Tag Archives: coffee

Ready to Burst

Posted on by
Heavenly Beverage

Heavenly Beverage

I drank a lot of coffee this morning.   I whipped up a cappuccino, since I had a little more time this morning than usual (plus it was 0 degrees while we waited for the bus to pick up my daughter; I was chilly).  Then I had another couple of cups of regular coffee.  I mean, it was there.  I didn’t want to waste it just because my wife only had one cup before she left.  That would be irresponsible of me in this bad economy.

Then I drank a bunch of water.  That is important.   Dehydration causes more headaches than stress.  That is a fact.  I want to be healthy, don’t I?  And after all that coffee, which is a diuretic, I had to hydrate.  So I chugged away.  Then I started meeting with students in back to back meetings.  Suddenly a couple of hours had passed.  And I needed to find one of those little rooms with the plumbing.

So I walked over to the faculty room.  I ran into a friend, we’ll call him Chris, who I hadn’t seen in a long time.  We caught up a little.  We chatted.  It was good to see him.  But I still needed that plumbing.  Finally I excused myself and took care of business.

I find myself in this situation more often than I would like.  But at least I have a place to go.  A friend of ours teaches kiteboarding.  She spends literally all day out on the frozen lake with visibility measured in miles.  It is great for business–everyone can see all those people having fun.  But she doesn’t drink coffee.   Or water.  Or anything.  Things are just easier that way.

I made it through the day, of course.  I will face many others like this one.  But what is one to do?  I want to drink coffee (warm, tasty, hearty, comforting), I need to drink water (hello, you can die without water) and I have to work.  I suppose if I were a lumberjack I might match all of these things a little better.  Or a park ranger in a remote place.  But no, I had to switch from outdoor education to indoor boy.

Such is the price of the professional.  I wonder if Chris ever has to deal with this?  I’ll have to ask him next time I see him.

Baking Bread

Posted on by
Fresh Bread, Baby

Fresh Bread, Baby

Last night my wife and I sat down (and stood around, and paced) and talked about our finances. We are in fine financial shape overall. When we look at how we can immediately cut out expenses, there isn’t much that jumps out in the no-brainer category. We don’t have cable or satellite television. Our electric bill is low. We get a discount on the oil we use. We keep the thermostat at about 62. The price of gas is low. Still, we feel like we need to balance things better.

Our conversation about bread make me think about bread, if you know what I’m saying. One area we might cut expenses is our grocery bill. We don’t spend a fortune on frozen dinners or junk food. The problem is that we want quality. I was raised with the knowledge that teh generic or store brand version of a product is the same as the name brand, and this was and often is true. But I have entered another league since those days. I don’t want just the whatever, GMO, artificially colored, high-trans-fat margarine. I want the local, all natural butter. It tastes better and it works better when cooking.

I know we could save money if we were willing to compromise on quality, but I am determined not to do that. I buy Green Mountain fair trade coffee, and that is a compromise of sorts. I prefer that to Maxwell House by a long shot and I know that it has benefits far beyond my budget. I also don’t want to pay for coffee in a paper cup every day. When I bake bread, I know it will be better bread with good flour and butter and even salt. Quality matters.

I also know I trade time for money. I could buy a five dollar loaf of bread, or I could bake a loaf of bread. The freshly baked homemade loaf is just as good if not better but takes more time. I just popped a loaf of bread out of the oven that I started this morning. A few hours of work means some damn good food and a big savings. If I can take the time to make what I eat, I will save money and have quality grub.

For dinner we will have fresh bread and fresh soup. That is good stuff. Yes, it takes time. I need to make time when I have it to prepare so I can eat well every meal, not just boil up some pasta because it is quick. I need to whip up dinner in a hurry sometimes when the children and I get home late. Prepping in advance can help us eat sooner and still eat well.

Maybe that should have been a New Year’s resolution: eat even more freshly made food for taste, health, and the the old pocketbook. I suppose I can make it one now. Bread once per week? That might be doable. I’ll have to see what I’ve got for time, as soon as I finish eating this pasta.

Coffee and Tea

Posted on by

I was once a fanatical coffee drinker.  I worked in a cafe in Portland, Oregon, and we were allowed whatever coffee drinks we wanted.  I was a barista, so this was in part to get me to practice making and to taste a variety of choices.  That I did.  I would walk down from Northeast Salmon Street a couple of blocks to the Cup and Saucer, hang my jacket, wash my hands, and make something funky.

Maybe I would make something like a double tall hazelnut orange skim latte.  Or a single cappuccino with a blast of almond syrup.  Sometimes I would just have an espresso shot but I preferred the foamed milk.  Perfecting that was my raison d’etre while I worked the coffee bar.  I would often allow myself multiple drinks during my eight-hour shift.

I would get out in the afternoon and would meet some of the friends with whom I lived.  We would walk across the street and sit down to talk and drink coffee.  I had to pay for this so I usually just drank the regular stuff.  It was good coffee.  We would debate or talk philosophy and listen to KMHD (“all jazz, all the time”) for a couple of hours, all the while sipping the bean.

By the time I got married I still drank coffee on occasion but had overcome my seven cups a day phase.  We drank tea.  We drank tea when we went backpacking.  We drank tea when we went for a long ski.  We drank tea after dinner.  We had a whole kitchen drawer devoted to tea–Earl Gray, Lemon Zinger, even Salada for guests who preferred the mainstream stuff.

At one point I bought a coffee maker, one of those cheap ones with the glass carafe on a burner.  I would make coffee once in a while for myself.  My wife found it nasty so I tried to clean it up right away and most of the time only drank it when she wasn’t around.  Things have changed.

When it came time to replace the glass carafe the second time I spent the big bucks and got a maker with an insulated carafe.  It makes far better coffee.  Somewhere along the way my spouse started drinking Starbucks frozen coffee drinks.  Those were the gateway drugs.  Now she comes downstairs before I do to make the coffee.   She does not find it to be nasty anymore.

Lately, however, I have turned to tea again.  It feels like revisiting a friend I haven’t spent time with in a while.  After the children are asleep and the house is finally quiet, I can sit and read or write or watch some weird film and sip tea.  With just a dash of cream and solid dose of honey, it offers the perfect evening companion.

i still drink coffee in the morning.  Tomorrow is Saturday and I look forward to taking the time to steam up some espresso and to foam some milk and to make something fancy right in my kitchen.  But it will be a chilly day tomorrow.  At some point in the afternoon I will probably brew up some tea.  It will warm me, and I will look out at the fading colors of fall and I will feel just about right.