Today, the Coming Soon page has been retired. It has been replaced with those you will find above. For more information, click on any page you may wonder about or have interest in.
I have many things to do where I truly live — for my wife Susan, for our dog Lady, for us, and even for myself — here at The Gathering Place.
All are welcome.
— Dahni
Image rendered by ChatGPT and the artistic Direction of Dahni
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-18o
Tap the link above to step inside.
The End of All Things
Today marks my final post across all my social media, websites, and blogs before canceling and ending all subscriptions, paid or otherwise, and automatic payments. For a time anyway — and if for no other reason than for myself — I will continue posting only here at gatheringplace.blog. If you choose to read it, only here will you find the complete post.
I do not feel I owe anyone an explanation. Consider this a common courtesy.
Talent, quality, insight, sincerity, and hard work are often not enough by themselves in the current environment. Visibility, stamina, distribution, money, timing, networking, algorithms, constant promotion, and the ability to endure long stretches of little visible return often dominate what gets seen.
There was a time when risks were taken on belief in someone or something important, and only lastly upon its potential for profit. Today, whatever a thing may be, it must immediately prove profitable and continue generating profit over a long and measurable life.
Not to compare myself or my works to my fellow Missouri-born Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) or to J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter world, but those days of self-publishing and eventually finding someone who believed in you — someone with the means or connections to help your work be seen, even modestly — are largely gone.
Not to compare myself to the beloved children’s series author, Beatrix Potter or story-tellers of simple truths such as, Aesop or the staples of, the Brothers Grimm, but they each developed a following and I have none. Who would know my love for children or how much I love them?
The writers and ‘creatives’ or the expressives’ (my word) I mentioned, mostly dealt in fiction. Much of what I do is fiction as well. Yet to many, perhaps the greatest work of non-fiction ever written — while others believe it fiction — is the Bible. It took many writers to record the words of its single Author, and even that struggles to be seen, read, taught and especially, understood today.
I too wrote non-fiction and self-published in 2012: RESET — “An Un-alien’s Guide to Resetting Our Republic.” It was and remains largely unknown. I have spent years working on its revision, RESET- Revised & Expanded, a special FREE-B for readers of RESET (I call, light bearers)— RESET-Remedy. Intended for 6 weeks later, was the sequel to RESET, An Apple of Gold in a Picture [frame] of Silver. All of these were intended for publication in 2026 and with the help of two additional editors. While many sought to just sell something for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I sought to connect with us, WE the People. I wanted us to see what has been hidden and to see perhaps for the very first time, who WE the People truly are. I had intended a FREE gift of a recipe and a blend of coffee, that quite possibly, Thomas Jefferson might have enjoyed in the hot summer nights, while writing the ‘The Declaration’ in 1776. This was to coincide, with the pre-order date of July 4th, 2026. I wanted this published on the date of our 239th anniversary of The Constitution of the United States for America, on September 17th, 2026. And about six weeks later, ‘Apple of Gold’.
Talent, quality, insight, sincerity, and hard work are often not enough by themselves in the current environment. Visibility, stamina, distribution, money, timing, networking, algorithms, constant promotion, and the ability to endure long stretches of little visible return often dominate what gets seen.
I cannot promise that this blog will still be open or that I will post the specials I have planned, for the fourth of this July, 2026. You will just have to check back and see.
I have always loved music — composing, singing, playing, and performing — for as long as I can remember. I probably connect most to the old known, Cat Stevens and still little known, Shawn Phillips. There is a glut of musicians, artists, and what some refer to as “the creatives” and what I coin as the expressives’. Not far from where we live is Rochester, New York. For perhaps fifty years, it has produced an incredible number of gifted people in these fields of music, most of whom the wider world has never known.
Proof enough: they too often cannot be sustained.
Talent, quality, insight, sincerity, and hard work are often not enough by themselves in the current environment.
My bottom line is simple: this present environment cannot be sustained. I am living proof of that because, I must now end what I can no longer sustain.
So ominous? So foreboding? So final?
You may think so if you wish. You may call me a coward or believe I simply lack the commitment to see it through. You may think this is only another emotional reaction from the same old Dahni you may have once known and perhaps still think you do — rising like a rocket only to fall like a rock.
But I can no longer sustain what I have been doing for so many years.
Does this hurt? Of course it does.
Am I angry about it? Yes, I am.
But I am also at peace.
I have many things to do where I truly live — for my wife Susan, for our dog Lady, for us, and even for myself — here at The Gathering Place.
All are welcome.
— Dahni
Image rendered by ChatGPT and the artistic Direction of Dahni
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-17I
Tap the link above to step inside.
Good day to you.
I just wanted to reach out today to share something you may have already noticed: this site is changing. Its appearance has changed, and the former theme has been removed.
Soon, this site will become:
https://gatheringplace.blog
Please be patient with us as we make these changes and navigate this transition together.
— Dahni
I just wanted to reach out today to share something you may have already noticed: this site is changing. Its appearance has changed, and the former theme has been removed.
Soon, this site will become:
Please be patient with us as we make these changes and navigate this transition together.
— Dahni
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-16c
Drink of the Week #5 — Mango-tini (#6)
A golden libation where mango, honey, and spirits gather beneath a whisper of lime.
🍸 Mango-tini (#6)
Ingredients
• Juice of 1 fresh lime
• 4 jiggers organic mango juice
• Purée of about 2 oz fresh mango
• 4 jiggers gin
• 2 jiggers vodka
• 1 jigger Bärenjäger honey liqueur
• Ice
How to Gather It
Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice.
Shake — not stir 😉 — until well chilled.
Strain into martini glasses.
Garnish
A slice of fresh mango sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.
Makes two lovely libations — one to share and one for you.
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your “Mango-tini” responsibly! 😂
— Dahni
I-Imagine Press
© 2019, All Rights Reserved
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
📘 This drink is part of a growing collection of original libations created and shared at The Gathering Place.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-15M
Yes 5/5 was days ago. But there is always room for a margarita. This could be the best one you ever made/had.
🍋🟩 ‘El Cinco de Maya’ 🍊
(The Fifth of May)
Libatious’ #169
bonus drinks beyond 100
Ingredients
Juice of 1/2 fresh lemon 🍋
Juice of 2 limes 🍋🟩
Juice of 1 mandarin orange 🍊
1/2 jigger bergamot liqueur
1/2 jigger ginger liqueur 🫚
1/2 jigger blue curaçao (for color — turns the drink a lovely green)
1/2 jigger agave syrup
4 jiggers tequila
2 jiggers Grand Marnier or orange liqueur
Directions
Pour all ingredients into a high-speed blender and blend well.
Transfer to a hand shaker and chill in refrigerator until needed.
Rim two margarita glasses with lime juice, then dip into coarse salt. Set aside.
Prepare garnish:
Thread garnish through a knotted bamboo skewer and refrigerate until needed.
Remove shaker from refrigerator.
Add ice 🧊
“Shaken not stirred, Bond, James Bond, 007.” 🤣
Pour into previously rimmed margarita glasses 🍸🍸 half-filled with ice.
Add garnish.
Makes two libations — one to share and one for you. 😀
Why yes, there’s a lot of alcohol in this drink… but you could find Margaritaville — and perhaps your last jigger of salt! 🧂 😂
Makes two libations — one to share and one for you.
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your ‘El Cinco de Maya’ responsibly! 😂
By Dahni — I-Magine Press
© 2019, All Rights Reserved
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
This drink is part of a growing collection of original libations created and shared at The Gathering Place.
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
This drink is part of a growing collection of original libations created and shared at The Gathering Place.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-15n
Descriptor:
A bright floral spring libation capturing sunshine, lilacs, and porch-time ease.
With lilacs blooming across Rochester and the Lilac Festival season underway, this week’s featured libation celebrates spring the way it should be enjoyed — on the porch, with something beautiful in the glass.
Yesterday evening, Susan & I enjoyed “Sun & Flowers” on the porch — a quiet moment to welcome the season, surrounded by blooming lilacs and the promise of warmer days.
Inspired by the blossoms now showing across Rochester, I made a fresh batch of homemade lilac syrup and lilac gin. An image of this drink shows homemade fig vodka and I will share this at another time. Homemade lilac gin captures the fragrance and color of spring in a bottle.
As a picture will show, the commercial lilac gin I used may no longer be readily available, so making your own is not only practical — it ensures the flavor and tradition can continue. Fig vodka, while commercially available, is also simple to make at home and adds a rich seasonal character to this drink. Again, more about this in the near future.
Ingredients
Directions
Pour ingredients into shaker.
Add ice.
“Shaken not stirred!” — 007, Bond, James Bond 😂
Strain into martini glasses over ice.
Garnish with a sprig of lilac or fig.
Makes two libations — one to share and one for you.
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your ‘Sun & Flowers’ responsibly! 😂
By Dahni — I-Imagine Press
© 2019, All Rights Reserved
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
This drink is part of a growing collection of original libations created and shared at The Gathering Place.
With lilacs blooming across yards and gardens — and the Rochester Lilac Festival season underway — it seemed only fitting to capture the fragrance and color of spring while the blossoms are fresh.
So earlier this week, I prepared some lilac syrup, followed by homemade lilac gin, using blossoms gathered during peak bloom.
As shown in the photo, this homemade approach ensures that “Sun & Flowers” can be made even when commercial lilac gin is difficult to find or no longer available. The same applies to fig vodka — commercially available, but simple and rewarding to make at home.
Ingredients
Directions
Bring water to boil in saucepan.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
Reduce heat to simmer.
Add lilac flowers and blueberries.
Stir gently until desired color develops.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Strain twice:
1️⃣ Through a strainer
2️⃣ Through cheesecloth
Pour into a sanitized container.
Use & Storage
From this double batch of syrup:
If making syrup only, the full batch may be stored and used as needed.
Store refrigerated in a sealed container. Shelf life: approximately 2 weeks.
The handful of blueberries is the quiet secret in this recipe.
Lilac petals alone often produce a pale or fading color.
The blueberries deepen the violet tone and help stabilize the color naturally — without changing the floral character of the syrup.
Sometimes the smallest additions make the biggest difference.
To prepare lilac gin:
Place 3/4 cup lilac syrup into a sanitized bottle or jar.
Add:
Cap and shake gently.
It is basically ready when you are — and delicious.
Note: I used some of the leftover Lilac Gin made locally. It had already lost its color. So, I saved some of my Lilac Syrup, which according to the recipe in “Sun & Flowers” uses 1 jigger of simple syrup. This made our drinks color stable and so is the Homemade Lilac Gin, seen in the Mason jar above.
🌸 A Rochester Tradition
Here in the Rochester area, lilacs are more than flowers — they are tradition. With the Lilac Festival season underway and blossoms appearing across yards and parks, it feels like the right moment to celebrate spring properly.
And sometimes the best way to do that is simply:
A porch.
Blooming lilacs.
Two glasses.
And time enough to enjoy them together.
Yesterday evening gave us exactly that.
In the coming weeks, I’ll share more ways to use this homemade lilac gin and syrup — including a layered lilac lemonade, where violet syrup rests below bright yellow lemonade.
Spring has only just begun.
🎥 Some drinks from Sips with Susan are demonstrated on our YouTube channel, with more to come.
Visit here: https://www.youtube.com/@the_gatheringplace
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-14Q
Sips
(It’s a Wonderful Life)
By Dahni
© 2026, all rights reserved
Drink No. 81
Warm spice, dark rum, and red wine — a surprising holiday toast inspired by a wonderful life.
Ingredients
Juice of 1 fresh lime 🍈
1 jigger Ginger Jazz (homemade) or ginger liqueur
2 jiggers claret or Cabernet Sauvignon
4 jiggers dark rum
(Add simple syrup to taste if you prefer it sweeter.)
Directions
Add the lime juice, Ginger Jazz (homemade) or ginger liqueur, claret (or Cabernet), and dark rum to a
shaker filled with ice.
Shake well.
Pour into chilled wine glasses (place glasses in the freezer beforehand).
Makes two libations, one to share and one for you.
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your “Sips” responsibly! 😂
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
🎥 Some drinks from Sips with Susan are demonstrated on our YouTube channel, with more to come.
Visit here: https://www.youtube.com/@the_gatheringplace
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-14J
By Dahni
© 2026, all rights reserved
Today, for this week’s Drink of the Week, I thought to do something a little different.
Below is a YouTube video featuring a drink that, although not in the present offering of Sips with Susan, could certainly find its way into a future volume.
Makes two libations, one to share and one for you.
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your “Sips” responsibly! 😂
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
🎥 Some drinks from Sips with Susan are demonstrated on our YouTube channel, with more to come.
Visit here:
https://www.youtube.com/@the_gatheringplace
📖 Curious to explore more?
Preview a FREE sample from Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion:
https://payhip.com/b/K32Bv
🍸 Ready to bring the full collection into your kitchen?
Get your copy here:
https://payhip.com/b/Sq59W
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-14z
By Dahni
© 2026, all rights reserved
(House Ginger Liqueur)
By Dahni Hayden © 2026
Introducing Drink of the Week
Each week, we’ll share one recipe from Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion. Some will be simple, some a little more involved, but all are meant to be shared — one to enjoy and one to pass along to a friend.
We begin where many of the drinks begin — with Ginger Jazz. Drinks in Sips with Susan feature ginger liqueur — often shown using a familiar commercial bottle. Ginger Jazz is our homemade version, crafted right here at The Gathering Place.
Ginger Jazz is a bright, spicy house liqueur that brings warmth and character to your cocktails. Once made, it quickly becomes a favorite to keep on hand.
2–3 oz fresh ginger root
(2 oz = milder | 3 oz = hotter)
1 whole vanilla bean
1 cup orange blossom honey
1 tsp cinnamon (ground)
1 tsp cardamom (ground)
Zest from ½ orange
1⅜ cups water
1⅜ cups V.S.O.P. brandy
¼ cup neutral spirit (190 proof grain alcohol = 95% alcohol)
(see note below for substitute)
Peel ginger and slice thin.
Slice vanilla bean lengthwise.
Add ginger, vanilla bean, water, and honey to a pan and simmer about 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Pour cooled syrup into a sealable jar.
Add orange zest, cinnamon, cardamom, brandy, and neutral spirit. Shake well.
Seal and steep 24 hours.
Remove vanilla bean and steep another 24 hours.
Strain through fine mesh lined with a coffee filter into a bottle.
Allow to mellow 24 hours before use.
Makes approximately 2½ cups of Ginger Jazz.
Grain alcohol (190 proof = 95% alcohol) is extremely strong and should never be consumed straight. It is used in small amounts to help extract flavors during infusion.
If neutral spirits are unavailable or not preferred, substitute:
¼ cup mixture made from:
⅛ cup water
⅛ cup brandy
Finished Ginger Jazz averages about 56 proof (28% alcohol) once diluted.
ENJOY! 😉 Use your Ginger Jazz responsibly! 🍸
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion
🎥 Some drinks from Sips with Susan are demonstrated on our YouTube channel, with more to come.
Visit here: https://www.youtube.com/@the_gatheringplace
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-ZG
‘Santa and his Gnomes?’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
Rather than disturb your two days of Christmas official 12/25 and observed 12/26 with having to think about much I waitied to share this. But consider some of the things we were taught even as children. For one thing, what if Snow White was with seven gnomes and not seven dwarfs? And instead of the tall pointed eared elves from J.R.R. Tolkien, what if Santa Claus had gnomes?
I am from Missouri originally. The following was posted in the Springfield Leader & Press which was published from 1933-1987 in Springfield, MO. This article first appeared on November 29, 1935.
MO is the Show Me State by the way. If anyone is convinced the following is true, Missourian are. Check it out for yourself.
“Beginning November 10, 1935, the Springfield Leader & Press began a campaign to assure Springfield children that Santa really does exist. The newspaper started with a letter to Santa contest and then proceeded to hire Captain F. E. Kleinschmidt, an arctic explorer, to travel to the North Pole”.
“Captain Kleinschmidt sent in-depth descriptions of his travels, complete with photographs, to the newspaper. Once he and his wife reached the North Pole, he gave an exhaustive account of all the wonderful, magical things in Santa’s workshop. This culminated in Santa visiting Springfield by train and an appearance at the Electric Theater (later known as the Fox Theater) and a movie by Captain Kleinschmidt. The following article is edited due to its length.”
Santa’s Fairies Busily Working — Explorers are Admitted to Palace and Workshop Where Toys are Made.
Springfield Leader & Press, November 29, 1935, page 4
.
“After a difficult and dangerous journey on behalf of child readers of the Springfield Newspapers, Captain and Mrs. P. E. Kleinschmidt, have actually reached the true and magic home of Santa Claus in the far, far, white north.”
“Here is another report by wireless from Captain Kleinschmidt, describing their adventures in Santa’s castle:”
“We traveled what seemed miles and miles through the gigantic gift shop, but never grew tired looking for there is always something new and marvelous in the toys Santa invents for every Christmas.”
“Finally, Santa said ‘Now let us start at the bottom,’ and he led the way to a moving stairway. Descending we had glimpses of floor after floor of all kinds of rooms where armies of gnomes and fairies were working, shaping wood and steel, assembling, molding, painting and packing things.”
“At last we came to the bottom. The chief gnome and all his fellow-workers wore engineers’ uniforms.”
“This is my great power house,’ Santa explained. ‘You know about the axis of the earth which points to the Polar Star and on which the world spins around. I have connected my machinery with this axis, and the power that spins the earth drives all my machinery, the lathes and saws and drills, for you know it takes a lot of power to manufacture toys for over 50 million children every year…”
“We went up again, this time on an elevator, and as we passed one floor after another, we noticed instead of numbers the names of different countries. On the top floor we read ‘United States’ and at a sign from Santa the gnomes stopped the elevator.”
“Here was a large room with countless desks on which gnomes were writing in books, like a huge library. But they were not story books. They were ledgers numbered and alphabetically arranged. The room was divided into sections and each section bore the name of a state…in which the deeds of children are recorded from year to year.”
“You are sent from Missouri; and here you are,’ Santa laughed and sure enough we found Missouri labeled.”
