Archive for the ‘Forty-two’ Category
Posted on November 24, 2005 - by deCadmus
A Day of Thanks
Ah… Thanksgiving. A day to look back, reflect, and ponder all those things for which we are most grateful. And to stuff ourselves silly on carbolicious food.
Since when are fresh cranberries pink? Pink?! Absurd. No pink cranberries while I’m in charge of the cook-top… nope, it’s the rich, red-hued, three times conventional-priced organic cranberries to go with this year’s organic, locally-farmed turkey (guaranteed, says the turkey-farmer herself, to have gone to its reward with a happy grin on its beak — a privilege apparently reflected in the price I paid for the bird.)
Next year… I’m thinkin’ take-out. Or maybe I’ll lavish attention only on those beloved and traditional side dishes (cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, of course… and maybe even the green bean casserole with the little french-fried onion thingies on top) all served up with sliced turkey from the deli-counter. Or, maybe it’s just the tryptophan talkin’.
Now where’s that pie?
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Posted on November 22, 2005 - by deCadmus
The Holiday Blend, Again.
It’s about that time of year — the air thrums with the holiday melodies of Bing and Nat and Manheim Steamroller, thrills with aromas of spruce and spice, and shop-fronts and shoppers alike dress in their Christmas finery — surely, Thanksgiving Day will soon be here.
What a wonderful, whacky world.
There’s my cue to undertake what’s become my own, personal holiday tradition… one which I look upon with all the optimism of the tyke I once was on Christmas morning, and all of the dread and frustration of the dad who’s discovered at 1 am in the morning that “Some assembly required” is a clever code for “You’re screwed… and you forgot the batteries, too, chump.” Been there.
It’s time for the Holiday Blend. Again.
Every year I take stock of the greens in my coffee cupboard, and puzzle through my roasting notes and tasting notes and post-it notes that are supposed to cross-reference one against the other. And I nod and I scheme and I imagine I just might pull it off this year… with some of this nippy Central, and — oh, definitely — a bit of that aged Sumatra, and maybe the Nicaraguan to lend it some velvet texture and oomph in the middle.
Or, maybe I’ll try an African base. The Rwanda was stunning, after all — oh! — it’s all gone. Well, that natural process Ethiopian was stunning, too… and it might marry up nicely with the Bali that had a bit of a briny something to it (won’t need the aged coffee with that) and… and… ah! round it out with that honeyed miel from El Salvador.
And so it goes.
This, dear reader, is how my annual lesson in patience and humility begins. With hubris — and the unflinching certainty that this year I’ve mapped the sensory experience of these coffees so well that I can play them back at will, recall the flavors and aromas and textures of all these coffees from far-flung origins, turn them over in my head until — like fitting an enchanted lock with its magical key — everything clicks, and a sensory symphony is revealed.
What utter crap. I am not Iron Chef Cadmus. I am not able to — with nothing but imagination and sheer force of will — assemble heretofore unimagined taste sensations so startling as to cause a Japanese movie queen to squeal and simper and laugh without covering her mouth. But I’ll try, anyway. And I’ll fail. Thoroughly.
In the end, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way. The way that works. Not with the bold strokes of an old master, but with the humble patience of a simple craftsman. I’ll roast coffees individually. I’ll brew coffees individually. I’ll taste coffees individually. And then I’ll measure and mix the brewed coffees, mingle aromas and flavors and textures, and carefully consider the results. And in the end — through persistence, and no small amount of failure — I will have a coffee that is more than the sum of its parts. Perhaps not a sensory symphony… but a catchy tune in its own right.
And in the end, that’s what I’ll roast and package and share with friends and neighbors — my holiday blend — humble patience.
Happy Holidays, one and all.
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Posted on November 13, 2005 - by deCadmus
It’s Pathetic!
Ah… the classic Christmas stories: Holiday Inn, It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and my personal favorite, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
You may never own an Inn in Vermont, experience what the world would be like without you, or meet the real Santa Claus… but you can get your very own Pathetic Christmas Tree.
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Posted on November 13, 2005 - by deCadmus
Udderly Debunked
Learned scientific-type persons have now thoroughly debunked cow-tipping as nothing more than myth, or rural legend. (Not exactly urban now, is it?) Seeing as how it’s impossible and all, I can state categorically that neither I nor my brothers, nor any member of my extended family in or around the town of Madison, Missouri have ever tipped a cow… ’cause it simply can’t be done.
Glad that’s settled, ’cause I wouldn’t want Uncle Bob to hold a grudge about something that certainly never happened. It’s impossible you know. It would take at least four or five folks to do such a thing. Or one Duane.
(Note to physicists: I think you failed to account for the acceleration of the cow-tippers in your model. Don’t think lever, think offensive front line. Not that I’d know anything about that at all. Just speculatin’.)
Posted on October 31, 2005 - by deCadmus
NaNoWriMo?
In a fit of optimism (read, insanity) I’ve registered for the annual writing marathon at NaNoWriMo — or National Novel Writing Month.
