Category Archives: shame

On the perfect cup of coffee, or the best cortado

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I do believe that if you take care to make a great cup of coffee, you don’t need to flavor it with anything else. Leave the vanilla for the ice cream, the hazel nut for chocolate spread, pumpkin for the pie. Yet the reality of most brewed coffee, especially if it has been pre-staled by one of the major coffee companies, is really pretty sad. Most brewed coffee is pretty bad–a weak, watery concoction that tastes more like umbrella juice than coffee. Recently roasted and freshly ground coffee, whether drip or espresso, is a pungent, fragrant, bitter array of robust flavors that have nothing to do with the coffee you buy at the local supermarket that comes ground in a can. Why Americans insist on dressing up their coffee with chocolate, caramel, pumpkin spice, vanilla, hazel nut, cinnamon and a bunch of other flavors is really easy to understand–they are drinking a stale, weak brew that doesn’t taste like anything at all. First, they never use enough coffee, so what they brew is as thin as water and isn’t opaque enough to obscure the bottom of the cup, much less taste like anything more than dirty water. Pre-ground coffee is also already stale, the vast majority of its flavor greatness lost with the passage of time as the bean’s essential oils are allowed to change and turn bitter with time, disappearing and losing any potency it once had. Never buy pre-ground coffee; pre-ground coffee is but a ghost of its whole-bean self. Even freshly roasted coffee has a shelf-life that is really very short. If you cannot roast your own, find a local roaster that roasts on a regular basis and buy into their production, buying small quantities so that your supply never gets very old before it is replenished. Old coffee is bad coffee, no question about it.

On the perfect cup of coffee, or the best cortado

Posted on by

I do believe that if you take care to make a great cup of coffee, you don’t need to flavor it with anything else. Leave the vanilla for the ice cream, the hazel nut for chocolate spread, pumpkin for the pie. Yet the reality of most brewed coffee, especially if it has been pre-staled by one of the major coffee companies, is really pretty sad. Most brewed coffee is pretty bad–a weak, watery concoction that tastes more like umbrella juice than coffee. Recently roasted and freshly ground coffee, whether drip or espresso, is a pungent, fragrant, bitter array of robust flavors that have nothing to do with the coffee you buy at the local supermarket that comes ground in a can. Why Americans insist on dressing up their coffee with chocolate, caramel, pumpkin spice, vanilla, hazel nut, cinnamon and a bunch of other flavors is really easy to understand–they are drinking a stale, weak brew that doesn’t taste like anything at all. First, they never use enough coffee, so what they brew is as thin as water and isn’t opaque enough to obscure the bottom of the cup, much less taste like anything more than dirty water. Pre-ground coffee is also already stale, the vast majority of its flavor greatness lost with the passage of time as the bean’s essential oils are allowed to change and turn bitter with time, disappearing and losing any potency it once had. Never buy pre-ground coffee; pre-ground coffee is but a ghost of its whole-bean self. Even freshly roasted coffee has a shelf-life that is really very short. If you cannot roast your own, find a local roaster that roasts on a regular basis and buy into their production, buying small quantities so that your supply never gets very old before it is replenished. Old coffee is bad coffee, no question about it.

On freezing weather

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In central Texas, we are all freezing to death. After weeks and weeks, months and months of scorching days and 100 degree days, we are floundering in a morass of cold, rainy, freezing rain days and nights. By Minnesota standards this is not cold weather, but if you compare the relative coldness compared to our normal temperatures, we are really hurting. Even last Wednesday we were still in our shirt sleeves, no coats or hats, no sweaters or gloves–it was almost 80F on that day. The next day, however, was another story as temperatures plunged sixty degrees into the upper twenties. Perhaps if the temperatures had slowly gone down, bit by bit, we might have gotten used to the changing temperatures, and it wouldn’t have felt so cold. Since then, we have been walking around bundled up like a bunch of errant Michelin Men, dressed in multiple layers, hunting for our seldom used hats and our dusty gloves. We lean into the bitter northwest wind as if this will make it hurt less. We pull back into our coats like scared turtles, trying to stay warm. Perhaps if the wind were less biting, or the damp air less frigid, then we might have a chance against the cold air. So we go about our daily duties, off to work, walking to class, cutting across campus to get a cup of coffee, pretending that we are not freezing to death. Perhaps the best way to get used to the cold is to spend some time out in it? Living in the blazing temperatures of central Texas exacts a high toll: we are no longer any good at dealing with a cold day. We are wimps.

