#ice cream would be classic flavors and maybe some fun original ones too

[southislandwren]

*tumblrina voice* Oh wow he’s doing market research for a career 7 years in the future….. nerd

[pearl-pilots-in-chains]

Ice Cream Expertise (All the Little Lights #1)

Fandom: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ships: Kawoshin

Rating: G

Summary: Shinji is faced with a dilemma of sorts, and is characteristically indecisive. Fortunately, Kaworu is there to give some helpful advice. Or maybe just call himself an ice cream expert. Let's be honest, it's a bit of both.

Notes: This is intended to be the start to All the Little Lights, my attempt at a relatively happy Evangelion high school AU featuring the pilots we know (and maybe love) actually getting to live a normal life (including all the cute gay romance they deserve). That said, it also works totally fine as a one shot. Considering it's an AU, there's going to be some rather interesting deviations from canon, some of which are alluded to here. So, if something seems off, that's probably because it is.

As usual, any errors, grammatical or typographical, are mine. I apologize in advance.

This was originally posted to my old AO3 on May 21, 2020. I hope you enjoy it!

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Shinji Ikari was not having a good day. No, perhaps that was an understatement. He was having a distinctly bad day. School had been tedious to say the least, considering that testing week was approaching, and the teachers seemed to be doing their best to “prepare” the students using every form of academic torture known to humankind. Okay, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it had been a hectic hell all the same. Not to mention the fact that his best friend Touji was going through a rough patch (not the first one, mind you), with his girlfriend Hikari, which led to a tense mood within their friend group outside of class as well. Adding onto this was the fact that he was getting worried about his sister (what wasn’t new?) Rei, who had been especially quiet the past week or so, even by her standards. That was usually a sign that her depression was going through a rough spot. He had wanted to mention something to his mother about it, considering she usually had better luck at getting through to Rei than he did when his sister was going through a difficult time, but unsurprisingly, he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He was gone too often, and his mother was gone too often. There was all of a one to two hour period when they were both home and awake on any given night. Rei always ending up alone probably doesn’t help her state of mind improve either. I wish she had more friends. People she could connect with.

And, of course, to top all that wonderful baggage off, he had had work after school, which had gone lovely. Just lovely. A simply wonderful group of customers had come in, and stayed for a better part of three hours, ordering intermittently while they all talked (way too loudly, in his opinion) at their shared table, which, in a predictable move, they hadn’t even bothered to clean off. He was a barista, not a waiter, despite what some people seemed to think. To make matters worse, they had been laughing so hard partway through their “discussion,” that one of the party had practically flung her iced latte through the air by accident (how someone could do that by accident, was a whole other topic for conversation), sending its contents flying halfway across the room (in a bafflingly impressive display, he had to admit, as irritating as it was). Of course, he had drawn the short straw and been the one tasked with cleaning it up. His boss seemed to get a special satisfaction out of giving Shinji all the “fun,” jobs. Okay, maybe Mr. Anno’s not that bad, but he still gets a kick out of watching me suffer. Or something like that.

Shinji sighed as he pulled his car into the store parking spot. As he exited it, he glanced down at his phone. 7:16. That meant he should have enough time to get home and get dinner going before his mother got home. These days, it seemed as though she worked progressively later and later. It had been a couple months since she’d been home before 8. She was almost certainly still out at the base at that moment. Whatever project she’s working on now is one of the more intensive ones.

He headed for the doors. He was planning on making stir fry, which meant that he needed to get soy sauce for sure, since he knew they had run out from the last time. He thought they had most of the rest of what he needed at home. So, this should be a quick run. Just in and out. After a day like today though, he was tempted to grab something sweet. Come on, after this whole mess, I think I at least half deserve something to take my mind off of it. Just a little.

Inside, he made a bee line for the condiments aisle. Alright, first things first. Get what I need. Then, maybe, I’ll just check out what they have. He grabbed soy sauce, and then wavered for a moment, trying to decide just for what he was in the mood. Okay, just something little. Nothing too big. I am going to be cooking, after all. Hmmm . . . I mean, it’s probably not the best idea, but . . .

Making his decision, he set off for the frozen section. Once again, he paused when he arrived at the aisle, looking through the glass freezer doors at the available options. I’ll just get a pint. That should be more than enough. Even if Rei goes for some too. ‘Cause mom hardly ever eats anything sweet, so I doubt she’ll have any. He tilted his head, tapping the soy sauce bottle against his thigh as he considered the selection. Why are there so many flavors? I didn’t even realize they sold Pumpkin outside of November. And Lime-Raspberry? What would that even taste like? Who comes up with these things? I’ll go for something classic. I could always do Vanilla. But, that’s a little boring. I don’t even really like it that much. Chocolate’s always classic, except that Rei doesn’t like it. And her favorite is Cookie Dough, which I don’t like the texture of . . . there are way too many choices here. Running his eyes over the racks, he did a quick count. Forty-two different flavors. Why are there forty-two different flavors? I wonder if anyone’s ever tried them all. Then again, that might take a while. And be kind of pricey. Dammit, I’m getting distracted again. The only conclusion that Shinji was coming to was the fact that he liked ice cream far too much, and was wasting far more time than he should be trying to pick out something. Maybe I should just get the soy sauce and head home. He peaked down at his phone. 7:29. Yeah, I’ve already been here longer than I should be.

A voice interrupted Shinji’s thoughts. “So, what’s your drug of choice?”

Shinji head snapped to the side, his concentration broken. “What?,” He asked, a little surprised.

The source of the interruption was standing a little further down the aisle, casually leaning on one of the freezer windows, his head cocked to the side, watching Shinji with a friendly smile on his face. Shinji thought the interrupter looked to be about the same age as him, though that fact was complicated slightly by the fact that though his face was youthful, his hair was an ashen grey. He must dye it. Is grey hair a style though? The interrupting individual sported a pair of black jeans and a band shirt for a group whose name looked vaguely familiar to Shinji. Porcupine Tree . . . I feel like Rei might listen to them. Maybe. Not to mention the fact that the newcomer had red eyes. Red eyes. Okay, so maybe this is a look he’s going for. I mean, those are definitely contacts, right? Unless there’s a genetic mutation I’ve never heard of, I don’t think humans can be born with red eyes. Which means that they’re contacts. Which means that the hair is almost definitely dyed too. I’m pretty sure that’s not what ‘scene’ looks like . . . there’d be brighter colors . . . and I don’t think it’s emo either . . . I’m pretty sure his hair would be black then . . . huh . . . maybe that’s goth. Yeah. Let’s go with that. In addition to making him second guess what scene fashion looked like, Shinji’s visual analysis of the interrupter also led him to a more definite conclusion. That regardless of what category his fashion fell under, he was pretty cute. Seriously Shinji, focus here, and stop thinking about how some random boy in Safeway who asked you what type of drugs you like is cute. Don’t be an idiot. Sure, you haven’t been on a date in months, ever since Martin broke up with you, but he was a manipulative jerk anyway— Shinji realized the interrupter had started talking again, which snapped him back into reality and out of his wandering mind.

“Yeah. What flavor is your favorite. I mean, out of the forty-two, there has to be one you’d pick, right?”

“Oh. Yeah. Probably cookies ’n’ cream,” Shinji answered, feeling more than a bit confused. On an afterthought, he added, “You’ve counted all the flavors too?”

“Not a bad choice,” the boy said with a firm nod. “Although, I’m more into mint chocolate chip myself. And yes, I’ve counted them all. It’s an important part to being an ice cream expert. Keeping track of the available flavors at the nearest store.”

“Okaayyy.” Shinji’s tone betrayed his uncertainty concerning just how he should deal with this stranger. “Ice cream expert?”

“Yep, that would be me,” the boy replied matter-of-factly, as though the question was a pointless one. He strolled over to Shinji and extended his hand. “Kaworu Akagi, ice cream expert, at your service.”

Shinji shook the offered hand, deciding he should be polite, despite the fact that his perplexity had not been substantially diminished in any way. This guy is . . . interesting, to say the least. As their hands met, Shinji was struck by the strange, but intense, sense that this wasn’t his first time meeting Kaworu.

“Shinji Ikari.” Against his better judgement, he decided to follow his introduction with, “Have we met before?”

Retracting his hand, Kaworu pursed his lips, ostensibly mulling over the question in his mind. After a few moments, he shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least, not that I can recall. I just got into town a few days ago. Why do you ask?”

Shinji shrugged, trying to play off his earlier question. “Oh, I think you just reminded me of someone I used to know.”

Kaworu nodded, seeming to accept this answer. “Ah, that makes sense. So, have you come to a conclusion, or would you like a second opinion?”

Shinji raised an eyebrow. “About the ice cream, you mean?”

“Indeed. That is the topic on the floor, as they say,” Kaworu responded nonchalantly.

Shinji blinked. “Who says?”

“Why, they do of course.”

“Oh. Umm, alright.” Shinji looked back through the window, surveying his options once more. A obvious choice didn’t present itself. “Well . . . I suppose a second opinion probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“Great,” Kaworu stated, his tone even and pleasant. “Any occasion in particular you’re buying for?”

Shinji shook his head. “Nope, not really. Just . . .” he hesitated, uncertain how much he wanted to tell someone who was still basically a stranger to him. “Just a bad day,” was what he ended up deciding on.

Kaworu pretended to stroke nonexistent hairs on his chin, nodding slowly as did so, in an amusing imitation of the stereotypical philosopher. “Hmm . . . ice cream for a bad day, you say?”

“Uh. Yeah. I guess so.”

“I’d have to recommend Cherry Chip for that. It’s a guaranteed mood improver from my experience. It is nearly impossible to feel down while you’re eating Cherry Chip ice cream.”

“Really?” Shinji’s ice wandered down the display, finally locating the flavor in question. Fortunately, they had it in pint size, which meant that the option was on the table. He couldn’t think of any reason not to go for it. As far as he knew, Rei liked Cherry Chip. At least, he thought she did. He wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever seen her eat it. For that matter, he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever eaten it himself. Which means it might be pretty good, and I just don’t know it yet. You never know. “Really. Trust me, I’ve tested its potency. It won’t let you down.”

“Alright. Why not?” Shinji opened the door and grabbed a pint of Cherry Chip. He examined the container in his hands for a few seconds, before looking back up at Kaworu, who now seemed to be smiling in encouragement, which had the effect of making him look even cuter than before. Come on Shinji, don’t get distracted! Sure, he might be attractive, but he’s also a self-proclaimed ice cream expert. . . not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing yet, to be honest.

“That’ll do the job,” Kaworu remarked, in a straightforward tone that made it sound as though he was utterly confident in the truth of his words.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Shinji furrowed his brow as another question popped into his mind. “Hey .. . you said you just got into town a few days ago. How is it that you already know all the different flavors they have here?”

“It was one of the first things I scoped out after we got into town. Always important to know what kind of ice cream game you’re going to be dealing with. Plus, I had plenty of free time once we finished unpacking, considering I won’t be in school up here until the fall.”

“Ah, okay. That makes sense.” Almost on a whim, Shinji was tempted to ask Kaworu where he had moved from, but decided that could come across as prying a little too much, since Kaworu hadn’t offered that information. As it was, Kaworu gave a partial answer to the question without Shinji even verbalizing it.

“School down south ends earlier. Though, to be fair, it also starts earlier there as well. We left a couple days after my semester ended. Which means I currently have relatively few obligations, other than locating and obtaining a job for the summer.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Shinji still wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, but he decided to field a question of his own. He figured it could come across as a polite inquiry, rather than being nosy, taking into account what Kaworu had just revealed. “So, what brought you up north?”

“My mother got transferred out to the base,” Kaworu returned offhandedly.

Shinji tilted his head in response to this answer, the gears in his brain turning. Well, that’s interesting. He almost wanted to make some sort of follow-up remark expressing their similarity in that regard, but he decided that might be a bit too much to say for the moment. Instead, he merely offered a casually, “I gotcha.” He continued with an amiable, “Well, welcome to Asherdale,” along with a more ironic, “It’s halfway decent, once you get used to it.”

Kaworu’s face broken into a grin at the humor, an expression that Shinji couldn’t help but feel made him look all the more attractive. Oops, getting distracted again. . . don’t do that . . . too much.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Kaworu said warmly.

“No problem.” The thought suddenly entering his mind, Shinji shot a momentary glance down at his phone. Hmm, what time is it? The answer was 7:37. 7:37?! I’ve been talking for eight minutes?! That felt like four or five at the most. I have to bail, now, if I’m going to make it home in time to get cooking.

He looked back up at Kaworu, who was still watching him, his gaze soft, the smile still on his face, his head tilted to the side. Shinji had the strange feeling that if it had been anyone else, the observational pose the boy had struck would have looked unusual, to say the least, but somehow, on Kaworu, it didn’t look half bad. It gives him a kind of elegant aesthetic . . . okay, where did I come up with that? I definitely need to head out.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry to leave so quick, but I need to get going.” Shinji cringed a little internally, hearing the awkward tone in his voice. You could have said that in a way that didn’t basically announced the fact that it made you flustered. Great going.

