Saturday, December 25, 2004


happy holidays to you

and here's an interesting piece on christmas traditions from ethiopia -- along of course with the beautiful ethiopian coffee ceremony!

up for a bit with a little snuffle, i took a moment to peruse a couple of barista blogs: you know, espressolab (sorry your espresso machine's in the shop, jimmy!), etc.

there's so much excitement in the barista community right now, i do hope the barista guild can gather around a great leadership structure and get their balloon off the ground.

in fact, i think some of the best coffee discussions aren't on alt.coffee or coffeegeek, but on that barista guild forum. i spend a lot of time lurking over there!

i really hope the scaa consumer members can follow a similar structure and experience the same success the barista guild does! sure they have growing pains -- all new, totally volunteer groups do!

just to follow up on a couple of topics: no, alas, the gotham grill didn't serve their famous and incredible gotham chocolate cake for mr. right's birthday dinner. instead they offered a mixed tray of tartlettes, only one of which featured a chocolate génoise with raspberry-ginger cream filling and a ganache top. i did however groove on the egg-nog panna cotta with brandied cherries anyway. . .

and in response to questions about the new black mat from manduka -- outta the box it's much stickier than the old black transformer mat. all i had to do was give it a quick wash in the bathtub with a sponge and some woolite.

it's not quite as long, wide, or thick; this means it's not as cushy in the jumpbacks. however, working on it made me realize just how worn down my old mat was -- in comparison it was like i was doing yoga on a sheet of glass!

but i do think the new mat improves some my standing poses, particularly warrior two. that's such a simple-seeming pose, but of course like all of yoga, it only gets more difficult to fine-tune it.

to refine the poses: that always gets harder, never easier. . .which naturally is one of the appeals of yoga!

sometimes people will say to you "what a great looking pose!" and you realize that you could have a slightly more even hip-line, or bend your knee just a touch more, or angle your back foot in a tad. . .these little details not only can help keep you from injury in a pose, but also add grace and lightness.

so they are worth cultivating. sadly, i probably won't get to yoga today!

i'll have to make do with some of jessica's batdorf dancing goat espresso. i was drinking this yesterday morning, when i suddenly found myself thinking about mark inman's taylor maid espresso-a-go-go.

i think i need some more of that real soon. . .you know, not only is mark a super coffee roaster, he's a good friend who gives great advice!

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