Friday, December 19, 2003 RAMBUTAN PUDDING BLUES Our favorite fruit? The rambutan! The lychee’s zany cousin with its wild muppet hairdo! Sure, there are blueberries and the endangered cavendish banana, and the sheer miracle of the lemon. And the mango, well, you know we love the mango. But our favorite is the crazy red-headed rambutan. Ate ’em while walking down the streets of Bangkok! And in chinatown today we saw a bundled bunch still on the twigs from the tree and so of course we bought ’em and dashed immediately to the Killer’s office and presented ’em as a beautiful bouquet. * * * Thursday, December 18, 2003 FRENCH I am proud to tell you that at the diner last weekend, over sausage and eggs, I was able to entirely decipher a brief but complex caption about David Bowie on the cover of the local French newspaper that the previous patron had left at our table. I now consider myself fully bilingual. Oui! * * * Sunday, December 14, 2003 WHAT WE ARE DRINKING There’s a heavy snowfall warning in effect here tonight. It’s really coming down; winter’s opening act for Ottawa. The bastards here are irregular with the heat, so sometimes the Killer and I are forced to huddle together and drink hot drinks. Tonight it’s “snow angels” from the local liquor store’s endless supply of recipes: per person, boil 3/4 cup milk with, uh, two teaspoons of fresh chopped ginger. Strain into a blender along with 1 3/4 ounces fine Barbados rum, 1 tablespoon of sugar and an egg. Yes. Garnish with freshly ground nutmeg. It’s okay. Not as good as the winter warmer we recommended last year in this space, but that takes red wine, and we’re saving our bottle for when the pizza guy gets here. * * *