There is something wrong with the "small" margarita
(the menu listed "small" and "large") ringing up
on the bill as "kid's margarita". (Mad Mex,
Sunday night.)
My parents were smart: they allowed us to taste beer and coffee at a very early age. I eventually learned to drink (some) beers, but I still can't stand coffee.
(I eventually learned that I don't dislike beer; I dislike strong hops. Oh, and that there's more to beer than Bud and Miller.)
Likewise; actually, I liked beer from the first taste, when I was five; I remember the occasion. After that, when my father would take my sister and I for, yes as a matter of fact, mexican food :), he'd put his beer glass between him and me so I could drink from it. This caused a waitress rather a lot of consternation on one occasion. And I was served wine at formal dinners, when the adults were. To this day, the taste of Bud takes me back to being a very little girl.
And caffeine... I was a caffeine baby. My mother drank two pots of Red Rose(tm)[*] every day she was pregnant with me, and every day she nursed me. I think I first had coffee curtesy of my maternal grandmother. No doubt some deep part of my brain recognized it as being the taste of my mother's milk. There is some sense in which I was never weened. ;}
[* And she still has the spectacular collection of little ceramic animals to prove it.]
I got (small amounts of) wine at formal family dinners too, though not outside the home.
No doubt some deep part of my brain recognized it as being the taste of my mother's milk.
That makes sense. :-)
[* And she still has the spectacular collection of little ceramic animals to prove it.]
Wow, I'd forgotten about those. My family's tea of choice when I was growing up was also Red Rose, and I absconded with the little animals as they came in, but they've long since gone missing.
I got (small amounts of) wine at formal family dinners too, though not outside the home.
Ditto. My father gave me my first quarter-glass of wine when I was something like 8 or 10, mostly with the explicit purpose of impressing on me that this is strong stuff, and not to be taken lightly. I still have vague memories of how tipsy I was. And the lesson seems to have worked as intended -- even when I started drinking on my own (maybe age 15), I've always been very moderate in my quantities.
I didn't get a similar introduction to beer, but that was because Dad has never really had a taste for it, so I wound up picking that up on my own much later (in my 20s). I'm constantly amused that I have fairly plebian tastes in wine compared to my father's expert palate, but it's exactly the reverse for beer and ale...
I didn't like coffee till I was, oh, 21 or 22. That was when I realized that the sugar was the problem. Once I tried it without sugar ... *drool* *slurp* more please. I'd drink it black if it didn't bother my stomach, but since it does, I drink it with cream. It's good that way too. Unfortunately, I had to stop drinking the caffeinated stuff about three years ago. I liked it so much that I was drinking a pot a day, and my sleep patterns got ... interesting. But luckily I found a brand of decaf that tastes normal.
I didn't drink beer till I was 20 either. That was when I tried dark beer and discovered how much more interesting it was than Coors and the like.
I still don't like the taste of coffee... although if I put lots of sugar and [milk|cream|non-dairy creamer] in it, I can stomach it... but I don't bother for the most part, because what's the point?
On the other hand, I may still be suffering from the effects of the really bad coffee they used to serve at the chemistry seminars (I had to drink it then, because if you put me in a nice, dark room at 3pm without caffeine and make me listen to a barely comprehensible lecture I will fall asleep.)
As far as beer goes... I've had mixed results. I started to write more, but it seems to be turning into an entry for my own journal, rather than a comment...
>> On the other hand, I may still be suffering from the effects of the really bad coffee they used to serve at the chemistry seminars
I know what you mean about really bad coffee. Aside from the whole sugar issue, one thing that made me reluctant to try coffee for a long time was the memory of the taste of the brown swill that was served up in the Unitarian fellowship I went to as a kid. It was a poor excuse for coffee -- it smelled and tasted vaguely like cigarette ash and old beans (not coffee beans but pinto beans), and the foul taste only intensified with the addition of cream and sugar.
although if I put lots of sugar and [milk|cream|non-dairy creamer] in it, I can stomach it...
You can do that, but why do that to perfectly good cream? :-)
(I had to drink it then, because if you put me in a nice, dark room at 3pm without caffeine and make me listen to a barely comprehensible lecture I will fall asleep.)
I know that problem. And most [university|professional|conference] lectures provide (at most) coffee but no other caffeinated options. This is why I'm in the habit of just providing my own. I took a case of Diet Pepsi with me to HUC for the week (turned out they provided some), and at conferences (when I fly) I hit a local grocery store before sessions start. If people think I'm weird, well shrug.
