Author: Benjamin Woodley Judd

Celebrifriends: Age of Hard-On

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

It would come as no surprise to anyone, that we became close with Robert Downey Jr while on a stint in rehab.

We met on the set of Less Than Zero (the same place we met our dear friend Jami Gertz) where Annelie was part of McCarthy’s entourage and I was hired to advise RDJ (obvs, that is what we call him) on how to be a street hustler.

We became close, despite some unpleasantness following when I tried to convince him to go method for the sex scenes, after he helped us when we wound up in rehab together.

RDJ has long respected our opinions and nerd credentials and as such, wanted to drop by for our opinion on the new Avengers.

What says your acting can still take my breath away and your beauty can still assemble something in my pants?

Picture source: WENN.com.

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake

Dessert

At the risk of sounding like I’ve softened (and that I am potentially repeating myself), Christopher Knight is a gentleman, a scholar and a saint, and the last almost-fifty years of friendship have meant the world to us.

Now that the niceties are out of the way, let me take you back. We first met Chris and all of the Brady kids through our friendship with the Jackson 5. You see, we were choreographing for the Jacksons (and later invented the moonwalk, but I digress) and Michael introduced us to his girlfriend Maureen who got us auditions for two new roles in Season 5 of The Brady Bunch.

We nailed the auditions and came on board as twin cousins of the Bradys and were so universally despised by the audience that the show was put on hiatus after our first episode and retooled to include a different cousin (with all copies of our episodes and scripts burnt to ensure we were forgotten).

Yes, we were a worse option than Cousin Oliver.

After our unceremonious axing, we stayed close with all of the Bradys (family is family, after all) however it was Chris and Mo that were always our closest.

In honour of the celebratory catch-up, we whipped up a quick Christoffee Knight Cheesecake, (fun fact, it is the cake he made to cheer us up after our axing), to devour as we caught up on each others lives.

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_1

 

The bleeding (well melting, but it kinda looks like it is bleeding so I’ll stick with that) toffee cuts through the delicate cake/cheese and with the added crunch of the nuts (nothing suss) you have no other option but to face-plant into the cake and devour.

Or maybe that is just us?

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_2

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake
Serves: Well 3 in this case, 6-8 for normal people.

Ingredients
1 cup butternut snap biscuits (something equivalent), crumbed
2 tbsp butter, melted
500g cream cheese
½ raw caster sugar
½ cup thickened cream
3 tsp gelatine powder, dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water
100g peanut brittle, broken into smallish pieces.

Method
Combine the biscuit crumbs and melted butter, and press into the base of a 20cm springform pan and refrigerate while you make the filling.

In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, add in the sugar, cream and gelatine until smooth and combined.

Fold through most of the peanut brittle. Pour mixture into the chilling pan (obviously remove it from the fridge, yeah) and return to the fridge for a few hours to set.

Remove from fridge about twenty minutes prior to serving and garnish with reserved brittle.

Here’s the story

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

During our dear friend Mo’s time in the South African, quote-unquote, jungle we took over the role of informing her fellow Brady Kids as to what she was getting up to (they hadn’t heard of a VPN) and enforcing their support in voting for her.

Being a huge fan of reality TV, Christopher Knight was crucial in helping us (almost) get Maureen into the finals … similar to how we helped him out when he and Adrianne broke up.

That is another story for another time.

Anyway, with our renewed closeness we invited Chris over to celebrate our job well done. (Thanks for all the help Susan, probs won’t be seeing you at the see-saw).

What to make, what to (not) bake?

Picture source: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images.

George Takeios

Main

It is always difficult to maintain a friendship with someone you share an unbridled sexual chemistry with … thankfully, it has kind of become our thing.

We stayed close with George following our unplanned stint in the jungle and he and his husband Brad, have had us stay countless times (sadly, we stayed in guest rooms) and he even got us jobs as Julia Roberts’ and Tom Hanks’ stunt doubles on the film Larry Crowne.

George dropped by sulusolo however sadly he wasn’t there to share himself with us … just his congratulatory regards.