“Understandable. You wouldn’t want that ice cream to melt before you get the chance to test out its powers.”

“Haha, yeah, you know it.”

Kaworu nodded, imply that yes, he did indeed know it. “Why don’t I give you my number?” He remarked. “That way, you’ll have someone on hand for any future ice cream dilemmas.”

“Ahhh . . .” Okay, that was actually kind of smooth, in an odd way. And . . . it’s not like it could really hurt anything. I mean, he didn’t even ask for my number. Which means he’s not even necessarily flirting with me. It’d probably be a bit of stretch to say he is. After all, if I have his number, and he doesn’t have mine, that means I can choose whether I want to text him or not, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Which isn’t really a good way to flirt with somebody. I think I’m stalling again here . . .”

Shinji noticed Kaworu was watching him again, waiting for a response. “Sure. Sounds like a good plan.” He pulled out his phone and hastily created a new contact, before offering it to Kaworu. “Here, you can put it in.”

Kaworu nodded, his smile remaining intact, and typed in the digits, before handing it back to Shinji. “It was nice to meet you, Shinji Ikari,” he commented affably.

“You can just call me Shinji,” Shinji quickly responded.

“Alright then. It was nice to meet you Shinji.”

“You too . . .” Should I use first and last name like he did the first time? Or just go with first name. I don’t want to offend him, if that’s the sort of thing that’s important to him. After all, he does seem a bit, umm, particular.

“You can just call me Kaworu,” the boy suggested, his smile widening.

“It was nice to meet you Kaworu,” he finished lamely. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yes, maybe so.”

Shinji nodded again, spun on his heels, and promptly made for the registers. Well, that went excellently. You meet a boy who’s kind of cute, even if he is a little eccentric, and straight off the bat, you’re second guessing yourself and fumbling for words. Fantastic.

Shinji shot a brief glance back as he reached the end of the aisle, to see that Kaworu was now retrieving an ice cream carton of his own from the merchandise freezer. Shinji turned away again before the boy could look back in his direction. Don’t want him to think I’m staring at him or something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shinji collapsed back onto his bed with a satisfied sigh. He was glad to have finally reach it, after the nigh-interminable day. Well, maybe not quite interminable. But definitely overlong. Without much thought, he grabbed his phone from his nightstand and spun in about in his hands a couple times, feeling the sensation of the textured case against his skin.

Dinner had been a success, such as it could be, anyway. He had impressed himself with just how fast he managed to throw things together when he went into slight (well, maybe more than slight) panic mode.

The ice cream had been a success as well. He had to admit, Cherry Chip was a pretty good flavor. He still wasn’t sure whether he had tried it before or not, but he was glad he had definitively tried it now. Rei had also enjoyed it, which was an added plus. In fact, their mother had even had a bowl, something altogether unexpected. Apparently, Cherry Chip ice cream was one of the sweets she would indulge in. Didn’t see that coming. All in all, the majority of the pint was no more.

Powering on his phone, Shinji was faced with another choice for the evening. Unlike his earlier ice cream deliberation, however, this cerebration was of a cursory duration. After a few seconds, he had composed the text, and was hovering over the send button. Alright. Let’s do this. He tapped the icon.

Shinji I.: Thanks for the recommendation. It was a good choice! Lol. This is Shinji, btw.

The response to his message came swiftly. Wow, he must type fast.

Kaworu A.: Happy to be of service. I’m glad it worked out.

Shinji found a smile edging its way across his lips. Maybe, in spite of everything, today wasn’t such a bad day after all.

[carrottuan93]

Haven’t met you yet | Mark

Masterlist (3/4) | part1 - part2 - part4

Starring: MK x You

Tags: Mark Tuan, Fluff, Destiny, Waiting, Christmas, Bookworm, Nerd, Love, Fate

Total WC: 2194

You nearly puked your guts out to the sight of Jackson sticking to Eunhee and hugging her like forever has been robbed from them. You failed to confide to your best friend about what happened to you in the last 24 hours. So as not to spoil their couple time together, you chose to not disturb them and just mingle with all the kids in the sweet treats section. You love kids so much you play Santa and distributed macarons to each one of them. As expected, most of your close friends and guests brought their own boyfriends, if not, their own husbands and it was a nice show to witness, with sarcasm aside. Thanks to Jackson’s little cousins, they keep you entertained with their bubbly personality.

 “One with the kids, sure you’re missing the party in the adult section, no?” The sight of a guy clad in a formal white dress shirt, tucked in a black denim pants partnered with a classic chuck taylor, and a gray winter coat, welcomed your eyes. Guys who dress fashionably is such a head turner for you.

“Actually, they keep me company so I’m having fun to be honest.” You replied, feeling all the weird sensation cascading across your spine. You feel a bit nauseous whenever guys approach you. You don’t know if you even want to be with a guy right now, after your embarrassing experience last night.

 “My cousins here are a bunch of nuisance, you’ll get tired of them soon.” He picked one matcha macaron from the aisle and took a bite of it. You observed his expression. A smile crept up to his face and you caught sight of Eunhee in a distant, gossiping to Jackson that you’re having a moment with his cousin. You certainly know that they’re mentally pairing you up already and you are growing nervous about the plans that they are possibly plotting behind your back.

 “You like it? I bought them all the way from a café near my workplace that sells classic macarons just like the original ones from Paris.” He nodded in approval as you watch him took another piece, this time it’s strawberry. That’s your favorite flavor among the rest and you can really tell that the sweet tooth runs on Jackson’s bloodline by how his cousins, from the little chubby ones and the grown up beside you, munch on your favorite treat.

 “I never really eat macarons, but you introduced me into it. You deserve a recognition, uhm?” He lifted his hand for a handshake. He doesn’t know your name yet so you took his hand and introduced yourself right away.

 “It’s Y/n, Eunhee’s best friend. Thank you for the recognition by the way. Well, you come here with a date?” You’re mentally tiptoeing above the thin ice. It’s better to assume that this cute guy over here is already taken, I mean with his looks, he's totally a charmer, you thought to yourself.

 “I didn’t bring anyone with me, so I assume you also come along on your own, no?” Green light. Okay, you need to calm down. This isn’t like any of your past blind dates but first meetups are usually nerve wracking and scary so you played the innocent heroine that you are and chose to just go with the flow seeing how Eunhee and Jackson are staring at you maliciously from Mark’s back, you know they were able to receive the death notes you are sending them via telepathy.

 “That explains it.” It’s not that you had a thing with cute guys, but maybe you just discovered it right now. You can tell he’s a decent one, a cool and random Asian-American import from the west and maybe if you’re an ice cream, you already turned into liquid by the way he stares at you.

 “I don’t know anything about you yet, but would you trust a complete stranger to celebrate your Christmas eve with? If you’re up for it, we’ll leave this party right away because I can tell that you’re going to get sick from all these couples outnumbering us.” Have you been a good girl this year? You didn’t include this guy on your Christmas list but Santa rewarded you without even asking for it.

 “I’m putting my trust on you knowing that Jackson is a good guy so does his cousin. I'll sue him and he’ll answer for the damages and fines in case you failed to bring me back in good shape.” You both let out a hefty chuckle earning glares from your best friend and her boyfriend. You’ve decided to pursue your spontaneous trip with Mark and the next thing you know you’re already closing the front door upon your exit even before the two of them could react to your great and grand escape.

  ----

  He took you on a ride away from the busy and bustling streets of Seoul. You're thrilled to find out that he actually brought you to Namsan Tower, the highest peak in the city. You're awed expression cannot suffice the picturesque panoramic scenery of Seoul unfolding in front of your very eyes when you entered the observatory on the top most floor. You were unable to talk all of a sudden and your heart is brimming with unexplained strings of emotion as you kept on taking pictures and videos of the breathtaking place that sent your eyes into a food coma.

 "I only went to N tower once, or maybe twice but that was during the day and I have no idea that this is how it looks at night. It's a miss, nobody will be able to witness this scene on a Christmas eve the way we're seeing it right now." You forgot about your shameful episodes of last night's happenings and your worries disappeared in just an instant.

 "I kind of paid for tonight's reservation when I arrived here in Korea a week ago, with the hopes of spending Christmas only to myself. Consider yourself lucky, you've managed to join me on this one-time event. Heck, the price I paid for is totally worth it. Come here and try this." He urged you to look on the telescope, and to your surprise, you're taking in every aspect of the city in a bird's eye perspective. Everything you look at is really stunning. Like you never really imagined that perfection exists for real until tonight and you're experiencing it with a random guy whom you've only met an hour ago. Your eyes met his and you wished you aren't redder than a rotten tomato for looking like a lost deer caught on a headlight.

 "The view here is really pretty.” He gave you a smile, too charming for your own consumption.

“It really is.” He’s even prettier than the view. You can only sense your guy-o-meter raising for Mark. Good lord, is this a sign? Your mind is now ready to tick the ideal guy boxes on your list.

 “We shouldn't keep this New York style pizza from waiting while it is hot.” He chuckled, like the cute kid that he is. There is something with his unique laugh that you really don’t mind hearing at all. Is he older than me? Please, I don’t want to date someone younger than me.

 “Okay, sure kid.” You followed him as he sat on the ground in a dimly lit room radiating a romantic atmosphere under the starry and chilly skies of Seoul. This is not a date, but a friendly escape out of boredom planned by two single hearts on a Christmas eve. As if you’re two partners in crime, sitting on one of the highest skyscrapers in town, while sharing a box of pizza. It’s just that you aren’t Bonnie and neither he is your Clyde but you're loving the idea of him as someone whom you can rely on.

 “I’m older than you, silly.” The sight of a wine bottle behind him caught your attention and wondered where it came from. He noticed you eyeing the prize so he did the honor and poured you a glass of wine while you’re devouring your slice of pizza. You never imagined that eating pizza is too romantic and one for the books.

 “Any proof that you’re actually above 25? Cause you really look young. With that face, you can qualify for a student discount on public transports and still save money for your commute.” You want to make sure that he’s at least 5 years older than you. You prefer dating someone older than you because they always say that a guy's maturity is a year delayed for his age.

 “Trust me, I just know. I’m old enough to buy a house and enter into casinos, I guess.” He gave you a wink and you felt a gush of strong wind blew your senses away. He’s totally a Romeo and you took a swig of wine while observing him secretly.

 “So you’re a gambler? I might have been spending my time with some kind of a mafia leader and still have no clue about it.” He’s laughing at it again. I might have a talent with making cute guys laugh and that’s an asset I only discovered right now.

 “What, no! But my dad is a big spender in casinos. My duty is to look out for him and take him home before he could even bet our fortune with his leisure. I could always hear him say ‘It has gotta be all or nothing’. He’s born for taking risks and maybe I got that gene from him that’s why.” He stretched his legs and sat like he’s on a photoshoot. He’s not a model but he can beat the professional ones even without the need for screening.

 “What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken in your life so far?” You folded your legs as you watch him wonder with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He poured a glass for himself and you noticed that he used the same glass that you drink on.

 “I believe we’re taking risks everyday in our lives. The only difference is the distance of our leap towards taking or not taking chances at all. Like when you’re playing a game, everything starts with equal opportunities. It’s a race to the witch mountain. The first one to gamble takes it all. You gotta be the predator of every tournament and you gotta be the last one standing in a survival of the fittest. If you’re brave enough to take the earliest start, you can use that advantage to ace your end game. It’s all about timing and investing. Win or lose streak. There is no such thing as a grey area when it comes to taking risks. You don’t get to tie with anybody. Either you’ll win or lose. You just have to trust your instincts and roll your dice like everyday is your last day on earth. If I go for something, I go all in. No half-baked decisions. Because my father taught me that risks equates to rewards and I’m all up for the extremes of both worlds. That’s the one thing I’m best at. I know how to play the game nice and fair because I know how to measure the corners of a square and even the distance around the circle which is not visible to the naked eye. After all, he considers me as his lucky charm. That explains my presence to his endless casino nights. And he hardly ever loses if I’m with him. Sure, Pops are probably waiting for me at our doorstep in LA right now. Too bad, his son is on the other side of the world, taking his own risk of a lifetime.” You left with no words to say. He’s too deep, a food for the soul. Guys like him are the ones that can be displayed in museums. He’s a delicate art and nobody should be allowed to touch him but the curator. And you’d want to take that role.

 “What if you lose? If you go all in and you lose everything all at once? Have you experienced it already?” you asked, admiring the tiny mole sitting under his left eye. You decided to take your second glass of wine.

 “The best thing about losing is that you’ve tried. I don’t take failures as an excuse for not trying again and taking another risk the next day. If I lose, so what? That only means you’re brave because you grow stronger with every fall that you take. Like a bamboo tree, it only bends but it doesn’t break. Life is all about swimming against the current of uncertainties and finding yourself floating on top of your insecurities.” As if he’s summarizing all the lessons in life, you’d always want to go for the front seat. He’s a walking self-help book, and maybe Mark Manson’s book of ‘the subtle art of not giving a fuck’ would have to sit longer in my shelf for the meantime. I got a risk-taker author Mark, right here and I got nothing to worry about.

