suburban kamikaze

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #24:Trash management

Q. How many teenagers does it take to empty the trash bag?

A.  Who knows? This is a question that has no point outside of a philosophy textbook. You may as well ask how many teenagers can dance on the hood of your car after washing it. They are never going to empty the trash bag as long as there is still a nano-speck of space in or around the trash bag into which additional trash can be wedged.

You are the one who should be dancing on the hood of your car right now because this arrangement of food-encrusted debris actually represents enormous progress by the standards of Ordinary Teenage Trash Management Practices, which are so low that some have argued they cannot really be called "standards" at all.       

The perfect cocktail pairing? Submit your recipes in the comments section.

 

from the archives: Back to School Cocktails: Because We are One Post-it Note Away from a 3-Ring Breakdown

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #20: practice

We are headed south for a few weeks to finish our novel  round up some fresh assignments work on our Margarita recipe. After years of practice and what might loosely be called "experimentation," it is pretty close to perfect an actual recipe, minus the measurements, the directions and the chance that any two will ever taste exactly the same.    

We make them to taste, which means twice as much Cointreau as you can afford, lots of fresh lime juice, a splash of simple syrup and a shot (more or less) of reposado tequila (the gold stuff). Shake over ice. Pour over more ice into a glass with a rim that has been rubbed with lime and dipped in salt. Or not. Top with a little lime seltzer. Or don't.

Drink as close to an ocean as you can get. Send Bob out for more limes. Rinse and repeat.

Hope to send you a postcard or two.

-SK

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #19: for the children

I wait until Mother's Day morning to tell the children that Mother's Day was yesterday.  

That way they know they have already disappointed me and we can just move on without all the compulsory vacuuming and fake appreciation. And vice versa. 

Not that we don't appreciate it. 

But it's not really necessary. When you are the mother of two teenagers, every day is like Mother's Day.

Exactly like Mother's Day:  They want money, they complain about the food, they have last minute school assignments that require your assistance.

They tell you to chill-ax.

The only difference is that on Mother's Day you can try to make them feel bad about it.  

Or you can just chill-ax.  Whatever you do, don't send them out to buy you "a bottle."

Unless you have a younger child and a liquor store within bicycle range, that is a job for daddy. Teenagers have terrible taste in liquor and they never bring back the change.

Happy Mother's Day. -SK 

Photo, courtesy of our Atlanta correspondent, Mary.

from the Something about Mary archives: Trash talk from a woman wearing an apron

I wish to apologize in advance for next week's record snowstorm.

Temperatures are expected to reach 80 degrees. And the sun is totally visible.

But the hardy people of the Midwestern suburbs are unconvinced. They've seen this kind of thing before. They know.

All that stands between them and a late season snowstorm that will bring traffic to a standstill and swift death to the presumptuous array of foliage that has sprung too soon from the earth are the weather gods. And me.

Having come from a land where the only two seasons are Patio Furniture in the Pool and Patio Furniture out of the Pool, I do not share their sense of caution. I moved the palm trees outside a week ago. Yesterday I grilled chicken with lime and I didn't even have to sweep snow off the grill.  

Today I am thinking of opening Margarita Season. Unofficially, of course. I am not a total idiot.

The locals are skeptical.  "Don't do it,"  they warn. "Make some sort of vodka drink instead. Anything but Margaritas. You will only anger them."

"But there is no mint for mojitos," I say. "Mojitos?" they hiss. "Are you out of your mind? Do you want to bring about Snowmageddon?"

"It's practically April," I say cautiously. 

"Hah," they say. "April." They practically spit the word. 

They shake their heads and check their supplies of salt. Not the kind you use for the rim of a glass. They do not even think of putting the snow shovels away. 

I know they're right. But the blue skies are too hard to resist. Also, I am new to these parts. The weather gods probably don't even know who I am yet. Besides, the high school girls have been wearing shorts for weeks. 

It won't be all my fault.

Photo: A pair of weather gods discuss plans for next week's record snowfall.

 

from the weather archives: A blizzard runs through it, Storm warnings call for a little Midwestern pluck, Things that did not survive the winter

In the laundry room, everyone can hear you scream

 

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #16: That crappy leftover faux-lada wine cooler isn't going to drink itself

Serving suggestion:  Don't. 

On having it all.

Wait. Have it all? I thought they said "do it all."    

