Coffee Thoughts
With this blog, I don't like to be theologically top-heavy like Dolly Parton all of the time. Today is one of those days.
One of my most reviewed and commented upon blog was my quick write about about a local Vietnamese place. Maybe I am meant to be the food critic. Now that is ludicrous. I have an unconditional love for all food, an agape appetite, so being a food critic would be hard for me to do. Lina's tagline for her blog is "Will travel for food." My tagline for food is "Anything, Anywhere." Well, not quite everything...even garbage dumps have a forbidden list of item like radioactive waste that they don't take in. (BTW, Lina and I were just talking to some guy in Columbia who told of us a man who got busted for storing radioactive waste in his warehouse in Columbia. Yikes. Nazareth is to Israel as Columbia is to Lancaster).
Although, Lina knew that is becoming more discriminating in my eating preferences and standards when I came home from breakfast with the boys and I complained about English Muffins not being toasted. This was when the ill-fated Centerville Diner was still new. I mean, c'mon, how can you not toast your English Muffins and still serve them so cold that the butter just sits on top of the Muffin like some frozen snowman? I knew the place was doomed. To not please me is a very bad and ominous sign...kind of like a buzzard sniffing the carrion and walking away. For a diner to not make it in Lancaster is a rare event...like Haley's Comet...one fails every century. Stranger yet, it was Greek owned and they are usually pros.
Generally, Lina is a much more discriminating palate for all things food and drink. I do have one arena where my sense of taste prevails: Coffee. Like an Idiot Savant who can play Bach, I taste all of the notes of coffee. I consider Maxwell House to be an abomination and "Bad From the First Drop." Since I am usually so open-minded and open-mouthed, there is a curious paradox here that even I can't figure out.
I just finished the last of Peace Coffee Fair Trade/Organic Sumatran today (sad to see it go). Soon, I will be drinking Green Mountain Coffee (kind of weird that they don't put their web address more prominently on their packaging...ummm, Marketing?) FT/O Sumatran Reserve. I really enjoy Sumatran blends because they are strong tasting but lower acidity. I had some Mexican FT/O recently that tasted great but the acidity was at the level of stomach acid...not a good thing to drink first thing in the morning (maybe I should have stirred in a Tums).
I enjoy my coffee strong and black (How strong? To the right of Starbucks). I consider it a shame to drink fine coffee with any sugar/sweetener and/or cream. One might as well be drinking Maxwell House if that is the case as sugar/sweeteners and dairy obscure the coffee taste. It is like throwing a bed sheet over Michelangelo's David sculpture to hide it. It is also a shame when good coffee is made weakly (I know that my definition of weak is probably just right for some/most). But, there are places that have good coffee yet they water it down.
The best coffee I have ever had. The Mudhouse (the name says it all) in Charlottesville, VA. and Peet's Coffee (the inspiration for the Starbuck founders) in the Philadelphia Airport of all place (it is like its only retail location Pennsylvania). Both places had my shaking with both delight and the jitters as a drank down the last sip. Especially, the Mudhouse. I got in some riff with a Jewish guy about Christianity there and he had the look of a cornered man. I was both evangelically-minded and on an adrenal-caffeine jag. I had the insight to let him go when he started to look ill at ease...not sure if it was the message, the jag, or both.
I am not drinking the Montana Coffee Traders Ethiopian FT/O right now (I had been given a free five pound bag of it when in Montana in September by a very cool employee working at the Whitefish Food Festival. I had gotten into a relatively brief but interesting conversation about Ethiopian Coffee with him --when he made me the best double Espresso ever with the same coffee--and at the end of the night, he found me and gave me what was left of the stock of beans that they had brought). I only drink that when I am writing my book on college transition to keep the Montana spirit alive. There is little left of the book to write and even less of the coffee to drink. I want them both to end at the same time. Last verse and last sip.
One of my most reviewed and commented upon blog was my quick write about about a local Vietnamese place. Maybe I am meant to be the food critic. Now that is ludicrous. I have an unconditional love for all food, an agape appetite, so being a food critic would be hard for me to do. Lina's tagline for her blog is "Will travel for food." My tagline for food is "Anything, Anywhere." Well, not quite everything...even garbage dumps have a forbidden list of item like radioactive waste that they don't take in. (BTW, Lina and I were just talking to some guy in Columbia who told of us a man who got busted for storing radioactive waste in his warehouse in Columbia. Yikes. Nazareth is to Israel as Columbia is to Lancaster).
Although, Lina knew that is becoming more discriminating in my eating preferences and standards when I came home from breakfast with the boys and I complained about English Muffins not being toasted. This was when the ill-fated Centerville Diner was still new. I mean, c'mon, how can you not toast your English Muffins and still serve them so cold that the butter just sits on top of the Muffin like some frozen snowman? I knew the place was doomed. To not please me is a very bad and ominous sign...kind of like a buzzard sniffing the carrion and walking away. For a diner to not make it in Lancaster is a rare event...like Haley's Comet...one fails every century. Stranger yet, it was Greek owned and they are usually pros.
Generally, Lina is a much more discriminating palate for all things food and drink. I do have one arena where my sense of taste prevails: Coffee. Like an Idiot Savant who can play Bach, I taste all of the notes of coffee. I consider Maxwell House to be an abomination and "Bad From the First Drop." Since I am usually so open-minded and open-mouthed, there is a curious paradox here that even I can't figure out.
I just finished the last of Peace Coffee Fair Trade/Organic Sumatran today (sad to see it go). Soon, I will be drinking Green Mountain Coffee (kind of weird that they don't put their web address more prominently on their packaging...ummm, Marketing?) FT/O Sumatran Reserve. I really enjoy Sumatran blends because they are strong tasting but lower acidity. I had some Mexican FT/O recently that tasted great but the acidity was at the level of stomach acid...not a good thing to drink first thing in the morning (maybe I should have stirred in a Tums).
I enjoy my coffee strong and black (How strong? To the right of Starbucks). I consider it a shame to drink fine coffee with any sugar/sweetener and/or cream. One might as well be drinking Maxwell House if that is the case as sugar/sweeteners and dairy obscure the coffee taste. It is like throwing a bed sheet over Michelangelo's David sculpture to hide it. It is also a shame when good coffee is made weakly (I know that my definition of weak is probably just right for some/most). But, there are places that have good coffee yet they water it down.
The best coffee I have ever had. The Mudhouse (the name says it all) in Charlottesville, VA. and Peet's Coffee (the inspiration for the Starbuck founders) in the Philadelphia Airport of all place (it is like its only retail location Pennsylvania). Both places had my shaking with both delight and the jitters as a drank down the last sip. Especially, the Mudhouse. I got in some riff with a Jewish guy about Christianity there and he had the look of a cornered man. I was both evangelically-minded and on an adrenal-caffeine jag. I had the insight to let him go when he started to look ill at ease...not sure if it was the message, the jag, or both.
I am not drinking the Montana Coffee Traders Ethiopian FT/O right now (I had been given a free five pound bag of it when in Montana in September by a very cool employee working at the Whitefish Food Festival. I had gotten into a relatively brief but interesting conversation about Ethiopian Coffee with him --when he made me the best double Espresso ever with the same coffee--and at the end of the night, he found me and gave me what was left of the stock of beans that they had brought). I only drink that when I am writing my book on college transition to keep the Montana spirit alive. There is little left of the book to write and even less of the coffee to drink. I want them both to end at the same time. Last verse and last sip.
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