Mutant Lemons

What's yellow, lumpy, and full of vitamin C? Take a look at this scary mutant from our lemon tree. No, it's not a pickle, but a real lemon. Check it out...





And don't give me any grief about the wonky pics: they were taken with my cell phone.

We're passonate about passion fruit: Hard to believe, but we've almost worked our way through the huge box of passiflora (passion fruit) from Gill's cousin in the Arava, who raises passiflora commercially. Even when the fruit becomes grey and wrinkled on the outside, they remain fragrant, sweet, and tangy on the inside. Nadine, however, is unimpressed.

Waiter, there's soup on my fly: Last night we shlepp out to Rothman's, a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere up in the hills. It is 20:00 and there are families there with cranky, whiny, and over-tired little kids. Why do people think that a four-year-old can eat dinner that late (and in a restaurant, no less)? We are seated at a rickety table for two that is directly in the path of the main traffic. It is like trying to dine on a runway at LAX. We complain. "Oh, everyone loves this table," says the manager, but she moves us to another location, which is much quieter and more pleasant. A small dog wanders through the restaurant. It is cheerful and well-mannered, and certainly bothering people a lot less than the kids, but it is kicked out. Once outside, it barks for 20 minutes, making all conversation impossible. The appetizer is unappetizing, the soup is disgusting, and the dessert is not even close to the menu's description. No, packaged, over-sweet mousse is not the same thing as meringue. The only good thing about such a bad meal is that one isn't tempted to overeat. So today I whip up my version of pasta primavera, and we have a meal infinitely better. Nadine still remains unimpressed.