From the Vaults: Doughnut Teaser

I keep eating doughnuts.  Here are a few.




Doughnuts by Pies 'n' Thighs, via Gimme Coffee





Doughnuts by Dough, via Gimme Coffee

Now that Gimme has switched over to doughnuts from "Dough" in Bushwick, I have to say I like the change.  Pictured above are a blood orange doughnut (anybody else reading Tyra Banks' Modelland? If so, you'll know why I am nuts over blood orange anything), a mixed-berry doughnut, and a chocolate chip and sea salt scone.  I found them superior in flavor to the dense and sometimes greasy Pies 'n' Thighs doughnuts.  I'll still eat PnT's flavors, especially lemon poppyseed, but I'm more often in the mood for a "Dough" frosted glazed.

p.s. Pies 'n' Thighs doughnuts are good if you're looking for the "window to weight gain" pictured below:



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Marriage Vows

"I promise not to finish your chocolate bar while you are off watching a soccer game."

Dan and I received some fancy chocolates for Christmas.  I think both of these bars were from Eva and Ben.  And since Dan is the coffee-lover in our house, it would be unfair of me to finish off the Seattle Chocolates Pike Place Espresso Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar With Espresso Infusion.



But the B.T. McElrath Chocolatier Salty Dog Chocolate Bar (Butter toffee with sea salt) is fair game.

They're both quite good, BTW.  I wish the B.T.M bar had a little more toffee, but the salt level is perfect.

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At least I can say I tried.

 

Though I am not a coffee drinker, I am willing to test my limits.  This Manhattan Special Pure Espresso Coffee Soda (which I bought at my beloved Meat Hook) is just beyond my limits.  It's too bad I didn't like it, as I find it appealing that they're made in my neighborhood and have been around since 1895, but I'll be honest.  I thought this beverage took the beauty of a classic cola and marred it with the ugliness of a bitter coffee, then sweetened the whole thing.

I recognize that espresso-lovers might not take my word for it.  I'd expect those of you who really appreciate coffee and soda/pop would want to try it and draw your own conclusions. In recognition of my own limitations, I bought two, and gave one to an anonymous friend who likes the java.  He/she said, "It was not as gross as I expected.  It was kind of too sweet."

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Eating Egypt: Day 3 - Cairo and Giza

Three giant pyramids at Giza, all in a row.  This was the only place we encountered truly despicable "touts" trying to sell us worthless souvenirs and generally annoying us.


Snack wrappers rest (eternally?) inside an ancient mastaba, or flat-roofed tomb.

1. Breakfast at Hotel President - It turns out that ful's not so good without sauces and spices.  I tried it plain and was unimpressed.  The unappetizing, grey-centered hard boiled eggs on the buffet were not a high point of the trip, either.




2. At the Giza pyramids for the day, we took sunscreen, sunglasses, bottled water, and this nut and fruit mix, which we'd brought from the US in our luggage.  It turned out to be a good snack to eat in sight of the Great Pyramid, Cheops - the last remaining "Wonder" of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

3. Hotel - Goldfish "Mix-Up Adventures" (Parmesan and Xplosive Pizza flavors).  Meh.

Let me preface this.

Our cab ride home from the pyramids was something of a headache.  We were unable to get an "official" white cab with a meter, so took our chances on an unmetered cabbie who told us (in very little English) that the ride to our hotel would cost LE 15, or just under US$3.  I made the mistake, however, of telling him the name of the street we were aiming for - Sharia Taha Hussein.  Hearing "Hussein," our driver took us for a ride far, far out of our way, into medieval Cairo.  He claimed we wanted to see the Al-Hussein Mosque, and we were unable to convince him otherwise.  This meant our cab ride took an extra 45 minutes to an hour -- and cost an extra LE 100!  To add injury to insult, I was unable to sit upright during the ride, due to some sort of "poky thing" attached to the inside of the car's back windshield.

When we finally got back to our hotel, I had a bit of a tourist's meltdown. Goldfish "Mix-Up Adventures" Parmesan & Xplosive Pizza  served as my accompanying snack.  They were disappointing, and lacking in flavor, but were the only other imported edible item (besides the fruit and nuts we'd taken to the pyramids) I had on hand.  Mix-Up Adventures, huh?  How applicable.








