The Alia Interview

This is a meme of sorts, my friend Alia was interviewed on her blog and offered to send 5 interview questions to any volunteers and writers block led my hand to shoot into the e-air. If you’d like your own Brianna interview just say so in the comments.

Update: I've interview Mike and Gillian

What is your favorite unhealthy recipe, and what's the story behind it?

Recipe kind of implies that this is something I cook not just something I love so I’ve chosen baked macaroni and cheese over my mom’s potato leek soup. There’s no real story behind this recipe or my love for it besides it being a high fat comfort food that involves dairy (the best of the four food groups bringing us cheese and ice cream!). Even the lactose intolerant among us must WISH they could dive into a big bowl of mac and cheese and eat their way out, right? I trick out the regular mac and cheese by augmenting the traditional sharp cheddar with a bit of blue cheese for a more grown up flavor. I can’t say that I have an official recipe for this you just boil some noodles and make a traditional cheese sauce with 2/3s cheddar and 1/3 blue cheese then mix the noodles and sauce in a casserole dish and cover with a hearty dose of bread crumbs and a handful of additional cheese then bake until bubbling. If you’re feeling guilty about not eating your veggies (which often causes me much stress) you can throw a bone to nutrition by either mixing some sautéed spinach in with the noodles and cheese or hiding a layers of tomato slices under the bread crumbs (is suggesting healthy additions cheating on this question? I promise there’s still no way the recipe as a whole is anything other than artery clogging…)

Coney Island: Fun or not? Discuss.

Fun! So some people think it’s not fun? But they have a wooden roller coaster! And ice cream! And the beach! And I always see at least 5 crazy people and another 5 people wearing outfits that amuse me!

Do the people who apparently can’t enjoy Coney Island know that you can play all the skeeball you want and then give your tickets to the least annoying child in the room thus making their day and yours by overwhelming them with more tickets then they ever thought existed? Man those people must have sad lives.

Besides the J Crew online sale, where would you recommend a person shop for clothes online? In Manhattan? Astoria? (As in: when I stop fitting into Lane Bryant clothes [crossing fingers], I'm gonna be nekkid. Where do I go?!?)

I say shoot for skinny by June and go naked for at least one month in honor of all of your time in the gym.

Outside of my jCrew addiction I actually don’t do much clothing shopping online, I do have a few cute online boutiques tagged on del.icio.us but I mostly just browse them and never actually send them money. I would recommend subscribing to the bust.com newsletter as they send out occasional shopping tips and notices about craft shows and stuff in the NYC area. For browsing I like popgloss.com.

And then there’s always:

Anthropologie.com: you be enamored by the truly beautiful clothing and then shocked by the high prices but I have never regretted an Anthropologie purchase (of course I make most of them off of the sale rack).

You have a million dollars to donate to one non-profit of your choice. Who would it be and why?

I am embarrassed about how hard it is for me to answer this question. I don’t actually have a lot of go to charities that I totally trust and if I was giving that large of a gift I’d want to be positive that it would go to somewhere really deserving. There’s a great organization out there called Advocates for Youth that works for honest sex education to teens, I’d probably look into giving it to them or into finding an organization that works to ensure that the government does not contradict science in favor of religion or business interests.

What was your first job?

Technically, though not on the books, it was a summer of babysitting at age 14. Every Monday-Friday morning their dad would pick me up at 7:30 and after 10 minutes of listening to Rush Limbaugh I was dropped off and left alone with two boys, ages 6 and 8. I mostly lied around on their couch and lawn chair reading and moping over boys who would never understand me (I suspect that these particular boys would still be incapable of comprehension even 15 years later) but they did amuse me on occasion with nuggets like this:

Sound of bed springs loudly squeaking in a distinctive rhythm in a distant room…

Brianna: Shawn what are you doing?

Shawn (from somewhere down the hall): I’m having sex!!!!

Brianna (trying not to die laughing): Stop jumping on the bed!

Why haven't you posted to Alpha Astoria lately, and when will it be updated?

Have you been outside lately? It’s way too cold for café-ing! People should be glad I leave the house at all! Also: have you met Amy? Getting her to leave the house is hard in JULY.