You see, buzz is building about this current catch-up project of ours in Hollywood and studios/networks are plotting to sign us any way they can! Don’t tell, but we would likely go with Netflix (unless Les is willing to give us the shared role of Probst’s on location assistants, and you know which location we will be on).

George excitedly shared what he had heard while we caught-up over a banquet of our George Takeios.

 

George Takeios_1

 

The Takeios, unlike our solo retreats to our respective bedrooms, were hot, spicy and were so tasty they make you weak at the knees. Enjoy!

Now to recalibrate the time machine to go back to Shatner’s big bash …

 

George Takeios_2

 

George Takeios
Serves: 6.

Ingredients
1 onion, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
1 green capsicum, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
A pinch of paprika
1½ tsp cumin
1 tablespoon chilli powder
500g minced beef
250ml beef stock
12 corn taco shells
Grated cheese and lettuce, to serve

Salsa
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
Juice of ½ lime
1 shallot, finely sliced
1 tbsp coriander, roughly chopped

Guacamole
2 avocados
Juice of ½ lime
2 tbsp sour cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Soften the onion and capsicum in the olive oil in a large pan over a low heat. Add the garlic, paprika and cumin and cook for 1–2 minutes. Add the beef and stir until it has browned. Pour in the stock, cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Mix the tomatoes with the lime juice, shallot and coriander, then season carefully to taste.

Mash the avocados with a fork, squeeze in the lime juice, add the sour cream, season and mix it all up.

Spread the taco shells out on a baking tray and place in the oven for 3–4 minutes until crisp.

Fill the shells with the meat, salsa, guacamole, cheese and lettuce or lay everything out and let everyone help themselves.

Beaming up my Scotty

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Picture it: Tweed Heads, 2008. Annelie and I were on the run from the law (and another scandal) after being pulled over by the police/RBT cameras. Thanks to our close friendships with Bear Grylls, Christopher McCandless and Aron Ralston we were able to survive in the bush for three weeks before stumbling upon the set of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here where we met George Takei.

Seeing we were clearly in distress, George hid us from the cameras and took care of us until we were well enough to return to the world and again, go to rehab.

We have been close with George ever since and he is actually the reason we invented time-travel (he turned down all of my advances due to his husband, so I had to travel back in time for a mind blowing night on his enterprise).

George gave us a call over the weekend as he wanted to share something with us. Needless to say, I’ve got a (not-even) short list of things he will share with me and my hopes are very high.

What says thank you for your kindness, support, loyal friendship and that one wild night at Shatner’s pool party in the 70s?

Actually screw being coy, what says oh my, can you tak my ei, again?

Picture source: Unknown.

Hot Coco Austin

Drink

Let it be said and then repeated over and over again, Coco Austin is a saint.

I mean, not only did she look out for us on the cut throat dance circuit (trust me, it was way worse than Compton) but she has gifted us with the idea that, mark my words, will lead to a Tony.

Coco knew that our beautiful story from rival dancers with rival stage Momagers (Annelie was the greatest Momager I could have hoped for), through the aforementioned years when she protected us from Mary Murphy (she was Naomi Campbell to our Tyra Banks) to when Annelie introduced her to Ice and we all egged Meg Ryan’s home, was destined for the stage and knowing how talented we are as a trio, she knew that we were the only ones who could do it justice.

We have some money set aside from when Annelie and I scammed our dear friend Joan Rivers into listing us as the charity during her winning stint on Celebrity Family Feud (Ice and Coco threw the game for us), so feel the time is right to invest in our future plaudits.

We convinced her to leave that part out of the musical over a nice warm mug of Hot Coco Austin. Sadly though I have to relive the humiliation of being rejected as a Playboy model. I guess my torrid affair with Heff will make a good story though.

 

Hot Coco Austin_1

 

The key to amazing hot chocolate is cinnamon. Well actually, peanut butter is also amazing (you could remove cinnamon from the recipe and replace 1tsp peanut butter), but there is something so warmly, delightful and festive about cinnamon and chocolate.

Just don’t have it in 30° heat, or do. Get wild. Enjoy!

 

Hot Coco Austin_2

 

Hot Coco Austin
Makes: 1.

