Some More Hot Drinks

The cold weather continues in California, and so I turned to some more hot cocktails to keep me company at night. Because there’s only so much warmth that inanimate stuffed animals can give, no matter how fuzzy they are.

I had frequently heard about “hot buttered rum,” and yet I had never tried it. So I tried a recipe from Aaron McCargo Jr.:

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Hot Buttered Rum
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
2 oz dark rum
6 oz boiling water

Muddle the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg at the bottom of a mug, then add the dark rum and boiling water and stir. I didn’t actually taste the butter or the sugar very much. Either there was too much rum or the spices were overpowering. It just tasted like rum with a bit of spice and a hint of sweetness. I was hoping the butter would make it taste sinfully rich, but I missed that.

Next I tried a really simple cocktail, the Stonewall.

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Stonewall
1 oz rum
1 cup warm apple cider

It basically does just taste like warm apple cider and rum, as you might guess from the ingredients. You could probably put any kind of liquor in there. And maybe even a little more than an ounce. But it’s a nice warm drink for cold nights, with not too much alcohol.

Lastly, I made another cider-based drink:

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Steelers Cider
2.5 oz bourbon
10 oz apple cider
2 cloves
1/2 lemon, sliced
cinnamon stick

You make this by just throwing the bourbon, apple cider, cloves, lemon slices, and cinnamon stick into a saucepan, and then heating it up until it starts to bubble. You can also add some ground allspice, but I didn’t have any so I didn’t. The bourbon tastes pretty strong in this, despite there being four times as much cider as bourbon. The lemon and the spices do give the drink a nice comforting taste, and it’s definitely a nice drink on a cold night. I’d maybe decrease the bourbon a tad, though.

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I Want It That Way

If you’re old enough, you probably remember this little hit from 1999.

But have you ever thought about what the song actually means? Well, I made the mistake of doing so.

What on earth is it talking about? I don’t think that, at any point during the song, they actually explain what “that way” is that they want it. So, as with many things that are incredibly vague, it must be an allusion to sex. They just didn’t want to say it explicitly, because that would make it a dirty song and would tarnish their squeaky-clean image in the minds of millions of teenage girls.

I think the difficulty is that depending on who they’re talking about, “that way” refers to different things. In the first part:

You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way

He’s probably talking about anal sex when he says he wants it “that way.” He really wants his girlfriend to penetrate him anally, most likely with a dildo or some similar contraption. The man’s G-spot is in the anus, after all. I know only because I read that online somewhere.

And after he laments that she never reaches his G-spot, they start talking about the girl’s vague desires in the second part:

But we are two worlds apart
Can’t reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way

Now what she wants is probably a threesome with another guy. But when she suggested this, the Backstreet Boy of your choice was horrified, being terribly homophobic and unwilling to be in a situation where he might potentially have to touch another man’s genitalia. And now they are “two worlds apart” after the horrible fight they had about how he’s so closed-minded and that it’s just a penis and he should get over it. He probably yelled back that she didn’t go for a threesome with a girl when he suggested it, so now why does he have to consider a threesome with a guy?

And then she probably used his desire for anal sex against him, saying that that’s something that only gay men do. Which is totally wrong, but it’s a misconception that many people have anyway. He probably started yelling something about how he always reaches her G-spot, even though he has to go through contortions to get his penis to reach the damn thing because it’s in such an inconvenient location. I mean, the front wall of the vagina? How many men have penises shaped like hooks? He had to thrust at this ridiculous angle just to even graze the thing. And there’s only so many times he could do that come-hither motion with his fingers before getting cramps. Since he’s working so damn hard to reach her G-spot, why can’t she just shove her dildo up his ass to reach his? It didn’t seem like such a big favor to ask.

So, alas, the couple split up, unable to fulfill each other’s sexual desires. And now they’re at the airport, attempting to flee the country to find women who are more open-minded and willing to engage in anal sex.

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Avocado Milk

When I was younger, I didn’t like avocados at all. There was something so bland, so weirdly oily about them. But then, as I grew older, I came to appreciate the delightfulness of avocados. Their rich, buttery texture. That creamy feeling in your mouth you get when you eat them.

What I never envisioned, though, was putting avocados into a beverage. I mean, it’s basically like butter. Why would you put butter into a beverage? Well, I guess milkshakes are kind of like that. But avocados, you put them in sandwiches, in guacamole, things like that. Who would’ve thought to put avocados into a beverage? And can you imagine doing something more with it, like, I don’t know, swimming in it?

He had finally done it. Kar-wai, in his spare time from his demanding job as an engineer, had created the Liquefier-Multiplier. Using this machine, he could take any substance, and it would instantly turn it into a liquid. Not only that, it would produce far more liquid than the original solid would have produced otherwise. A blender and a replicator, all in one!

Kar-wai had very few friends. His days consisted of spending long hours at work, then coming home and working on the Liquefier-Multiplier. He had a fascination with machines from an early age, when his father taught him how to build a radio out of transistors he had lying around in the garage. The way he could take what seemed like nothing and turn it into a machine that did something, well, that just blew his mind, harder than any girl would ever blow him.

