Cheese On Your Coffee, Anyone?
Uh, I don’t know about that. I mean, my second favorite drink in the whole wide world is coffee (first is water – yeah I am boring) and I can’t get enough of various types of cheese (check my last grocery bill and you’ll see LOTS of different cheese in there). I have not really thought of mixing the two together, have you?
This girl in Canada, Laura Perry, thinks otherwise and judges of the Eastern Regional Barista Championship in Montreal agree with her! The story featured in Ottawa Citizen narrates her victory:
Mascarpone cheese is not the first ingredient the average coffee drinker would put into an espresso. But Kanata’s Laura Perry is no ordinary coffee aficionado, using the unusual concoction to win the Eastern Regional Barista Championship this week in Montreal.
The 22-year-old’s victory will make her the only Ottawa resident to compete in October at the Canadian National Barista Championships, the Grey Cup of competitive coffee-making in Canada.
The drink, named Mascarpone Macchiato, is a shot of espresso marked with a bit of steam milk. It is blended with a variety of ingredients, including whipped mascarpone cheese, sugar cane and cinnamon bark.
For those who wince at cheese and coffee, Perry says she uses mascarpone for its light cream qualities. “It doesn’t really taste like cheese.”
For someone who likes cheese, I am pretty ignorant about a lot of types and I have not heard of mascarpone before. I found this at Wikipedia:
Mascarpone is a triple-cream cheese (though more accurately a lightly-whipped cream) made from crème fraîche, denatured with tartaric acid. Mascarpone is milky-white in color and is easily spread. When fresh, it smells like milk and cream. It is used in various dishes of the Lombardy region of Italy, where it is a specialty. It is a main ingredient of tiramisu.
I feel a bit stupid as I love tiramisu but now I understand how mascarpone can go well with coffee. I wonder if we’ll ever get to taste the likes of this coffee?
Guilty Of Polluting My Coffee!
“Cream, along with sugar, is one of the most basic condiments in the coffee universe. And by cream, I mean milk and all its variants: half-and-half, whole, skim, nonfat, soy, rice.”
Those are the opening lines of the article Coffee Pollutant No. 1: Cream by Oliver Schwaner-Albright of the New York Times. If he ever gets the chance to peek into my daily cups of coffee, he would probably get a heart attack! I already wrote a post on how I like my coffee a long time ago. I love it hot, sweet, and creamy. I don’t really measure - I am not one for measuring – but I probably put about a teaspoon of sugar and 3 teaspoons of cream (non-dairy) in each mug that I have.
So what’s the deal? Why is cream considered to be a “pollutant” when it comes to coffee? Schwaner-Albright explains:
If it sounds snobby, consider this: would you dab a Peter Luger porterhouse with ketchup? A slab of well-aged beef needs nothing more than salt, pepper and a good char. There’s nothing arrogant about leaving the Heinz out of it.
Uhm, now that he puts it that way, I kind of get what he is trying to say. Then again, a steak is very much different from coffee. More so, I do put A1 in my steak. It is not ketchup but it still is something more than salt and pepper.
I can appreciate a good cup of black coffee but I don’t think I can give up my sugar and cream for now. How about you?
Rachael Ray, Kaffiyeh, And Coffee
Oh my, just when I thought that people were becoming more open minded and rationale! I have never been a fan of Rachael Ray, let me say that outright. This latest uproar over her makes me kind of feel for her though. For those who may not know, she is a spokeswoman for Dunkin’ Donuts. So there she was, doing her job, being her uber perky self as usual, right? She made this Internet commercial about how good Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is (by the way, I do like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee).
Suddenly, out of the blue, she is being accused of symbolically supporting terrorism! Come on now, this irritatingly cheerful person you see on TV several times a day a supporter of violence? As much as her personality and shows grate on my nerves, I just cannot see her trying to promote terrorism by trying to get away with wearing a kaffiyeh look-a-like in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial.
Perhaps Michelle Malkin, the blogger who put up these suggestions, is mistaken? Or maybe she has got something personal against Rachael Ray? Seriously, the drama of it all! Why can’t a person wear what she wants to when plugging good coffee without being misunderstood? More than this, who says that the kaffiyeh is only used by terrorists?
Anyhow, Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled the plug on this commercial. In the interests of peace, I suppose it was the right thing to do. Now let me go get some of that iced coffee to cool off.
Of Coffee Cuppings
Of coffee what? You may be wondering if I made a typo in my title – that is, if you have not heard of the new trend that is becoming popular in New York. The New York Times recently published an article on this activity (coffee cupping) which is supposed to be the alternative to wine tasting. Certainly, there are similarities – the tasting part. There is, however, no spitting allowed in coffee cuppings.
