Irish drinks are certainly fun, too. ;)

In anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, I decided I needed to master a new whiskey drink and came across the Irish Maiden.  I don't think I could have invented a drink that is more perfectly me.  Freshly squeezed grapefruit juice is my favorite mixer.  It is so refreshing and goes well with gin, tequila, vodka, and apparently whiskey, too.

Ginger, honey, and grapefruit juice make this drink a rather classy option for your St. Pat's celebration.  For people on the fence about whiskey, one Irish Maiden will make you a believer.  The parts about whiskey that I imagine people wouldn't like are toned down by the honey and grapefruit juice.  Don't worry, whiskey lovers like Jarrod!  While tart due to the grapefruit, the drink is adjustably sweet, so whiskey's wonderful taste is not overpowered.

I used a small piece of fresh ginger and club soda in place of the ginger ale that the original recipe calls for, so the only sweetness is coming from the natural honey.  The first time I made the original recipe's honey syrup and infused the fresh ginger in that, but that is much too fussy.  Simply shaking up the honey with the whiskey and juice will dissolve it beautifully and that hint of spicy ginger infuses in the drink with a few shakes also.

The Irish Maiden
adapted from Foodie Misadventure
makes two

4 shots whiskey
4 teaspoons local honey
juice of half a grapefruit
small piece of fresh ginger
splash of club soda

Put the first four ingredients in a shaker and um, shake.  Strain over ice in two glasses.  Fill the rest of the glasses with club soda.  Stir and sip.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

4 Reads for St. Patrick's Day

Spring break is around the corner.  Some colleges are starting their midterm breaks next week already!  What are you doing for spring break?  Traveling?  Going to a deliciously sunny beach?  Hanging out at home?  Whatever you're doing, you'll probably be stuck in a car, a plane, a bus, a train, or on a couch for some of the time.  So you're most likely going to need an entertaining book to keep you company.  Why not kill two birds with one book and read something festively Irish for St. Patrick's Day?  Sounds good to me!

In college I focused my studies on two areas of lit: feminism and Irish literature.  Irish lit is some of my favorite because it is usually beautifully sad and makes your heart hurt, but in a very compassionate and satisfying way that leaves you feeling more connected to humanity.  Ireland has gone through quite a lot of pain, and her children like to share their stories of hunger, political unrest, identity crises, and displaced loved ones through written word.  Most of the Irish lit I studied was contemporary, so I didn't focus a whole lot on long Joycean novels or Yeats poetry.  The books on this list are four of my absolute favorite works by Irish authors.  They also happen to be quite quick and readable, prefect for a spring break and your poor tired brains.  Even if you don't get a spring break because you now belong to "the real world", these are great for March reading.  Enjoy!

1. Dubliners by James Joyce
I know I said I didn't read long novels by Joyce in college, and that statement could have misled you to believe that JJ wouldn't be on this list, but he is.  Of course he is.  Dubliners is a lot different than his other works because it is a collection of short stories and because instead of using crazy modernist techniques, Dubliners is a realist's perspective of the citizens of Dublin in the 1910s when the collection was written.  This will definitely put you in an Ireland state of mind.  And if you only read one of the stories, read the last one "The Dead".

2. The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Ten-year-old Lucy Gault lives in a big old house with her mother and father on the Irish seaside in the 1920s.  When Lucy decides to run away in order to convince her family to stay in the house and not move to England to escape the Irish war, and her shoes are found on the beach, her parents make quick assumptions and rash decisions that affect the Gaults for the rest of their lives.  Be warned that this short novel is chest-achingly sad but beautifully explores themes of loss, forgiveness of self and others, patience, hope, and love.  All the important parts of life.  Lucy's story has haunted me since I first read it.

3. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde may not have liked to admit it, but he was indeed an Irish author despite the fact that he left Ireland as soon as possible and identified as a British author and playwright.  The Importance of Being Earnest is one of my very favorite plays.  A man named John who leads somewhat of a double life as Ernest falls in love with a woman who claims to only be capable of loving an Ernest.  John's friend with the real and awesome name of Algernon decides to do a little pretending himself or "Bunburying" as he calls it, and everything gets humorously complicated as Ernest tries to win the affection of his mother-in-law to-be while keeping his double lives straight.  It is so witty and entertaining, a perfect short read for the break.  Or if you don't feel like reading it, simply watch the hilarious film version with Colin Firth as Ernest.

