Catch-Up

I will make no excuses or pretenses about my prolonged absence. I'll only say, it's good to be back. And hi, McLane.

Here's a butt-ton of recipes and reviews I thought I'd already posted but haven't apparently!

HookaH-HookaH - Acai Berry

In the box: Not overtly fruity on the nose. Much like white grape, it's kind of rocking a fermented feel. Very unique, I'll give it that!
In the bowl: It's actually very floral. Like a rose? I can actually tolerate? It makes me see what everyone likes about a good rose! Acai is mellow but present, fruity/berry-y but not fake. Tasty and wonderful. Also probably one of my favorite favorite mixers. I should get a gigantic tub of this, stat. And you. should. too.

star star star star star
5/5 stars for H-H ACAI!!!

Orange + Acai + Margarita = The Everything Fruit!
Blackberry + Acai + Hazelnut = Purple Haze!

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

Ha7elnut

Another mild and delicious chill-out flavor from the kitchen, this one is. The seven spice, I'll reiterate, is much different than when I first opened it. The nuttiness is really complimented by the spice amalgamation. After a bit of burn time it actually started tasting like chai. Nudge nudge, H-H.

1/2 Hazelnut + 1/2 7-Spice = Ha7elnut!


This one's not worthy of a name

Having in mind that my H-H Chai is too licoricey, and mintyness is the perfect foil to licoriceyness, I thought that equal parts Chai and Spearmint would be great. This was a grievous miscalculation on my part. Chai is so overpowering, I didn't taste the mint at all... so there was no coolness or, I don't know... enjoyability? If you're into this kind of thing, I would recommend either saving your Spearmint or messing with ratios.

1/2 Chai + 1/2 Spearmint = Something Becky hates


Mint Paddy's Day

DESSERT HOOKAH DAY. Have I got a sweet after-dinner class act for you. Cappuccino with Irish cream mixed and packed, with mint sprinkled over top is the smoothest of the smooth. Rich, creamy,

1/2 Cappuccino + 1/2 Irish Cream + Mint (on top) = Mint Paddy's Day!


York

There's nothing much written on this page, except for a big banner at the top that says "Knee-Deep in Cooch Napkin." Basically, this choco-mint mix tastes exactly like you'd expect and want it to. Mix credit goes to Mike Frye! :)

1/2 Chocolate + 1/2 Spearmint = York!

Now get outta my kitchen.

See you later, Internets, I am at a party! <3

Tedano, Ryukyu, Ohio, Oh My!

I can add to my list of marketable skills: being sole run crew for a show with 5 hours practice time and a non-English speaking stage manager.
This weekend I made upwards of $90 pulling curtains for the Tedano Kai dance troupe from Okinawa. "Living Legend" dancers were part of this group man, and they were coming to where, Buttsquat, Ohio? I guess the Ohio-Okinawa Association was having their 15th anniversary or something and they got THESE GUYS. What an honor... for, you know, the people it meant something to.
The dances were, like techno music, all the exact same tempo and key. Unlike techno, however, the dances were [sometimes painfully] slow and often had many scenes.
What WAS cool were the elaborate costumes and makeup. It was incredibly theatrical and I was glad to be backstage for it. The quick-change from a princess to a demon? Bad. Ass. There was also a really neat dragon puppet who had basically a box for a head and ribbons for a body. I don't know much else of what was going on.

So, they brought their own stage manager and he's used to a.) having total control and b.) keying in a time and having the curtains fly in/out with the push of a button. I am not a button! And what with him changing his mind a lot there was, I think, no smooth runs of the show. In my original notes the instructions were to slowly close the curtain until the last dancer was off, or slowly raise the curtain to set the pace of the music. Well, that's all well and good until you're getting the small circles to speed it up EVERY time and eventually there was no point in doing it anything but full speed every time. *shrug*
The translator was a really nice guy, but he admitted to not speaking the Okinawan dialect and in terms of stagecraft he got in the way sometimes. I got pretty used to Mr. Stage Manager pointing at me and saying something equivalent to "go." Jim (translator) gave a lot of "wait" fingers that looked like "raise the curtains now" and thumbs-ups that meant, alternately, "you're fine" and "okay, go now." He also stood in my sight line more than once which is irksome. He gave me a hug when I left though so it's cool.
At the end of these meticulous, traditional, artistic dances, they did a free dance to "Hang On Sloopy" and all the people on headset died a little inside. Personally, it's like reason #4 that I didn't go to OSU. Why are you doing this to me, Grand Masters Chie Tamagusuku and Shizue Matayoshi? Why? Why are you allowing this to go on in your presence?
It was also one of those uncomfortably long jokes too. By which I mean the whole song. Songs are a joke for maybe the first chorus. Then people start to think you're insulting their intelligence. At least I did.


