With-It Water

Perhaps taking a cue from the wineries that commission artists to design their labels, Perrier is putting arty stuff on its mineral water during the holidays. The labels, attached to the bottle by an advanced shrink-wrap technology, show people drinking water, ice skating and cavorting in fairly funky styles that perhaps clash a bit with Perrier’s classic Art Deco (all except Mr. Lime in his coat and tie), but Perrier is serious about this--there’s a nationwide search on for young artists to design next year’s holiday bottles. In supermarkets this month, restaurants in December.

Eeoo. Yucko. I’ll Have Some More, Though.

We have some kind of dismaying food names in this country, such as blueberry grunt, but we’re way behind the rest of the world. Take the Lebanese dish of lamb and yogurt called laban immo (“(boiled in) its mother’s milk”), the Italian pastry strangolopreto (“priest strangler”) or the Cuban chile pepper aji escurre-huespedes (“makes the guests sneak out”).

Dumb, Dumb

Swordfish often swim into deep water that’s so cold that they return to the surface in a semistupor and bask in the sunlight to recover. Which is when fisherman can get within striking range.

A Dangerous Dozen

For those who will dare any degree of palate punishment, Salsa Express offers a full case of one dozen very, very hot sauces (names like Insanity Sauce, Capital Punishment and Hellfire & Damnation should be a tipoff). Call (800) 43-SALSA and tell them you want to order the Twelve Angry Men.

The Calm Lines

Here are a couple of toll-free hotlines for those with the holiday cooking jitters. Butterball Turkeys will have 48 home economists on line to answer turkey-related questions in English or Spanish from now until Dec. 23, 6 a.m.-6 p.m. (but the weekend prior to Thanksgiving Day and on Turkey Day itself, the line closes at 4 p.m.). Call (800) 323-4848; or for hearing- and speech-impaired callers, (800) TDD-3848. And Land O’Lakes maintains a hotline for baking questions from now until Dec. 24, 6 a.m.-4 p.m.; (800) 782-9606. (The early hours are due to both outfits’ being located in the Central Time Zone.)

The Cabbage Pill

How to get your indoles, those beneficial nutrients found only in cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage and cauliflower? Either eat your greens--as raw as possible--or take a pill. One capsule of ExPress is guaranteed to contain at least 35 grams of dietary indoles, equivalent to 3 1/2 servings of raw broccoli. ExPress is avialable through Enrich International distributors; for the name of a distributor, call (800) 748-8288.

Givin’ ‘Em the Old Cranberry

Vodka and cranberry juice is the third most popular vodka drink. Finlandia is the third most popular vodka. So Finlandia has launched Finlandia Arctic Cranberry, the first commercially produced cranberry vodka (not one of those New Age drinks; the color’s emphatically cranberry red). It’s said to be going for an “in your face image,” possibly referring to cocktails such as the Awesome (2 ounces cranberry vodka, 1/2 ounce Grand Marnier). In liquor stores, bars and restaurants.