4. On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry
This is another terrificly sad story that follows one Irish woman's life from the time she immigrates to the United States as a very young woman to very old age.  Fate deals Lily a tough, tough hand, but it makes her a wonderfully strong individual and an intriguing character.  Having escaped the Anglo-Irish war by moving to Chicago with her boyfriend, Lily spends her whole life a wanderer looking for her place in America.  As in many of Barry's works, he focuses on the effects of the Irish diaspora on the individual and the immigrant's struggle to find a home and an identity away from Ireland.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did!  Have a very Irish spring break!

V-Day

I know I promised we'd talk about Eve Ensler.  And we are, just not about The Good Body.  I realized maybe we should just talk about her most famous play first and the movement it begat.

Tomorrow is V-Day.  And it’s also Valentine’s Day.  Same thing? Nope.  V-Day is more serious, depressing but also more powerful and meaningful than Valentine’s Day.  On February 14, 1998 Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, started this grassroots organization to stop violence against women all over the world.  It raises awareness and funds to support amazing activists who work to end rape, battery, sex slavery, genital mutilations, etc.  See?  Much more impacting than a box of chocolates and a cute teddy bear.  And you don't have to be in a relationship to care about it.  (Don't get me wrong, I still love Valentine's Day, and I still want roses like these ones Jarrod gave me.)

One way to raise awareness is to host or attend a V-Day event, most commonly a performance of The Vagina Monologues. This year also marks the 20^th anniversary of The Vagina Monologues.  This play is a series of monologues celebrating women's hardships and strength in them.  Some of them concern many women’s insecurities about that body part; some of them bring up darker, more serious issues of violence and abuse.  Eve Ensler says she wrote the play because she was “worried about vaginas”.  She was “worried about the shame associated with vaginas” and “what was happening to vaginas”.  This play is uncomfortable.  It will gross you out.  It will make you sad.  It will scare you.  You will feel something.  And it's something you need to feel.

If you haven’t had the upsetting yet eye-opening and amazing experience of seeing this play that The New York Times has called “probably the most important piece of political theater in the last decade”, you need to.  Truman State has two showings of the play this weekend, February 14 & 15 at 8pm. If you live in Kirksville, you should go. If you live in Kansas City, UMKC will be performing The Vagina Monologues on Tuesday, March 4. In St. Louis, Washington University also has performances this weekend on February 13, 14 & 15 at 8pm. If you happen to be living in Durham, North Carolina, Duke is showing it February 26 at 7pm. If you are a dear friend living in Muncie, Indiana, you have to wait until March 25 & 26, but you still get to see the play. There. I think that safely covers my entire readership. :) 

Happy V-Day, guys.

5 Classics for Halloween

With October thirty-first less than a week away, urges for scares and thrills have been dancing around in my skull.  When you think of Halloween tales, you might think of ghost stories, told around a blazing bonfire, preferably paired with s'mores.  But a creepy classic and a mug of hot spiced cider while snuggled on the couch works just as well.  Ever since my sister Jill read Dracula for her history class, she has been raving about it.  The classic vampire novel seems like the perfect Halloween read.  But why stop with Stoker?  Poe and Shelley deserve some All Hallow's Eve time, too.  So here is a list of classics I've been wanting to read that also create some Halloween spirit.

1.  "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving.

Ghosts of Revolutionary War heros and score-long naps.

2. Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The original modern vampire novel.

3. Macbeth by William Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare's darkest tragedy. Witchcraft, murder, tyranny, Scotland.

4. "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Anything by the master of horror will chill your bones, but these two tales of murder and guilt are gruesomely popular.

5.  Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Published when she was 21 years old, the daughter of feminist heroine Mary Wollstonecraft spins a tragic tale of an evil scientist and his horrific monster.

Happy Halloween reading!