Saturday, October 04, 2003


yet another coffee party

i'm sure everyone remembers the first time they were confronted with the heavy weight of the mazzer grinder collar, thinking, i have to find a setting for this espresso, what could it be and why is this puppy so hard to turn?

ah, the excitement of the espresso-makin' newbie. and today i had a coffee party for david schoenholt (son o' don) so we could experiment with making different types of coffee.

as is my wont i offered intelligentsia's black cat (i have to say their customer service guy, mason, can't be beat; and there's nothing roast guy geoff watts doesn't know about coffee); josuma coffee's malabar gold; batdorf's staple dancing goats; and two of gillies coffees, the deluxe dark 2 and the italian dark 4.

we blew thru 1/2 pound of the black cat; the full pound of deluxe dark 2; 1/2 lb. of the italian dark; did relatively little damage to the goats or malabar gold; and also kissed nearly a gallon of milk adieu.

for giggles, we used both my passionate italian princess, the rancilio silvia and my steamy latin darling, carlos expobar.

david gamely stepped up to dealing with moving the mazzer about to dial in coffee and saw for himself first hand how finely the gillies grinds in comparison to the others. we also made da vinci white chocolate lattes with all the coffees so he could see how the gillies' coffees compared in a common and popular milk drink.

he also wasn't shy in dealing with my reg barber tamper and only briefly looked at me as if i was crazy when i dragged out the bathroom scale for tamping practice.

whether you're doing an italian-method-grind-finer-tamp-10-lbs. or an american-method-grind-a-tad-less-fine-tamp-30lbs, ya gotta learn what your tamp pressure feels like. thus the bathroom scale to tamp against.

we were supposed to practice until 2pm, when i had a hair appt. we ran a little late and i was calling my salon to explain when i discovered from their answering machine -- oops! they had suddenly and mysteriously vanished, gone belly up, taking my guy from fekkai, glenn, a former merce cunningham dancer, with them.

glenn! where are you? have you gone back to fekkai? i can't live without you! only you have the secret to my blondeness. . . .i may have to go his midweek 2am drag show at barracuda to track him down. . .

thus in a brief fit of despair, i needed my coffee more than ever. but david was a good sport and seemed to understand. then we gossiped like hens and made coffee until 5pm.

i love making coffee and could have done it all night. but david was drooping, so i sent him on his way.

this entire experience shows me that:

  1. yoga is working, because the sudden news that you've lost your long-time hairdresser is a valid reason for suicide in new york and i still managed to have fun, be happy; and
  2. i need to open a coffeeshop, because few things make me as perky as the perfect microfoam for latte art, even if i'm still pouring more so-called "monkey butt" blobs than lovely hearts, tulips, or apples. . .

all in all it was a great time. let me finally recommend a new cookie for your milk drinks: the churchill's chocolate chip shortbread, which comes in a lovely gift box decorated with roses or an equally nice tin with irises!


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