coffee – 3 Coffees A Day

Reflection: What’s New is Old, but Different

As I sat downtown DC over the weekend at my favorite corner (17th and Pennsylvania), I noticed this beautiful reflection as I drank Sunday morning coffee with my daughter. The new facade of the building directly in front of me awash in the blue of a mid-February blue sky; it’s expanse of glass reflecting the classical parapet-like structure of the white masonry building on my side of the street. The reflected image fit succinctly into the expanse of new glass; line to line, floor to floor, with the masonry taking on a ghostly note — floating against the moorings of glass just steps away.

So too are discoveries, or perhaps realizations this week. My internship places me back in the world of nonprofits — all the inner workings and intertwining of ideas, plans and strategies to bring the cloudy to solid life — not unlike this streetwise transition from masonry shadow to gleaming glass. When I left this (nonprofit) or first world as I think of it in relation to my career, I didn’t think I would ever feel the pull to return — but here I am, considering the road ahead and feeling pretty certain (though not yet saying aloud) that this is the direction I should head. I’m not sure if I am surprised by this realization, but I welcome it and in some ways I had a distinct hand, and interest in heading toward change. Even now, I hesitate to say I want to leave teaching though it’s been on my writer’s board since last semester to work toward a teaching adjacent day job. I think perhaps this idea of what’s old is new again is fostered by the soft landing — being able to intern within subject matter that I already have an affinity for — and by the graciousness of my interning hosts to welcome me into the fold.

Where this line of thinking will lead, I am not yet sure — but without the current leap I wouldn’t have come to this realization at all, so some organic gardening in respect to letting this realization rest in both camps for awhile, history and future, reflection and expanse is probably the best idea. A boss (Richard) long ago told me it’s always best to know what one doesn’t want, because that makes figuring our what one does want, so much easier. So, I’ll toast Richard from afar as he’s now decamped to Palm Springs — as I know what I don’t want, and I’ll figure out the steps to get what I do want, now that the vision grows clearer.

Softball Muffins

img_20190421_080832 When you think of signature morning rituals in New York, bagels are what most often come to mind. But within every bagel and coffee shop, there are the others — the softball sized muffins that can be found nowhere else I’ve traveled. While these muffins rival the Costco version — these bagel-shop muffins are most often right out of the oven and lack (for the good) the Costco mass-production taste and squishy feel.

This carrot raisin muffin from H & H Bagels on 2nd Avenue is gloriously NY. It’s sturdy, carrots but not too many (as with the raisins), and a little bit spicy much like 2nd Avenue itself — a working muffin for a working avenue of uptown/downtown traffic that wakes slowly…then bam we’re off and running headlong into the day. If you get in early enough, you’ll find no lines and you can breeze in and out of H & H — much like just about any place in the City; wait too long and the line is out to the winter-weather vestibule or beyond.

The beauty of the NY muffin carries into the future — smart shoppers will pick up a weekend’s supply so that sleeping late on day two is possible. Never flat, and resistant to the deflation many baked goods suffer during a microwave spin, the NY muffin continues to stand tall like many beloved buildings that surround H & H. Perhaps this is due to the careful brown paper wrapping each muffin receives before heading out into all kinds of weather that the City dishes up, and perhaps it’s just resilience in a munchable form. Whatever the reason, the NY muffin offers a slightly sweet and textured way to start the day — while I love a hot bagel, the muffin is not just an “also there” of the bagel shop — it’s a full-fledged member of the bagel shop team.

Snow Scones

For the last several Januaries, my daughter and I have made a list of items to conquer in the kitchen over the next year — our list is not long, and it often includes basic items that had elluded us in the past (okay, mostly me, she’s too young to have a long list of kitchen failures). This year scones and flaky (not hockey puck) biscuits are tops on the list. With our weekend snow storm, and a new pastry blender, time was on our side to dive into blueberry scones.

As an English teacher, part of what I help students to understand, I hope, is that writing is 50% process and 50% action and that actual writing takes up only 20-30% of that action time. So, this is my new approach to cooking — goal, objective, method. The idea of making a homemade scone, with the merging of the butter to flour for the perfect crumble was a real stumbling block because the “idea” of it was daunting. I’ve made scone for years from using Fisher Scone Mix, that of my childhood and the Puyallup Fair — this mix only requires water. So the resolution? Spend the most time finding a recipe that is not overwhelming, easy to follow steps that actually make sense, and no rushing. Using my 50% process, 50% action scenario I assumed the most time would be spent on finding the recipe and securing a non-wimpy pastry blender, and ingredient gathering is easy (we take an elevator downstairs to the grocery, which helps with the amount of time spent on action items). The real boon of this project — a snowstorm — and I’d already gathered the critical items of blender and recipe.