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Juliet

Writing Blog URL(s): @wonderlustlucas

Nationality: American

Languages: English, beginner level French, teeny tiny bit of Korean

Star Sign: Virgo

MBTI: ISFJ-T

Favorite color: Pastel yellow

Favorite food: My mom’s Sunday gravy

Favorite movie: Howl’s Moving Castle (The Lion King is a close second though)

Favorite ice cream flavor: Specifically Turkey Hill’s Double Dunker (get it— it’s so good)

Favorite animal: Humpback whale

Go-to karaoke song: She’s Kinda Hot by 5 Seconds of Summer

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): Neurosurgeon! Or a Twitch streamer HAHA

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering?  Ahhh probably coffee, I love tea but I need my coffee </3

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? Shapeshifting! Clearly the superior superpower I don’t take constructive criticism.

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? This is weirdly specific, but I would love to be in Scotland during the 1700’s. Alternatively, the 1980’s.

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? 100%. I know everything happens for a reason but getting a redo and being able to fix all the big mistakes I made would be pretty nice.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? One horse-sized chicken! 100 tiny horses would be crazy tiring.

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? I would probably be the gay side character that gives good emotional advice but is hella lonely LMAO

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? Yes, both!

What are some small things that make your day better? Driving with the windows down and music blasting, picking up coffee, playing video games, & talking to my internet friends on Discord.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? I discovered my love for writing through Warrior Cats roleplay😭

What fandom(s) do you write for? Right now, only Kpop, but I wouldn’t mind writing for 5SOS or some of my other fandoms!

When did you post your first piece? On WattPad, December 2015. On Tumblr, April 2018 :)

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I write everything! Fluff/smut/crack is my favorite and slight angst (usually just slow burn though cus I’m soft).

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? Again, I write anything and everything! Currently, second or third person reader inserts are my main style, but I also do ships and would love to write more OCs.

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? Before Tumblr, I was on WattPad for different fandoms but eventually fell off. Then, when I got into Kpop in 2017, I found that urge to write again and decided to move to Tumblr since WattPad was becoming… weird. Plus Tumblr was a better fit for me!

What inspires you to write? To be completely honest, it’s the little things throughout the day that inspire me. For example, “Honey” was inspired by me not being able to open my locker in high school. “I Hemoglobin You” was based off my friend giving me a head rub while I was donating blood. Kpop idols just so happen to be my muses that I like to put into random moments of inspiration!

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? High school or college AUs are my favorite, along with some good ol’ friends to lovers slow burn. Angst isn’t my forte so I usually just stick to fluff, smut, and some crack. I haven’t written any but fantasy AUs are some of my favorites too! (RIP to my League of Legends AU that I started and haven’t touched in months.)

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? Just like other fanfiction authors inspire me, I hope some of my work inspires others. Considering fanfiction is free, there is so much out there to read and when I find a good story that inspires ME to write better, I’d love for my writing to do the same.

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? 3 options: 1) Skip that scene and jump ahead to one I’m excited to write; 2) Erase what part I’m on and completely redo it; or 3) Drop it. The majority of my works usually take a few months to write as I will completely stop working on it until I find the right inspiration again. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? “Four” is definitely my favorite work. It’s one of my longer pieces and there was a lot of raw emotion in there on my end. I love the relationship between Hyunjin and the reader and especially love the ending. “Greatest Gift” for Chanyeol is my most successful, and one of my other favorites!

Who is your favorite person to write about? Easily Hwang Hyunjin. It’s so easy to place him in any of my works, and sometimes it’s a struggle to NOT write him. It sounds stupid but sometimes I really feel like I “know” him so being able to describe him physically and mentally is easy for me.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? Yes and no. Yes, because most of the time, fanfiction is totally original as well and requires just as much thought as a 400,000 word novel. No, because fanfiction uses a specific person as a muse.

What do you think makes a good story? Detail and realistic dialogue! Of course, everyone has their own style of writing, but detail is especially important to me. Sure, you can have a great plot, but having concise, detailed writing to get immersed into makes a story so much better. I also find realistic dialogue to be a big deal— I hate when teenage characters are speaking in deep analogies because, if we’re being honest, my daily language is 95% just “Bruh.” If you’re like me, I’d actually prefer realistic dialogue over anything else.

What is your writing process like? Process… yikes. Sometimes… I have a random thought and then I’m like… hell yeah let’s write that. I actually have no process. I don’t outline, I just start writing and keep writing until I’m finished. Then I’ll read it all over to make edits, then I’ll use the Read Aloud feature to catch any mistakes I missed, then I’ll run it through Grammarly before posting!

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? Hm, maybe? In the future, possibly, but as of right now I wouldn’t use any of my fics to do so.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? Oh, gosh, tropes. Gotta love them. Friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, stuck together (AKA forced to share a bed), and fake relationships are my favorites. They may be corny, but I also love truth or dare or 7 minutes in heaven games in fics cus… they’re just classics. Also love fics with a popular x shy pairing. I can’t say I dislike many tropes, but I definitely have a love/hate relationship with vampire and werewolf tropes because of how romanticized they are.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? Hm, to be completely honest, only a little bit? I mainly write for myself, it’s like a guilty pleasure to just get all my thoughts and desires out, and then I just so happen to make it public on Tumblr. Nevertheless, receiving comments and asks actually make my day, and sometimes I still struggle to wrap my mind around people enjoying my writing! So, thank you to everyone who has ever left me a kind message, I truly appreciate it ♥

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? Getting involved! I think one of the best ways to grow is to join networks, which not only gives you the opportunity to share your work on a greater scale, but also allows you to make connections. Like real life, making connections and making friendships with other writers can play a huge role in growing as a writer and growing your account.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Yes :( As someone who’s involved with other fandoms, I’ve heard the way some people think of fanfiction and it’s really sad. People do not know how much goes into writing and just see it as cringey and disgusting when it’s just… not.

Do you think art can be a medium for change? Yes! In all its forms, art is something a creator can use to influence their audience (in a good way, hopefully).

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? Like I said in #40, I mainly write for myself. Even when I’m writing a request, chances are if I like the request enough I’m going to create a story out of it that fits my personal desires the most.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?  No! However, I’d still consider myself a small account and do not have TOO many works posted. But so far, I don’t think I’ve faced this problem :)

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? Only a few! My best friend Maggie is on Tumblr with me and only 2 of my other pals know I write fanfiction.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? How much I love each and every one of them for supporting me and sticking around even when I won’t post for months🥺❤️

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? Don’t psych yourself out! In the time I’ve spent on Tumblr, I’ve never received any substantial hate. My main advice is don’t write fanfiction to get popular on the app, write fanfiction because you love to write and love your muses!

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? No, as much as Tumblr can be annoying at times, I love the people I’ve met and the content I’ve found and wouldn’t have wanted to use any other platform.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? @pinktea99 — Mo, you’ve been around since the beginning honestly, and without you I wouldn’t have been able to come out of my shell! Thank you for all your love & support & for being my SF9 buddy❤️

Pick a quote to end your interview with: 

“Like mate, stop procrastinating.” — 3RACHA

BONUS ROUND: K-POP CONFIDENTIAL 

[quilloftheclouds]

11/11/11 Tag Game

I was actually tagged twice for this one, so it’s actually 22 instead of 11! Thanks to @marlettwrites​ and @inexorableblob​ for the tags, and apologies for the lateness of answering! I have quite the backlog of tag games. ^^’

Rules: Answer eleven questions, tag eleven people, and ask eleven questions!

1. What book has most inspired you to write? (could also be a tv show, podcast, song, whatever!)

Oooooffff, I need to get back into reading real books. Honestly? I know The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell was one of the inspirations from my childhood, but there are likely so many more that I’m not remembering.

2. What do you like to listen to while you write?

The range of genres of music I listen to is astounding and often completely random! If not, the music typically matches the atmosphere or mood of the scene I would currently be writing.

3. Favorite genre to read and/or write?

I love me some good ole fantasy. Right now I’m writing a historical fantasy, which is something I never thought I would do, but it’s been a whole lotta fun! I also really like writing and reading sci-fi! (I may or may not have another wip idea in the works that’s sci-fi HELP)

4. What are five aesthetic things for your WIP? (sounds, smells, feelings, colors, whatever floats your boat)

can I answer “the ocean” here or is that not allowed?

The smell of the sea, the smoothness of fish scales, the prickling of static electricity, the salty tang of blood, and creaking timbers of a storm tossed ship.

5. How did you come up with the idea for your WIP?

One Siren’s Soul was originally just a pirate au I shoved a bunch of previously created original characters into. And then the characters started changing to match the story and an actual plot started forming and it got out of hand. -u-

6. What initially inspired the creation of your MC(s)?

Ah. This is. Um. I’m a nerd. They’re all originally gemsonas. Steven Universe. Whoops. (Any guesses as to what their gemstones originally were? Celestine doesn’t count.) I basically was inspired by the metaphysical meanings attributed to each individual stone when creating their personalities and designs. Just to be clear, though, their characters have shifted dramatically from what they used to be.

7. Do any of your characters have pets? If so, what are they?

None of the characters have a pet at the start of the novel, but that ain’t gonna stay that way.

8. Are there any tropes that you absolutely despise?

Hmmm. Hm. I don’t really have any specific ones, but often negative stereotypes based solely on culture are big tropes I tend to really dislike. Sure, the people you’re depicting definitely do exist, but is it really necessary to portray a culture as being the exact same negative traits so many times? The detrimental effects of this are terrible, but that’s a rant for another day.

9. What are the main themes of your WIP?

... I’m never really the best with these. ^^’ Let’s see... I mean, there’s your classic enemies to lovers, tons of betterment of self stuff and adapting to and understanding one’s own flaws, lotta communication themes, family, change vs. tradition, a big chunk of power and corruption... Yeah. I guess. I need to get better at this.

10. What motivates your antagonist (or if it’s man vs nature, how did your protag get stuck in their sticky sitch)?

NyehehheehHEHEHEHEHHHEEEE oohhhhh isn’t this such an interesting, spoiler inducing question. First off, who exactly is my antagonist? Captain Io? Rose? Dione? The Scientist? Clearly it’s Colin. Has to be.

So what motivates this so-called antagonist? He wishes he could make friends with everyone and obviously it’s because Celestine refuses to be friends with anyone.

(Okay but jokes aside this is a major discovery in the book, so I can’t quite reveal that yet. ^^’)

Context-less spoilers: Someone’s really not impressed with their sibling, and someone else wants someone because they’re a meanie jerk.

11. If your MC were to buy ice cream, what flavor would they get? (I had to finish it off with a fun one)

This is a cute question! If any of my MCs actually knew what ice cream was: Celestine would get the sweetest thing offered, like cotton candy or bubblegum, because she’s a gigantic sweet tooth; Colin likes your classic puppy paws; Dione is boring and would get something like French vanilla or strawberry; and Phoenix loves chocolate way too much.

Round two!

1. Would you rather adapt your WIP to TV/streaming or Film/Movie?

In personal experience, I’ve typically preferred movie adaptations to TV series ones. Plus, the story is very dependent on specific plot points that need to follow very closely consecutively, and I feel splitting that up into individual episodes would really chop up the flow.

2. Who would Sean Bean play in your WIP?

Uuuhhhhhhhhhh I have no clue mate. The closest character appearance wise to him would be George?

3. What in the real world besides books/media has inspired your WIP?

The ocean. I am a maritimer from birth and shall always be! Also my family took a two week road trip across Newfoundland one Summer and it was so fun and so pretty and I loved it so much I put the setting of One Siren’s Soul there. So yeah!

4. What authors do you avoid?

To be completely honest, I haven’t been reading much lately! But I’m sorry, I never did really like Veronica Roth’s Divergent. So... maybe her?

5. If you had to hide a secret message in your WIP, how would you hide it?

Heh. Who’s to say there isn’t? In the chapter titles and how they correspond to the text? NYEEHEHHE

6. Would you rather have an OC of yours make you breakfast in bed or do your laundry?

... Breakfast in bed. Slight spoiler: Phoenix is an utterly amazing cook.

7. Do you learn better from experience or instruction?

I really do appreciate instruction but for me it’s typically experience! Either that or learning by example. By example is often the best way for me.

8. What is the grossest thing you have ever seen/smelled/tasted/touch/heard about?

Ever taste dandelion blood? I was a dumb child.

9. Wallpaper or paint?

My mate, wallpaper is so pretty if you’re going for the fancy older house aesthetic, but it’s super expensive and inefficient. You can do just as well with paint and pictures/furniture pieces.

10. What would the Devil try to tempt you with? Money? Power? Love? Boots?

More hats for my collection.

11. If you attended your own funeral, what would offend you most, People not showing up, or people faking emotions, or something else?

I think it would be people only being there to take advantage of others somehow? Like... money or... yeah I got nothing. I would prefer a celebration of life to a funeral, though.

What a last question for that one! XD Here’s my own eleven questions for some other people!

