Hester

Homemade pate of rabbit liver & kidneys, seasoned with port sauce, served on flax & honey lavash (Middle Eastern cracker bread). Sliced strawberries. Perrier to drink.

Challah bun, toasted under the broiler -- one half topped with Danish blue cheese and smoked salmon, the other half topped with butter and cherry jam. To drink: chocolate soy beverage, and King Cole tea.

Rabbit, stewed in port wine & cider, with onions, rosemary & prunes. Mashed potatoes & parsnips, to soak up the sauce.

Hi, Trade: Thanks for the additional info. Cheers, Hester

Me new motto be: "The pirate who acquires the most scarves wins!" (I think this is evolving from a simple obsession into a near fetish...) Cheers, Hester

Aye, Silkie: The scarves be spillin' outta every closet, drawer, and chest in my house. But that doesn't mean I have enough yet! Cheers, Hester

A friend of mine went through a nasty divorce a few years ago. Listening to her "vent" was exhausting. I was so glad when she finally met someone else, got laid again, and had other things to talk about. Cheers, Hester

This one's a silk-rayon blend; very small -- really just a handkerchief, but it works nicely as a hat band, or tied to a belt-loop:

This one's a basic cotton bandana, $1 from the Dollar Store:

Um ... if I remember my Peter Pan correctly, Captain Hook died at the end of the play when he was swallowed whole by the crocodile. What was Hook's revenge ... indigestion?

Captain Hook should be thankful that all he lost was his hand... Cheers, Hester

... from Jay French Studios

Oooo... what lucky pirate gets to wear that outfit? Terrific colours and textures! I'm utterly jealous!!! Ye be a wondrous tailor, Amanjiria! Piratically "bespoke", ye be! Cheers, Hester

Um ... that would be "Our Lady of the Uisce Beatha", then? Nice designs, though. Cheers, Hester

That putrefying primate is a work of art! Well done, Caraccioli! I've always found the name "Jack the Monkey" a tad lewd, though. [And perhaps that's what Disney intended...]. I tend to parse the first word as a verb, analogous to the expressions "spank the monkey", and "shock the monkey". Cheers, Hester

Goddess grace, a pirate who doesn't like rum! Throw 'im overboard!!!

Yeah, that's as close as I could get without tripping the profanity filtre. Cheers, Hester

I've lost the plot

Hi, Capt. Zeph: That did the trick! Ah, and I see you were reading Jane Yolen's wonderful Ballad of the Pirate Queens! I love that book -- and the illustrations are terrific. I've even been working on setting the text (which is in traditional ballad format) to the folk tune of "The Mermaid". Yes, that's a ballad just beggin' to be sung! Cheers, Hester

Oh, great Goddess ... it gets even better! There's a company that does Pirate Cruises along the Dalmatian coast, in this amazing ship: And these pirates are so blood-thirsty, they even eat children! The brochure claims: "You'll have your dinner under the open sky -- kids on a spit!" [Yeah, okay, so it's probably just tender young goat meat...] Cheers, Hester

In another thread, I was wondering whether there had ever been pirates on the seas near Venice, Italy. ... and googling around, I found that Venetian shipping had been plagued by Dalmatian pirates in the 9th and 10th centuries. (Dalmatia is along the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, today part of Croatia.) In my mispent youth, I knew a guy who was of Slovenian decent. (Slovenia being just to the north of Dalmatia, along the same coastline). He spent a summer backpacking along the Adriatic coast of what was then Yugoslavia, and said it was the most beautiful place in the world (of course, that predated the Croatian civil war by a decade). Anyhow, I could definitely see this guy in the role of a medieval pirate sailing the Adriatic! And what a beautiful coast it is... Yup, gotta put this on my list of places to go one day. Cheers, Hester

Thanks, Bess: That makes much more sense. This time, I googled "Cascabel, pirate" and came up with the right info: http://josephlosteen.com/matanzasbay/pirat...s/cascabel.html The movies sound interesting, and I'll keep my eye open for them in the video stores. Cheers, Hester

There's a Canadian contemporary folksinger who plays cello sorta like that, her name is Kim Barlow One critic commented on her unique cello style: I remember hearing her interviewed a while back on the CBC, and I think she said she found the cello at a yard sale or somethin'. Cheers, Hester ... who could attempt to play the cello like a tambourine

Um ... are these porn movies? I had no idea what "Cascabel" was, so I googled it. Now, I'm just confused, as it apparently refers to a type of chili pepper. Did you perhaps mean "Cabbalah"? Cheers, Hester

This one's silk, a souvenir of Venice, Italy: ... not that I've ever been to Venice. But some nice lady in Winnipeg went, and put this pretty scarf on eBay. I bought it as an incentive for me to visit this historic city one day -- before it sinks. Any pirate history in the vicinity of Venice? Cheers, Hester