Ingredients
250(ish)ml milk
50(ish)g dark chocolate
1(ish)tsp raw sugar
generous(ish) pinch cinnamon
cream, for whippin’
extra chocolate, for gratin’

Method
Heat the milk, stirring constantly(ish), in a small saucepan over low heat.

When warm and starting to foam/bubble around the edge, remove from heat and stir in the chocolate and cinnamon until combined. Return to heat and cook for a couple(ish) minutes.

Remove from heat. Whip cream. Pour hot chocolate into a mug. Top with whipped cream and grated chocolate. Or extra cinnamon.

Also ish, obviously.

Dancing through life

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Since we have caught up with her husband Ice and neighbour Megsy Ryan in recent months, it was only appropriate that we give our old dance pal Coco Austin a buzz and see if she wanted to reminisce about the old days.

As you know, we have known Coco since our time as choreographers, when we found elite dance troupe, Jazz in your Face but we didn’t mention that Annelie is actually the one that introduced Ice and Coco.

Cokes was thrilled to get our call and is very interested in taking the story of our dance lives to Broadway. Needless to say, we all smell Tonys in our near future.

What says lets get our creative juices flowing and get the T of our respective EGOTs?

Picture source: Unknown.

Adam Scottch Eggs

Easter Meggstravaganza, Party Food, Snack

Step three is probably the easiest of Easter Meggstravaganza to follow through with; they aren’t struggling or near death and they aren’t overwhelmed by their hero status.

They are just a TV star (go to 4:08, JLD gets it), after all. Plus, Adam Scott is obsessively in love with both Annelie and I, and would do anything for us.

We first met Adam during our BAT period (Before Amy and Tina) when we were trying to Catfish Amy Poehler into befriending us. Well actually, we were aiming to enter into a polygamist marriage with her, but friendship would have been great. While this particular scheme didn’t bring us to Ames, it did bring us to Adam.

You see, Adam Scott was also catfishing us hoping that he could sleep his way to the top with our persona Anneljamin Juddailes: Record Producer, Hip-Hop Mogul and multiple Academy Award Winner.

It was a messy time for all of us, but after working through our feelings on a scrapped episode of TV Catfish (I refused to both put on pants and be pixellated) we became close friends and well, Adam fell for the people behind the masks.

With Parks and Rec recently finishing Adam called us to let us know that he, and I quote “had some time on his hands and wanted to put them to use,” which was the perfect opportunity for us to all whip up a batch of our famous post-coitus snack, Adam Scottch Eggs and help Meg return to greatness.

 

Adam Scottch Eggs_1

 

Scotch Eggs have a reputation for being quite simplistic or unrefined, but with the right blend of herbs and the addition of hot sauce they become the perfect accompaniment for a beer with a generous dollop of Coolaioli. Enjoy!

 

Adam Scottch Eggs_2

 

Adam Scottch Eggs
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
10 eggs
800g good pork sausages, skins removed
1 small onion, finely diced
1 small clove garlic
handful of chives, finely chopped
handful of parsley, finely chopped
generous pinch nutmeg
1 tbsp English Mustard
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp Tabasco, or to taste
150g breadcrumbs
1-2 cups plain flour
vegetable oil, for frying

Method
Preheat oven to 160°C.

Place eight of the eggs into a pot of cold water and boil for 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl of cold water, peel when cooled and leave aside to dry.

Put the sausage meat into a large bowl with the herbs, nutmeg, mustard, paprika and tabasco and season with salt and pepper. Mix it all together well and separate into eight patties.

One at a time, flatten out the patties, place an egg inside and wrap the patty around until it is completely coated. Leave aside.

Get three small bowls out and place flour in one, breadcrumbs in another and beat the two eggs in the third.

Again, one at a time, roll each sausage/egg ball in flour, followed by the egg and then the breadcrumbs until they are all crumbed and ready to go.

Pour vegetable oil into a large pan until it is roughly 2cm deep and place on stove over medium-high heat. When the oil has come to heat, cook them in batches until the crumb is crisp and golden and then transfer to a lined baking sheet.

When all eggs have been lightly fried, place tray in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the eggs are browned and cooked through.

Devour.

