In the final chapter of our book we come to your very favorite bitch—no, not you! Your dog. Pamper the Bitch reminds you that sweet yapping Maxie still deserves some special treatment (even when your bankbook is whimpering). But you’ve gotta be smart. No overpriced doggie clothes or mani-pedis. We give you tips on affordable feeding, medical treatment, travel, entertainment. And if there’s no pet in your life, we outline the most economical, ethical ways to acquire one.
Don’t worry– we’ve got stuff for feline-lovers, too. We’re bitches after all, and know you like to pamper little pussy, too.
Here’s a sample:
Have fun like a dog. (Can you keep your mind clean for just one minute?) In these tight times dogs are the perfect companions. They remind us what’s important. They teach us to appreciate FREE things: friendship, play, the natural world. They require absolutely nothing but company, good nutrition, and exercise. So enjoy having Maxie. Get humble. Let her teach you a new way of being– this is a valuable lesson any time at all, but especially in a rough economy. Find pleasures in the little things. You know, snuggling, stroking, black leather collars…
Bitches on a Budget is published by the New American Library division of Penguin Books. Ask for it at your local bookshop or Amazon.
Back by popular demand the best brownies you’ll ever make. Period.
Food fashions fade in and out like pouffy skirts. It’s kind of tricky to know when to bite. The latest seems to be a hot and sweet tongue teasing, and we’re here to reassure you that this trend is for real. Sophisticated hedonists have always known that stoking up contrasts arouses your sensory pleasure…
So you don’t feel left out of the latest foodie flavors, we’ll share our own recipe for brownies that’ll have them on their knees, weeping and begging you for more:
The Bitches’ Devil Brownies
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
5ozs unsweetened chocolate
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
3 eggs
1 ¾ cups sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
½-1 tsp crushed hot pepper flakes (up to you how hot you like it)
Pinch of kosher salt
¾ cup walnuts (optional)
8” square buttered baking dish
Melt chocolate and butter in microwave for approximately two minutes. Stir to completely dissolve chocolate. Add sugar and mix until you can’t see granules. Beat eggs and vanilla with a fork, add to chocolate and sugar mixture, and stir until glossy and smooth. Mix in hot pepper flakes, salt, and walnuts. Stir in flour until everything is mixed evenly together. Pour into buttered baking dish. Bake approximately 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out smooth. (Our advice is to slightly under-bake these, they taste even better).
So easy and you’ll look like a hip baking genius–you owe us big time.
P.S. This is our basic brownie recipe all tarted up. Skip the spice for the best brownies ever.
Butterflies and Plants: Partners in Evolution 2008 Smithsonian Institution
It’s been unrelentingly hot where we live. Too hot to walk. Too hot to bike. Too hot to…ok, we won’t go there. So, we’re on the hunt for other stimulating, but cool, activities.
Inside a mall is refrigerated and deadening. You’ve already seen the one great summer blockbuster worth watching. Another trip to the supermarket? Uh. We don’t think so. When was the last time you went to a museum? Trust us, nothing is cooler than the thrill of a curated collection.
From Bitches on a Budget:
Admit It
You mean to go to the museum. You read about the blockbuster Tintoretto or Chuck Close show that’s coming soon and make a mental note to get your a** over there. But what happens? It’s raining and surely the museum will be crowded, it’ll be hard to park, you don’t want to get wet. Or it’s gorgeous outside; why go to the musuem when you can ride your bike or play Frisbee? But then the day slides by with no Frisbee, and you become increasingly bored and desperate. You end up arranging to meet a friend for lunch and a quick shop.
But the restaurant’s crowded and mediocre. You spend good money for that extra pound you didn’t need and see through blouse you really didn’t like. Your ‘friend’ fills you in on your ex-boyfriend , how he’s found eternal happiness in the arms of some bimbo. You feel overweight, broke, rejected. And you could have gone to the museum. What were you thinking?
Make the sexiest summer cocktails using St-Germain. The most delicious liqueur ever made.
Made from hand harvested elderflowers the flavor is divine.
We’re totally crazy for St-Germain –it’s not too sweet, softly floral but not cloying. Plus, we look like cocktail geniuses when everyone wants to know what that hard to place but yummy flavor is in their glass.
And, since we’re always watching our pennies, we use it to liven up inexpensive spirits. Add to a low cost sparkling wine or Sauvignon Blanc for a festive and delicious mix. Or say goodbye to overplayed cosmos and use it to make a killer vodka or gin cocktail.
And, not to be shallow or anything, you have to admit that the bottle is gorgeous. Wouldn’t you want it sitting out on your cocktail tray with beautiful champagne glasses, gleaming zests of lemon and a handful of fresh mint just so you could take a picture?
