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Ahhhha. Get it? Because he’s rescheduled so many times, it’s a joke now. (Chuckle chuckle) Oh Chris, you slay me! But if he had been serious, I would have aped out on him. Good thing he wasn’t.

The night began with stand-ups by Matt Mira, Jonah Ray, and Christ Hardwick, all of whom are hosts on the Nerdist. Unfortunately, I could not stay for the whole show, which would have included a round table chat with all three of them, but from what I saw, I was thoroughly pleased with. (Meanwhile for those of you who are 21 and over, adding alcohol to the mix makes everything better, just ask Jonah. He was swigging whiskey).

The stand ups were full of nerdy allusions to Iron Chef, cruel jokes about unloved girlfriends, puns like inseminary school, and general tomfoolery. How could I not be satisfied?

Also, all of them are pretty easy on the eyes. Especially you, Matt- Greta doesn’t deserve you.

Anyway, good job Nerdist, you have inspired fandom. I am now a subscriber to your podcast, and a follower on Twitter. I will also be looking to attend your future live shows… but from your track record, I won’t expect a timely commitment.

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Robyn Von Swank

Apparently, he’s pretty famous…at least famous enough to be listed under the Staff Favorites at the iTunes Store. I’ve always been more of a HowStuffWorks.com-Stuff-Mom-Never-Told-You-kind-of listener, but unfortunately, MomStuff isn’t on this fall’s line-up. In any case, I thoroughly enjoy podcasts, and if the iTunes Staff recommends him, I gotta check him out.

Chris Hardwick is the host of The Nerdist Podcast, a somewhat explicit weekly interview show about “nerd-ness.” The Nerdist has interviewed guests ranging from Adam Savage to Zooey Deschanel to the Muppets. From the podcasts I have listened to, this dude’s very capable of tickling your funny bone. The opening music sounds like a throwback Mario Brothers video game, and the general meat of the show is sprinkled with witty vulgarities that will surely endear you; it certainly did for me.

The live show was originally set for Sep. 22, but was rescheduled to Nov. 8. Then, it was rescheduled again to Nov. 30. Third time better be the charm. In the Nerdist Podcast #138: Fire Pit, Hardwick apologizes profusely for this and expresses his deepest remorse. Well Chris, apology not accepted. How could you keep your fans waiting? Don’t think you can woo me with your quirky remarks. This Nov. 30 live show at the Iron Horse better knock my socks off or this relationship is over.

For a review  on The Nerdist’s Northampton performance click here.

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Inside the bakery:

FS’s purchased goodies (the trifecta of tea, chocolate mousse cake, and taro bun):

Chocolate Mousse Cake:
The mousse cake has a thin cake wrap-around (the spotted portion). Inside the top half is chocolate mousse, and the bottom half is chocolate cake.

The top is actually flecked with small pieces of the same dough as the bun, but since the pieces are small, when baked they become crispy. So the top part is nicely crunchy, which is common in most of Taipan’s buns.

The taro inside is lightly sweet and very obviously mashed taro instead of a sugary taro paste, which might have less taro.

FS can’t wait to go back to New York and sample more food.

Related posts:

1. The icing on the cake
2. Cookies on Campus
3. Five College Food: Karma

So FS roams about the campus finding those unneeded pumpkins left out to rot on a kitchenette table, on the floor or used by a dining hall for decoration. For FS would never use a pumpkin to decorate, when she could possible be eating it.

In dedication to Fall, below is a pumpkin recipe:

Baked Pumpkin
Pumpkin
Utensils: knife, aluminum foil
Optional: salt for pumpkin seeds 
Ready your aluminum foil

FS reuses aluminum foil. She uses it and then washes it with soap and water.

Ready your pumpkin by scrubbing the outside with soap and water. Examine the visible water droplets coating the pumpkin.

Cut around the top of the rind and then around the stem.

Cut in half. Note: use a large, sharp knife for this.

Scrape out insides into a bowl. Save for later.

Place pumpkin halves face down so that the skin and rind faces you.

FS saved space at the top for another rack to bake pumpkin seeds on.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour on the lower middle or middle rack.

