Post a good thing that happened in your life today

[Rebecca Ore]

11 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

I live in a bus so have very limited space. We are very happy with our coffee capsules and little Nespresso machine. Plus we have stuck it to the worktop so don't have to put it away every day. 

 

Hubby's dad had a very successful business importing coffee from Mexico to the UK.

My Bonjour (like a Clever Dripper) doesn't need filter papers.  My Melitta cone does, but those are available locally or I could get a sock or metal cone for it.  I leave the Melitta cone on top of my mug.   I have two conical burr hand grinders and a whirly blade grinder for spices, and French press coffee when I'm lazy.  Also, check out Aeropress ($30 US, metal filter additional).

 

This is what I know about Nespresso:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMwNnAtTL8&list=TLPQMDgwMTIwMjKT8FyVvTTkhg&index=10 

 

If that's the Nespresso machine on his table, my gear is smaller except for the height of the Orphan Espresso Lido grinder. 

 

I only got into coffee after moving here in my 60s.  People in NYC said I should try arabica without giving up on coffee altogether.  Hated coffee in my 20s.  Drank some to be polite at as a guest at a friend's finca, and decided to explore the local coffees.  Arabica varies a lot.

 

I love James Hoffmann's videos on coffee. 

 

[Ed Rooney]

When I first visited London, in the 1960s, The UK was a tea-drinking nation. You could get a coffee but it was nothing like what's going on today. Seattle and Starbucks have a lot to do with the current coffee craze. 

 

I used to enjoy a cup of tea but now it gets me coughing, even green tea or chamomile.

 

The elaborate West Coast versions of cappuccino and macchiato are dessert drinks in themselves. They are (or were) different in Italy. Nostalgia for a simpler time is visiting me like flu or Covid. 

[Betty LaRue]

On 22/10/2022 at 03:46, Ed Rooney said:

 

Here's a bad thing that turned into a good thing.

 

I bought a half pound of coffee last week at Black Sheep Coffee, the latest up-scale coffee house to open in Liverpool ONE. I was shocked to see they had charged me £9.99. Yikes! The same amount of French roast coffee 5 at M&S is £2.85 . . . and it's better coffee. 

 

 

I think there was a bad crop in one (or more) of the coffee-growing countries, along with raging inflation, that’s caused a rise in coffee. It’s really bad here. I couldn’t find my brand at all for a couple of months. It’s a pretty smooth, mellow ground.  I used to pay $8 something for a 1 pound 14 ounce container of it and on my own, it lasts me a while. About a year ago, it went up to $13 something. It’s now $23 something. I bought a container at $13, and one of the cheap brands that tastes harsh to me. I’m blending the two half and half, and it’s okay to drink.  
Like you, I have two cups in the morning and no more. I did read in the newspaper that somewhere (maybe Japan?) was expecting a decent coffee bean crop, not harvested yet. I remember thinking when I read that, I didn’t realize they grew coffee.

[Rebecca Ore]

6 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

I think there was a bad crop in one (or more) of the coffee-growing countries, along with raging inflation, that’s caused a rise in coffee. It’s really bad here. I couldn’t find my brand at all for a couple of months. It’s a pretty smooth, mellow ground.  I used to pay $8 something for a 1 pound 14 ounce container of it and on my own, it lasts me a while. About a year ago, it went up to $13 something. It’s now $23 something.

 

My coop coffee prices went from 80 cordobas a pound to over 100 cordobas a pound (100 C is around $3) in three or four years unless my shopping person is pocketing the difference.   Same coffee in the US is around $16 US.   Farm people in Nicaragua worked despite covid, and while we had some red fungus a few years ago, one price pressure is that people who cut coffee started to be more demanding of benefits and pay.  Covid may have been a problem in moving green coffee.   It's generally brought down off the mountains and dried on concrete pads before grading and shipping.  Lower elevations are drier than the highlands where coffee grows best.  Some farms are still a distance from roads, so one friend had mules and horses to pack out the coffee.  Mostly, it travels by pickup trucks to the coffee drying areas.  Local coop is mostly smaller farmers, but not always family farms.

