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Yet Another Coffee Post: Additives!

A meditation on coffee fixings:

I've visited a lot of coffee shops in Atlanta. Not every one of them. Not yet. But I have done it as much I could on my budget and with the time allotted to me, and keeping in mind that my life partner, Cynthia, and my step-daughter, Katie, don't really drink much in the way of coffee. OK, I take that back; Cyn loves herself a good ol' raspberry vanilla venti mocha when the mood sets. And Katie has been known to partake of The Chai, as they say. However, I don't think it really occurs to Cynthia to actually make a coffee shop as a destination; it's more of an add-on to any other activity. For me, though, going to a coffee shop is a treat.

It is a bit difficult to judge the coffee shop. I've written a few reviews on Yelp (and plan on writing more later), and I notice that other people write a lot about the coffee and the snacks they serve. To me, though, the snacks are secondary and the coffee and service are noteworthy but not the primary thing.

The thing that really gets me is how the establishment lays out fixings for the coffee. I can immediately tell a lot about a coffee shop from just that.
First question: do they have half and half? All health considerations aside, half and half is the stuff I put into my coffee. If they don't have it readily available, then I might as well not even order coffee.

Second is their sweetener assortment. In most of the indie coffee shops around Atlanta, I am used to seeing things like sugar syrup (which apparently is cane sugar boiled into water?), raw sugar (which is sugar with the molasses unextracted), stevia or its commercial equivalent, honey, and sometimes arcane and mystic sweeteners that may have been decanted in some unholy but satisfying process birthed in the lower depths of the abyss (like, say, sweet n' low).

Then there's the Stirring Mechanism. Stirring is a vital step in doctoring any drip coffee. One cannot just dump their sweetener and cream into the stuff and have done. So, I've noticed a range of means to address this problem. The spectrum goes from incredibly environmentally unfriendly to extremely environmentally friendly. On the unfriendly end of the spectrum we have ittle wooden stirrers that are undoubtedly rendered from Amazon rainforest trees. It is impossible to stir one's coffee with one of these things, so it requires three or four or more bundled in one's fingers just to get enough surface area to stir, which just exacerbates the fact that more precious Amazonian rainforest is needed per cup of coffee. Next to that are plastic coffee stirrers; once again, one stirrer is not enough to do anything with, and as an added benefit the billions of them will still be around 20 years from now, making a kind of plasticky thatch somewhere in a landfill. Still a bad solution, in my opinion.

As are plastic spoons, for roughly the same reason.

One very intriguing solution to this problem I found at Danneman's in Old Fourth Ward district. They make available to their patrons long sticks of dried plain fettucini as a means of stirring. The stuff biodegrades, it's cheap, it doesn't change the flavor of the coffee, and the blades of fettucini make for a better stirrer than the rainforest-wood kind or the plastic. I still needed three of them to get any motion going in my coffee, and I started having fantasies about coffee-flavored fettucini, perhaps served with a bit of sun-dried tomato and pesto. I suppose it is a bit of American arrogance to use what is effectively a food product to stir our coffee and throw it away, but at least it is better than plastic-thatch.

Getting close to the other end of the earth-friendly spectrum are spoons. The only downside to spoons is the disposal of the dirty spoons. Now, most places have clearly labeled bins that say "CLEAN" and "DIRTY", and at that point you need to just depend on the intelligence and / or literacy of your fellow coffee drinker that they understand the concept. I find spoons with clean and dirty bins to be the best of all stirring worlds; I use one spoon, I get my coffee stirred, and I put it in the dirty bin, and at some juncture a nice person with hot and soapy water cleans the spoons, and nobody has to put up with anything in the landfill. I would think that the cost of doing this alone would be a no-brainer for any coffee shop owner, but I'm still amazed to find rainforest sticks and plastic stirrers everywhere.

I realize that washing the dirty spoons must be a pain, and that, probably, not everybody gets the whole "clean/dirty" thing; a few times I've had to transfer a potential spoon from clean straight to dirty, without touching the coffee.