1. What flowers would be used in a flower crown for your MCs?

2. What kind of scenes are your favourite to write?

3. What three words would you use to describe your wip(s)?

4. Which of your OCs is most similar to you? Least similar?

5. Are you a plant or animal person? What’s either your favourite plant or animal?

6. What would be your favourite classic AU for your wip(s)?

7. If you had to choose one song to be your own theme song, what would it be?

8. What was your very first wip?

9. Who is the most patient of your OCs? The least?

10. What would be the pet each of your MCs would get if they had the option to get anything?

11. How would you describe your writing style?

Taggin’ taggin’ time (I’m a rebel and won’t tag 11 ‘cause I don’t know that many people yet ^^’):  @imaghostwriter​ @alinakerrin @bookish-actor @scottishhellhound 

Have fun if you want to do it!

[idlelitany]

Tunes for the road: Magic Pie and The Ultracheese

Located on a bustling street corner between a pub and a Mediterranean restaurant, Lulu’s Chocolate Bar is a cozy dessert shop that specializes in homemade sweets and fruity cocktails. Like most buildings in downtown Savannah, this one is snuggled against the one beside it. It’s a modest place with typical architecture for the time—prominent red bricks and green window panes along the upper floors. The latter serves as a reminder that these buildings were once inner city apartment complexes.

Lulu’s Chocolate Bar Front

Lulu’s Chocolate Bar Side

(Click photos for a bigger view.)

The first floor, where Lulu’s Chocolate Bar is located, was a general wholesale store once upon a time. If you come early enough (or if you have better eyesight than me), you can still see its faded green sign right above the shop. It was renovated years ago to fit the bar’s image.

Before you even step through the door, you can already tell what Lulu’s is about.

First off, I want to say that they do have food, y’know what people call “actual food”—fancy dishes like Saucisson Sec, Prosciutto, and Mousse of Duck Foie Gras—but it isn’t the first thing people look at when they open up their menus. It sure as sin wasn’t my first choice either. It would be downright disrespectful. Lulu’s has been voted the best dessert joint in Savannah since 2008 by readers of Connect Savannah Magazine… and with good reason.

They’ve got an array of desserts to choose from. Aside from their house specials (like their mouthwatering strawberry suspension cake, which is all held together by a sleeve of chocolate), the desserts change every other day! So, you can sample something new every time you visit.

Each dessert is presented the same way. There are two twists of whip cream off to the side and, depending on what you order, they include messy squirts of either chocolate or condensed milk scattered all over the plate.

My friend and I settled on three desserts because who can stop at just one? (Please don’t judge us.)

THE DESSERT

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake

A combination of the classics? Sign me up! This was a cold, melt-in-your-mouth slice of cheesecake that featured an oreo bottom to add a little bit of crunch to every bite. The cookies n’ cream flavor exploded in your mouth.

My main issue? I only ordered one slice.

Cookie warning: the mini oreo on top of the cake was soft since they stored it ready to go in a refrigerated area. I personally liked that, but if you like your oreos less mushy, then you’d probably want to set it aside. Maybe replace it with one of those dollops of whip cream they add for you?

  Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

This was a mouthful of decadent Reeses-esque goodness. Soft, gooey peanut butter was sandwiched between a sleeve of chocolate, which gave the cake more texture. The pie had a hard outer shell made of cookie and featured peanuts sprinkled on top. I originally thought that the peanuts were put there for presentation and would detract from the overall taste, but that definitely wasn’t the case. The peanuts weren’t salted, so it gave the final bites a certain coarseness that made it easier to eat. Yay for crunch!

What I didn’t like was that the bottom was made of the same chocolate layer as the top, which made me get tired of it fast… really fast. For this, you need to order a drink or a different dessert to break up the flavor and consistency. I thought it would’ve been better to have the hard cookie layer on the back extend to the bottom like a cheesecake.

Honey Lavender Cake

This one confused my senses, but in a good way. I admit, we ordered this because we wanted to feel posh by having something purple with an elegant name laid out in front of us. But damn, if eating this wasn’t a ride for our taste buds.

It tasted like… aroma.

Even I have no idea what in the world that means.

It had a lavender hint to it that reached my nose every time I chewed, which messed with my senses. (It’s kind of like those instances when you smell something so strong that you end up tasting it, but the other way around.) Other than that, it tasted pretty much like vanilla cake with a dab of honey for extra zest.

Despite making me question its existence, I thought this cake was well worth its price ($8.50). It was made of three layers of spongy vanilla that was broken up with lavender icing. The frosting was creamy, but not so thick that it was a chore to chew. The amount of sugar was just right.

Overall, the taste was one-of-a-kind. The design was cute, and trying to figure it out made me enjoy it the most out of the three. Still, it was confusing… maybe they designed it to be that way? They’ve certainly got me talking about it.

THE DRINKS

At Lulu’s, you can even drink your dessert! Different kinds of martinis and cocktails dominate their menu. They get insane bonus points for serving them in big glasses. Even their “shots” are served in regular-sized cups. Their shape is the only thing that gives them that shot-glass-pass.

Lulu’s Chocolate Russian Shot

(You’re on thin ice, over-sized shots.)

We ordered three drinks to match the number of desserts. I’m not a cocktail connoisseur, but I can tell you that they each had a fair amount of alcohol. I’d definitely advise against buying three. They might upset your stomach, especially if you’re having them with cake.

From left to right: Peanut Butter Cup Martini, Lulu’s Chocolate Russian Shot, B-52 Coffee

Expect varying degrees of bitterness in each drink. Despite their sweet names, they’ve got kick. If you order something with chocolate like what we did, then you need to mix it with a small spoon or drink it fast because the chocolate tends to clump at the bottom.

Strangely enough, I didn’t feel like the added sweetness in the drinks did much (except add extra calories and afford them cool names). It still couldn’t mask that bitter bite of alcohol after every sip, and it would often interfere with the flavor of the dessert I was eating. They did make a good palette cleanser between cakes though.

B-52 Coffee

The other drinks were decent, but the B-52 Coffee had me setting it aside after only one sip.

Coffee is great on its own. B-52 is great on its own. Together? It tasted like a viciously hot latte with an aftertaste of sour Skittles because who values flavor?

I strongly believe that the only reason the whip cream was there was for mercy. It was meant to be scooped up with that strategically placed spoon they included to get rid of the flavor.

(Don’t worry, I still braved it afterwards. No, I wasn’t dared. Yes, I count it as a life achievement.)

THE STAFF

Early Bird

Everyone was really friendly and easy to talk to. I feel like the quickness of service here depends on what time you come. Like all places, waiters and waitresses are limited. It can get packed in the evenings, and you can actually spot them running in and out of the kitchen if you sit nearby. But they’re all sweet, patient people that don’t rush you, despite the line they’ve got outside.

THE PLACE

Lulu’s atmosphere enveloped me as soon as I walked through the door. The dim lighting told me that this was, indeed, a bar, despite the many seats and tables littered across the scant distance in front of me. Standing there felt akin to lingering on the sidelines of an upscale lounge without all of the stuffy awkwardness that came with actually lingering on the sidelines of an upscale lounge. The brick walls and dark wood furniture combined to give Lulu’s a chic, yet cozy look.

Dessert Display Case

Podium

(Click photos for a bigger view.)

The podium in front of the door caught my attention. While there was a high-tech looking music player immediately to my left, my eyes were swiftly drawn to the display case chockfull of desserts. I’d like to say that the well-stocked bar in back of it didn’t interest me, but that would be a lie. (Under 21 habits die hard.)

(Click photos for a bigger view.)

To the right, were sturdy, wooden tables and a long line of chairs. Paintings hung from the walls. They were small and blended in with the faded bricks they were propped on top of. Each was unobtrusive enough that my eyes easily wandered away after a moment. Honestly, I’d feel awkward if they weren’t inconspicuous because once people began coming in and sitting in the seats in front of them, it’d be embarrassing to be caught gaping. Thankfully, the place wasn’t too packed when we had our desserts. But it was small enough that you could hear the conversation of the next table over.

I found them easy to tune out because echoes of rock bands that I loved cut through the air by the time we were served; it was a great playlist of Queen, Foo Fighters, and Audioslave. (I don’t know who put it on, but bless them.) It made sitting fun.

On the upper-left above the register, they missed an opportunity to say: ‘Cakeout here’ 😦

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Lulu’s is a cool place with rad desserts, great atmosphere, and friendly staff. The price isn’t bad, though they might be steep for folks that don’t like splurging on desserts. Their drinks are creative, but can be a hit or miss. Thankfully, their sweets more than make up for it.  I recommend it as a place to go to after a late lunch, then top it off with some shopping along Broughton Street or a stroll near the Savannah River.

The best hours to pop in are immediately after they open and near midnight. 6pm to 10pm are their peak hours, so you might not be able to find a seat.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Contact: Website | Directions Hours: 2pm – 12am (Sunday to Thursday); 2pm – 1:30am (Friday & Saturday) Happy Hour: 2pm – 6pm daily (Bonus: different drink promos every day) Reviews: Yelp | Trip Advisor

Lulu’s Dessert Mania! Tunes for the road: Magic Pie and The Ultracheese Located on a bustling street corner between a pub and a Mediterranean restaurant, Lulu’s Chocolate Bar is a cozy dessert shop that specializes in homemade sweets and fruity cocktails.

[the-grumpy-panda]

That's Not A Snack Box...

THIS is a snack box! Oof. An extremely outdated and severely tired Crocodile Dundee joke? I'm sorry. So very sorry. But it's time for another snack box adventure. This time from Australia! Land of Brody Dalle! Land of Isla Fisher! Land of the Irukandji jellyfish! All beautiful and deadly in their own unique way. Thanks, Australia. This sugary, salty and unhealthy excursion is courtesy of Snack Crate. A bit pricier (although I did opt for the 'premium' box) than other boxes I've tried, but this box is quite hefty and fully loaded with a wide assortment, and for a few bucks more, they also offer a drink option, which I of course threw in as well. I want the whole experience. So as a (possibly) one time splurge, I feel alright with the price. For anyone not wanting to splurge big, there are a total of three box sizes to choose from. Of course, the lower the price, the less goodies you'll receive. Two day shipping is also already included in the price. Express shipping is also available if you simply can't wait two days. But I'll tell ya, I ordered my trial box on a Friday evening, and the very following Monday afternoon I had it in my hands. That's a hell of a fast turnaround, and I praise Snack Crate for that. The insides were wrapped in a pleasant and fun themed paper, also included was a sleeve of Australian based stickers (Fun! I'm not going to secretly decorate the desk of the girl I secretly like as if I were a ten year old...) and the always appreciated sturdy booklet with some fun Australia facts, information and a run down of all the treats included in the box. All it truly lacked was a hand written welcome and a picture from Rose Byrne to class it up a bit. Come on Australia, she just looks like a princess, put her to use! For ease and comfort, I'm just going to run down the treats in the order they appear in the booklet. So, put on some Colin Hay (an Australian transplant, but I'll allow it) music and settle in, we're off to a land of snacks atop the counter! -Violet Crumble! A crunchy honeycomb toffee center coated in milk chocolate. I was not expecting this to be as crunchy as it is. It bites as if it were frozen. Even with the density of the center, it melts nicely in your mouth. It's a very airy sort of nougat. For being as hard as it is, the airiness is still a perplexing note. This is a candy bar to study! It's also fortunately very tasty. A very smooth honey infused toffee flavor that is delicious and makes me wish more treats used this formula. A great way to start this box!

-Milo Snack! Crunchy cereal pieces mixed with chocolate powder and dipped in milk. Hmm. Cereal pieces is a vague description. Dipping in milk seems odd to me for some reason in a pre-packaged item. Can't specifically explain why. Let's open this oddity and see what we see. Upon opening I discover it looks like one of those ready to go milk and cereal bars available nowadays. This looks like Cocoa Krispies smooshed up and then yes, a layer on the bottom of whatever milk substance companies use to make sure milk congeals and sticks to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, this bar smells exactly like dried dog food, so my first, and very tiny, bite is taken with trepidation. Not a winner here. It tastes merely of very old and very stale Cocoa Puffs. -French Fries Original! Australia's original potato straw snack! Just a simple and classic salty potato chip flavor, but in straw form. These do have a pleasant crunch, though. -Tim Tam Original! Two chocolate cookie biscuits filled with chocolate cream and covered in chocolate. For all the chocoholics! The name Tim Tam seems familiar. Either I've had them before somewhere along the way, or they are so popular in Australia, knowledge of their existence has permeated out. Like Natalie Imbruglia. You know the name, but you can't remember when last you saw her and if you liked her music or not. Time to try it again. Ha. These deliver exactly what they promise. Chocolate on chocolate covered in chocolate. A nice cookie crunch that's not too hard, the middle is tasty and the covering chocolate is smooth, creamy and adds to the whole flavor. A good treat, but one that could also get old quickly. Eat in small doses. -Fantales! Smooth and velvety caramels, coated with milk chocolate. Quite dense. Be prepared to be gnawing on this little sucker for a couple of minutes. It's not great, but it's certainly not awful. Comparable to a Milk Dud I suppose, but with a higher chocolate component and better made. I'd eat one if offered, but not a caramel treat I'd actively seek out for myself. -Arnott's Shapes Pizza! Pizza flavored biscuits. Um, what exactly do pizzas in Australia look like? These crackers resemble coffins to me. Which is fine, I'm into it, but is this a general Australian pizza shape or am I just a rambling moron inadvertently insulting an entire country? I'm not really getting a "pizza" taste here. It's more like an oregano infused cracker. Not bad for what it is, but it's lacking something and doesn't deliver the promised flavor. Or maybe it does. Someone send over Karen Martini to make me an Australian pizza, please. Thanks. -Twisties Cheese! Apparently Australia's most popular snack. Corn and rice snack with cheese flavoring! Let's crack a bag! They look like Chee-Tos, but the taste is definitely different. This cheese coating seems a bit creamier or milkier and they're not as salty as Chee-Tos, which is a big bonus. All said and done, though, I like these but I don't love them.

