Glögg: holiday fun for all

It's my second Christmas in my apartment, which means it's my second Christmas with my roommates, which means it's my second Christmas with Glögg. A lot of Glögg. I pronounce that pretty much like it's spelled, "gluog."

For those of you lacking any Swedish influence in your lives, Glögg is a hot, mulled wine sort of beverage, consumed in special mini-tea cup looking Glögg glasses. I'm not sure if there's a traditional time of day to drink the stuff, because it's been a round-the-clock affair in our place. I must say, Glögg first thing in the morning works wonders on a hangover.

I found the recipe below, so others might also partake in the fun. They're not kidding about the inexpensive wine bit -- my roomie made her last batch with Carlo Rossi (the kind you buy in the four liter bottles). She also puts raisins and almonds in her Glögg, which provides a nice little snack with your hot booze.

Ingredients
• 1 bottle of red wine (inexpensive)
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup (50 ml - 100 ml) vodka (optional)
• 5 - 20 whole cloves
• 1 large teaspoonful cardamom seeds
• 2 - 4 pieces (sticks) cinnamon
• 1 - 2 pieces ginger
• Peel from half a lemon
• 1/2 - 1 cup (125 - 250 ml) sugar
• 1 large teaspoonful vanilla sugar

Preparation
1. Crush the cinnamon and cardamom. Peel the lemon. Put all the spices and peel into a glass jar with the vodka.
2. Cover. Leave overnight. Strain the vodka, discard the spices.
3. Mix the spiced vodka with the wine and sugar.
4. Heat all the ingredients in a large saucepan until steaming hot. Do not boil! Stir and taste.
5. If not sweet enough, add more sugar. If too sweet, add more wine.

Chef's tip
The Glögg will be even spicier and will have a fuller taste if you bottle it and leave it for a week.

Dreams of summer

It's my understanding that the weather all up and down the West Coast is pretty miserable today. In San Francisco, it is extremely cold and extremely wet. We had a nasty lightning and thunder storm this morning that was not kind to my aching, hungover brain. It's all contributing to my missing summer more than usual. Normally I don't get this way until February, but I'm already hankering for carefree, sunny days like this one:







Doesn't that look idyllic?

Thanks to Hip E. for the photos.

Top ten signs your relationship is going nowhere

As one of those questionable girls who tends to hop from boyfriend to boyfriend, I've had my share of long-term relationships... and just as many break-ups. The older I get, the more the break-ups tend to be a conversation about compatibility, rather than some fiery disagreement or fateful event. Thinking back over these experiences, I've recently developed a trusty cheat sheet to help myself, and others, more quickly identify a relationship that won't work in the long run, regardless of how much you really, really want it to. Here it is:

1. You don't easily get along with or feel comfortable with each other's friends.

2. You don't get easily along with or feel comfortable with each other's families.

3. One of you ________________ so much that the other one is uneasy and worried about it.

Fill in the blank with any of the possibilities from this list:

drinks
smokes
lies
cheats
gambles
cleans
watches porn
obsesses about sex
shops/spends
plays video games
works
parties
takes pills
is absent
whines/complains
is jealous

4. You have no plans together past next weekend.

5. Your partner always takes the best pillow, the most dessert, or the last of the wine. Similarly, only one of you gives back-scratches, massages, or birthday gifts.

6. You've stopped going out on dates together.

7. You haven't had sex more than a month.

8. In their conversations with you, your friends and family inadvertently describe the relationship in ways that you find upsetting. For instance, "You guys are just such good buddies," or "It's funny how you're always begging her to spend time with you."

9. One of the things you are most attracted to in your partner is his or her "potential."

10. Couples' counseling has been discussed more than once and you're not yet married.

If any one of these signs seems familiar, I'd say it's a red flag regardless of how good other aspects of the relationship might be.

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness,
a tender look that becomes a habit."
-- Peter Ustinov

Back in action

My first semester of b-school ended Last Wednesday and I have been in a drunken haze ever since. I'll start operations and finance in the second week of January, but until then there will be drinking, carousing, napping, shopping, novel-reading, movie-watching, cookie-baking, and yes... blogging. In short, I will have a life (albeit temporarily). Let the games begin!

Thank god... I really need some new chinos

Stacy passed on this release that she received from PETA today. She writes, "It's true! There's also an article on MSN Money. I guess we can resume our catalog subscriptions and start visiting the store again, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth."

Here's what PETA has to say:

Victory: J. Crew Promises "No More Fur!"