“Now let’s see,’ said Santa, and he took a book, turned over the pages and to our amazement there was written ‘Springfield Newspapers want to make boys and girls happy in the Ozarks. Send out an expedition to Santa Claus land?’ And there were the names of the boys and girls who had written letters in the Santa Claus contest…I glanced over some of the books marked Missouri and there saw the names of hundreds of Springfield children.”
“The world is increasing in population and getting better all the time, and my work grows larger and larger every year,’ Santa said. ‘It makes me happier the longer I live, but you know,’ and Santa’s eyes twinkled, ‘the children who give me more work and who keep the pens of gnomes the busiest in chalking up good deeds, are the Boy Scouts. Look at that row of books all marked ‘Boy Scouts’. Ever since that organization started, I have had to put on a thousand extra gnomes each year.”
“We were getting tired and our eyes and minds were getting sleepy from all the wonderful sights. Mrs. K. wondered where we were going to sleep for the castle certainly never had expected any guests, and the beds we had seen were so tiny no human being could possibly be in them. But Santa had already provided for our needs.”
“Gnomes and fairies had prepared fairylike bedrooms and our Eskimos stood gaping in wonder when they beheld their quarters…All at once she [Mrs. Kleinschmit] gave a gasp and sat down on the bed laughing until she could not speak. I could not see anything to laugh at but a beautiful eider down blanket covered with silky lace, until she pointed to the foot of the bed. I examined it closely and above all things the beautiful wrought iron legs were thick colored candy sticks. The bed panels that looked like polished bird’s eye maple were taffy full of nuts. What looked like a wonderful mahogany dresser was made of chocolate and the knots were nuts. The mirrors were rock crystal candy. I recalled the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel and the witch who lived in a gingerbread house, but I never, as a grown up man expected to live in a similar house.”
https://thelibrary.org/blogs/article.cfm?aid=2830
There is more to this than written above. When I can get more information I will share it.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-ZA
‘Chocolate & Cocoa Bombs’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
How to make cocoa bombs for kids of any age and a treat for me or thee” 🙂 for the holiday season.“
We will be sharing with you original recipes from the Gathering Place cook book I’m writing. This includes entrées, soups, salads, side dishes, garnishing, butter molds, plating, table settings and even napkin folding. Of course there will be deserts like pies tarts and ice cream and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and even roasting your own coffee. This is all designed to turn you into a 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chef from your own 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ restaurant (your home).
Come Gather with us and bring everyone you know. It does not cost anything, but your time. You might enjoy it and learn something? Don’t forget to like it here and on YouTube. Subscribe for free. Much more to come!
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Zt
‘Nanny’s Cranberry Iee & Thanky’ Drinks’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
Susan and I filmed and uploaded another video to The Gathering Place podcast. In it we share how to make our grandmother (Nanny’s), seasonal cranberry sherbet or ice for Thanksgiving and Christmas and what to do with any you might have leftover.
We will be sharing with you original recipes from the Gathering Place cook book I’m writing. This includes entrées, soups, salads, side dishes, garnishing, butter molds, plating, table settings and even napkin folding. Of course there will be deserts like pies tarts and ice cream and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and even roasting your own coffee. This is all designed to turn you into a 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chef from your own 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ restaurant (your home).
Come Gather with us and bring everyone you know. It does not cost anything, but your time. You might enjoy it and learn something? Don’t forget to like it here and on YouTube. Subscribe for free. Much more to come!
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Zg
‘Homemade Grenadine and Stuff’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
Susan and I filmed and uploaded our second or The Gathering Place podcast #2 ‘Molecular Cocktails’ on 10/28/2022. Yesterday, 11/4/2022 we published our #3 podcast, ‘Grenadine & Stuff’ to our YouTube channel. We will be sharing with you original recipes from the Gathering Place cook book I’m writing. This includes entrées, soups, salads, side dishes, garnishing, butter molds, plating, table settings and even napkin folding. Of course there will be deserts like pies tarts and ice cream and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and even roasting your own coffee. This is all designed to turn you into a 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chef from your own 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ restaurant (your home).
Come watch podcast #3 three and make your own homemade grenadine, raspberry/pomegranate spread for rimming glasses, pancakes, waffles and toast and more, and a couple of what I call ‘Floaties’ or ‘Floatables’, layered drinks with your grenadine.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Z6
‘Subscribe’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
The following images show anyone How to subscribe to our podcast on YouTube. You will also, find a tutorial slide show there as well.
We, (Susan and I), will be sharing with you original recipes from the Gathering Place cook book I’m writing. This includes entrées, soups, salads, side dishes, garnishing, butter molds, plating, table settings and even napkin folding. Of course there will be deserts like pies ,tarts and ice cream and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and even roasting your own coffee. This is all designed to turn you into a 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chef from your own 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ restaurant (your home).
First, go to: YouTube.com/@the_gatheringplace
Once there, either click on the subscribe button top right or sign in bottom left if you are already a subscriber
Next either search for the playlist: The Gathering Place or click on The Gathering Place bottom left.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-YN
‘Molecular Cocktails’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
Susan and I filmed and uploaded our second or The Gathering Place podcast #2 on 10/28/2022 to our YouTube channel. We will be sharing with you original recipes from the Gathering Place cook book I’m writing. This includes entrées, soups, salads, side dishes, garnishing, butter molds, plating, table settings and even napkin folding. Of course there will be deserts like pies tarts and ice cream and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and even roasting your own coffee. This is all designed to turn you into a 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chef from your own 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ restaurant (your home).
Just in time for Halloween today, come and watch the making of ‘Molecular Drinks’ and more. like a Witch’s Cauldron, ‘Weird Science’, “Vampire’s Cocktail,” “Green Goblin,” and “Bat Juice”???? 
Y’all just gotta’ show to know.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-YE
‘Super D’
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
Very Soon, Susan and I are will be embarking on a new adventure together. I am a chef (retired), not the the paper degreed from some culinary institute kind, but a chef nonetheless.
In progress is a cookbook I am working on called, ‘The Gathering Place Cookbook.’ My goal is to turn anyone interested, into a 5 star Chef running your own 5 star restaurant (your home), like ours, ‘The Gathering Place.’
This work in progress will cover your feast meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner, baking, deserts and everything you would expect from a 5 star meal, from a 5 star restaurant, by a five star Chef (You), including fresh brewed from fresh ground and fresh roasted coffee. Yep, I will show anyone how to roast their own coffee, cheaper and fresher than you can pretty much get it anywhere. Well, coffee is a beverage. So, ‘The Gathering Place Cook Book’ has many! Some are made with alcohol and some are not. Cocktails and Mocktails.
There are over 200+ original drinks, homemade liqueurs and simple syrups, recipes for salt and sugar rims for your cocktails and smoked cocktails. Yes, cocktails with real smoke flavor.
Our goal is to really start these, sometime this October 2022. Susan will film, I’ll make the drinks and we will share our ‘Sips’ with you so you too can, ‘Carpe Drink-em’ (seize the drink). 😂
Here’s a shout out to my sister Carol Lee who came up with the name, ‘Carpe Drink-em’! 👍
But today is our maiden voyage and technically. the first drink ever prepared with smoke, smoked cherry dust. The idea came to me via a link from our nephew Dave, also known as, ‘Super D’.
There seems to be a lot of family folk here? Well sure, you too can join us. Strangers are just folks we haven’t met yet! 😘
But Dave, ‘Super D’, this is for you! Enjoy. 😎
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Y5
Coffee Memes
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
What is a Meme? A meme (/miːm/ MEEM) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
A Coffee Meme to me is just important and/funny stuff (pictures, text, or pioctures and text about coffee. I have collected many of these and most have been sent to me by my sister, Carol Lee Pepitone who both enjoys a good cuppa’ ☕ and knows that I do. Enjoy!
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-XT
The Sentinels
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
the sun brightly beams
reflect in full moon cantaloupe cremes
or so it seems
soon after twilight’s hush
where dreams soon to rush
cantaloupe moon in blush
day pull at the seams
night begins to crush
and silence says to shush
these are the light streams
moon the lunar
deep the crooner
the night tuner
sun the solar
in space roller
and day-time toller
both like a deep space schooner
each a troller
and both a stroller
later or sooner
holders of the twin themes
opposite, but same teams
each to grin and gush
for they make the earth green and lush
each a light wave and particle harpooner
juxtaposed cislunar
and when the moon is interlunar
tis’ with the sun on honeymooner
the twin lights of the sky so beams
that make our hearts to blush
the day adjuster and the night tuner
sun the palm and moon the sole, the surface volar
obsolete centinels or ever present sentinels
Notes: This may be a brand new rhyme scheme I just invented and wrote and am sharing with you.
AAA – BBB – ABBA – CCC – DDD – CDDC – AABBCCDD – ABCD – E (no corresponding rhyme, just associated with the poem’s title.
some words defined:
juxtaposed- placed side by side often for comparison or contrast
cislunar- situated between the Earth and the Moon
centinels- obsolete spelling of sentinel
interlunar- the four-day period between the old and new moon when the moon is not readily visible.
volar – relating to the palm of the hand or the sole of the foot
© 1999-2022
from the collection: ‘Letters from Earth’ by the same author
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Xy
Dream
By Dahni
©️ 2022, all rights reserved
I suppose, we all dream, sooner or later, but why? Why dream? It is said or “They”, the unknown and unqualified experts of the world, they say_ we all dream every night. i do not believe that.
I myself rather ascribe to the Biblical sleep producer that, when I lie down, my sleep should be sweet. Proverbs 3:24
For the life of me, I cannot understand how sleep would be sweet_beneficial, needful, restorative and regenerative, if in my mind (my dreams), I am out galloping around the countryside of my head all night.
I read about REM (rapid eye movement), deep sleep 😴 and our body is in repair mode, eradicating or ridding itself of toxic chemicals. Awesome. But no one’s going to tell me that I dream every single night. I can, however, with nearly 100% certainty, tell anyone of the circumstances which must exist in order for me to dream.
1. I ate too much and too late before I went to bed to sleep
2. I drank too much and too late (except for water), before I went to bed to sleep
3. I was just not tired and should have stayed up and done something else. Even if I stayed awake all through the night and throughout the next day, not to worry, I will sleep well the next time. 😂
4. A lot on my mind is left- unresolved
If any one of the above or more are present or apply, I will most likely dream.
I have read many things about the importance of dreams and we’re talking about mental activity, during the course of sleep and ways to remember them. That something may get resolved and dreams might seem completely real and you might even wake up with your heart racing, your palms sweaty and breathing heavy as if you were running a race. Our minds don’t know the difference between what is real or what is not. That’s to be determined by, the mind’s faculty of judgment.
So these are the things that I believe about dreams, but that neither means that I never dream nor that they are not interesting and perhaps, useful at times. Case in point, I am writing this piece of me having awakened from sleep and have remembered by dream. I am here now, about to share it with you.
A little background. Yesterday, I was reading and listening to perhaps my greatest musical influence. His name at this point does not matter to this story. But he was asked how he writes songs? Does the music come first, the lyrics or do they come all at the same time. His answer was that most times, the music comes first and then he tries to find lyrics that will fit. Sometimes he will write a poem or prose and go through much difficulty to find music, which will fit. Infrequently do all come together at the same time. But he said that most of his songs that people know were written between the hours of 12 midnight and 6 AM. He said it is because 90% of the world are asleep and there’s less distraction in his mind that would get in the way of writing a song. Then he spoke of the criteria that the song must have, in order for him to accept it and work on it and release it to others. Now he may have gotten it from someone else but this his three criteria are:
1. Anger
2. Wonder
3. Technique
I thought a lot about those three things yesterday. Are they true for all? Are they true for me?
Do I get angry? Sure. Not being capable of anger would really mean that we are just insensitive, non-confrontational, it just is what it is and life doesn’t get any better. Why live without anger? Well, I don’t believe any of that. However, I do believe in resolve. No matter what life throws at you, resolve to get it resolved, one way or another and move on.
Wonder or like innocence through the eyes of a child or just being curios, works for me.
Hope is the top of my list. no matter how much despair we might have, no matter how dark it might be or negative a situation, there is always hope.
We need principles or a code to live life. To do this we must first have some principles. We must have integrity. We must be brave. We may not be a hero or heroic public figures, but we must have courage, at least for ourselves. Anything less and we cannot withstand the storms of life and even the multitude of Fairweather friends.
We must have grace and live it and in it. What perfection has imperfection ever made or will it ever?
We must have resolve or resolve something as best and as soon as possible. There is something to always learn.
Be a child in always asking questions. Never stop learning. Always be curios. Never loose your wonder. Yesterday’s sunrise and sunset have never been and will never be like today’s.
Always be grateful and humble and you will always be kind.
Nearly last or actually first on my list is love. Love is the greatest action I can take, the greatest reason for doing anything and my greatest service to others for the grace I’ve been given.
Last of all, look for new beginningS. There are just 8 notes on a piano 🎹 and that is an octave. There are 11 octaves on a piano. Always search for another octave or for a new beginnings
So my list for writing songs or just plainly for living life is, as follows:
1. Hope
2. Courage
3. Grace
4. Resolve
5. Wonder
6. Humility
7. Love
8. New Beginnings
What does this list have to do with my dream? For one thing, this entire list got worked out in my head while I was dreaming. For another, every single item on the list was found in my dream.
But my wife Susan was in my dream too. So was the actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins. He was a world renowned and knighted psychiatrist. My wife and I seemed to be on a second honeymoon, somewhere in Europe where snow capped mountains were the backdrop to the Inn we were all staying at. Anthony Hopkins was there to rest and work on a book he was writing.
I know who he was and I acknowledged him with a friendly nod, but mostly, I felt like he just wanted to be left alone as I wanted to be alone with my lovely wife. I’m sure our tables were close enough together and he overheard conversations that my wife and I had.
I love to do childlike things including getting my feet on the bottom of a shopping cart and ride it down aisles like a horse, to my wife’s chagrin and likely embarrassment. There was one other thing that I was doing often in this particular dream. I did not have any skis or any other means and most of our monies were already spent in accommodations and transportation to and from this inn and back home. I borrowed a regular shovel from the grounds keeper, rode to the top of the mountain in a ski lift, got out, held the handle in my arms and hands to steer and to hold on. I would put both of my feet on the shovel, push off and ride it down the mountain. 😂😂😂
Apparently, Anthony Hopkins had heard about this from my conversations with my wife at dinner often and he had seen me actually do this, many times. But to my surprise, he was interested not because I was just weird or nuts or crazy, but for something completely unexpected.
Our last day at the Inn was also, the last day I would shovel-ride the mountain. I did so, but Sir Anthony Hopkins had rented a car 🚘 and he was following behind me. I was fine, but he crashed his rental, right before he would have also, crashed into me. I told him my wife and I had also rented a car and I would be more than happy to drive him to the airport as we three were to leave that day. He seemed incredulous and said, “You would do this for me, after I almost ran over you?”
We made arrangements about where and when to meet. I was to drive back to the Inn, pack the car, get my wife, explain to her the situation and then pick up Anthony Hopkins. But often as my dreams are, they go on and on. Things, roads, exits and just stuff that I was familiar with before, all seemed to disappear and I kept going around and around in circles. This is often how I know, I’m dreaming. I tell myself that, “This doesn’t make any sense, this is not real,” and I wake myself up.
This is where resolve comes in to the picture or the dream and it is also what frequently wakes me up and sometimes, I’m able to remember my dream like I am re-counting it to you now. But I drove around, couldn’t find the Inn, but I did find the Inn had a passenger bus and everybody loaded onto it, including my wife and Anthony Hopkins, They were all on the way to the airport.
My wife did not wait for me because, we had a flight to catch, I was nowhere to be found and Anthony Hopkins was on the bus and everybody at that point, recognized him and thought that was pretty exciting!
The only thing that I remember next is that we all made it to the airport to catch our flight on time and we all made it home so, my dream ended very well.
But the unique thing about this experience is we get tunnel-vision or just look at the same-O one Direction, analyze everything and live our whole lives that way. Anthony Hopkins, despite his success was enamored by my riding a shovel down the mountainside and he wanted to do something similar to regain his wonder for living life.
I-Magine often in the day. Stay curios. Seek. It will spill over into our sleep and if we dream, 😴 let it be interesting and get it resolved.
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Xo
The Coffee Cycle
By Dahni
© 2022, all rights reserved
We may all be familiar with the look of whole-roasted coffee beans, maybe green beans and perhaps, even what is called the ripe red “Cherries’? But my sister Carol Lee knows I love coffee and roast my own and she often thinks of me, finds and sends me really cool 😎 coffee☕ stuff! 👍
The following image (courtesy of my sister), I call, ‘The Cycle of Coffee.’ Enjoy!
For more information about coffee see our blog.
.The Gathering Place Coffee Roasters Blog
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-X8
What Fame Means to Me
By Dahni
© 2021, all rights reserved
For the audience from the stage
I would rise up
I would reach out
In the dark for just a spark
And capture just a twink-a-blink of star stuff
That the creator begot as a mobile
Of dancing light in the dark
Guarding and Loving over
O’er His children’s cribs
And float back down effortlessly
Through space and time
Defying gravity
Just to seize your attention
No price admission
For the price has already been paid
By one for all
Then reach out
Reach into you
That you would see
That you would hear
That you would smell
That you would taste
That you would feel
That you would know
The gifts I have been given
And as your hearts rise up your feet
in understanding
I’d fade and be right behind you
Participating in a standing ovation
Limited in duration as this life is
Called back
Then fade, gathered back up
To whence I came
By the same twink-a-blink of star stuff
One apple of God’s eye
And see us all drawn together
Victorious performance ran
God’s plan
And that’s what fifteen minutes of fame
from 65+ years of effort,
means to me
From the collection: ‘Songs in the Key of Me’ by the same author
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-WJ
By Dahni
© 2020, all rights reserved
Once upon time and only once a year
Mysterious; quite strange, it will appear
Buildings and skyscrapers will move and give space
As if by magic, but to most, an invisible place
But some unseen force, draws them and they come and came
And an old gaslight lantern, illuminates the name
‘Old Fezziwig’s Christmas Spirits & Cheer’
Festive to the restless, in the dark and the drear
No ghosts of future, present or past to one’s birth
Just The Wise Guy that serves the mirth
Lively libations and custom made cheer
For what ails yah’ and what casts out every fear
And they came and come, the lost and alone in profusion
The tossed whose drinks were sore woes and confusion
Some, with shorts too tight that pinches
The grumpys’ the scrooges and grinches
Music and dancing
Clinking and prancing
Observations
And conversations
Libations and custom-made cheer
And all are welcome here
Up to the bar they sit sat and wait and waited
With dim slims of hope, to be sated
No demands or judgement, just a voice
Just the asking each, to make a choice
Frozen hearts like glaciers and icebergs calve
“How may I serve you, what will you have?”
