2011 Meeting Dates Refresher

This post is quick refresher for everyone recovering from the Holiday excess.

Return to Sookie
11am on Saturday January 22, 2011 ~ Sookie Stackhouse, by Charlaine Harris, books 5-6
Hope you like apple fritters!
Scotty's Cafe
1645 Tennessee St
Vallejo, CA 94590
RSVP on FB

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Dish over Brunch at Nicole's place
1pm on February 13
Oakland, CA
RSVP on FB and we'll email you the address

Stay warm and hydrated and we'll see you soon!

Octowieny Is the Wiener! At-Attention Lemons!

In December, our new found friend and possible (she has to pass our lengthy application process) honorary club member, Amy Sedaris, taught us the following about throwing a good party:
• Send crystal-clear invitations: mostly everyone understood when and where so I’m calling this category a success.
• Have a theme: ours was 70’s Housewife Potluck and we made it look sexy.
• Make a profit: I made $2.50 from the indoor garage sale (where we also sold 'lil porno bunny and a crusty clam!) Garage sale was suggested on page 33 of I Like You. Call me crazy but I’m spending the whole $2.50 on our next book club meeting.
• Feed your guests: we all did this, together, Potluck Style!
• Keep the conversation (and alcohol) flowing: we definitely had tons of laughs and great chemistry.

Potluck Dinner included:

What's Your Beef, Stew? pg 254, modified and made delicious by Gloria

Tasty Greek Beans pg 238 by Jenny

Lil' Smokey Cheese Ball pg 181 by Gina
Vegans-Need-Love-Too Stuffed Peppers by Kim

and the featured dishes of the evening:
The Real-Deal Tater-tot Casserole by Alice

Dick-tot Casserole by Jen W., and I challenge club members to post the puns for this dish on V-Town's FB page.

This hostess fell a bit short of her paparazzi duties and missed excellent photo opportunities of the awards and award ceremony, the complete potluck layout, the 70’s wear, the shoe plant with the trellis. So if you have photos post those on V-Town's FB page too! Well, I'm not one to dwell on excuses, time to reach into the Fuck it! Bucket and forge ahead.

After enjoying our bountiful potluck booty we held our first annual White Elephant Craft and Crap Exchange.

Crafts

Not only did we have Fuck it! Buckets, (thank you Jenny and Dalila!) we also held a White Elephant gift exchange of these featured items:

The Totem Pole (me)
Mrs. Ragsdale (Jenny)

Felt Discs (Nicole)

Lemon Nipples for that hard nipple look (Gina).

Not pictured is Ivy's plant in a sturdy pleather shoe that included a trellis! I'm still kicking myself for not keeping that one in the family. Mrs. Ragsdale and the Felt Discs have a new home nestled safely on my bookshelf.

Award Ceremony

After the Craft and Crap Exchange we presented awards for the Best Pot Luck Dish and the Best 70's Wear. *Drumroll* And the Wiener Is....! Dick-Tot Casserole winning for the ingenious use of hot dogs and for being one of the main centerpieces of attention for the entire evening. The other center of attention and winner of the prize for Best 70's Wear was Nicole in her cock print 70's short-shorts, frock and matching earrings.

In true potluck fashion there were so many winners from the Greek Beans, to The Real-Deal Tater Tot Casserole, the Vegans-Need-Love-Too Stuffed Peppers, the Forget-Me-Not Cosmos with the perfect amount of vodka and the Kick-Ass Pomegranate Sangria with the tasty pops of pomegranate and the one-two punch of Triple Sec. I was the real winner, not only because of my garage sale earnings but because I opened my fridge the next day I found that I was well stocked with tasty leftovers, cosmo mixer and a huge bottle of sangria!

Next year the Award Ceremony will have a category for inspirational culinary art because after this party my culinary art world expanded beyond Hello Kitty bento boxes and into hot dog octopuses and lemon nipples. The lemon nipples even inspired the favorite quote of the evening, "I've already been warped in my perception of zucchinis, bananas, and cucumbers but now I will never look at lemons the same...”

I’ll close this recap with a new Book Club tradition, our cocktail-of-the-month club recipe:

Gloria’s It's-Not-Punch but It-Will-Punch-You Pomegranate Sangria aka Kick-Ass Pomegranate Sangria:

1 bottle red wine (TJ Cabernet)

1 cup Triple Sec

1 cup grapefruit soda

sliced apple

fresh pomegranate seeds
1/2 cup sugar (optional)

leave @ room temperature overnight then refrigerate
Never add ice, ever, you will die.

~Party transmuted into post by Angela~

Potluck Recipe for Luscious 70’s Housewife Dish

V-Town Book Club Potluck
Friday, December 10th
Angela’s House, Vallejo
7:30pm

Favorite question of the week:
Is this a cocktail-of-the-month club?

Our V-Town Book Club Potluck is next week! We are so excited to see everyone and it appears that almost all book club members will attend! Make sure you wear your favorite 70’s housewife outfit to match the theme for the party. If you need inspiration, check out Amy Sedaris’ book “I Like You: Hospitality under the Influence”.

Our discussion topic is David Sedaris’ book “Holidays on Ice”.