But now that he was done with his machine, what was he going to do at night in his apartment? He was sitting on his couch pondering this, when he felt a sudden thirst. Then it came to him. He could use the machine on something edible, and turn it into a delicious liquid. But what would he liquefy?

He hunted around his kitchen for something he could shove into his machine to turn into liquid. Fruit or vegetables seemed like a natural choice to liquefy. But as his diet consisted mostly of Pop Tarts and instant ramen, it was going to be difficult to find anything like that in the kitchen. He scanned over the items on his counter. Random take-out boxes he hadn’t thrown out yet. Bottles of soda and beer, half-empty and forgotten. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a round, brown object. Could that be? An avocado? How did it even get here? A single nugget of life in the kitchen otherwise devoid of vitality. It didn’t matter how it ended up here, this could be the perfect thing to liquefy.

Suddenly, another impulse overcame him. Sex. Kar-wai, deprived of contact with the opposite sex, would sometimes get this sudden urge from his loins. He needed to take care of this one, immediately. No time for less important things like thirst.

Next to his bathtub, he kept some bath salts. He loved to draw himself a bath, submerge himself in the fragrant warm water, and pleasure himself to climax. Nothing felt better than having his entire body engulfed in warm liquid while he stroked himself, imagining that the heat surrounding his naked body was actually a woman’s. But today, he thought that he could indulge a bit and use some liquid other than water to submerge himself during his solo sex play. What better opportunity was there than this to use the Liquefier-Multiplier?

The machine whirred when he switched it on. A bunch of lights on the front were there to display what exactly the contraption was doing. It now sat in idle mode, ready to receive solids in its mouth. He cut the avocado in half and scooped out the pit. The green, buttery flesh inside was screaming to be eaten, but he had to resist the urge. It must be liquefied, Kar-Wai told himself. He scooped out the flesh and shoved it into the feed tube.

The whirring increased. The lights on the front indicated it was going into the Liquefy phase. The counter started to vibrate, as the machine went from Liquefy to Multiply. The replication procedure took Kar-Wai forever to develop. It’s an extremely difficult problem, taking molecules from an object and replicating them using molecules from a different source, like water. The manipulations of such small, microscopic units of matter was something that he thought was only possible in science fiction. But here he was, with his machine in the real world, in his own apartment, multiplying the volume of avocado liquid dozens of times over.

Several minutes passed, and the whirring stopped. The small display on the front of the machine indicated he had 30 gallons of liquid. Thirty gallons from a single avocado! His contraption was a massive success. He could just imagine feeling the thick, green liquid enveloping his body. With the biggest pitcher in his kitchen, he began transferring the thick substance into his bathtub.

After all 30 gallons were in his bathtub, he stripped off his tucked-in shirt and his baggy jeans and white briefs and lowered himself into the green sea of liquid in his bathtub. It was thick like yogurt, buttery like cream. He was getting very excited, his body surface area contacting the liquefied avocado increasing by the minute as his penis increased in length.

With each stroke, the thick liquid would gulp as if a monster were taking breaths beneath the surface. Kar-Wai closed his eyes and imagined an Asian woman on top of him, enveloping his penis with her vagina while she stared into his eyes with her bespectacled face. This is what he imagined what sex with a woman must be like. Completely surrounded in a thick, gloppy liquid, with pressure going back and forth across his penis.

As the blissful feelings of nearing an orgasm increased in his groin area, he couldn’t help but moan a bit. He sank a bit deeper into the avocado, and some of the liquid dribbled into his mouth, open from the pleasurable moans he was vocalizing. The rich, nutty flavor spread throughout his mouth. It was almost too much to bear. Pleasure in his mouth, pleasure from his penis, a thick substance enveloping his body, what more could a guy ask for? Well, an actual woman. But that’s hard.

The time had come for the orgasm, and, try as he might, he just couldn’t stop stroking himself before going past the point of no return. The convulsions commenced, and he shot his load into the bath, his body spasming multiple times. The white, milky fluid floated up to the surface, creating a small pool of whiteness in a sea of green. He felt drained, as if the life force had been sucked out of him through his penis and was trapped in the semen floating in the bathtub.

Just then, he had that feeling of post-coital regret, without the actual coitus. Here he was, in a vat of green avocado liquid, pleasuring himself, alone. His penis was limp and his own semen was floating in front of him. How disgusting was that? Now his bathtub was covered in this thick substance, and so was he. And he was still as lonely as ever.

Kar-Wai rinsed himself off before going to bed, satisfied that his experiment had succeeded, but still unhappy that he didn’t have that special woman to share his Liquefier-Multipier with. Oh the things they could liquefy and multiply together, if only someone would give him the chance.

Hmm that story ended up being strangely homoerotic. And quite gross. I don’t know why I do these things to myself. Anyway, here’s the recipe.

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Avocado Milk

1 ripe avocado
1.5 cups milk
1.5 tablespoons honey

Scoop out the flesh of the avocado and place it in to a blender along with the milk and honey, and blend until smooth.

