The Andrews Sisters: Curly, Groucho and the Holy Spirit

When considering the Andrews Sisters the word “blood-thirsty” rarely comes into play.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these essays on harmonizing, pop-vocal groups. Below you’ll find other ditties from this genre that I think are the bee’s articulatio genus. Before that, though, I want to share with you a little culinary experience I had recently.

The boyfriend and I had our friends Rachel and Paul over for dinner. As usual, I did all the cooking – the boyfriend, after all, can’t make an entire meal out of burned water alone – and I was thinking of various ways to spruce things up. It occurred to me, instead of serving bread with our meal, to make a simple yellow cake with the addition of savory herbs.

First, hours before I was ready to bake, I chopped up fresh rosemary and sage and simmered them in one cup of unsalted butter, over low heat. Once the liquid gold of the butter had soaked in the essence of the fresh herbs, lending a faint grass-green hue, I took it off the fire and allowed it to congeal. I used this butter for the cake. The effect of this savory dessert – being both salty and sweet – was similar to cornbread, but earthier, lighter, and altogether swell. I thought you should know.

You’d think that a tourist trap like Puerto Vallarta would be ideal shopping, but I couldn’t imagine Smithy exactly swooning over a miniature beaded palm tree statue or a Hard Rock Café tank-top.

Then, at last, I saw just the sort of boutique that catered to the refined taste of my dear,lady friend: a tequila specialty shop. Hypnotized by the variety of tans, camels, and caramel colors that shone through the many-angled bottles, I floated in and got real thirsty. The vendor – who’s name I never got, so I’ll call Graggenhauserfrauschembaur – practically materialized from out of my shadow, eager to exchange some of his wares for the far-less delicious bills I kept in my wallet.

“This,” I thought to myself, “Is gonna be a great relationship.”

It was. At Graggenhauserfrauschembaur’s insistence we sat at a tiny portable bar and were lined up shots after shots of tequila tasters. It was like being a college freshman girl at her first date rape. Graggenhauserfrauschembaur’s salesmanship was bar-none; how brilliant to get your customers drunk! And the tequila was, truly, lekker. My personal favorites were a coconut-crème tequila and a tamarind liqueur that made me wanna be an alcoholic again for the first time. I purchased some booze for Smithy, and some for myself. I bid Graggenhauserfrauschembaur a bittersweet farewell, and he scolded the boyfriend and I for coming from Los Angeles and not being able to speak Spanish.