And often the reply is just a request,
“My dear sir, what would you suggest?”
“What would you recommend, most affective?”
And he said, “That all depends on your
perspective!”
“I could fill your glass half empty or I could fill it half full
Only you can decide, the push or the pull
I can pour all that glows and glitters
I just don’t and won’t pour the bitters
I can fizzle and I can dazzle
I can drizzle, but never frazzle
No down memory lane or ‘Auld Lang Syne’
Just spirits and drinks of cheer and life’s “fruit of the vine”
“I can pour you something that would make you want to be warm and in the pink
I can make your want to smile, but I just can’t make you think”
“But to tell you the truth, all these suggestions are, to try and get you to think
Because I only, only, just make one, special drink”
“It’s ‘The Golden Heart’, neither solid nor broken
Just edges, no center and just a token
You decide and with one swig or swallow
Your heart will be open or it will be hollow”
And drink they all up and down the hatch
And in an instant, like striking a match
The scene is quickly gone to—disappear
And all to wonder, were they really here?
This was no dream, but a lesson of life
An open heart is fraught, full and rife
A solid heart can be dented, damaged, frozen and broken apart
But flowing out and flowing in that’s…
…an open heart
From the collection: The Uncollected Collection’ by the same author
(‘Old Fezziwig’s Gold heart’)
Note: four letter name change (Fezz), suggested by sister Carol Lee
Libatious’ #130
bonus drinks beyond 100
By Dahnini or Dahnitini
Spirits Alchemist
Bon Devant
Rim martini glasses 🍸🍸 with lemon 🍋 and use a paint brush and brush on a little little edible gold dust
4 jiggers vodka
2 jiggers of orange liqueur 🍊
juice of 1 fresh lemon 🍋
½ jigger of honey 🍯 and finely chopped crystallized ginger pieces
2 egg whites
Combine all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker and dry-shake (no ice).
Add ice 🧊 and shake again in Hand Shaker until well chilled
“Shaken not stirred!” -007, Bond, James Bond- 😀
Strain into chilled martini 🍸 🍸 glasses
Shake edible gold dust into the center of your ‘Fez’
Makes two lovely libations. One to share and one for you. 😀
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your ‘FEZ’ (Old Fezziwig’s Gold Heart 💛), responsibly! 😂
By Dahni & I-Magine
©️ 2020, all rights reserved
From my Work in Progress: ‘The Gathering Place Cook Book’, under the category of: beverages, ‘Sips with Susan’
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-VN
Let’s Talk about Strong Coffee
By Dahni
© 2020, all rights reserved
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL COFFEE DAY, October 1st, 2020!
Do you like coffee or do you prefer tea? Do you like strong coffee or tea? Whichever one you like and how you like it, both share some things in common. But here, this is primarily about coffee and particularly, “strong coffee”.
Note: After further review on this post, I decided to insert this about “strong” coffee. I probably should have begun with this. The ‘grind’ of coffee may well be the first to consider whether the coffee is strong or not. Most grinders have settings from coarse to fine. My personal preference is 1-2 notches from medium towards the fine grind side. Fine grind is what I use for espresso. I mention this because, recently I tried out a new method of cleaning my grinder of debris, oils and to sharpen the blades. This I did with about a cup of whole grain, uncooked white rice. It works beautifully and there are no need for chemicals. But I forgot to reset my grinder, back to medium. This resulted in “stronger” coffee than I like. I figured this out after about 4 pots of coffee. 😂 It’s all good now! 👍
We all like what we like. Our likes may be conditional on howe we were brought up or what we are used to. I’m not about to try and dissuade anyone from liking what they like. But in addition to our preferences, our personal choices for liking what we like, there are reasons. Once you understand those reasons, I’m just trying to get you to consider alternatives. Maybe there is a better way, a more enjoyable way to like what we like and how we like it.
What do the words “strong coffee” mean? Perhaps other adjectives could be bold, an eye-opener, to put hair on your chest, Wake-The-F up, black coffee or just dark? Maybe strong coffee is a super-charged highly caffeinated beverage? Then again, it could be strong and have a lot of caffeine in it. But why?
Coffee or tea all begins with the bean or the leaf.
It all starts with the beans or the tea leaves. It’s in the beans. What is? Acid.
Yes, by their very nature, some coffee beans or tea leaves are more acidic than others. As a general rule, the higher the altitude the coffee plants grow, the more acidic the coffee beans are. Some may attribute the more acidic the coffee is, the “stronger” it is, where others must add or add more cream and/or sugar to balance out the the acid in the coffee and hopefully, prevent stomach upset and discomfort.
It all starts with the beans or the tea leaves. It’s in the beans. What is?
Caffeine. Yes, by their very nature, some coffee beans or tea leaves contain more caffeine (the jolt, the buzz), the stimulant, most people expect from their morning wake-up, afternoon pick-up or their anytime stay-up. But here is a fact about coffee roasting. Beginning with the green bean there, is where most of the caffeine resides. Yes, caffeine is in the beans. The longer the beans are roasted, the more the caffeine is released.
What is the most popular roast today? Dark roast. Remember this, the darker the roast, the more the sugars (the caramels), are roasted as well. “Burnt Caramel” is an actual marketing term, attempting to make burnt sugar appealing. The key word to this term is “burnt” like charcoal and it is perceived as “strong” coffee. Remember also, the longer the roast, the less caffeine there will be in the beans. Oh, there are degrees of “burnt” or a point when roasting exceeds dark-roast and the beans are actually or really “burnt” and useless. Not only have the sugars been burnt, but the whole bean has as well. To be clear, dark roasted coffee is truly only acceptable, for espresso, not regular coffee!
When the tea leaves are dried or the coffee is roasted, hot water is added to extract the properties of the bean or the leaves. The longer the beans sits on a burner after brewing or the longer the tea leaves steep, the “stronger” will be the result.
Beginning with the green bean, each roast from light, to medium and dark, will bring out stronger flavors in the coffee. There is sugar in coffee. The longer you roast, these sugars (caramel), appear as oil. The longer you roast, the more oil appears on the beans.
There are two kinds of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica beans are generally grown at higher altitude (often more caffeine and more acidic), are more fragile and generally cost more to produce and sell at a higher price than Robusta. Robusta beans are generally grown at lower altitudes, contain less caffeine, less acid, are a heartier bean and cost less. Much of the world’s supply of Robusta beans, often come from Vietnam. To control an end result and reduce costs, many coffee roasters blend Arabica and Robusta beans together. This is often done on purpose to produce what we may know of as: “signature blends”, “specialty blends” or “house blends”. Blends are primarily made for the following reasons:
1. To make a consistent and quality controlled product (what we come to expect from our favorite brands)
2. Reduce the costs while maintaining profit margins
3. To mask or hide undesirable properties from roasting/tasting i.e. bitterness
Remember, the longer the beans are roasted the less caffeine remains!
When I was growing up, this was a familiar coffee pot. It was a percolator. You fill the pot with water, add coffee to the basket on top that sat upon a long thin hollow stem, which rested on the bottom, placed the lid on top of the basket, covered the pot with its glass topped lid and sat this on a burner of your stove. Then, as the water heated, it came up the stem, made that nice “perking” sound and you would see the water change from clear to brown at the glass top, as it was filtered through the basket containing the coffee. When finished, it stopped “perking”, coffee was ready and you would pour your morning or anytime brew into your favorite cup or mug. Later, an electric percolator became available.
There were markings on the pot for ‘fill levels’, for how much water to add at the beginning. There were (are— percolators still available), “line levels” on the brew basket, for how much coffee to add. How much coffee was needed? For a long time, the two most popular coffee brands were Folders and Maxwell House. On the back of their sealed cans (sealed with nitrogen to preserve freshness), was the ratio of coffee to water.
Both brands used a ratio of one (1) tablespoon (Tbsp), of coffee for every six (6) ounces of water. And this makes one cup of coffee? I thought 1 cup is equal to 8 ounces? It is. So how did a cup of coffee come to mean 6 ounces? This is because, an average teacup holds about six ounces of liquid. Most people had teacups, which they also used as their coffee cups.
In 1957, Bunn released the ‘drip coffee maker’. It was used commercially. Restaurants had them, diners and such. It’s appeal was the water was pre-heated to a certain temperature and replaced each time you made a pot of coffee with fresh cold water. The pre-heated water would be activated by pouring in the cold water and the cold water later heated. The hot water would pour through a tip with pre-designed holes and at a certain speed, over the ground coffee in a paper filter or a stainless steel filter in the brew basket. To repeat, you discarded the grinds and filter or sicarded the grinds from the stainless still filter and rinsed it. Then you add another paper filter or clean stainless steel filter, more coffee and another container of cold water. This process was very quick and efficient (about 2 minutes from the start of the brewing cycle until it ended). Most of these Bunn ‘drip coffee makers’ were one unit, but could accommodate making two, 12 cup pots of coffee each, at the same time. Depending on use and needs, some locations had more than one unit.
In 1971, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker at Seattle’s Pike Place (Seattle, Washington), founded what we know today as ‘Starbucks’. They started selling coffee by the pound, roasted by ‘Peet’s Coffee’ and sold this to the public at their one location in Seattle. They introduced their coffee by giving away ‘Free’ cups to sell their coffee by the pound, at first ground then later as whole beans. They expanded locally and then during the 1980s, they sold the company to Howard Schultz who – after a business trip to Milan, Italy – decided to make the coffee bean store a coffeeshop, serving espresso-based drinks. More people wanted more than just espresso (dark roasted beans), and ‘sweets N eats’ to go along with their coffee. But espresso or not, their coffee was and still is, dark roasted.
In 1975, ‘Mr. Coffee’ was first to release their version of a ‘Home’ ‘drip coffee maker’ to the public. Bunn and other brands later released their versions. This was still years away from the entering in of Starbucks.
Home espresso, latte and cappuccino machines were still expensive and not quite in vogue yet.
But somewhere along the way, people started to want their coffee as fresh as possible. They started to op for whole beans and to grind their own as needed. If you think about canned coffee, the coffee in it could have been roasted or baked (yes baked on conveyor fed ovens), months before you bought the can at the store. To preserve its freshness, the cans were sealed with nitrogen, displacing the oxygen. When you first opened the can, the coffee smelled fresh and then it was all downhill (degrading in freshness), as the nitrogen was displaced with oxygen.
All coffee after roasting (allowing the roasted beans to rest, to displace off gases, for a period of 24-48 hours before grinding and roasting), peaks and falls in about 7-10 days from the time it was first roasted. Although grinding your own coffee beans does indeed result in fresher tasting coffee, ALL coffee should be ground, brewed and consumed, within 7-10 days from when it was first roasted.
When Starbucks locations spread throughout the united States, they also spread to other parts of the world. Today, many recognize them as the leader, for amounts of coffee by the cup, sold retail. Since their beginning, they have continued to do several things:
1. They dark roast their coffee (to achieve a certain taste profile and quality control)
2. They advertise as using only Arabica beans (more acidic, higher altitude grown and more caffeine), and not using Robusta or blends.
Starbucks is known as the highest caffeinated beverage in the retail world of coffee. Remember, the longer the beans are roasted, the less caffeine is in the final product. To make their beverages more caffeinated than others, they do one more thing. Remember the ratio of coffee to water that has been used for many years before, Starbucks? It was 1 tablespoon of coffee for every 6 ounces of water. What does Starbucks do? Their secret is:
2 Tablespoons of coffee to every 6 ounces of water
Scarchucks and now, most other roasters; coffee shops copy the leader
So, they use twice as much coffee as most have been used to for many years, to achieve that jolt, the buzz and the wake-up juice! And on top of that, there are those that want an extra shot or 2 of espresso (about 1.5 ounces each), to be added to their already dark-roasted diluted espresso coffee. To each their own, but for many people, this is a recipe for over-roasted, burnt caramel, highly acidic, and overly caffeinated something, that may be “strong”, upset stomachs and give the “jitters” to the uninitiated”, the novices, the uniformed, the non-real-men or non-real-women; the babies that don’t have a cast iron stomachs, but this aint’ coffee!!!! Call it it charred, over-roasted, maybe double caffeinated, diluted espresso with a couple of undiluted shots of espresso thrown in, but it’s still not coffee. But hey, if you like this, you like what you like and know why you like it and call it something else besides coffee because it’s not.
If you want to drink real coffee, try a like roast as it retains all its flavor profiles and most of its caffeine, it will likely be like drinking tea, but it’s coffee. For myself and most coffee snobs and connoisseurs, medium roast it the best and sometimes, depending on the variety, medium-dark, but never, ever dark roasted unless, you are roasting espresso.
Unfortunately, in following the the leader, most roasters and coffee shops follow the same recipe as what I call Scarchucks does. And well, twice as much coffee per 6 ounce cup sells more coffee and that’s good for business!
In many taste tests, even Dunkin Donuts which is medium roasted coffee, is preferred over Scarchucks and all the others that over-roast their coffees. To be fair, Dunkin Donuts now offers a dark roast. Again, the longer it roasts, the less caffeine is going to be left. But their regular medium roast coffee, right on the bag says:
“One heaping tablespoon per six ounces of water”
Dunkin Donuts
I suppose if you really need more caffeine, for either the medium roast and especially their dark roast, just add more coffee per 6 ounce cup of water.
For consistency and price, I used to to drink regular medium roast Dunkin Donuts coffee (whole beans), most of the time. Occasionally, I would purchase other single origin coffees (mostly organic), at a higher price than Dunkin Donuts from local roasters because, we here at ‘The Gathering Place’, like variety.
Then, I began to roast my own coffee at home. It is very simple. It takes me about one hour to roast two different coffees medium roast from start to finish (including clean-up). I enjoy this. I can control my roast. It costs me about half as much as I used to pay. I don’t include my labor because, it’s not work (labor), unless you want to call it a “labor of love”. It’s just fun to me. Two pounds a coffee will last us for a week (we or I, drink a lot of coffee pretty much 24/7). My wife, usually only consumes around two cups per day and only in the morning. We alternate. We go back and forth from one roasted coffee to the other (we like variety). The following week, it will likely be two different single origin (mostly organic), coffees. Variety gives our taste buds something to look forward to and are greatly enhanced when we do return to our favorite or favorites. Using different varieties and origins, is like having insurance against some political upheaval or civil unrest in some country where your coffee comes from. WOW, I can’t imagine not being able to get my coffee if, I was stuck on one kind and it suddenly was not available!
Besides the cost savings, no one (no local roaster), can compete with me for freshness, unless I know that the day I picked it up was the first day they made it available to purchase after roasting, 24-48 hours earlier. I cannot say it is! It could have been siting in a bin (non-vacuumed container; not sealing out the oxygen), for over a week or longer. We drink our home roasted coffee in 7 days, 1-2 days after roasting, week after week!
I concede that I am neither a professional roaster or an expert at roasting coffee, but I roast to my satisfaction and there are generally, no complaints. I had a few 1/2 pounds sent as gifts. It was a Peruvian coffee because, that’s what they liked at the time. Mine was medium-roasted and their usual brand was likely, dark-roasted. To be honest, I did not like this particular variety of Peruvian coffee, switched to another and have had no additional complaints coming from me, my wife or any others that have had it here.
I do not roast as expertly as other local roasters with professional roasting equipment. All I use (believe it or not), is a old-time, hand-cranked lidded popcorn popper, over an open flame or a cast-iron skillet over an open flame, stirring and turning the beans with a wood spoon. By “open flame” I mean, outside on my propane tank, gas flame barbecue grill— spring, summer, fall and winter. But like I said afore, I roast to my satisfaction and as a former chef with a sensitive nose and a trained palate, I have no problem serving my coffee to anyone!
As it happens, this is about one year ago when my brother and his wife visited us for two weeks. My brother is a fan of that other place, that world retail coffee shop. Our coffee pot holds 10 cups full. I always add only enough water for 8 cups. One scoop of coffee is equal to 2 tablespoons. I usually add four scoops which is 1 tablespoon of coffee, per 6 ounces of water. For my brother, I added an extra scoop of coffee (for a total of 10 tablespoons). For his normal brand of dark-roasted coffee, they would have used 8 scoops for 8 cups of coffee (6 ounces of water per cup). I refused to do that. Maybe six, but certainly not 8. I started with 5 scoops of my medium-roast coffee and he drank this for two whole weeks. There were no complaints. It was “stronger” coffee than my wife and I usually drink. By “stronger” I mean it had more caffeine in it, but we could still tolerate it. My wife however, instead of her normal 2 cups in the morning, only drank one.
Well, now almost two weeks ago, I tripped, skipped and skated on an unseen little tricycle left in the wrong place by one of our grandsons and took a hard fall on both knees, ripped my left toenail (even though I had on shoes and socks), and landed on my left shoulder, HARD! I’m doing better every day, but slowly and I am grateful that nothing was broken or torn. I have tendinitis and the soreness, tenderness and loss of strength in my left arm has made it impossible to roast coffee, for about two weeks. So, I had to get some coffee from a familiar local roaster. I chose two kinds, Bolivian and Papua New Guinea, hoping this would get us through until I could roast again.
I brought these home, opened the bags and poured the beans into two separate vacuum-sealed containers to preserve their freshness. It was then that I noticed that they did smell great and were familiar, but each were dark-roasted (almost black), and covered with oil. I brewed some of one kind and the next time, the other. I used our regular 4 scoops (8 tablespoons or 1 tablespoon per 6 ounces of coffee). Both are “strong” to both my wife and I. After maybe two days of this, my stomach could not handle either, any more. Then it was back to Dunkin Donuts, to get their coffee, that I can drink! Hopefully, I will be able to roast my own again, real soon. As the adage goes, “you don’t realize how much you miss something, until it’s gone!”
