Saturday Morning Cartoon Cocktails!

This week's cocktail night was EXTRA fun (in my mind) because it involved not just nostalgic old cartoons, but wearing pajamas!

Here, Astrid is arriving with her old toy, a HUGE stuffed seal named Golfje. So nice to be surrounded by familiar things... cartoon themes, jammies, toys.

And here is an OLD picture of Astrid holding Golfje in her right hand! CUTE!!!

Judith and I with Scooby in the background. Judith made the first drink of the evening... inspired by the cartoon Candy Candy. Despite the title and the appearance, the drink wasn't QUITE as sweet as it appeared.



 

Candy Candy was garnished with... you guessed it... CANDY! Note the fried egg and the marshmallow boa.

Candy Candy:
- hard cider
- 7-up
- gin

Candy Candy (when still a virgin):
- apple juice
- 7-up

Either way, you've got to garnish it with candy!

Drinking the Candy Candy's while setting up for the next drink. 

Maybe it was a little sweet for Remco-- but he doesn't like sweet drinks to begin with!

Lauren munching on the newly-arrived pumpkin seeds straight from Connecticut to Talmastraat. 

 Arjen with the box of Scooby Snacks. No, there is no such thing, but I printed it off the internet and we stuffed a bunch of homemade cookies inside it.

A great picture of Arjen as a kid! xoxox

Arjen even made up a game that I thought was really clever and very fun! This was really my drink although he thought of the recipe and the game. It was based on the Scooby episode about the Bad Humor ice cream factory and the three phantoms haunting it... the dreaded vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate ghost. As with the show itself,  the idea was to get to the shots of strawberry (DeKuyper Wild Strawberry liqueur), vanilla (Cuarenta Y Tres), or chocolate (DeKuyper creme de cacoa). If you were able to get these flavors (clues), you could later use them as shots to pour over your chocolate, strawberry, vanilla ice cream.

The terror of the thing was that if you got caught by one of the three phantoms, you would be locked in either the freezer (like Shaggy and Scoob in the episode) and possibly freeze to death, or the milk room (where due to Shaggy's poor plumbing skills he nearly drowned himself and Scoob).

Incidentally the Scooby snacks looked like rocks (modeled after the show again) but tasted great.
Scooby Snacks:
- 3 cups cereal (your choice)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1 egg
- 100 grams melted (then cooled) butter
- mix it
- let stand for 15 minutes
- shape into small balls
- bake 180c. for ten minutes (per batch)

Candy Candy, Scooby Snacks... what next?

A tad young for some of these Saturday morning cartoons, but I had to put an old picture of Judith in too! (no, it's NOT Bram!)

At the height of the game we were all forming a bottle-neck (no pun intended) at the threshold of the booze. Very fun!

I won a little drip of the vanilla, which taster great over the ice cream. As a side note, I had no idea my boobs looked so big.

I love this picture of little Deana! The early signs of OCD are very telling-- note the one red, one white hair barrette to match the dress!

Lauren was next with her Gummy Beary Juice. Apparently the Gummy Bears tippled with this illusive 'gummy berry juice' and were consequently capable of bouncing to tremendous heights. Obviously, this is the drink the world's been waiting for. And it was delicious!

Gummy Beary Juice:
- port
-shaken with forest fruit jelly (clever!)
- mixed with a splash of cassis soda
- add a sparkling rose floater on top

This drink was refreshing, sparkly and berry tasting-- again, not as sweet as you might think.

It wouldn't be cocktail night is Lunchbox Lissenberg were not in attendance, making everyone sick with adoration. 

Great to have Reinout with us! 

Astrid arrives with her grey drinks. Who knew that grey was SO DELICIOUS?!?!
Her drink was a shot named the I'll Get You Next Time, Gadget. This is probably one of the only cartoons that even partly holds up to viewing years later. Which is not to say it's high art, but Inspector gadget wasn't nearly as bad as some of the others we revisited. And the drink was GREAT!

A lot of taste for a little drink. 

I'll Get You Next Time, Gadget!
- Bols Yogurt
- Drop liqueur

simple and perfect!

What a fun night! Nostalgic being the key word. What a strange thing to brainstorm the old shows (of course I'm a little older and the Banana Splits and Josie and the Pussycats didn't come into play). But we watched clips of many, many old favorites that are now just laughably bad. Still, it's nice to laugh on a Friday night. I felt like a kid again, with a huge pregnant belly and sipping booze. This was certainly one of my all-time favorites!