Still, I am certain that the cost of 40 metal spoons is not as much as the boxes and boxes of plastic and wood stirrers people use.

There are other coffee shop considerations. I like places that use fair trade coffee. I enjoy places that offer big ol' coffee mugs instead of paper cups as a first option. Drinking coffee out of a mug is infinitely preferable, if you can afford the time to wait, than drinking out of a paper or plastic cup.

The worst places I've been to really don't care about their fixings. They put out non-dairy creamer powder, or just 2% milk, or whatever. Or, like one coffee shop, they don't bother to refrigerate their dairy and the half-and-half is sitting out in a box on the countertop, getting warm. When I asked the barista about this, he admitted that he didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and that he rarely has to throw out any, but I like my half-and-half to be cold and reasonably free of bad bacteria.

As I mentioned in my Method Coffee post, if the coffee is good you really don't need any additives. But I love them - they help make the whole experience.

A beautiful, delicious Method: Method Coffee

Method Coffee. What can I say about this place that has not been said? Well, one thing I know is this: the place is clean. The place exudes this simplicity, this cleanliness that makes one feel calmer already. It is, really, coffee for OCD people. I don't mean that in a bad way. The way that attention is paid to small details, it's wonderful. The way that everything has been measured to within certain parameters, it's perfect.

Along the back of the counter are these curiously shaped brewing flasks. Someone took a cone and stuck it point-first into a fairly normal-looking coffee carafe. When you examine it you notice that it is all one piece of glass, continuous. They use oxygen bleached filter cones. They have small glass pitchers that are just exactly the right size, so that the volume of water they hold is exactly the right amount of water for the brewing process. They have small airtight glass containers into which they have measured exactly the right amount of beans per cup of coffee.

One container, one cup's worth of beans. They grind it right there, they put the grounds into the cone, the cone into the brew flask. They then pour hot water, flash-heated by an element to the precise necessary temperature, into the flask's cone. They do it in a circular motion, slowly pouring the hot water so that the cone's contents are equally saturated. The water drains through the filter and the grounds into the brew flask.

They have coffee mugs that are exactly the size necessary to handle one cup of perfect coffee. Prior to pouring the hot coffee, the barista pours hot water from the same source into the mug, and lets it sit, so the mug will be hot enough to accept the coffee. Then the coffee is decanted into the mug, and you have an amazing cup of coffee there.

How amazing? Is it really any different from a drip coffee maker? Yes. Yes, it is. Definitely. This method creates a flavorful cup of coffee that tastes pure. Normally I get a burn in the back of my throat from coffee a little while after ingesting it, I didn't get that this time. There is the "coffee" flavor, yes, but the tastes are complex enough so that if you swirl it around on your tongue you will get hints of all kinds of other flavors. It's like holding a prism up to a light and realizing the full spectrum of possible color.

Yes, the coffee is expensive. Yes, it is worth it.

I can imagine that some people might be intimidated by going in to a place that is so passionate about coffee, but please don't be. If you don't want to coffee geek, you don't have to. In fact, I had no idea what to order, and I just said, "I'd like something that's smooth and doesn't have much acidic taste." I was mentally adding, "Unlike Starbucks'," and maybe he picked up on that. And the barista knew what to do, where to guide me, and he gave a good choice.

Katie had a cup of La Parisienne dark sipping chocolate and seemed very, very happy with it. Just watching her as she excavated every last chocolate molecule from the small sipping-chocolate cup was a delight. She makes me smile when she's so happy. She also took the lovely picture you see here!

Now, to mention the surroudings, etc. They exist in the same location as Caribou Coffee used to be in Emory Village, right next door to Everybody's Pizza. The staff are pleasant and helpful, and like I said, the place was clean. I would love to see what they do with tea.

The price is not cheap, but it is worth it. Lots of value here for your money, in my opinion, but your mileage may vary.

Bing…what is it good for?

Doing an ego search on Bing.com, I am finding the top five results amusing. Wikipedia, my home page, fireheart foundry, Heart of the Hunter, all OK. But onelook.com ? WTF? And that just redirects to Wikipedia.