FS is the kind of forgetful creature who remembers not the temperature settings of the things she makes. Ergo, take a picture of it!

Yay for pumpkin baking!

Meanwhile, sort the pumpkin insides for all the pumpkin seeds.

Wash pumpkin seeds.

Spread across aluminum foil. Sprinkle salt all over. Bake on a top or bottom rack along with pumpkin for about 10-15 minutes. Remove. Cool. Enjoy.

Meanwhile, for the pumpkin itself. After baking, the skin is very soft and slides right off the pumpkin meat. FS is particularly judicious and will scrape off every bit of pumpkin flesh from the skin. Cooked pumpkin flesh is very soft and a little fibrous. FS then stored the cooked pumpkin in the freezer.

But, you may ask, what you will you do with it FS?

Which is where FS replies, Make pumpkin pie of course! Or pumpkin pie filling. FS is lazy so FS made up a recipe using banana for creaminess and sweetness, a little milk, and a dash (or many more dashes…) of cinnamon. FS also made pumpkin pancakes.

Pumpkin Pancakes

1/4 c. flour

1/4 c. pumpkin

1/4 c. milk

1/2 tbsp. oil

1 tsp. honey

Mix. Cook on oiled pan. Makes two large pancakes. FS recommends eating the pumpkin pancakes with slices of ripe banana instead of syrup.

Pumpkin Pie Filling

1 c. pumpkin

3/4 c. milk

1 ripe banana

Dash of cinnamon and nutmeg (or as much as to your heart’s content)

Heat milk and pumpkin together in microwave (since FS was using frozen pumpkin). Mash with banana and spices. Pour into an oven-safe bowl or pan such as aluminum foil or Pyrex or Corningware glass.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, or longer depending on caramelization desire.

The pumpkin could also be switched out for sweet potato.

Sweet Potato Pie Filling

FS used a similar recipe to the one above, except that the pumpkin was replaced with sweet potato and the milk was replaced with soy milk. However, a sweet potato requires some sugar to be added, since it’s starchier than pumpkin. Depending on the soy milk you use, the resulting mixture may be fairly thick. Also, this requires no baking (except for the crust, the crust requires baking.)

Microwave the sweet potato. Then blend sweet potato, ripe banana, soy milk and sugar. Add water as need be to adjust consistency and sugar as need be for sweetness.

Close-up of the sweet potato pie with slices of banana pressed into it.

Sweet potato pie.

Later on FS and her mother because lazy about the crust and just had sweet potato pie filling.

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2. Oven-Fried Potato Wedges
3. Rumination on the Potato Skin: It’s like Christmas But Edible

Brandi Ediss

Before Oct. 20, I had just assumed that the whistling on his albums were just recordings of actual birds chirping. Boy, was I in for a wake-up call. Not only were they sounds Bird makes with his own mouth (who knew you could be a professional whistler?), but none of the sounds coming from the stage had been pre-recorded. A one man orchestra, he uses a technique calling looping: Bird starts a song by recording himself and then plays the track as background music, similar to the Apple program GarageBand, which lets users individually create sounds and then play them all together to generate a song.

On this night Bird opened with “Why?”, a violin heavy ballad where he questions a former romantic entanglement. His frusturation and anxiety about the situation were entertainingly put on display, as he appeared to mutter the lyrics throughout the song as if he was talking to himself: “No, don’t give that line/Don’t try to tell me that inaction is not a crime.” But what was truly striking was just how polished and amiable his voice was, as opposed to the digital file I’d been hearing for years on my computer.

An accomplished artist (with numerous solo albums, EPs, live albums and recordings with his former band Bowl of Fire), I had no idea which tunes I’d hear going into the night, and was thrilled when “A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left” came on next. Already one of my all time favorite Bird songs, experiencing it in person brought my enjoyment to a whole other level. The always cheerful and catchy tune quickly had more meaning for me as I watched Bird playfully act out “A nervous tic motion/Of the head to the left” throughout the piece.