You can, of course, adjust the honey to taste. You’ll probably want to drink this the day of, or it might start turning brown.

I was skeptical when I first tried this. Avocado, with a sweetener? But somehow, it works. The richness of the avocado goes well with the slight sweetness of the honey. It’s like a thick milkshake, with that fresh, slightly grassy flavor of avocado.

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Norwegian Wood

In my journey to become more literate, I just finished reading my fourth book since college, Norwegian Wood. Shamefully, this was the first Murakami novel I read. What kind of Japanese person am I? A terrible one, apparently.

Having never read any of his other works, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had heard that some of his work was “postmodern” in some way, but this story didn’t seem to have much of that. It’s about a man’s memories of his college days, and his romances with two very different women. There’s quite a bit of graphic sex descriptions in this book. I loved them. I seem to get off on textual descriptions of carnal acts. Well, I’d much rather see them, of course, but the descriptions were sufficiently hot.

Despite the rampant sex that made me jealous that I didn’t partake in nearly as much of it during college, the book is heartbreakingly sad. I won’t spoil anything, but the body count in this love story is surprisingly high. Perhaps that’s why there’s so much sex, as a contrast to the depressing deaths that occur throughout the book. In general, the story moves along at a good pace, and I kept wanting to know what happens to Toru, the narrator, and his evolving relationships with the women in his life. I definitely enjoyed this book, although it was very sad in some parts.

One thing that I found surprising, though, was that the book was removed from a high school reading list, not because of the explicit sex the narrator has with multiple women, but because of the one lesbian sex scene in the whole book. I find it shocking that these parents chose to focus on that one scene, but they said nothing of the male character’s liaisons with over half a dozen women. It just goes to show you, homophobia is still rampant in this country, and it’s denying high school kids the experience of reading quality literature. What a shame.

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Molasses Sugar Cookies

For the past couple of years, I’ve baked cookies during the holidays and given them to some friends. In lieu of any kind of Christmas present, since I seem to be terrible at choosing gifts for people.

This past holiday season, I made some molasses sugar cookies. Molasses, for whatever reason, seems to be used a lot around the holidays. Like in gingerbread, for example. But don’t you ever wonder how molasses even ended up in a cookie?

Jessica found herself underneath a large hunk of man known as Jeffrey. How did she end up here? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was that he was flopping around on top of her like a line-caught fish thrown onto a boat, while she was just lying there, as motionless as a corpse. Jeffrey was doing nothing for her. His penis was as straight as an arrow. Her G-spot wasn’t getting any love. There were some vague feelings of friction down there, but Jessica just wasn’t feeling the pleasure. Oh how she longed for her dildo, which had just the right curves to reach the magic spot.

She liked staring at Jeffrey’s face and ass, but his dick wasn’t up to the job. All looks but no pleasure. So disappointing. Soon he was moaning, his hot cum shooting deep into her vagina. She longed for the pleasure that he felt; she wanted desperately to be shooting her fluids in an explosion of bliss, too. But alas, this beautiful man writhing on top of her just wasn’t rocking her boat the way men in her dreams did.

As he was taking a shower, Jessica got dressed and rushed to the kitchen. She needed to bake cookies for the white elephant party tonight. Time was ticking. She really needed to get these in the oven. Sugar, butter, and eggs went into the mixing bowl. But it lacked depth. What could she add to the cookie batter to make it richer, more decadent, more festive? Her kitchen was as bare as her pubic area, so it’s not like she had a lot of options. She thumbed through her spice rack but didn’t find any inspiration. Brown sugar would be great, but she had just used up the last of her brown sugar last week.

Just then, Jeffrey walked out of the shower and joined Jessica in the kitchen. His penis was swinging in front of him like a whistle hanging around a gym teacher’s neck. I wish he’d put on some clothes, Jessica thought to herself, totally taken out of the sex mood she was in an hour earlier by her lover’s lackluster performance and her urgent baking task at hand.

As Jeffrey strode through the kitchen, his big arms swinging next to him, he knocked over a glass jar that was sitting on the counter. The top popped open, and out poured a thick, brown liquid. It ran slowly across the counter, eventually reaching the edge, falling off of it like a waterfall in slow motion. He was still completely naked, helpless to stop the mass of sticky substance, plodding along towards the floor. Jessica sighed a sigh of exasperation. Can’t make me have an orgasm, can’t even walk through the kitchen without knocking something over. What is this man good for? What is any man good for?

Taking some dampened some paper towels to clean up the mess Jeffrey just created, Jessica stared at the toppled jar. She realized it was molasses. The jar was at least a year old; her old roommate had bought it and left it there, and Jessica had no idea what she could do with it. Could this, the viscous brown liquid pouring all over her counter and floor, be the answer to her problems? She dipped a finger into the puddle forming on her counter and put the finger in her mouth. As she pulled the finger slowly out of her mouth, the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly, as she reveled in the sweet, dark, rich flavor that was reaching the back of her throat like semen from the recipient of her last blow job.