We’ll update this potluck list as members RSVP:
Kim – Quinoa stuffed peppers
Angela – Vodka, spanokopita, apple pie
Dalila – Stabrous' Tzatziki Sauce with Pita Scoops (p. 50) and Mediterranean potatoes
Jen W. – Fruit punch (drink it straight or mix with vodka)
Gina – Smokey Cheese Ball
Nicole – Snowy Balls (and maybe some ambrosia salad)
Gloria - Beef stew and sangria
Jenny - Greek Beans (or Coleslaw of the Dunes)
Melissa - Veggie Tray

BYOB if you prefer wine, beer, or soda.
You may leave a note on the Facebook wall for this event or email Angela.

Holidays on Ice

Imagine the boy from A Christmas Story. Now imagine he was born as queer as a three dollar bill in early 1960’s South Carolina as an alcoholic chain-smoking victim of the Feminine Mystique mother and a Greek engineer father who is so detached he is emotionally frigid. Add many siblings, and stir. That’s Holidays on Ice.

If you’ve never read any of David Sedaris’ other essays, or heard him on NPR’s This American Life, I recommend that you prepare a quiet place and an eggnog cocktail heavily laced with brandy before embarking on this reading adventure. I prefer to read it in the tub while enjoying a glass of wine as I find it difficult to refrain from unexpected fits of bursting out laughter, snorting and the inevitable spray of spittle on things around me that comes with enjoying these dark comic vignettes.

This book should be consumed as the perfect antidote to the endless list of mundane chores that seemingly become ‘....The Holidays’. On the surface, these stories fit in with traditional holiday themes such as department store Santa’s, family ‘Christmas Greetings!’ form letters, and school winter pageants. However, Sedaris has a knack for recasting each bit of overdone holiday pomp as the absurdly hellish experiences of life that they so often are. It will be impossible for you not to spend the rest of the holiday season having secret chuckles to yourself as you remember some delicious episode of completely inappropriate holiday humor.

See you at Angela's house on December 10th to reminisce about Sookie and laugh over Sedaris.
Leave a comment on this blog or on FB to RSVP.

This blog post was wrapped and delivered by Jen W.

VTown Book Club Cocktail Recipes

Here is the cocktail recipe recap of our November book club meeting:

1 part David Sedaris
1 part Amy Sedaris
2 parts Sookie infused simple syrup
Splash of Vampire
Splash of Werewolf

Shake ingredients together. Strain over ice, serve straight up, add a splash of Sprite on top.

Our November meeting started out gangbusters with everyone arriving right at 6:30. After introductions and we were seated we started out on a confessional, always a good sign, with one member shyly admitting that they have not read the books or the blog and felt weird about showing up to the meeting. Then a cascade of confessions poured in as many members disclosed that they have not read the books and/or the blog. With that information we were apprehensive about how to proceed with the meeting but also glad everyone showed up willing to try to participate in the discussion.

Luckily, another member arrived armed with knowledge through Book 4 and bearing copies of questions from the blog. A quick survey was conducted and we found that we were all game to apply the limited knowledge we each had to attempt to answer the questions.

Here are a few of the questions/responses we got from the meeting:

• If vampires cry bloody tears then why don't they have permanent pink eye? "Because pink eye is a virus/bacteria." Ok snarkety-snarks. The blog posters are now on alert and will attempt to be extra careful about editing (after this post). We even have an untapped editor in the club!
• What song would you choose for Tara and Sookie to dance to at the Supe club? Without question, "Tainted Love".
• El.....er Bubba sparked some great conversation about Elvis sightings and the dangers of bringing back the dead. We got a new question from our discussion about Elvis’ role in the series: "If you were a vampire and had a chance to bring back your favorite celebrity from the dead, would you do it?"
• Why is Sookie mad at Bill for not financially supporting her? One member had a compelling answer, she believes that Sookie is only mad because Bill is supporting the Bellefleurs, Sookie would not feel this way if the Bellefleurs were not involved.
• Out of six members we had two for Team Alcide, two for Team Eric and two for Team Bill.
• What cocktail represents Sookie? While it did not surprise us that Sookie liked a champagne cocktail, we all agreed that it was not her signature drink. We came to consensus on the Sunkissed Martini because it's sweet, a little frothy on top, not high end and packs a punch, here's the recipe:
  1 part Mandarin Vodka
  1 part Red Bull
  2 parts Peach Schnapps
  Splash of Orange Juice
  Shaken, strained over ice, served straight up.

A few members watched True Blood on HBO through Season 3 but have not read the books and were surprised and appalled at the lack of Tara and Lafayette in the book series. Those of us that have read the books released a bit of a spoiler that Lafayette died in Book 1. There were many declarations of disbelief at the news of Lafayette’s demise and everyone agreed that it was difficult to read the books without the significant storylines of Tara and Lafayette.

After dinner we continued our conversation under the night sky, gathering around the beautiful 40’ tall outdoor stone fireplace in the Suisun courtyard. Framed by firelight, one member happily noted that we met for over two hours without touching on the topics of kids, husbands, boyfriends, jobs or real estate. Although those topics are important and central to our everyday lives it was wonderful to be out with a group of women talking about books, history, parties and food while enjoying each other’s company and basking in a welcome night off from our everyday concerns.

We found time to preview Amy Sedaris’ book, I Like You: Hospitality under the Influence and discussed the recipes and décor that will be fun to share at the next meeting in December. We also found that we have a great mix of talents to contribute and share with one another; each member adding complimentary flavors of knowledge, skills and experience to the book club cocktail. The December potluck meeting is already taking shape, we are excited by all the possible threads of conversation and we can't wait to finally get everyone together.


Recipe for this post was provided by Angela:
1 part Ketel One
2 parts Tonic
Shaken, strained over ice, lime garnish.