Thanks to each and every one of you who signed the petition, handed out leaflets, called the CEO to tell him how horrified you were that the company was selling fur, and otherwise helped the cause. After just 11 short weeks, this pressure has paid off. On November 30, J.Crew confirmed that it will no longer sell fur—no fur garments, no fur trim, no fur anything. Joining the ranks of top fashion retailers H&M, Forever 21, and others that have adopted fur-free policies, J.Crew is sending a powerful message to the clothing industry that subjecting rabbits, coyotes, foxes, and other animals to horrible lives and torturous deaths will not be tolerated.

In light of this exciting agreement, please dispose of any J.Crew campaign materials that you have, and please stop contacting the company.

Thanks again for all that you did to play an important part in this step forward in the fight against cruelty to animals! Please forward this good news to a friend.

Sincerely,
Ian Blessing
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
IanB@peta.org
PETA.org

J.Crew caving under the pressure?

After hearing the bad news about J.Crew this week, my friend Jenny took it upon herself to do a little additional research. Never one to give up easily, she made an interesting discovery :

"Okay, so the J.Crew news was festering in my mind and this morning I decided to quickly Google for some extra info. Like I need to add another project to my list of to-dos.

So first, I found news articles discussing J.Crew's use of fur for the first time this year. Any article mentioning that the fur was sourced from China was written by PETA. All other sources only said J.Crew was using fur and was under fire from anti-fur groups. No mention of China.

Then I started wondering how PETA would know that it's coming from China, but I couldn't find anything about that without going to the PETA website which I didn't really want to do from work.

Thennnn I thought I'd go to the J.Crew website, thinking maybe they'd address these issues somewhere on the site, which leads me to the interesting part of this whole story: I don't see ANY fur on the site at all!!!! China or no China, I wonder if the anti-fur pressure made them scrap the whole line?"

She's right! J.Crew has taken all of their items with fur down from their main online catalog. You can only access the web pages for those products through the search function, where you can search by item number or key word. I searched for "fur" and they all popped up.

It's exciting that they reacted to the anti-fur pressure in some way, but I'm not sure if it's enough for us to go back to buying J.Crew stuff, yet. Thoughts?

For all you Lionel fans

It was mentioned that a few of us had "All Night Long" stuck in our heads (obviously due to my late-night, three-hour accounting exam tonight), and the next thing I know Tony emails out this little graphic creation:



Not sure why it's so funny, but it sure is. Maybe you have to have lived abroad in a tea-swilling country to fully appreciate it. Nice work, Tony.

Special recipe for the holiday

I'm headed to hip little SF Thanksgiving party this year and was assigned to bring the cranberry sauce. Bringing a couple of cans of Ocean Spray seems decidedly unhip (there is nothing sophisticated about can-shaped gelatinous blobs -- they're just too reminiscent of dog food). Thankfully, this recipe came highly recommended by a friend from work. I'm going to make it this afternoon, so it's ready in advance. I think it sounds delish!

SPICED CRANBERRY AND ZINFANDEL SAUCE
(You can prepare this sauce up to two days ahead, then refrigerate)

Ingredients:
2 cups of zinfandel or other fruity dry red wine
3/4 cup sugar
5 (2-inch) orange rind strips
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
6 whole cloves
4 slices peeled fresh ginger (thin slices because a little ginger goes a long way)
2 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks
1 package (12-ounce) fresh cranberries

1. Combine the first seven ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium, then cook 15 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken and sugar dissolves (it doesn't get very thick like gravy, just a little thicker than watery), stirring occasionally. Strain the mixture through a sieve (I use a fine mesh colander) and discard the solids. Return mixture to pan.

2. Add cranberries to pan; cook over high heat 10 minutes or until the berries pop. Reduce heat to low, then simmer 30 minutes or until mixture is slightly thick. Pour into a bowl to let cool.

Yield: 10 servings (serving size is 1/4 cup)

Gasp!

The first photos of Spederline have been released! And he looks sort of cute and happy, though it kind of seems like she's trying to strangle him.

Stop shopping at J.Crew

This week's theme is "saying goodbye to things that I love."

It doesn't matter how cute the sweaters are, or that the chinos fit just right. We must stop shopping at J.Crew, because they've started sourcing fur from China for their fall line. Fur from dogs and cats. Now, I'm no vegetarian, but they don't have any laws regulating the fur industry in China, and I think that what this means is that they are pretty much skinning a puppies alive, sewing them to a hank of cashmere, and selling it to wear with your "winter suiting" for a mere $395.