On freezing weather

Posted on by

In central Texas, we are all freezing to death. After weeks and weeks, months and months of scorching days and 100 degree days, we are floundering in a morass of cold, rainy, freezing rain days and nights. By Minnesota standards this is not cold weather, but if you compare the relative coldness compared to our normal temperatures, we are really hurting. Even last Wednesday we were still in our shirt sleeves, no coats or hats, no sweaters or gloves–it was almost 80F on that day. The next day, however, was another story as temperatures plunged sixty degrees into the upper twenties. Perhaps if the temperatures had slowly gone down, bit by bit, we might have gotten used to the changing temperatures, and it wouldn’t have felt so cold. Since then, we have been walking around bundled up like a bunch of errant Michelin Men, dressed in multiple layers, hunting for our seldom used hats and our dusty gloves. We lean into the bitter northwest wind as if this will make it hurt less. We pull back into our coats like scared turtles, trying to stay warm. Perhaps if the wind were less biting, or the damp air less frigid, then we might have a chance against the cold air. So we go about our daily duties, off to work, walking to class, cutting across campus to get a cup of coffee, pretending that we are not freezing to death. Perhaps the best way to get used to the cold is to spend some time out in it? Living in the blazing temperatures of central Texas exacts a high toll: we are no longer any good at dealing with a cold day. We are wimps.

On parking badly

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It’s an old story: you arrive at your parking garage, ready to get to work, and someone, driving some behemoth of a vehicle, has parked badly enough to take up two parking spaces. I wonder if the challenge of parking between the lines is too much for some people. Is crappy parking a sign of rebellion? Are they thumbing their nose at authority? They not only did not make it between the lines, they are also parked in some cockeyed diagonal fashion which makes parking next to them impossible. I tend to shun parking anywhere near them for fear of getting my own car involved in their reckless ways. You look for another spot, but what should you do? Leave a note explaining to this careless person what a moron they really are for parking so badly? First, parking is not that difficult, so I am amazed when people find it so hard to do. Believe or not, I like order in my world and the lines in a parking garage are there to encourage people to park in an orderly fashion. Yet, on a daily basis I must face people parking badly. People park wonky, on the line, off-kilter, and they invalidate a spot next to them. What kind of mind can turn a blind eye to the order of the lines in a parking lot? How can they leave their vehicle precariously parked for the whole world to look at and wonder about their careless ways? Are they completely without shame?

On parking badly

Posted on by

It’s an old story: you arrive at your parking garage, ready to get to work, and someone, driving some behemoth of a vehicle, has parked badly enough to take up two parking spaces. I wonder if the challenge of parking between the lines is too much for some people. Is crappy parking a sign of rebellion? Are they thumbing their nose at authority? They not only did not make it between the lines, they are also parked in some cockeyed diagonal fashion which makes parking next to them impossible. I tend to shun parking anywhere near them for fear of getting my own car involved in their reckless ways. You look for another spot, but what should you do? Leave a note explaining to this careless person what a moron they really are for parking so badly? First, parking is not that difficult, so I am amazed when people find it so hard to do. Believe or not, I like order in my world and the lines in a parking garage are there to encourage people to park in an orderly fashion. Yet, on a daily basis I must face people parking badly. People park wonky, on the line, off-kilter, and they invalidate a spot next to them. What kind of mind can turn a blind eye to the order of the lines in a parking lot? How can they leave their vehicle precariously parked for the whole world to look at and wonder about their careless ways? Are they completely without shame?