(I really need a caffeine-related icon. Does anyone have a good rendering of the caffeine molecule?)
Does anyone have a good rendering of the caffeine molecule?
I dunno about good, but I just emailed a few gifs I whipped up to your pobox account.
As far as tricks to stay awake in dark rooms, I've found a big one is taking notes. Even if I don't need the notes for later, taking the notes tends to keep me focused enough that I don't fall asleep. And it makes me look serious, too :-)
I tried using note-taking as a caffeine-substitute in college. Unfortunately, I often got illegible notes and I still fell asleep. So notes are still good, and I often take more than I ultimately need, but I still need external aid.
(I wonder if this happens to anyone else: often, the mere act of writing something down is sufficient for me to remember it -- I don't need to actually consult the note, but if I don't write it down I'll forget. This doesn't always happen -- sometimes I really need the note to refer to -- and I haven't worked out all the parameters.)
>> I wonder if this happens to anyone else: often, the mere act of writing something down is sufficient for me to remember it
This is pretty much the way my memory works. I often found studying before a test to be less productive than expected because once I'd written it down, it was there.
flavored coffee smells yummy but tastes gross. I don't think there's enough sugar and cream in the world to make coffee taste palatable. (on the other hand, I don't like chocolate either (which I recently discovered I share with not only my father but some of his siblings as well.... genetic taste bud bias?) unless it's milk chocolate with _lots_ of peanuts/peanut butter in it. (and white chocolate is just a totally other animal entirely) I think I just don't like 'bitter' taste. (Rachel and Mom, however, adore chocolate like supposedly all real females do. What can I say, someone forgot to pass my genes the memo)
Tea is yummy, though. (although I've been accused of drinking 'not tea, but slightly colored sugar-water')
My parents used to give us as children cocoa which I couldn't stomach anymore after a mishap with some 'oops, I guess that milk turned already, didn't it?' and that same incident kept me even from wanting milk in my tea after that... but I discovered a few years ago that chai with milk in it is really yummy
And I have so far discovered only one alcoholic thing that neither smells nor tastes to my system like alcohol (which, appearantly, my tastebuds violently disapprove of) and that's smirnoff's green apple malted beverage. (which in some circles probably doesn't 'really count')
>> white chocolate is just a totally other animal entirely
Yep, I agree with you. Why is it called "chocolate" anyway? The taste is entirely different, IMO.
>> only one alcoholic thing that neither smells nor tastes to my system like alcohol
May I suggest Bartenura's Moscati di Asti? It's a very low-alcohol wine (4%, I think) and I jokingly call it "apple juice" because, well, it tastes more like juice than wine.
>> white chocolate is just a totally other animal entirely Yep, I agree with you. Why is it called "chocolate" anyway? The taste is entirely different, IMO.
True, but it's produced from cacao, so it's sort of truth in advertising. (It's just that white chocolate is made from the boring bits of the cacao without the interesting stuff...)
As I recall, there are several different parts (or derivatives?) from the cacao plant that go into chocolate. Dark chocolate has more of the "makes stuff bitter" part, white lacks the "makes stuff brown" part but has everything else, milk, well, adds milk, and so on. (There are different types within species, too -- dark chocolate candy has different proportions from dark baking chocolate.)
I don't like bitterness, so I like white and milk chocolates and don't care for dark chocolate when it's "naked". When it's wrapped around an interesting filling (creams, cherries, nuts, etc), I'll eat it -- the filling offsets the dark chocolate.
Unfortunately, I had to stop drinking the caffeinated stuff about three years ago. I liked it so much that I was drinking a pot a day, and my sleep patterns got ... interesting.
You just weren't drinking enough. I can say from personal experience that if you maintain a certain level of caffeine in your blood stream, you can drink a 16oz bottle of Mountain Dew right before bedtime with no ill effects. Or at least I could when I was 20-something.
Caffeine isn't a drug that alters my state; it maintains it. Unfortunately, I have yet to convince my health-insurance provider that it's a maintenance drug they should cover. :-)
I must admit, though, that it may well have been the combination of extreme stress and caffeine overload that made things go hinky. And now it's been so long since I've had caffeine regularly that I really can't have it after noon and still expect to sleep that evening.
Father staggers into the kitchen, unshaven, rumpled and bleary-eyed. His two small children look on wide-eyed as he grabs a cup of coffee and then begins to look normal. Smallest boy says: "What's Daddy drinking?" Slightly older sister replies: "Coffee. It's what turns grown-ups into people."