The goal: fifty thousand words in thirty days. Now, it’s more or less expected that much (all) of the participants’ writing will be sheer (utter, complete, total) garbage. The idea is to get into the habit of writing… to prime the pump, as it were.
The event starts in just about twenty-four hours. I have no characters drawn, no plots… er, plotted and no particular idea where my writing might go. I’m intrigued, but I remain on the fence…
Anybody out there tried NaNoWriMo in prior years? Was it worth it?
Posted on October 30, 2005 - by deCadmus
Out of This World
It’s crisp, it’s cold and it’s clear skies in Vermont (a very welcome change) and Mars looks like a pumpkin in the sky.
Pretty.
Posted on October 29, 2005 - by deCadmus
Manhattan Smells Good: Officials Baffled
It’s still a mystery why New York City residents suddenly found themselves in a cloud of winsome aromas…
An unseen, sweet-smelling cloud drifted through parts of Manhattan last night. Arturo Padilla walked through it and declared that it was awesome.
“It’s like maple syrup. With Eggos. Or pancakes,” he said. “It’s pleasant.”
The odor had followed Mr. Padilla and his friend along their walk in Lower Manhattan, from a dormitory on Fulton Street, to Pace University on Spruce Street, and back down again, to where they stood now, near a Dunkin’ Donuts. Maybe it was from there, he said. But it wasn’t.
Mr. Padilla was not alone. Reports of the syrupy cloud poured in from across Manhattan after 9 p.m. Some feared that it was something sinister.
It certainly wasn’t the sweet smell of coffee from Gillies, which, for years now, has had its aromas banned by the city of New York.
Go figure.
Posted on October 28, 2005 - by deCadmus
From the Reading Chair
I have to remind myself that, since I now have a spiffy, categorized site I can write about whatever I want, and you can simply tune into to what you want to read… and tune out what you don’t. (It’s Blog 2.0, don’t ya know.) So without further ado…
From the Reading Chair
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow.
It didn’t take me long to suspect that Cory wrote this book on a bet. You know the drill… say you’re at a writer’s workshop and somebody challenges you with plot-lines that are so absurd as to be incomprehensible (quite a lot like our gang would do with improv… and most often on a stage before a less-than-sober crowd, where the chances that something foolish and epic-scaled would happen were freakishly high.) Things like, “Let’s say your Dad is a mountain and your Mamma is a washing machine. Oh, and you’ve got brothers who are like a set of Russian nesting dolls… No, really.”
And then I began to suspect that Cory was actually somewhere in the process of writing an Electronic Frontier Foundation manifesto, when it occurred to him to take the result of that writing workshop and mash it up with the techno-gee-wizardry of wifi freedom for all.
Someone Comes to Town is weird — altogether absurd and strange — and at the same time compelling and tightly written. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets the Goonies; David Copperfield and a car wreck; and like that wreck it’s hard to look away… the detritus is bewildering, but you know — you just know — there’s got to be some demystifying, essential truth in there somewhere.
Curious… and curiously satisfying. Recommended.
Posted on October 25, 2005 - by deCadmus
A Perfect Storm?
It’s snowing.
Not the faint flurries that speak softly of the downly blankets to come… no, not these. These are big, gloppy, frozen clumps of fluffy, white stuff — crazed, drifting vollies — resolute in their intent to bring on that white winter; to make it begin.
This is not, the weather-casters assure, a repeat of the scary Hallowe’en Nor’easter that raged in 1991… (spawning a great book, and a mediochre movie) but a mere superstorm (if that).
Still and all, those tumbling flakes outside my window have a tale to tell… and they’re mad with enthusiasm to tell it.
Posted on August 8, 2005 - by deCadmus
Good Night, Peter Jennings.
When John Paul II passed and a new Pope was raised to the chair with no sign of Peter Jennings in Vatican Square, it was clear that something was terribly wrong…
Peter Jennings died of lung cancer this weekend.
My generation grew up with Peter Jennings bringing us the nightly news. In time we came to know his every facial tick: every subtle nod, fractionally raised eyebrow, sly smirk… his own non-verbal commentary on the events of the day provided often as much grist for the mill as his script — and frequently much more.
“There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe… I don’t subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry, it’s a cliche — a rough draft of history. Some days it’s reassuring, some days it’s absolutely destructive.”
— Peter Jennings
Through decades of tumult and change–even as the “pillars” of traditional journalism crumbled around him–Jennings demonstrated unflagging dedication, integrity, passion, and compassion. And it was the last that made all the difference.
Good night, Peter.
Postscript: Yeah, Mom… I know I should quit smoking.
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Hello.
Bloggle is the online playground of Doug Cadmus, a usability guy, writer, photographer and sometime dramatist who moved to Vermont for the coffee. When not writing, reading or walking his old, blind golden retriever, he roasts coffee in his garage and is the Web Guy for Green Mountain Coffee in Waterbury, VT. Flickr Photos