-All the snacking has made me thirsty. Luckily I opted for the drink! Here comes Solo Original Lemon! A refreshing drink made with 5% crushed lemons! The can says so! And it absolutely shows in the flavor. This is not just another "lemon-lime" sugared up soda. Oh, no. This is like a very genuine and nicely home made lemonade with some carbonation thrown in. I dig it. It is refreshing and tasty. Back to the foods! -Chomp Caramel! A crispy wafer layered with caramel then coated with chocolate. I have nothing else to compare this to other than a Charleston Chew, but it is most assuredly not a Charleston Chew. It bears the same shape, the consistency is close, but the flavor of the Chomp is far superior and the addition of a thin wafer layer gives the Chomp bar a very nice and welcome crunch and added fun element. The caramel here is very smooth, and it eats easily, as opposed to a Charleston Chew trying to yank your fillings out. A solid winner, here.

-Allen's Pineapples! Pineapple shaped gummy candy! A bit more solid than gummy candies I'm used to, and the pineapple flavor is very subtle. Another not great but not bad candy. Pairs well with the Solo Lemon drink, though, for a weird sort of tropical taste trip. -Wagon Wheels! Marshmallow filling between two soft biscuits and dipped in chocolate. Sounds like a Moon Pie to me! Let's see if we'll notice any differences. It's certainly a lot thinner than a Moon Pie. The cookie, while soft, still has a bit of a welcome crunch to it, the chocolate is very chocolatey and what I didn't know at first was this Wagon Wheel also has a thin layer of jam within. It doesn't say what kind of jam, so it could be Vegemite jam. But since my American taste buds aren't heaving, it's safe to assume it's some sort of fruit jam. I like this a lot, and far better than the Moon Pies I'm used to, which admittedly I haven't eaten one in probably twenty years. Just not a fan. The Wagon Wheel also gets to be too much of a good thing. A mini Wagon Wheel would be a perfect serving size. -Milky Way! Yep, a Milky Way! But the Australian version is only filled with a light and sweet nougat. Which means it's a 3 Musketeers bar. Nice try Australia! I'm on to your ruse. You owe me one Abbie Cornish. -Iced Vovo! A biscuit topped with pink fondant, a strip of raspberry filling and sprinkled with coconut. These are a beautiful cookie. Ready made for presentations and for putting on airs. If you were fifteen and had no idea how to impress anyone, that is. And that's not a slam against the cookie... but it is still just a cookie. Taste wise, they are sadly just okay. I like the cookie part, I like the raspberry stripe, but the fondant and the coconut just don't work and those two items should never be paired together to begin with. But I'm going to place the majority of the blame on the fondant. A raspberry coconut cookie could have been lovely. Fondant is... it's just somehow not right. Ever. I know you know what I mean. How cake makers get away with using it so much is a mystery to me. -Chokito! A Milk chocolate bar filled with caramel and crispy rice. Or as the packaging proclaims... "Chewy Caramel Fudge! Crunchy Balls! & Loads Of Chocolate!" This doesn't quite work. It tastes like all the ingredients are quite cheap, and seems like a drunk babysitter just dumped leftover pieces from other treats into bowl and gave it to you to shut you up for a minute. This candy bar made me sad. -Cherry Ripe! A mix of cherry, coconut and dark chocolate! Australia's oldest candy bar! I would have been much better served by this were it bite size pieces instead of a whole bar. It's good, I enjoy it, but it has far too much coconut. The cherry notes are wonderful when they finally fight their way through the coconut. -Peppermint Crisp. Milk chocolate bar filled with thin cylinders of peppermint flavored toffee pieces. Those who know know I'm no fan or friend of mint, but I'll try this bar all the same. Nope. Nope Nope. Nope. It's like a candy cane covered in chocolate and the inside color is that of mouth wash. Nope Nope Nope. Don't want. -Caramello Koala! A chocolate bar filled with caramel. Pretty direct. And exactly what you'd expect. It's made by Cadbury, so it's safe to assume most of us have had a chocolate and caramel product by Cadbury at some point, or at least something strikingly similar. No muss or fuss here, it is what it claims to be and serves its purpose.

-Cheezels! Corn and rice rings with a zesty cheddar cheese sauce! Very similar in taste to Chee-Tos Paws but a bit crunchier. Not bad. Slightly too salty for me, all the same, though. -Cadbury Picnic! Crispy wafer with caramel, peanuts and raisins covered in chocolate. A very hard candy bar. Watch your teeth with these. Taste a lot like a frozen Baby Ruth bar somehow. It's alright, but it's hardness level wouldn't make me a repeat buyer.

-Golden Vines Anzac Biscuits! Just a big ol' honking cookie. Apparently these were sent to Australian soldiers in WW1 as a reminder of home. This might be one leftover from then. It's hard, it's dry, and it's only remotely sweet. Tastes like an oatmeal cookie that only used honey for sweetening. All that being said, I can honestly see the appeal to this cookie. Once I swallowed my initial bite and set it aside, the flavors really took hold and I want another bite. It's very large, though, so I imagine this one cookie will last a few days, if not a week. Which makes their part of soldier history make a lot more sense, as well. This seemingly bland and innocuous little cookie is the surprising little cookie that could. Thumbs up. -Wizz Fizz Sherbet! A sweet powder that fizzes in your mouth! Thanks Wizz Fizz. I am now coated in your powdery wares because opening this little pack was like opening a gag gift. Despite my efforts to prevent such a thing, the moment the package got the tiniest tear, its contents flew everywhere. So now I must appear to be a messy baker covered in powdered sugar, or some sort of coke fiend who knocked over his mirror. Including a tiny spoon in your packaging just the right size for a "sniff" isn't helping. Are you trying to be the "cool" "street cred" candy maker? Plus, your product doesn't fizz whatsoever in my mouth. It sat there, lumping up like a gob of remorse. This product sucks. I hate everything about it. -Last in line for this sojourn is Allen's Chico's! Cocoa flavored gummy candies! Gelatin and cocoa just do not mix. It's like uncooked brownie batter left atop your fridge for two weeks. Dang. Ended on a sad note. Just the way things go sometimes. Might be a good time to revisit the 1996 Australian bio-pic "Shine." Or perhaps 1978's "Patrick." Thanks again, Australia. Until next time, I am momentarily The Grumpy Koala. Koala's sleep up to twenty hours a day! Waking to eat, and "socialize." Now that's a life. Cheers, mates!

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Daniel's Favorite Recipes of 2018

[Photographs: Vicky Wasik, unless otherwise noted]

This was a big year for me. At the end of 2017, my wife, Kate, and I had a baby, so 2018 was our wild walk through his first year as he grew from a little lump of flesh to a walking and talking(ish) mini human who loves to dance to music, give hugs, and eat literally everything we put in front of him—and we've put some ambitious food on his plate.* This life-changing new family member has also meant that my memory of the past year is something of a blur. What did I cook? What did I write?

* By my own personal standards, I think he's excelling in all the important areas.

This year has also been a big one for the Serious Eats culinary team. You likely (hopefully) never noticed this, but we'd been separated from our colleagues for nearly two years as our new test kitchen finished construction. We produced our recipes and cooking articles from all sorts of temporary spaces, including commercial kitchen rentals, AirBnB rentals, and even my apartment. Finally, though, the work was completed and we moved in (technically we moved in several months before the gas was turned on, using induction units as our only mode of "stovetop" cooking, but now even the gas flows, strong and hot). That gives us a lot to look forward to in 2019, our first year with a fully functioning test kitchen from day one. We've got a lot to cook for you in there!

Before we do, though, here are some of my favorite recipes from the last year. It took some sorting through our archives to jog my blurred memory, but I'm glad I did. We shared a lot of delicious stuff that's worth remembering.

This is one of my last recipes of 2018, and I am very proud of it. Duck à l'orange is one of those dishes that's been bastardized to the point where many renditions now bare little resemblance to the original, often featuring roasted duck doused in an overly sweet orangey glop. Instead of just copying the methods and ratios of most of the other recipes that are online now, I decided to go back to the beginning, making the sauce, classically known as sauce bigarade, with the bitter oranges that are meant to be used. Then I did my best to rejigger things to approximate that more complex, less sweet, flavor in my recipe for the sauce. Tart and aromatic, it's the perfect foil for fatty duck, and also a prime option for the holiday table.

Get the recipe for duck à l'orange or read about the process and testing »

When Sho approached me with the idea of doing a series of ramen recipes including homemade noodles and two different broths that harness the power of the pressure cooker, I got really excited. Homemade ramen is one of those things that just doesn't seem worth the effort, especially when you live near great ramen shops that can serve up a bowl in five minutes, then do the dishes for you. But add in the time savings of the pressure cooker, and the fact that you can first make this clear and savory shoyu broth, then a second creamy paitan broth using the spent ingredients from the first one, and that's a project I'm down for. The results are killer, and remarkably doable.

Get the recipe for chintan shoyu ramen or read about the process and testing »

Senior culinary editor Sasha Marx joined our team late this year, and he hit the ground running. He grew up in Rome, and we wasted no time asking him to share some of his expertise on that city's cuisine. One of the most memorable is his absolutely perfect take on pasta alla gricia—one of Rome's foundational pasta dishes, starring little more than cured pork jowl, cheese, and black pepper. His bowl of rigatoni is coated in a glistening, emulsified sheen of rendered fat and Pecorino Romano, all of it deeply infused into the pasta during a many-minute finishing step in the sauce. This here is how to cook pasta right.

Get the recipe for pasta alla gricia or read about the process and testing »

Coming up with a centerpiece-worthy vegetarian main course for the holidays is an extremely difficult task. Vegetables just don't lend themselves to impressively hulking roasts the way meat does. I'd been wracking my brain for weeks trying to think up something clever and not tired, and was about to give up. Then Sasha suggested stuffed pumpkins. Here's the thing—I know those words don't necessarily grab one's attention. Stuffed pumpkins? Yawn. But these are no joke. Loaded with a custardy savory bread pudding, heaps of melted cheese, sautéed mushrooms, kale, and more, his stuffed pumpkins can take on any slab of roast meat or poultry, delivering layers of flavor and texture in each bite. I would happily take one and leave the meat for everyone else. Or...maybe have both?

Get the recipe for stuffed roasted pumpkins or read about the process and testing »

I'm not a huge frosted cake fanatic, and Stella isn't a huge Italian buttercream fan (you can read why here), making this an unlikely selection on my list. But despite all the odds stacked against it, this one was one of my favorite recipes she made this year. There's just something about the flavor of that honey in the light, fluffy buttercream, especially with a healthy pop of salt, that just does it for me. There's a lot of cake I'll say "no thanks" to, but this one is a "yes, please," over and over, and over again.

Get the recipe for honey buttercream or read about the process and testing »

This is another one of those French classics I tackled this year, and I was surprised at the tweaks I found to make the recipe, I believe, better. First I introduced a dry-brining step, which makes it possible to both season the steak and get the peppercorns to adhere to it (if you put the salt on right before cooking, the pepper won't stick), leading many chefs to add the salt after the peppercorns—in which case the salt doesn't stick! I also decided to only encrust one side of each steak with the pepper, allowing the other side to sear and develop a good fond in the pan that otherwise wouldn't happen with a layer of pepper in the way. That omitted portion of pepper, meanwhile, doesn't get lost: I bloom it in hot fat to develop its flavors, then work it directly into the pan sauce. Result: best of all worlds.

Get the recipe for steak au poivre or read about the process and testing »

I devoted a considerable amount of time this year to digging deeper into the world of mortars and pestles, which I believe should be used way more frequently than they are in most home kitchens. One of the fun byproducts was this recipe for a lesser known Italian pesto sauce. Originating in Sicily, this one replaces the pine nuts with almonds, and adds tomato to the mix, for a fresher, fruitier summery sauce. Dare I say I like it more than classic pesto?

Get the recipe for pesto alla trapanese or read about the process and testing »

When Stella unveiled her cookie ice creams (no, not cookie dough ice creams) a couple years ago, we all went crazy for them. It didn't take long for us to start lobbying her for even more recipes featuring our own favorite cookies. The fact that oatmeal-raisin are at the top of my cookie list very possibly had nothing to do with Stella deciding to turn them into this outrageous scoop, but I'd like to think otherwise.