"Oh, and that there's more to beer than Bud and Miller."
That's because Bud and Miller aren't beer, they're sex in a canoe. :) There's a restaurant in Buffalo Cigfran and I go to on and off for a few years now. Regulars get a "World Tour" card, with all the beers they serve listed by country of origin. When you get every beer punched, you get your own mug with your name on it. I've got six to go on my card, all American 'beers'; Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, Coors, Coors Light. Maybe someday when I'm really, really depressed. :D
My parents tried this and it worked for beer but backfired for coffee. When I was eleven or so, I asked my mother if I could have a cafe latte when we went to get a snack at a local coffee house. I'm sure she agreed because she thought I would hate it, but I in fact thought it was quite good. I have been drinking coffee ever since, although I drastically cut down my intake in favor of tea a few years ago because it was upsetting my stomach.
You may be right-- to this day, I don't care for black coffee except for the very occasional cup of Turkish coffee or good espresso. I've never habitually sweetened it though.
My parents were smart: they allowed us to taste beer and coffee at a very early age. I eventually learned to drink (some) beers, but I still can't stand coffee.
Wine with the meal was common when eating with my dad's side of the family. Not surprising given they're all Italian. We were allowed to sip beer too but fewer family members drank it. And both coffee and tea were freely available to all (even kids) until evening dessert was over. I've grown into something of a beer snob (with the very occasional weird craving for Pabst), have unpredictable tastes in wine, and still prefer tea over coffee except with certain foods.
(I eventually learned that I don't dislike beer; I dislike strong hops.
Okay, we have *got* to do a beer tasting together some time. I don't mind the hops but I *really* prefer more malty, less hoppy.
Oh, and that there's more to beer than Bud and Miller.)
As if Bud and Miller were beer? (Well, technically, I guess so. But even in college we distinguished between Beer and Brewski. Commercial mass-market brewski does seem to have gone downhill since I was a kid.)
Wine with the meal was common when eating with my dad's side of the family. Not surprising given they're all Italian.
Heh. That's where our (weaker) wine tradition came from, too.
I don't have very sophisticated tastes in either wine or beer. In wine, I prefer whites to reds and sweeter wines to drier ones; I tend to favor Reislings and Pinot Grigios. (I'm not as bad as my husband, who thinks Manischevitz is a little dry. :-) ) In beer, as I said it's the hops thing, so I tend to like ales, lambics, wits, and things I don't necessarily know how to label. I hate IPAs, as you would predict. I'm also not fond of really really strong beer, just because I'd rather be able to savor the flavor without getting quite as much of a wallop.
Okay, we have *got* to do a beer tasting together some time.
Next Pennsic?
I occasionally participate in a beer-sampler group; I should actually take notes. In PA you can only buy beer by the case (or, in restaurants and bars, by the high-priced bottle), so I'm part of a group that will occasionally get together in suitable multiples, by 8 different beers, and give everyone 3 bottles of each. This lets us explore without committing to a case. I met Weyerbacher that way, and I like just about everything of theirs I've had.
As if Bud and Miller were beer?
Well, it was the stuff my father often kept in the beer fridge. And from there I went to college, where my beer came from frat parties -- and they can't afford to serve up the good stuff either. So I guess I was in my late 20s before I learned that there's a lot more to beer than that.
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cellio
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 08:16 pm (UTC)(I eventually learned that I don't dislike beer; I dislike strong hops. Oh, and that there's more to beer than Bud and Miller.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 08:26 pm (UTC)And caffeine... I was a caffeine baby. My mother drank two pots of Red Rose(tm)[*] every day she was pregnant with me, and every day she nursed me. I think I first had coffee curtesy of my maternal grandmother. No doubt some deep part of my brain recognized it as being the taste of my mother's milk. There is some sense in which I was never weened. ;}
[* And she still has the spectacular collection of little ceramic animals to prove it.]
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 07:49 am (UTC)No doubt some deep part of my brain recognized it as being the taste of my mother's milk.
That makes sense. :-)
[* And she still has the spectacular collection of little ceramic animals to prove it.]
Wow, I'd forgotten about those. My family's tea of choice when I was growing up was also Red Rose, and I absconded with the little animals as they came in, but they've long since gone missing.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 10:35 am (UTC)Ditto. My father gave me my first quarter-glass of wine when I was something like 8 or 10, mostly with the explicit purpose of impressing on me that this is strong stuff, and not to be taken lightly. I still have vague memories of how tipsy I was. And the lesson seems to have worked as intended -- even when I started drinking on my own (maybe age 15), I've always been very moderate in my quantities.