 

If planes and ships weren't moving, probably that was an issue.  At one point, mail from the US wasn't coming in.  My ex-landlord said a sister who had a coffee farm was doing well even during Covid, so some coffee was moving out.  Nicaragua produces some coffee that sells mostly to Asia and Europe than locally, and some local coffee that doesn't have specialty buyers' interests but which makes nice espresso (Ometepe Island coffee).

 

If you can ever get your hands on dry processed coffee, try that.  It's said to be naturally sweet because  the cherry dries around the bean rather than being wet processed off.  

 

Finca with wet processing gear.  They soak the cherries in water, then strip off the skin and fruit.  Most commercial coffee is processed that way.  This is the finca of former neighbors, with the house for farm laborers in the rear.  Heap of stripped off coffee skins and pulp on the left.

 

[Ed Rooney]

 

A pound of coffee in NYC seems to be running $2 to $4 depending on the type and brand -- cheaper than here and a lot cheaper than Betty's Midwest. Paulette's info would be more up to date. 

 

Worst than the weakening world economy, and the constant search for a new PM (and Covid, of course) is for me the crushing demise of the NY Yankees in postseason. No World Series for them this year. April and spring training look very far away. 😪

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Ed Rooney

[Allan Bell]

There is a craze on in this country for Bubble tea and bubble tea shops are springing up all over, even in Lincoln.

 

I did not know what bubble tea was so looked it up. Apparently it has been around since the 1980's in foreign parts like Taiwan and China.

 

It is made by blending tea with milk, fruit and fruit juices, then adding tapioca pearls and shaking vigorously. You can have it hot or cold.

 

Sacrilege. Leave my tea alone.

 

Allan

 

 

[Dave Richards]

5 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

There is a craze on in this country for Bubble tea and bubble tea shops are springing up all over, even in Lincoln.

 

I did not know what bubble tea was so looked it up. Apparently it has been around since the 1980's in foreign parts like Taiwan and China.

 

It is made by blending tea with milk, fruit and fruit juices, then adding tapioca pearls and shaking vigorously. You can have it hot or cold.

 

Sacrilege. Leave my tea alone.

 

Allan

 

 

Not sure I’d be that keen to try it. With tapioca it seems it may be a bit like drinking frog spawn.

[Rebecca Ore]

5 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

There is a craze on in this country for Bubble tea and bubble tea shops are springing up all over, even in Lincoln.

 

I did not know what bubble tea was so looked it up. Apparently it has been around since the 1980's in foreign parts like Taiwan and China.

 

It is made by blending tea with milk, fruit and fruit juices, then adding tapioca pearls and shaking vigorously. You can have it hot or cold.

 

Sacrilege. Leave my tea alone.

Allan

 

 

I like chia con tamarindo, which is a tamarind infusion with chia seeds which get a gel coat in acidic drinks.  Possibly the original inspiration for bubble tea.  As a US person, I found bubble tea rather charming, but then I am a barbarian, right.  Bubble tea was common enough in Philadelphia.

[Dave Richards]

10 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

I like chia con tamarindo, which is a tamarind infusion with chia seeds which get a gel coat in acidic drinks.  Possibly the original inspiration for bubble tea.  As a US person, I found bubble tea rather charming, but then I am a barbarian, right.  Bubble tea was common enough in Philadelphia.

Yuk! They all sound to be a bit slimy 🤮. Not for me, I’ll stick with proper liquid drinks.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Dave Richards

[spacecadet]

18 hours ago, Dave Richards said:

drinking frog spawn.

Presumably those are the eponymous bubbles? That's an image I can't unsee🤪

Rice pudding in your tea doesn't sound too attractive.

[Allan Bell]

9 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Presumably those are the eponymous bubbles? That's an image I can't unsee🤪

Rice pudding in your tea doesn't sound too attractive.

 

The thing is that all of the younger set and students are queuing up outside of the bubble tea emporium to try it. I have a photo of them but not yet uploaded.

