Sunday Coffee Planetary Food Porn

Twinkle, twinkle little cup

Just the thing to wake me up.

Two shots strong and nonfat milk;

Couldn’t live without your ilk.

Batman has a love hate relationship with pumpkin spice lattes

But it’s not just Gotham City that’s been visited by early Autumnal bevvies:

O CRUEL WORLD!!!

Chicago, you bear the burden of being ahead of your time. As for us here in Upper Muskox, even the tomato plants are wearing sweaters now, and a week of frost has done for my basil harvest, withered in its prime like a deflated Kardashian Sister (if one of them ever springs a leak, it’ll be like the Dead Sea in a radius of about 15 feet but where was I).

The pumpkin spice latte is all very well, but you could always, you know, just not order it until later in the season. It’s not like they’ve discontinued ice. And this is as handy a place as any to re-post my Starbucks Without Tears guide for getting the Starbucks Experience absolutely wired. Seven years of working there has to pay off somehow, if only in blog filler. This isn’t exhaustive, obviously, but it has sound tips for negotiating your way through the forest of mochawhippichhinolattes and so on, to the goal of real espresso flavour.

1- order a cappuccino instead of your regular latte and you’ll cut calories by half and get a stronger espresso flavour at the same time.

2- if you want to drink less fatty dairy in your espresso drinks, but hate skim, order 2%. Sure, it’s not on the menu, but any competent barista will simply mix equal parts whole and skim in the cup for a good approximation of 2%. [UPDATE: now 2% is standard, but you can work this trick, splitting 2% with half skim and get 1% too. You can even do this to lower the fat in eggnog lattes]

3- to use less sugar in your espresso drink, sprinkle half your normal amount of loose sugar on the foam crust and don’t stir it in. Drinking through the sugar crust makes the drink taste sweeter for whatever reason. White sugar works better than plantation sugar because the grains are finer

4- DON’T ORDER THE VENTI!!!! Sorry to bust out the all caps, people, but this is crucial. A venti-sized drink is 20 ounces of liquid. I used to feed horses for a living, and horses will drink 20 ounces of liquid at a time. People watching their weight shouldn’t. I once read a calorie chart in a diet book that included the calorie count of a venti mocha; people who need diet books shouldn’t be drinking venti anythings. [this was written before they had the latest size, the Gut Buster I think they call it?]

5- on that note, Starbucks does still offer the small size, a Short, even though it’s not on the menu. It’s cheaper than a tall, too, and because it has the same number of espresso shots in smaller volume, the coffee taste is stronger than in the same drink in a tall size. A short is eight ounces, or about twice what a coffee cup used to hold in the Sixties and Seventies, so it’s not like you’ll waste away; it is still a substantial size.

6- frappuccinos without whipped cream are technically low-fat, and don’t have as many calories as you’d think, because they’re primarily ice. The lowest-calorie frappuccino is also my favorite and also not on the menu: an espresso frappuccino. That is just a regular coffee frappuccino with a shot of espresso added. Because the espresso takes up an ounce that would otherwise be creamy frap mix, the drink has fewer calories than a plain one, and a great espresso flavour.

7- which reminds me, a quick and tasty way to reduce calories is to order the same size drink you normally do, but add an extra shot of espresso. A shot of espresso has three to six calories, while an ounce of milk has several times that.

8- drinks always taste better in “for here” cups, partly because they’re generally kept heated on top of the espresso bar. You can also use your own travel mug (don’t worry if it has the logo of another cafe on the side; nobody minds) and save ten cents at most cafes while helping the environment.

9- the best way to get in and out in a hurry is just as Lifehacker suggests: order a tall coffee and (my contribution) have exact change in your free hand; you may not even need to go near the till, if the baristas are efficient enough about working the lineup.

10- tea, of course, has no calories. Coffee itself only has about five in a strong cup, but people often find tea doesn’t seem to need sweetening the way coffee does, particularly herbal, fruit-based teas like licorice root or dried berry. Teas are, if you think about it, essentially weak vegetable extract, and contain many health-boosting phytochemicals. I’m not talking about those diuretic “dieter’s teas” that keep you in the bathroom all day; those are no good, particularly as nobody can admire your slimness if you’re stuck in the bathroom stall all damn day.

11- green and black teas (oolong to a lesser extent) contain tannic acid, which is a mild, easily tolerated muscle relaxant. If you’re stiff, you get jitters from coffee, or you’ve got cramps of any kind, give these teas a try. Red wine works too, but it’s more expensive and you can’t get that in most Starbucks.