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #15: Cocktail porn

There was something inspiring about the St-Germain French 77 cocktail, even before we knew anything at all about the gently ushered wild blossoms and the bicycle-mounting Alpine men.

The Executive and I had just settled onto two bar stools overlooking the Chicago skyline, but it was clear from the very first sip that this was a cocktail that had more than a view going for it. Handsome, mysterious and with an accent we couldn't quite place, it aroused our tastebuds and our curiosity. This was a drink with a backstory.

We edited it a bit and recast the man on the bike. But other than that, it was perfect.    

St-Germain French 77 cocktail at Cité.

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #14: Newspaper nails

Can your crappy cable news show do this? I don't think so.

Cocktail pairing:  Just the flask.

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #13: Sundays

Suburban Kamikaze Atlanta correspondent makes short work of dry laws 

Frankly, we were a little suprised it took her so so long.

But there was never any question about the outcome. Was the South ready for a hard-drinking, apron-wearing Midwestern housewife whose political skills were honed in the bare-knuckled, backroom brouhaha of the PTA cupcake wars?  No one ever is.

Our Atlanta correspondent hadn't even unpacked the last of her boxes when Georgia knuckled under to her prairie charm, overturning a ban on Sunday alcohol sales in county after county. The Georgia Scold Coalition was no match for her campaign: What Would Jesus Drink? 

Personally, we feel this would be a little sweet for Jesus' taste. But we do not like to argue over religion. 

Georgia Comfort

3/4 oz  Southern Comfort peach liqueur
1 oz peach scnhapps
4 oz orange juice
1 dash grenadine syrup 

In a highball glass filled with ice, add southern comfort, peach schnapps and fill with orange juice. Mix. Top with a dash of grenadine. Garnish with cherry and serve. www.drinksmixer.com

 

Suburban Kamikaze Atlanta correspondent: There were a million reasons not to recruit her. But who can remember any of them now? 

 

More reasons to drink: Teenage hair care, Seasonally dressed ducks

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #12: Cheap wine

Well, yes. Exactly.  What doesn't kill you makes a nice marinade.

You're welcome,

SK

 

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #11: New neighbors

Just when I thought I would never run out of reasons to celebrate the Midwestern "way of life," my number one source of cheap wine inspiration - not counting weather - announces that she and her houseful of prairie-bred children are packing up and moving to the Deep South.

This is funny for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is the way her aversion to shiny things and affection for commie social causes will play in the South.

But for those of us left behind, the departure of the woman we call "Mary" will leave the Midwestern suburbs a hellish shell of the hellish shell they already were.

This is a woman who serves liquor at her kid's lemonade stand, styles herself after Napolean Dynamite and will do things on a dare that make your college sorority hijinks seem like an afternoon with the Junior League of Peoria. 

You can't really ask more from a school board member than that.

Midwestern Mint Julep

4 ounces of Kentucky bourbon

2 ounces of mint-infused simple syrup, from which mint leaves have been strained

Pour over crushed ice, garnish with parsley because you used all the mint to make the syrup and sprinkle with glitter.  Drink in Mary's backyard until the new owners tell you to leave. 

 

from the Something About Mary archives: Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, Trash talk from a woman in an apron, Your cardigan says "Merry Christmas" but your pedicure says "ho, ho, ho"

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #10: Home Equity

So the old homestead isn't worth what it used to be. There is still no better place to enjoy a cocktail. At least no place you can afford. Plus, now you actually have the time to do it. Think of all the weekend home improvement projects you can no longer justify in a house that isn't even worth what you paid for it.

Saturday evenings in the Home Depot plumbing aisle used to feel like an investment. Now it just seems like the worst date night ever.

Cocktail: The Teeny, Weeny Equit-ini

2 oz. cheap gin or vodka

1 tsp. dry vermouth

1 green olive

Shake over ice. Strain into paper cup with tiny hole in the bottom. Drop olive in and garnish with little paper umbrella or a recent mortgage statement. Sip with one hand, keeping other hand against the bottom to slow the leak. 

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #9: Key Lime Wine

Between the snow, the rain, the hail and the oozing slices of deep dish pizza that fall from the sky over the course of a year, finding the right kind of day to open a chilled bottle of Key Lime wine in the Chicago area is not easy.

For one thing, you can't share it with just anybody. And it must be shared to be believed. It takes a certain kind of commitment to polish off a glass of this stuff.

