Tag Archives: book club

The Josephine

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Seeing Shuffle Along got Muff Julie thinking about Josephine Baker, that fabulous entertainer who was the toast of Paris in the 1920s. Julie wondered what cocktails Josephine might have preferred to drink at all those nightclubs she frequented.  And since Julie is a professional chef, she had no trouble coming up with a cocktail that might have suited Josephine perfectly. It even has absinthe!

Allow yourself to be taken back. Here is Julie’s jazzy riff on The Metropolitan .

 

INGREDIENTS:

2 oz. Remy Martin VSOP

1 oz. sweet vermouth

1 tsp. yellow Chartreuse

2 dashes Angostura or Orange Bitters

1/4 oz absinthe

DIRECTIONS:

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add all ingredients except the garnishes and stir. Strain into a brandy snifter.

Garnish with  the following: 1 sprig of rosemary, 1 raspberry, 1 strip of orange peel.

 

 

 

Patty’s Perfectly Packing-Heat Party Punch

cocktail punch-1-1Muff wannabe Patty likes to throw parties but can’t afford an on-staff mixologist. She puts out the wine bottles, the tub of bottled beer and soda and lets the guests fend for themselves. But she likes to offer a hard liquor option to those still celebrating the end of Prohibition, which frankly, is all of us. Here’s her Southwestern style party punch, one-bowl wonder for a crowd. She makes gallons of the stuff, taking healthy samplings every so often as she mixes, and stores it in the fridge for later replenishment of her closed-top punch dispenser.

It’s any party host’s liquid liberator and inhibition annihilator.

Ingredients:

First make your oleo-saccharum (no, not a back problem; OS is the way good bartenders get the most out of citrus). You’ll need:

Peel of 1 whole pomelo

Peel of half a grapefruit

2 oz. Palm sugar

2 oz. Panela (aka jiggery)

In a punch bowl, muddle the peels and sugars together to draw the oils from the peels and let sit for an hour. Then add:

8 oz. Stool blanco

8 oz. Palo Cortado sherry

4 oz. Reposado tequila

4 oz. Mandarine Napoleon liqueur

12 oz. Sparkling wine, chilled

The chilled juice of 3 pomelos and 1 lemon

4 cups of cold water

1 cup of ice

Before serving remove peels (unless you like the way they look). You could also garnish with fresh fruit slice. Note: Some of the ingredients can be hard to find but Patty fools around with various similar fruits and liquors and the stuff will still have your guests toasting your mixology skills.

 

 

What is The Muffia?

instagram postPeople seem confused about THE MUFFIA… again. It’s not a bunch of gay women, though gay women certainly have muffs and many like to read. It’s not a bunch of hot women who like to be photographed in various stages of undress, being poked and prodded with plastic toys and parts of other peoples’ anatomy. And it’s not the group of militant English women who go around reprimanding mothers on their poor parenting. NO. THE MUFFIA is a Los Angeles based book club and we have been calling ourselves THE MUFFIA for more years than the others who stake claim to the name.
At least one of us has had a woman on woman relationship (it didn’t last), most of us do have sex–some with toys–and most of us are mothers, though none of us would dream of telling another mother how to parent; not to her face anyway. In other words, the women of The “real” Muffia are women most other women can relate to. These are the women who stride, fall, talk, love, fail, eat, diet, drink* (a lot), give, take and live in the pages of THE MUFFIA SERIES of books. Come meet them: Madelyn, Jelicka, Quinn, Sarah, Kiki, Lauren, Paige, Rachel and Vicki. You’ll feel at home.

Book Club Survival Tips

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The Muffia survives as a book club after fifteen years for the following reasons ( in order of importance):

1. The Muffs take turns picking the books we read.

2. If a Muff hostess suggests “Remembrance of Things Passed,”  other Muffs aren’t allowed to get annoyed if they don’t want to read it.  The corollary to this is no Muff hostess gets annoyed if other Muffs don’t read her book choice.

3. No Muff gets too upset if members can’t come at the last minute. However, a  little upset is mandatory to show caring and empathy.

4. The Muff hostess always has a tasty cocktail offering for those Muffs who make it to book club.  (Note: This could be more important than #1)

5. A Muffia book club gathering always consists of equal parts “talking about the book” and “roundy-round” where important non-book talk occurs.