I didn't get a similar introduction to beer, but that was because Dad has never really had a taste for it, so I wound up picking that up on my own much later (in my 20s). I'm constantly amused that I have fairly plebian tastes in wine compared to my father's expert palate, but it's exactly the reverse for beer and ale...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 08:58 pm (UTC)I didn't drink beer till I was 20 either. That was when I tried dark beer and discovered how much more interesting it was than Coors and the like.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 04:58 am (UTC)I still don't like the taste of coffee... although if I put lots of sugar and [milk|cream|non-dairy creamer] in it, I can stomach it... but I don't bother for the most part, because what's the point?
On the other hand, I may still be suffering from the effects of the really bad coffee they used to serve at the chemistry seminars (I had to drink it then, because if you put me in a nice, dark room at 3pm without caffeine and make me listen to a barely comprehensible lecture I will fall asleep.)
As far as beer goes... I've had mixed results. I started to write more, but it seems to be turning into an entry for my own journal, rather than a comment...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 05:39 am (UTC)I know what you mean about really bad coffee. Aside from the whole sugar issue, one thing that made me reluctant to try coffee for a long time was the memory of the taste of the brown swill that was served up in the Unitarian fellowship I went to as a kid. It was a poor excuse for coffee -- it smelled and tasted vaguely like cigarette ash and old beans (not coffee beans but pinto beans), and the foul taste only intensified with the addition of cream and sugar.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 07:57 am (UTC)You can do that, but why do that to perfectly good cream? :-)
(I had to drink it then, because if you put me in a nice, dark room at 3pm without caffeine and make me listen to a barely comprehensible lecture I will fall asleep.)
I know that problem. And most [university|professional|conference] lectures provide (at most) coffee but no other caffeinated options. This is why I'm in the habit of just providing my own. I took a case of Diet Pepsi with me to HUC for the week (turned out they provided some), and at conferences (when I fly) I hit a local grocery store before sessions start. If people think I'm weird, well shrug.
(I really need a caffeine-related icon. Does anyone have a good rendering of the caffeine molecule?)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 09:28 am (UTC)I dunno about good, but I just emailed a few gifs I whipped up to your pobox account.
As far as tricks to stay awake in dark rooms, I've found a big one is taking notes. Even if I don't need the notes for later, taking the notes tends to keep me focused enough that I don't fall asleep. And it makes me look serious, too :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 09:52 am (UTC)I tried using note-taking as a caffeine-substitute in college. Unfortunately, I often got illegible notes and I still fell asleep. So notes are still good, and I often take more than I ultimately need, but I still need external aid.
(I wonder if this happens to anyone else: often, the mere act of writing something down is sufficient for me to remember it -- I don't need to actually consult the note, but if I don't write it down I'll forget. This doesn't always happen -- sometimes I really need the note to refer to -- and I haven't worked out all the parameters.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 10:06 am (UTC)This is pretty much the way my memory works. I often found studying before a test to be less productive than expected because once I'd written it down, it was there.
bleah
Date: 2004-09-21 08:49 am (UTC)Tea is yummy, though. (although I've been accused of drinking 'not tea, but slightly colored sugar-water')
My parents used to give us as children cocoa which I couldn't stomach anymore after a mishap with some 'oops, I guess that milk turned already, didn't it?' and that same incident kept me even from wanting milk in my tea after that... but I discovered a few years ago that chai with milk in it is really yummy
And I have so far discovered only one alcoholic thing that neither smells nor tastes to my system like alcohol (which, appearantly, my tastebuds violently disapprove of) and that's smirnoff's green apple malted beverage. (which in some circles probably doesn't 'really count')
Re: bleah
Date: 2004-09-21 10:05 am (UTC)Yep, I agree with you. Why is it called "chocolate" anyway? The taste is entirely different, IMO.
>> only one alcoholic thing that neither smells nor tastes to my system like alcohol
May I suggest Bartenura's Moscati di Asti? It's a very low-alcohol wine (4%, I think) and I jokingly call it "apple juice" because, well, it tastes more like juice than wine.
Re: bleah
Date: 2004-09-21 10:40 am (UTC)Yep, I agree with you. Why is it called "chocolate" anyway? The taste is entirely different, IMO.