 

Allan

 

[Michael Ventura]

2 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

The thing is that all of the younger set and students are queuing up outside of the bubble tea emporium to try it. I have a photo of them but not yet uploaded.

 

Allan

 

 

Bubble tea is big here too. Seems very popular with with the teens and twenty-somethings.  There is a bubble tea shop near me and it is always busy.  I did it try and it is not for me, it is too sweet and and sucking up those tapioca pearls through the oversized straw is just weird.  Of course my daughter likes it, but she's a twenty-something.

[Ed Rooney]

Hey, Michael,

 

Have you ever eaten at I Ricchi off Dupont Circle? Classic Tuscan food, it used to be.

 

How bout you, Wim?

[Rebecca Ore]

On 24/10/2022 at 08:35, Dave Richards said:

Yuk! They all sound to be a bit slimy 🤮. Not for me, I’ll stick with proper liquid drinks.

 

Central America is full of slimy or gritty drinks.  One friend would make a drink out of instant oatmeal. 

[Michael Ventura]

5 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Hey, Michael,

 

Have you ever eaten at I Ricchi off Dupont Circle? Classic Tuscan food, it used to be.

 

How bout you, Wim?

 

Yes, a long time ago, and if I remember correctly, it was very good!  I think they moved recently, I drive by their restaurant a fair amount and I think it is in a new place.

[Ed Rooney]

 

I did two magazine shoots on them, one when they opened and the other a year or so later, that one on the food. The couple and I had a mutual Italian friend. The food was great. I don't know if that's still true. 

[Michael Ventura]

36 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

I did two magazine shoots on them, one when they opened and the other a year or so later, that one on the food. The couple and I had a mutual Italian friend. The food was great. I don't know if that's still true. 

 

It just hit me that I went there with Eric Meola when I assisted him on a DC shoot in the early 1980s.  Eric loved going to nice restaurants after a long shoot.

[Ed Rooney]

 

Not the early '80s, MV. They opened in 1989.

 

http://iricchidc.com/story/

 

Eric was one of the guys I interviewed for the Nikon Image book.

[Michael Ventura]

18 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

Not the early '80s, MV. They opened in 1989.

 

http://iricchidc.com/story/

 

Eric was one of the guys I interviewed for the Nikon Image book.

I worked with him throughout the 80s, whenever he had a DC shoot, so still probable.  When he would come to DC with Joanna, his wife, he would call for a meet up.  I still keep in touch, great guy.

 

It looks like the restaurant never moved but had a recent makeover, so I guess that is why I thought it was new.  Now I want to go there again!

Edited October 25, 2022 by Michael Ventura

[wiskerke]

11 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Hey, Michael,

 

Have you ever eaten at I Ricchi off Dupont Circle? Classic Tuscan food, it used to be.

 

How bout you, Wim?

 

Nope. But looking at their menu and history we were wrong. That much is clear. They're on 19th street one block from Dupont. We often did eat out on 19th st. So it's not too far away from F and 21st. We usually stopped 1 or 2 blocks from I Ricchi and had sushi or pho at a place that's still there. With guests we did try and enjoyed some DC classics with lots of red meat. And we followed Tom Sietsema's columns, which led us to pizza joints and some weird restaurants on the U corridor that had just opened. Oh and to Kotobuki where we would bike to a few times. That's the one who had been playing the same Beatles tape over and over for 8 or 10 years and probably still does, making it 25 years by now. Kotobuki meaning forever or something, so it figures. It's on the second floor, took no reservations and the line went from the street and up the narrow stairs. It's still there and seemingly has bought the posh downstairs neighbor. Sietsema did not discriminate between posh and budget, this was the heyday of Chowhound. So we did go to CityZen in the Mandarin Oriental once on his account and I had my birthday dinner there, that we still remember.

Now Chowhound has gone; CityZen along with the Mandarin Oriental also. The fish restaurant where we went quite a few times near Blues Alley right on the Canal is not there anymore too and I don't even remember the name. They had great oysters but meh crab cakes.

