Academy Award Winner

Lupita Nymang’o Salad

Oscar Gold

While some of our closest friends have won Oscars, we thought it would be best to invite some of our newer friends to Oscar Gold as a kind gesture of support to solidify friendships.

Not as a desperate attempt to capitalise on Lupita’s It Girl status (thank you Benedick Cumberbitch)!

We first connected with Lupita while attending Yale, where Annelie’s dog Nigella studied Law with future President Hillary Rodham Clinton and we attended the journalism program/worked the Yale Daily News with our gal pals, Rory Gilmore and Paris Geller.

We befriended Lupita when she assisted us in breaking up a fight between Rory and Paris in Shake Shack and were front runners to attend the Oscars with her, before her jealous brother threw a tantrum and got us banned from the Awards.

As we missed out on being in the big selfie, we will never forgive him.

Lupita dropped by quickly to celebrate last year’s win before having to jet back to LA to present JK Sim…sorry, the Best Supporting Actor Award. As it is still quite hot here, we opted for the Lupita Nymang’o Salad we whipped up during our visit to catch-up on the 12 Years a Slave set.

Lupita Nymang'o Salsa_1

The sweetness of the mango countered the sharp acidity of the vinegar and lime and leaves you feeling more satisfied than we will on Sunday when Cumberbitch loses.

He knows what he did. Enjoy!

Lupita Nymang'o Salsa_2

 

Lupita Nymang’o Salad
Serves: 2-4.

Ingredients
1 ripe mango, cubed
1 avocado, halved, stone removed, peeled, diced
1 red capsicum, halved, deseeded, finely diced
½ red onion, finely diced
1 lebanese cucumber, diced
½ cup roughly chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Method
Combine juice, oil and vinegar in a small jug.

Combine everything else in a medium bowl.

Add dressing and season to taste.

This recipe is crazy basic.

I think you probably got that though, right?

Sean JalaPenn-o Poppers

Oscar Gold

To kick off Oscar Gold week, we thought it best to catch-up with two time winner and dear friend from our childhood trailer-park, Sean Penn.

After Jefferson-ing our way up and out of the park, we reconnected with Sean when we worked as Tom Cruise’s stilts on Risky Business and we’re inseparable for decades, with us playing a pivotal role in his charity work (slash community service, for us) in Haiti.

He is just the greatest and we would go as far as to call him our third favourite person that lives in a trailer. That is a huge deal.

Despite not having seen each other since we were thrown off the set of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for stalking Kristen Wiig (we wanted her to be spokesmodel for our wig line), Sean was eager to drop by and park his motorhome in Annelie’s yard.

In honour of the feisty spirit of our friendship (and our mutual love of booze and booze related food), we decided to serve up a plate of Sean JalaPenn-o Poppers while we discussed this year’s winner odds (Best Actor may have an upset, according to our bookie).

Oh yeah, we also bonded over our love of blackmarket gambling.

 

Sean JalaPenn-o Poppers_1

 

The cream cheese counteracts the heat of the  jalapeños, while the garlic and paprika add a subtle depth. Plus, there is bacon and bacon in glorious. Enjoy!

 

Sean JalaPenn-o Poppers_2

 

Sean JalaPenn-o Poppers
Serves: 6…or 1? No judgement.

Ingredients
12 fresh jalapeños, cut across the top and deseeded
6 rashers streaky bacon, finely diced
250g cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 cup flour
1 cup dry bread crumbs
1 egg, whisked
vegetable oil for frying, optional

Method
Fry bacon for 3-5 minutes or until lightly crisped. Leave to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, mix cream cheese, garlic, paprika and cooled bacon.

One at a time, take a  jalapeño and spoon filling into the large end. Replace the tip and repeat until all of the  jalapeños are filled.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

In three separate bowls, place flour, breadcrumbs and egg. Take jalapeños and one at a time lightly score the skin before covering with flour, dipping them in the egg wash and coating them with the breadcrumbs. Repeat until complete and then refrigerate for a further 30 minutes.

You can either fry or bake the  jalapeños, I generally bake them as I am lazy / shouldn’t be trusted with hot oil. If baking, they take about fifteen minutes at 200°C. If frying, heat about an inch of oil in a large saucepan until it is hot. Then fry jalapeños one at a time until they are golden and crisp.

Halle Blueberry Waffles

Breakfast, Dessert

Some people are very, very forgiving.

Very forgiving.

I mean, you can’t blame the teens who threw themselves in front of your car between stints in rehab and their various arrests (fun fact, we also inspired the actual bling ring kids) but to befriend the people who caused you so much trauma, stress and a PR nightmare takes a special kind of person.

Halle dropped over for breakfast yesterday; we think she may be scared to be around us at any event that could involve alcohol, which is fair enough but realistically when is alcohol not involved? Little did she know, we had accidentally spiked the batch of Halle Blueberry Waffles when we got into a fight and knocked over the last glass of our breakfast wine.

 

Halle BlueBerry Waffles 1

 

Over brunch, we caught up on how much our lives had changed for the better since we first connected, the Oscars (she feels snubbed for not getting a nom for Catwoman) and her idea for a potential reboot of The Flintstones, set in the future (that we kindly pretended was great and not at all like The Jetsons).

Thankfully the fresh, fluffy waffles went down better than her ideas with the exploding jewels of blueberry adding some fun to the occasion. We served them with some whipped cream, cinnamon and maple syrup, however they would work just as well with some butter and maple.

Enjoy!

 

Halle BlueBerry Waffles 2

 

Halle Blueberry Waffles
Serves 4-6, greed dependant

Ingredients
2 ¼ cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼  teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
¾  cup soda water
¼  cup oil
1 cup blueberries
butter, for greasing
cream, butter, cinnamon and/or maple syrup to serve

Method
Preheat your waffle iron.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl, then whisk in all wet ingredients until smooth. Fold through blueberries.

Melt butter into waffle iron to grease. Scoop the batter into the waffle iron and close. Cook for 2-5 minutes, then repeat.

Out of the storm

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Halle Berry gave us a call on the weekend, reminded of the time we jumped in front of her car and caused an accident, by our catch-up with Lisa. (Yes, Halle was the unnamed actress we were planning to scam).

After our stint in rehab (following our arrests and the attempted scam on Halle) and at the encouragement of our LA based mother-figures Lisa and Zsas, we connected with Halle as part of the making amends step of our program and we charmed the pants off her.

Figuratively, not literally.

What says, we tried to scam you out of your pre-Oscar millions and forced your car into the path of another car which led to you being fined for fleeing the scene of a crime and that we are thankful you forgave and befriended us?

Picture source: Jason Merritt/Getty Images.