All in all they were very polite people. They bought us lunch, and gave me $10 to mostly sit around after paying their own way to get here. Hope they had a good time stateside!

Also, this is a curtain experience in which my hand were not ripped to bloody shreds. All in all I don't think it could have gotten much better.

Reviiiiiiieeeeeeew.

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

Much like the last time we met in this kitchen, I made a good-faith effort to use up all the flavors that I'd originally slapped on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper and said "No! Bad shisha! You are not licorice! Bad!" and shoved to the back of the drawer where all the rest of my broken dreams are held. Last time was a great repossession/success! This time was too. And it proved once and for all that

I am a better flavor tester than anyone currently working
for the Hookah-Hookah corporation.

Pomegranate, Really

Things I was keeping in mind: 7-Spice lost incredible degrees of anise with just time and air, I need a way to combat anise besides coolness (mint), FIE UPON YOU, ANISE.
The Mix: 1/2 Pomegranate, 1/2 Margarita
The Result: Oh man. Oh man oh man. This stuff is seriously delicious, y'all. It's flavorful, fruity, and somewhat sour. It's full bodied and a little sweet, but not candy sweet. You'd know this is a tobacco product, but it's so clearly a nice pomegranate taste too. Not overbearing, I mean to say. It's a rich flavor that speaks its flavor and its plant biology very eloquently. I held this smoke in for quite some time and wound up with a nice nicotine/O2-deprivation buzz. Whee!
Margarita, you and me are like this now, buddy. You're fruit's best friend. Here's to taking on Orange next.

Now get outta my kitchen.

TTFN, world!

Laaayla.... er, Laaaya.... Layna? Lanya?

Oh. Well, I forgot that I reviewed my Layalina flavor already and so the title of this post was going to refer to it. But now I see that I've done Cappuccino already, but I like the title so darn much that I'm keeping it!
HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, INTERBLAG?

Okay, plan B, *shuffle rifle shuffle* AHA! Here we go! A nice disappointing flavor to share with you all as a warning.

HookaH-HookaH - Orange

In the box: Really stuck my snoot in and got some mellow citrus. Orange citrus? I suppose sooo...
In the bowl: OH COME ON. This flavor was WEAK. I shouldn't use caps there because yelling is not what this flavor has anything to do with. I think the only distinct orange I was getting was the bit of orange juice I put in the vase (too many variables for a first try, I know, but whatevs). On the whole, it seems as though the tobacco content could be noticeably greater, but the flavor is so unforgivably less, and it burns to harshness pretty fast. Of course, that last qualm could have been because the smoke was so poor that I lit a whole other coal before the first one had burned down any.
I don't know what this flavor's problem is. Hookah-Hookah is clearly one of the most flavorful brands on the market, even sacrificing tobacco leaf cuts with any tobacco in them for cuts that are so neutral in flavor they can completely transform them into any magical concoction they can, well, concoct. Even in my limited yet rapidly growing experience I understand and have been led to believe that the fruits of H-H are the most rambunctious, true, and lip-smacking flavors on the market. So here we are faced with one of the most classic and traditional fruit flavors there is, and Hookah-Hookah's submission is a nonexistant, non-smoking, non-pleasing fluke of an embarrassment bowl? What gives, says I. What. Gives.
I guess I've been keeping in mind how mortified I was to sample 7-Spice right out of the bowl, and how enlivened I was to revisit it later and find that by some alchemy it had transformed into the shisha I thought I was buying. I've been keeping it in mind, but what I'm also keeping in mind is that fact that I opened up my Orange and mixed it with things quite a while ago. It's been exposed to air or whatever other transformative variable would have been working on 7-Spice and it's this drivel! And that's not to say "exposed to air" as in like "I lost the lid and it's been drying out for months," I just mean I broke the seal. I'm confused. Confused and sad. Blastula. (That's a developmental bio term, but it's also me making a curse word longer than it currently exists in common usage.)