No matter what your “thing” is (acidic, dark and a lot of caffeine), I highly recommend learning to roast your own coffee! But you should know that what you may think is “strong” coffee is “strong” because, it is what you have likely been taught to expect:
dark-roasted (burnt caramel, charred, charcoal-like tasting), highly acidic, heavily caffeinated and even though much of the caffeine is actually removed the longer it is roasted and to compensate for this, overly caffeinated by using twice as much coffee
Call this what you like, I call this scarchucks and it aint’ coffee!! Maybe, maybe, its suitable for espresso, but this is not coffee! At least you know why it cost so much per cup $2-5 dollars each at the coffee (so-called) shops. And you could be roasting a whole pound yourself (for many pots and many, many cups), for around $6-7 per pound of premium single origin green coffee beans that is fresher than you can likely get from the store or your local roaster! Want/Need more caffeine? Add more scoops of coffee or roast your own espresso and add your own 1-2 shots.
By the way, there is more caffeine in a 16 ounce bottle of your favorite cola or Pepsi’s ‘Mountain Dew’, than in regular coffee.
Enjoy your coffee or other burnt, dark, caffeinated beverage as you like, but at least know what coffee is! ☕ And…
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL COFFEE DAY! ☕
For more information about coffee see our blog.
.The Gathering Place Coffee Roasters Blog
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-VI
The Bee and The Butterfly
By Dahni
© 2020, all rights reserved
In a divided world, how can any cope
is there any hope
for something common to unite us all
Behold the silent clarion call
The sun to the sunflower
unite
The bee and the Butterfly 🦋 alight
Proving harmony and peace and still
Is but a choice of will
From the collection: ‘Letters from Earth’
By the same author
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Vk
To Every Patriot & Christian in the United States of America
By Dahni, 1 of WE
© 2020, all rights reserved
To Every Patriot & Christian in the United States of America, it is way past time to wake up! If you have not been awakened and have stayed awake by now, stay asleep! Just stay out of the way! If there be such a thing as the “silent majority”, it is way, way, long past time to be silent anymore! Every one of you, and I and WE, has to take a stand! The time is, NOW!
Nothing should be clearer than to see the flag of the United States of America being disrespected and burned in our street, in our city of Portland, in our state of Oregon under the interpreted and corrupted idea of the freedom to desecrate! What is freedom and what a right is in this country is, what the Constitution says they are and the state constitutions which are supposed to be in unity with it, ‘The Law of the Land’! Not the President, the Congress or even the Supreme Court can tell you or I or anyone, what is freedom or a right. All they can do is execute the Constitution, legislate laws, which do not conflict with the Constitution, or judge actions that are not constitutional. They have no power to abolish the Constitution or change it so as if it were abolished! Only the people, WE the People can abolish government and institute new government as we believe well, serves our future security and happiness. Nothing should be clearer than to see a Bible or Bibles, being burnt with our flag, the flag of the United States of America disrespected and all burned in our street! Desecrated and burned, in our city of Portland, in our state of Oregon, under the interpreted and corrupted idea of freedom to desecrate and burn! These are actions of EVIL, perpetrated by the insane or greatly influenced by the same!
To Every Patriot in the United States of America
You, and I and WE all need to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. We need to share these with others! Buy copies and give them away! We need to read them, study them, memorize them word-for-word and be able to recite them at a moments notice at any opportunity. We must speak boldly, but not rudely or with the intent to yell down an opposing voice. A soft answer turns away wrath!
You, and I and WE all need to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. We need to share these with others! Buy copies and give them away! We need to read them, study them, memorize them word-for-word and be able to recite them at a moments notice at any opportunity. We must speak boldly, but not rudely or with the intent to yell down an opposing voice. A soft answer turns away wrath!
We need to study the history of the Revolutionary War, the outcomes of everyone that pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. We need to know and understand what they fought against and what they fought for, often to the loss of their lives, their fortunes, but not their sacred honor. We need to know and understand that even though all have since died, all that remains is, their sacred honor! Their “sacred honor” is contained in these documents that now are, We the people of the United States of America. We must not cower! We must not be silent!
And finally, we must understand that regardless of whether or not you are a Christian or a devout follower of any religion or of no religion whatsoever, all of our rights and freedoms have not come from the will of the human mind. Whether or not our founders, all of them men, women and children believed in God or not, they wrote, they signed, they lived and they died, for the protection of divine providence! Call it universal law, international law (laws between and among people), if not divine providence! For if these freedoms and these rights are not to all, they are for none. If human will gave these they are privileges and can be taken, forfeited, bought, sold and trade like common things. Whether the founders believed in God or not, our country was founded upon Judaeo-Christian principles! If this country is to remain a republic We each, each patriot must love this country and all that it represents! We must love and respect, all that are our citizens. We must have respect and show respect for our flag, it’s pledge of allegiance; it’s national anthem, with all due respect, for Liberty and Justice for all, for all! Being mindful of these things will stainless steel the soul and diamond strengthen the resolve that it is only Love that drives out darkness and hate! If even one is denied Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, then there is no ALL, no WE the People! “WE the People” is, in your hands and in mine!
The time is now!
To Every Christian in the United States of America
I do not care what church you may or may not attend. I do not care what you value or what the teachings of your particular brand of Christianity may be. If you have confessed with your mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you are a Christian, PERIOD! We Christians above all citizens of these United States should know that our first amendment right from the Bill of Rights in Our Constitution begins with—
“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or abridging the free exercise thereof;…”
Excerpt from the US Constitution, Amendment I
We Christians should know and understand that no religion including our particular beliefs are to be established by law as the ‘only’ religion, but that this allows Christianity to also, not to be prohibited and to be exercised freely. We Christians should know that in the United States, we are free to speak the truth in love.
“But speaking the truth in love,…”
Ephesians 4:15a King James Version (KJV)
We Christians should know that Liberty is the emancipation from bondage. We Christians should know that—
“Then said Jesus to those Jews [anyone] which believed on him, IF ye [you] continue in my word, THEN are ye [you] my disciples indeed;”
“And [then] ye [you] shall [absolutely] KNOW THE TRUTH, and [then] THE TRUTH shall [absolutely] [not only just set you free, but] MAKE you free.”
John 8:31, 32, KJV
“…where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
II Corinthians 3:17b, KJV
We Christians should know that where we are, He is and there is Liberty! We Christians should know that through divine providence (the will of God), the United States of America was birthed, so that from here, all people might freely come to know the Word of God, which reveals Jesus Christ and—
“Neither is there salvation [Greek sózó – wholeness] in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved [Greek sózó -made whole].”
Acts 4:12, KJV
We Christians should—
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” – The return of Christ
Hebrews 10:25, KJV
We Christians should know and be like those of ancient Thessalonica—
“For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.”
I Thessalonians 1:8, KJV
Even more so, we Christians should be more noble than those of Thessalonica like were the Bereans—
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
Acts 17:11, KJV
We Christians must not cower in fear, but know—
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Jesus Christ from: John 14:27, KJV
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
II Timothy 1:7, KJV
“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you [God, in Christ in you], than he [the devil, “the god of this world”] that is in the world.”
I John 4:4, KJV
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
I John 4:18
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
Romans 8:37, KJV
We Christians should know our personal adversary—
“In whom the god of this world [the devil] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
II Corinthians 4:4
We Christians should no more be silent, but know if the culture is to be permeated (changed, transformed; reset), we must speak God’s Word like they did in the first century Church, to the end that—
“So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”
Acts 19:20
We Christians must understand all of our rights and freedoms have not come from the will of the human mind, but by the will of God! Whether or not our founders, all of them men, women and children believed in God or not, they wrote, they signed, they lived and they died, for the protection of divine providence! Others call this ‘universal law’, but more accurately, ‘International law’ [between nations – all nations], “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son [Jesus Christ John 3:16a KJV]. God raised up the United States that all who desire to know, may freely know! But whether our founders believed in God or not, our country was still, founded upon Judaeo-Christian principles!
If this country is to remain a Constitutional republic, we each, each patriot and Christian, must— Go, Stand and Speak the truth anywhere, to anyone and anytime!
“Go, stand and speak in the temple [anywhere, to anyone, anytime and all the time] to the people all the words of this life.”
Acts 5:20, KJV
And finally, we the Christians of the United States of America should know above all our citizenry—
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord;…”
Psalm 33:12a, KJV
Your responsibility and mine as Christians is far, far greater than all of the other patriot-citizens combined!
The Time is Now!
Take a Stand!
Note: I believe this post of such importance that I have shared it here on this blog. ‘The Gathering Place’ is what my wife Susan and I call our home on top of the hill in Macedon, New York. As a metaphor is is obvious, we want it to be a place where friends and family may freely “gather’. From the Bible or what is scriptural (from the scriptures, the Bible), it refers to a time when the dead in Christ and those alive at the return of Christ, will be “gathered” together. I shared this same post on my political blog, my Christian blog, my business blog and my personal artist blog. I has also be shared on my Facebook timeline, linked on my two Twitter accounts and various and other places. In two days or August 10, 2020 I will post my “farewell” on my Facebook timeline. It will remain until August 11, 2020. After that 48 hour time, I will begin the process of permanently deleting my Facebook account and all groups and pages associated with this. For security reasons (Facebook’s lack thereof), and their flagrant suppression of “freedom of speech” in using “fact-checkers” like a publisher would instead of a platform they claim to be, I am leaving Facebook. I will be leaving Twitter ASAP for the same reasons, but more importantly, I believe Twitter to be a National Security risk! I will not be sharing this post with my Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/TGP4Me/ as it has for the most part has been discontinued. Most of the posts there came from here anyway. If you like this blog, subscribe to it for FREE and be notified when something new is posted.
Dahni
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-US
June 1st, 2020
Anniversary
By Dahni
Sometime ago, I started writing a cookbook called, ‘The Gathering Place’ “Holidays & Special Occasions Entertaining”. My goal is for you and anyone to be enabled to turn your own home into a 5,6, or 7 star restaurant. I’m not sure a 6 or 7 exists, but I think you get the point. It is to include step by step instructions and pictures for:
appetizers, salads, main courses, desert, decorating, table setting, deserts, garnishing and the whole package from full-course gourmet meals— breakfast, lunch and dinner
Along the way I thought, beverages should be included, alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Over the last few years I have built quite a collection. My wife Susan is a beneficiary as we have enjoyed these together. Many of the names are named after her and her words and emotional response have been the cause of the names for others. I have named this collection of drinks, ‘Sip’s with Susan’ as almost daily, in the morning, we likely gather on our enclosed front porch to converse over morning coffee or in the late afternoon, for Happy Together Hour, with adult libations.
I have named other drinks to honor other people. I have shared some as private messages, by email, on my Facebook timeline, FB pages, blogs (like this one), Instagram and other social media publicly. Several people have asked why, do I give these away, instead of selling them as a drink or bar book. Well, I just want to share with others and these may still appear in my book, as a stand-a-lone book or both, in the cookbook and separately. I probably should at least make up one for myself. There are so many, I can’t remember them all, even though I made them up. I have more than a hundred original drinks, but somehow, they got out of sequence. So, I started numbering them from 1-100 saying, I would stop when I hit.100 Today, is that day.
I forwarded advance recipes of #98 and #100 to several people, including my sister who told me, “the last two (#99 and #100), “had better be over the top!” I believe they are. I shared #98 on this blog, on May 31st, 2020 and this one (#100), today, June 1st, 2020. I will share #99 ‘Flag Day’ on Flag Day, June 14th, 2020. 🙂
But for this one (#100), I thought of gold and golden, like an “anniversary”. I decided to make this drink with real edible gold and to celebrate its completion. I call it, ‘Anniversary’. It seems apropos or fitting to me. It is also to honor or celebrate four important events, to me.
• My sister’s 45th Anniversary of graduating from High School, in 1977
• Our Grandma that we three grandchildren affectionately called ‘Nanny’, passed away on the same date, May 30th, 1990, so this is to honor her as she has ended her labor and is awaiting the return of Jesus Christ. This marks the 30th Anniversary, of this event.
• On June 1st, 2020, my brother, Richard & his wife Susan, celebrate (I believe their 44th), wedding Anniversary
• On June 1st, 2020, My Susan and I, celebrate the completion of, ‘Sips with Susan’, as its 1st Anniversary.
Having a name (‘Anniversary’), and deciding to use edible gold, I started to envision what I could do with this. Champagne or sparkling wine came to mind, then those skinny flutes, often seen in mid-morning weddings, toasts, brunches and other celebratory events and ‘anniversaries”. Then I thought about, why not some kind of mimosa-like drink? I did not want to use the typical equal parts of Champagne (or sparkling wine), and orange juice. So, then I went on a journey to discover. Please come along. There is a drink (recipe), waiting for you at the end. 🙂
Note: ‘Anniversary’ may also be called, an ‘Anniversary Mimosa’ or a ‘True Mimosa’. A True Mimosa is prepared with equal parts of a pink citrus or pink colored liquid and champagne.
What you may or may not be familiar with is, the one that appears orange and is made with equal parts of orange juice and champagne. Confused? There is no need to be. Both drinks derive their name from the Mimosa Tree (so-called). One has yellow to orange blossoms and the other has pink flower puffs that have the appearance of silk threads, tipped in light pink, darker pink or even white. Only one is a true Mimosa and the other is just called, a Mimosa. Though both may grow as tall as trees, many refer to them as weeds and both are invasive. Neither is related to the other. They only share the name of mimosa and fern-like leaves. Are you really confused now? Not to worry! Lets us begin discovery to understand, by the drink name of, Mimosa.
There exists an unproven theory that the Mimosa (drink), first appeared in some hotel, someplace in the Mediterranean in, 1900. So, we are looking at least in Europe. Now Spain, for centuries, has been making drinks with oranges and sparkling wine. Only if approved by France and from the Champagne region of France can it be officially called Champagne, unless it is made in California USA? They somehow get to call their sparkling wines, California Champagne. Everyone else, must just call them, sparkling wines. Carbonation naturally or by adding CO2 is what causes the fizzy-bubbles that people like and others do not, for the same reason, fizzy-bubbles.
Next, let’s look at the name, Mimosa.
The generic name is derived from the Greek word μῖμος (mimos), an “actor” or “mime”, and the feminine suffix -osa, “resembling”, suggesting its ‘sensitive leaves’ which seem to ‘mimic conscious life’. Some varieties (the True Mimosa), have leaves which are known to close up if touched and at night when the sun goes down. So this is where the idea that it is conscious and alive. In first light of the sunrise, these fragile silk-thread-like blossoms will appear to dance, refracting first-light. When the blossoms fall and if upon water, they will shimmer and appear to dance again, but will sink below the water’s surface, when the sun sets. For a time, they will appear as if alive again, when they rise to the water’s surface again, when the sun returns.
Out of the many species, let’s look at two. Actually, they are similar, but not the same. To add even more potential confusion, there is the following:
“The Mimosoideae are trees, herbs, lianas, and shrubs that mostly grow in tropical and subtropical climates. They comprise a clade, previously placed at the subfamily or family level in the flowering plant family Fabaceae (Leguminosae). In previous classifications (e.g. the Cronquist system), Mimosoideae refers to what was formerly considered the tribe Mimoseae. Characteristics include flowers in radial symmetry with petals that are valvate (twice divided) in bud, and have numerous showy, prominent stamens. Mimosoideae comprise about 40 genera and 2,500 species.”
Excerpt from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosoideae
Albizia julibrissin
The ‘True Mimosa’, is part of the above. Albizia julibrissin, the Persian silk tree or pink silk tree, is a species of tree in the family Fabaceae, native to southwestern and eastern Asia. The genus is named after the Italian nobleman, Filippo degli Albizzi, who introduced it to Europe in the mid-18th century, and it is sometimes incorrectly spelled, Albizzia. The specific epithet julibrissin is a corruption of the Persian word gul-i abrisham (گل ابریشم) which means “silk flower” (from gul گل “flower” + abrisham ابریشم “silk”).
Albizia julibrissin is known by a wide variety of common names, such as Persian silk tree and pink siris. It is also called Lenkoran acacia or bastard tamarind, though it is not too closely related to either genus. The species is called Chinese silk tree, silk tree or mimosa in the United States, which is misleading, because acacia is not a true Mimosa, even though it is called a mimosa. Grown all over the world now, it prefers a southern or tropical climate and does not long survive in areas that drop further in temperature, than a mere frost. Native to the Middle East and Asia, this True Mimosa was brought to this country in 1785, by the famous French botanist, Andre Michaux, who planted it in his botanic garden, in Charleston, South Carolina. Some describe its fragrance to being similar to a light scent of gardenia. I read of one lady that loved this growing up in Alabama (it spread that far). But now, if she was asked how to care for them her response is, “whenever you have a good chainsaw!”
Acacia dealbata
Acacia dealbata, the silver wattle, blue wattle or mimosa, is a species of flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae, native to southeastern Australia in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory and widely introduced in Mediterranean, warm temperate, and highland tropical landscapes. The flowers are produced in large puff-like balls which are made up of numerous smaller globe–like bright yellow or orange flowerheads of 13–42 individual flowers. In moist mountain areas, a white lichen can almost cover the bark, which may contribute to the descriptor “silver”. The Latin specific epithet dealbata also means “covered in a white powder” Acacia dealbata appears to be most closely related to A. mearnsii, A. nanodealbata and A. baileyana. While some consider A. dealbata to be a variant of Acacia decurrens. Acacia dealbata is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant in warm temperate regions of the world, and is naturalised in some areas, including Sochi (Black Sea coast of Russia), southwestern Western Australia, southeastern South Australia, Norfolk Island, the Mediterranean region from Portugal to Greece and Morocco to Israel, Yalta (Crimea, Russia), California, Madagascar, southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe), the highlands of southern India, south-western China and Chile. It is hardy down to 23 °F), but does not survive prolonged frost.