Get the recipe for oatmeal-raisin cookie ice cream or read about the process and testing »

Inspired by Popeye's but worlds beyond it in flavor (and I say that as a diehard Popeye's fanatic), this fried chicken recipe from Sohla belongs in everyone's rotation...unless you're a mutant who doesn't like fried chicken (okay, okay, or a vegetarian). The buttermilk-brined chicken is juicy, the crust is crispy and nubby, and it's drizzled in honey-butter, then finished with a dusting a fragrant ground spices and chilies. It's hard to top Popeye's, but the twists and turns here just might do it.

Get the recipe for fried chicken with honey and spice or read about the process and testing »

[Photograph: Liz Clayman]

As I near the end of my top picks list, I begin to see a trend emerging: I set my sights on a fair number of classic French dishes. I'm not unhappy about that. This exploration of bouillabaisse got me thinking all about fish—specifically, how to select ones that approximate what traditionally goes into the soup, given that we don't have access to most of the fish used in Marseille. Too many renditions of the dish in the United States have dodged this question, instead loading the soup up with lobster, scallops, clams, shrimp, and other fish that, while delicious, produce a broth that has very little in common with what bouillabaisse is all about.

Get the recipe for bouillabaisse or read about the process and testing »

I like mango lassi as much as, if not more than, the next person, but this salty rendition from Sohla is something I could drink morning, noon, and night. I'm not sure I'd ever tire of the savory combo of tangy yogurt and buttermilk with fresh mint and cilantro, fragrant spices, and a slow-burning hear of kashmiri chilies.

Get the recipe for salted mint lassi or read about the process and testing »

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Source: https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/12/daniels-favorite-recipes-of-2018.html

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Mint Quotes

Official Website: Mint Quotes

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• A man in all the world’s new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain. – William Shakespeare • A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. – Joseph Addison • A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. – Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible. – Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens; confounded their statesmen; struck their orators dumb; and at length argued them out of all their liberties. – Joseph Addison • Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription. – Henry Ward Beecher • After I got shot, you want to know the very first thing that entered my mind? The U.S. Mint. I am coin in the U.S. Army. Now, I have two small holes in me. I’m no longer perfectly culled. Do you want to know the very last thing that entered my mind, You. – Nicholas Sparks • Ally MacLeod thinks that tactics are a new kind of mint. – Billy Connolly • Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don’t think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. – Alice Hoffman • An emergency stash of Thin Mints. Frickin’ Girl Scouts. Those things were way to addictive. They had to be laced with crack.” Charlie Davidson Fourth Grave Beneath my Feet. – Darynda Jones • And eat lots of mints, it fools the cops. – Greg Proops • And you, my best friend on earth, my soul sister who shares Chunky Monkey scoops and beefcake e-mails at the drop of a hat, the woman who made me wear a frothy, ruffled lime-colored bridesmaid dress that added fifteen pounds to my hips, are going to spill your guts to me, aren’t you? (Sunshine) No fair and the dress wasn’t lime, it was mint. (Selena) It was lime-icky green and I looked like a sick pistachio. (Sunshine) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • Antiques to Die For sets the gold standard for the classic contemporary cozy. Agatha-finalist Jane K. Cleland’s writing is top-notch; her plotting and pace smooth and assured. This antiquing series is in mint condition! – Julia Spencer-Fleming • As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat. – Pliny the Elder

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Mint', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_mint').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_mint img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Basically the sort of guy who looks entirely at home in sockless white loafers and a mint-green knit shirt from Lacoste. – David Foster Wallace • Books were put out, and ‘had a run,’ / Like coinage from the mint; / But which could fill the place of one, / That one they wouldn’t print? – Phoebe Cary • Breath mints and Chapstick are key if you want to have a good kiss. – Brett Davern • Debasement was limited at first to one’s own territory. It was then found that one could do better by taking bad coins across the border of neighboring municipalities and exchanging them for good with ignorant common people, bringing back the good coins and debasing them again. More and more mints were established. Debasement accelerated in hyper-fashion until a halt was called after the subsidiary coins became practically worthless, and children played with them in the street, much as recounted in Leo Tolstoy’s short story, Ivan the Fool. – Charles P. Kindleberger • Do you think Sammy Davis ate Junior Mints? – George Carlin • Economy, the poor man’s mint. – Martin Farquhar Tupper • Even in the stifling bosom of the town, A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms That soothes the rich possessor; much consol’d, That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, Or nightshade, or valerian, grace the well He cultivates. – William Cowper • Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint. – Don Marquis • For clothes, I like Dover Street Market and Acne. For vintage, I go to Mint just off Seven Dials. For shoes, it’s Church’s and Russell & Bromley. – Matt Smith • Fresher than a pillow with a mint on it – Drake • God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: ‘Who hath required this at your hands?’ This is truly to be ‘righteous over-much,’ as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God’s law, and add supplements of our own to his rule. – William Gurnall • HAPA was like mint. You could rip it up, and six months later, it was back, healthier than ever. Mint smelled better, though, and you could make juleps out of it. I don’t know what I could make out of HAPA. Compost, maybe. – Kim Harrison • He held the book up to his nose. It smelled like Old Spice talcum powder. Books that smelled that way were usually fun to read. He threw the book onto his bed and went to his suitcase. After rummaging about for awhile, he came up with a long, narrow box of chocolate-covered mints. He loved to eat candy while he read, and lots of his favorite books at home had brown smudges on the corners of the pages. – John Bellairs • He tastes like mint and need, as he overpowers me with his tongue. – Jessica Sorensen • Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. – William Shakespeare • Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rise weeping. – William Shakespeare • How awful that the artist has become nothing but the after-dinner mint of society. – Samuel Barber • How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get the language with which to describe our various lives out of acommon mint. – Henry David Thoreau • I am a collector of many things, but I particularly love the sterling silver mint julep cups, each engraved with the titles of the Broadway shows in which I appeared. – Bryan Batt • I am too rich already, for my eyes Mint gold, while my heart cries. – Mervyn Peake • I come from down south, where vegetation does not know its place. Honeysuckle can work through cracks in your walls and strangle you while you sleep. Kudzu can completely shroud a house and a car parked in the yard in one growing season. Wisteria can lift a building off its foundation, and certain terrifying mints spread so rapidly that just the thought of them on a summer night can make your hair stand on end. – Bailey White • I eat anything, especially sweets. Chocolate, cookies, and I love mint-chip ice cream. – Mary McCormack • I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am. – Andrew Motion • I have a friend who actually told me that she’d rather be dead than be fat. This is a woman who, if I order a sandwich at lunch, she’ll order a salad. If I order a salad, she’ll order half a cantaloupe. If I order half a cantaloupe, she’ll order a cup of coffee. This bizarre contest continues until she’s down to sucking on a mint-flavored toothpick. At this rate, her preference for dying over being fat could be a reality sooner than she thinks. – Joy Behar • I have never been much of a groomer. I take baths a lot, but I don’t wear deodorant. I don’t have to. I have a miraculous body scent. I’ve had women smell me and say that should be bottled. I would advise guys to lay off the Drakkar, because the cavemen weren’t wearing it. They might have been putting mint leaves on their balls, but your scent is grown naturally. I have really good dating advice. – Zach Galifianakis • I loved Morocco. It’s very exotic and different from anywhere I’ve ever been. I had an amazing day there in the high Atlas Mountains near Mount Tamadot, when I rode by donkey into a Berber village and drank some mint tea with a Berber family. It was exceptional. – Isla Fisher • I made a decision to live outside the city in northern California. My agent said to me, ‘Kid, you’re going to make a mint in television movies.’ He positioned me, and we picked really good projects, and I cornered that market. They were 20-day projects. – Mare Winningham • I took a fresh pack of Luckies, a mint called Sen-Sen, my old man’s Trojans. – Billy Joel • I want you to take a sleeve of Thin Mints and line them up on the edge of the kitchen counter and when I’m hungry I can just bend over and sweep a cookie into my mouth like I’m scoring a goal in hockey.- Jack Gantos • I wouldn’t treat a romantic scene any differently than any other scene. I would really say the biggest preparation was chewing gum and breath mints! For a kissing scene, it’s all about the breath mints! – Alice Englert • If God takes away from us the old, wrinkled, beat-up dollar bill we have clutched so desperately, it is only because He wants to exchange it for the whole Federal mint, the entire treasury! He is saying to us, ‘I have in store for you all the resources of heaven. Help yourself.’ – Aiden Wilson Tozer • If someone offers you a breath mint, accept it. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • If you’d asked me at 30 where I’d be during the Masters when I was 46, I’d have pictured myself on a boat fishing, smoking a cigar, drinking a mint julep and watching it on television. – Jack Nicklaus • I’m from South Jersey: The idea of eating a roll with olive oil and anchovies or some kind of sardine and drinking mint tea definitely comes from reading Paul Bowles.- Patti Smith • In fact we put so many things in our mouths we constantly have to be reminded what not to eat. Look at that little package of silicon gel that’s inside your sneakers. It says DO NOT EAT for a reason. Somewhere sometime some genius bought a pair of sneakers and said Ooooh look. They give you free mints with the shoes – Morgan Spurlock • In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far, far better thing than the Superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one. This race attracts a very special breed. – Hunter S. Thompson • It is the destiny of mint to be crushed. – Waverley Root • It took me a sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mints and forty minutes to get over that boy. – John Green • It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again. – Maggie Stiefvater • It’s clear, it’s fresh, like a mint candy. – Margaret Atwood • Ive never drunk coffee. Im convinced it has something to do with why my skin is good. I have either mint, green or black tea. – Saffron Aldridge • Juno MacGuff: You can never have too many of your favorite one calorie breath mints. – Diablo Cody • Lately I’d begun carrying pain amulets in my bag, like some people have breath mints. – Kim Harrison • Life is legal tender, and individual character stamps its value. We are from a thousand mints, and all genuine. Despite our infinitely diverse appraisements, we make change for one another. So many ideals planted are worth the great gold of Socrates; so many impious laws broken are worth John Brown. – Louise Imogen Guiney • Luxury lives in the finer details. It’s a cloth napkin at a dinner table. It’s a mint on your pillow before bed. – Iggy Azalea • Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long, ‘Tis not with me exactly so; But ’tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more. – John Quincy Adams • My fridge is really just vegan: coconut water, Gatorade (my favorite!), cucumbers, mint, kale, vegetables, ginger, and wheat grass. – Serena Williams • My head is pounding. I wish the mints were aspirin. – Holly Black • My intuition told me that it was the grass that was important.Now it glows parrot-green, cool as mint, soft as moss, lying there like a cashmere blanket. – W. P. Kinsella • My wife is one of the best wimin on this Continent, altho’ she isn’t always gentle as a lamb with mint sauce. – Charles Farrar Browne • Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising. – Thomas B. Macaulay • Now if I cry on screen I think it’s mint. Because I think that’s how that person would feel at that time. And if it doesn’t, then it just doesn’t happen. – Michael B. Jordan • Number of empty Ben & Jerry’s containers: 3 – two mint chocolate cookie, one plain vanilla. (Who buys plain vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, anyway? Is there a greater waste?) – Ally Carter • Perhaps the most vivid recollection of my youth is that of the local wheelmen, led by my father, stopping at our home to eat pone, sip mint juleps, and flog the field hands. This more than anything cultivated my life-long aversion to bicycles. – Tennessee Williams • Peter curled his hands into fists at his sides. ‘Kiss me,’ he said. She leaned towards him slowly, until her face was too close to be in focus. Her hair fell over Peter’s shoulder like a curtain and her eyes closed. She smelled like autumn-like apple cider and slanting sun and the snap of the coming cold. He felt his heart scrambling, caught inside the confines of his own body. Josie’s lips landed just on the edge of his, almost his cheek and not quite his mouth. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t stuck in here alone,’ she said shyly, and he tasted the words, sweet as mint on her breath. – Jodi Picoult • Rogerson,” I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, “where would I find the pelagic zone?” “In the open sea,” he said. “Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints. – Sarah Dessen • Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite. – Ray Bradbury • Scoops of mint ice cream with chips of chocolate cows. – Jim Bishop • She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency. – Anthony Marra • Take from my palms, to soothe your heart, a little honey, a little sun, in obedience to Persephone’s bees. You can’t untie a boat that was never moored, nor hear a shadow in its furs, nor move through thick life without fear. For us, all that’s left is kisses tattered as the little bees that die when they leave the hive. Deep in the transparent night they’re still humming, at home in the dark wood on the mountain, in the mint and lungwort and the past. But lay to your heart my rough gift, this unlovely dry necklace of dead bees that once made a sun out of honey. – Osip Mandelstam • That the mounds of ices, and the bowls of mint-julep and sherry cobbler they make in these latitudes, are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in summer, by those who would preserve contented minds. – Charles Dickens • The coolest gift I’ve ever gotten from a fan was from the Franklin Mint. It was a knife, and it had a picture of General Wade Hampton, who my oldest son is named after. It’s a collector’s item and came with a case and a stand and everything. – Josh Turner • The creativity and pathology of the human mind are, after all, two sides of the same medal coined in the evolutionary mint. The first is responsible for the splendour of our cathedrals, the second for the gargoyles that decorate them to remind us that the world is full of monsters, devils, and succubi. – Arthur Koestler • The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought. – Nathaniel Hawthorne • The holy grail is right here in this gem of a book. Tosha Silver’s wisdom goes down as easy as a mint milkshake and leaves you feeling so free you’ll want to do cartwheels on the beach. But don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this message. Look no further for an easeful path to enlightenment infused with rapture and hope, which comes as much needed medicine for the soul. – Lissa Rankin • The irony is that Iraq actually has one of the richest and most sophisticated cuisines in the world. So many classic American or European foods – ceviche, albondigas, even the mint julep – have roots in Iraqi cuisine, which was a crossroads of Persian and Arab and Turkic traditions. The oldest written recipes in the world are from Iraq! – Annia Ciezadlo • The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last. – Evan Esar • The music community in Minneapolis is really incestuous so I’ve gotten the chance to work with a gang of people who have worked with Prince, Mint Condition, got to spend some time with Mujah Messiah, Atmosphere, P.O.S., Rhymesayers, a lot of poets around there. – Nikki Jean • The NRA made an ad saying that Obama is elitist because his kids have armed guards. Yeah, that crazy Obama thinking his kids need special protection. I love the NRA accusing anyone of being paranoid. It’s like a septic tank saying, ‘You need a mint.’ – Bill Maher • The only thing better than a superb collection of spinechilling stories, is a superb collection of spinechilling stories accompanied by equally unsettling illustrations, and in that regard, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example than IN MINT CONDITION: 2013. In reading it, I have discovered writers and artists previously unknown to me who are now very high on my radar, and they should be just as high on yours. – Kealan Patrick Burke • The other big factor in building trust quickly is site design quality. Mint.com has one of the best graphic designers ever (Jason Putorti) – he cares about every pixel, all the fonts, all the transparencies and effects. And that shows instantly. People do make judgments of trust on appearance – in the real world and online. – Aaron Patzer • The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow. – Langston Hughes • The reason I wanted to become an organ player was because I heard Ray Charles play on Quincy Jones’ arrangement of “One Mint Julep.” I heard that sound, and it just struck me. I thought that’s what I want to do with my life. That’s the sound I want to try to make. – Booker T. Jones • The savor of the water mint rejoiceth the heart of men. – John Gerard • The world is like a little marsh filled with mint and white hawthorn. – Mary MacLane • The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new. – Alexander Smith • The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world. – Jack Kerouac • Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time. – Alexander Pope • They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things– I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life’s ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There’s so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something. – Lisa Ann Sandell • Tic Tacs are the maracas of breath mints. – Demetri Martin • Use Starbucks mints for every occasion—they’re the strongest – Natalie Portman • Use your head, Sep. Loads of wolverines. Hanging around waiting for super. Gtting excited. eating mint blasts. so what do you think they do?’ it must be here. they can’t have eaten that… i dunno, Nik, what do they do?’ POO. – Angie Sage • What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn’t kill Mr. Nesbitt. – Walter Dean Myers • When all is complete deep in the teapot, when tea, mint, and sugar have completely diffused throughout the water, coloring and saturating it…then a glass will be filled and poured back into the mixture, blending it further. The comes waiting. Motionless waiting. Finally, from high up, like some green cataract whose sight and sound mesmerize, the tea will once again cascade into a glass. Now it can be drunk, dreamily, forehead bowed, fingers held wide away from the scalding glass. – Simonne Jacquemard • When Hale’s hand disappeared inside his tuxedo jacket, Macey wasn’t exactly sure what he’d find inside the pocket. It could have been another phone or a breath mint. Really, nothing would have surprised her. Well nothing except… “Is that an earbud?” she whispered. He smiled. “Are you on comms?” “Shhh,” he told her softly. – Ally Carter • Whether the darken’d room to muse invite, Or whiten’d wall provoke the skew’r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print. – Alexander Pope • Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of-girlfriend with a dagger, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints. – Rick Riordan • Why love the woman who is your wife? Her nose breathes in the air of a world that I know; therefore I love that nose. Her ears hear music I might sing half the night through; therefore I love her ears. Her eyes delight in seasons of the land; and so I love those eyes. Her tongue knows quince, peach, chokeberry, mint and lime; I love to hear it speaking. Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow, and pain. Shared and once again shared experience. – Ray Bradbury • Yet simple souls, their faith it knows no stint: Things least to be believed are most preferred. All counterfeits, as from truth’s sacred mint, Are readily believed if once put down in print – John Clare • Yinzer: DAMN!! I wish I had your balls! Tucker:”I wish you had a breath mint, but I guess we don’t always get what we wish for. – Tucker Max • Young playmates of the rose and daffodil, Be careful ere ye enter in, to fill Your baskets high With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines Savory latter-mint, and columbines. – John Keats