After scouring around the internet, I went to my go-to baking site King Arthur and located a blueberry scone recipe. Now if you follow this link, be sure to compare their photo and my non-stylized photo — I think we ended up with a pretty good match and really, I was convinced this was the right recipe based on one line of the instructions, “Use a muffin scoop, jumbo cookie scoop, or 1/4-cup measure to scoop the dough onto the prepared sheet in scant 1/4-cupfuls, leaving about 2″ between each.” Muffin scoop! No needing on a floured surface, folding or cutting in perfect angles. And if no muffin scoop is available, two other regular cooking utensil items are offered as alternatives. Looping back to my goal/objective/method process — here we have a method for scone prep that is accessible and understandable that accommodates just about any home baker. Breaking down any project into digestible and accomplishable bits rests solely on methods that make sense and lead to results that the writer/baker/plumber/painter can parlay into results that lead a reader/eater/viewer/person with clogged pipes to understanding.

For this scone experiment — the results are gone. Our little family devoured nine scones (that may sound like excess, but reminder: snow day) by mid-morning. Taste — just like the photo in the recipe — a slight crunch on the outside, soft inside, blueberries in-tact, just enough butter for a smooth crumb, the salt rises to meet the outside crunch. There is still snow, loads of it, so today may lead to a blackberry or raspberry version. Thank you King Arthur Flour!

One last gingerbread…

img_20190104_055100 It is the last day of Winter Break…one of the saddest days of the year, to me. Yes, we’re only several days into the year — but the return to routine, is a bit like a door closing on a season that is all too short; we are urged from every direction whether our faith community or the news — to slow down, be mindful, take more time with loved ones, focus on what is really important…yet there is always a reckoning day – the day we must face the reality of routine and accomplishing tasks and we march toward a myriad a goals to be realized.

My answer: one last gingerbread breakfast.

This may not seem like a solution to most folks that see cake for breakfast as a bad thing — I however celebrate cake for breakfast in its many forms. As a person that has worked through numerous nutrition scenarios over my now 50 years (I have the privilege and anguish to have the rarest of all U.S. birthdays, January 1), I can say that cake for breakfast has provided the mental buoy that I have needed to glide into many challenging days. For those that find themselves agape, with the horrified hand to cover their wide open mouths (the sugar! the lack of protein!), I’ll tell you this — the serotonin boost from the anticipation of a spicy, dark cake breakfast soothes even the dreariest day and does more to combat the cloying grayness than any protein-infused breakfast.

While I often make gingerbread from scratch, Trader Joe’s is the best mix available — as soon as you open the bag, the ginger symphony wafts upwards to greet you, and an immediate calm covers you. Now, I do make an alteration to the prescribed mixing instructions substituting apple sauce for oil, which adds nutrients and subtracts calories. At the beginning of the season, we anxiously await the release of this mix and this year stopped by several TJ locations (thankfully we now live in an area with many) to see which days the stocking of the mix would commence — and yes, we went on day one. Four boxes pretty much sees us through the season and so as not to take any risks, we buy all four on our “fist day on the shelf” shopping trip.

Gingerbread, and all its delicious glory and grace is to me, metaphorical for how this year will go — layered flavors, spice, savory but sweet, a respite. Gingerbread rallies our little team, its packable and mobile (unless you put cream on top), and it is the pause before a flurry of snow or activity. It requires that you slow down — there is no way to eat gingerbread fast. It is quiet, rich, comforting when all else seems to be speeding away and out of control. As light begins to creep into the day, it seems clear that rain is not so far away — again. But for today, we’ll start with cake to trick our brains away from the desolate color, the fact that the routine is about the begin in earnest, and make small plans to enjoy this last morning of freedom.

Jólabókaflóðið = Christmas Book Flood

IMG_20181225_064318 Jólabókaflóðið or Jolabokaflod (Christmas book flood) is the Icelandic tradition of giving books (and reading) during Christmastime, due to the fact that most books in Iceland (Reykjavík is a UNESCO City of Literature) are published during the autumn months. Our family adopted this tradition early on, since not only do we buy lots of books anyway, but it seemed like a good way to spend part of Christmas Eve anyway by stopping into a bookstore as part of our hygge-like celebration of the season. We’ve hit a variety of shops over the years from the local Barnes & Noble, to last year’s visit to the amazing Strand and this year to Politics & Prose.