Adding a bit of this dark substance to her cookies ought to do the trick, she thought. Her spice rack suddenly started beckoning to her. The ground ginger and cloves would add such an earthy, festive spice to these cookies. Her batter was done, and all she had to do now was wait for them to bake.

Jeffrey, thankfully, had gotten dressed so that she no longer had to stare at his member flopping around, reminding her of the disappointment she had experienced mere minutes earlier. He sat down on her bed and gathered his things together. Looking at him in this light made her realize how hot he was once again. She could feel the moisture welling up in her nether regions. But no, she didn’t want to go through that experience again. If she wanted to just lie there without feeling anything good, she’d just go to the dentist. Plus she had her cookies to attend to.

When the oven door opened, the smell of molasses and spices was heavenly. That homey smell always reminded Jessica of the holidays. The cookies were cracking just slightly on the top. She couldn’t wait to try one, but they were too warm to eat right now. The brown circles of baked goodness were staring at her, teasing her with their sugary delights. She averted her eyes from the cookies to look at the man on her bed. That feeling of denial, that yearning for something warm, propelled her towards the bed, and she jumped at the man like a linebacker tackling an opponent. It caught him off guard, and soon he found himself on his back, staring into her deep blue eyes right before her tongue started to fly toward his mouth.

It was as if a spirit had possessed her. A completely different woman was ripping his clothes off, gripping his penis with her soft hands, her tongue urgently intertwining with his. Her blouse slipped off of her effortlessly, and her breasts were soon released from her bra, round prisoners let loose from the lace cage they were imprisoned in. Before he knew it, her warm vagina was enveloping his rock-hard penis. Now in control, Jessica could actually feel him inside of her. She angled her groin so that the tip of his penis hit her in the best way possible. The coldness of her last sexual experience faded from her memory, as the warmth and pleasure of the current one took over her mind.

The temperature was rising, and she could feel herself getting closer and closer. Like an injured bird trying to fly again, she could feel herself getting agonizingly close to leaving the ground. She moaned louder and louder as she felt her body get lighter and lighter. Soon she had reached the point of no return. As the pleasure spread throughout her body, she could feel herself taking off into the air, reaching heights she had never experienced before. Her orgasm had come, and she welcomed it with open arms. This was heaven.

Hmm now where was I again? Oh yes, molasses sugar cookies. This recipe is actually pretty simple, ingredients-wise. I got it here.

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Molasses Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups shortening
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup molasses
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
granulated sugar for coating

  1. Preheat oven to 375F.
  2. Melt the shortening in a saucepan and let it cool in a bowl.
  3. Add the white sugar, molasses, and eggs to the melted shortening, and beat until combined.
  4. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and salt in a separate bowl.
  5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix them together.
  6. Chill the dough for at least three hours in the refrigerator.
  7. Form the dough into walnut-sized balls and roll them in granulated sugar.
  8. Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet, about two inches apart.
  9. Bake the cookies at 375F for 8 to 10 minutes.

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The melted shortening. I usually don’t use shortening, but I felt like using shortening instead of butter would hold up better.

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The wet ingredients mixed together.

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Adding the dry ingredients turns it into a much drier dough.

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I tried to make them more festive by adding some green sprinkles. Apparently I didn’t learn my lesson last time with these.

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The green sprinkles don’t look so good after they baked.

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For the rest of the cookies, I didn’t use any sprinkles.

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I love how the tops crack like that. The rich flavor of the molasses goes so well with the spices.

Unfortunately, these dry out rather quickly. One trick that the recipe mentions is to store them in an airtight container with some fresh bread for a few hours, and the cookies will magically become moist again. I haven’t actually tried this, though.

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2011 in Review

Happy New Year!

Well, 2011 has come and gone, and it certainly was eventful. In the past year, I:

  • Started this blog.
  • Wrote 132 blog posts.
  • Wrote 21 short stories, some sexual in nature, some not (OK maybe most of them were sexual).
  • Read 2 books (double what I read in the 8-year period from mid-2003 to mid-2011!).
  • Got flamed on Hacker News.
  • Took 3803 pictures that I kept on my computer.
  • Baked at least 53 items.
  • Made at least 77 different cocktails.
  • Lost $560 playing poker (though my luck was running worse than usual this year, I’d like to say).
  • Lost only $10 through other forms of gambling (blackjack, Pai Gow poker).
  • Got 2 platinum trophies in this and that (for someone who doesn’t play video games a ton, I was proud of myself).

Of course, a lot of stuff happened outside of what I write about in this blog, too. I had some great times with friends, went on vacation, ate some great food, made some memories. There was also some heartbreak and some personal change I went through, and I failed to do some things that I planned to do this year (like write 50 Yelp reviews; I wrote zero). Hopefully 2012 will be an even better year!

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Sour Cream Banana Bread

Closing out the year with one final recipe.

I had purchased some bananas a couple of weeks ago, fully intending to make some banana bread after they had gotten overripe. A few days later, they had indeed developed some blackness, and they were ready to make into some delicious banana bread.

