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Posts Tagged ‘coffee’

Favorite Places to Have Coffee

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, tagged on November 26, 2015| 8 Comments »

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It was way past coffee time when I gave Pepper her last walk yesterday evening, but the jolt I got from this sight was as good as any caffeine. -- Photo by Pat Bean

It was way past coffee time when I gave Pepper her last walk yesterday evening, but the jolt I got from this sight was as good as any caffeine. — Photo by Pat Bean

            ”This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition … Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.” ~ Honoré de Balzac, “The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee”

Cream, No Sugar, Please

  1. Sitting on my bedroom balcony watching the weather of the day, be it sunny or stormy, play with the light and shadows on Mount Lemmon.
  2. In a hot bath on a cold morning.
  3. In a go cup at the dog park watching Pepper play with other dogs
  4. While in the car at the beginning of a road trip.
  5. Walking Pepper on the ridge outside my apartment complex as the sun makes its appearance for the day.
  6. In bed with a lover who got up and fixed the coffee, admittedly unfulfilled dreams of younger days. I always fixed the coffee.
  7. Chatting with a good friend who dropped by for coffee.
  8. Sitting in a corner at a coffee shop people watching and imagining their lives.
  9. In an airport waiting to depart for a new adventure.
  10. And sitting at my desk and writing this blog – or writing anything else that excites me.           
Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.

Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.

Bean Pat: Lisa-Jo Baker http://tinyurl.com/oecw232 Good advice for the holidays even if you’re not a mother

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Know When Coffee Tastes Different?

Posted in Food, Journeys, tagged , , on June 10, 2014| 4 Comments »

This is a coffee plantation in Arusha, Tanzanika, where I spent a night in 2007. The guest houses were scattered among the coffee plants. The experience turned me on to African coffee. -- Photo by Pat Bean

This is a coffee plantation in Arusha, Tanzania, where I spent a night in 2007. The guest houses were scattered among the coffee plants. The experience turned me on to African coffee. — Photo by Pat Bean

“I believe humans get a lot done, not because we’re smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee. “ — Flash Rosenberg

When You Drink It with a Straw

A selfie showing my bandaged face after a basal cell carcinoma was removed. I drank my coffee this morning through a straw. The big bandage, thankfully, comes off tomorrow and then there is just the tape over the stitches.-- Selfie by Pat Bean

A selfie showing my bandaged face after a basal cell carcinoma was removed. I drank my coffee this morning through a straw. The big bandage, thankfully, comes off tomorrow and then there is just the tape over the stitches.– Selfie by Pat Bean

I drank gobs of coffee when I was a deadline-writing reporter. There was always a coffee cup near my hand. And I liked it black as sin and as strong as a desert sun at noon.

But after years of the habit, my stomach complained. So cold turkey, the same as my mother did when she quit smoking at 76 because the blinking things became too expensive, I gave up coffee.

After a couple of headachy days, I felt fine – except that I was no longer sleeping very well at night. I conceded that the headaches were a result of my coffee abstinence, but didn’t relate the sleepless nights to a lack of the beans. I mean coffee is supposed to keep you awake, right?

Then a couple of months later, when I had a late meeting to attend for work, I decided to have a cup of coffee. I’m not sure the caffeine helped my alertness, but for the first time in weeks I slept all through the night.

Hmm. I thought. I should have known. I have never been one to react like the crowd. So I went back to drinking coffee, only this time in moderation. I now drink two strong cups of “good” coffee – call me a coffee snob if you like – daily, and generously lace the liquid ambrosia with half and half.

No more stomach problems, and sleepless nights only when I can’t turn off the little gray cells.  Even coffee won’t stop that chatter.

Blog pick of the day.

Blog pick of the day.

Bean Pat http://tinyurl.com/nvbteas  Fairytale Rooftops.

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It’s Aways a Good Day When I Learn Something New

Posted in Journeys, Travel, tagged , , , on March 1, 2012| 19 Comments »

 “I believe humans get a lot done, not because we’re smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.” — Flash Rosenberg.

Kickapoo State Park, Illinois -- Just because I'm currently in Illinois. I sat out a major thunderstorm here in 2006. -- Photo by Pat Bean

And Today Was a Very Good Day

From now on, there will be no more spilled coffee. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I like my morning coffee, strong and heavily laced with half and half.

Drinking two cups every day is my morning ritual. That means I pour coffee into my mug at least, well sometimes I have three cups, 730 times annually. Multiply that by old-broad years.

Now I ask you, how many of those thousands of times that I’ve poured coffee from the pot into a cup do you think I’ve dribbled coffee on the counter while doing so?

My guess is that 50 percent of those times might be a bit too low. And I suspect I’m not alone in this. I’ve tried tilting the pot every which way but nothing ever seemed to work.

It took my son, Michael, whom I flew to Chicago yesterday to visit, to tell me what I was doing wrong. I decided I would tell all you readers who might not be as smart as Michael, who figured it out 10 years ago.

“It’s simply a matter of pouring it slowly Mother,” he told me this morning. “The design of the spout on the coffee pot is flawed.”

And all of a sudden I could see it. Duh! I thought.

So how many of you are as smart as my son, Michael? And how many as dumb as me?

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