Hookah-Hookah Orange: star star star star star
3/4 of a star for, I guess, the only buzz that one hit of H-H shisha has ever given me?
Chocolate + Orange = Slammer!
1/2 Orange + 1/4 Acai Berry + 1/4 Margarita = The Everything Fruit!

Actually Lazy Sunday

I feel, dear readers, that I have not been making good on the part of my tagline what says "whatever else I have to say." Verily, posts have been few and far between, and compared to ow I normally talk they've been downright curt when they do come around.

If your one of those 4 people that reads this blog and just doesn't comment, I apologize to you. It has been this way because all of the interesting and colorful stuff I've had to say lately has been, well, a total downer. I've been having a shitty semester. Really shitty. For a number of reasons. Are my problems complex and therefore kind of interesting? I guess. Are the ways in which I'd go about relating them colorful? Most yes. But is this a freaking Livejournal where half the people that come across would think that I'm positively flooding my keyboard with wristblood while I write these rants and cut myself? Probably. And I don't want to present/propagate that image, and I don't want to bore or get you down, so online I try to keep it upbeat. And if upbeatedness is not to be had that day then I won't write much of anything.

WHICH brings me around to saying that this weekend has been pretty damn good, and very relaxing, and super freakin' snowy so I'm in the mood to charm the pants off you with a couple blend reviews.

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

Had this one in the book for a while, actually. I'm starting my good-faith effort to use up flavors that I bought because they sounded like not-licorice and they turned out to be straight up licorice. Starting with the 7-Spice which may I make you aware, has changed drastically in smell from the first time I opened it, and it shows in these blends.

(a la Aladdin introducer [voiced by Robin Williams I bet you didn't know])
Arabian Iiiiice....

I mixed 1/4 Nakhla mint, 1/4 Hookah-Hookah Spearmint, and 1/2 extremely non-anise smelling H-H 7-Spice to synthesize what I hope will be the most exotic Popsicle ever.
THE RESULT: This mix is simultaneously cold and smoky. Dare I say it is perfect? I may darest. There's something so balanced and non-creepy crawly I get about the 7-Spice this time... do you know what I mean when I say creepy crawly? How licorice in any considerable amount just oozes over your tongue like asphalt on a hot day? Yeah, well, it's not there. Mint is, I suppose, the perfect foil for anise, though I may use a little less in the future. It's a powerful ally, you know?

1/4 Mint + 1/4 Spearmint + 1/2 7-Spice = Arabian Iiiice! (Like Arabian daaays...
more often than not, are hotter than hot, in a lot of good waaaaaaaays...) *sigh*

The Everything Fruit

You know how fruitcake is called fruitcake, and it kind of tastes like there's some fruit present, but if you're munching on a store bought one (god knows why) you realize that the only fruity thing about it are these Gummy Bear looking bits that don't even taste like fruit themselves but are closer to Spice Drops? Yeah, I guess this mix is like that. I wanted something fruity when I mixed 1/2 H-H orange, 1/4 Acai Berry, and 1/4 Margarita, and I can't say I didn't get it.
THE RESULT: It is well balanced if nondescript. I thought that the sour Margarita would actually be too much and it's not at all. It's a different kind of nondescript than the Slammer I wrote about a ways back, but this wishy-washiness is far superior. The likeness does bring me about to an observation, though, as I am a scientist, and that conclusion is: ORANGE IS A NOTHING FLAVOR. I haven't tried it alone, but I guess I should, because in a company so well versed in fruit flavors, I went on trust that H-H's Orange would knock me out of the park, but it's fairly nonexistant in both of these mixes. Nothing says, let alone screams, "orange" and it was half of the bowl, you know? The sour gets even a bit lost for my taste, but I'm kind of okay with that because I added Margarita in the hopes that it would be an assimilated accent. I'm getting mostly Acai Berry but that's fine, because I love that flavor.
I do really like this mix though. I mean, A LOT. But I couldn't say why I like it since typically I criticize blandiness. But I guess when you compare blandy fruit and blandy sour you get inexplicable good. *shrug*

1/2 Orange + 1/4 Acai Berry + 1/4 Margarita = The Everything Fruit!