4. Felfela - chicken kebab, tamiya, tahina and bread, eggplant with peppers, lamb (for Dan), hibiscus lemonade, Stella (for Dan), Turkish coffee.

After a nap and a cool-down (and a trip to the mobile phone store for Dan, to buy us a cheap Egyptian phone we could use during the remainder of our vacation), we headed to Felfela in downtown Cairo.  Though the restaurant was created, in part, to cater to vegetarians (according to the article, pictured above, which I read in the lobby of the restaurant), there's still plenty of meat on the menu.  In fact, the chicken kebab (shish taouk) was some of the best chicken I'd had.

The tamiya were also excellent.  These are fried fava bean patties (seen in the top photo above, along with my hibiscus lemonade).  They're something like falafel, but I prefer tamiya.  In my experience, tamiya are lighter and less dry than falafel.





When it came time to try the Turkish coffee after dinner, I ordered mine ahwaziyada (very sweet).  It was also quite spicy, with a strong cardamom flavor.  I enjoyed the contents of the tiny cup, but made sure not to drink the thick dregs at the bottom.

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Ah, day three!  You were a day of grand antiquity, major frustration, and great food (forgetting, for now, the sub-par American Goldfish)!  I'm sure I went to bed that night hoping day four might turn out to be less overwhelming, but even tastier.  We shall see...

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Breakfast in the car.

I got flustered at the bagel shop, and couldn't buy anything there for our car ride out to Cold Spring on Saturday.  Luckily, we made a stop at Boneshakers for beverages.  Their chocolate chip scone (with oatmeal) was perfect -- sweet, but not too sweet; chewy, but not too chewy.  They made me a swell iced chai, too.


Boneshakers
134 Kingsland Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(718) 963-0656

Further Adventures in Snack Curation

[It's Poetry Tuesday, and I owe you one, but I'm so far behind in my blogging that I hope you'll forgive a couple of non-poetic posts today.]

A few weeks ago, the time came for me to curate (they say "host") the snacks during "Coffee Hour" (actually about 20 minutes) after church. I was instructed to bring enough light snacks for 40 people, milk, and juice. Cookies were suggested as the snack in the instructing email, but since I still had hundreds in the freezer from my holiday cookie party, I would have taken cookies as my offering even if they hadn't been given as the example.

The congregants in attendance ate over 160 cookies in about 15 minutes flat. I was glad I'd baked an extra batch of Mrs Fields with walnuts that morning. Sugar, peppermint snap, Nutella cranberry, and coconut Joe Frogger cookies rounded out my selection.

One of my favorite things about serving a variety of cookies to a large group of people is that everyone can have his or her own favorite. Each kind of cookie is "the best" to at least one person -- and usually to several. I think this is how attraction works in our non-cookie-oriented romances, too. Human hearts and attraction meters vary widely and wildly. No matter what you look or taste like, there's someone out there who is really into that.



P.S. Though I was the host and responsible for the treats that day, I appreciated the generosity of an unnamed churchgoer who dropped off two Trader Joe's tarts [one chocolate almond (my favorite and pictured above), one lemon] to bulk up the buffet.

Sunday Tidbits: Roasting, Drying, Drinking

Yesterday afternoon I (1) roasted garlic for homemade pizza, using Mark Bittman's whole head method because I don't like the ones where you have to cut any part of the garlic off -- and it couldn't be simpler: peel as much of the paper off as you can without breaking up the head, put 1-2 heads in an oven-safe dish with 1/4 c. water, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil, cover (with foil or a lid), and bake at 375 F for about an hour (until a knife will pierce it easily), remembering to baste it with the water in the dish after 30 minutes;




(2) Dried some wool in the sun (from my fiber farm cormo/mohair share in 2008) after soaking it in boiling water for 10 minutes to soften it, as Shepherd Susan Gibb from Juniper Moon Farm (formerly Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm) suggested;




and (3) drank a Norwegian Emmi Caffe Latte Mocha, which tasted like coffee-flavored chocolate milk.


I did some other stuff, too, but you get the picture. It was the last day of a luxurious 10-day vacation (in which I was only away from home for two days). I'm not giving up my leisure time, but it's going back to "limited" status as of this morning.