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Mint Quotes

Official Website: Mint Quotes

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• A man in all the world’s new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain. – William Shakespeare • A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. – Joseph Addison • A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. – Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible. – Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens; confounded their statesmen; struck their orators dumb; and at length argued them out of all their liberties. – Joseph Addison • Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription. – Henry Ward Beecher • After I got shot, you want to know the very first thing that entered my mind? The U.S. Mint. I am coin in the U.S. Army. Now, I have two small holes in me. I’m no longer perfectly culled. Do you want to know the very last thing that entered my mind, You. – Nicholas Sparks • Ally MacLeod thinks that tactics are a new kind of mint. – Billy Connolly • Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don’t think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. – Alice Hoffman • An emergency stash of Thin Mints. Frickin’ Girl Scouts. Those things were way to addictive. They had to be laced with crack.” Charlie Davidson Fourth Grave Beneath my Feet. – Darynda Jones • And eat lots of mints, it fools the cops. – Greg Proops • And you, my best friend on earth, my soul sister who shares Chunky Monkey scoops and beefcake e-mails at the drop of a hat, the woman who made me wear a frothy, ruffled lime-colored bridesmaid dress that added fifteen pounds to my hips, are going to spill your guts to me, aren’t you? (Sunshine) No fair and the dress wasn’t lime, it was mint. (Selena) It was lime-icky green and I looked like a sick pistachio. (Sunshine) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • Antiques to Die For sets the gold standard for the classic contemporary cozy. Agatha-finalist Jane K. Cleland’s writing is top-notch; her plotting and pace smooth and assured. This antiquing series is in mint condition! – Julia Spencer-Fleming • As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat. – Pliny the Elder