Now get outta my kitchen.

Lap-Barf With Tea

You know, how, sometimes, you study REAL REAL hard on just a couple of things for an exam? They're the things you know you don't know and you devote virtually all your time and attention to them and after a while you actually feel really confident about them? And then you go to actually take your final and the prof asks absolutely nothing about those things and has, say, 2.5 pages on things you forgot about entirely?
Yeah, that just happened to me.
Ordinarily, I call that and other forms of ridiculously bad performance "barfing in my lap" on an exam, but ever since my friend Nathan had to take his finals with some sort of stomach virus and actually projectile vomited all over his lap/desk/test I have to watch my words. In my context though, I barfed in my lap. It's too bad 'cause I didn't particularly like econ, but the teacher was great and very helpful and I was kicking ass and taking names at the beginning of the semester.

Shooort review today guys, I have other things on my mind.

HookaH-HookaH - Chai

In the box: Well, it doesn't smell like chai. It smells rich, spicy, pretty minty as a matter of fact. but not like chai which I thought they could have gotten spot on.
In the bowl: Nnnngggg... Not a fan. The only herb I'm getting out of this muddled flavor is anise, and we all know how I feel about that. It's just not chai. It might be pretty nice for those among us that like licoriceyness, because I will say that the mildewy, unavoidable, all-consumuing vibe that anise-heavy flavors rock like their favorite pair of cutoffs is surprisingly absent. So 1, it took me some time to realize what I was tasting and 2, it was the most enjoyable black licorice encounter I've ever had to date. Still not good. Why couldn't it just be, oh, chai?

star star star star star
Hookah-Hookah Chai: 1/5 stars
Because I mean come on, guys. It's chai. It's right there. This tobacco wasn't on par in smell nor taste and it was nasty to boot. At least the smell/taste is there if you're feeling it.

Tra la la. There'll be a lot more of me falling in a forest with no one around to hear it in the coming week since finals suck and all, but jeez louise does it leave me with a lot of free time. TTFN.

Before the Fattening

Takin' it easy at home, waiting for the day I will eat my weight in pies and such, playing Harvest Moon and watching The Soup! Such funny business. (Until a Lifetime Original Movie comes on, then it's all drama all the time.)

I also just got myself an interview at Toys 'R' Us. Yes, I could be working at Toys 'R' Us for the holiday season, sure to either fill me with enough magic to restart believing in Santa, or kill my soul so utterly I will become an unrecognizable coal-black shell of a carbon life form and not much more. And that's IF I get the job. So we shall see.

A word on boring-ass Wii games such as Harvest Moon:
_ I love them. Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, all you do is go about you life in a small town where you know everyone and, furthermore, can get something out of them. The problem with Animal Crossing: City Folks is that it is in real time. PAINSTAKING real time. So when I abandon it to go to school and come ome 4 months later, all the little big-nosed animals are all just screeching "WOAH! I haven't seen you in 4 MONTHS! Blah blah blah horrible horrible horrible..." for a couple days actually, and my house is full of cockroaches to boot.
_ So that (in a way) brings me back to Harvest Moon. Tree of Tranquility is the Wii version, and gameplay is something like 5 minutes:second, game:real. The goal? Run farm, build rainbows. THAT'S IT. You can go fishing, make nicey-nice with the locals, settle down and pop out a kid if you wish, but all of that comes with the freedom to completely subvert the designed plot and take time to, I dunno, learn every single recipe or something. I, however, am quite goal-oriented, and even in my relentless quest for rainbows, I am still left with copious amounts of free time.
Rainbows are "built" by completing "recipes" by bringing ingredients to a delightful little fairy. So if they need, say, some flax yarn (which I haven't found to buy), you can buy the seeds any time, but you have to wait until Spring to sow them. And if you don't already have a yarn maker or some shit you best be stashing that flax until you do. Overall the game is an exercise in both delightfulness and patience. Though by the same token, even with my horse (or ostrich. Yes.) to shuttle me around town, the time can really be a constraint. In my Gamecube version, It's a Wonderful Life, each second was only one minute and in my eyes, it was perfect. In Wonderful Life, really the only goal is to build your farm and raise your kid. In T.o.T you have more to do and less time to do it, leaving anyone with even a slight anxiety condition to get all tight in the chest as you watch the sun setting over Mt. Gelato. (Must be in bed with the hubby with time to re-energize for tomorrow!)
Anyway, what I mean to say is, I've got 3/5 rainbows and I'm about half there on the 4th's recipe and all my animals love me and I'm about to adopt a stray dog. I just need more winter crops.

