Dry January

The ingredients for a Honey Badger.

Like a lot of people, The Frugal Hostess celebrated A LOT over the holidays.  Basically, the weekend before Thanksgiving through January 3 was a total free-for-all involving too much booze, too much sugar, and too much too much.

In a very American move of counter-extremism, TFH is attempting to re-set herself by not drinking at all during the month of January.  She does this every year to greater and lesser degrees of success.  This year has actually been easier than she suspected, most likely because her liver has waved a white flag and surrendered.  But, being on the wagon won't stop FruHo from thinking about delicious cocktails.

Here's one FruHubs recently invented, called the Honey Badger.  (If you were living on a desert island in 2011, here is the original honey badger video.)

Ingredients

2 parts Bulleit bourbon or Redemption rye

1 part Barenjager honey liqueur

Dash orange bitters

Ginger ale

Directions

1.  Fill rocks glass with crushed ice.

2.  Sprinkle with bitters.

3.  Add booze.

4.  Top with ginger ale.

5.  Garnish with orange peel if handy.

You will want to drink two or three of these, but keep in mind that they are entirely too drinkable given their high alcohol content.  Slow down, Drunky McGee!

Goodbye, Holidays

The craft explosion on FruHo's desk.

The Frugal Hostess is really doing a piss-poor job at blogging lately, huh?  And the sad part is that she is still doing all of the projects and stuff that she normally posts, she's just forgetting to post them!

The Frugal Hostess is a dumbass.

But, the silver lining is that Thanksgiving and Christmas posts are already done for next year!  So, FruHo will just put away her Christmas crafts supplies for now and resolve to do better in 2012.  Happy New Year!

Top Posts of 2011

Err....

Lots of folks around the blogosphere are running their "greatest hits" posts over the holidays, which The Frugal Hostess has really enjoyed.  It's always interesting to take a look back over the year, and there have been several posts TFH would've missed otherwise.

This gave FruHo the idea to do the same thing here.  So, without further ado, here are the top three posts of 2011!

1.  Slow Carb Recipes that Tim Ferriss Would Like.  FruHo went on the 4 Hour Body/Slow Carb Diet in early 2011, and FruHubs came up with some really great recipes for beans.  Being an adoring wife, TFH took full credit for those recipes in a blog post that she then titled in the most blog traffic-whorish way possible.  So, you know, just ignore this post, unless you're looking for bean recipes.

2.  Do You Know About This?  This post is about one of the year's best developments, Birchbox.  If you like makeup, beauty products, and/or mail, you will like this.

3.  The Ultimate FruHo Guide to Houseguests.  Oooh, this should have been re-posted before the holidays.  It's good advice.

While this one didn't have quite as much traffic as the other three, it was definitely The Frugal Hostess's favorite post of the year.  Please enjoy, "FruDiddy and the Lost Bread."

Happy New Year's Eve Eve!

Gift Idea: Book for Hostesses

Someone else's mess

Does your husband having a cleaning disease where he can't see any of his own mess and clutter until one day he snaps and throws away 15 cookbooks?

Neither does FruHubs.

Ahem.

OK, so FruHubs is totally oblivious to things like his four pairs of shoes and dirty socks and paint-covered khaki shorts strewn all across the bedroom.  But let one magazine rest on the coffee table too long and, POW!  He turns into the Incredible Hulk of cleaning.

Which is how The Frugal Hostess found him tonight. 

SLAM!  Junk mail vanquished.

POP!  Christmas wrapping paper hidden.  Possibly forever.

CRASH!  Clean laundry stuffed into a basket and whisked away.

And before you say that FruHo is lucky and crazy to complain, please note that this happens once every two months, maybe.  Perhaps quarterly.

But when it does, boy....

This is why The Frugal Hostess finds herself in a hot rush to read and write about a new cookbook she received.  If she doesn't watch her ass, that cookbook will be swept away into the recycling bin in ten seconds flat.  The book is 750 Best Appetizers*, by Judith Finlayson and Jordan Wagman, and TFH was sent a free copy to review.

Here are the pros:

1.  Paperback and thus less of a pain to deal with in the kitchen.

2.  A truly exhaustive list of all kinds of appetizers, including sweets, soups, and homemade parsnip chips.

3.  Some lovely pictures of prepared recipes.

And the con:

The point of this post is to sell you this book.

1.  Only some pictures.  Like, maybe 20 of the 750+ items in the book.  Despite being a very verbal girl - FruHo prefers reading blog posts to watching their accompanying videos, for example - cookbooks are one place where pictures are a must.  How in the world can you possibly cook something without seeing a picture of what it's supposed to look like?  Especially when the dishes are appetizers and hors d' oeuvres, often marvels of construction.  TFH is sure that the authors wish the book had more pictures, too.

In all, this is a great resource to have in your library, especially if you love to have parties.  Just expect to have to use your imagination.

750 Best Appetizers* by Judith Finlayson and Jordan Wagman is selling right now for $16.47 on Amazon.  It would make a great gift for your favorite hostess.

*Affiliate links.  See Disclosure page for complete details on how that works.

