This was a strange week. Really strange.

“First my mom (and a whole bunch of old people) joined Facebook. Then I find out that women don’t orgasm during sex, TRL decides to close its doors, dudes like having sex when their lady is on the rag and Hugh Hefner lost one of his ladies to a magician?

Sarah Palin’s email was hacked into.
I had some plastic thing shoved into my baby maker.
My friend got a man and I got jealous.

Is it a full moon or something?

I definitely need a drink, but do I go to a house party for free booze, or the bar for a better scene? Or maybe I shouldn’t even get dolled up and stay home to bake a pie with rum instead.

Hm. The pie isn’t a good idea, especially since I only pretend to work out and I want to make sure to fit into some awesome new runway inspired duds. And maybe the bar isn’t a good idea either, considering the future of my wallet is totally unknown.

I’ll just have my boys pick up a 30 pack. Pure bliss.

I have always had this intense passion for baking. I’m not sure how much of it was the romantic sense of making something great looking and great tasting and feeling the accomplishment that came along with it, and how much was just plain old having the ability to scrounge around and make something from practically nothing to satisfy my raving sweet tooth.

One thing I had never really delved into was pie baking. Brownies, cookies, cakes — I loved them all and I could bake them fairly well. But pies…if it wasn’t refrigerated, I hadn’t tried it. And then I had a craving for apple pie.

My fiance being the loyal supporter he is, accompanied me to the store and watched me stare at the shelves trying to figure out what looked yummy. I’ve never been one for cooking apples (sometimes I have an issue cutting them uniformly) and since this was my first foray into pie-world, I didn’t want to risk screwing up the um, very essential filling. So, without an official recipe, and without really knowing what I was doing I came up with the following plan. No, it isn’t good for you, but it’s darn tasty with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream.

You will need the following: Read More »

When I started college my freshman year, I was NOT a drinker. I repeat: I was not a drinker.

After having, literally, maybe three beers all of high school (not a prude, just didn’t care for the taste of what was given to me), I came into college a drinking virgin and very quickly had to learn what my limit was. (Basically, by exceeding my limit night after night after night…) I had to learn what I liked to drink, how much and how frequently.

After downing five shots of Rubinoff in ten minutes and blacking out, punching my roommate in the face, puking all over the communal bathroom, changing in front of a guy friend of mine and destroying my laundry clothes rack (after falling into it), I knew I had to take this experiment with drinking a little differently. So I made a few rules.

In order to spare you from the same embarassment and loss of precious laundry racks, I thought it was a good idea to share these rules with you. You can follow all of them, or some of them; whichever you choose, just remember to take it slow. Real slow.

1. No shots of cheap, nasty tasting alcohol. If you wanna do shots, make it one (maybe two, who we kiddin’?), not five or six or seventeen… and never use Rubinoff.
2. Do NOT mix. Start the night with one drink and keep at it until you’re through. Mixing creates a whirlwind of different types of drunk that normally left me hungover and puking the next morning.
3. If you drink liquor (over beer), drink slower. For many – like myself – liquor (i.e., vodka, rum, etc) does a number on you quicker than a few beers. So, if you decide to brave the evening with some Rum and Cokes, make sure you pace yourself so you don’t end up hugging the toilet. Read More »

Welcome to college, freshmen!

You may have made it through Welcome Week without any run-ins with the campus police (congrats!), but you still have plenty of opportunities to meet them up close and personal.

There are going to be many times this year and well into your college career that you will find yourself surrounded by alcohol. And, naturally, you are going to want to partake. Just beware–while you are navigating the university party scene, your RA’s, Campus Police, and Public Safety units are gearing up to bust underage revelers.

Here are some tips on how you can avoid getting written up before your first semester is over.

1. Don’t act like ‘The Freshman.’

Just because you suddenly have access to alcohol, it doesn’t mean you need to consume ALL of the alcohol at once. Even if the cops are out and about, they don’t have the manpower to hunt down every single underage boozer. So, they’ll zero in on the kid stumbling around with a trash can on his head before thinking twice about the passive mingler. The same goes with your RA, who really doesn’t want to walk in on you peeing in the corner of elevator. Read More »

After far too long without college football, I took a trip back up to my old school to watch the first game of the season. I figured my friend and I would grab some lunch at our favorite restaurant, watch the game from the non student section with her parents, and head home when the day was over.

