After our trip to the nursery this weekend, Katie started seriously looking at our existing plants. We have a mint plant that got so pot-bound it grew down, through the drainage holes at the base of the pot, and back up the outside of the pot. She decided to make cuttings out of those bits… but what to put them in?
Well, she’d just finished off a container of baking cocoa…
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has a drink they call a Moroccan Mint Latte. It’s a tea latte with chocolate. You can get a fairly good approximation by making hot chocolate using mint tea instead of hot water. Katie suggested Bigelow Plantation Mint (after I mentioned that I’d tried it with Stash Moroccan Mint), which seems to work well.
Update: I forgot to mention the key difference between the two varieties of tea that I tried. Black tea works better with chocolate than green tea.
Some more strange sights from around San Diego (continued from last year’s series).
First, a modern Stonehenge from the UC San Diego campus, all made with stone (or cement) cubes. Update: Found some info on USCD’s Stonehenge.
Then there was this cactus in Old Town, which looked like it was made up of feet!
Something about the phrase “Vegetable Garage” just sounds funny. (This is at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.) There’s also a Fruit Garage.
Sam Adams Smoothies? Where’s Lister from Red Dwarf? Someone needs to tell him he can get those beer milkshakes here! 😉
We weren’t entirely sure just what was supposed to be haunting this hotel, but it’s next to Hooters. Make of that what you will…
And finally, here’s a movie-style marquee from the Ghirardelli shop.
(On a side note, I really miss having a Ghirardelli shop in South Coast Plaza. After shopping overload, I could just stop in there, get a milkshake, and be able to face another store or two. Plus I actually had a reason to go to South Coast Plaza on occasion.)
(Continued in Part 2.)
Since we saw the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last week, I’ve been trying to figure out just what Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka look reminds me of. Then last night it hit me:
He looks like Amélie!
But then, while looking for photos to demonstrate this connection, I discovered a more disturbing resemblance:
Hmmm… A Chocolate Orange?
Driving through the lava fields of North Kona, you’ll see signs like these:
After coffee companies stopped using donkeys for transportation, they turned them loose, and a herd of wild donkeys roamed the fields. They apparently picked up the nickname “Kona nightingales” from their, uh, “singing.” They’ve since been moved up to greener—and less traveled— pastures on the lower slopes of Mauna Kea, but the signs remain.
One can only assume the Kona nightingales were the inspiration for Surfin’ Ass Coffee Company and their signature island confection:
For the record: 1-inch macadamia nuts dipped in chocolate.