Joking aside, coffee cuppers take this activity seriously. The Times reports:
Time was when only coffee buyers, roasters and baristas cared to spend time sniffing grounds with patient dedication. But now cuppings at independent cafes like Joe attract connoisseurs who wouldn’t be caught dead sipping an overroasted blend and regularly travel to another borough for superior beans.
I love coffee – you know that – but isn’t this taking things a bit too seriously? Fellow blogger Emily Matchar expressed my sentiments well in her post about cuppings:
I mean, I’m willing to believe that other people have the ability to discern flavors I can’t sense. But is a bag of beans from a single farm lot discernibly different than beans from a handful of farms in the same region?
I have my favorite coffee – one that I get from this region in the south. I would really prefer to use this coffee every single time but when I do run out, I can live with other types of coffee that I get from the supermarket.
Am I being an ignorant coffee brute here or are there other people who think the same way?
The Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
We’re all familiar with the English tea ceremony but have you heard of the Ethiopian coffee ceremony? You probably already know that Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. Naturally, they have some sort of ceremony to celebrate the wonders of this brew.
The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is part of their culture. In fact, whenever they entertain visitors, the ceremony is required. So how does it go?
Emily Doyle explains the ceremony:
The ceremony is usually conducted by one young woman, dressed in the traditional Ethiopian costume of a white dress with coloured woven borders. The long involved process starts with the ceremonial apparatus being arranged upon a bed of long scented grasses. The roasting of the coffee beans is done in a flat pan over a tiny charcoal stove, the pungent smell mingling with the heady scent of incense that is always burned during the ceremony. The lady who is conducting the ceremony gently washes a handful of coffee beans on the heated pan, then stirs and shakes the husks away.
When the coffee beans have turned black and shining and the aromatic oil is coaxed out of them, they are ground by a pestle and a long handled mortar. The ground coffee is slowly stirred into the black clay coffee pot locally known as ‘jebena’, which is round at the bottom with a straw lid. Due to the archaic method used by Ethiopians, the ground result can be called anything but even, so the coffee is strained through a fine sieve several times.
The youngest child is then sent out to announce when it is to be served and stands ready to bring a cup of coffee first to the eldest in the room and then to the others, connecting all the generations. The lady finally serves the coffee in tiny china cups to her family, friends and neighbours who have waited and watched the procedure for the past half-hour.
I have never experienced such a ceremony but just the thought of being part of one makes me want to go to Ethiopia.
Too Many Choices=Quality?
I have always loved variety. Whatever it may be, having the same set of choices time and again makes me feel bored after a while. Then I realized, sometimes, I get a yearning for the old set of choices. Sometimes, the “old” things just can’t be beat.
I had this realization while I was reading an editorial by Burle Pettit on the Lubbock Journal Online. He was on a roll – ranting about how there are so many choices in the market today. We have all sorts of flavors, all sorts of sizes, packaging, and what not. What he can’t find, though, is the original product that he loves. He talks about all sorts of products but rants largely about one thing – coffee.
WHERE ALL THIS really bugs me is in the area of coffee.
Man and boy, I have grown up drinking Folgers - regular ol’ every day Folgers. Nothing against Maryland Club or Maxwell House, mind you, I just liked Folgers better. I suppose that goes back to my upbringing.
The point is that Folgers now makes every strength and flavor of coffee you can dream up … every flavor except one, that is. They don’t make Folgers that tastes like the Folgers that hooked me on the product. Now the company will tell you that what they package as Classic Roast is very close to the original. Hey, what is it they say about “close,” that it counts only in horse shoes, washers and hand grenades.
I feel what he feels – though not about Folgers. The truth is, sometimes, when I go to restaurants and coffee shops, and I order a cup of coffee, I just want the real bold taste of plain coffee. I have had several disappointing moments when the coffee didn’t taste as I was expecting it too. Watered down, overly flavored concoctions – they have tons of these, each store with their own versions.
Where can we find good old plain coffee? Come visit my kitchen – I have some brewing most of the time!
Coffee Etiquette In Italy
I sure am not headed to Italy any time soon (though the partner and I are planning a trip next year) but I found this blog post on The Road To The Horizon very informative and funny as well.
Did you know that Italians mostly drink their coffee at the bar standing up? If you drink your coffee at the table, then you are probably marked as a tourist (not always a good thing in my book).
How long does it take you to finish off an espresso? For me, it depends. Sometimes I finish it off really fast, sometimes I take my time. In Italy, espresso is meant to be drunk in a jiffy – 3 sips at the most.