Elsy's gift

Elsy is a lovely woman who cleans the office at work. She recently took some time off to be with family overseas. When she returned, the basket pictured above appeared on the counter in the kitchen. I don't like coffee particularly, but these coffee-flavored caramels from Colombia were sweet and rich. I ate at least my fair share, if not more.

Thanks, Elsy!

I like coffee (but only one way).

I'm not much of a coffee drinker. In third grade (when I tried it for the first time I can remember - with coffee cake, as part of some holiday lesson about Santa Lucia) I thought it was disgusting (I did find I like coffee cake, though). In college, when everyone went out to coffee houses at night to study or talk, I would only drink hazelnut coffee with plenty of milk and sugar. Then, after a few years of infrequent drinking, I found that coffee in the evening made my heart pound and race so much that I couldn't sleep. I quit drinking the stuff. Not hard to do, since I've always preferred milk (or lemonade, or water, or...).

In my working life, I've found myself proud that I'm not dependent on coffee. I'm not someone who has to have it to wake up in the morning or get through a dull afternoon. And I still think that black coffee, while I can sometimes appreciate the smell, tastes pretty nasty.

When my father traveled to Vietnam, he wrote to me about the way many Vietnamese serve coffee -- iced or hot, with a thin layer of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom of the cup. That didn't sound so bad, so I sought the drink out in NYC, trying it iced in two restaurants within as many weeks. And I liked it. But I hadn't had it anywhere I could watch it brewing into a clear cup, as my dad had abroad. And so I started thinking about buying a couple of cheap Vietnamese coffee filter sets so that I could make it at home and get the whole experience on demand.

Then, Dad sent me a care package of coffee and candy he brought back from Vietnam. With it, a surprise -- Vietnamese coffee filters and two small glass cups in which to make the coffee. I haven't tried the candies yet, but I did have a night of Vietnamese coffee last week.

Some trial and error was necessary. A little mess was made. Cross-referencing websites like this one helped me decide to use two teaspoons of grounds per filter. This turned out to be a good amount of coffee for the size of the cup, especially when balanced against a layer of sweetened, condensed milk I poured in before brewing. I was not prepared for the glass cups being slightly too small for the amount of water that can be poured into the filters, however. Nor for some of the grounds to make it through the holes in the filter.

Still, we enjoyed the coffee -- strong, but sweet as a dessert. This is officially the only way I like coffee, for now. And the cheap filters are a great addition to my coffee maker-less kitchen.

The Mysterious Case of the Appearing Chocolates.

A mysterious bag of Mieszko chocolates appeared at work. My only clue? The second language on the wrappers appeared to be Polish.

How they disappeared, however, is no mystery, I took care of three of them myself.

I made the mistake of biting the espresso chocolate in half, only to find that it had a very liquid espresso liqueur center (which promptly spilled down my front). But the flavor was as advertised -- chocolate and espresso is not a bad combination. And I, wily snacker that I am, was eating my coffee chocolates in my bathrobe, as befits a lazy Saturday morning, so no clothes were stained past repair.

I was less fond of the Coffee and Cream chocolate. The filling was creamier but the flavor muddy. Toffino smelled more promising, but was sickly sweet and had a stringent, nail polish flavor that made me cough and choke. Bleah.

I never thought I'd say this, but, "More espresso, please."

Freebies at work

Someone gave Dave a free Triple Mocha Shock Coffee drink on the street. I'm the guinea pig. It tastes like (in this order) coffee + chocolate + dirt + licorice + poppy seeds crossing my tongue. Three of those flavors were a shock, so perhaps it should have been Triple Shock, not Triple Mocha. I also disagree with this drink's slogan, "Sleep is overrated." No it is not.

Free snacks abound! I got a heads-up that Ethan would be bringing in leftover brownies from his fiance's bachelorette party. Rich, dense, and tasty. Also, congratulations on the impending marriage, E!

Spring is Sprung?

I am sure that we're still in for another round or two of cold weather before Spring really takes hold of the city, but I took advantage of this weekend's beautiful, mild weather to stroll my neighborhood with friends.