The next standout moment occurred when Bird played “Bein’ Green,” the beloved theme song of Jim Henson’s Kermit the Frog. An amusing song to cover, Bird recently recorded the track for Muppets: The Green Album, a CD of of well- known Muppet songs played by popular contemporary artists.

Cameron Wittig

Afterward, the opening act, Dosh, an instrumentalist whose sound is best described as electronic ambience,  joined Bird for the rest of his performance. I personally loved their collaboration on “Plasticities,” which the two originally recorded for Bird’s 2007 album Armchair Apocrypha; although Dosh was also involved with many other songs on that album, as well as Bird’s 2009 release Noble Beast.

While I had never heard of Dosh before the show, watching the two artists play together was like Nutella and a baguette, individually they’re great but they’re even better together.

Setlist:
“Why”
“A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left”
“The Naming of Things”
“The Lazy Projector”
“The Sifters”
“Tenuousness”
“Bein’ Green”
“Effigy”
“Biking tune
“Plasticities”
“Tables and Chairs”

Encore:
“Happy Day”
“So Much Wine” a cover of The Handsome Family
“I’m Goin’ Home” a cover of Charley Patton

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Courtesy Photo

The band, known for such catchy tunes as “MMBop” and “This Time Around”, brought with them the same youthful energy they had fourteen years ago (1997), when their first album Middle of Nowhere was released. Throughout the night the audience got wilder and wilder, screaming every chance they could get. Eventually fans began gathering into the isles with hopes of getting closer to the band members; this seemed not to faze them however, but instead fueled their performance.

Members of the band Issac (31), Taylor (28) and Zac (26) are the oldest siblings of a family of seven, and have since started families of their own. When I left them a decade and a half ago, they were bright eyed and bushy tailed teenagers, complete with long locks and prepubescent voices.But what I recently saw was a much changed group of men:

Isaac, the one previously regarded as, “the ugly one,” has now grown into his looks, and exuded a magnetic sense of confidence as he strummed his bass guitar. Lead singer and heartthrob Taylor, has since taken up the Christian rocker look, complete with Bieber hair, tight shirt and a large wooden cross necklace around his neck. Baby Hanson Zac, was the only member able to retain the long locks look and has since turned it into prime head banging hair, which he exhibits often as he slams on his drum set.

Aside from their looks, the group has been consistently producing work over the years, for a total of eight albums; their most recent work Shout It Out, was actually quite good.

As I looked around the room I noticed the distinct smell of sweat, mixed with a hint of nostalgia, and smiled. Memories of my childhood flooded back as “MMMBop” began playing, and as I heard the shrieks intensify, I knew I was not alone.

To learn more about Hanson check out The MHNews’ interview  with Issac from November 2010.

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But that is where FS was sorely wrong.

For Banana Ice Cream, while not bad-ass like peach or a heady caffeine kick like coffee, is truly FS’s best friend. And the best friend to all ice cream flavors. It’s simpatico. It’s just that nice.

Brandy Banana Ice Cream
3 bananas
1 c. yogurt
1 c. milk
1/4 c. brandy
2 tbsp. sugar

Soak bananas in sugar and brandy overnight.

Blend with yogurt and milk.

Pour into ice cream maker (per ice cream maker’s instructions).

Serve as you please alone in a cone or with an ice cream buddy.

The Banana Ice Cream (the four scoops below) is topped with a scoop of Coffe Irish Cream Ice Cream and chocolate cheerios.

Here, Banana Ice Cream plays second fiddle to the beautiful color of Strawberry Ice Cream (in the forefront on the right) and Peach Ice Cream (in the back, left-hand top corner).

And from the man himself…

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Awesome and fruity since 2011… (background orange is brandy peach compatriot ice cream – new and improved)

Brandy Strawberry Ice Cream

1 to 1 1/2 c. strawberries (halved or quartered or diced) for ice cream base, an additional 1 c. diced strawberries for incorporation later on
1 c. yogurt
1 c. milk
1/4 c. brandy
2 tbsp. sugar

Soak strawberries in brandy and sugar overnight.

Blend with yogurt and milk.

Pour into ice cream maker (per ice cream maker’s instructions).

