Author name: Sayling@@Away

Z is for Zinnia

Zinnias were a part of my mother’s rock garden, one she carefully designed on the side of a slope that ended at our driveway.  Their color is riotous – yellow, red, white, chartreuse, purple, lilac – although I only seem to remember orange.  On a warm day, they had a very characteristic fragrance. Zinnias are …

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X is for Xylene

It’s hard to find an odor beginning with X, but this particular substance figured large in my graduate career.  Xylene, from the Greek word xylos, meaning wood, is an aromatic hydrocarbon. I won’t bore you with the chemical formula, and just because xylene is an aromatic hydrocarbon doesn’t mean it smells good.  It just means …

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V is for Vanilla

I couldn’t not talk about vanilla, one of the most ubiquitous spices.  Its extract can be used in cakes, cookies, pies, cupcakes etc., but also with meat,  shellfish and fish.   There are many varieties of vanilla, but Mexican, Tahitian, Indonesian and Bourbon (not related to the liquor) are the main ones. Vanilla originated in the …

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U is for Urine

Okay, so this is another ick for a letter.  But other than ugli fruit, with which I am not familiar, I couldn’t come up with something beginning with U of any great significance and with a distinct odor. Urine isn’t something people normally talk about, but physicians look at it for content (red and white …

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