My theory is that someone saw a True Mimosa (pink flowered tree), and where they lived there was another plant/tree that had fern-like leaves and puff balls of silk-like flowers of yellow or orange blossoms. Spain, having consumed sparkling wine with orange juice for centuries, someone saw this somewhere and decided to name the drink, a mimosa. By the way, a most favored variety of orange for juice is, the Valencia Orange. Is there a connection with Valencia, Spain? 🙂
A mimosa (the drink), is generally equal parts of citrus juice and sparkling wine, Champagne or California Champagne. If you live where this plant/tree/ flourishes and the flowers are yellow or orange, this would be a mimosa to you. But if you live where the True Mimosa plant/tree flourishes (pink flowers), red grapefruit, perhaps blood orange or a splash of grenadine with lemonade (spiked or not), with sparkling wine, would be a mimosa to you.
In the fall, many mix apple juice, cider or hard cider and call this a apple mimosa. But I don’t suppose apples are a citrus fruit and citrus is typically used for a mimosa.
And just so you know, all the tree/plants we have been discussing here are invasive. They take over the canopy. They choke out other plants and they spread wildly, widely and grow quickly. Their roots have compromised concrete and block wall foundations. They are considered weeds is many areas. Many parts of the world outlaw their plants and vehement seek to eradicate them with extreme prejudice.
Call these drinks (however you find them), order them in what colors are available to you and call them whatever you like. They are popular for mid-morning weddings, brunches (between breakfast and lunch), and anything celebratory like, “anniversaries”.
For myself, in the spirit of a true mimosa (the tree), and the mimosa (the drink), I am using citrus and something red to make the drink pink in color. For mine, I’m’just calling this, ‘Anniversary’
______________________________
Anniversary
Libatious’ #100 (stopped now that I’ve hit 100)
By Dahnini or Dahnitini
Spirits Alchemist
Bon Devant
Use tall glassware with long stems
Dip rims of champagne 🥂 flutes into lemon juice and holding the stem of the glass in your hand at an angle, slowly turn, making a full circle, sprinkling edible gold dust on lemon juiced rims
Add a little grenadine to the bottom of each glass (about ½”)
Place a pink heart-shaped💕 ginger sugar cube, into the bottom of each glass
Chill the flutes until ready to serve
1 jigger of lemon 🍋 simple syrup
1 jigger of ginger liqueur
A splash of grenadine syrup for color (pale pink)
Pour into hand shaker
Add ice
Shake
“Shaken not stirred!” -007, Bond, James
Bond-😂
Pour strained into chilled champagne 🥂 flutes
Top with champagne 🍾
Sprinkle a little edible gold dust over top of bubbles
Makes 2 lovely libations. One to share and one for you 😀
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your ‘Anniversary’ responsibly! 😂
Note: You would need to purchase the book or collection when published, to receive the recipes how to make lemon simple syrup and what I call ‘ginger juice’, to make the ginger sugar cubes. In the pictures above they appear to be floating at the bottom, but size prevents from sinking to the bottom and weight does not allow them to float to the top. A small silicone candy mold was used to make the heart shapes. Red food coloring was used to make them pink. Edible gold should be 23K – 24K gold with no other metals, alloys or additives. Edible gold does not have any known nutritional benefits and it is consider safe and is excreted or eliminated from the body. You don’t really taste this per se, it just looks beautiful. Edible gold dust is available at many places online as, Amazon.com
By Dahni & I-Magine
©️ 2020, all rights reserved
From my Work in Progress: ‘The Gathering Place Cook Book’,
under the category of: beverages, ‘Sips with Susan’
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-UI
May 31st, 2020
O’ Beautiful
It has been a while since I posted here, but I wanted to share a new drink I recently prepared with you. It is what I call an adult libation, to be shared, and that I shared with my wife Susan, during our late-afternoon or early-evening Happy Together Hour, AKA, ‘Sips with Susan’
The name ‘O’ Beautiful’ may make you think of some patriotic song, but it is really a lot simplier than a song. It was the words and the expression on Susan’s face, when I presented it to her; she said,
“O’ Beautiful!”
This is the perfect name for me, for this drink. Recently, I have been into layering drinks and using wine with other distilled spirits. I have come across a really simple, beautiful and delicious way to do this that anyone can do. One friend in particular, really loves my drinks, as do Susan and I. I often send my friend Lisa advance copies of at least some of my recipes. She has a husband, family and they too, love to get together and share drinks. But Lisa recently commented that she might try this and other drinks, “but no one can make them as beautiful as you do!”
My response to her was, au contraire, anyone can make these!! I do not make them to show off or to impress, but to bless!!! What is the purpose of them if they can’t be replicated simply and by anyone? I’ll gladly accept the credit for their concept and the fun in naming my own original drinks, but you take the credit and the praise from others in their enjoyment of them, and I’m fine with that. So, without further adieu, I present to you, O’ Beautiful’.
‘O’ Beautiful’
Libatious’ #98 (stopping when I hit 100)
By Dahnini or Dahnitini
Spirits Alchemist
Bon Devant
Juice of 1 fresh lime 🍈
1 jigger of cherry 🍒 liqueur
1 jigger of ginger liqueur
4 jiggers of vodka
4 jiggers of lemonade 🍋
Pour into hand shaker
Add ice
Shake
“Shaken not stirred!” -007, Bond, James
Bond-😂
Pour into chilled wine glasses 🍷 with 1 -3 pieces of ice 🧊 (depending on cube size)
Pour 1 jigger of merlot or some dry red wine over the back of a spoon 🥄 at an angle over the surface of the liquid beneath
Garnish with cut slices of fresh strawberries dipped in lemon juice 🍋 and sprinkled with sugar skewered with a bamboo knot pick
Note: What do fresh strawberries have to do with this drink? Absolutely nothing other than it’s just part of what makes it “O’ Beautiful” and a nice taste at the end of your already deliciosness! 😀
Makes 2 lovely libations. One to share and one for you 😀
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your ‘O’ Beautiful’ responsibly! 😂
By Dahni & I-Magine
©️ 2020, all rights reserved
From my Work in Progress: ‘The Gathering Place Cook Book’, under the category of: beverages, ‘Sips with Susan’
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-U6
March 27, 2020
Ethel and her two sisters, Audrey and Anne (in this order), were the first which welcomed me with open arms and open hearts, ♥️ without hesitation or reservation; without judgement. Some believe your marry a family when you marry someone (my wife, Susan Meech Hayden), in it. But there was also my father-in-law, an uncle, three step-sons, their wives, their 7 children and cousins and other kindreds. Marrying any woman is work enough and then there is work with all she is kindred to. Few men are ever good enough for a mother’s and father’s daughter. Multiply this many times, if you marry a divorced woman with children! But, call it Kingly or Queenly kindness, Mom and her two sisters (my aunts), graciously accepted me the first time I met them. And I liked all three of them, the first time I met each of them. Now unless you think this is about me or three sisters, it is not. But it is about a similar trait that all three shared and this merely is my observations of the qualities of one in particular.
Ethel Lovatt Meech, is my mother-in-law, to which I have long dispensed with the factual and formal title and just call her Mom. Blood not, but not any less is she to me, than my birth mother.
Her husband Henry, “Bud” Meech, my father-in-law called her “Lovie”. She was indeed, a loving 🥰 sister, a loving 🥰 wife, a loving 🥰 mother, a loving 🥰 aunt, a loving 🥰 cousin, a loving 🥰 grandmother, a loving 🥰 great grandmother and a loving 🥰 friend!
Our only granddaughter Leona, and one nephew Chase, both have ‘Lovatt’ as their middle name.
Mom was a proper Lady. She was often quiet and a good listener. But she was an exceptional conversationalist too, poignant, sharp and smart.
She also had a fun and funny side too. Both her two true children could tell you about her burgundy red convertible 67′ mustang she loved to drive.
Her comedic timing was often unexpected, but greatly appreciated. I would’ve loved to have been at the dinner table when her husband Bud asked her to throw him a pickle and she tossed it into the air! I remember standing next to her and my wife Susan, was on her other side at the funeral home. We were there to say goodbye to her husband, the father of her children, “Bud” Henry Meech. The grandchildren called her, ‘Grandma Sweetie Pie’. Yes, she was a sweetie, made great pie and was a wonderful cook. But there we were and it was a solemn moment, for all in saying goodbye, as we drew near to see him and pay our respects and begin the grieving process. Mom looked on her husband and friend and just quietly said, “The shell is still here, but the nut is gone.”
I would have loved to have been a fly in the car when she and dad were in the front seats (Dad was driving) and it was the first time she met his mom and grandmother. They were all singing songs and then there was a sudden quiet. To break the ice and cut through the edginess, Mom broke out singing, ‘Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall’. If that’s not funny enough for you, unbeknownst to Ethel, her newly met grandmother-in-law just happened to be the wife of a Methodist minister and her new mother-in-law was aligned with The Women’s Temperance Movement that opposed the consumption of alcohol. 🍹 🍸 🍺 🍷 🤣🤣🤣
But to me, the greatest thing my Mom had been was a career registered nurse. And that fact does not even begin to tell the story. I have met a few famous people in my life and had my heroes and heroines, But never in my wildest dreams, could I ever have imagined, marrying into a family with one hero and one heroine, married to each other. Their family became my family!
But Ethel was not only a registered nurse, oh no, a million times no! She was a proud and lifelong member of, The United States Nurse Cadet Corps.
The United States Cadet Nurse Corps (CNC), was authorized by the U.S. Congress and signed into law as a nondiscriminatory program, in July 1943. Its purpose was to help alleviate the nursing shortage that existed during World War II. The United States Public Health Service (USPHS), was named the supervisory agency; it was answerable to, the Surgeon General of the United States.
Its origins can be traced to the establishment in 1798, of a system of marine hospitals. In 1870, these were consolidated into the Marine Hospital Service, and the position of Surgeon General, first began.
The program was formed, July 1st, 1943 and was dissolved, December 31st, 1948.
The program was open to all women between the ages of 17 and 35 who were in good health and had graduated from an accredited high school.
All state nursing schools in the U.S. were eligible to participate in the program; they were, however, required to be accredited by the accrediting agency in their state and be connected with a hospital that had been approved by the American College of Surgeons. The participating schools of nursing were required to compress the traditional 36-month nursing program into 30 months and were obligated to provide the students with the clinical experiences of medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics.
Ethel was an operating room and surgery nurse, for the better part of her career in nursing.
This was an incredible opportunity for women, for financial independence and a lifetime career, no matter the economic situation or societal woes that may befall a nation. If you were a nurse and even today, you always have a job. All of these things appealed to young women which before, may have had little to no opportunity to improve the quality of their lives. The uniforms, stockings, lapel pins, a particular shade of ruby red lipstick, and berets were highly attractive to many. If you were a nurse, a Cadet Nurse, you were in essence, a fashionista!
There was a lot of prestige being a Cadet Nurse. You were not just anybody or just a woman, you were often gorgeous, highly intelligent, professional, highly trained, in high demand and were often viewed like rock stars of the times. Many women longed to be a Cadet Nurses and along with all these characteristics and compassion for others and the faithful dedication, many men fervently desired to date a Cadet Nurse, kiss one and with an ultimate hope of marrying one!
Beyond these things, Cadet Nurses were honored to serve their country as the country was honored by their presence. They filled great voids in this country, when so much of the medical field were on the front lines overseas. But no matter where a Nurse Cadet served, she was also on the front lines and among the ‘first responders’. They did not only give life giving aid and literally saved many a life, they often wrote letters for their patients, read to them, talked to them, comforted them, and kept vigil the whole dark night of their patients’s souls. They were heroes and heroines each one, and often your trusted confidant and best friend! Doctors could never, and cannot ever, survive for any length of time without them! And the greatest medical people in the world are in the USA! 🇺🇸 The quality of the entire medical industry that we enjoy today, are the direct results of The Nurse Cadet Corps that forged it in fire, 🔥 on the front lines, of the front lines of, human trauma and tragedy, crisis and redemption, by what many think on as the ‘angels of grace and mercy!
My mother-in-law, Ethel Lovatt Meech, my adopted mom, was a pioneer on a love frontier. And she is my heroine!
She knew her grandson Jonathan was following, in her footsteps and she spoke of him often fondly and beamed with pride. He wanted her to be the one that pinned him when he graduated from nursing school, but sadly, she passed before. But he did graduate, is a husband, a father of three boys, and a NICU nurse (neonatal Specialist), but he is also studying and soon to graduate, as a Nurse Practitioner. I know she would be (is), so very proud of him as he like her, in our current World War against the Covid19 virus, is on the front lines of the front lines!
Jonathan was there and Susan and I were there when Mom took her last breath. I have no other way to say this than, it was a beautiful death. She was surrounded by people that loved her and that she loved and she quietly closed her eyes and went to sleep. She was draped with a quilt that was given to her by a Nurse who had also served in the military. The quilt has an American flag woven design. We still have this. It was just a token of a grateful country, for her service!
We now live in the same home that she and my father-in-law lived in, from 1973 until they passed. We inherited a simple little kitchen timer that runs off of batteries. It is just inside one of the cabinets in our kitchen. For some unknown reasons and at different times, when either of us walk by the cabinet, the alarm inside starts dinging. We always think it’s Mom trying to say something and we always say, “Hi Mom,” and then shut the alarm off. And today is, your birthday! Your your daughter Susan, is making a cake for you, to celebrate you today and for as long as we still draw breath.
I don’t know if I ever said this to you, but like the line from a favorite song of mine, “Did you ever know that you’re my hero?” 🥰❤️
Your Dahni
(Because you made me yours)
Cadet Hymn
Faithful ever to my country, to the Corps, my sacred trust,
Grant that I may follow wisely, all the guidance offered me.
Give me kindness, grant me patience,
That I may not fail this noble challenge to heal the suffering ones.
Help me to ally the sorrowing in a world torn by strife,
May I hold the lamp of nursing in the sprit of the Corps,
Give me strength, and grant me knowledge,
To pursue my chosen way with courage to heal the suffering ones.
Now I dedicate my service, pledge myself and all I am,
Thus to make of life a triumph, over sorrow over death,
Give me pride in my endeavor
In the service of my Corps, o grant that I may heal the suffering ones
The cadet hymn was composed by the director of music at Mt. Vernon Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. and the words were written by a member of the Division of Nursing Education of the USPHS. It was released in 1945 on the second anniversary of the CNC
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-TT
I am pleased to announce:
‘Toast the Roast’ – “Coffee talk with Dahni”, July 6th, 2019 10:00 AM (rain or shine). Class size limited to 14. Sign up at https://longacrefarms.com
SIgn up at our friends website and hosts for this event Click on ‘Events’
https://longacrefarms.com
For additional information, see our other blog specific to coffee at The Gathering Place Coffee Roasters
I hope you are excited! I close with raising my cup to you, to…
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-TJ
Spa Side Amore-tinis
By Dahnini or Dahnitini
©️2019, all rights reserved
Hot or cold, love is in the air. The Italians call it, amore (love). Heading to the spa or hot tub with your love? Why not a couple of Amore-tinis and watch Jupiter in the night skies or the poetry in motion, in each other’s eyes! 🙂
Amore-tini
By Dahnini or Dahnitini
Juice of 1 small fresh lime
2 jiggers Amaretto almond liqueur
1 jigger of vodka
1 jigger or apricot juice or nectar
Add ice
Pour into hand shaker and shake
“Shaken not stirred!” -007, Bond, James Bond” 🙂
Pour back into martini glass
Garnish with a stick and a skewered piece of dried apricot, dipped in lime juice and sprinkled with mix of almond flour and raw sugar
ENJOY! Drink your ‘Amore-tini responsibly! 🙂
Notes: Amore is Italian 🇮🇹 for “love” Amaretto (also Italian 🇮🇹), means “little bitter” and is often made with almonds and pulverized apricot shells which also taste like almonds.
By Dahni & I-Magine
©️ 2019, all rights reserved
From my Work in Progress: ‘
The Gathering Place Cook Book’
“How to Turn Your Home into a Four Star Restaurant’
under the category of beverages— ‘Sips with Susan’
Sing it Dean! Ruin it Jerry! 🙂
Lyrics to That’s Amore:
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-SI
“The Abbreviated Version” 🙂
(a series about roasting your own coffee) #4 of 4
By Dahni
©️ 2019, all rights reserved
From Kaldi and his dancing goats from Ethiopia, to Kenya and Yemen, coffee spread across the world where today—
• Coffee locations on the map all share similar characteristics: tropical and high elevation (among others). The climate must be perfect, for coffee to be grown and thrive!
• Coffee is exported from around 70 countries and imported by most countries in the world! The United States, is one of, if not the biggest importer of coffee in the world! WE the People of the USA, like our coffee!
• Mexico is likely the largest exporter of coffee to the United States! Think about that! Where did your coffee come from? Is it a blend of Mexican and some other(s)?!
• No coffee origins (varieties), are exactly like any other! Even the same origin will not always be the same, every time. Correctly roasted coffee reaches a peak then falls off in about 7-10 days! Coffee in those 7-10 days is always subtle, unique and their nuances different, each day! Some believe that the ONLY place to roast coffee is at the same location where the plants are grown, the cherries are harvested and the green beans (seeds), are processed! If this is true, then wouldn’t the best place to drink coffee be, at the same place where it is roasted? Personally, I am not financially independent, not that particular and not this patient!
• They are not really beans, they are seeds! They are called ‘cherries’, before they become ready for our coffee. They are very odd as, not every “cherry” will produce a seed! It takes around two thousand (2,000), cherries (the ones with seeds), to make our one cup of coffee!
• Because of all the above conditions and more, most cherries are still picked by hand, throughout the world! The terrain of most areas where coffee is grown, prevents most beasts of burden and modern equipment, from reaching the plants to extract the “cherries”!
• Arabica beans are the most desired, but they are also, the most fragile, compared to Robusta! Generally, Robusta beans have more caffeine and are larger beans! Robusta are often used in “blends” and to lower costs, while still charging us more for what they tell, are their, “signature blends”! Arabica beans account for sixty percent (60%), and Robusta, forty percent (40%), of all coffee beans!
• Coffee is the second (2nd), most traded commodity in the world!
• Coffee is the fourth (4th), most consumed beverage in the world, following in order: water, beer, wine and coffee!
• Kona Coffee from Hawaii (one of the most expensive and most popular in the world), is about the only place where commercial and mass quantities of coffee, are grown in the United States!
• One of the reasons (among many), Jamaican Blue Mountain (another expensive, popular and my favorite coffee), is so expensive is because, Japan (yes Japan), has had a trade agreement with Jamaica, to purchase ninety percent (90%), of their beans (roasted or green), for maybe well over a hundred (100), years!
