Thursday, December 15, 2005


live from tasmania!

after a quick but fantastic morning cappuccino from paul at mecca (barista alex kum poured an lovely delicate leaf), i hopped a virgin blue flight to launceston, tasmania and dashed through red angus/shorn sheep land up to cradle mountain.

on the way we stopped at an old-fashioned pie shop for a roast lamb pie with gravy and mint jelly. actually, the pastry was fairly delicate; it was surprisingly tasty.

and we stopped along the topmost slopes -- which sort of resemble parts of boulder, colo. mixed with parts of northern california, those piney woods clothed in ferns on the way to say, sebastopol? -- when we saw an actual wild echidna waddling along the road, its funnel-like snout rooting about the gravel.

as soon we approached of course, it put up its prickles and buried its face in a bush. . .at dusk we expect to hear the dulcet tones of the famed tasmanian devil. (this is australian sarcasm -- devils actually have the most horrid, strangled cry like a cross between fingernails on a blackboard and squealing brakes.)

tasmania is just one of those places you don't really expect to ever get to, you know? but suddenly one day i'm standing on the edge of a green cool streambank in the mountains thinking "wow! from brooklyn to tasmania!"

i'm pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which is why it's astonishing that the hotel has such fantastic internet access! alas, the coffee here is only coffex.

it'll be a rough morning tomorrow: and to think yesterday paul of mecca, paul haddon, alex kum and i were tasting the panmaria panama geisha in the vac pot, as an americano (i.e. "long black"), and a single espresso. . .we all decided that we preferred it as an americano.

none of the fruit tones, however, that i found when i made the batdorf geisha previously seemed to come through. as paul haddon said, this one seemed more "toffee;" i would have called it "dark caramel."

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