So what exactly is revolutionary about Bing? Looks like Just Another Broken Search Engine, to me.

Oh, and by the way, microsoft? If I type bing.microsoft.com, I damn well expect to get Bing. Will you fix that?

Modified RE: Your Brains. Awesome.

This here's a rework of RE: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton. Check out Jonathan's wonderful music here.

I think Mur should use this for her Zombie Takeover podcast, only I think it's wrapped already. Oh, well.

It’s Working, Y’all

In case you were wondering whether all this booty-shakin' in the podcastosphere on behalf of our favorite podiobooks.com authors is working, certainly Amazon has figured it out! Woot!

I love Wolfram Alpha….

http://bit.ly/O9rgE

Happy First of May!

Happy First of May, everybody. While not an astronomically appropriate holiday, May 1st is one of my favorite Pagan holidays, Beltane. Beltane isn't the most spiritually fulfilling of holidays, but it is fun.

Flirty goodness, love, mischief and beauty is in the air. Time to be and feel alive and awake and aware of your own energy, and if you are an adult, to own your senses and your passionate power. Mmmm. Good holiday. Happy Beltane!

Anyone play NERO Atlanta?

Hi there, friends list and all the ships at sea. Is there anyone reading me who knows a thing or two about NERO Atlanta? Not NERO in general, but the chapter here in Atlanta. I'd love to know one of my friends / contacts who already plays with them.

Thanks in advance for your help!

(BTW, I found their website already, I'm just looking for people who can speak to the experience and who may even be attending this weekend's event)

Who are our fathers and mothers?

This is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately. In fact, I've done a lot of thinking about this over the course of my life. As an adopted person, I frequently wonder about who my parents were. Did my biological mother even know who the biological father was? Could it have been one of a number of people? In the Sixties, there was some experimentation with free love in hippie society, and when people experiment with relationships, this kind of uncertainty can definitely be introduced. Maybe she couldn't really tell without DNA testing, which wasn't available in 1967. Truth be told, I have no idea: I was adopted as an infant, so I never knew her.

Because I am adopted, I have a lot of deeply felt emotion regarding these people, my bio-mom and bio-dad; but it is so deep that it has taken years of introspection and therapy to get through to it, and I really don't want this to be a post about my biological parents. (I've done that, here. It's very emotional and very intense, so you've been warned.)

So, who are my father and mother?

One theory is, "My father and mother are the people who are biologically related to me." Well, that is true in a scientific sense, I suppose. But those people, whomever they are, had very little to do with the person I would later become.

Another theory is, "My father and mother are the people who cared for me and adopted me. The people who reared me." And that is true too, very true. More true perhaps than the first idea. My adopted Dad died in September of '08, and I have yet to truly process what all that means. I'm still grieving for him. I feel this grief no less because he was someone who chose me, rather than someone who got my mother pregnant. My adopted mom, whom I basically just call "mom," and I are rebuilding our relationship after a lot of estrangement. I am thankful for this, because in my head she fits the slot of "mom" more than anyone. She is my Mother, and I love her dearly.

And then there is, "My father and mother are the people who nurtured my soul, guided my path, gave me inspiration and beautiful dreams." This is also true. So, I can name many fathers and mothers then. I name Barbara Jean Fant, I name Robert Heinlein. I name Gary Gygax. I name Starhawk and Luisah Teish. There are many, many others I could name. I'm grateful for them all.

That leaves the question, "Who are you nurturing and guiding, who are you a mother or a father of?"

I have the kids I have claimed as my own: G and Rowan. Certainly the States of Georgia and California think they are my children, as I paid child support for them and continue to pay for G. And, truth be told, it doesn't matter what the State or anyone else thinks: they are my children, plain and simple.

As a younger man, my life was very strange and many things were completely chaotic. But I reared my kids, and, even if we have been distant since they left my house, I still love them without reservation or condition as my daughter and son. If you are a guy and you change a person's diapers, hold them when they cry, discipline them, and take care of their boo-boos, and you do this every day until they can stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves, I truly believe that you are that person's Daddy.

