Wednesday, February 08, 2006


regional coffee culture, olympics edition, part ii

"while turin's olympic visitors will be more concerned with skating and skiing, they would do well to detour to a cafe and try a bicerin."

and today the ny times discovers this classic italian drink. of course, long-time bccy readers are familiar with it, since i've written about it before.

for example, here. and note, this was years and years ago.

despite the times claims that the recipe is "closely guarded," in fact recipes for the drink have been commonly available in english since at least 1997.

scroll down to bicerin here to see one that allows you to make it more than one shot at a time. but from these proportions, it's really easy to understand the recipe on a per-serving basis.

getting good italian chocolate, thank god, isn't is hard as it used to be -- in fact, the toughest part of the deal will be attempting to find an north american equivalent for fresh italian heavy cream. which is crucial, since it is nearly half the drink.

because lawd knows most of the stuff called "heavy cream" in the grocery stores nowadays is barely a dairy product by the time they're through with it, much less real milk -- i'm still up in the air about raw milk for anything but cheesemaking -- but even some of the "organic" ones are ultra-pasteurized and thickened with carrageanan.

but speaking of that "journal of cluelessness," wow! the ny times has finally discovered single-origin chocolate. amazing.

they're only about 6 years behind on this trend, i think. a group of my 'net pals have a term for that feeling of mute awe you get when confronted by overwhelming idiocy -- they call it the "dumbchills."

it's a sensation that comes over me regularly when reading the times, i must say. but on the single-origin front, long-time readers know i have quite a penchant for venezuelan and ecudorean beans, personally.

anyway, we should thank our lucky stars that the times is slowly catching up with the real world. can you imagine what would happen if the times staff actually dealt with current reality in all its forms?

(and thanks for the heads up on these articles, don! i never can resist an opportunity to mock the times' stupid food section!

maybe one day they'll get your story correct too! we can only hope!)

ok, enough fun taunting the times. let's talk about people who get it, which means terry p. at doma. devoted readers will recall that i'm a huge fan of his famed ruby blue espresso.

terry tells me he's tweaked the blend a bit, so i'm very interested in seeing what this now 2-day old coffee has to offer. tomorrow! tomorrow!

i love you, tomorrow! terry also sent some of his organic harrar, as well, so me all happy. . .

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