Tradition requires that you finish the bottle.

You can open a bottle of Key Lime wine anywhere the sun is shining on a lounge chair and you are surrounded by the kind of people who are willing to sit through Eat, Pray, Love with you. More than once. Just for the secret pleasure of its awfulness.  Key Lime wine is like that.

Imagine a box of Sweet Tarts mashed into a pulp of wine grapes and left to ferment under the palm trees. Then imagine drinking it with one of the five or six people in the world you would call if you ever needed help getting rid of a body. 

Some of them, of course, would be absolutely useless. Some of them would be curiously adept. And then there would be some sort of argument over exactly how to go about it and you'd all end up getting arrested, because let's face it, Elizabeth is a terrible liar. But that is not the point.

My point is, these are the people Key Lime wine was made to celebrate.  Your posse. Your BFFs, your co-conspirators. 

You can drink a good bottle of wine with anybody.

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #6, 7 and 8: Bathtub Gin, Tax Holidays and Squirrel Recipes

The only thing we love more in the suburbs than a tax break is a holiday.

So when we heard about the latest proposal to create a tax holiday, we could not contain our enthusiasm.

Here in suburbia, we celebrate almost any excuse for a backyard barbecue.

And every little bit of money we get back from the government is money we can use to help offset the crushing burden of what we owe to some other part of the government - or pay out to the part of the economy that needs our money to stockpile offshore profits.

"Par-tay!" screamed the headline in The New York Times.  On closer reading, we realized that what it actually says is this: Companies Push for Tax Break on Foreign Cash.   

Technically speaking, it seems that this proposed tax holiday isn't for us; it's a deal that would allow some of the country's biggest corporations to take a tax discount on whatever part of their kazillion-dollar profits they opt to move back inside the country, where it will reduce the deficit and stimulate the economy by some fraction of the amount they say it will.   

But according to lobbyists for those very corporations, it's going to be a party for all of us when those companies turn around and start creating tons of new jobs with their savings!  Seriously. It's going to be awesome. 

Please tell us someone besides a utilities executive is willing to vouch for the idea that this will be a good thing for the rest of us.

"For every billion dollars that we invest, that creates 15,000 to 20,000 jobs either directly or indirectly," says Duke Energy executive Jim Rogers, whose company has $1.3 billion in profits stashed overseas, according to the story.   

We have no idea what that means, directly or indirectly, but you'd have to be a complete stick-in-the-mud to point out that the last time corporations promised to spend a similar tax break on a party for the rest of us, our invitations got lost in the mail. 

According to The Times, citing a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, 92 percent of the money generated by the 2005 tax holiday was "returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks" which, while it may not have created any jobs per se, was unquestionably a boon to the ice-sculpture industry. 

Still a holiday is a holiday, and frankly, a holiday that leaves us paying more for just about everything while the value of anything we actually own is shrinking as fast as corporate tax liability is the perfect opportunity to employ some of the same American ingenuity that brought us bathtub gin and squirrel stew.

I have never actually tasted squirrel, but there's no question that the Depression era's hardships inspired many a fabulous cocktail, some of which could also help start a nice fire under a bubbling pot of squirrel.

So use your imagination, your hairspray or whatever you have fermenting in the bathtub and scratch out a recipe idea on the piece of scrap paper containing the current assessed value of your home. Then submit it in the comments section here as part of our Summer of 2011 Liquid Stimulus Package. 

The winner, as chosen by a Suburban Kamikaze tasting panel convening in the backyard later this summer, will be immortalized in toasts and song. 

Cheers,

SK 

99 Reasons to Drink in the Suburbs #5: The Weekend Home Improvement Enthusiast

Mr. Kamikaze looks out the window where a steady drizzle drops from a concrete-gray sky.

"This is perfect weather for concrete," he says happily. 

"Yes," I say. "It looks like I got my bikini wax just in time."

My idea of a perfect weekend spent measuring, mixing and pouring is a blend of salt, tequila and limes. His idea calls for 15 80-pound bags of concrete powder. It looks like it would taste terrible.

But there is no undermining his satisfaction today. He watches as his little patch of fresh sidewalk cures perfectly under a dreary sky. It is perfect weather for concrete.

They should put that on a postcard, I say. 

 from the so-called Home Improvement archives: The Dirty Girl's Guide to Home Improvement