The Dirty Old Wedge

We've just returned from a fabulous weekend at Ohana Luau at the Lake, the annual tiki weekender in wonderfully kitschy Lake George, New York, where we served 200 drinks to thirsty attendees in our crawl room! For those who haven't attended a room crawl, basically what happens is folks sign up to serve drinks in their (often elaborately decorated) hotel rooms. It's always a lot of fun and the creativity on display is amazing! We had a beach party/ominous surf theme and the Montreal-based band, The Men In Gray Suits played. So much fun! Here's the recipe for the drink we served (click here to see it larger) and a short video clip of the fun! Can't wait to do it again!

The Dirty Old Wedge Crew

Pieathalon!

I'm so excited to be participating in Pieathalon this year, in which bloggers make all sorts of pies, from the sublime to the ridiculous! Which type do you think I was assigned? There isn't "kitsch" in our title for nothing! My assignment was to make Swiss Pie With Hot Dogs, because there was a time, not so long ago, when it was believed that hot dogs belonged in everything. In fact, The New Hot Dog Cookbook, from whence my recipe came, was able to find over 250 uses!

This one is a vegetarian's worst nightmare, as it contains five slices of bacon and six hot dogs! It gets its Swiss-ness from the Swiss cheese. The only alteration I made to the recipe was to slightly reduce the amount of cheese involved. As you can probably imagine with that much bacon and cheese, it's pretty good! We'll be freezing this one and consuming it slowly, since it's also a heart attack in a pie plate!

Hooray for Pieathalon! Visit these fabulous blogs to see the rest of the pies!

Yinzerella<a
href="http://www.dinnerisserved1972.com">Dinner
is Served 1972</a>
Saucy Cherie at <a href="http://cookbookcherie.wordpress.com">cookbookcherie.wordpress.com</a>
Our old friend Dr. Bobb of <a
href="http://dbkitschen.blogspot.com">Dr.
Bobb's Kitschen</a>
<a href="http://yesterdaysmenus.com">Yesterday's
Menus</a>
Ashley
at <a href="http://apinchofvintage.com">A
Pinch of Vintage</a>
<a href="http://Bittersweetsusie.wordpress.com">Bittersweet
Susie</a>
<a
href="http://www.battenburgbelle.com/">Battenburgbelle</a> Kelli
from <a href="http://www.Kelliskitchen.org">Kelli's
Kitchen</a>
Erica Retrochef from <a
href="http://retrorecipe.wordpress.com">Retro
Recipe Attempts </a>
Taryn from <a href="http://retrofoodformoderntimes.com/">Retro
Food For Modern Times</a>
Jenny of <a href="http://www.silverscreensuppers.com">Silver
Screen Suppers</a>
Clara at <a href="http://heritagerecipebox.com/">Heritage
Recipe Box</a>
Poppy of <a href="http://granniepantries.blogspot.com/">Grannie
Pantries</a> (And yeah I really thought at first it
was Grannie Panties and was really excited!)
S. of <a href="http://abookofcookrye.blogspot.com/">A
Book of Cookrye</a>
RetroRuth from <a href="http://www.midcenturymenu.com">Mid-Century
Menu</a>

Bon Voyage Party

I love this. There was a time when your nearest and dearest could accompany you to the gate at the airport, with a full compliment of lovely libations...

Vintage Commercials

Vintage commercials are the best! Here are links to a couple that are hilarious! It's odd how little has changed over the years.

Byrrh On The Rocks!

A Visit From The Giant Jar Of Maxwell House!

It's a major award!

Our prizes from the Virtual Mad Men Finale Contest arrived and I'm thrilled!  Fancy bar tools that didn't come from a thrift store or the street!  I feel so sophisticated!

Banana Liqueur is a Success!

Our first batch of banana liqueur is complete and bottled and I'm pleased to say it's a success! Most banana liqueur, Banane du Bresil being a notable exception, tastes like a banana Now & Later and bares little resemblance to an actual banana flavor.  This one actually tastes like banana.  Good thing, because we're using it in our Ohana Luau at the Lake crawl room drink, which we'll be serving to over 100 people.  The cost for Banane du Bresil for that many folks would be prohibitive.  Now we have an ingredient we can take pride in without breaking the bank!

Homemade banana liqueur

I just happily added our Award Winner badge from the Virtual Mad Men Finale Party contest to our site and blog.  It's so exciting to be able to add "award winning" before "web series" to our title!

Vintage Recipes and Liqueur Making

There are new vintage recipes for May on our website!  May means Mother's Day, which always seems to translate into brunch recipes, but if your mother is as partial to meat as mine is, these recipes will inspire you to get outside and grill!  Click here to read.

Ribs for Mother's Day? My mother would say yes!

We've begun preparations for our crawl room at Ohana Luau at the Lake (click here to learn more), where we expect to serve drinks to scores of thirsty revelers out of our hotel room.  At this very moment we're infusing ingredients for our own homemade liqueurs, which will allow us to serve cocktails with high quality ingredients (no artificial flavors or HFCS here!) and save money!  It may not look glamorous now, but we expect the finished libations to be very lovely!

Drying orange peels and bananas infusing in rum - all in a day's work!