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Mint', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_mint').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_mint img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Basically the sort of guy who looks entirely at home in sockless white loafers and a mint-green knit shirt from Lacoste. – David Foster Wallace • Books were put out, and ‘had a run,’ / Like coinage from the mint; / But which could fill the place of one, / That one they wouldn’t print? – Phoebe Cary • Breath mints and Chapstick are key if you want to have a good kiss. – Brett Davern • Debasement was limited at first to one’s own territory. It was then found that one could do better by taking bad coins across the border of neighboring municipalities and exchanging them for good with ignorant common people, bringing back the good coins and debasing them again. More and more mints were established. Debasement accelerated in hyper-fashion until a halt was called after the subsidiary coins became practically worthless, and children played with them in the street, much as recounted in Leo Tolstoy’s short story, Ivan the Fool. – Charles P. Kindleberger • Do you think Sammy Davis ate Junior Mints? – George Carlin • Economy, the poor man’s mint. – Martin Farquhar Tupper • Even in the stifling bosom of the town, A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms That soothes the rich possessor; much consol’d, That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, Or nightshade, or valerian, grace the well He cultivates. – William Cowper • Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint. – Don Marquis • For clothes, I like Dover Street Market and Acne. For vintage, I go to Mint just off Seven Dials. For shoes, it’s Church’s and Russell & Bromley. – Matt Smith • Fresher than a pillow with a mint on it – Drake • God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: ‘Who hath required this at your hands?’ This is truly to be ‘righteous over-much,’ as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God’s law, and add supplements of our own to his rule. – William Gurnall • HAPA was like mint. You could rip it up, and six months later, it was back, healthier than ever. Mint smelled better, though, and you could make juleps out of it. I don’t know what I could make out of HAPA. Compost, maybe. – Kim Harrison • He held the book up to his nose. It smelled like Old Spice talcum powder. Books that smelled that way were usually fun to read. He threw the book onto his bed and went to his suitcase. After rummaging about for awhile, he came up with a long, narrow box of chocolate-covered mints. He loved to eat candy while he read, and lots of his favorite books at home had brown smudges on the corners of the pages. – John Bellairs • He tastes like mint and need, as he overpowers me with his tongue. – Jessica Sorensen • Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. – William Shakespeare • Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rise weeping. – William Shakespeare • How awful that the artist has become nothing but the after-dinner mint of society. – Samuel Barber • How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get the language with which to describe our various lives out of acommon mint. – Henry David Thoreau • I am a collector of many things, but I particularly love the sterling silver mint julep cups, each engraved with the titles of the Broadway shows in which I appeared. – Bryan Batt • I am too rich already, for my eyes Mint gold, while my heart cries. – Mervyn Peake • I come from down south, where vegetation does not know its place. Honeysuckle can work through cracks in your walls and strangle you while you sleep. Kudzu can completely shroud a house and a car parked in the yard in one growing season. Wisteria can lift a building off its foundation, and certain terrifying mints spread so rapidly that just the thought of them on a summer night can make your hair stand on end. – Bailey White • I eat anything, especially sweets. Chocolate, cookies, and I love mint-chip ice cream. – Mary McCormack • I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am. – Andrew Motion • I have a friend who actually told me that she’d rather be dead than be fat. This is a woman who, if I order a sandwich at lunch, she’ll order a salad. If I order a salad, she’ll order half a cantaloupe. If I order half a cantaloupe, she’ll order a cup of coffee. This bizarre contest continues until she’s down to sucking on a mint-flavored toothpick. At this rate, her preference for dying over being fat could be a reality sooner than she thinks. – Joy Behar • I have never been much of a groomer. I take baths a lot, but I don’t wear deodorant. I don’t have to. I have a miraculous body scent. I’ve had women smell me and say that should be bottled. I would advise guys to lay off the Drakkar, because the cavemen weren’t wearing it. They might have been putting mint leaves on their balls, but your scent is grown naturally. I have really good dating advice. – Zach Galifianakis • I loved Morocco. It’s very exotic and different from anywhere I’ve ever been. I had an amazing day there in the high Atlas Mountains near Mount Tamadot, when I rode by donkey into a Berber village and drank some mint tea with a Berber family. It was exceptional. – Isla Fisher • I made a decision to live outside the city in northern California. My agent said to me, ‘Kid, you’re going to make a mint in television movies.’ He positioned me, and we picked really good projects, and I cornered that market. They were 20-day projects. – Mare Winningham • I took a fresh pack of Luckies, a mint called Sen-Sen, my old man’s Trojans. – Billy Joel • I want you to take a sleeve of Thin Mints and line them up on the edge of the kitchen counter and when I’m hungry I can just bend over and sweep a cookie into my mouth like I’m scoring a goal in hockey.- Jack Gantos • I wouldn’t treat a romantic scene any differently than any other scene. I would really say the biggest preparation was chewing gum and breath mints! For a kissing scene, it’s all about the breath mints! – Alice Englert • If God takes away from us the old, wrinkled, beat-up dollar bill we have clutched so desperately, it is only because He wants to exchange it for the whole Federal mint, the entire treasury! He is saying to us, ‘I have in store for you all the resources of heaven. Help yourself.’ – Aiden Wilson Tozer • If someone offers you a breath mint, accept it. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • If you’d asked me at 30 where I’d be during the Masters when I was 46, I’d have pictured myself on a boat fishing, smoking a cigar, drinking a mint julep and watching it on television. – Jack Nicklaus • I’m from South Jersey: The idea of eating a roll with olive oil and anchovies or some kind of sardine and drinking mint tea definitely comes from reading Paul Bowles.- Patti Smith • In fact we put so many things in our mouths we constantly have to be reminded what not to eat. Look at that little package of silicon gel that’s inside your sneakers. It says DO NOT EAT for a reason. Somewhere sometime some genius bought a pair of sneakers and said Ooooh look. They give you free mints with the shoes – Morgan Spurlock • In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far, far better thing than the Superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one. This race attracts a very special breed. – Hunter S. Thompson • It is the destiny of mint to be crushed. – Waverley Root • It took me a sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mints and forty minutes to get over that boy. – John Green • It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again. – Maggie Stiefvater • It’s clear, it’s fresh, like a mint candy. – Margaret Atwood • Ive never drunk coffee. Im convinced it has something to do with why my skin is good. I have either mint, green or black tea. – Saffron Aldridge • Juno MacGuff: You can never have too many of your favorite one calorie breath mints. – Diablo Cody • Lately I’d begun carrying pain amulets in my bag, like some people have breath mints. – Kim Harrison • Life is legal tender, and individual character stamps its value. We are from a thousand mints, and all genuine. Despite our infinitely diverse appraisements, we make change for one another. So many ideals planted are worth the great gold of Socrates; so many impious laws broken are worth John Brown. – Louise Imogen Guiney • Luxury lives in the finer details. It’s a cloth napkin at a dinner table. It’s a mint on your pillow before bed. – Iggy Azalea • Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long, ‘Tis not with me exactly so; But ’tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more. – John Quincy Adams • My fridge is really just vegan: coconut water, Gatorade (my favorite!), cucumbers, mint, kale, vegetables, ginger, and wheat grass. – Serena Williams • My head is pounding. I wish the mints were aspirin. – Holly Black • My intuition told me that it was the grass that was important.Now it glows parrot-green, cool as mint, soft as moss, lying there like a cashmere blanket. – W. P. Kinsella • My wife is one of the best wimin on this Continent, altho’ she isn’t always gentle as a lamb with mint sauce. – Charles Farrar Browne • Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising. – Thomas B. Macaulay • Now if I cry on screen I think it’s mint. Because I think that’s how that person would feel at that time. And if it doesn’t, then it just doesn’t happen. – Michael B. Jordan • Number of empty Ben & Jerry’s containers: 3 – two mint chocolate cookie, one plain vanilla. (Who buys plain vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, anyway? Is there a greater waste?) – Ally Carter • Perhaps the most vivid recollection of my youth is that of the local wheelmen, led by my father, stopping at our home to eat pone, sip mint juleps, and flog the field hands. This more than anything cultivated my life-long aversion to bicycles. – Tennessee Williams • Peter curled his hands into fists at his sides. ‘Kiss me,’ he said. She leaned towards him slowly, until her face was too close to be in focus. Her hair fell over Peter’s shoulder like a curtain and her eyes closed. She smelled like autumn-like apple cider and slanting sun and the snap of the coming cold. He felt his heart scrambling, caught inside the confines of his own body. Josie’s lips landed just on the edge of his, almost his cheek and not quite his mouth. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t stuck in here alone,’ she said shyly, and he tasted the words, sweet as mint on her breath. – Jodi Picoult • Rogerson,” I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, “where would I find the pelagic zone?” “In the open sea,” he said. “Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints. – Sarah Dessen • Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite. – Ray Bradbury • Scoops of mint ice cream with chips of chocolate cows. – Jim Bishop • She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency. – Anthony Marra • Take from my palms, to soothe your heart, a little honey, a little sun, in obedience to Persephone’s bees. You can’t untie a boat that was never moored, nor hear a shadow in its furs, nor move through thick life without fear. For us, all that’s left is kisses tattered as the little bees that die when they leave the hive. Deep in the transparent night they’re still humming, at home in the dark wood on the mountain, in the mint and lungwort and the past. But lay to your heart my rough gift, this unlovely dry necklace of dead bees that once made a sun out of honey. – Osip Mandelstam • That the mounds of ices, and the bowls of mint-julep and sherry cobbler they make in these latitudes, are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in summer, by those who would preserve contented minds. – Charles Dickens • The coolest gift I’ve ever gotten from a fan was from the Franklin Mint. It was a knife, and it had a picture of General Wade Hampton, who my oldest son is named after. It’s a collector’s item and came with a case and a stand and everything. – Josh Turner • The creativity and pathology of the human mind are, after all, two sides of the same medal coined in the evolutionary mint. The first is responsible for the splendour of our cathedrals, the second for the gargoyles that decorate them to remind us that the world is full of monsters, devils, and succubi. – Arthur Koestler • The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought. – Nathaniel Hawthorne • The holy grail is right here in this gem of a book. Tosha Silver’s wisdom goes down as easy as a mint milkshake and leaves you feeling so free you’ll want to do cartwheels on the beach. But don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this message. Look no further for an easeful path to enlightenment infused with rapture and hope, which comes as much needed medicine for the soul. – Lissa Rankin • The irony is that Iraq actually has one of the richest and most sophisticated cuisines in the world. So many classic American or European foods – ceviche, albondigas, even the mint julep – have roots in Iraqi cuisine, which was a crossroads of Persian and Arab and Turkic traditions. The oldest written recipes in the world are from Iraq! – Annia Ciezadlo • The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last. – Evan Esar • The music community in Minneapolis is really incestuous so I’ve gotten the chance to work with a gang of people who have worked with Prince, Mint Condition, got to spend some time with Mujah Messiah, Atmosphere, P.O.S., Rhymesayers, a lot of poets around there. – Nikki Jean • The NRA made an ad saying that Obama is elitist because his kids have armed guards. Yeah, that crazy Obama thinking his kids need special protection. I love the NRA accusing anyone of being paranoid. It’s like a septic tank saying, ‘You need a mint.’ – Bill Maher • The only thing better than a superb collection of spinechilling stories, is a superb collection of spinechilling stories accompanied by equally unsettling illustrations, and in that regard, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example than IN MINT CONDITION: 2013. In reading it, I have discovered writers and artists previously unknown to me who are now very high on my radar, and they should be just as high on yours. – Kealan Patrick Burke • The other big factor in building trust quickly is site design quality. Mint.com has one of the best graphic designers ever (Jason Putorti) – he cares about every pixel, all the fonts, all the transparencies and effects. And that shows instantly. People do make judgments of trust on appearance – in the real world and online. – Aaron Patzer • The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow. – Langston Hughes • The reason I wanted to become an organ player was because I heard Ray Charles play on Quincy Jones’ arrangement of “One Mint Julep.” I heard that sound, and it just struck me. I thought that’s what I want to do with my life. That’s the sound I want to try to make. – Booker T. Jones • The savor of the water mint rejoiceth the heart of men. – John Gerard • The world is like a little marsh filled with mint and white hawthorn. – Mary MacLane • The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new. – Alexander Smith • The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world. – Jack Kerouac • Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time. – Alexander Pope • They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things– I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life’s ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There’s so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something. – Lisa Ann Sandell • Tic Tacs are the maracas of breath mints. – Demetri Martin • Use Starbucks mints for every occasion—they’re the strongest – Natalie Portman • Use your head, Sep. Loads of wolverines. Hanging around waiting for super. Gtting excited. eating mint blasts. so what do you think they do?’ it must be here. they can’t have eaten that… i dunno, Nik, what do they do?’ POO. – Angie Sage • What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn’t kill Mr. Nesbitt. – Walter Dean Myers • When all is complete deep in the teapot, when tea, mint, and sugar have completely diffused throughout the water, coloring and saturating it…then a glass will be filled and poured back into the mixture, blending it further. The comes waiting. Motionless waiting. Finally, from high up, like some green cataract whose sight and sound mesmerize, the tea will once again cascade into a glass. Now it can be drunk, dreamily, forehead bowed, fingers held wide away from the scalding glass. – Simonne Jacquemard • When Hale’s hand disappeared inside his tuxedo jacket, Macey wasn’t exactly sure what he’d find inside the pocket. It could have been another phone or a breath mint. Really, nothing would have surprised her. Well nothing except… “Is that an earbud?” she whispered. He smiled. “Are you on comms?” “Shhh,” he told her softly. – Ally Carter • Whether the darken’d room to muse invite, Or whiten’d wall provoke the skew’r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print. – Alexander Pope • Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of-girlfriend with a dagger, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints. – Rick Riordan • Why love the woman who is your wife? Her nose breathes in the air of a world that I know; therefore I love that nose. Her ears hear music I might sing half the night through; therefore I love her ears. Her eyes delight in seasons of the land; and so I love those eyes. Her tongue knows quince, peach, chokeberry, mint and lime; I love to hear it speaking. Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow, and pain. Shared and once again shared experience. – Ray Bradbury • Yet simple souls, their faith it knows no stint: Things least to be believed are most preferred. All counterfeits, as from truth’s sacred mint, Are readily believed if once put down in print – John Clare • Yinzer: DAMN!! I wish I had your balls! Tucker:”I wish you had a breath mint, but I guess we don’t always get what we wish for. – Tucker Max • Young playmates of the rose and daffodil, Be careful ere ye enter in, to fill Your baskets high With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines Savory latter-mint, and columbines. – John Keats

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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[jenguerrero]

Texas is pretty awesome. We get maybe 5 days of snow a year. Just enough to be ridiculous. When it does, kids get sent out in redneck sleds (laundry baskets). I saw an excited dad hand his beer off to his friend, and then he took his kayak down a snowy hill. And we have smoked brisket, queso, kolache, and Mediterranean geckos. It’s a good place. About that queso…. Lisa Fain, author of Homesick Texan and Homesick Texan Family Table, just put out a book of nothing but queso, and it’s fantastic!

Here’s the recipe for her Spinach Queso Blanco, so that you can taste the book. A big thanks to Lisa Fain for letting me share it with you!

Spinach Queso Blanco From QUESO! by Lisa Fain Copyright 2017. Published by Ten Speed Press.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

In Texas, we like to put spinach in our queso when we’re feeling healthy. This version is inspired by the spinach queso found at one of the state’s oldest restaurants, The Original in Fort Worth. If you’re looking to increase your fill of vegetables, this may become your favorite thing to eat.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup chopped fresh baby spinach ½ teaspoon kosher salt ¼ teaspoon cayenne 2 tablespoons cornstarch 1 cup whole milk 1 cup water 1 pound white American cheese, shredded 4 Anaheim chiles, roasted (see page 3), peeled, seeded, and diced Pico de Gallo (page 125), for topping 1 avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and sliced Tortilla Chips (page 128), for serving

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the spinach and cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted, about 5 minutes. Season with the salt and cayenne, then drain the spinach in a colander.

Rinse and wipe out the saucepan, then add the cornstarch, milk, and water and whisk until well combined. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, and cook for a couple of minutes, until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the cheese, turn down the heat to low, and cook, stirring, until the cheese has melted. Stir in the spinach and Anaheims. Taste and adjust the seasonings, if you like.

Transfer the queso to a serving bowl, a small slow cooker, or a chafing dish over a flame. Top with the pico de gallo and sliced avocado. Serve warm with tortilla chips.

SPINACH-ARTICHOKE QUESO Stir in 1 cup chopped artichoke hearts before topping with the pico de gallo and avocado.

BACON-SPINACH QUESO Stir in 8 slices cooked and crumbled bacon and ½ teaspoon smoked paprika before topping with the pico de gallo and avocado.

Pico de Gallo From QUESO! by Lisa Fain Copyright 2017. Published by Ten Speed Press.

Makes 2 cups

This refreshing salsa makes a hearty, lively addition to chile con queso. It’s best the day it’s made, but will last a day or two if kept refrigerated. Leftovers go well with chips and on salads.

2 ¼ cups diced grape tomatoes 2 jalapeños, seeded and diced ¼ cup diced red onion 2 cloves garlic, minced ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro 1 teaspoon kosher salt ¼ teaspoon ground cumin 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice 1 ½ teaspoons olive oil

Mix together the tomatoes, jalapeños, onion, garlic, cilantro, salt, cumin, lime juice, and olive oil until well combined. Taste and adjust the seasonings, if you like. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving.

My review of the book:

QUESO!: Regional Recipes for the World’s Favorite Chile-Cheese Dip by Lisa Fain Edition: Hardcover

ust like in her books, Homesick Texan and Homesick Texan Family Table, Lisa Fain delivers fantastic food from scratch. This queso book is a fun read. She includes a historical blippet before each of the recipes. If you love cheese and chiles, you’re going to adore this! Outstanding flavor and a great range of queso!

Pictured below: 1) Pico de Gallo – p 125. Vibrant and fresh. 2) Guacamole – p 125. Perfect flavor. 3) Choriqueso – p 65. Fantastic! She has you start by making your chorizo from scratch. Then it gets covered in Monterey jack and takes a quick trip under the broiler. Because it’s made without thinning agents like milk or cream, this one gets spooned into tortillas. This was my kids’ favorite. My oldest daughter woke up the next morning and made it a second time for breakfast.

4) Austin Diner-Style Queso – p 32. Classic queso. Perfection. 5) Chipotle Beef Fajita Queso – p 49. Classic queso with beef fajitas. Great dinner queso. This is quick to make. The queso’s pulled together while the beef is resting after it’s trip through the broiler. This would be a fun one to do outside on the grill, too.

6) Spinach Queso Blanco with Artichoke and Bacon variations – p 38. Holy delicious. We just had this as a breakfast queso, and everyone loved it. The garlicky spinach and Anaheim peppers make a great flavor base. The avocado, bacon and pico on top make it look holiday festive.

Some others I have flagged to try: Damn Good Queso – p 35 * Queso Blanco with Green Chile Pulled Pork – p 43 * Rajas Y Elote (Pepper Strips & Corn) – p 66 * Shrimp Queso Flameado with Jalapeño Salsa – p 76 * San Antonio-Style Vegan Queso – p 82 * Indian Queso with Jalapeño Chutney – p 85 * Gulf Coast Crab Queso – p 90 * Green Chile & Cream Cheese Ice Cream Sundaes – p 121

Lisa Fain’s Queso is cheesetastic! Texas is pretty awesome. We get maybe 5 days of snow a year. Just enough to be ridiculous.