Next week's theme: Thanksgiving
How can we NOT? It's the day after Thanksgiving. Think pilgrims (from Leiden), Indians, corn, cranberries, squash, the Mayflower, the New World, and in general harvest themes. We'll make it work!
 

We certainly missed Maarten this week! But he was good enough to send along this old picture--- what a spruce goose in the spiffy white robe-- ready for Saturday morning cartoons! ADORABLE!

Sint Maaten's Cocktail Nacht!

This week cocktail night fell on an important day. It wasn't just 11-11-11... it was also Sint Maarten's in the Netherlands.  Although it is not a general celebration and is not celebrated in all parts of the Netherlands, it is celebrated in Amsterdam, and it is one of the many Dutch customs that we like to make kind of a big deal of. (the fact that it's anti-climactic is just a side detail).

The evening before Arjen carved a lantern out of this knolselderij (it's a gourd). It has wonderfully gruesome-looking roots atop it and makes a great traditional lantern. He carved the moon and stars on one side and our initials on the other. very festive! Lanterns are a big part of the celebration-- usually with strings attached. In the east of the Netherlands it was the custom that the father made the lantern-- hollowed it out and carved out a scene and initials. He would them string in on a stick for a child. The child with the most beautiful lantern would walk in front of the St. Maarten's procession of children--- going from house to house singing and  begging for treats. As a side note, it was also customary to leave the lantern gourd under the family clock until it was shrunken. We hoped with our lantern in the window to attract children, but sadly, we did not.

Arjen with our lantern--- in my mind a huge success whether the children come or not.

I sang the traditional (irritating and nonsensical) St. Maarten's song-- something about cow's tails and girls in skirts (a song that everyone tried to convince me was metaphorical and dirty) and in doing so, earned my St. Maarten's gift... a great new card game with a Lovecraft theme! Lunchy is helping me open it just in case it's laced with catnip.

Astrid baked an amazingly tasty cake -- gevulde speculaas--- with almonds on top and a filling that reminded me of marzipan. REALLY delicious and even better knowing it was home-made. 

Only one slice left (with my name on it)

Astrid also brought this Sonnema Berenburg-- a bitter that she immediately put in the freezer. It must be served very, very cold. It is a Friesien that you drink it straight. Essentially it's a genever (Dutch gin) with lots of herbs added. While it's not sweet to the taste, it does taste of herbs and it really, very good. Very festive. It is customarily drunk after ice-skating--- something to help the outdoor enthusiast to warm up quickly. Or have a terrible accident if they return to the ice.

Lunchbox, as always at the party. Incidentally, only Judith and Astrid were with us for Dutch night.

And someone else who doesn't always make an appearance was clearly moved by the Dutch sentiment... Sandwich Lissenberg!

Arjen made a lovely martini called the Sint Maarten. He wanted to combine mandarins (traditionally handed out on Sint Maarten's night to the children) and wine (fortified, meaning port) because according to the legend, Sint Maarten could change 'most' (a fruit juice that's already fermenting) into wine. In other words - he could turn fruit juice into wine-- and therefor he is always welcome in this house. 
Incidentally, I learned in my Dutch class Friday that St. Maarten is not only the patron saint of sailors, but also unmarried women. In the 'olden days' people would throw coins to unmarried women-- coins they could use as a dowry and therefore marry. The throwing of coins in old illustrations looked something like mandarins-- small, round and yellowy in color. So mandarins began to be given out as well.

The Sint Maarten:
- 2 dashes orange bitter in a shaker
- 1ounce brandy
- 2 ounces ruby port
- 2 ounces mandarin juice
- shake and pour

Make sure you don't drink so much that you end up looking like this.

You can garnish with a mandarin slice, so you can keep dipping the fruit into the drink.

Lunchbox posing with the St. Maarten's lantern-- still hopeful that children will ring our bell. All that candy and mandarins stuff will have to be eaten by us now!

Astrid made a drink called the Dutch Sunrise. We liked it a lot more than she did -- in fact Arjen and I LOVED it!


To make the Dutch Sunrise:
- fill a whiskey glass with ice cubes
- add a shot of very pink liquor (alcohol) or lemon syrup (virgin). We used a very flowery liquor called venusolie. Something that apparantly was used 300 years ago to cure people of illness. One could also use passoa for a tropical sweet taste
The fresh juice of half an orange.

