Bleh. I'm sick. I just woke up after hours of fitful sleep -- the kind where you can still hear the radio but can't make your limbs move or be sure that you're actually yelling at the dog out loud as opposed to dreaming it.
Anyway, while in Montana we discussed the idea of splicing genes together to create a plum that would have an almond in the middle instead of a pit, or a peach with a walnut pit, or a bannana with a core of delicious peanut butter. You get the idea. Tasty and handy. Like an all-natural applet or cotlet, which I love, btw. If we don't have the technology now, it's just a matter of time.
On other matters, I'm fascinated by the story of the alligator-eating python. A year ago they were hopeful that the reverse would happen, and that the alligators would help control the python invasion. Too bad. Makes me think, though: if you had an alligator inside a python and cooked it, that could be tasty like a pestducken.
So then just now I had another idea, which is for a sick delivery service. It would be a service you could call if you were sick. They could bring you:
- hot soup
- aspirin
- magazines
- ice cream
- applets and cotlets
- a thermometer
- videos
- flowers
It would be very handy for people like me who are sick and all alone in the world -- or anyway, sick and hungry while everyone they know is at work. They would also walk your dog.
I think your idea for a sick room-service service is right on. Except who cares for the delivery people once they get sick from caring for the clients? Or is this part of the scheme?
On the fruit-nut thing, almonds are closely related to peaches, apricots and plums so it might not be so hard to get that going on. The difficulty would be that the the nut doesn't usually ripen until the fruit (aka hull or fuzzy casing) has dried out.
Walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews, and esp. peanuts, are from different families and not closely related to any of the fruits we eat. Getting a cashew in your cantalope or a pecan in your pear is going to be quite a bit more difficult than an almond in your apricot! But, it still sounds yummy!
Indeed, an almond is a pit! Check it:
"The almond that we think of as a nut is technically the seed of the fruit of the almond tree, a medium-size tree that bears fragrant pink and white flowers. Like its cousins, the peach, cherry and apricot trees, the almond tree bears fruits with stone-like seeds (or pits) within. The seed of the almond fruit is what we refer to as the almond nut."
Hope you're feeling better, Mary...let me know if you'd like me to bring over a nice bowl of python broth.
What, then, is almond fruit juice like, I wonder? Probably really really good for you, and really really nasty. Drying the nut while keeping the fruit fresh and juicy would be a big challenge -- perhaps we could breed special insects to do it? little internally desiccating caterpillers? Imagine if one crawled in your ear? Ugh!
And yes, I think employees of the sick delivery service would be a built-in customer base. They'd get like a 15% discount, but we'd mark up their services 50%.
btw: many thanks to Nancy and Terry, who actually sent me flowers! I'm not sure if it was in response to my whining on my blog or just knowing I was sick in general, but it really cheered me up! If I weren't feeling better already, I'd take you up on some nice hot broth, though, Spine.