Monday, January 30, 2006

More tea, Polly Prissy Pants?

This weekend I thought about addictions, mostly because a whole bunch of them came to the fore (not that their existence was a secret) and it was amusing. On Saturday, I was scrolling through all the stuff we’ve TiVoed and I realized that we have about 20 episodes of Good Eats on file. LB’s kind of addicted to Good Eats. His house is something of a secular altar to Alton Brown. If he’s not watching back episodes of the Simpsons or the Colbert Report, he’s got Alton on in the background while he reads or checks email. Alton’s inspired LB to cook some amazing things (like the French toast he made on Sunday) and the strawberry shortcake we tried during the summer. A couple of weeks ago, Alton did an episode on tea and both LB and I were kind of shocked to find out that all the lovely boxes of yummy tea in his cupboard are actually the tea equivalent of sawdust. So yesterday we went to Tealuxe in Harvard Square and invested in a Bee House teapot and 100 ounces of different teas that are definitely not sawdust. After we brewed a sample pot of the Royal Coconut, though, we both realized that after 30 years of drinking the plebian stuff, it was going to take time for our taste buds to get used to the real thing. The nice tea was yummy but it smelled better than it tasted. Then again, I hated the taste of wine when I was 5 and now I can put away half a bottle at a go, so I’m willing to be patient.

My addiction, of course, is celebrity gossip. So last night I kicked back and watched the SAG awards red carpet on E. Why are these shows so riveting?? I can’t look away, even when I see myself turning into the bitchiest witch east of the Mississippi. Really, they’re just people (albeit badly dressed people with a pony tail fetish) who could stand to think for themselves a little bit more. Still, it was nice to have company on the couch. LB joined me and occasionally chimed in on the celebrity watching.

“So who’s that?”

“That’s one of the Desperate Housewives. What the hell is she wearing?”

“And who’s that?”

“Oh my god, that’s Jaime Pressley. She used to be hot but now I don’t know what she did to her face. At least she’s still got the body.”

“I know!! Umm, nothing. I said nothing.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The 'Royal Coconut' is dripping with "Natural Flavors" which is chemically not much different from saying "Artificial Flavors." If it smells like suntan lotion or a Yankee Candle, it probably is a gimmick tea.