Wino Alert!

Tomorrow - Saturday - is National Rose Day.  And if this laptop was smarter, it would have added the little funny mark over the "e" in rose.  Or if I were smarter, I'd have figured out how to do it.  We are dealing with rose-a  today.  We're all clear on that,  right?

Special products have been created to mark this auspicious occasion.  As listed in the Daily Mail:

Rose-infused white chocolate bar $9.95 but it looked to be a good size, not one of those little mini-bars.

Rose donuts - $3.50 each  For that much for a donut, I think I'd rather buy a nice glass of icy cold rose.

Rose lollipops - they cheat and add fruit juices - 10 for $35.  But they are wrapped in gold foil.

Rose cupcakes - the cupcake is soaked in rose and frosted with strawberry cream cheese frosting.  $3 each.

A different rose ...

Not to be outshone by the above (located mainly in Manhattan) Redondo Beach has a source for rose water and rose ice cream and that is the Artesia Produce and Meat Market, at 2322 Artesia, Redondo Beach.  It used to be Sam's Int'l Market and it hasn't changed a bit except for the addition of a weekend open pit barbecue out front selling tacos and quesadillas.  The guacamole and hand-made salsa are back in the (refrigerated) meat department every day. 

Many of the canned goods have Arabic script writing on them.  This is very exotic if you are a person who grew up in Kansas City, MO, where the only French-fried shrimp we ever saw came out of a box.  Because they were frozen.  Downtown had a very popular Italian restaurant which did a landslide business because no one had ever seen spaghetti and meatballs.

Back to the market.  I noticed most of a shelf of bottles marked rose water (the flower) and I asked the cashier about them.  She told me that Arabic women consider it a beauty treatment and splash their clean faces with it.

I didn't need any explanation for the Rose Ice Cream.  Out of sheer curiosity I bought a pint of it.  It was rich, creamy and tasted like vanilla which is not a bad thing, but it is not the same flavor as, say, chewing a handful of rose petals.   And if you own the rose bush, considerably cheaper. 

I must have been prescient because last week, long before I'd ever heard of National Rose Day, I bought a bottle at Trader Joe's.  it can loll in the refrigerator the rest of today and through the night and it will be properly chilled tomorrow.  Rose on high-fiber cereal do you think?