But, you have to wonder, what would the world be like if there was no banana bread? The world would be filled with leftover bananas with no better place to go. And then on a day like today, New Years Eve…

Joanna was getting ready for the New Year’s Eve bash that night. Her friend Brittany always threw the best parties. Her giant condo at the top of a tall tower in the city had breathtaking views of the bay, beautifully azure during the day, seductively illuminated by city lights at night. Not only that, but she was a fantastic cook, and all of her food and drink was to die for. Warm, soft brioche bites with grilled shrimp and fire roasted salsa that transformed themselves into a magical amalgamation of butter and plump seafood melting in her mouth. Tiramisu mini-cupcakes topped with chocolate curls that, when popped into her mouth, released their rich, heavenly blend of mascarpone and eggs and hit her with just the slightest breeze of chocolate liqueur. Joanna must have gained five pounds for each of Brittany’s parties she attended.

As she gathered things in her purse on her way out of her apartment, Joanna noticed the bunch of bananas sitting on her counter that she hadn’t touched since she bought them four days ago. They were already getting brown spots, which meant that they were mushier than Joanna liked. Why hadn’t she eaten the bananas instead of getting eaten out by that hot guy from the club the other night? If only sex weren’t so awesome.

But now that the brownness had commenced permeating the skin, there was little she could do. If only there were a way to use up these overripe bananas, Joanna thought. Then she could whip up something really quickly in her kitchen and bring it to Brittany’s soiree, even if it didn’t come close to any of Brittany’s wonderful creations. She just liked to be able to contribute something. Sadly, she knew of no way to use up leftover bananas. With a shrug of her shoulders, she bolted out the door towards Brittany’s place, leaving the browning bananas on the counter.

When she arrived, the party had only been in progress a mere ten minutes. Its sole attendee, besides the hostess, was a handsome, tall, dark-haired man standing by the window, sipping a crystal-clear cocktail. A martini, stirred. It was one of Brittany’s signature drinks.

The usual pleasantries of hugs and smiles between the two women were exchanged. But Joanna had her sights set on the man at the window. Brittany introduced him as Michael, her next-door neighbor new in town. I’m sure he has no problem making friends, Joanna thought to herself, as he took her hand in his and pressed his lips to it. A gentleman and a hottie, what more could a girl ask for?

They ambled over to the couch, Joanna picking up a gimlet along the way, and sat down so close to each other that their legs had nowhere to go but on top of each other. Here, in this public yet intimate embrace, they talked and talked. While Brittany was attending to other party guests streaming in, Joanna and Michael only attended to each other. The rest of the room seemed to disappear from their visions, as they both revealed everything, from their childhood memories to their favorite books and sexual positions.

Talk of sexual positions always got Michael in the mood. Despite the fact that there were at least a dozen women in the condo right now that he would copulate with at the drop of a hat, he had his claws in Joanna now. After all this effort he had put in, how could he let her get away? It would be like mounting a massive struggle to land a giant sturgeon, only to release it back into the ocean.

The man on a mission took his mark by the hand and slipped out of Brittany’s condo stealthily. He led her to his condo next door. A bit smaller, but still just as luxurious. But that didn’t matter. Once the door slammed shut, so did their lips around each other.

Their shirts flew off with an urgency like they were on fire. Joanna stood topless before Michael, her ample breasts drawing his attention like the headlights of an oncoming car. Her curvaceous figure continued from her breasts down to her hips, which were frustratingly covered by her jet-black pants. She, too, noticed Michael’s well-chiseled chest, smooth and almost glistening in the dim overhead light. They simultaneously reached for each other’s waists while their tongues were still exploring each other’s tonsils, unbuckling and unzipping what needed to be unbuckled and unzipped.

As her pants fell to the floor, Joanna’s panties came into full view, with a large wet spot on the front, as if she had just spilled her gimlet directly onto her lap. Michael’s excitement was similarly obvious after his pants were freed from his hips, as he was standing at full attention in his underwear. The two of them whirled their way toward his bedroom, a tangled mess of moving flesh that might be seen in a ballet with a tiny stage and too many dancers.

He threw her onto his king-sized bed like an airport worker handling luggage. Her panties came off, and his tongue darted straight into her vagina shortly afterward. His explorations of her caverns with his tongue were slow but exhaustive. Every nook and cranny, places she didn’t think would ever be touched, he touched with his juicy tongue. She writhed and moaned in pleasure with every new crevasse he found.

Instinctively, she slid down under him and reached out for his penis, stroking it gently yet urgently. He turned his body to realign his mouth with her opening, and they continued pleasuring each other simultaneously. Their moans became synchronized soon after, their bodies undulating with pleasure. A wave of heat passing over her, she suddenly flipped him over, so that she was straddling his face. This inversion of power served to only heighten their desires, and the licking and stroking quickened.

They could not control themselves any longer. Penetration was imminent. Joanna plunged herself down upon his penis, shrieking in delight as she took him inside to the hilt. Her breasts bounced up and down with every thrust, and Michael closed his eyes, overcome by the sensations of pleasure from his groin.

