Whatever Bunny Wants

For the purposes of bunny enrichment, I give Ewok and Henry new things to play with every now and then. We bought toys from the store, but their favorites are always something we have around here; towels, tissue boxes, anything that looks chewable or pushable. A few weeks ago I got into the towels and found a little blue blanket that Jan Payne had given me several years ago. It's very soft and I put it on top of the bunnies while they were laying down to enjoy how adorable they looked. Well, they claimed the blanket! Ewok likes to bunch it up and scratch at it, and they both enjoy a nap on their blanket. It's so funny how they know that it belongs to them.

And I believe that stuffed otter was given to me by Beckers. They have claimed it, too. They like to sit next to it, groom it, and chew its whiskers. 

Louie Louie

For the foodies in the family: we tried a great new restaurant this weekend that you must try when you come to town. Bottega Louie is a new market and restaurant downtown. We ventured out of our neighborhood to meet up with Zach's buddy Tres and his wife Dana, who were visiting from Atlanta for a wedding. Bottega Louie was in walking distance from their hotel, so we decided to check it out, and boy were we glad we did.

It's a dainty Italian place with a restaurant section and a market where you can buy pastries and small bites like stuffed artichokes and salads. The space itself is huge and has a New York feel to it; we're not used to such high ceilings out here! The food was delicious, and there was a reasonable portion of it. Not an enormous mound you find in a lot of places, but enough to fill you up. Almost. I got the spinach ravioli in cream sauce and it was so good I probably could have eaten a whole 'nother portion if given the chance. We resisted the desserts, but next time, it's on!

Miracle Fruit

On Saturday our friend Keith had a tasting party. I've done wine tasting before, but this was different. We had lemons, limes, grapes, carrots, mustard, tabasco sauce, apricots, cheese, strawberries, cranberry juice, pickles, grapefruit juice, radishes, salt & vinegar potato chips, and many more goodies. So what's the big deal? Before we tasted all of these, we ate miracle fruit.

You may be thinking, "Is 'miracle fruit' code for some weird drug?" and "What does it do?". Miracle fruit is an actual fruit. It's a little red berry about the size of a coffee bean that's native to West Africa. When eaten before other foods, miracle fruit makes other things taste sweeter.

I'm not sure how to describe how miracle fruit tastes other than it just tastes like a peel. It has a pit, so you chew the skin from the pit, spit out the pit, and chew the peel and tiny bit of meaty stuff for about two minutes, making sure to coat all parts of your mouth. Everyone did this, and then the tasting began.

Everyone brought something they thought would be fun to taste, hence the assortment of foods listed above. The first thing I tried was a lemon. I bit right in to a lemon wedge and it was wonderful. It was a little like lemonade, or a lemon Sour Patch Kid. Limes were delicious as well. My other favorites were the grapes (Tastes just like candy!) and the salt & vinegar chips. The mustard was interesting; it tasted like candy mustard. In fact, that became a running joke. The first person to try a new food was frequently questioned by the others about how it tasted, and the answer was usually, "Like candy tabasco sauce," or "Like candy pickles."

Everyone got a little giddy just off the novelty of the experience, and some people got really adventurous; tired of the food on display, they went through Keith's kitchen cabinets to find more things to taste. This led Zach to drink an entire spoonful of vinegar. He loved every drop.

I don't know a lot about the science behind miracle fruit, but I think it has something to do with interfering with shape of taste receptors. A biomedical engineer was among the crowd and he explained a bit about taste receptors, but I was too busy eating candy cheese to take it all in.

Fake Radio

For several months now, Zach has been performing with a comedy group called Fake Radio. They take old timey radio scripts and perform them script-in-hand, with a little room for improvisation. Here are a couple pics from last weekend's show. Doesn't he look handsome in a fedora?

High Maintenance

I tried to take cute Easter pics. Bunnies were not accommodating.

The set is dressed. 

Zach pampers the star. 

The star has some catered food. 

And then makes a break for it!

Cover Shot