• Political unrest and instability, could potentially halt the export of coffee, from that country, at anytime! Think about that and ask yourself what you would do, if tomorrow morning, your favorite coffee was no longer available??? This is another wonderful reason to order green beans at a current price and not at a higher price in the future and green beans can keep for years, in a cool dark place! Need I mention the importance of trying new coffees and educating your palette? ROAST YOUR OWN COFFEE!
Brewed Coffee
The most obvious thing to do after roasting your beans is to grind them and brew, and have a cup or two or a few. If you have never had coffee this fresh and that it’s not over-roasted, you just might be tasting coffee as it was meant to be enjoyed, for the very first time??!! If you usually drink coffee with cream, sugar or both, you may be surprised how great your roasts taste, drinking it black??!! Enjoy the flashback ‘Percolator ‘ song, from the YouTube video to follow. 🙂
OK, what next?
What to do with those grounds? Do you have roses or hydrangeas? Share your grounds, they like coffee too. One of the reasons for this is due to the acidity in the coffee that plants like. OK, what next?
Decaf? There is no such thing! Most coffee marketed and sold as decaffeinated is around 97% caffeine free. Well, that still leaves around 3% caffeine doesn’t it? What I’m calling it is, Locaf (lower caffeinated) Coffee.
Locaf or Lower Caffeinated Coffee
Sometimes, you or your others, may or would like a cup of coffee before say, bedtime. Maybe you don’t need the energy or the buzz from caffeine and you don’t want to stay awake all night. 🙂
To remove caffeine, it begins with green beans ONLY! There are only 2 ways to remove up to about 97% of the caffeine from coffee:
1. Chemicals- Not for me!
2. Water- The most natural and organic! For anything and everything you may or may not want to know about so-called decaffeination (lowered caffeine, but never all), click here
Want it? Need it? Well, you have three choices:
1. Buy whole beans or ground decaffeinated (Locaf), coffee. But if you are a home roaster or want to be, why would you?
2. Buy green beans that have most of the caffeine (never all), removed and roast yourself. NO PROCESS CAN REMOVE ALL OF THE CAFFEINE! But I would only choose green beans that use the water process, to remove caffeine (whatever amount is removed)! Where to get them? Click here
3. Do it yourself! How? Well, it will take some time!!! Place your green beans in a bowl. Pour hot water onto the beans and cover them with the hot water. Let them soak, for a few minutes. Drain and rinse. Repeat. Each time you do this, more of the caffeine is removed. When finished, roast the beans to your satisfaction.
Did you know, there are over 1,200 complex compounds in coffee, which contribute to their flavor profiles?? There are!!! Uhh, why then, would anyone want to over-roast and mess up any of these flavor compounds??? Just Don’t!!! Sugar is just one of the compounds. Caffeine is another. But it is odorless and colorless, though it does contribute acidity, which does affect, the overall taste of some coffees.
Note: There is more information available on this to class participants or online subscribers. See classes- click here
OK, what’s next?
Blends or Blending
Blends could be something you might like? Blends are for two real reasons, in the coffee industry:
Chicory was once such grain and it is still popular in the south, particularly in Louisiana. Have you ever heard of Cafe du Monde? It is world famous and started in New Orleans in 1862. They are open seven days a week; year-round, except, for Christmas Day or if an occasional hurricane forces them to close. We still have a can of this in our freezer (not a good idea to store this way, but it’s done). My wife Susan, actually had this coffee in New Orleans. I first tasted it in Japan. Yes, it’s all over the world. But in a can? How fresh can [pun-ny], that be? What if you made your own? Yes, yes you can!
Another blend I liked and tasted, is roasted in New Mexico, USA. It is coffee made with pinions (pine nuts). It is very unique, but how long can it stay fresh in a can or even a nitrogen packed can or foil bag? When was it roasted? How many months ago was that? How many months hence, from the date of roasting, does the package read, “Best is used by [some date way into the future]”. Why not roast this blend yourself? I will be, as soon as possible!
Blends and Dark Roast
Do you like or do your friends and family like espresso, latte, macchiato, capuchino and other dark roasted beverages? Then roast some! It is easy to do. Any coffee, if dark roasted, can be used for any of the beverages above. But here is where blending or blends come in. I wanted to try this and I mixed three (3), different coffees from different countries. One was from Ethiopia. By now you know that Ethiopia is likely, where coffee began. In our classes, we use Ethiopian coffee to roast. Class participants get to sample some fresh brewed, from fresh ground, and from fresh roasted coffee beans. And they each receive a 1/4 pound of fresh roasted beans, they can take home and enjoy the next morning. Now by “fresh” I mean, coffee beans that were roasted 24-48 hours before shared. Two of the class members will each receive 1/2 pound of the coffee, I roast at the actual class. Chosen by having the winning ticket selected, one receives from the popcorn popper roast and the other from the skillet roast. Obviously, I cannot make these available online and I do not have the means or the desire to be roasting around 7 pounds of coffee beans (what is needed for a class of 14), more than once or twice a week! But also, in class and by way of a special password required protected location and for a limited time ONLY, class members will receive the actual recipe I used, for making my dark blend, for espresso and etc. For more info. on classes and etc. click here Again, Ethiopian is the coffee used for classes, for obvious reasons. It was probably the “FIRST COFFEE”, many people have never tried it, it is one of the most popular and it is great in a blend, for espresso and etc.
Note on Blends/Blending: Technically, each coffee used in a blend, should be roasted separately and then blended. But I only made a 1/2 pound of dark roast and I roasted all three (3), different coffees together, at the same time. You are probably expecting this, but you will have to take my word for it (or take a class, learn the recipe and roast it yourself), but it made the freshest and best cup of espresso, latte, macchiato and cappuccino, my wife and I have ever had! Then I did another, not-supposed-to-do thing. I put it in a plastic sandwich bag, in a sealed black plastic container and stuck it in the freezer. Oh Noooo! 🙂
If needed or desired, I have my dark roast on hand, for anyone that comes to ‘The Gathering Place’ (what we call our home). I will be roasting this again, if/when needed, but especially for, the winter holidays! OK, what next?
Roasting for espresso? Have you ever had or do you like eating espresso beans? How about chocolate covered, espresso beans?! I have recipes for these too! Take a class and/or become a subscriber. Click here OK, what’s next?
Latte Art
Have you ever seen or had one of those extraordinary and barista artist created designs with cream, on top of your dark beverage?
Do you think these might add to the cost of your cup? Why not make your own? They do not have to be complicated and so detailed and complex, that you regret destroying the art when you or someone drinks your cuppa! I’ve seen some that are so detailed, they look like famous people, animals and all kinds of stuff! Do you you think these might add to the time it takes to get a cup, and drink it and that your coffee may not be as hot as you may like it, depending on how long it takes to make and get it to you?? Please do not misunderstand me. I like, admire, respect and appreciate art and artists. But as a former chef, there is a line I just won’t cross. That line is in the middle of Impress and Bless. There is nothing wrong with presenting food and drink in a beautiful or visually pleasing manner. It actually aides in digestion, promotes good conversation and increases enjoyment or JOY! But If I want to, have to or feel the need to impress you, I have crossed the line over my desire to simply, Bless You! And, like anticipating and expecting and waiting on a good meal or beverage to come, I just don’t have the patience to wait for say, da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ to be made with cream, on top of my coffee. And as a former chef, I don’t have the patience to wait to see your reaction to what I’ve prepared especially for you! Still, latte art is cool. You can learn to do some really simple, gorgeous, beautiful (find your own adjectives), latte art which will bless your guests and not take forever and a day to make. The word bless means, “Highly Favored!” For more information, to take one of our classes and/or become a subscriber. Click here Or wait until I finish my book (see below). OK, what’s next?
Cold Coffee (iced) or Cold Brew
Have you ever had or do you like, Cold Coffee or Cold Brewed Coffee? What’s the difference? Cold coffee is just like it is written. It is coffee that has been brewed and allowed to cool. It is served at room temperature, cool, cold, ice cold or with ice. It is served, with or without cream and or sugar. Cold Brew is just like brewing sun tea in a glass jar, in a filter (or a tea ball), and allowed to sit in the sun (or even on your counter-top). I call this, ‘Sun Coffee’ 🙂
Each (Cold Coffee or Cold Brew), have their own unique tastes, and depend on the origin of the coffee they are made from.
One of a grandfathers (a proper man and a highly educated man), liked cold or cooled or chilled or room temperature coffee (whatever was his preferred temperature). He would make coffee in a glass-top metal percolator, on top of his stove. Then he would pour some out into a nice teacup, which sat on a matching saucer. He would let this cool, pour some into the saucer, set aside the cup and raise the saucer and drink form it. I never saw him do this in public. I do not know if it is civilized or acceptable in public or how Emily Post or Miss Manners (two culture, class and etiquette champions), would view this, but it was his home, his castle, his private time and it made him happy! To be honest, I was not a fan of coffee that has any other temperature than hot enough to burn my lips! Hosting others and serving others is a responsibility and should be a joy to all chefs. Seek to bless and not impress! But I concede these (Cold Coffee or Cold Brew), have a place and FYI (for your information), I am warming up (or cooling down), to the idea! 🙂
You can add some spices and (natural flavorings), to either of these, to really transform your summer-cool-off beverages or whenever you want your coffee to Chill Out! 🙂
I’ve recipes for these too, also either available from online, for class participants, subscribers only or when completed and published, in my book—
‘The Gathering Place Feast Book’
(“How anyone can turn their home into a 5 star restaurant!”)
By Dahni
Note: If you like Nitro (nitrogen treated), Coffee, I cannot help you. I don’t care for it and I certainly do not have the necessary equipment or nitrogen sitting around in my mad-scientist lab in the basement! And there will not be one in the future, either, EVER! 🙂
OK, what’s next?
Other Beverages with Coffee
Other beverages with coffee? Like what? How about Adult Beverages (alcohol or non-alcoholic), for your Libations and Happy Together Hours! Coffee Liqueur made by you? Absolutely! How about a home-made ‘Coffee-tini’ by your’s truly, Dahnitini, mixologist; drink meister extraordinaire! 🙂
Desserts With Coffee
Coffee ice cream, coffee cake, tiramisu, coffee pie, coffee cookies anyone? We’ve got em’ and a lot more. Make your own! Make up your own.
Coffee as a Spice
Ground coffee as a spice? Sure, why not? Use as a rub, or part of a meat sauce for hamburgers and etc. The possibilities are endless. Use it. Make up some great stuff!
Coffee in Art & Literature
Yes! I’ve used coffee as a water color background, for some of my photograph turned paintings. Remember, Thomas Jefferson loved coffee and said it was the most civilized drink in the world. He may have had coffee when he was working on the drafts, to the Declaration of Independence. Maybe our Founders of this wonderful Republic of Ours, consummated its signing, before, during or after, with coffee. Poets and authors wrote and write, while consuming coffee. I have a cup of coffee beside me, as I am writing this. Now maybe this is not literature, but I am writing and I am drinking coffee, while doing it!
Coffee Around Your Home
I’ve already mentioned using your used coffee grounds, on roses and hydrangeas. It’s great fertilizer. Coffee grounds contain several key minerals for plant growth — nitrogen, calcium, potassium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium and chromium. Compost with 40% coffee produce less green-house gas and contributes greatly, to some of the best quality compost. Coffee around your plants help create a barrier that slugs and snails do not like to crawl over. Coffee grounds contain compounds that are toxic to many insects. You can use your coffee grounds to repel mosquitoes, fruit flies, beetles and other pests. Coffee grounds contain nitrogen, which helps eliminate odors. Try placing some roasted beans in your refrigerator or really, anywhere you want to neutralize odors. Place some grounds by your sink for scrubbing your hands, after handling onions or garlic. Take some roasted coffee beans in a plastic bag with you, when you go shopping, especially for fragrances, perfume, cologne, scented candles or anything scented. and etc. After sniffing a few fragrances, your ‘nose’ can become overwhelmed and you can hardly sense another scent’s attributes. Open your bag of roasted coffee beans and sniff them for a few seconds. Your ‘nose’ for new scents will come back to you! Do not worry about what others may think about you sniffing coffee beans at the store. I have found many places offer this technique (service with coffee beans), and I always recommend it to the stores I shop at, if they don’t already offer this. It really does work! Try it! There are seemingly endless and countless ways to use coffee!
Coffee for Your Health and Wellness
Do some research and you will find that coffee consumption has many health benefits. My sister makes a fabulous shower scrub with coffee! My wife, Susan, loves it! Not to get personal or anything, but coffee is a diuretic. It helps eliminate salt and well, it helps you go. Coffee is excellent for constipation, it keeps me regular! Some people use coffee as a laxative. Some use coffee for enemas, to clean-out their digestive tracts and rid it of a buildup of toxins and poisons. Many people who do this, report feeling healthier, happier and much more energetic. That being said, personally, I would rather drink and consume my fresh coffee! There are so many things coffee can do, for us and that we can do with coffee.
Coffee for Conversation
In my book, I will have a section on making your own home made ‘Beverages’. I call this section, ‘Sips with Susan’ (my wife). Whether it is during our Happy Together Times (Happy Hour), or our morning coffee, we sit and sip, enjoy one another’s company and converse about little things, no-things of great importance or great things, which truly matter. This is what conversations are for and I truly believe, coffee promotes good conversation. Even if you are a tea drinker, have you ever invited someone or have you ever been invited to, ‘Have a Cup of Coffee’? I’m sure that you have! Even if you are having tea, saying you are having a cup of coffee with someone is a good-feeling, friendly, civil and cultural thing to do!
Coffee as Gifts
Almost everyone loves and craves for, “A Taste of Home,” “Home Made”, “Home Cooking” or just going or being Home! You could help provide these wonderful and good feelings, by giving away as gifts, some of your roasted coffee beans. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and on and on, a gift of your coffee would be like any other special gift, but it’s made by you and it’s FRESH. What about coffee as a home warming gift? The new house owners may be living out of boxes, for awhile, but I bet they have found their coffee maker and it’s in their kitchen. Imagine them sitting around and sipping your coffee, while they decide where to put all their furniture, where to hang or put this and that. How about your coffee for a baby announcement? Think about the new mom and dad, sitting around and enjoying your fresh roasted beans that they ground and brewed, while they think about names for the baby. A coffee gift of thanks, appreciation, friendship and love? Yes! The possibilities are too numerous, to even try and list! The greatest gift that can ever be given is said to be, the gift you give of yourself! You are and your own fresh roasted beans are synonymous. You and your beans are one! Give the gift of yourself! 🙂
Where to Go from Here?
Coffee, it’s Not Just for Waking Up!
This concludes our series on roasting coffee, ‘Toast the Roast’. Remember this, it is really simple to roast your own coffee! I hope like me, you enjoy learning. I hope you have learned something!
Learning is, an Exciting adventure!
I hope you are excited! I close with raising my cup to you, to…
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Sh
“The Abbreviated Version” 🙂
(a series about roasting your own coffee) #3 of 4
By Dahni
©️2019, all rights reserved
The old-fashion hand-crank popcorn popper is one of the easiest and most economical ways of Roasting Coffee. With practice, anyone can obtain great results and enjoy, some of the best and freshest coffee you have ever had!
Supplies:
1. Propane grill with side-burner— about $250 and get (if you do not already have),one of those long-handled butane flame lighters or long wooden matches to start your grill, as in my experience, most grill’s push-button igniters wear out or fail, in about a year.
2. Popcorn popper— about $30 (clean, no oil or leftover chaff or popcorn). Get it here
3. Green Beans— about $6 per pound and up. 10 ounces of Green coffee beans = about 8 ounces or ½ lb. beans when roasted. This is a good amount to start with and it keeps the beans moving when stirred. Roasting 20 ounces of green beans will = about a pound roasted. Get them here Here is a suggestion, if you decide to get your green beans from them, call them first and ask for Keith (although anyone there can help you). Tell them you are just starting out and using a popcorn popper (or skillet). Tell them what your favorite(s) is/are. Or ask for their recommendations. Ask about samples or if they have some practice green beans (end of the barrel beans), you can start your journey with. It won’t take you long before you are roasting to your satisfaction!
4. Scale and measuring cup to weigh green beans about $20 for both
5. Pen and paper (log), to record your efforts.
6. Kitchen timer (with seconds) and stopwatch function— about $8
7. Wooden long handle spoon to stir with or pry loose beans if stuck under turning wire/bar of popper— about $1
8. Infrared Thermometer (able to read at least 500° F.) — about $25
9. Colander (stainless steel wire mesh), to toss and cool beans in— about $10
10. Flat pan to cool beans and to catch chaff— about $2
11. Small electric or battery operated fan to blow off chaff (particularly in summer) — about $12
12. Hot pad/pads/gloves for safety— about $2
13. Funnel (for pouring roasted beans into bags or container— about $1
14. Stand up foil pouch with one-way vacuum seal, to store roasted coffee beans or some other closed container. — about $1 (each)
Start up about $350-375 plus green beans $6 lb. and up. Then again, maybe you have most of the supplies needed, already? If that’s the case, you just need a popcorn popper and some green beans.
Instructions:
1. Record weight of coffee beans used, along with any details you may find useful later, including: temperature (outside), date, time. and etc.
2. Preheat your popper over medium heat, for a few minutes
3. Pour green coffee beans into popper over medium heat, and start timer. Begin turning the crank-handle at just about any pace that is comfortable, while regularly checking your beans, for color, sound; aroma, and if you like, temperature (of the roasting process). Record your observations, noting the time things occur, as you go. You can use this information as a reference guide, for the next time you roast.
4. As beans reach about 380 degrees F (4 to 6 minutes in), they begin to make a sound similar to pencils or toothpicks breaking. This is known as ‘FIRST CRACK’. From this point on, your coffee can be removed from the heat and later ground and brewed. The beans will continue to roast a bit while they are cooling however, they will not continue to roast if you return them to the heat source. FIRST CRACK should last a minute or two with beans going from light to medium brown, ending around 410° F. The pace of the roast and smoke (steam), will increase while the sounds slow, for a few seconds to a minute and the bean temperature rises. Around 410° F – 425° F SECOND CRACK begins. This sounds like milk being poured over crispy rice cereal. This is what I shoot for, a medium roast, around 20 seconds or so, after the beginning of SECOND CRACK.