Add a splash of St-Germain and elevate your summer cocktails to a new level.
With summer vacation on our door we’re thinking about ways to save during your week off and one way is to mix up when and what you eat:
Break the mold and eat fancy for lunch:
We can think of nothing more luxurious than dressing up and and dining with a friend, boyfriend, or partner at the fanciest restaurant in town at lunch. Order a crisp Sancerre or luscious Pinot Noir. Settle in. Take your time. Relax and take pleasure in a long, leisurely meal at the noon hour. Have your big meal at lunchtime for half of dinner pricing. A rich indulgence.
Remember our trip to wine country and all the free wines we got to taste in the Anderson Valley? Our original plan was to spend a few nights in Mendocino and completely pass on Napa and Sonoma. Not because we don’t love Napa and Sonoma, but we wanted to break out of the same route rut (and we were on that California Pinot hunt).
It was a gorgeous ride up from San Fran, during which we nurtured hardcore fantasies of hitting our hotel, sliding into the bath, gazing out on a setting Pacific sunset, and… we’ll leave the rest to your imagination. To our dismay, we arrived in Mendocino to dense, deep, dark fog. We decided that one night in Mendocino would be just terrific and two, well, a tad too gray. We needed to move.
You’ll find a whole section in our book on scoping out great hotel deals. We look for hotels that are ’soft’ opening or very recently opened. Hotels with promise, snagged before the way-cooler-than-us set moves in and glitterati pricing makes them unaffordable. We are expert. Way, way back, we stayed at the Montalembert in Paris during opening week (the original Parisian Boutique Hotel with Christian Liagre designing furnishings—it still rocks). Recently in NYC (a ghastly expensive hotel destination for anyone, let alone a bitch on a budget) we stayed at the Thompson LES during soft opening. Paid a quarter of the current ask! Of course, one day the elevator didn’t work, another the hot water—although with a little sweet bitching they comped part of our stay (we’re working up a post on how to write ‘loving’ mail to get what you deserve).
One way to stay on top of what’s ‘new’ in town is to read the local mags. Hotel public relations machines are in overdrive during opening, and we’d read something in San Francisco Magazine about the Bardessono in Yountville.
Sitting in the dark confines of our Mendocino room we remembered the article. Back and forth, to stay or not to stay, became the question. Then we fell back on our motto—life is short, time is a non-renewable resource, and this trip was all about our being more flexible b’s. We called and found they had one room left at the happy price of $199 dollars. (It was just meant to be.)
Yountville. Ring a bell? The town was put on the foodie capital of the world map by Thomas Keller. French Laundry is his original Yountville place, and it’s harder to score a reservation at this restaurant than to be elected President—well, almost. We’ll leave a detailed discussion of French Laundry for another day, but we do think his new-ish fixed price, fixed menu restaurant Ad Hoc rocks; and we salivate over his Bouchon Bakery’s Cheese Danish’y thing. (OMG! –although if you’re a NYC bitch—or just passing through—you can go to the Time Warner Center and get one at his bakery there.)
We digress. We’ve been to Yountville many times, but it never seemed the place to stay. Just the place to eat. That’s all 100% completely changed because of the Bardessono.
A gorgeous hotel. So cool. So fun. So modern and big and spacious and they were so nice we wished we could have stayed a week. A magnificent rooftop pool, bicycles to borrow, all for free. A lovely spa. They told us you could even come just for lunch and hang out at the pool all day. Anyways, this hipster place is within walking distance of so many great places to eat and a short drive by car, or flat ride by bike (hello, it’s Napa Valley), to some of the greatest wineries in America.
To be perfectly honest, our scampering was a little hasty. The day we left Mendocino turned out clear and magnificent. The town was to-die-for cute and charming and hippie-ish. We took a long walk along the ocean and watched people diving for sea urchins (fresh, one of our faves) and wandered into one of the best independent bookstores we’ve ever been into, The Main Street Book Shop.
Still, we don’t feel too bad. The way we see it: the drive to Mendocino on that magnificent coastline was stunning. We drank great California Pinots in the Anderson Valley. We found what could become one of our go-to hotels in Napa. We snarfed down those warm cheese pastries first thing in the morning on our way to the airport. And all because we were so flexible!
Yesterday, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, wrote a glowing review of Bitches on a Budget. Obviously, whenever anyone says something nice about our message we feel happy, but when someone who is a terrific writer says something nice about our writing, we positively shine.