Books are the backbone of this home – stacks are often found well outside any shelf, and really there are never enough shelves no matter which home we’ve lived in for any length of time. There are books in storage, in the basement, under beds and in closets. We also have three working Kindles (great for travel, audio books and music). If books decorate our home, a trip to the bookstore is a serotonin boost for us — to be near all of those words, with their stories (albeit some better than others), and to get a coffee and cake after perusing and buying the next treasure? Best days ever. No matter how we’ve often lived on academic salaries, lay-offs and what seems like an unending tide of medical bills — for books, while we may pace ourselves, we’ll find a way to buy what we consider friends and bring them home to be members of this otherwise small family of three. There is no such thing as too many books for us and here’s why — because these are our friends, we can always go for a visit — a favorite passage, or an entire round-trip visit, a quick view or an afternoon, doesn’t matter; like our human friends, some days we have more time to chit-chat than others. We love libraries too, more on that later.

Merry Book Flood one and all!

It’s Never too Late for Gingerbread

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Somehow 2018 has vanished, but when I found myself on the eve of Christmas eve with a bit of stamina left (everyone else passed out on the couch or with earphones on), I decided it’s just never too late for gingerbread. And maybe this will be my mantra for the year going forward. I went with the simple method on this batch, no rolling/cutting/decorating — so these look a little more like peanut butter cookies in traditional shape but with the distinct taste of ginger and cloves — with just the right amount of satisfying crisp around the edges with smooth centers. Recipe courtesy of my favorite flour, King Author.

I think of gingerbread cookies as the hardest working cookie on the Christmas platter: it’s sturdy, spicy and substantial. On the nutrition side, these cookies actually come in quite well: using my method these come in at 69 calories a cookie (60 cookies per the King Author recipe, using a 1/2 tablespoon + a smidge as a size guide). This recipe also includes a bit of iron, potassium and Vitamin D — anytime you can pick up Vitamin D in the winter, from a cookie no less, is an excellent use of calories. Analyzing recipes may not sound glamorous, but this one from verywell fit is excellent, easy and now I know about the Vitamin D, which I didn’t know before. Of further note on gingerbread — these are excellent for hikes, breakfast nearly year-round, with tea or coffee, though probably not with chai — that’s maybe too much spice?

Grinding Coffee at Costco

I buy all our coffee at Costco — ok, all of my coffee as no one else drinks it in my house. And based on my age and lack-of-sleep pattern, I’ve learned to concoct a special brew that combines varying degrees of caffeine. For this process, Costco is the clear winner when it comes to the cost-experiment ratio of possibly dumping out a batch that either causes the jitters, or reduces motivation to zero.

Inevitably, like last Saturday though, I find myself along with my gal pal to be beyond the line where the Costco folks use highlighters to draw lines across our receipts — when I realize I did not grind the coffee. Again. I’m wondering if I’ve done this “forget” routine part of my forages so often that it is indeed, a routine. Thanks to gal pal, I didn’t have to trek to the car to unload the roasted chicken and baby lettuce before returning to the receipt line for my green sticker so I could return to the grinding machine. With the eye roll and nod I received, clearly I’m not the only person on this particular afternoon to walk this same path.

The commercial grade grinder at our local quasi-surburban Costco is wedged between the .25 bottled water cooler and the condiment bar — yes, ketchup and ground-up pickles are mere inches away. This naturally creates an odd range of odors, and collection of people hovering in the same area. Not to mention, cleanliness is not first on the minds of either customers or employees on this stretch of industrial steel counter. On the best days, there is a marginally functioning tape dispenser and a pair of scissors covered in coffee mist on the grinder’s section of table — on the not-so-great days, you have to carefully maneurver back to membership to secure your fresh roast.

But when you remove the iron-clad tab, flex your triceps to open the seeled bag of two pounds or more of beans — the aroma snakes its way out and starts to cover the mustard smell down the row. Dumping those beans in is satisfying not just for the nose but for the upcoming victory over cheap condiments you’re about to win. Turn that dial to finer roast and you know it will be insta-coffee dist spewing forth in just seconds. Is there a word bigger than aroma? I don’t know and I’m too lazy to pull out the thesaurus just now (it’s spelling bee season, and I’m wearying on word-aides). Bigger and louder to the senses than scent, aroma, odor or all the rest — when that on button is pushed, nothing short of powdery intoxication comes forth — overtaking your brain and the rest of the counter crew. Instant seratonin boost, followed by waves of memories and expectations rolled all into one brown-ish cloud of desire.

And then I realized I forgot to push the off button when all the beans were pulverized, which would explain the continuing cloud of dust holding sway over my hands and possibly the folks to my right. Um, whoops; clearly I’ve been washed away in my own dreams of cookies at my great-grandma’s house, what kind of cream I’ll be using in the morning, do I have any cream, and maybe I should just drink this as soon as I get home.

There is no way to remove each and every brown crystal of former bean from your hands once you try to reseal the newly soft, pliable bag…solution: shake hands a little, then just rub in the rest so that while driving, you can reach your hand near your face, for a little whiff of what is to come.