March 25, 2010
Tel Aviv, Israel — When I first came here, bright-eyed and thirsty for life, liberty, and lemonade, I found a piece of green crap swimmin’ around in my much-anticipated lemon drank. Because I do not stand for injustice, I waved my hand to-and-fro in the air and yelled, “Garçon! There seems to be something floating around ominously in my beverage… Remedy this at once! Chop chop!” It turns out it was all a hilarious misunderstanding and I learned something that day. I will now share the mental wealth with you. (You’re welcome.) Nana, besides being your cute wittle nickname for your grand-ma-ma, is also, ‘round these parts, a kind of mint. If you, like many people I know, differentiate your mint by spear and wintergreen, wintergreen being OBVIOUSLY the best, the nana variety will blow the others out of the water. By and large as fans of personal hygiene, Israelis like to garnish as much of their and particularly your comestibles as possible with the green leafy goodness, so as to prevent your halitosis from wafting their way. It’s like whenever someone offers you a mint, and how you should always take that to mean you’d be doing the world a favor to consume it. This is one theory of mine at least for what the original intent behind the addition of nana to lemonade, and thereby the creation of limoNANA, might have been. But I’m a fan of the drink no matter the motivation, since lemonade — which, if you’re stupid and want to order it without nana, is simply called limoNADA, and Spanish speakers will have a better understanding of the hint embedded within the name — is so much better with a little piece of your Nana in it. If you know what I mean.

Tel Aviv, Israel — When I first came here, bright-eyed and thirsty for life, liberty, and lemonade, I found a piece of green crap swimmin’ around in my much-anticipated lemon drank. Because I do not stand for injustice, I waved my hand to-and-fro in the air and yelled, “Garçon! There seems to be something floating around ominously in my beverage… Remedy this at once! Chop chop!”

It turns out it was all a hilarious misunderstanding and I learned something that day. I will now share the mental wealth with you. (You’re welcome.)

Nana, besides being your cute wittle nickname for your grand-ma-ma, is also, ‘round these parts, a kind of mint. If you, like many people I know, differentiate your mint by spear and wintergreen, wintergreen being OBVIOUSLY the best, the nana variety will blow the others out of the water.

By and large as fans of personal hygiene, Israelis like to garnish as much of their and particularly your comestibles as possible with the green leafy goodness, so as to prevent your halitosis from wafting their way. It’s like whenever someone offers you a mint, and how you should always take that to mean you’d be doing the world a favor to consume it. This is one theory of mine at least for what the original intent behind the addition of nana to lemonade, and thereby the creation of limoNANA, might have been. But I’m a fan of the drink no matter the motivation, since lemonade — which, if you’re stupid and want to order it without nana, is simply called limoNADA, and Spanish speakers will have a better understanding of the hint embedded within the name — is so much better with a little piece of your Nana in it. If you know what I mean.

•