Just say no! We can't let J.Crew turn us into Cruella Devil. We don't need to wear puppy fur -- we can all be perfectly okay with a nice knit scarf.




A puppy was bludgeoned to death so this woman could have "coyote fur" boob accents on her puffer jacket. She doesn't look so cute when you think about a bloody puppy with broken legs, does she? She looks evil and cruel. Frankly, the jacket isn't that cute anyway.

You can email J.Crew at contactus@jcrew.com to tell them just how disgusted you are with the company's new Chinese fur policy. You can also watch an extremely disturbing movie about the whole affair here.

“I offered him a free cell phone and he pulled out an AK-47”

Check out this freaky story about an armed gunman opening fire and taking hostages in the Tacoma Mall. He shot six people for apparently no reason. He was just generally "angry."

Going to the Tacoma Mall used to be a big treat in college, but really any kind of escape from campus life was a treat. I must admit that as far as malls are concerned, the Tacoma Mall was pretty dumpy. It's cruel take out your hostilities on a dumpy little mall where the biggest attraction is a JC Penney.

Thanks to Clare for the heads up about the story.

Do you work out? Take this survey!

I need people to fill out a survey for my marketing class. It gathers data about that new "CardioPod" product we're working on. If you exercise regularly (especially if you're a runner) and own an iPod we'd love to have your feedback. We'd love to have you take the survey even if you aren't these things. Any data helps.

The survey takes about ten minutes to get through. If you know others who fit the description and you think they might be willing to help out, please pass this link on. You can enter http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=131001491291 into your browser if you have a hard time with the link below.

Click here to take the survey.

Holiday gifts that give back

At a recent panel presentation at Haas, I heard an alumni speak about a non-profit that several Haas graduates started after completing their MBAs. Their organization, World of Good, markets and distributes fair trade gifts and accessories, while promoting consumer awareness of the ethics behind purchases.

On December 3, from noon to 8pm, World of Good is opening their Berkeley warehouse for holiday shopping, hors d'ouvres, and cocktails. Half of all proceeds earned will go to support social and economic projects in artisan communities around the world -- and I must say that they carry a lot of really beautiful gifts. They've got excellent potential presents for girlfriends, sisters, and moms.

Some of the pretty things that caught my eye include:



The Faux-Sure Handbag, made at a co-op in South India that supports and HIV clinic, day-care services, health education, and primary education for the local community.




The Beads of Change necklace, made by fair trade artisans working on the outskirts of Delhi, India.




These purses enable women from traditionally marginalized classes in Gujarat, India to learn and use embroidery skills to improve their quality of living.




The workshop that creates these Amazon Harvest necklaces provides jobs and services to at-risk Colombian youth.

The open house will be held at 1380 10th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710. If you can't make it to the warehouse, you can order these items, and a ton of others, at WorldofGood.com.

Now you know what everyone on my list is getting for the holidays this year.

Sex and the City trivia

There's a running debate in my apartment over why Carrie calls him "Big" instead of just using his name (yeah, yeah -- we found out his name is John in the last episode -- okay). Has anyone out there watched enough Sex and the City to know where the nickname comes from? Is it because he's well endowed?

Confusion surrounding "networking"

Tonight, on one of my few class-free evenings, I'm off to a "networking event." Not sure what to expect. It's been dubbed a "firm night" and there are going to be a bunch of companies represented, so I was picturing booths and suits, until I found out that there will be wine, beer, and appetizers and we're supposed to dress business casual. Now I'm thinking... cocktails and mingling?

Networking, in general, is a source of extreme confusion for me. Everyone is constantly talking about networking, but I don't really understand what networking is. People talk about it like it's a pursuit... like studying or playing the stock market. I've got to make sure I'm networking. Am I missing something? You're just supposed to talk to people, right? Introduce yourself and make chit chat? And the difference between networking and socializing is that when you're networking, you're ultimately out to get something and you don't really want to make friends with the person you're hanging out with? That doesn't seem very cool. But, of course, it is possible to network with people you really like, so I'm kind of at a loss as to the difference between networking and just hanging out.

What stresses me out the most is the feeling that there is some larger objective I'm supposed to be achieving while I'm making this networking small talk. I can never figure out what the objective is, or if I'm networking correctly. Sometimes, I get wrapped up in that to the point that I can't come up with small-talky things to say. And then I have another glass of wine and we all know what that leads to.