Of late, I have started roasting, for around 60 seconds or so, of SECOND CRACK. The brown roasted beans appear shiny, but not oily. This is the sugars of the beans, beginning to caramelize. Much beyond this and you’re are heading towards the DARK SIDE of the ‘Force’. 🙂
On the Dark Side, beans begin to look really dark to almost black. Believe it or not, this is what many roasters try and sell as coffee. I call it a dark roast and suitable only, for espresso and other dark roasted beverages. If the beans are burnt, it tastes like burnt caramel. I am not a fan of burnt caramel! Much more beyond a dark roast and you run the risk of burning the beans. That’s not roasted coffee, but more like pouring water over charcoal briquets. I’m not a fan of charcoal or burnt coffee! But the chances are high that many people expect this is what coffee is supposed to taste like. If this is what you are used to, you will never know the nuances of flavors, correctly roasted beans will give and you probably will not like it! Correctly roasted coffee will never taste the same every time and it shouldn’t! But if one desires ‘same-O’ and consistency, blend, over roast and burn the beans.
When the beans internal temperature rise, you will see the color change from green to light tan and you will notice that they may smell like grass or tea as, the smoke (steam), also begins to rise.
Note: By the word “smoke” I mean steam. It may look like smoke, but it is the beans releasing water and some of the cafeine bound in the water, during the roasting process. The longer the beans roast, the more caffeine is removed! Now if you really do smell “smoke”, the beans have been over-roasted or burnt!
Simply watch, and listen, and record the relevant data, at the point you remove your beans from the roaster, into a colander or roasting pan for cooling. I am so convinced that anyone can do this that I honestly believe even the deaf and blind can learn to roast coffee, to their satisfaction! By using what senses are available, a good roast can be accomplished by the color of the beans, by the sound of the ‘CRACKS’, by the smell of the finished roast. and any combination of one or more of our available senses!
5. Remove roasted beans from heat.
6. Gently pour the beans evenly, into a flat pan to cool and blow off the chaff. Or you can pour them into a colander and shake and blow the chaff away, while they cool. Or if it is really hot outside, you could place the colander of beans over a fan to cool the beans and blow away the chaff. Chaff is the skin of a coffee bean and is not needed and will contribute nothing to your coffee! Get rid of all or most of it!
7. Pour cooled beans into an airtight bag, an airtight container or one with a one-way vacuum seal. CO2 (off gassing), will escape, keeping oxygen out and helps to keep your roasted beans fresh, for as long as possible. As “fresh for as long as possible” means, 7-10 days. Roast away, grind down, brew over and drink up!
8. Allow your roasted beans to rest at least 4 hours before brewing. Some say 12 hours. Others say, 24 hrs. This resting is for the off gassing (CO2), to occur. Being excited and somewhat impatient, I have immediately ground, brewed and drank coffee, from freshly roasted beans. I’ve enjoyed it! 🙂
But now, If I roast during the morning, afternoon or evening of one day, it will rest until the following morning, when it is ground and brewed.
Note: At SECOND CRACK, the pace of the roast and smoke (steam), will increase while the sounds slow for a few seconds to a minute and the bean temperature rises to about 435° F. The beans continue roasting quickly to a darker and more robust brown. At this point, the bean temperatures rise rapidly and the beans become almost black and shiny (oil on surface – 450° F.). This is a dark or an espresso roast. Watch closely and stop before the beans are burnt. Remember, beans are for roasting, not baking, nuking, cooking, and burning etc. You stir the beans or move them in the process so as not to burn them. Let the beans transform themselves. When they reach certain temperatures internally, they do certain things (release water and caffeine, turn color, shed their skin (chaff), and their sugars begin to caramelize and come towards the top or the outside of the bean. All we are trying to do is to keep the roaster from burning them by stirring/turning the beans and allowing them to do their thing. 🙂
Skillet roasting is a lot simpler than roasting with a popcorn popper. Its two biggest advantages are that you can see, hear and smell the whole process, from start to finish. You can watch the beans turn colors. You can smell the grass aroma and then what you would expect, the aroma of fresh coffee. You can hear the “CRACKS” and don’t worry, the beans are not going to pop out of the skillet or the popper like popcorn. You can see the chaff (the skin of the beans). The chaff does nothing, for the taste of your fresh ground and fresh brewed coffee, so remove as much as possible, by shaking the beans in a colander or flat pan for cooling, blowing off the chaff or blowing it away, as you roast in the skillet. Skillet roasting has another chief advantage— all you need is direct heat (from say a campfire), a skillet and a spoon or even just a stick. So, skillet roasting is ideal for camping and backpacking etc. I’m not about to take my roasting popper, my colander and cooling pan when I’m camping! 🙂
To cool the beans, just put the bottom of the skillet into water from a stream, lake, pond and etc. That’s water under the skillet, not over the beans! 🙂
The only three disadvantages I can think of when skillet roasting, compared to using the popcorn popper, is the popcorn popper is stainless steel and the skillet as pictured, is cast iron. Stainless steel is a great insulator of heat compared to iron. Since the skillet does not have a lid like the popcorn popper, it takes longer to roast with a skillet than with the popcorn popper. Chaff is more difficult to deal with in a skillet over the side-burner of your grill. It could blow or fall into your grill, making cleanup take longer. Chaff is flammable so, take care, when roasting with a skillet! This is a major reason not to roast inside on your stovetop. And most hood-vents are not actually vented through the roof. Most just have a metal mesh filter to catch the grease and the fan just basically recirculate the smoke back into your kitchen. Can you hear the smoke alarms going off?! I have actually watched a video, of an Ethiopian couple, roasting beans inside their kitchen with a skillet. My best advice is, JUST DON’T DO IT!!
Note: By the word “smoke” I mean steam. It may look like smoke, but it is the beans releasing water and some of the cafeine bound in the water, during the roasting process. The longer the beans roast, the more caffeine is removed! Now if you really do smell “smoke”, the beans have been over-roasted or burnt!
Instructions:
1. Record weight of the coffee beans used, along with any details you may find useful later, including temperature (outside), date, time and etc.
2. Preheat your skillet over medium heat or fire or some other direct heat source, for a few minutes.
3. Pour green coffee beans into the skillet over medium heat and start timer. Begin stirring at just about any pace that is comfortable, while regularly checking your beans for color, sound, and if you like, temperature (of the beans during roasting). Record your observations, noting the time these things occur, as you go.
4. As beans reach about 380 degrees F (4 to 6 minutes in), they begin to make a sound similar to pencils or toothpicks breaking. This is known as ‘FIRST CRACK’. From this point on, your coffee can be removed from the heat and later ground and brewed. The beans will continue to roast a bit while they are cooling however, they will not continue to roast if you return them to the heat source. FIRST CRACK should last a minute or two with beans going from light to medium brown, ending around 410° F. The pace of the roast and smoke (steam), will increase while the sounds slow, for a few seconds to a minute and the bean temperature rises. Around 410° F – 425° F SECOND CRACK begins. This sounds like milk being poured over crispy rice cereal. This is what I shoot for, a medium roast, around 20 seconds or so, after the beginning of SECOND CRACK.
Of late, I have started roasting, for around 60 seconds or so, of SECOND CRACK. The brown roasted beans appear shiny, but not oily. This is the sugars of the beans, beginning to caramelize. Much beyond this and you’re are heading towards the DARK SIDE of the ‘Force’. 🙂 Then, beans begin to look really dark to almost black. Believe it or not, this is what many roasters try and sell as coffee. I call it a dark roast and suitable only for espresso and other dark roast beverages. If the beans are burnt, it tastes like burnt caramel. I am not a fan of burnt caramel! Much more beyond a dark roast and you run the risk of burning the beans. That’s not roasted coffee, but more like pouring water over charcoal briquets. I’m not a fan of charcoal or burnt coffee! But the chances are high that many people expect this is what coffee is supposed to taste like. If this is what you are used to you will never know the nuances of flavors correctly roasted beans will give and you probably will not like it!
Simply watch, and listen, and record the relevant data, at the point you remove your beans from the roaster, into a colander or roasting pan for cooling. I am so convinced that anyone can do this that I honestly believe even the deaf and blind can learn to roast coffee, to their satisfaction! By using what senses are available, a good roast can be accomplished by the color of the beans, by the sound of the ‘CRACKS’, by the smell of the finished roast. and any combination of one or more of our available senses!
5. Remove roasted beans from heat.
6. Place the bottom of your skillet into some water to cool the beans down, stirring occasionally with your spoon to help in the cool-down. Gently blow off the chaff. Chaff is the skin of a coffee bean and is not needed and will contribute nothing to your coffee! Get rid of all or most of it!
7. Pour cooled beans into an airtight bag, an airtight container or one with a one-way vacuum seal. CO2 (off gassing), will escape, keeping oxygen out and helps to keep your roasted beans fresh, for as long as possible.
8. Allow your roasted beans to rest at least 4 hours before brewing. Some say 12 hours. Others say, 24 hrs. This resting is for the off gassing (CO2), to occur. Being excited and somewhat impatient, I have immediately ground, brewed and drank coffee, from freshly roasted beans. I’ve enjoyed it! But now, If I roast during the morning, afternoon or evening of one day, it will rest until the following morning, when it is ground and brewed.
9. For camping or backpacking, you may want to invest in a manual portable grinder, with conical ceramic burrs. Ceramic burrs keep their sharp edge longer than stainless steel, produce leas heat (which some believe changes the taste of their coffee), and produce less static electricity. However you camp or backpack, you will most likely have utensils, for cooking, like a skillet (your home-away-from home roaster), and something to boil water in (a percolator, coffee brewer, or a pan), cups, spoons and etc.
10. For making coffee, you need a filter for the grounds. There is something to be said about the simplicity and multi-use of a cotton bandanna! Have you ever heard of ‘Hobo Coffee’? A bandanna was often seen as a kind of a backpack or all one’s earthly goods wrapped up in it and tied to a stick. Well, you could place about 1 tablespoon of fresh ground coffee (per 8 ounce cup of coffee), into a bandanna, tie up the corners and place into a boiling pot of water over your campfire. For every tablespoon of coffee in your bandanna filter, you will need 8 ounces of water. Let this boil for a few minutes and you have Hobo Coffee. for every cup (8 ounces of water). The bandanna rinses out well, by the way. Yes, why yes I have had and I’ve made, ‘Hobo Coffee’ myself, but never this fresh or that was roasted by me. I can’t wait to try it again! There’s nothing quite like being outdoors around a campfire and watching coffee boil in a bandanna and then having a fresh cup of coffee. It may not be as good as what we are used to in the civil-world, but it will taste good and if we roast it ourselves, it will never be fresher!
Summary
All anyone needs to enjoy the freshest cup of coffee you may have ever tasted is:
• a direct heat source
• a roaster (popcorn popper or a skillet)
• a spoon or a stick to stir
• some green coffee beans
• means to cool-down the beans (a pan, colander, or water under the skillet, not over the beans)
• something to store the roasted beans until you are ready to grind and brew
• a grinder
• some way to filter and brew your coffee
• a cup
• a spoon if you use cream and/or sugar
• your lips 🙂
It just does not get any simpler than this! Anyone can do this!
You could spend more on other supplies and equipment. You could use other roasting methods than I use and have shown above. I’ve heard of some people roasting coffee in an air popcorn popper. Beware of anything with plastic parts! I’ve heard of small roasters, for around $89-$139, but they will not be able to roast much more than, about 1/4-1/2 pound of coffee at a time.
If you are a DIY (do it yourself), type of person, I’ve seen some interesting home-made roasters. One took the bottom of a stainless steel popcorn popper and drilled holes all around the circumference, for vents. It was setup on an angle and on a stand, which allowed it to rotate freely. A motor was installed to churn the beans and an old hair dryer was used to heat the beans as they churned and turned, over and over inside the roaster. Well, I’m not that mechanically inclined or for that matter, not this creative.
You could spend $500 and up on small home roasters which will give you more automatic control of the roasting process.
For the gadget lovers, you could spend around $1600 for a USB, barrel roaster and software, for your computer, to roast about 10 ounces of coffee at a time. I can roast more than that in my popcorn popper roaster. And there is only about a year’s warranty on a pooter’ (computer), driven roaster with USB connection. I’m wondering what kind of life I will get out of our all-stainless-steel popcorn popper? 🙂
I’ve heard of larger barrel roasters, for several hundreds of dollars that are custom-designed to fit inside barbecue grills. They are used wih some grills that have automatic rotisserie attachments. These will roast a lot more beans at a time, but I can’t imagine the cleanup!!!
Then again, if you are really serious and want to become a master roaster, expect to spend 10’s of thousands of dollars (yep you read that right), even on used, professional roasters. I’m not a professional or a master roaster. I have no intention of becoming one. Yes, coffee can be roasted better than anything I’ve shown you or that I do, but, and it’s a big but to me, I am not a wealthy person. But if I could buy all this masterful and automatic stuff, where would be the fun in that??? 🙂
Yes, I enjoy my “roasty-toasty popcorn popper” (as our friend Janet calls it), roasting and my skillet roasting. In about an hour’s time (prep, roast, cool and cleanup), I can roast enough coffee for my wife and I (and any friends/family/guests that show up), to last us a week! And Oh, darn, if I run out, I get to go and roast some more! 🙂
If the outside is dropping stuff (rain, snow and etc.), and it’s windy, I’ve no problem opening up one side of our overhead garage door and roasting just inside, under cover. By the way, our garage is not insulated, heated or air-conditioned. But winter, spring, summer or fall, I’ve no issues, roating there at ALL! 🙂
The worst thing that has ever happened is that my garage and my clothes smell like coffee for a day or two. But clothes can be washed and the garage clears out. Well, quite frankly, the aroma of fresh roasted coffee, lingering in my garage or on my clothes, is not a problem to me!! 🙂
You could roast indoors, but I don’t and won’t and I certainly do not recommend it!
I’ve just a few final points to make before I close this post out. First, if you have a favorite type of coffee, change it up once in awhile and try some new ones. You may find that you like others better, than your favorites now. Our mother once said, “Son, you have champagne tastes, but only a beer wallet.” One of the most expensive coffees you can buy green or roasted is, Jamaican Blue Mountain. It is also my favorite, but I will only buy around 1/2 pound and a 1/2 pound of Hawaiian Kona, around the winter holidays. And I am confident in my roasting to my satisfaction and I am looking forward to it. I keep waiting, for specials and maybe I can order ahead of time, before their prices go up. Remember, green beans can be stored in a cool dark place for years! Anyway, if you try new coffees and when you return to roasting, grinding and brewing you “favorite(s)”, your taste buds will explode and will thank you— again, and again!
I am a former chef, retired. And I think it’s important for you to know this why? Using only the popcorn popper or a skillet, I am not interested in using any other methods to roast coffee. Having said that and as a chef, I would have no problem serving my fresh roasted, fresh ground and fresh brewed coffee to anyone, anywhere and at any time. I roast to my satisfaction and I would not serve it, if I did not believe you would be satisfied too! You should roast to your satisfaction as well!
Eliza Leslie, 1837, Directions for Cookery
Closing
This is much more information I am giving you, than when I first learned how to roast. I would have loved to have had a live demonstration or to have taken a class! I’m born and raised, from the ‘Show Me State’ (Missouri), and I am a visual learner. But all I had was a picture of a medium roast like you have seen here, the idea of roasting on a barbecue grill with a side-burner and two (2), online links, one for the popcorn popper I use and one for the green coffee beans, where I purchase mine. I taught myself how to roast with a skillet. If I can do these things (and I did and I do), ANYONE can! You can too! But there is more, much more that I can do and offer you— “Live” and online!
I am meeting soon with someone that may be filming a “Live” Facebook presentation of my first class. And we will be discussing the possibility of filming a professional class, to potentially reach 10’s of thousands of people. They would not be drinking the coffee or taking any home, but there really is something special about, ‘Show and Tell’!! Very soon, I will be offering small classes of no more than 14 participants. For more information about them click here
Maybe I will neither be the best presenter nor maybe these will not be the best presentations you have ever experienced, but I promise you, the coffee will not be found much fresher and my enthusiasm for sharing is hopefully contagious and worth the price of admission. 🙂
I am not a wealthy man. I’m not going to sell coffee or products and services by others and I’m not planning on making a living at or getting rich from teaching these classes. But you would not fault me for trying to make a few extra dollars or claiming some tax deductions as business expenses, would you? I wouldn’t be upset if you were doing this! As a matter of fact, everyone should have some type of, home-based business! And isn’t everyone’s dream to be paid (at least a little), for what they love to do a lot!!! Thank you for your time. I hope that I’ve helped you! I raise now a cup and I—
I Toast Your Roast!!!
Where to Go from Here
OK, you’ve roasted your own coffee, now what do you do with them? 🙂
Next Time: ‘Toast the Roast’— What else can you do with coffee
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Rk
(a series about roasting your own coffee) #2 of 4
By Dahni
©️2019, all rights reserved
Talking CoffeeI’m not boasting, I’m just ‘roasting’.
I have ‘bean’ around.
‘Grounds’ for ‘espresso’-ing yourself!
Something’s ‘roasting’!
Something’s ‘grinding’!
Something’s ‘brewing’!
A live presentation, how anyone can roast their own coffee at home (or even while camping), to your satisfaction, simply, easily, fresh, inexpensively and, for a whole lot of fun!
Here are several benefits to you:
• Your favorite coffee(s) whenever you want!
• Coffee roasted to your satisfaction!
• Pennies per cup instead of dollars you probably pay now.
• Organic Fair Trade (FT) or Rain Forest Initiative (RFI) coffee – better, for you, better, for the environment, and better, for the workers involved that have grown it for you!
• The freshest coffee you may have ever tasted!
And last, but not least, coffee you are pleased to drink, share with your loved ones/guests, take it ‘on the road’ and it COULD, all be roasted by, YOU!
Great gift ideas too!
What you will receive:
Gathering Place Roasters – gold vacuum sealed foil bag• A Little history about coffee.
• Information about your instructor (a retired chef)
• Information about coffee.
