Downton Abbey Blues

So for those who aren't aware, the fourth season of the critically acclaimed show "Downton Abbey" has just ended and will not return to the air until fall of 2015. Mind you, this show is not one for the faint of heart or a casual viewer. Airing on Sundays at 7/8 pm, the show is an hour long period drama chronicling the lives of the Crawleys an esteemed English family, and their relationships with the servant's and socialites alike. The very first episode takes place in April 1912, the morning after the Titanic has sunk, taking with it the family heir to Downton Abbey, the Crawley home. As years progress on, the plots become more developed and relationships become tumultuous, as seen when the youngest Crawley daughter, Sybil, marries the chauffeur Tom Branson and leaves for Ireland. In this last particular season, new alliances are made, old relationships rekindled and friendships are made stronger.If you're looking for a show that will keep you on your toes, make you wait with baited breath and quiver from excitement, check out Downton Abbey. You won't regret it.

According To Jordan

So I know you've had the experience where you're about to do something wrong (or you've already done it) and that little voice your head gets to talking at one hundred miles per hour, chiding and scolding you like a clucking mother? If you don't, I'm worried for your safety and you probably have impaired judgement. If you do, whoopee fucking doo, you're normal. If there is more than one voice in your head you probably need to be committed. That being said, I have one too..and its not just any voice, like the guy from the State Farm commercial or Gilbert Gottfried..its my bestfriend Jordan Janice Ladwein. I like to think that her somewhat posh English goes Southern Illinois drawl has saved from many a bad decision..like the time I almost wore a orange gingham shirt with a tan corduroy vest..or when I almost broke into my mother's car because my keys were there. So here's to her, because according to Jordan, I'm reckless and I probably need adult supervision. And if you don't have your own little Jordan, I seriously suggest you get one.

Your Music Is You

It's a line I'm sure you've heard before. "Music is a link to the soul." But what does that mean? It means that the music that speaks most to you, is a reflection of you. You're probably thinking that your bad 80's music makes you seem totally dopey, or that new, albeit repetitive, Katy Perry jam could cast you in a wanna be teenybopper light. Well it does. And that's fucking great! Because your shitty taste in music is what defines you. Even though I like to pretend I'm riding in a jalopy when I listen to 1930s gypsy jazz and you probably are tapping your foot to the greatest hits of Carole King, it's what sets us apart. So go forth in the world, embrace your crappy music and live life to the fullest.  

Baking Is For Pansies

Let this be known before we begin: I am a terrible cook. I overboil, I fry too long and I churn much too hard. Now mind you, I like to tell myself(and occasionally others) that I possess pretty extraordinary cooking talents. Here's the real deal: I fucking suck. But in the skill of baking, there is hope. I love to bake sweet delicious pastries and sugary desserts from crisp apple and flavorful sweet potato to tangy lemon meringue pies. It's something about the process of watching a delicious bite of heaven being created by your very hands that just mesmerizes me. It's an art form really. Here's my dilemma: some folks don't really consider baking a plush red velvet cake or a succulent peach cobbler to be cooking. In fact some skilled cooks and chefs look down on us bakers of the world. How do we get our point across so that we will be taken serious? Put a Mrs. Field's at every other street corner? Establish a union for Bakers Squares everywhere? No. We bake our little hearts out is what we do and we get better. We show the 'real cooks' that baking is just as difficult as sauteeing onions or mincing a chicken, because baking isn't for pansies. It's an art form.

Please send comments on this blog and blog ideas to my email at: nmokaite@gmail.com

Summer Is Ruining My Life

Okay, so my title might be a smidge dramatic, I admit. Nonetheless, I am wasting ample time to be productive. How, you say, am I wasting time? I'll tell you: television. Well not just television but sugary snacks and a pretty empty social agenda too. Nowhere to go, a pantry full of soda and brownies and new episodes of Starz new miniseries "Magic City" has me held hostage at home. I can't escape it, the show I mean. I can live without the sugary shit. The show, "Magic City" airs on the Starz network as previously mentioned and let me tell you, am I hooked. First off, the setting is Miami Beach, in the late 1950s, which is like gold to me, because I LOVE(L-O-V-E) anything from the 1950s and secondly because its set in Miami(tan bodies, martinis flowing like the Nile and pristine white beaches? A gay man's paradise)! Our main character Isaac Evans, a mostly law abiding Jewish hotel owner is also our protagonist, who will do anything to keep his palace, the luxurious Miramar Playa, afloat..and when I say anything, I mean anything. The first episode starts on New Year's Eve 1958 with Ike trying to get his Frank Sinatra New Years party off without a hitch but unfortunately some pesky union strikers are doing all they could to ruin it. Ike is forced to call in a favor with infamous gangster and casino owner, Ben Diamond, who does make them vamoose but goes a step further by killing the strike's organizer Michael Haas, a DA agent and Ike's best friend...needless to say I've been hooked as the story grew more and more twisted and the plot thickened faster than Kirstie Alley at an all you can buffet. But go check it out my loves, so your summer can be just as unproductive as mine. Shoot me an email with comments on it too: nmokaite@gmail.com