It was as if they had both read the Masters and Johnson report, when they automatically seemed to shift into the lateral coitus position, her right elbow resting on his left, his left knee bent around her right knee. Their thrusting continued, sensually and passionately, as their moans grew more audible. Joanna hoped that Brittany and her guests couldn’t hear them next door, as her mind wandered during the feelings of falling that came with approaching orgasm.

The time had come. The pressure had been mounting for quite some time, and the impending opening of the floodgates was near. Ladies first this time, as Joanna growled, warm waves of bliss washing over her body like saltwater on a beach. Michael soon followed, shooting his load deep into the caverns that his tongue had explored minutes earlier. His fluids dripped out of her seconds later, evidence of the pleasure that they experienced together.

Joanna and Michael silently got dressed in the post-coital awkwardness. He suggested they go back to Brittany’s party, since there was still a bit of time before ringing in the new year. She agreed, and they returned to the party, somehow without anyone noticing they were gone. Her hair was a bit tousled, which made her a bit self-conscious. Do I smell like sex? she asked herself, as she became increasingly paranoid that the party’s patrons would know of their romp in the hay.

As the clock ticked down to the new year, Joanna couldn’t help but feel pangs of guilt. What had she done? She slept with a man she knew for barely an hour. But the thing that made her feel truly guilty hit her just now: they didn’t use a condom, and she let him ejaculate inside her. It was all she could think about, as the countdown started. When Michael looked at her, hoping she would kiss him at midnight, she looked away. She couldn’t bear to look at him, knowing what they’d done.

Joanna was visibly shaken by the experience. While everyone was cheering in the new year, she told Brittany that she wasn’t feeling well and left. It was all she could do to hold back the tears. Keep it together, she told herself. It’s not the worst thing in the world.

She made her way to the nearby pharmacy, which, thankfully, was still open on New Year’s. They did have Plan B in stock, and Joanna promptly purchased it. She rushed home and swallowed the dose. As she stood in her kitchen drinking a glass of water, she stared at the bunch of bananas, still browning on the counter. If only she had had a way to use those bananas. She wouldn’t have been so early to Brittany’s party. She wouldn’t have been seduced by that ejaculator Michael. She wouldn’t be in the mess she is now.

She had a warm bath and then crawled into bed. Hopefully this year will end on a higher note.

Thankfully, we live in a world where banana bread exists. And I happen to like this recipe, which I found here. I’ve halved the recipe, since the original makes four 7×3-inch loaves, and I wanted a single 9×5-inch loaf.

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Sour Cream Banana Bread

2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
8 ounces sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

  1. Preheat oven to 300F.
  2. Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan. Mix together 2 tablespoons of white sugar with 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and dust the pan with the cinnamon sugar.
  3. Cream together the butter and sugar, and then mix in the eggs, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla extract, and ground cinnamon.
  4. Add the salt, baking soda, and flour, and stir until just combined.
  5. Pour the mixture into the dusted pan.
  6. Bake for about 75 minutes at 300F, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Mine actually took closer to 80 minutes, but that may have been from me opening the oven door and testing for doneness a lot near the end.

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The batter. I love the smell of the bananas with cinnamon.

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The loaf pan, which I greased and then dusted with cinnamon and sugar.

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Then the batter goes into the loaf pan.

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After about 80 minutes in the oven, it’s finally done.

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The inside is nice and moist from the bananas, which you can definitely taste. The slight spice from the cinnamon is a really nice complement to the bananas. I really like this banana bread.

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The Road

I’ve somehow managed to finish reading my third book out of college, The Road. And it didn’t take me months to finish, unlike with Underworld.

I knew going in that this was a book about a man and his son trying to survive in some post-apocalyptic world. I usually wouldn’t be attracted to a book with such a grim plot description, but I was strangely intrigued by all the praise it got.

I was amazed at how well-written it was. Maybe I’m just unaccustomed to reading, but the language McCarthy used was so descriptive, so evocative. The bond between the man and the boy was touching. During their harrowing journey to the coast, despite some really bleak moments when it seems like nothing is going right, they still keep that strong love for each other, and that was just really heartwarming for me. I kept wanting to know what happens to them, hoping page after page that they would eventually make it somehow.

But this book does have a lot of strange vocabulary, some words that I even had to do a Google search for because I couldn’t find them in my dictionary app. I suppose that’s just Cormac McCarthy’s style, but still, I found it distracting when I had to stop reading just to look up something.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that they found this book depressing. In some weird way, I found the fact that the man and the boy get through as much as they can in such conditions strangely uplifting. I suppose that I was concentrating more on how they carried each other through such terrible times, rather than the terribleness itself. Probably because I didn’t want to get depressed about it.

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Hot Drinks for Cold Nights

I was feeling a bit cold and lonely in my one-bedroom apartment, and so I felt like making some hot (or at least warm) cocktails, both to warm me up and to take my mind off the fact that, once again, when the new year rolls around, I will most likely be single. But that’s OK, because I have these drink recipes to share.

