But there's booze in the blender ...

"I want to try drunk," announces teetotaler Lian one evening. "With you." Isn't that sweet?

In 30 years of adulthood Lian has maybe once or twice tasted (and disliked) beer. And she's certainly observed all manner of inebriate behavior, Thai and farang alike, on the streets of the Chiang Mai tourist zone. But ever since watching me party down with her Thai whiskey-proffering relatives outside Bangkok, Lian's been keenly curious about the experience of getting a buzz on. And so the planning begins.

"Maybe we drink wine?" she suggests. But I think not: one sip and the rest of the bottle would be mine.

For the briefest moment I consider tequila shots with the salt and the lime wedge -- but oh good God, no! Even after three and a half decades my body still shudders from the memory ...

Finally I settle on the ideal alcohol delivery system: mango daiquiris. Fresh local fruit, lime juice and crushed ice to soften the double rum kick -- perfect! Lian even has an ancient but serviceable blender from when she owned a laundry and fruit-drink shop years ago in Kanchanaburi.

Thursday evening, after our market run for dinner fixings, I set to work peeling and chopping mangoes.

I am a bad, bad influence.

"We take dinner first?" Lian asks.

"No, no," I reply. "Always have cocktails before dinner. It, uh, helps the appetite." Yeah, that's exactly what drinking on an empty stomach is good for, heh-heh.

This turns out to be one stealth bomber of a daiquiri for a girl who weighs in shy of 100 pounds. Pretty quickly the natural Thai attitude of mai bpen rai ("no worries") is dialed up to 11. Everything is hilarious! And Lian whoops with surprise when she catches a glimpse of her face in the mirror: her normally cinnamon-colored skin is glowing bright red.

I step into the kitchen for a quick rinse-and-clean and come back to find Lian sprawled across the bed, comatose. So I dig into the plastic takeaway bags for handfuls of grilled fish, salad rolls and white rice, then settle in to work until midnight.

The next morning, Lian is up and moving ... slowly. I open the freezer and offer her the cupful of frozen daiquiri that's left from last night's big blender batch.

"For you," she says, not looking at it.