My sister Kathy is in town and she likes me making her rum-based mixed drinks in the evenings. I seldom do it, and I'm not always successful, but last night she was insistent so I searched through the net for something I could do with the ingredients we had at home. What I came up with was this recipe for Pink Paradise, which I modified to suit the ingredients available at home. She liked it and I made her quite a bit of it :-)

• 2 oz Pineapple Juice
• 3 oz Cranberry Cocktail
• 2 oz Coconut Rum
• 1/2 oz Orgeat

Mix everything together. Serve over ice.

I bought a bottle the other day by accident. I won't say that this soft drink is vile - I did drink it all - but it's just not good. It's rather bitter, a bit like an RC cola, and doesn't even have a hint of lime flavor.

Another small bottle that Mike got was for Disaronno liqueur. It's an amaretto (though you wouldn't be able to tell that by looking at the bottle) and Mike didn't like it for straight drinking, at least. I'm sure I'll find something to use it in, however.

We got a number of small liquor bottles as stocking stuffers. As I don't drink hard alcohol even when I'm not pregnant, Mike is the one who ends up with them. He already tried the Tangueray Dry Gin (straight) and he liked it quite a bit, it had a nice and subtle lemon flavor. It was his first time drinking gin, I think, so it may very well be that that's how gin tastes :)

Is there anything more delicious than sweet orange juice made from ripe, plump California oranges? A couple of years ago Mike gave me the best birthday present every: an orange juicer. A few months later I bought one for my father, which he then returned to me as my sister didn't like the taste of juice made from this juicer (I'm not kidding, there are weird people in the world). It worked out, because it was better than mine.

Mike buys a 10 lb bag of oranges on Saturday at the Farmers Market. It's usually $5-6. Then, when he remembers, he makes me fresh orange juice in the morning. Today's was sooo sweet, so delicious, I drank every last drop of it. I wonder if I could convince him to buy 2 bags of oranges on Saturday.