First up, I made a classic “hot toddy,” just with hot water instead of hot tea:

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Hot Toddy
1 cup hot water
1 oz brandy
1 tablespoon honey
juice of 1/4 lemon
lemon slice

I didn’t have any uncaffeinated tea so I went with water. The honey didn’t make this too sweet, and the brandy made it just slightly boozy. So it’s just slightly boozy and slightly sweet and slightly sour, and it’s a nice warm drink for a cold night.

Next I tried a variation with rum.

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Hot Rum Toddy
2 oz rum
1 teaspoon simple syrup
5.5 oz boiling water
lemon slice

At first this just tasted like slightly sweetened warm rum, as you might imagine from the ingredients. But squeezing the lemon slice into the drink actually made it better, with the tartness and sweetness working together. I personally would prefer a bit more water, but it wasn’t bad.

I wanted to have a warm milky drink, so I tried the Sweet and Hot.

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Sweet and Hot
1.5 oz dark rum
0.75 oz Kahlua
2.75 oz warm milk
lemon twist
clove

0.75 oz of the milk was supposed to be cream, but I opted for a slightly healthier version with all milk. Despite the high proportion of alcohol in this, I actually found it to be quite drinkable. The drink was pretty sweet from the Kahlua, and it was just alcoholic enough to give me a nice buzz on a half-empty stomach. I’m not sure about the lemon twist, though, since otherwise it was all milky flavors.

Finally, I tried a recipe that required a bit of work with a saucepan.

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Hot Whiskey Punch
4 oz blended whiskey
3 oz water
2 tablespoons sugar
half a lemon, cut into slices
1 clove
1 cinnamon stick
lemon slice

The way you make this is by first bringing the water, sugar, lemon slices, clove, and cinnamon stick to a boil in a saucepan, then simmer for 10 minutes on low heat. Then you add the four ounces of whiskey, heat up the mixture without boiling it again, then strain into a mug and garnish with a lemon slice. I scaled down this recipe by 8 from the original. Unbelievably, the original had a whole liter of whiskey in it. Even at an eighth of the original volume, this drink has four whole ounces of whiskey. Despite the really high alcohol content, it was actually pretty good. Yes, the whiskey flavor is strong, as you might imagine, but the sugar and the lemon with the spices really take the edge off. Really easy to get drunk off of a single serving of this, though. I mean, who drinks 4 ounces of whiskey in one sitting? Well, I did. But that was just for testing this recipe.

Since winter is nowhere close to being over, there’s still lots of time to experiment with some warm cocktails!

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Pumpkin Bread

When you think of Thanksgiving and the food associated with it, one of the things you might think of is pumpkin. You know, like pumpkin pie. Because other than Thanksgiving, when do you really use pumpkin in anything?

But then the problem comes shortly after Thanksgiving, when you have a pumpkin surplus that you don’t know what to do with. You can’t just throw it away, that’s perfectly good pumpkin! But then you can’t easily just throw it into cookies or something.

So I figure that using up leftover pumpkin was the driving force behind the genesis of pumpkin bread. I can just imagine…

Jeff and Christine were just settling into their new condo on the outskirts of Chicago. They had just moved there from the bustling metropolis of New York City, hoping to find a quieter life in the Midwest, away from the hectic life in the city. In the two weeks since they’d moved, they’d quickly made friends, as an attractive, vivacious couple like them might be expected to do.

They had attended a Thanksgiving get-together with some new friends a couple of days ago. Jeff’s parents were divorced and lived on opposite sides of the country, and he always felt guilty about visiting one over the other. He often ended up visiting neither of them, a solution which alleviated any potential guilt arising from favoritism, and yet left him feeling strangely empty. Christine’s parents lived in Taiwan, and they were about as un-American as yakitori and mu shu pork, so they never spent time together during the Thanksgiving season.

Thank goodness these two souls, both lost around Thanksgiving, had found each other. Their sexual chemistry aside, they really enjoyed being with each other. Especially during the holidays, when they felt like they were each other’s family, the only reliable person in each other’s lives. They each made the other feel complete.

So from this Thanksgiving get-together they had come away with a can of pumpkin puree. The hosts were heading out of town soon, so they wouldn’t have time to use up the can. Who better to take a leftover can of pumpkin puree than the hot young couple who’s new in town? Or at least, that’s what Jeff and Christine liked to think went through the hosts’ minds when they decided to give them this gift.

But now what to make with it? Neither Jeff nor Christine were exactly master bakers. But as a freelance writer and a freelance painter, not only were they always short on money, but they were also creative people. They really needed a shot of creativity right now.

Whenever they felt like they were lacking in creativity, they did what any couple might do: have sex. Yes, the act of coitus would often not only get their groin juices flowing, but their brain juices as well. Jeff basically outlined an entire magazine article he was stuck on during an extended lovemaking session in the bathtub once.

Christine, being more of a baker than Jeff, took the lead on this sexual encounter. She flew like a wrestler jumping off of the ropes right onto Jeff, who was knocked over by his lover’s sudden ardor. He landed on the queen-sized bed they had bought the day they arrived in the Midwest, with promises by the salesman that it was the bed of choice for comfortable sex. He had them sold.