12- caffeine enhances the effectiveness of the painkillers ibuprofen, codeine, ASA, and acetominophen, so if you are taking any of those, consider taking them with coffee or tea. This appears to be variable: most people get the effect, while for some it does nothing whatsoever. Test it and see how it works for you.

13- cafe mochas have measurable amounts of fiber in them, but you’d need to drink almost a hundred a day to meet your dietary requirement; there are cheaper ways to achieve regularity. I just put that in here because what the hell: it’s amusing.

14- that stuff called “nondairy creamer”? It’s an incredibly fattening petroleum byproduct, not a food. Cream is a lower-calorie choice; this stuff is offered for those who have lactose intolerance or other reasons to avoid dairy (and it was invented before we had soy milk). I had a customer at Starbucks who used to order grande mochas made from the stuff, until I asked him why one day and he told me that his doctor had him on a strict diet to reduce his cholesterol, calories and fat. I talked him into drinking black coffee instead of the 1100 calorie monstrosityhe’d been drinking, thinking it was healthy. Seriously, if you keep Coffee Mate around, consider buying powdered skim instead.

15- ask to read the label of the soymilk your cafe uses, if you’re a soymilk drinker. Not all of them are fortified with calcium and vitamin D, although people assume they are, and it can be quite high in fat as well. Soymilk is not nutritionally identical to milk, so read the label and make an educated decision. And apparently Almond Milk has half the calories of skim and more protein at the same time!

16- ask your barista for recommendations. They are generally very knowledgeable and love the chance to use their learning. Tell them what issues you’re dealing with, eg “I am lactose-intolerant and diabetic, but I really miss my vanilla cappuccinos. Is there something else I can order?”

17- here’s a recipe for homemade frappuccinos, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can mix up your own flavours: I like coffee and peanut butter (no, you may not laugh at me).

18- if you want something indulgent but not a total calorie-bomb, try espresso con panna, espresso with whipped cream. It’s definitely got that decadent feeling, but only a dollop of cream, and you feel so pleasurably Eurotrashy, sipping from your tiny little cup.

Selah.

But...is it decaf nonfat ricenog? I asked for decaf nonfat ricenog!

Time to rub the crumbs of sleep out of our eyes and frappé la rue; we’re back to regular blogging chez ManoloFoods. What’s that you say? The coffee’s just not doing it for you?

Well, maybe what you need is a little pastry to go with:

In what must have seemed like a scene straight from a movie, hundreds of Orthodox Greek mourners were mistakenly served kourabiedes, a traditional Greek biscuit, at a funeral reception. Shortly after tasting the biscuits, the guests started acting incredibly strangely and the funeral bureau officers called the police.

Authorities and funeral goers were surprised to find out that instead of icing sugar, the biscuits had cocaine toppings sprinkled all over them.

MOURN FASTER! MOURN FASTER! Compared to the staid Anglicanism of my upbringing, this is looking mighty interesting; do you think it’s some kind of marketing outreach?

Just to keep you suitably off-balance, and in case you don’t happen to have any Greek mourning biscuits handy, we present this awesome tribute to David Lynch’s Coffee…

and a mashup of Wilkins Coffee pitches, from the revered, and apparently somewhat demented, Jim Henson.

Red Green

via CoffeeGeek

Bye Bye Bunny

I’ll be honest: I’ve had a grudge against Easter ever since I realized that, when I was growing up (before the invention of fire) we got a basket of chocolates with one big bunny, a couple of Easter Creme Eggs, and a lot of jellybeans, and only a few years later my much younger stepbrothers got Rollerblades, BUT I’M SO OVER THAT REALLY.

Ahem. Anyway, I didn’t do anything special on Easter and I didn’t get any chocolate except the Hazelnut truffle my friend Raul bought me from the charming Portuguese fellow at the market and no, I’m not sulking, I’M SO OVER THAT I TELL YOU WHY DO YOU KEEP LOOKING AT ME THAT WAY?

I did have a delightful and delicious Easter tea on Friday with a good friend and the most adorable 14-month-old baby you’ve ever seen, and a post will be forthcoming on that shortly, once I’ve gotten my hands on the pictures. I’d almost have a baby so I’d have an excuse to buy those adorable little baby shoes!

On Easter Sunday I got up late, put the kettle on, made myself a French Press of Kenya (yes, from Starbucks: their Kenya AAA is one of the most perfectly balanced coffees in the world FACT and the VP of coffee there once told me it had the second highest caffeine level of any of their offerings, right behind Columbia) and then had a big mess of vegetarian chili while re-reading Toby Young’s extremely addictive memoir How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (curse you, Toby Young, how many rainy days have you cost me in lost productivity???) and then, as always, I went to the cafe with the dreadful coffee and had the green tea while I went online. Hey, a blogger’s gotta blog, eh?

