TheSnackHound

Cloth napkins in colors matching the wedding theme are typical at nuptials, even though personalized paper napkins are well advertised. I have seen printed varieties usually a but more at cocktail-type wedding receptions. Also, they have appeared at less formal backyard barbecue- type receptions to add a little formality.

If you are renting linens, ordering personalized napkins for everyone could be overkill on the budget, but they could be used sparingly at the cocktail hour for drinks. Some guests may use them and some may pocket them as a memento.

If you have an unlimited budget, use both, but if you are on a budget, using them strategically, as mentioned at cocktail or perhaps dessert hour may stretch the supply. After all, you don’t want 100 of them mopping up a single drink spill.

As far as cost goes, ordering in quantity can bring a price of around .25-.35 per napkin. Compare that to the cost of renting linen napkins and see where you come in.

When I am cleaning up after a flourless cake assembly has taken over the kitchen or I am writing at home, I can banish the humdrums when I use a wine glass to drink my half and half sparking water and orange juice — a mimosa but not. I don’t own any plastic cups. Several years ago over a divorce, I ended up with exactly ONE drinking receptacle. Washing that one said Fiesta Ware mug  (the actual one at left) when switching beverages from water to juice during the day, or just because at the end of the night was very old very quickly.

When i could, I didn’t replace what I had or settle for plastic hand-me-downs. I bought a couple some colorful Swanky Swigs and  a couple wine glasses. They might even have been wedding flutes, as they were that fancy. Juice or water just seems that more auspicious that way. Why not use the good china? Waking up each day is a special occasion.

I am so rude. I couldn’t help but listening in to a conversation while waiting in line.

“People will die if they don’t drink water for three days.”

“No, you are wrong. I’ve gone a week without water.”

“There is water in root beer.”

“Okay, but even if I didn’t, and I didn’t drink anything, I’d still be alive. My body would just suck the water out of the food. Maybe not so much in chips, but there’s a lot in spaghetti sauce. And I’d of course have a grape or two.”

“Okay. So we can’t go without LIQUIDS for three days.”

“Yup. Doctors are all so wrong. I just get it from food and air. I am like a cactus. They can go without water for three YEARS.”

Back to The Snack Hound test kitchen, I researched and found that the irreverent shopper was correct. It’s true. The cactus part, at least. Sounds good for all the black thumbs out there.

The resiliency has led to the craze if looking to desert plants instead of rain forest plants for extreme antioxidant content. Whether it is the Prickly Pear or the Nopal cactus, where nopalea juice comes from, there are no formulations all the time.

Drinking the juice directly from the cactus comes with prickly results. You could give yourself a piercing , but like coconut juice directly from the fruit, you might need to be chained to the bathroom for awhile. Cactus juice naturally is a constipation fighter, but don’t worry, the blends that the juices are in won’t overload your system to cause any sort of emergency. Life is too cruel for a juice peddler to do that. The combo of antioxidants (Betalains), however, are proven to reduce inflammation/irritation in the body. Too bad it won’t help burning ears. I swear when someone is in the next county is referring to me, I call them and they say “I was just thinking about you.”

Right now, you can get a bottle of Nopalea for the cost of shipping at the Try Nopalea.com site. You can try root beer free if you arm wrestle the aforementioned guy in line. You better be pretty agile, because he’s probably on a sugar buzz.

Speaking of Wine, did you know that there is a wine that gives 50% of profits to charity? You heard me right. One Hope Wine does. Each type of wine is earmarked with a donation towards a specific charity, with the option of directing another small amount to a charity (from the list) of the purchaser’s choice.

More on the health benefits of wine, to make you feel good (in a different way, of course):

Presented By ONEHOPE Wine Online Fifty Percent of Profits Go To Charity

Cousin Lester went and borrowed a backhoe. He read that crop rotation is now important in growing grapevines for wine the organic way. He wanted to move a 40 year old vine to one end of the field and plant marigolds and corn in the hole.

Really? No. Crop rotation in wine making only involves the “cover crop” or beneficial plants grown alongside and intermingled with vines, such as daikon radish, barley and oats to replace nitrogen into the soil to prevent soil erosion.

The folks at Wine.com have broken down all of the ways winemakers are going “green” in a pretty graphic. Enjoy.

Presented By Wine.com, Purveyors of fine green Wine

Who exactly is this person? A third grader that made a keepsake silhouette? Simon Pegg?

No, dear readers, it is none other than Wolfgang Puck, star of chefdom and soup labels everywhere (Only eclipsed in merchandising saturation by Emeril, whose first name is so surely trademarked). His silhouette, though I would have never guessed it to be him, is immortalized on a few keurig k-cups. While it may be a swift departure from his typical labels featuring Puck in a chef’s uniform, the image has little brand recognition, at least not yet.

The k-cups are not to be confused with coffee pods, which are more akin to the look and concept of a teabag, yet are inserted into a machine as well. I am one of the 16 people in my state, twelve being under the age of five, who has yet to adopt the cup and pod craze. Therefore, I am explaining for the Super Sixteen. The cups are the ones that look like giant dairy creamers.

Anyway, the nice thing about Keurig coffee brewers is that you can also load them up with tea and hot chocolate pods that are available if coffee is not your thing. While brewing tea on the stove is just fine, my curiosity was ticked by a few of my cousins who have been gifted with them. The system is so easy in college dorms and first apartments, as there is little mess. (Not to be sexist in a “boys have cooties” way, but I tended to find that apartments inhabited by 18-21 year old men tend to have the most beverage receptacles with 1/2 of inch of liquid in them quickly turning into petri dishes. Young ladies can germinate just as many forms of bacteria, though.)

I wonder what the next 20 years will bring. Will the k-cups still be growing strong, will the Keurig brewers be dinosaurs, or will retrophiles be swapping cups on the internet like expired Polaroid film? Maybe we’ll be refilling them like ink cartridges.  Live on, Keurig, live on. My cousin’s roommates are depending on you.