Urban Ninja
[dropcap2]C[/dropcap2]oming up with a cocktail menu for All Hallow’s Eve is a devilish task. Finding beverages that do not mimic blood, guts, or unnatural ghoulish greens proved difficult. Most Halloween cocktails fall on a scale between saccharine and gimmicky, putting me dangerously close to my personal hell which is laced with candy corn and a chaser of Skittles-flavored vodka. So, if you come trick or treating around my door, I will be sure to provide you with a few suitable adult beverages that celebrate the season but don’t seem like they were made for kids.
If you want something easy to make that fits the festive bill, pick up the new Owl’s Brew. I was recently invited to their West Coast launch party to taste this new tea based mixer. Owl’s Brew is made with all natural ingredients and makes easy delicious drinks. I love The Classic, with its blend of English Breakfast tea, lemon and lime juice, sweetened with agave. Equally delicious is the Pink & Black, which is a base of Darjeeling tea and flavored with all natural ingredients like hibiscus, lemon peel, strawberry and agave. Most of their recipes call for one part booze to two parts mixer. You can even make non-alcoholic spritzers using sparkling water, which we have been making around the Move office, since Autumn has a little one on the way.
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This cocktail is a spiked Arnold Palmer or a tea twist on a classic Tom Collins. I used 3 oz of The Classic Owls Brew with 1.5 oz Beefeater Gin. You’ll want a gin that will hold up to the strong tea flavor, so look for a London dry gin. I am a loose leaf tea junkie, so adding tea to cocktails is a no-brainer. (Especially if you’ve been attacked by a zombie.)
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Now this cocktail is Fall in a glass. Honestly Yum posted this recipe and the pictures are mouth-watering. This one takes a wee bit more work but will ultimately be worth it in the same way that homemade apple pie always tastes better than the store-bought kind. The oven-baked apple chips lend beautiful texture and crunch, and the complexity of the DIY cordial will make you think that you have Grandma’s apple pie in a glass.
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I have always found the story of La Llorona, or the Weeping Woman, to be one of the more terrifying ghost stories. Perhaps because it is the stuff of children’s nightmares, since mothers used this story to scare their kids straight. If you’re not familiar with the story, Muy Bueno Cookbook tells their own version on the blog where you can find the recipe for this Pisco-based cocktail alongside the twisted tale. I love the use of dry ice to add an element of mystery and intrigue. Just be sure that it is all gone before you sip your cocktail, or you might end up with a nasty ice burn.
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Are you making any fun drinks for Halloween? Let us know in the comments below!
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[dropcap2]W[/dropcap2]hen September rolls around, it can be marked by some perennial truths: back to school, changing leaves and the return of football. When it comes to women and football, lines are drawn in the sand between females that bleed their teams colors and those who can not tell a “flea-flicker” from a “read-option” quarterback.
[quote_left]When it comes to women and football, lines are drawn in the sand between females that bleed their teams colors and those who can not tell a “flea-flicker” from a “read-option” quarterback.[/quote_left]One cannot underestimate the power of football. It brought Time Warner to its knees, commands multi-million dollar ratings, becomes the primary occupation of spouses and boyfriends straight through the holidays, and splits families with rivalries that rival the Montagues and Capulets. Now, I understand that there is a fear and loathing associated with football season. Personally, I have had my date nights relegated to Tuesdays, one of the few nights sans football, and have been dragged to sports bars at 9:00am on a Saturday morning for college ball on so-called vacations. So here’s the kicker : I love football. NFL and yes, even college. Yet in this post-feminist world where we now recognize and embrace the differences between men and women, why do females who want to love the game try the one-size-fits-all jersey and expect that particularly male experience of football to be equally exciting for us?
(See, I’m already channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw.)
I needed to claim football season in my own way. I needed an expert. So I called my friend, The Fantasy Football Girl, Liz Loza, to ask her for a new way to enjoy football: as a woman. Noted as “the most followed, discussed, and respected independent female fantasy analyst in the blogosphere,” she is the co-host of the X’s & Y’s podcast, where she breaks down her football picks for the week from the female perspective. Upon helping her then-boyfriend-now-husband win his fantasy football league, the Brown-educated actress decided to join the league herself, and as the only female, proceeded to win the following two seasons. This Bears fan from the Windy City proved that it was not just beginner’s luck; she could hold her weight in this guys’ game using not only the number crunches of match-ups and injury reports, but also with her own mix of women’s intuition combined with an eye for rapport between players, which she attributes to… you guessed it: Being a girl.
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First, Liz asks you to take a look at why you don’t like the game. “Why aren’t you a fan? What is it about football that you find so intimidating, off-putting or not appealing? Because I think a lot of women think about football as ‘that annoying thing that my husband/boyfriend/significant-other/best-guy-friend becomes engrossed with and then ignores me’. So because football is the reason you’re being ignored, then you don’t like it.” But as Loza points out, “if you really look at it, there are a lot of things that we as women would inherently enjoy.”