With the Zipcar we sometimes ventured out of the city: Patowmack Farm opposite Point of Rocks springs to mind. And Harris Crab House of course. Both an hour by car.

Ah I forgot another one from Sietsema's list: Buck's Fishing and Camping next door to Politics and Prose. I don't have Eric Meola sort of stories 😂. Which I totally envy. But I was there when Annie Leibovitz totally broke in front of the audience and most of her family at her book presentation in 2007. (What's that got to do with Meola? They both shot great Springsteen album covers.)

Pizzagate happened at the Comet on the other side of Buck's btw.

 

Would we go back? Don't ask.

 

wim

[Michael Ventura]

8 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

Nope. But looking at their menu and history we were wrong. That much is clear. They're on 19th street one block from Dupont. We often did eat out on 19th st. So it's not too far away from F and 21st. We usually stopped 1 or 2 blocks from I Ricchi and had sushi or pho at a place that's still there. With guests we did try and enjoyed some DC classics with lots of red meat. And we followed Tom Sietsema's columns, which led us to pizza joints and some weird restaurants on the U corridor that had just opened. Oh and to Kotobuki where we would bike to a few times. That's the one who had been playing the same Beatles tape over and over for 8 or 10 years and probably still does, making it 25 years by now. Kotobuki meaning forever or something, so it figures. It's on the second floor, took no reservations and the line went from the street and up the narrow stairs. It's still there and seemingly has bought the posh downstairs neighbor. Sietsema did not discriminate between posh and budget, this was the heyday of Chowhound. So we did go to CityZen in the Mandarin Oriental once on his account and I had my birthday dinner there, that we still remember.

Now Chowhound has gone; CityZen along with the Mandarin Oriental also. The fish restaurant where we went quite a few times near Blues Alley right on the Canal is not there anymore too and I don't even remember the name. They had great oysters but meh crab cakes.

With the Zipcar we sometimes ventured out of the city: Patowmack Farm opposite Point of Rocks springs to mind. And Harris Crab House of course. Both an hour by car.

Ah I forgot another one from Sietsema's list: Buck's Fishing and Camping next door to Politics and Prose. I don't have Eric Meola sort of stories 😂. Which I totally envy. But I was there when Annie Leibovitz totally broke in front of the audience and most of her family at her book presentation in 2007. (What's that got to do with Meola? They both shot great Springsteen album covers.)

Pizzagate happened at the Comet on the other side of Buck's btw.

 

Would we go back? Don't ask.

 

wim

 

You mentioned some fine eating spots in DC Wim! I do love Comet's pizza and Buck's is great too.  Never met Annie Leibovitz but she went to high school near where I live now, in Silver Spring, MD.  She has family who still live in this area.  

[Ed Rooney]

 

Way back in the 1950s, I lived in a building on 19th Street, right across from where I Ricchi opened in '89. My wife lived in the same small building and we were both working at a small theatre in separate plays, she in The Cocktail Party and me in The Playboy of the Western World. 19th was always a good restaurant street. God . . . so long long ago. I was never that avid on TV or films, but the theatre. That was the Temple of Truth and Beauty.

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Ed Rooney

[Cecile Marion]

Sounds like you've lived a very interesting life, Edo.

 

I’m currently on an LNER, going from Edinburgh to London, and then heading back to the US after two months of being away. Can’t say I’m ready to return, though I do miss my comfy chair. I must say, the UK trains are light years beyond what we have in the US. A joy to ride, and the people I’ve come across have been friendly and very accommodating. 

[wiskerke]

4 minutes ago, Cecile Marion said:

Sounds like you've lived a very interesting life, Edo.

Amen to that!

 

wim

[Michael Ventura]

19 hours ago, wiskerke said:

The fish restaurant where we went quite a few times near Blues Alley right on the Canal is not there anymore too and I don't even remember the name.

 

Just saw on the local news that Blues Alley had a fire last evening.  They think it was started by a workman contractor.  The owner said they will have to close for a while, to rebuild,  but will return!  I have seen/heard some good music there!