Not wanting to be the submissive one yet again, Jeff reached up and ripped off her blouse like wrapping paper from a Christmas present. He was greeted with the present of her breasts, so perky, so ample, spilling out of her bra. Her brassiere sat there, blocking access to the holy land of her nipples, and he immediately unclasped it and threw it across the room like an unwanted ragdoll.

Access to her breasts unfettered, he began darting his tongue at her nipples. Christine loved it when Jeff did this to her. That wet, warm feeling of Jeff’s mouth enveloping her nipples was indescribable. Not the same as the wet, warm feeling of Jeff’s wet penis in her vagina, but still, for strictly above-the-waist action, this was sublime.

She felt weird being topless while Jeff was fully clothed. His shirt had to come off, now. She ripped open his shirt as if she were performing a thoracotomy with her fingers. It revealed his toned, hairless chest that she rubbed her hands all over. The firmness of his breasts. The squishiness of her breasts. They both looked down and saw that their bottom halves were still covered. Unforgivable.

Their belts came off more quickly than they had put them on. As they simultaneously dropped their jeans to the floor, their mouths interlocked like they were each holding onto the other’s lips for dear life. The panties and boxers came off soon after, and the excitement was visible, manifested as dripping fluids from their nether regions.

They soon started the thrusting portion of the ritual, as his penis entered her vagina. It fit like a glove. They were meant to be together. At least for sex. As the familiar rhythm came back to them, Christine remembered that they had started this session with a purpose. She needed to find a way to use that pumpkin puree.

They both groaned as Jeff’s thrusts became more urgent. She gyrated her hips into his, trying desperately to solve the geometry problem of his straight penis contacting her G-spot behind a curved wall. At the same time, she was trying to figure out how she could use a can of mushy pumpkin. What on earth would pumpkin go into besides pumpkin pie? And why wasn’t her G-spot just a little bit lower, or Jeff’s penis curved a little bit more upward? So close, yet so agonizingly far, in both the recipe and in her vagina.

After minutes of gentle, yet passionate thrusting, Christine was starting to feel more relaxed. The blood flow increased to both of their groins, causing Christine’s vaginal walls to magically reconfigure themselves into a more desirable position, while the head of Jeff’s penis swelled in a way that just grazed the magic spot inside of her anatomy that she found so incredibly difficult to reach herself.

The kissing became more intense. The grazing against her G-spot became caressing, and waves of pleasure undulated from her groin, straight to the tips of her toes. She started thinking of ways to use leftover fruits in baked goods. Right when Jeff’s penis touched her G-spot in just the right way, it came to her. Banana bread. That was a great way to use leftover, overripe bananas. Why not do the same with pumpkin? It would just need more spices, since pumpkin goes so well with those Thanksgiving flavors.

Christine was content with her realization. It was as if this lifted a weight off of her shoulders, a weight that was inhibiting her orgasm. With the burden gone, the floodgates opened. She let out a moan that seemed to last an eternity, as a pleasure bomb ignited inside of her. She felt winded. The force of the explosion had left her out of breath, knocked back into the soft bed. Jeff was also approaching a similar climax, and soon gobs of his fluids were shooting into her deep chasm.

Normally they would just do some post-coital cuddling and fall asleep, but Christine had work to do. She threw Jeff off of her, put on her clothes, and marched into the kitchen, a woman on a mission. Pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, sugar, flour, and baking soda. Basically banana bread with pumpkin puree instead of mashed banana. Oh but she needed spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger were the usual companions of pumpkin in other baked goods. This was turning into a nice, thick batter. She poured it into a loaf pan and baked it until it was done. Soon they were enjoying some nice, warm pumpkin bread. A wonderful snack to replenish their energy after that intense workout.

Well, perhaps this pumpkin bread has been around longer than that. Sadly, my discovery of pumpkin bread was not even remotely coital, but in fact came from Allrecipes.com, as many of them do. I scaled this recipe down to half and changed it to a 9×5 loaf pan, since that’s what I have.

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Pumpkin Bread

1/2 can pumpkin puree (where 1 can = 15 ounces)
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

  1. Preheat oven to 350F, and grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
  2. Mix together the pumpkin puree, eggs, vegetable oil, water, and white sugar in a bowl until well-blended.
  3. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger until there are no lumps.
  4. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and stir until just combined.
  5. Pour the mixture into the greased and floured loaf pan.
  6. Bake at 350F for 65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

In reality, my loaf seemed to take almost 80 minutes. But you probably want to check it sooner, so it doesn’t burn.

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The wet ingredients.

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The dry ingredients, in a separate bowl.

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The dry ingredients mixed into the wet ingredients.

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And then the batter goes into the greased and floured loaf pan.

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Finally done after close to 80 minutes in the oven. The top burned a bit.

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That split top that you get in banana bread and other loaves. I love it.

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I really enjoyed this pumpkin bread. The inside was nice and moist, and it had a strong flavor of pumpkin that went really well with the spices, which were definitely noticeable but not overpowering. I might even make this with non-leftover pumpkin puree!

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