I was there for them, and I would never give up those memories and those times; they are precious to me.

I have Katie, who is my step-daughter-in-heart (the daughter of the woman I'm life-partnered to), who lost her own biological father and came to live with us and has now lived longer with me as her male-authority-figure than she did with her father.

And then there are other more nebulous children: the children of my mind and spirit. Who are they? I have no idea. But I would love to know if I do.

And, speaking of nebulous children, if I knew that I had a biological child out there in the world, I would want to at least acknowledge him or her, and do what I could to show them love due to our tie of blood.

Certainly, I am the proud father of two novels, two games, many podcasts, and several blogs, and what are they if not children of my mind and spirit? I have hope that something I do in this lifetime will spawn life, love, hope, and future for other people.

So I invite you to ask yourself, "Who are my fathers and mothers? Who am I a father or mother to?" and think outside the normal definitions. You might be surprised who you name, or who names you.

Food Dreams and Nightmares

One of my dreams has always been to open a restaurant. The idea of being open for business, of creating wonderful experiences for people, of making a whole lot of people happy with food, this really excites me. Right now, I'm far, far too thin skinned to go into the business, but I hope to one day get the kind of training necessary to be able to stand on my own two feet and face the public with my food.

I don't have aspirations to be some kind of incredible chef, however. I just want to take care of people, feed them, give them a place where they can get out of the world for a while and enjoy an experience that lifts them up out of their noise, trouble and stress.

People who know the business tell me that I am describing a sure fire method for losing a lot of money: the best way to get more bucks in the food business is to move people through as fast as you can.

I have to believe that there is some happy medium between that model and the concept of people enjoying a meal, taking their time.

Anyway, I am hoping I will have time to realize this dream. In the meantime, I am always learning, as much as I can, about the restaurant business. I've even thought of taking a job as a busboy on the weekends so I can learn the business from that angle.

That brings me to talk about Hell's Kitchen. I don't usually watch Reality TV shows. Something about them really ticks me off, but that's a different rant for a different post.

However, Hell's Kitchen season 5 has caught and keeps my attention. On one hand, I am constantly astonished by the amount of emotional and mental abuse Ramsay levels on his participants. The entire show seems to be designed to put him in situations where he freaks out and screams. Like a bad, rage-a-holic father, Ramsay continues to berate people, push their buttons when he can find them, and does everything he can to increase the stress and pressure in the kitchen, in order to cause other people to freak out. Time and again, I heard the chefs saying that they didn't know why they were making dumb mistakes. A fellow who works in a steak house couldn't even grill steaks right!
This guy reminds me of a person I worked for once. By yelling and screaming and threatening people in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, he manages to put everybody off their A game. It's not surprising that people who cope best with his management style are people who were themselves abused as children; in an abusive relationship of any kind one learns the necessary skills to deal with irrational people.

So why do I keep watching? I think it is partly a therapeutic experience. Exposing myself to this kind of abusive situation lets me tell myself how I would respond in the situation. I can talk back to the feelings created. I can root for individuals who are competing and empathize with them. At the same time, some of it is truly informative.

It's possible that I will drop this pastime pretty soon, but for now I think it does provide both entertainment and an opportunity to recognize the craziness and flaws of management through rage and destruction. The show is about shredding 16 potential chefs, and in the end, there is only 1 who emerges victorious. That's a 6.25% success rate, which is a terrible statistic if you think of the show as a teaching experience. If we could replace Ramsay with a chef who cultivates, not eliminates people, how many awesome world-class chefs would be created? It would be more than just 1, but I think that the main problem is that building people up is not as interesting television as breaking them down.

A side note: I see that most, if not all, of the restaurants Chef Ramsay has helped in his other show, Kitchen Nightmares, have all but failed. The shows seem to represent him as being a godsend, but ultimately I feel as though his ideas and "help" are just as toxic as his personality.