I have digressed in such a way because my review is of a blend, one I mixed myself, and A.) I just talked about how reviews of blends can lean towards "GOOD" or "BAD" - i.e. SHORT and B.) This blend I had real high hopes for just kinda left me cold.

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

Slammer

You know, those chocolate oranges that you bash on the table to break into slices. They're creamy but citrusy, thick but fruity, delicious any time of year, right?
I mixed equal parts Chocolate and Orange for this blend, and the smoke was nice but just so bland. I kind of forgot I was smoking it, or what I was smoking. My friend approved, and so did I I guess, but despite the elements of the listed flavors being there, neither popped. Neither made it exciting. It was the worst kind of balanced ever. Not that it wasn't unpleasant overall, just not what I expected.

Chocolate + Orange = Slammer!

Now get outta my kitchen.

Mwa ha ha. 3 bowls.

I am good at this mixing thing. You should be peeing your pants to read and try the recipes coming up.
But you gotta wait!

I came to the realization that there are two keys to instant Youtube success: Be a hot girl, and have a schtick. And, well, I am/have those things, so I have planted the seeds in my nifty little brain that I might diversify and do video reviews too. But, like, only on mixy ones. Like Hookah Freak, Starbuzz, and my own creations. Not that plain flavors are boring, but they are easier to articulate in print. For blends me and my circlemates uuusually have a lot of "Bluuuh, well, it's, uuuhhh, good? There is, at times, geh?"
They'll still be here, though, too! I guess I'm just kind of thinking aloud. Which is what blogs are best for.

Anyway, that comes later. My blendventions come now!!!

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

White Out

Whiteness. Delicate. Smooth. Floral. Gentle. It's not the blizzard imagery you might expect, but it's what you're gonna get out of this blend. One part H-H Rose, 2 parts H-H Spearmint, and 3 parts Nakhla Vanilla, and the product in your bowl is smooth and cool. I've said it before, Rose normally does not go down my hookah hose without a fight. But the tag-teaming Vanilla and Spearmint wrestled it into submission here. It is definitely present though! And as a white rose is far less garish than a red, the Rose in this blend just leaves us with a delicate floral feel. The Spearmint cools, the Vanilla rounds out the rough edges. Vunderbaugh. Light, but not because there's not much flavor.

3 Vanilla + 2 Spearmint + 1 Rose = White Out!

Purple Haze

Blackberries and acai berries - purple. Hazelnut. Get it? This mix is definitely fruity! (Go figure.) Round berryness prevails and then, all of a sudden and when you least expect it, there's the hazelnut hangin' around your tongue like a loitering teen. But this teen is clean-shaven. He doesn't ride skateboards or light trash cans on fire... His other interests are actually, like, community service and stuff. He also happens to loiter. You actually kind of like it. It provides a nice image. I like this mix because it's a different flavor on the inhale and the exhale, but overall I expected more of a punch from the berries. Needs some tweaking I think, before I really kiss the sky. (Ha ha, Jimi Hendrix is awesome haw.)

Blackberry + Acai Berry + Hazelnut = Purple Haze!

Now get outta my kitchen.

Breeeeaaak!