True, but it's produced from cacao, so it's sort of truth in advertising. (It's just that white chocolate is made from the boring bits of the cacao without the interesting stuff...)
Re: bleah
Date: 2004-09-21 11:44 am (UTC)I don't like bitterness, so I like white and milk chocolates and don't care for dark chocolate when it's "naked". When it's wrapped around an interesting filling (creams, cherries, nuts, etc), I'll eat it -- the filling offsets the dark chocolate.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 07:52 am (UTC)You just weren't drinking enough. I can say from personal experience that if you maintain a certain level of caffeine in your blood stream, you can drink a 16oz bottle of Mountain Dew right before bedtime with no ill effects. Or at least I could when I was 20-something.
Caffeine isn't a drug that alters my state; it maintains it. Unfortunately, I have yet to convince my health-insurance provider that it's a maintenance drug they should cover. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 08:18 am (UTC)I must admit, though, that it may well have been the combination of extreme stress and caffeine overload that made things go hinky. And now it's been so long since I've had caffeine regularly that I really can't have it after noon and still expect to sleep that evening.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 09:22 am (UTC)Doctor to father: Your blood pressure, cholesterol, [...other stuff...] are all way off the scale. What exactly do you eat?
Father: Well let's see... in the morning I'll have a couple of things of coffee...
Doctor: Two cups of coffee is fine. What else?
Father: Not cups, pots. Then I'll crack open a slab of bacon...
Doctor (offstage): Nurse, you might want to tell Mrs. Martin to reschedule.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 09:57 am (UTC)Father staggers into the kitchen, unshaven, rumpled and bleary-eyed. His two small children look on wide-eyed as he grabs a cup of coffee and then begins to look normal. Smallest boy says: "What's Daddy drinking?" Slightly older sister replies: "Coffee. It's what turns grown-ups into people."
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 09:30 pm (UTC)That's because Bud and Miller aren't beer, they're sex in a canoe. :) There's a restaurant in Buffalo Cigfran and I go to on and off for a few years now. Regulars get a "World Tour" card, with all the beers they serve listed by country of origin. When you get every beer punched, you get your own mug with your name on it. I've got six to go on my card, all American 'beers'; Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, Coors, Coors Light. Maybe someday when I'm really, really depressed. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 07:58 am (UTC)Would you consider it a breach of protocol to enlist the aid of a college student? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 07:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 01:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 01:40 pm (UTC)Wine with the meal was common when eating with my dad's side of the family. Not surprising given they're all Italian. We were allowed to sip beer too but fewer family members drank it. And both coffee and tea were freely available to all (even kids) until evening dessert was over. I've grown into something of a beer snob (with the very occasional weird craving for Pabst), have unpredictable tastes in wine, and still prefer tea over coffee except with certain foods.
(I eventually learned that I don't dislike beer; I dislike strong hops.
Okay, we have *got* to do a beer tasting together some time. I don't mind the hops but I *really* prefer more malty, less hoppy.
Oh, and that there's more to beer than Bud and Miller.)
As if Bud and Miller were beer? (Well, technically, I guess so. But even in college we distinguished between Beer and Brewski. Commercial mass-market brewski does seem to have gone downhill since I was a kid.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 02:19 pm (UTC)Heh. That's where our (weaker) wine tradition came from, too.
I don't have very sophisticated tastes in either wine or beer. In wine, I prefer whites to reds and sweeter wines to drier ones; I tend to favor Reislings and Pinot Grigios. (I'm not as bad as my husband, who thinks Manischevitz is a little dry. :-) ) In beer, as I said it's the hops thing, so I tend to like ales, lambics, wits, and things I don't necessarily know how to label. I hate IPAs, as you would predict. I'm also not fond of really really strong beer, just because I'd rather be able to savor the flavor without getting quite as much of a wallop.
Okay, we have *got* to do a beer tasting together some time.
Next Pennsic?
I occasionally participate in a beer-sampler group; I should actually take notes. In PA you can only buy beer by the case (or, in restaurants and bars, by the high-priced bottle), so I'm part of a group that will occasionally get together in suitable multiples, by 8 different beers, and give everyone 3 bottles of each. This lets us explore without committing to a case. I met Weyerbacher that way, and I like just about everything of theirs I've had.
As if Bud and Miller were beer?
Well, it was the stuff my father often kept in the beer fridge. And from there I went to college, where my beer came from frat parties -- and they can't afford to serve up the good stuff either. So I guess I was in my late 20s before I learned that there's a lot more to beer than that.