Some snippets of what they had to say in yesterday’s paper:
“With a prose style that clickety-clacks across the page like stiletto heels on a marble floor, Rosalyn Hoffman gives pointers, tips, guidance and ploys for you to maintain, or attain, the glam of a glossy fashion mag. Clothes, home furnishing, vacationing, dining and, yes, plastic surgery, this book covers it all.”
“Some tips: The clothing at Walmart can be as stylish as at Neiman Marcus, and pleasure in a museum as seductive and romantic as a European spa. Dining out? Lunch at that expensive new restaurant everyone is talking about is cheaper than dinner.”
Best of all, they finish the review by saying “...this book has more ideas than Bergdorf’s has snobs. Buy it!”
We’re always stumped when it comes to Father’s Day gifts.
Ludlum books (which you’ll never want to read), golf tees (whatever they are), car detailing kits (hey, what’s a car wash for?) are all big fat yawns. Besides what do you get out of them?
We think it’s time to give a gift with benefits.
This year, how about getting your hubby the new fatherhood documentary, The Evolution of Dad – a film that promises to inspire him to spend more time with the kids and do more housework? Crazy, huh, but it just might work! Could be the best 20 bucks you ever spent!
When Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace prize it piqued our interest. While we’re optimists by nature, we found ourselves a little worried. You know when a story climaxes too soon, the end result isn’t very satisfying. And we have very high hopes for the big O. While we were debating the merits of the award, we thought back to Al Gore and his winning the Peace Prize for his work with the environment and climate change. How relevant to our work: conservation and careful use of resources are keys to being a modern woman living on a budget. President Carter and his Nobel Prize for brokering conflict resolution also comes to mind as our heart lusts after all those unaffordable but adorable things we once thought essential to our happiness. You know, like a day at the spa, dinner at Daniel, or that Narcisco leather jacket. We digress. Anyway, it got us to thinking about thrift and virtue.
Since everything is about us (isn’t it?), we began to wonder if there shouldn’t be a prize for being thrifty. Don’t we too deserve a reward for being so mindful and careful about how we’re spending our precious resources? What’s more virtuous than thrift? Then we started to get nervous. Images of thrift started floating by: a wingback chair, a needlepoint stool, little tabby lapping a wholesome plate of milk, Aunt Jenny saving rubber bands. It’s safe and sensible being thrifty. But do we want to be so prudent all the time? No, not really.
Remember in our “Whap!” post we talked about the devil and the angel sitting on your shoulders helping you resolve your purchasing conflicts? How in our brownie recipe we talked about teasing your palate with different sensory sensations? Well, contrasts are what make life worth living; without the ups and downs where would we be? (Okay, on Prozac.) But how would we ever experience joy and sadness, pleasure and pain, love and hate?
We’d live a very boring and passionless life if we didn’t on occasion act on that little lust engine that drives us. (Think planting peanuts versus running Worldwide Pants.) After all, lust is the fuel that propels us forward. It’s green (the color of envy) and it’s renewable. The trick is for you to be your own lust-master. On the surface it should be easier for us than for boys, but have you seen Alexander McQueen’s new collection? Yes, we want to be thrifty, but not all the time. Learn to be your own conflict resolution negotiator; by saving and conserving you’ll have the flexibility to go out and have a satisfying good splurge. A great splurge should bring peace (if not a peace prize)—not saddle you with anxiety or buyer’s remorse.
While we’re budget gurus, we recognize the eternal yin-yangness of life on earth. And so we celebrate the splurge as well as the conservation. We laud the new and shiny as well as the old and worn.
Tell us: what’s the biggest and best splurge in your recent memory?
This is an updated ‘oldie but goodie’ from Bitches on a Budget.
Okay, admit it you have more than one secret guilty pleasure. Maybe you double dip at parties when no one is looking. Or you’re a closet soap opera fanatic and watch the DVR recordings when everyone is reliably out of the house. While we’ll never divulge our really deep secrets, we’ll come clean with a few hidden gems. We Wurdle on our iPhone whenever we are waiting for whoever it is that thinks their time is more important than ours. We’re working on memorizing the right answers to Cheese or Font, an ingenious little game that asks important questions like: is Rudelsberg a cheese or a font? We’re interested in keeping up with the Kardashians and watch under the pretense of researching reality television shows for our book.
What are your little secrets?
(And, no, we don’t need details about the toys in your night table drawer.)
In the final chapter of our book we come to your very favorite bitch—no, not you! Your dog. Pamper the Bitch reminds you that sweet yapping Maxie still deserves some special treatment (even when your bankbook is whimpering). But you’ve gotta be smart. No overpriced doggie clothes or mani-pedis. We give you tips on affordable feeding, medical treatment, travel, entertainment. And if there’s no pet in your life, we outline the most economical, ethical ways to acquire one.
