Libations Friday! 15 May 2009

From Denny: Coffee Martini Recipes from Sandra Lee’s show Semi-Homemade at the Food Network. This woman is great fun and highly creative! She offers a plethora of creative entertaining ideas in each episode of which just a small portion would make a great event.

Her joy is contagious and so is her creative spark. Definitely recommend watching her if your writing or work day is in a slump. Sandra will cheer you right up and into your own productive day.



Cafe Roma Martini

Serves: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 1 shot anise-flavored liqueur (recommended: Sambuca)

• 1 shot coffee liqueur

• 1 shot half-and-half

• Ice

• Coffee beans, for garnish

Directions

Add all ingredients (except garnish) to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into martini glass. Garnish with 3 coffee beans. Enjoy!



Tall, Dark and Handsome Cafe Martini

Serves: 1 serving

Ingredients:

• 1 packet cocoa mix, for glass rim (recommended: Nestle)

• 2 shots vanilla vodka (recommended: Stoli Vanilla)

• 1/2 shot coffee liqueur

• 1/2 shot chocolate liqueur

Directions:

Wet rim of martini glass on a damp paper towel and dip into cocoa mix; set aside.

Add remaining ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Stir and strain into martini glass.

Roman Acrostic Poem Image by Synwell Liberation Front via Flickr

On to the poetry portion of Libations Friday! Notice the ancient Roman acrostic poem literally "written in stone."

*** About Acrostic poems ***

What is an acrostic poem?

Well, you start with a main subject word. Then you brainstorm, writing down other words that describe your main subject. What you want to do is tell a story about the subject through action or description.

Acrostic poems use the first letter of the poem’s line to begin spelling out the subject word. Each line progresses with the first letter of the poem’s line spelling out the next letter in the subject’s word you chose. Remember, to fit this form of poetry all the lines of the poem are supposed to relate to the subject word.

It’s fun to greatly exaggerate by enlarging that first letter of each line for the reader’s enjoyment. It also makes it easy to read and clear to understand what the topic word is as it is read vertically.

History of Acrostic Poems

Ancient Secret Religions

Acrostics were used like passwords in the ancient world by secret religious cults as identification. How cool is that? Poetry used in an intelligence network. Now that’s classy!

Ancient Greeks

The ancient Greeks from the time of Alexander the Great (333-325 B.C.) used acrostics. In fact, the use of acrostics was quite common.

Ancient Romans

By 240 B. C. Greek drama began in Rome and so did formal Latin literature. There were ancient Roman writers from 200 B.C. who wrote the arguments of their plays with acrostics in the titles. One of these writers was known as Plautus (c. 219-168 B.C.) who was taken prisoner and brought as a slave to Rome.

He wrote a lot of comedies based off Greek literature. Shakespeare based some of his plays off of Plautus! Gives new meaning to bouncing ideas off other creative people... :) What a literature lineage that has come down to us through the ages!

Acrostics from history and religion

The Erythraean sibyl wrote:

Iricrovs
Xpioros
9eoO
wos
crconvp

Translation:

Jesus
Christ
the Son of God
the Saviour

Then there are the initials of the shorter form of this acrostic that make up the word “ixˆus” which is translated as “fish” – that Christian symbol you see everywhere! Because a mystical meaning has been attached to this it morphed into yet another form of an acrostic.

Here’s an acrostic poem about President Abraham Lincoln written by a child from Mrs. Beyer’s page, an elementary school teacher. What an incredible resource site: Mrs. Beyer’s Page for elementary kids (and adult kids who enjoy the fun too).


Abe Lincoln


Abe was his nickname

Books are what he loved

Ready to lead his country

A really tall guy

Has a good sense of humor

A very good president

Many people have him as a hero


Lived as a woodsman

Important to our history

Nancy Hanks was his mother

Came from Kentucky

Oh times were bad

Lived in poverty

Never looked at the bad side


Written by Tyler

***

Two sites for you to enjoy:

Acrostic Poem Interactive

How to Write an Acrostic Poem with a step by step written article.

Want to learn how to write an acrostic poem?

The faster and most fun place to start is at the following site - Acrostic Poem Interactive - that quickly takes you through the process. In fact they take you through it so quickly you don’t have time to stall, get writer’s block, mind freeze or any of those other annoying habits that stop the flow of good writing. In short, it’s FUN!

Of course, I just had to break the rules. What is life if you don’t go against the grain from time to time? Answer: boring! What did I do that was different?

First, they get you to choose a subject word. I behaved on that point. Secondly, they asked you to brainstorm and list several words in the boxes provided that described your subject word. That’s where I diverged. Not that their approach was wrong; it’s a very good approach. I was just feeling plucky at the moment so gave it a whirl.

What I did different for that stage of brainstorming was to choose word associations that began with the same letter as each letter in the word. For example, I choose Pony for the letter P in Poetry. Ponies have nothing to do with describing poetry, well, normally, until I got a hold of it! :)

Here's my amusing attempt at a spontaneous acrostic poem:


POETRY


Pony up to the desk, said the poet!

Oh, this paper screams for words

Easy does it, start slow

Time is on our side to compose

Rage, impatience pushed away

Yes, rally your mind forces: Poem!


Denny Lyon
Copyright 14 May 2009
All Rights Reserved


Have a great weekend, everyone! Thanks for visiting!


Coffee photo by once and future @ flickr