Hi all! This moment marks the beginning of my Thanksgiving Break! And I will celebrate byyy... SMOKING AT LEAST 3 BOWLS OF SHISHA IN A ROW.
I just got my shipment from hookah-hookah and al of a sudden I had a bazillion more Shisha Kitchen ideas. Chiefly based off of the names and/or colors of the given names, admittedly. I did that before I even owned my hookah, when my only dabbling had been in cafes and the like. But now I can picture flavors together and be like "Hey! That could have a title resembling a pun AND it would be DELICIOUS!"
Iii'm excited.
First on the docket for this evening is the Mad Hatter from that competition I cited. Review later. Next will be something called "Purple Haze" and then "White Out," both official premier mixes.

Today's review is White Grape though. Nur.

HookaH-HookaH - White Grape

In the box: Tart smelling but definitely not sour like the Key Lime Pie. I'd say like grae juice but I'm a drinker of reds, m'self.
In the bowl: Definitely not a sweet flavor really. Well I mean it's kind of sweet but to me it leans towards the semi-fermented champagne type of grape. Not bad at all! A non-intense non-fruit fruit tobacco. I'm a big fan. Light on flavor, as was its smell but that suits it.

star star star star star
Hookah-Hookah White Grape: 4/5 stars

See you later tonight!

The Kitchen is Open

It's funny, because, I took a longer hiatus after I got a NEW bowl than I did when my old one exploded. That's why it's funny.

I got swine flu. I went home and watched 5 Lifetime Original Movies in one day. I have been swamped ever since.

I went to an Alice in Wonderland birthday party upon my glorious return. I brought my hookah and it was a big hit, because the larger, in-house hookah was hitting like a cigarette. Like the burning end of a cigarette. That party was so drunk.

Shisha reviews!!! Remember how I do those?

HookaH-HookaH - Pumpkin Pie

In the box: Uber spicy! Mouthwatering actually. Like a pie. And the only pumpkin pie whose existence I acknowledge is my grandmother's so you know that this is good-smelling stuff.
In the bowl: NOTE - This will be my real-time reaction. Watch carefully: Tastes like nothing. Like musty nothing. I packed a small bowl, okay, bu where is the flavor? Where are the clouds? WHERE IN GOD'S NAME DID THE SMELL GO? -puff puff puff- Cut to several minutes later... Pumpkin Pie! You deceptive devil! After I was about ready to give up on you and shed nary a single tear, you pop up with this silky, spicy, delicate and true flavor. Like a fine, fine pumpkin bread, because it's not so sweet as pie. You were holding out on me Pumpkin Pie! And not everyone is going to be as generous.

star star star star star
Hookah-Hookah Pumpkin Pie: 4.5/5 stars.
And I stand by what I said in my Double-Apple post, that whatever H-H is putting in their pots to make shisha smell so good I wanna hit my mama, they better figure out how to make it taste at least half as good.
+ Chocolate + Irish Cream = _Unnamed Autumn mix_!

And now, what you may or may not have been waiting for depending on whether or not you knew about it... the debut of...

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

First on the counter, we have my first-ever imagining, called "Date Night".

Date Night

What makes for a great date? Roses, champagne, a box of chocolates by the fire? EXACTLY. So what goes in to a bowl of Date Night blended shisha? I used all H-H flavors and mixed equal parts of Chocolate and what was intended to be Champagne, but since the company was out, I was left with White Grape. Put that in the bowl, and then sprinkle with an extremely light sprinkling of Rose. (Think rose petals not a 2-dozen bouquet).
THE RESULT: Rose is definitely a key player, now matter how moderately you use it. I think Rose tastes like soap and normally avoid it like the plague, but in this blend sweetness pops up like little bubbles on almost alternating puffs, and there's a creaminess overall that dosen't let Rose have its way with your tongue. A Champagne-style Date Night would definitely be less sweet, but the flavor it would bring wold be more prevalent. White Grape (which by my logic is just unfermented champagne, you know?) is fruity, which I like though, for a more even and again - less Rose-inclined blend.
Either way it's a very intimate smoke for an actual date night, and I hope that y'all try it and tell me what you think!

Chocolate + White Grape (or Champagne) + 1/16 Rose = Date Night!

Now get outta my kitchen.