What to Do if You Discover Mouse Poop in Your Kitchen

The Frugal Hostess hates you, mouse.

What to do if you discover mouse poop in your kitchen:

Feel faint.  Almost faint, even if you've never fainted before.

Call your husband.

Cry.

Slam a beer.

Cry harder.

Go in another room.  Slam second beer.

Contemplate suicide.

Contemplate getting in your car and driving away forever.

Cry.

Clean it up in a frenzy only matched in it's rage-fueled fervor by your mother's after the Sleep Away Camp Lice Incident of 1988.  Bleach everything.

Bleach yourself.

Cry.

The end.

What Crazy People Do with Bottle Caps

Do you watch Hoarders? It's so creepy and sad, right? The hoarders always have traumatic experiences that fuel their need to keep everything, and their belongings seem to be attached to their nerve endings with invisible threads, causing physical pain when removed.

Well, The Frugal Hostess has a secret.  She is a junior hoarder.  TFH hoards the following items:

- Back issues of Martha Stewart Living.
- Evening bags.
- Craft supplies.
- Bottle caps.

Everything on that list is pretty normal.  Well, maybe except the bottle caps.  So she decided to make something out of them to PROVE that there was a good reason to save them.  There is an ugly electrical panel in the kitchen that is too big to be covered with a painting, so this happened instead.

Here is a tiny fraction of the hoard.

Here are the bottle caps sorted by color.

TFH taped out the size of the "mosaic" on the coffee table to lay out the design.  Pro Tip: don't do this.  Masking tape is a pain to clean off.

It was supposed to be water with a little island, a palm tree, and sky with a bright sun.

See, this is the palm tree and the sun.  Yeah, FruHo thought it was dumb, too.

So, after she glued magnets to the back of almost 500 bottle caps, she changed the design to be a more abstract rainbow-type thing.

Here's a close up.  Cool, right?

FruHubs was surprisingly not too furious with the whole thing, although he did whine a bit about having caps from embarrassing beers up there (looking at you, Bud Light and Leinenkugel).  Some caps have since been changed out to protect his beer snob rep.

If you should ever decide to do this yourself, here are a few notes.

1.  Order your magnets online; they are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper that way.
2.  Don't expect the glue to stick forever.  FruGo used the famous Aleene's Tacky Glue, and several magnets have come unglued.  They still stick to the metal panel, though, because that's how magnets work.  Hello.
3.  If you make a rainbow like the one above, use complete rows of one color rather than having the colors flow into each other mid-row.  It looks much better (and this one has since been altered accordingly).
4.  Beer?  Gives you back so much.

Not Getting Killed in Louisville, GA

On route to an appointment....with death.

What would you do if a man you hadn't seen in 15 years suggested via Facebook that you meet in a mysterious southeast Georgia town not easily reached by any major highways? 

Go, obviously.  Right? 

Well, you would if you were The Frugal Hostess.

Just to clarify, the guy, Ireland's Dad, is an old friend and a current Facebook favorite, and he was traveling up to attend his brothers' art show.  The Frugal Hostess and her loyal swain, FruHubs, decided to go in part because they found out about an unusual bed and breakfast where they could stay.  And in part because they wanted to temp fate (and serial killers).

The art was great, and the catching up was lovely.  But the best part was that no one got killed.

The living room of the cottage.  Just add Bulleit.

The other best part was the Old Town Plantation Bed and Breakfast.  Located in a rural, wooded area of Louisville (with an S), Georgia, the plantation is really a plantation.  Like from back in the day.  And they still work it.  At least, there were a lot of cows and equipment.

It sits on 4,100 acres along a river and was originally stolen from the Indians settled by white people in the early 1700s.  It got burned to the ground during Sherman's March to the Sea, and then it was rebuilt from 1895 to 1910. 

TFH and Hubs had one of the two cottages on the property, which are beautifully decorated, huge, and cheap.  Seriously, this was one of the best experiences of their frequent hotel guest lives.  Breakfast was all set up in the kitchen, and the fireplace was ready to be lit.  After a night of art, bourbon, and the Old South, a blazing fire put them right to sleep.

The next morning, they took to the property, hiking down a long and windy road - perfect for murder.  Thankfully, the killers were at brunch, so FruHo and -Hubs got their kicks from fording a river - which was totally worth it!  On the other side, they found an abandoned grist mill and mill workers' quarters, just sitting there waiting to be explored.  So.  Freakin'.  Cool.

Where the magic happens.  Magic = sleep, pervs.

They also saw some deer hauling ass away from them (and probably into the sights of the hunters heard shooting across the property).  There were old bridges and a brick structure that FruHubs insists was an aquaduct.  (Really, FruHubs?  This isn't a Roman plantation.  Geez.)  They even found an old spoon.

If you are looking for a getaway that makes you feel like you are living in Garden and Gun magazine, book a cottage at Old Town Plantation.  And stay tuned for more stories of not getting killed in Louisville soon.

Disclosure: The Frugal Hostess has nothing to disclose except this place was awesome!  In other words, this is not a sponsored post, and Old Town Plantation has no idea she loves them so much.