4 and 3 and 2 and 1!

Like Uncle Albert and Bert in Mary Poppins, I love to laugh. 

 "some only blast"

Growing up in the nineties, I lived for watching shows like The Wonder Years, Perfect Strangers, The Golden Girls and, of course, Seinfeld. Also, Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live. 

I remember this one time when I laughed so hard during Perfect Strangers that I literally showered the television with the yoghurt that was in my mouth (TMI?). My mother was not impressed.

I don't own a television. As such, I don't want much TV. Not that it matters. There just isn't anything that funny on anymore. 

Or so I thought.

While I enjoy Girls and sometimes even laugh out loud while watching it, nothing is funnier than Broad City, a comedy series that debuted on Comedy Central in 2014 but started online in 2009 as a web series.

broad city theme song; latino and proud by dj raff

I just Wikipedia'd the show and found the description quite amusing: "Broad City follows Ilana and Abbi, both are self-professed Jewish feminist women that perpetually experience misadventures of carelessness and frivolity in New York City. Ilana seeks to avoid working as much as possible while pursuing her relentless hedonism and Abbi tries to make a career as an illustrator, often getting sidetracked into Ilana's hijinks." 

Hijinks??? Now that's funny! 

This is how I'd describe the show: Broad City follows Ilana Wexler and Abbi Abrams, two best friends in their twenties who, while broke, smoke a lot of pot and have a lot of fun while getting into their fair share of sketchy situations.

The second episode of the first season was called Pu$$y Weed. This is why:

"the vagnagna is nature's pocket" 

The show was created by it's two stars, Ilana Glazer (who plays Ilana Wexler) and Abbi Jacobson (who plays Abbi Abrams) who also happen to be best friends in real life. Glazer and Jacobson are alumnae of the Upright Citizens Brigade, an improvisational theatre in New York.  They met, and became fast friends, when they joined a sub-group of the theatre called the Secret Promise Circle. 

Amy Poehler joined the comedy duo as an executive producer for the final episode of the web series. Thanks to her considerable influence, Broad City got picked up by Comedy Central and the show went from 4 minute episodes to 22 minutes. And the rest, as they say, is history.     

Wikipedia describes the characters as feminists and while I wouldn't disagree with that, I don't think that's the central premise of the show. Broad City, essentially, revolves around the friendship between Ilana and Abbi, which is what makes it so relatable. 

To me, anyhow. 

And if you still need convincing, here are some of the funniest clips (I could find on You Tube):

the worldwide bloodstream

nature skills

to peg or not to peg?

ilana's intern army

abbi on the edge of glory

eight f**king thousand dollars

Good thing I didn't have any yoghurt in my mouth.

Oh, and one more thing. I die for Ilana's head dance:

A living language OR English on fleek

English, like you and me, is forever changing. It may not be a living, breathing matter but it is constantly evolving in response to a variety of factors including migration, culture and technology.

Especially technology. 

Just the other day I was struck by how technology, namely texting, had changed the way I use the English language (i.e: incorrectly). For some reason, I started using "high-larious" instead of "hilarious" when texting close friends a while back. When the time came for me to use the word hilarious in a "non-textual" environment, I couldn't remember how to spell it. 

Actually, that's a lie. I thought it was spelled the way I had been writing it over text.

Groan.

Because of how time-consuming, and frustrating, it can sometimes be to text (especially with my new killer claws) I've developed a slew of acronyms and abbreviations to save time: addy instead of address, b4 instead of before, k instead of okay and tom instead of tomorrow, for example.

The problem is, after repeated use of texting slang I'm starting to forget how to write correctly. 

And that scares me.

All of this got me thinking about the evolution of language, English specifically. Every year, the Oxford English Dictionary enters new words and revises versions of existing entries. The amount of new words the OED enters is nothing compared to the amount of new words actually being used by English speakers the world round.

2014 was particularly ripe with new words. As such, I've decided to dedicate this blog post to the top 10 new words that are "on fleek"  right now. On fleek, most obvs, is one of them.

All definitions come from the Urban Dictionary, unless otherwise indicated.

1. Amazeballs: a douchey/hollywoody way to say amazing, originated by a Youtube comedy duo named Jessica and Hunter and popularized by blogger Perez Hilton. 
*otherwise indicated: the word "balls" can be added to a variety of words, for no apparent reason. Shadeballs, for example, refers to a particularly shady, or "sketchy," person or event.

