Hi all Found this old thread by searching for YaLi asian pear. I bought some at a high end fruit store recently and fell in love with Ya Li. Granted they need to be fully ripe to develop full flavor, but this is the only asian pear I've tried that has tart as more than just a hint of flavor near the core. Taste varied greatly with the 7 I bought. Only 3 had that wonderful sweet tart fully complex flavor. Based on seed size the fruit that was picked later was the best, the ones that were just mildly tart had small juvenile seeds compared the the large plump seeds found in the best fruit. so having found a new variety I must have wanted to ask for feedback on ease of growth etc for the Ya Li. I'd also like to hear other folks experience with Daisui Li as I have one that is entering 3rd leaf for me. First year the fruit were few but huge, with a very simple plain old pear flavor. I'm hoping that if I let them hang longer prepicking they will develop better flavor. Persimmon Bob, love to hear about DL's flavor. Mine has also been a healthy but brittle slow growing tree for me. Skipped fruiting year 2 but looks ready to grow many fruit this season. Pam in cinti

"All-America Rose Selections runs one of the world's most challenging horticultural testing programs, intended to improve the disease resistance, ease of care and beauty of roses," said Deborah Golino, executive director of the new test garden and director of UC Davis Foundation Plant Services. She noted that this testing program brought to the forefront some of the most popular roses in history, such as Peace, Knock Out and Bonica. HAHA, in California? Peace is one of the worst bs magnets ever. Maybe they should have a test garden where roses actually get blackspot.

I would love to try some Crab Potato Chips. I agree with the Russians that Lay's Potato Chips are boring. I try not to buy too many snack foods, but I do keep tortilla chips on hand and occasionally buy potato chips to have with a dip I make with sour cream, fresh dill, garlic, lemon juice, black pepper and mayo. It tastes very similar to Ranch dressing, but with a brighter, fresher flavor. I also use it as a sauce for fish in place of tartar sauce. I do buy Japanese snack when I go to the Japanese market, but they are pretty expensive and seem to be mostly air, at least the sembei crackers that I buy do. I like the flavors, however, and Kevin buys Japanese black chewing gum. I've found that I do not particularly like the Vietnamese snacks that I've had, but I find kimchee to be addictive. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a snack, but I eat it between meals, and it is very satisfying. I do not see why people should not put cereal in coffee - I think it would be similar to dunking biscotti. I've always noticed that Mexico had a much better selection of fruit drinks available than we do, although we are getting more of them as the Latin population increases. My favorite juice drink is guanabana, which I first had in Mexico in the mid 1970s. Back then I could not find it here, but that has changed. I've noticed Japanese snacks creaping into the main markets here, but I have not noticed too many other ethnic snacks, other than Mexican, which I do not consider foreign, since they were always readily available in Texas. Have you found other ethnic snacks in the markets that you would recommend? I'm sure there are many that I have just overlooked. Lars

Hi Blessedbe. I used to live in an incredible Streamlined Deco apartment building built in 1940, with terrazzo floors, glass block walls & steel casement windows with metal Venetian blinds 12 feet wide--the widest made--and although it's been 25 years since I lived there, I still love that sleek look. OK, so you don't mention whether your whole place is, like mine was, actually of the period, or if it's newer construction, and you also don't say whether you're going for an authentic period look--as though your bath might have been decorated during the era & somehow survived intact till now, or whether you're making a room that's about the era & the style. They're two totally different things. Either way, forget Maxfield Parrish & Alphonse Mucha. Both were wonderful artists, but they're both way earlier, and their lush colors & lavishly ornamental style have nothing to do with the slick, high-contrast style typical of late Art Deco that you're after. In fact, when Bette Davis' elegant movie characters were swooning about in sleek penthouses & nightclubs, both Mucha's & Parrish's artwork would have been considered hopelessly old-fashioned, and all that adding them into the mix would do is muddy the concept. Paris & San Francisco, on the other hand, were both sophisticated & up-to-date, with plenty of shops & theatres & apartments & hotels executed in just the glamourous style you're after. In fact, Paris' exhibition in 1937 & San Francsco's in 1939 represent the pinnacle of the style's development just before the dark days of WWII put a sudden end to the party. But watch out if you're thinking about using photos: there are a lot of classic photos of both cities that, like the Mucha & Parrish posters, would only confuse your decor. The Eiffel Tower is too old by half a century to say anything about the Art Deco era, and while the Golden Gate bridge is an icon of 1930s design, neither image would have been used to decorate a bathroom of the period. Nor would a picture of Bette Davis, talented though she was. No, those things--movie star portraits, photos of landmarks of the period, vintage magazine ads for, say, Evening in Paris perfume or Packard automobiles, covers from Fortune magazine or Vogue, colorful fruit crate labels, vintage travel posters featuring the Pan-American Clipper or the 2oth Century Limited--while perfect for a room that's ABOUT the period/style, are all wrong for a bathroom that's meant to look as though it's FROM the same period. OK, maybe a struggling actress or a shopgirl living on the cheap in an efficiency apartment might hang a picture of Bette Davis in her tiny bathroom, but only becasue she could tear it out of a magazine for free and hang it in a ten-cnt frame from Woolworth's. But a wall full of ads & commerical art wasn't likely to appeal to most people, even if they wanted to hang artwork in their baths, which generally, they didn't. For the upper classes--the target audience, after all, for the styles that we call (thanks to Kelly Werstler & Bevis Hiller) Hollywood Regency & Art Deco--the whole point of 1930s baths was Glamour Without Fussiness. That's why they went for rich or striking new materials on the walls--marble, Vitrolite, colored or engraved mirror--and often, strong color in the fixtures: by making beauty inherent in the materials themselves, they could eliminate superfluous ornamental touches. You wouldn't have found pretty crocheted doilies or dainty flower arrangements or frilly curtains in any high-style bathroom of the period. As Belle Watling said in 1939, "It wouldn't be fittin'." So, if you want a true period look but you still want a bit of decoration, you might try adding a stenciled (or taped) border (a zigzag, or a Greek key, or a very-authentic angel-fish-&-bubbles motif in black & one other color--there are lots of possibilities) just above the tiles or just below the ceiling. Stenciled & painted designs are an authentic look, because a border is actually part of the room rather than something in the room. And, on the other hand, if you're doing a room that's not intended in any way to be authentic but one that's, rahter, ABOUT the period, you have a lot more possiblities beyond the obvious cliches. If it's photos you want, look at the striking black-&-white images that Hedrich-Blesing took for the 1933 World's Fair here in Chicago. Their lustrous shot of the Chrysler building at night has gotta be the most drop-dead glamorous photo of the whole century. I think you can buy a reproduction from the Library of Congress. Or check out Ewdard Weston's work, if you don't know it. Once you've seen his voluptuous, suggestive photgraphs of produce, you'll never look at a green pepper the same way again. For Art Deco drawings, look up Hugh Ferris' work. His renderings of Hoover Dam are awesome. For posters, look at the work of A.M. Cassandre, or Joseph Binder, whose graphic work between the wars is some of the most powerful ever. And since this approach is not really authentic for the period, anyway, there's one more image that would fit in just fine with the style & also with the black-&-white scheme you've already got going on: Richard Estes' iconic painting "Drugs" from the Art Institute of Chicago. It's a 196Os piece, but the subject is a classsic late-1930s facade in curved black Vitrolite & bent glass, and I bet the AIC has it in reproduction. I hope this suggests the two different approaches you can take as you finish your room. Be sure to post some pics when you get your room the way you want. Regards, Magnaverde.