Coolaioli

Condiment, Easter Meggstravaganza, Sauce

Step two is always a bit difficult, what with our friends not wanting to identify as a struggling musician. Did we not mention that was part of the ritual? Well it is.

Anyway, after much coercing (that briefly reunited us with our frenemy Michelle Pfeiffer) we were able to convince our dear friend Coolio that he was no longer really spending most if any of his life, living in a gangsta’s paradise and as such, he needed to help Meg reach redemption and hope she wants to help his re-ascent.

While Annelie was a close friend of Ice T growing up, I was a confidante and pseudo manager of Coolio and encouraged him to expand into film and television, helping him find employment on The Nanny and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and got him the gig/co-wrote the inspirational love theme of Dangerous Minds.

After my countless disappearances to prison and rehab, Coolio just kind of disappeared from the A-list but being the kind, warm man he is, he never held it against me.

He dropped by hoping to reconnect professionally and write the next It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp/Let It Go and eventually came around to helping us with Meg first before working on our Oscar winning song (I mean, we were always destined for one so why not give him that).

Plus, Coolio goes crazy for his condiments and the promise of our famous Coolaioli was enough to snag his help.

 

Coolaioli_1

 

I love an aioli that smacks you in the face with garlic and this one doesn’t disappoint. Seriously, I have the bruise to prove it. Enjoy…and be careful!

 

Coolaioli_2

 

Coolaioli

Ingredients
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 tsp sea salt, plus more to season
freshly ground black pepper, to season
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp Dijon mustard
500-575ml olive oil
lemon juice, to taste

Method
Smash up the garlic and salt in a pestle and mortar.

Place the egg yolk and mustard in a bowl and whisk together, then start to add your oils bit by bit (this is when you fall in love with your stand mixer all over again as your arm isn’t exhausted). Once you’ve blended in roughly half the oil, you can add the rest in a quicker, steady stream.

When the mixture thickens, add lemon juice. When the texture seems right (or all the oil is gone), add the garlic.

Season to taste and add more lemon juice if needed.

Devilled Meggs Ryan

Easter Meggstravaganza, Party Food, Snack

It is always a rush when following through on an egg-based ritual to return fame, foretold in a vision quest in Palm Springs, the celebrity desert.

For the past decade we have struggled with our dear friend Meg to find the correct celebs to force into helping our ritual to return us to the A-list, but alas it has only come true for two of us.

As we have known Meg for such a long time, having met her on the set of When a Man Loves a Woman (Annelie was her stunt double for the shower scene and I acted as her alcohol coach) and continued on as her personal security until we were fired for leaking stories to the tabloids and befriending her across the canyon neighbours, the T-Austins (in a dark period in our friendship, we egged her house).

Thankfully a desire for fame is a huge motivation for forgiveness and Meg never held a grudge and we still have fun with each other in the lead-up to our annual ritual.

In recent years Meg has been enjoying a slight career upswing, playing an obsessive stalker with OCD on Web Therapy (a role loosely based on one of my incarcerations) and we have taken it as a sign that she is on the precipice of returning to greatness. As such, we decided the best way to start this year’s ritual was with a batch of Sweet and Spicy Devilled Meggs Ryan.

 

Devilled Megs Ryan_1

 

The maple bacon counters the kick of heat and if our calculations are right, she should be having what we’re having…an A-list resurgence.

Enjoy!

 

Devilled Megs Ryan_2

 

Sweet and Spicy Devilled Megs Ryan
Makes: 12.

Ingredients
2 rashers streaky bacon
1 tbsp maple syrup
12 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
½ cup mayonnaise
1-2 tbsp Sriracha sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp finely chopped tarragon
1 tbsp finely chopped chives

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C and line a tray with baking paper. While the oven is heating, marinate the bacon in the maple syrup. When the oven is at temperature, lay rashers on the tray until caramelised and crispy, should be about ten minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Cut all the eggs in half lengthways and remove the yolk to a bowl. Mash all of the yolks until smooth-ish and then mix in the mayo, sriracha, mustard and herbs. Season to taste.

Spoon the yolk mixture back into each egg cavity and place on the serving plate.

Finely chop the maple bacon and sprinkle over the eggs. Devour and know that phase one was a success.