Things I Learned From Annette

Our grown-up friend Annette made E. and I dinner last night, and as always, I learned lots of good new stuff. I learned that if you add some coconut milk to the water when cooking your rice, you end up with utterly addictive coconut rice. Somehow that never occurred to me before -- it is dangerously good. I learned that the handle on the side of the rice cooker has a slot to hold the spoon that came with it. We've wondered for two years where that goes on our cooker. I learned that the nickname for the yummy Thai restaurant in town that is housed in an old IHOP (and has some charming Denny's-in-Bangkok ambience) is "Thai-HOP". And I learned that the cold water toddy process makes the Best. Coffee. Ever. Of course, it also uses a whole pound of coffee to make like, a few pots, so it's really only for the rich. And by rich, I mean borderline middle-class or above. Then I learned a bunch of stuff about knitting that I am in no way advanced enough to understand. All of these things are far more valuable than the things I have been self-taught the last few weeks from obscure monographs and scholarly articles. It's fun to come out from under the books occasionally and interact with real humans.