Upon arriving on campus we immediately headed to lunch where we began our meal with a Bloody Mary and some Mojitos. It was at that moment that I realized our leisurely Saturday afternoon was going to be anything but.

The combination of the rum pumping through my veins and my excitement at being back on campus got me feeling all nostalgic. I missed campus, I missed my friends, and, most of all, I missed getting completely sh*tcanned before a football game.

So we followed our hearts and decided to do it up college style.

I chugged Franzia with some frat boys (”BABIES! You can’t chug for your life!”), downed Boones Farm with my friends – and that was before we even left the lawn. I had a 40 on my way to the game, which I shared with some random band playing on a porch that belonged to people I did not know. And I sang bad 80’s songs into the mic. Read More »

I remember my life before I discovered Franzia and its wine-in-a-box counterparts. I was developing a hunchback from lugging a backpack full of Keystone cans around campus, hopping from dorm party to dorm party. Or, I would spend an arm and a leg on bottles of Bacardi (and the mixers to go with it), only to go through a whole bottle in one night after my friends had passed shots around the room.

At some point during my college career, I discovered that wine is stronger than beer and more consistent than mixed drinks, which are super weak at many stingy bars.

Wine became my go-to drink.

When I moved into an apartment with a fellow wino, we quickly realized that even 1.5 liter bottles of wine went too quickly, so to save gas on packy runs, we became avid boxers.

Boxed wine is completely underrated by many collegiates across the country. In the wine world, Franzia may have a bad rap, but come on; we’re college students. We have no money. We drink a lot. And we aren’t opposed to drinking Dubra when times are tight, so why exclude boxed wine from our list of libations?

In many states, wine comes in 5-liter boxes. That’s FIVE LITERS of booze for about $15. Depending on how much (or how little) you drink, that can easily be split throughout the night between you and your five closest friends, or you can suck it down yourself and not worry about another liquor run for a week or two. If you can’t find a 5-liter box, you’ll still be set with the “smaller” size box, which contains three liters of fermented grapes.

Heaven. Read More »

Ever since our family dentist looked at my brother’s teeth and asked him if he routinely fell asleep with candy in his mouth and my mother saw the amount of money it would take to clear his teeth of cavities, I haven’t had anything but diet soda.

Sugary sodas and juices went out the window as soon as my parents realized the havoc they were playing with our health (not like the aspartame in diet soda is any better…but…I mean…let’s not think about that), and since that fateful dentist appointment 13 years ago, I have been very conscious of the hidden bad stuff inside innocent-seeming liquids.

Sometimes, even the good, “healthy” stuff can stab you in the back. Need some examples?

Glaceau VitaminWater (20 oz)
This shiz has 130 calories and 33 grams of sugar. I love VitaminWater because it makes me feel like I’m ingesting actual vitamins, but when I force myself to think about it…how healthy can something that tastes THAT sweet really be?

Pina Colada
This summer drink has 625 freaking calories and 75 grams of sugar. Do you KNOW how many miles on the treadmill that is? Give me some rum and a splash of lime — still tropical, but waaayyy less mean to the waist line. Read More »

Have you ever thought to yourself, self, I REALLY want something sweet and impressive tonight…what ever could that be?

Well, even if you don’t think out loud like some of us, no doubt you’ve run into a predicament that includes you needing to make something on the fly to impress someone, or just simply feeling a keen desire to impress your own stomach. But, if you’re anything like me, you’re A) a little lazy and B) too busy to make some kind of complicated recipe that will take hours and then be eaten in minutes.

That’s why this bananas in brown sugar with rum sauce dessert is like the Best. Idea. EVER. It’s fancy, it’s easy, it’s pretty healthy, and who doesn’t like cooking with a healthy dose of rum??

Ingredients: Read More »