Re: Tea! I don't understand it! Please Help!

This is not an issue. You can try every tea in the world and still be intimate with a small number. You can drink only a few and still know next to nothing about tea. You can sample every tea in the world without gaining an understanding of tea. Etc.

My point wasn't about choosing between "trying every tea in the world" or "trully knowing only a few".

My point was "Don't drink only Martian tea because you happen to be Martian"

This is not a comment on HSH's preferences?

Chandler wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nnrp05.earthlink.net:

I do not comment on anyone's sexual preferences.

If my meaning wasn't clear, I will restate it. Hate speech is wrong.

Whatever HSH's sexual preferences may be, and however Crymad may feel about them, Crymad is completely off base in his ridicule of HSH here.

Debbie

"Debbie Deutsch" wrote in message news:Xns93C76DF3F45D6ddeutschmaultraxetco@216.166.71.230...

But I will comment. I think it's very good to have sexual preferences- even if that preference is, 'no thank you'. It's when people don't respect your right to say 'no thank you' that you have a problem. That's the basis of laws delineating rape, molestation, and stalking. If a person says 'thank you very much', and that person is capable of their words being taken seriously (think of that as the 'no animals, children and severely retarded' rule), I think that is a valid position, too- since saying 'thank you' does not mean the other person will say 'thank you', too. Expressing a preference is not the same as acting on it- and some things are not preferences. They are orientations. As long as I do not show up at crymad's house dressed in a latex cat suit with vampire fangs in my mouth, forcing my way in to do the dirty deed with crymad and/or his wife before poking each of them with a pointy stick (gosh- what a horrifyingly silly image!), I'm not infringing on crymad's right to say 'no thank you'. Quite frankly, the thought of having sex with a real or virtual crymad and having to listen to his opinions on travel and world culture is enough to make me say 'no thank you' without ever seeing him or his wife- but that's beside the point. Therefore we can assume he's safe, since my current squeeze is not a cranky male tea-drinking bigot. I tend to have much different 'preferences', and I currently thank the Almighty every day for that. But then, I thank the Lord for not making me a fan of Anna Nicole Smith, an avid reader of the National Enquirer, a bungee-jumping fiend, or any of the other things that I'm not. I prefer being a quiet tea-drinking bisexual perv with a allergic reaction to sunlight, thank you very much. Imagine if I had some really bizarre preferences and orientations- I'd be too embarrassed to even be on this group!

I'll have to agree on that one point that the so-called "fusion cuisine" is often just atrocious. Being adventurous to a point is ok, but there are limits beyond which things just become ridiculous.

N.

While it may mirror those silly lick-my-boot basement rec-room performances that get you so hot, by no means misconstrue my dealing out humiliation on you as flirting. I really think you're an idiot.

You can actually afford the good restaurants, Joseph- and enjoy the food, too. In NYC alone, food is fusing all the time. This is the home of Chino-Latino, after all. Sushi has changed here. Pizza doesn't look like foccacia. Anytime a chef of a different ethnicity than the owner- or a busboy with a few family recipes- enters a kitchen, food changes.

The French are foolish. Food does not remain stable. The Japanese know this, and incorporate new cuisines all the time. Curry from India by way of English sailors has become a staple. Iced coffee is the rage. Ice cream is made from green tea, and mochi is frozen. All of these foods have been fused with other ideas. And let's not talk about how in a Japanese supermarket you can find spaghetti (Italian), the makings for bibimbop (Korean), and cream-filled cakes (French). The French would be better off adding chipotles. After all, they once added potatoes, tomatoes and cocoa to their diet- and that didn't hurt them at all.

I ate at a French restaurant in Metz, France back in 2000. It was much less than memorable. Perhaps it was just too close to Switzerland, eh? Not even all French restaurants are created equal, apparently. The innkeeper at the place I stayed in Metz seemed amazed that as an American, I could ask for the room key in French.. and fairly intelligible French at that.

N.