“There’s more drama and excitement in a full Sunday of football than the entirety of Season 4 of Grey’s Anatomy, and that was the season Denny Duquette was on, so you know it was the best season.” [quote_left]There’s more drama and excitement in a full Sunday of football than the entirety of Season 4 of Grey’s Anatomy, and that was the season Denny Duquette was on, so you know it was the best season.[/quote_left]As Loza says, women love the drama and the competition in everyday life, so why wouldn’t we enjoy it on a football field? “We compete with each other all the time. I’ve never seen women compete more than at a shoe store.” So why not look at the game with the drama in mind. “For instance: Denver playing the Giants, someone who’s not into football would think ‘alright Denver vs. New York, who cares,’ but it’s Eli Manning of the Giants vs. his brother, Peyton Manning of the Broncos. Eli has two Super Bowl rings. Peyton, who’s considered the much better quarterback, only has one, so now you’re getting into family drama, and that’s when I think it gets exciting. That’s why I like football. I’m going to watch just to see if little brother is going to try to best his older brother, but now older brother is coming back from an injury two seasons ago that some thought might have ended his career, and he’s also with a new team… so… there’s all of these story lines that are in each game, that I think are much more fun for most women to concentrate on than the X’s and O’s of play call. Every week it’s ‘to-be-continued’ and that’s what’s exciting!”
“Trying to make a social event out of the various match-ups can make it much more bearable.” Loza encourages you to get your friends together or to throw a little party. Co-ed viewing parties or just going to the bars to watch the games can make Sundays fun. “Make it as social as possible, so it’s not just you plus your boyfriend who’s ignoring you, and then you’re stuck staring at a screen not knowing what’s going on.” As a double bonus, if the social aspect is your thing, sometimes the planning of the party is even more fun than the game itself. “What’s more fun than New Year’s Eve? Getting ready for New Year’s Eve. More fun than watching football sometimes, is getting ready for the viewing party that you’re going to throw and figuring out what you’re going to wear. Then you get to the game, and you drink beers and eat good food, and the game’s the game. If you don’t have anything invested in who’s winning or who’s losing, you can just sit back and enjoy the company.”
“When I was in New Orleans last year for the Season Opener, I saw more women at the SuperDome who were super into football, and more than that, they were super into the fashion of football.” The women Loza met in New Orleans “weren’t just trying to buy Drew Brees NFL licensed jerseys, they were looking for the black Tory Burch Reva flats with the gold medallion
“I think a lot of women don’t want to look stupid, but it’s okay to ask questions, and frankly, people who like football want to talk about it. So if you ask your partner/best friend/whoever, “Why was that yellow flag thrown?” or “What do those bars mean under the score?,” unless your friend is a total jerk, he’s going to be excited to tell you and help you understand it.” You can listen to Loza’s X’s & Y’s Podcast: a his and her’s guide to fantasy football, to get the skinny on the week’s match-ups. “Pop in a podcast – you can listen to it while you’re working out!” and then you’ll be all ready for the weekend’s games.
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Do you like football? Let us know in the comments below!
If you have questions for the Fantasy Football Girl, you can find her
on Twitter @TheFFGirl and online at www.TheFantasyFootballGirl.com
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[dropcap2]I[/dropcap2] had prepared my elevator pitch and I had conducted mock interviews with my headhunter aunt. A pen sat uncapped on the legal pad on my desk, ready to jot down important notes during the phone interview I was about to have for an internship with a national newspaper. By all accounts I was ready for my interview, but in the last two minutes before my future supervisor was to call, I stood tall with my hands on my hips like a petite Wonder Woman. I stretched my arms wide and spread my legs, making my body as expansive as possible.
This is called power posing, and though it seems a little strange, it’s more valuable than you might think. Championed by Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy, power posing is essentially part of the “fake it ’til you make it” mentality now backed by research.
A quick science primer: Testosterone is a hormone that is associated in the brain with dominance and power while cortisol is associated with anxiety. In a piece for the Harvard Business Review, Cuddy explains a Harvard study which found that perceived leaders of both genders had higher levels of testosterone than cortisol—a ratio that made it easier to speak confidently and make risky decisions.
The study also found that adopting a power pose like the Wonder Woman for even two minutes before entering a high-stress situation can help boost testosterone levels by 20 percent and decrease cortisol by 25 percent. On the flip side, adopting a low-power pose, like crossing your legs or hunching over in your seat, can have the opposite effect.
But what does this mean for you?
It means that when you have a presentation, a meeting, or even an interview coming up, taking two minutes to pose powerfully might be the difference between dominating the conversation (in a good way) and nervously stuttering through it.
I am a very typical introvert; I have a quiet voice and I am often reluctant to speak up too much in meetings for fear of saying the wrong thing. I admit it’s a silly fear, but one that is characteristic of my personality nonetheless. Since my internship interview was over the phone though, I knew I would have to project my personality as much as possible through my voice, so I took a page out of Cuddy’s book and tried to make myself as big as possible.
It worked.
Whether it was the placebo effect or not, I noticed I felt more relaxed and confident during the call than in previous phone interviews—and two hours later my interviewer called back with an official offer from the company.
I can’t guarantee that power posing is the key to professional success; I was likely offered the position based on my experience and skills rather than how comfortable I sounded on the phone, but as any career advisor will tell you, charisma is at least half the battle. And if there is something you can do to improve your chances of succeeding, why wouldn’t you give it a shot?
You already know what you’re doing. Now it’s time to show it. Here are a few power posing tips you can try next time you need them:
Take a moment alone. If you can slip away to the restroom for a minute, assume a Wonder Woman pose in the stall. While standing there, don’t recap your facts or strategy, just think about how great and powerful you are.
Stay powerful in the heat of the moment. Take stock of your body language during the meeting and adjust if you find you’ve naturally assumed a low-power pose.
Fake it. The root of power posing is the idea that you’ll “fake it ‘til you make it.” If you don’t feel like two minutes of Wonder Woman are helpful at all, keep with it. If you pretend you feel confident, you can trick your mind into believing it, too.
What’s your power pose? Describe it in the comments!
This article originally published at LEVO LEAGUE
by Alex Laughlin