Wednesday, April 20, 2005


team usa, world bread champions!

yuppers, as mary beth indicated to me in her email, team usa did in fact do it again: win the world bread championship! we kicked the french to the curb and for the second time in 6 years baked the world's best bread.

all of us home bakers and real bread fans can only be pleased. there is no doubt that this will re-ignite the artisan bread baking scene across the u.s.a.

more better bread more places! yay.

also, i must note -- in the interests of the public good -- that the evil done by aussie barista judge, c-member, and home roaster paul haddon continues. naturally, now that i have packages of dark chocolate tim-tams, i brought them to my office, where i have unintentionally managed to addict the corporate counsel and the executive secretary.

we are all running around the hallways looking at our rapidly diminishing supply and pondering who we are prepared to kill for more. "this is your brain on tim-tams."

it appears that they aren't sold anywhere on the east coast and must be mail-ordered from far away. the chocolate, to be sure, is not high quality.

thus the reason these cookies are so addictive may forever remain a mystery. perhaps it's because they contain that mysterious "down under" ingredient, golden syrup, which is probably the origin of their ineffable caramel flavor.

or maybe it's just that a mere 2 skinny cookies is a shocking 760 calories with nearly 10g of fat! really, fate is doing me a great service by making these things nearly impossible to get.

wait! i'm supposed to be thanking door prize sponsors from last weekend's scaa conference, and others who made the great time possible. so thank you:

  • the scaa board
  • theresa macguire
  • all the speakers: paul songer, bill fishbein, karen gordon, rick peyser, the great people from bunn, willem boot, tadesse maskela, ken davids, andrew barnett, barry jarret, mary petitt, sunalini menon, doug cadmus, also all the people on the tour like bob and cea of smithfarms and terry davis of ambex, tim fleming of caffe d'arte, etc.
  • john hornall of hines coffee for having us to his awesome party
  • the barista guild of america, for inviting us to all their parties
  • the roasters guild, for tolerating us as some of us crashed their party
  • our former chairperson, kimberly easson, for bringing us this far
  • our new chairperson, whoever that person may be, and if you know who you are, please tell me pronto!
  • door prize sponsors fieldheads coffee, coffeewholesalers, and gillies coffee
  • biscotti suppliers matthew algie, espresso warehouse and biscotti #4

if i've inadvertently left anyone off this list, i apologize and blame it entirely on tim-tam withdrawal.

let me also take this opportunity to note that i am in fact travelling across the pond for two weeks to work in london on a project, starting next week. i will be able to blog from there with some regularity. . .

so be prepared to hear about coffee, yoga, etc. etc. in london, as i have time to explore 'em!

(nota bene: thank you to all the nice people sending me emails to say that time has the wrong blonde on its cover.

i doubt that i merit such distinction. . . but maybe time will wake up and smell the specialty coffee soon!)

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