 Squeeze the orange on top of the ice cubes so it slowly pours down on top of the pink layer
Fill the glass with white beer of the fresh type. Since you can get white beer in a non-alcoholic version too, its very easy to make this cocktail virgin. Remember to poor the beer slowly, and on top of an ice cube to prevent it from getting very foamy.

Makes you a sunrise cocktail that looks perfectly like a pink Dutch sky in the morning.

Astrid brought over a brochure from A.V. Wees-- a distillery here in Amsterdam with a tremendous selection of genevers, and Dutch liqueurs and bitters. It is certainly on our list of places to go as SOON as Teddy is born and I can REALLY hit it again!
www.de-ooievaar.nl

The babycats enjoy these quieter nights best of all-- they are Dutch cats after all. This must have been a special night for them too.


Next week's theme: Saturday morning cartoons (from growing up). Everyone is welcome/ encouraged to come in their pajamas. I'm planning to make some snacks that I would have eaten on Saturday mornings, growing up.  

Disaster Movies Cocktail Night...

Disaster movie night! Incredible how many movies there were to choose from! And these cocktails were far from disastrous--- it was a night of success and triumph in the bartending department...

 The first drink of the evening was 'The Titanic', based of course on the famous sea tragedy and the film.

Leonardo was not the king of the world in this case... Judith was. Because her drink was incredibly tasty and totally in keeping with the theme...

Here you can see the cold blue ocean and that pesky iceberg rearing out of the water.

Titanic I (nonalcoholic):
-rum raisin ice cream  (must be frozen into a cone shape prior to serving-- can make a cone with cardboard and baking paper)
- drop 'iceberg' into glass
- fill with blue gatorade

Titanic II:
- rum raisin ice cream
- rum (about 300ml.)
- 2 shots black vodka
- with with blue gatorade
(the alcoholic version comes out with murkier, nighttime water)

Rice Crispee squares... made here with barley puffs in place of rice crispees. These were meant to be shaped into balls and represent meteors from outer space. However, being the first time I've made these, I had no idea how sticky and impossible they are to mold. So, squares it was.

My drink was next... it presented some other problems...

The drink was based on the movie Outbreak and was meant to suggest an epidemic.

Getting the pox to stay afloat atop the beverage was harder than we'd expected. Using a syringe, I had to quickly drop as many alarming blemishes as I could before they all sank.

In the end-- it worked just long enough to take the picture.

Outbreak (alcoholic):
makes 5 drinks
- one tin if 1/2 peaches
- 250 ml. cream
- 5 ounces Cuarenta Y Tres
- add drops of grenadine with a syringe or eye dropper







Outbreak (nonalcoholic):
same recipe but in place of booze add dash of vanilla extract-- still delicious!

I forgot how disturbing this movie was until we watched the trailer!







Towering Inferno was next!

Remco brought in some red hot shots! The color of fire! The cinnamon taste was sharp and fiery as well. Something really nice for post-pregnancy!

Towering Inferno:
-3 parts vodka
- 1 part Hot Shots (or cinnamon schnapps)

Tastes like the candy red hots!

Arjen's drink was a doomsday affair based on the film The Day After Tomorrow. He represented the sharp, deep freeze after an atmospheric disaster with a lot of ice!

The Day After Tomorrow:
- 1 ounce lemon juice
- 1 1/2 ounces lime rum
- 1/2 ounce orange curacao
- add crushed lice (lots of it)
- blitz into a slushy with a processor

THE HULK! A genetically-altered human disaster. This was Astrid's brainstorm--- deliciously green and terrifying. The alcoholic version was far more threatening, but the non alcoholic was also fabulous!

Virgin jello shots had 1 part hot water, and 1 part cold water plus lemon jelly (stuff I got to flavour muffins after baking) think lemon curd, or lemon sirup could do as well

The Hulk:
Jello shots with alcohol: amount of water according to package instructions. 1 part hot water, 1 part gorzka. A little layer with colorant for the pants (and 2 eyes from bits of liquorice)


Try the alcoholic version and you too will be busting out of your pants at some point during the evening.

Consulting Mr. Boston, the cocktail god who taught Bacchus all he knew.

A brainwave! A Johnnie cocktail....

A little something sophisticated and devoid of disaster:
Johnnie Cocktail:
- 3/4 ounce tripel sec
- 1/2 ounce sloe gin
- 1 tsp. anisette
- shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass


What a fun and disastrous evening! Nest Friday is Sint Maarten's so we will be employing an all-Dutch theme and waiting for little rats to come singing and begging for candy!