On our way back from the park, I stopped at Caffe Capri for "NYC's Best Iced Coffee!" It is, indeed, delicious (and I don't even particularly like coffee unless a non-literal ton of sugar and milk is involved). A small is $2.50, which seems reasonable, and Caffe Capri smells like a really nice grandma's house. A woman who might be someone's really nice grandma works behind the counter, alongside a man I suspect is her husband (and someone's really nice grandpa?). They've got a good thing going on.

Further down Graham Avenue, I bought the last chocolate whoopie pie on display at Variety Cafe. It was much nicer than the whoopie pies that are sold at Whole Foods. The outsides tasted like good chocolate cake (but were firmer). The frosting layer in the middle was not greasy, heavy, nor too sweet.

Also, good news! Ralph's (which has been closed all winter) is open for business!

Poetry Tuesday: 1926 Jazz Stove

Grandma's blue stove's in The Blue Stove now
Bopbop be diddle. Ba-daaaaaaaaaaa dow!
And coal or wood'll burn your pants
If you give it half a chance
Now fridge cold, its ghosts still dance.
Skiddly, askiddly, skadiddly pow!

Crinkle cookies melt with grace,
Go brownie soft inside your face,
And oatmeal raisin - it ain't dry
Hearts soar; mouths smile; tongues do fly.
They do fly.

da da da da da da pyoooooo!

Two dollars buys you a coffee
Two dollar cider, that too - sha SHA!
Mustabeenhot, littlegramma -
She was. For pies. For cakes. For mygoodgoshsakes
that hot little stove colored blue.
Even COLD it can do.

be-da ba-da-ba ba-doo....




[The Blue Stove opened last Friday. Corner of Withers and Graham. Dee dop a wow.]

Coffee for the coffee-less

My dad's visiting Vietnam for the first time. Like me, he's no coffee drinker, but we're a polite family (especially when traveling abroad). I found his description of Vietnamese coffee intriguing:

Breakfast was noodle and beef soup, with vegetables, followed by Vietnamese coffee...[T]hey brought hot tea before the coffee. Then the coffee came in individual percolators -- small metal pieces that fit on top of a coffee cup. The hot water dripped down through the top unit, which held the coffee grounds and into the cup. Luckily (for me) Vietnamese coffee also contains milk. it was down in the cup for the coffee to drip into. And the milk had some chocolate in it. It was still pretty strong coffee, but the flavor was actually pretty good. I attached a picture of the table.





The close up [below] is very blurry but I wanted you to see how much sweet milk is in the bottom of the cup. I'm sure it is the first time in my life I have had coffee two days in a row. And I may have it again tomorrow.

Thanks, Dad! Here's more Vietnamese coffee info, for interested parties.

Make mine a monkey?

As much as I like chocolate, I'm not that into "mocha" flavored drinks. But I do like frozen-whipped-smoothie-icy beverages. So I was all for trying an advertised "Monkey Mocha" after a long car ride on a sunny day. Dan saw the sign and hopped out of the car to buy a couple while we were in line outside the parking lot for the ferry to Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, WA, and he made it back to the vehicle just in time for us to board and drink the mochas on the crossing. Not bad. Hit the spot, as they say.

Yet -- why "monkey?" It certainly wasn't an ingredient. Was there banana in there? I didn't taste any. Nor was it served by monkeys. The bikini coffees at the bikini espresso stands are served by bikini-clad women (ask me what I think about this), so shouldn't the monkey mochas be served by primates? Nice mocha; confusing name.

The owls are not what they seem.

Diane, I am in the Pacific Northwest for a little R&R. Haven't made it to the Great Northern, but I have sampled 4 cups of the local joe in the past 3 days. Unlike you-know-who, I'm not much for the stuff back in my workaday life. I'd rather start the day with a large glass of milk. Which may be why, when having a coffee/espresso, I'm partial to the latte.

The best cup I've enjoyed up here? A latte (no sugar needed) at Victrola in Seattle. Victrola coffee is roasted on-site in small batches. The flavor was smoother and sweeter than my Portland choices (including Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which I was told is the best in Portland - indeed, it was the best I tried in Portland) and if I were staying in Seattle I'd make Victrola a regular haunt.

No cherry pie, Diane, but a mighty fine lemon bar and peanut butter chocolate chip cookie were also consumed.

I'll be back in the office soon. Give Gordon the heads-up as to my general whereabouts. Tell him my disposition is dandy.