As I was reading these interesting bits of trivia, I was thinking – would anyone really care if I didn’t follow the Italian customs when it comes to coffee? Well, I suppose that when you’re in Rome, you have to do as the Romans do. The blog post explains:
It is a habit, no, more a culture, strong: a religion, in Italy, not to drink any coffee with milk in it after breakfast. Cappuccino or Caffe Latte orders after 11 am are often laughed at or joked with.
While coffee bar tenders in the big cities will frown when you order a Caffe Latte in the afternoon, and exchange a glance of “Ah, tourists!” with the people standing at the bar, they will still serve you - all be it - reluctantly.
In restaurants, though, you might get occasions where the waiter will simply not serve you a coffee with milk in the afternoon or evening. The more remote the place, the more “mama and papa”-type the restaurant, the more chance of getting accused for “sacrilege”, turning that ‘friendly hospitable waiter’ into a rude tiran who wants nothing better than to see your backside as you walk out of the restaurant, while all you wanted was a “Cappuccino”.
Ok, ok I get it. Well, not really. I have to read this blog post over and over again – and take notes – before I even think of going to Italy.
Book Review: The Joy Of Coffee
How does one even begin to describe the joys associated with this bean, this brew? I honestly don’t know! Perhaps the best way would to be go ahead and concoct your own brew and share it with friends as you lounge around on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Or maybe, you can get this book by Corby Kummer and give it as a gift!
The Joy Of Coffee: The Essential Guide to Buying, Brewing, and Enjoying has been around for quite some time now. It has been recently updated and revised, though, to keep up with the changing landscape of the world of coffee. This book is an easy read with roundabouts 300 pages. From the growing of the beans to buying to roasting, storing, and brewing – all of these things are presented by Kummer.
I like how Kummer pays attention to the minutest details in his book as he recounts his experiences over the past several decades. I think it is his unique and authentic experience and knowledge that gives his book an edge over the countless other printed materials on coffee available in the market today. In the book, Kummer also shares tons of recipes which the average person – like you and me – can try out at home. For me, that is one of the best aspects of The Joy of Coffee.
So what are you waiting for? You can get a copy on Amazon for only about $10. Alternatively, if you want a preview before getting your own copy, you can check out Google Book Search.
The Day My Coffee Maker Broke
Today is that day. It was a wedding gift from my sister, which makes it all the more special. It has been with us for more than 2 years. It is true, it is about time to get a new one. In fact, just a week or so ago, my husband and I were looking at new coffee makers with cappuccino features at the shopping mall. Yet I didn’t really think that I was going to get a new one so soon.
Here’s how it happened – I was still in bed when hubby asked me if I wanted him to brew up some coffee already. I was thinking that it was still too early so I said, in an hour or so – to keep the coffee fresh. Well, 5 minutes before that hour was up, I was awakened rudely by a crash in the kitchen. Alas, my trusty old pot fell from the counter and was smashed into smithereens! I do not know what happened. Maybe there was a tremor and the pot fell. Maybe the counter was wet (which is very likely) and the pot slipped.
No use in crying over spilled milk but it does make me feel sad – more for sentimental reasons, really (and the fact that I am drinking instant Nescafe right now!). Practical me, I have already spent a few minutes looking at new coffee makers online. Maybe I’ll head on over to the mall near the office during my break later on and check out what I can find. It’s a pity, though, because I can only afford a basic coffee maker today – that means if I get one, I would not be able to get a new (and better) machine for quite some time. I need my brewed coffee!!!
Starbucks To Cough Up $100 Million For Baristas
A San Diego judge has just become a hero to a hundred thousand (estimated) Starbucks baristas. How so? He ordered Starbucks to pay its baristas – both former and current – more than $100 million. This order is the result of a case filed against the giant coffee chain claiming that the company did something illegal by allowing supervisors to receive tips, which should have gone to the baristas. Here’s the report from The Telegraph:
In a ruling that the company immediately said it would appeal, the judge said the company must pay back around $87 million in tips plus interest of $19 million.
Starbucks recently launched a series of initiatives aimed at boosting its business, which has suffered from a dip in sales and a near-50 per cent fall in share price over the past year.
It was not immediately clear how the $100 million might be divided up between the estimated 100,000 current and former baristas [who make the coffee] who have worked for Starbucks in California since 2000.
Terry Chapko, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that the baristas were “subsidising Starbucks labour costs” by helping the company pay its supervisors.
“This is about getting money back to the lowest-paid employees,” he said.
Do you give tips when you go to Starbucks? Does it bother you if the tip went to the supervisors as well as the baristas? I think they should all share it – but that’s just me. If I were a barista, I’d be one very happy camper right now, though.