10-15 minutes in, add diced strawberries.

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3. Let not your taste bud idolatry blind you to other flavors…

By far, FS’s mother’s favorite ice cream flavor is Rum and raisin.

The flavor also seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth (or off the nearby grocery store). Like mocha cappucino with spherical brownie bites (this had a crunchy inside that released an intensely coffee-flavored cookie) or like coffee fudge chunk.

However, FS is always eager to delve into uncharted, gustatory waters.

FS also happened to use up a 2 liter bottle of brandy. Don’t look at FS like that. FS is dedicated. So, there she went to get herself this piratey libation of rum.

Then, she began to make the ice cream by soaking raisins in rum. She saw the base come together, fluffy and white like snow, smooth as silk. She tasted this rum and raisin nonsense.

And was converted. She devoured this exotic, refreshing entity and then flapped around the kitchen trying to get rid of her brain freeze.

Rum and Raisin Ice Cream

2 1/2 to 3 c. milk (FS happened to use 2% this time)
3/4 c. rum
2/3 c. raisins

Soak the raisins in 1/2 cup of rum overnight.

The raisins should be plump, having soaked in the rum-goodness.

Prep ice cream maker per ice cream maker’s instructions. Add milk and brandy mixture.There should still be a little rum at the bottom. Pour this rum into a 1/4 cup measuring cup. The measuring cup should be roughly half-filled, so about 1/8 cup. Fill the measuring cup with brandy till full. Pour this into a container (preferably, the container that will also keep the ice cream). Then add the milk.

10-15 minutes in, the mixture will have become smooth and fluffy, so it’s time to add the raisins.

If raisins are not your sweet of choice, then the base could become a horchata ice cream base by adding cinnamon and sugar, or act as the base for any other mixture (with cookies maybe or chocolate, etc).

For the FS’s enjoyment, FS supplemented the rum and raisin ice cream with a chocolate puddle cookie and poured onto the affair an extra dash of rum.

That’s the life for FS.

Related posts:

1. Happy 21st! (Let’s not lose consciousness here…)
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FS is burdened by a genetic predisposition towards high cholesterol, adult-onset diabetes, and an end of the line heart attack, but FS has found in the position of stuck between a rock and a hard place: engorge herself on her favorites such as ice cream or die an early death.

Neither seemed to be a good choice, so FS went about her merry, curious way by investing in a waffle maker and ice cream maker.

David Lebovitz had inspired FS with his recipe of the Easiest Chocolate Ice Cream Ever. FS thought, if one can do this with chocolate, what about other flavors? Lo and behold, FS found rum and brandy and fruit and chocolate and coffee (not all together, of course, but in distinct, compatible pairings).

FS follows a general recipe for fruit flavors:

Brandy Fruit Ice Cream
1 to 1 1/2 c. fruit for ice cream base itself, optional: an additional 1 to 1/2 c. diced fruit to be incorporated into ice cream
1 c. yogurt
1 c. milk
1/4 c. brandy
2 tbsp. sugar (more depending on sweet preference)

Soak fruit in brandy and sugar overnight.

Blend with milk and yogurt.

Add to ice cream maker.

5-10 minutes before ice cream is done (when ice cream has thickened and fluffed), add in diced fruit.

Store in freezer.

FS also has a general recipe for coffee variants:

Brandy or Rum Coffee Ice Cream

2 1/4 c. liquid (2 c. coffee + 1/4 c. milk or cream, 1 c. coffee + 1 c. milk + 1/4 c. cream, 1 c. coffee + 1 1/4 c. cream)
1 1/2 to 2 ripe bananas
1/4 c. brandy or rum
1 tbsp sugar

Blend all ingredients. Add to ice cream maker. Store in freezer.

This post, of course, is just the beginning of FS’s adventures in the world of ice cream and alcohol.

Disclaimer: FS follows legalities. Please follow the drinking laws explicated in the link.

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1. It’s pink! It’s cold! It’s delicious! It’s strawberry!
2. Your best friend in the summer ought to be edible
3. Let not your taste bud idolatry blind you to other flavors…