What did you do? Do people still have Easter traditions? Holding out for Monday? Favorite candy? Gawker has a What Your Favorite Easter Candy Says About You quiz, and I present the following Cadbury Easter Creme Egg result without comment:

You normally have things under control but are subject to wild and uncontrollable cravings. While your life is typically together, you suffer from a serious flaw like constant tardiness, chronic attitude problems, or the lack of discipline to keep yourself in check when around seasonal chocolate treats. When you dedicate yourself to your vice, you go in whole hog. If you don’t have a drinking problem now, you probably will in a year or so. Also, you hate people who like those tiny little eggs they sell in packs of twelve. They’re like people who get wasted on New Years Eve and St. Paddy’s Day.

“Step One, check for insurgents. Nuthin’ fucks up good coffee like fuckin’ insurgents.” Amen to that, my brother.

Long ago I started adding milk to my coffee just so I could watch it

Pretty! Don’t face your Sunday without adequate caffeination!

Sometimes Monday needs nothing more than a super-cute little video from Kate Spade New York to remind us that delightful food is essential to a life lived in technicolour (but how many calories are in a rainbow?). And for your delightful, post-rainbowcake espresso, the Kate Spade Larabee Road demitasse set would put the sun back in the sky even in February, if only for a moment.

Mr. Henry is simply not very hungry.

The seasonal combination of warm weather, flowering trees, and a noticeable layer of winter fat round the waist together with a strange energy bounce from reverse jet lag left him without an appetite for anything more than good coffee, bananas, yogurt, pecan raisin bread and dark chocolate in the morning, and for salads, cheese and wine at night – all foods difficult to find in Japan, apart from good coffee, that is, which was uniformly excellent except at the one expensive hotel the Henry party visited, the Swissôtel in Osaka.

Mr. Henry is usually disappointed by restaurant coffee, particularly in fine dining establishments where management bumps up your bill an extra seven bucks for an acrid, watery, lukewarm espresso instead of charging an honest buck fifty for a hot cup of paper filter drip.

A recent New York Times article decried the nauseating coffee you get in Paris. Of all beautiful places where you most want to sit outside, drink a coffee, and watch impeccably dressed women swish-clicking past, Paris was once the first choice. But since the French all suffer from rotten-coffee stomach cramp, it’s no wonder they are so depressed.

People watching in Japan holds special merits. Thigh-high boots are de rigueur. Although this is a fashion mistake, and although women in Japan all seem to have misshapen knees from kneeling on tatami mats, and although high heels induce an awkward gait (apologies to The Manolo), when sitting gazing from behind your cup of rich, delicious coffee you need not wait very long for the happy chance to examine yet another youthful thigh.

Fashion trends no longer originate in Paris. Look to Tokyo for the next new thing in fashion as well as in food. Pickles and raw egg on rice for breakfast, anyone? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

The trip’s one great discovery, found in the famous Kyoto covered food market street (Nishiki-koji), were dried umeboshi, the tart salt apricot-plum found in a bento box. Dried ones pack all the punch of fresh ones, but taste slightly sweeter, an amazing mouth experience that keeps the palate satisfied and amused long enough for the shinkansen to travel from Hiroshima to Osaka.

In case you go, be forewarned. In Japan there are very few internet connections, no iPhone service, and no trash cans, all the more remarkable because Japanese streets are immaculate. You could eat off the floor.

In the Ginza Mitsukoshi a fresh-faced young woman offered Mr. Henry a free chocolate truffle imported from Paris (over $1 each). Although excellent coffee is widely available ($5 per cup), fine dark chocolate is very scarce. After eating half, he passed the uneaten portion to his devoted consort who characteristically took no notice of him. The truffle dropped to the floor. Seeing no trash can nearby, confident in the cleanliness of Japanese floors, and unwilling to waste the precious truffle, Mr. Henry straightaway picked it up and popped it in his chocolate-deprived mouth. Her spine shivering, the Mitsukoshi woman squeaked in horror.

The one unforgettable meal took place in a 15th-century Buddhist mountaintop temple (Shojoin-in, Koya-san) partly converted for use as a ryokan. In a beautiful tatami room adorned with painted six-panel screen, a muscular monk with shaven pate served a vegan dinner comprising every conceivable fresh bean, mountain yam, and tofu preparation.

Koya-san signature fresh tofu had a toothsome custard-like texture and a slightly caramelized flavor. Cold boiled spinach had been quick-pickled in a light rice wine vinegar and seasoned with a sesame peanut sauce. Of the many pickled and preserved fruits and vegetables, the most unusual was the whole pickled kumquat. You eat the whole thing, seeds and all.