2. Bae: the most f@$#%&g annoying way to say girlfriend, boyfriend, crush, or any other sort of significant other. Commonly used by ghetto folks, swagfags, and annoying f$%ktards.
*otherwise indicated: ummm... alrighty then.   

3. Erday: means everyday, just slurred a little bit.
*otherwise indicated: erday I'm hustlin'.

 the boss, aka the teflon don, aka ricky rozay, aka rick ross

4. FOMO: a state of mental or emotional strain caused by the Fear Of Missing Out.

"my FOMO is through the roof!"

5. Hashtag: the battle cry of hipsters OR a way for people to search for tweets that have a common topic.

6. On fleek: when your eyebrows, eyelashes, outfit, makeup or any other s$%t like that is on point.
*otherwise indicated: the first time I saw the words "on fleek" was on JLo's Instagram. It was in reference to her eyebrows. I had to look it up. Embarrassing much?

7. OOTD: means Outfit Of The Day. Usually refers to a picture of someone's clothes found on social media such as instagram, twitter, pinterest, tumblr or facebook. 
*otherwise indicated: I had to look this one up just this week. At 39, I'm obvs a grandmother now.

8. Steeze: style and ease, you put it together and get steeze.  
*otherwise indicated: too similar to "skeeze" for me to use comfortably.

9. Turnt up: phrase coined by Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa that basically means to go HAM at a party, usually while intoxicated.  
*otherwise indicated: really??? I thought it came from this song...

 turn down for what by dj snake and lil john

10. YOLO: abbreviation for You Only Live Once. Also, one of the most annoying abbreviations ever.

*otherwise indicated: popularized by Drake in his song The Motto, along with "erday."

 the motto: drake, lil wayne and tyga

And then there's this... the battle cry of a generation:

 YOLO: the lonely island with adam levine and kendrick lamar

Can anyone guess what YODO means? 

LOL. 







 

Simply doughlicious OR Radiator pizza

Growing up, my dad always made the best pizza. He still does. 

Every time I go out for a slice, or order in for a pie, I end up being disappointed. It just doesn't hit the spot the way my dad's does.

It's the dough. Most are simply too thin, or worse, slightly burned. But not my dad's. His is "just right."

Or so goes the Goldilocks principle.

I'd been talking up my dad, and his pizza-making skills, for several months when a friend mentioned that he'd like to learn from the best.

Ask and ye shall receive, my friend.  

I had always assumed that the pizza master had created his own recipe but I was wrong. Apparently it's actually Adelle Davis' pizza dough that I've been enjoying all these years. 

Who knew?

Let's Cook it Right is a book Davis wrote in 1947. It was very different from most cookbooks written at the time because it focused on the importance of eating unprocessed foods and discouraged the use of pesticides and additives.

I guess Davis, and my dad, were ahead of their time. 

I tried finding the recipe online, to no avail, so what you're getting below is my dad's recollection of it (though he's made it over a thousand times so you're probably good to go):

• 1 cup of warm water or milk (40 degrees)
• 1 package of dry yeast
• 1 tbsp of sugar (can be replaced with honey or maple syrup)

Combine the ingredients to proof (bubble) the yeast. After 5-10 minutes it will have formed a "scum" and be ready for use. 

Mix the yeast mixture with 2 1/2 cups of flour (feel free to use white and/or whole wheat or any combination thereof). To this, add 1 tsp of salt and mix with a wooden spoon. Finally, add 1 tbsp of good olive oil and combine.

Work the mixture with your hands, set aside (preferably in a Tupperware), cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm location (like an oven with the light on but the heat off or a warm radiator) until doubled in size (2 to 4 hours).

Once the dough is ready, roll it out with a rolling pin and place it on a lightly oiled pizza pan. Add the toppings (the master suggests little pieces of garlic in the corners, tomato sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, green and/or red peppers and grated mozzarella cheese).

Let the pizza rise on the pan with all of the toppings for a few minutes before putting it in a 450 degree oven, on the top grill, for 5 minutes before moving it to a lower grill and baking it for another 5 to 10 minutes (when it starts to sizzle it's ready to be removed). 

 
This recipe makes 2-3 small pizzas or one extra-large one.    

Enjoy!