• About what your ancestors probably did, during the American Civil War.
• Demonstrations of two methods- popcorn popper and a skillet. Yes, you read that right. 😀
• Watch, listen and smell the beans change in color, to the desired roast.
• Live, written and visual instructions.
• Resources, for everything you would need to do this yourself (very, very inexpensively).
• See and smell fresh dark roasted and ground coffee, for espresso and etc.
• Receive a recipe of a blend of beans, to make your own dark roast, for espresso, cappuccino, latte, and etc.
Enjoy a nice cup of freshly brewed, fresh ground and fresh roasted cup of coffee, from ‘The Gathering Place Roasters’
Leave with a 1/4 pound of fresh roasted coffee you can grind and brew, for YOUR OWN next morning coffee talk! Two people with winning tickets, will each receive 1/2 pound from the two (2), roasts from class, one from the popcorn popper and one from the skillet.
Coffee roasted for class:
Organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. It is a variety of coffee very much appreciated all over the world. It is produced in Ethiopia, in Central East Africa. These precious beans are grown in the homonymous region, sometimes transliterated as Yirgachefe or Irgachefe [pronounced eer-ga-chef-f]. These fine Yirgacheffe beans become a high-quality Arabica coffee with a dense fruity sweetness and are from Indigenous Heirloom Cultivars.
Not everyone knows that coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia and then exported all over the world. It looks like a young shepherd in Kaffa, the Ethiopian region where the first plants were discovered, could not believe how his goats, always slow and lazy, would get so excited after eating those unknown little fruits.
Class is Limited to 14
Cost: $30 per person
Disclaimer: There is nothing sold or to buy at this event and the instructor is neither an affiliate of any company or derives any income by promoting any product!
Approximate length of class: 1 1/2-2 hours
What is provided:
• Live instruction
• Grill, for roasting coffee
• All equipment, for roasting
• All class materials, handouts and etc.
• Ground coffee sufficient to brew enough, for each participant
•1/4 pound foil vacuumed sealed bags of fresh roasted coffee, sufficient enough, for all participants to take home plus (2) half-pound bags from class roasts to (2) participates with the winning numbers.
•Display table with other items/equipment you may find helpful/useful
• The Password to a protected page on this blog, for links to many of items I use and/or you might be interested in? This supply page is not open to the public, but is just, for participants of our classes, it’s password protected and, for a limited time only.
• Setup/take down of all equipment and etc. that The Gathering Place Roasters provide
50 Mile Radius of Macedon, NY 14568:
We will only provide classes within a 50 mile radius of—
• The Gathering Place • 2591 Wiedrick Road • Walworth, NY 14568
Click map for a larger sizeAbout me:
My name is Dahni (pronounced Donnie or Donny). I am a retired chef and with the ‘Toast the Roast’ series, I have come full-circle. In all my years in the food industry, I never roasted coffee. I never even thought it was possible – too expensive, for the training and equipment and where would I be able to get just a small amount of green beans to roast? All this has changed now! I can do it myself very inexpensively, with just the amount of green beans that I need and I can start my day and finish off a fine meal with my own— fresh roasted, fresh ground and fresh brewed coffee anytime, anyplace and, for anyone. Many enjoy the the beginning of their morning or the finish of a fine meal, with a great cup of coffee. This is my coming “full-circle”. I am not a master roaster nor do I have any intention of becoming one. I do not roast coffee, for sale and have no future imagined, on ever selling it. I am not an affiliate or a promoter of any business service or product and I do not receive any compensation or benefits whatsoever, from any company, product or service to advertise or recommend them. What I am is, passionate about roasting my own coffee to my satisfaction and showing anyone how they can roast to their satisfaction— simply, inexpensively and with a great deal of enjoyment! But as a former chef, I would serve my coffee to anyone! So could you!
Contact:
If you are interested in hosting a class or know someone that may be, please email me— dahni1@gmail.com Please include your name, information, location (address), and phone number, and I will contact you ASAP, as a rule, within 24 hours. By the way, I drink coffee winter, spring, summer and fall and therefore, I roast year-round outdoors and often inside our garage with the overhead door open (up), covered from the falling elements and protected from the wind. So if you have an area that is well ventilated and covered, we can roast anywhere and anytime. So can you!
LinkedIN: Dahni Hayden
FaceBook: Dahni Hayden
Facebook Page: The Gathering Place
Twitter: Just I-Magine
The 4 M’s of the Italian Art of Coffee:
Macinazione [pronounced: mot-sea-not-sea-owney]— “the grind” (medium grind for class)
Miscela [pronounced: me-say-la]— “the blend” (single origin organic coffee)
Macchina [pronounced: mah-chee-na]— “the machine” (roaster, grinder, brewer)
Mano– [pronounced: mah-no]— “the hand that serves”, from roast to toast) “Toast the Roast”—
(Italian: “to life”)
We are tentatively scheduled locally, for a class either Saturday June 15, 2019 at 10:00 AM or as an alternative, Saturday July 6, 2019, also at 10:00 AM. Possibly, both! This may well be a ‘Live’ FaceBook podcast and maybe recorded later, for a larger audience. I will keep you posted. 🙂
Next Time: ‘Toast the Roast’— Roast Away
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Rk
(a series about roasting your own coffee) #1 of 4
By Dahni
©️2019, all rights reserved
This begins today with some— History of Coffee.
Perhaps you have long wondered why the Mona Lisa was smiling in her portrait, by Leonardo da Vinci? Well wonder no more, just look at the animated picture of her here. She was smiling because of, the lovely aroma of a fresh cup, of fresh brewed, fresh ground and fresh roasted coffee! 🙂
Not believing that? It doesn’t put the tiddly in your winks? Actually, coffee was probably neither familiar to da Vinci or Mona in their day, but the animated image makes me smile anyway! 🙂
Equally as important and perhaps more factual is, the story of the dancing goats?
Anyway, the story goes like this. There was a young Ethiopian goat-herder, named Kaldi. He had fat and lazy goats. One day, he noticed them dancing and prancing, lively and animated. He went to discover why this odd thing occurred. He saw his goats nibbling on the bright red berries and leaves of a certain plant and noticed the energizing effects it had on them. So. Kaldi tried it too. And he was pretty exhilarated as well and danced with his goats. Later, he brought some of these berries to a monk in a nearby monastery. But the monk disapproved of their use and threw them into the fire. Soon, a wonderful aroma filled the air. Other monks came to investigate. The roasted beans were quickly removed from the fire’s embers, ground up, and dissolved in hot water. This became the world’s first cup of coffee?
True or not, from Ethiopia, drinking coffee appears to have spread to Yemen. From these two locations, coffee beans and plants spread to mostly the Islamic world.
“The word “coffee” entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch word koffie borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve, in turn borrowed from the Arabic qahwah.”
“The Arabic word qahwah (pronounced, kah+wah), originally referred to a type of wine. It is supposed to have derived from the verb qahā (“to lack hunger”), in reference to the drink’s reputation as an appetite suppressant. The word qahwah is sometimes alternatively traced to the Arabic quwwa (“power, energy”), or to Kaffa, a medieval kingdom in Ethiopia whence the plant was exported to Arabia. The name qahwah is not used for the berry or plant (the products of the region), which are known in Arabic as bunn.
excepted and edited from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coffee
Hmm, I wonder if the Bunn company that was founded in 1957 by George R. Bunn Jr., who invented the flat-bottom fluted coffee filter and the pour-over-drip-coffee brewer, ever knew his name Bunn, is the Arabic word for coffee berry or plant?
“In Somali and Oromo as būn. Semitic languages had the root qhh, “dark color”, which became a natural designation for the beverage. The feminine form qahwah (also meaning “dark in color, dull(ing), dry, sour”), was likely chosen to parallel the feminine khamr (“wine”), and originally meant “the dark one”.
excepted and edited from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coffee
Coffee was considered a replacement, for wine that was prohibited in Islam. Later, coffee became associated with the birth of Mohammed. Coffee was known for its appetite suppressant effects and would aid Muslims in fasting by day and staying awake during the night, especially during Ramadan.
Coffea arabica (/əˈræbɪkə/), also known as the Arabian coffee, “coffee shrub of Arabia”, “mountain coffee”, or “arabica coffee”, is a species of Coffea. It is believed to be the first species of coffee to be cultivated, and is the dominant cultivar, representing some 60% of global production. Coffee produced from the less acidic, more bitter, often cheaper and more highly caffeinated robusta bean (C. canephora), makes up the remaining 40%. Many blends contain both, to accomplish a signature blend, but no doubt to also, cut costs.
At first, Europe rejected coffee and believed it to be made by the devil and called this evil beverage, “Satan’s drink.”
Sometime in the 16th century, it made its way to the Vatican, in Rome, Italy. There, it was introduced to Pope Clement VIII. Against the will of many of his advisers, they wanted the Pope to ban this evil drink. But the Pope refused to do so, before trying it himself. He was brought a steaming mug of coffee, Java, or Joe and he took a taste. He was immediately enjoyed. Legend has it that he declared,
“This devil’s drink is delicious. We should cheat the devil by baptizing it.”
Popular tradition holds that the pope then “baptized” coffee beans in order to cleanse them from the devil’s influence. Historians are uncertain whether this was merely a metaphor or the Pope performed some actual ritual on the beans? But one thing is clear, once Roman Catholics knew they were allowed to drink coffee, it spread through Europe like wildfire.
Coffee was also brought in to England through the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. Oxford’s Queen’s Lane Coffee House, established in 1654, is still in existence today.
In Germany, coffeehouses were first established in North Sea ports, including Bremen (1673) and Hamburg (1677). Initially, this new beverage was written in the English form coffee, but during the 1700’s, the Germans gradually adopted the French word café, then slowly changed the spelling to Kaffee.
Hmmm, unless you are French, speak French or understand French, who knew that little favorite spot on the corner of our lives called and named cafe, is the French word café, meaning coffee? I didn’t until recently. And unless you are German, speak German or understand German, you may not have known the word Kaffee?
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who was cantor of St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, in 1723–50, conducted a musical ensemble at Café Zimmermann in that Saxon city. Sometime in 1732–35 he composed the secular “Coffee Cantata” Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (BWV 211), in which a young woman, Lieschen, pleads with her disapproving father, to accept her devotion to drinking coffee, then a newfangled fashion. The libretto includes such lines as:
“(Oh! How sweet coffee does taste,
Better than a thousand kisses,
Milder than muscat wine.
Coffee, coffee, I’ve got to have it,
And if someone wants to perk me up, *
Oh, just give me a cup of coffee!)”
Exceprt from: ‘Coffee Cantata’, by Johann Sebastian Bach
WOW, even the religious composer Bach, did secular stuff and even about coffee! Who knew? Not me until recently.
Eventually, coffee spread to the colonies in the Americas.
If all the previous events had occurred earlier, maybe there would have been instead of tea, ‘The Boston Coffee Party’, in 1773. In protest of “taxation without representation”, some 300 plus chests of tea belonging to the British East India Trading Company, were thrown overboard in the Boston Harbor. Facts are, many from this time forward, rejected tea and coffee became their choice during which our fledgling little O’ republic was being born. Who knows, maybe even Thomas Jefferson drank it while writing his first drafts of his most famous of all his written works? Perhaps the signers of our Declaration of Independence, had coffee before or after they signed it? It is possible.
But Jefferson did drink coffee, a lot of it, especially after he retired and invented a silver coffee pourer, still used in some manner today, in serving fresh brewed coffee. He drank it a lot and served it often.
“Coffee, the favorite drink of the civilized world.”
Thomas Jefferson 1824
During the times of the American Civil War or the War Between the States, military personnel were each given around 34 pounds of coffee, by their government. It was required and part of every northern soldier’s allotment or provisions. There was to be no midnight march, without the soldiers first being allowed to drink coffee. In fact, marches were generally unheard of, without first, having coffee. The South had a similar custom, for their soldiers, but they had a serious problem. The Northern naval ships frequently blocked their waterways and the import of coffee was often prevented. This lead to the South having to rely on, “necessity, the mother of all invention.” They would stretch what coffee they had by adding other grains like chicory. With no coffee at all, they often had to roast dried beets or other things, for their dark beverage.
But there is another thing the north and the south had in common besides coffee. No matter what they had to go through by day, they each would return to their camps by night, to drink and roast coffee for the following day.
“Little campfires, rapidly increasing to hundreds in number, would shoot up along the hills and plains and, as if by magic, acres of territory would be luminous with them. Soon they would be surrounded by the soldiers, who made it an almost invariable rule to cook their coffee first, after which a large number, tired out with the toils of the day, would make their supper of hardtack and coffee, and roll up in their blankets for the night. If a march was ordered at midnight…it must be preceded by a pot of coffee…It was coffee at meals and between meals; and men going on guard or coming off guard drank it all hours of the night.”
John Billings, 1887, writing of the Civil War in Hardtack and Coffee
The odds are greatly in our favor that we are descendants of these. Our ancestors from the North or the South, roasted their own coffee. Why not us? And it really does not get any simpler, than a campfire, a skillet, a stick or a spoon, and some green coffee beans. Show them Snoopy!
Sampling fresh roasted, fresh ground and fresh roasted coffee is referred to as ‘cupping’. This cup of coffee history is, but a sample, there is so much more. But whether its history is roasted in fiction, and ground into fact, it is brewed into our consciousness and our culture! ‘Toast the Roast’!
Next Time: ‘Toast the Roast’— Coffee Talk with Dahni
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-QO
My Art of Manliness
By Dahni
©️2019, all rights reserved
I live in a country (the USA), of alternative lifestyles. I live in a country (the USA), full of flaming feminists and emasculated males. I’m not going to comment or condemn what may or may not, ‘trip your trigger’. But I did read recently that many young men don’t see marriage as a worthwhile pursuit anymore. Not only is this sad, but it does not speak highly of continuing our species, in the not so distant future. It is not only lacking the building of lifetime relationships and the marriage-drought, which troubles me, but also the decline of the birthrate. This is all I have to say about these things.
I am a man. I am glad that I am. What else could I be? It is what I was born as. I do not know how to be anything else. I might as well celebrate. I am also keenly, kindly and gratefully aware of women. I celebrate our differences and I am grateful, for women too!
I may not be anyone’s best man or the best man who I can be, but I sure do love the pursuit of what I call, the art of manliness, my own manliness.
In my 65 years, I have been some places, seen some things, met some people and learned some things. To each their own and in their own time, but along my way, I learned to cook and to love it, for many reasons. The learning came first before the love. An old world German Chef taught me.
As I learned and my Chef became confident in me and trusted me, those same things, I was able to transfer to myself, confidence and trust.
Chef tasked me with designing, preparing and readying the blue-plate specials, for serving to our customers each day. This taught me to save on food costs, by limiting waste. It taught me how to use what you have on hand. It appealed to my artistic sense to make something visually appealing, fragrant, full of the sounds of something to sizzle, textures and touch and how to make something tasty, basically out of nothing. I think I became pretty good at this because, we always sold out.
Presentation and garnish appealed to my inner romantic self. I soon learned that the ladies in, around, near or of my life, liked men that could cook (especially well). They seemed to value this above any good looks I may have lacked, intelligence deficiency, physical prowess that had perhaps passed me by and my thin bank account and little monetary success. And these ladies seemed to appreciate a beautiful plate of food as they did flowers. So, that became the beginning for me, in my pursuit of the art of my manliness.
I was not too much interested in participating in or observing sports. But in a crowded noisy world of push-and-pull, I have and still enjoy being outside in nature, breathing observing, listening to my own thought, walking and taking my adventures, by my own two feet, for transportation. It is another part, of my art of manliness.
Years after learning to cook, I overcame my fear of grilling. Overcoming any fear, is part of my art of manliness. And I learned, the Thrill of the Grill (barbecue grill).
Along my way, I met and married the love of my life, my soul mate and wife Susan. I started making new mixed drinks, for our happy-together hour. I call these happy hours, ‘Sips with Susan.’ It brings out the best in both of us I think? Or, I like to believe it does! As drinks are poured, the romantic game of conversation ensues. What is in it? How were they made? What do they taste like? How do they make you feel? What did you learn and experience today? What do you think about this and that? It is part of my art of manliness.
To Susan or to anyone, where the situation may be reversed, this all then, is part of the art, of womanliness.
Then I was Woke with the Smoke and this became part, of my art of manliness, learning to use a smoker.
And now currently, I am learning part of my art of manliness, by way of, what I refer to as, Toast of the Roast. I have embarked upon a new adventure of roasting my own coffee at home (outside of course), with an old-fashioned hand crank popcorn popper, on the side-burner of our barbecue grill.
I have for years now, appreciated the freshness from grinding whole beans, from a master roaster and that no two type of beans or those that roast them or the manner in which they are roasted are the same. You like what you like and I like what I like, but until I learned how to roast coffee myself, my taste buds were subject to ONLY an occasional, happy roast. This was when the roasters knew what they were doing. Otherwise, I had to consume old stale coffee, mostly all over-roasted, or burnt, and just bad coffee that often upset my stomach. And this is saying a lot because, I drink pots of coffee per day, compared to others which might only have a 1 to few cups per day. This has been my way, for years, almost 24/7 (twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week), and 365 days a year, year after year. But there are some coffee roasters who over-roast and their blends and roasts, literally upset my stomach. And not just mine, but Susan’s too.
To think that I could roast coffee inexpensively, simply, to my satisfaction, fresh, whenever I wanted to and with not much effort and enjoy the whole process was beyond my imagination. Until, that is, until I seized the day (Carpe diem), and did it (and now, having done it for several months now. several times)! Learning to enjoy the subtle nuances of many different single origins appeals to my desire for variety. And even though I have a favorite, my taste buds could get bored and by trying different kinds then returning to my most beloved, my buds’ blast off into hyper drive and explode. It is now, a new part, of my art of manliness.
I can imagine being outdoors and taking a walk in the woods or maybe camping. Start a fire; put some green beans in a skillet and stir with some branch or stick found and roast to my desired done-ness. Cool the skillet and beans by placing just the bottom of the pan in a little mountain stream. Keep stirring and blow off the chaff. Voilà, fresh roasted coffee, probably just like people and soldiers did 100’s of years ago! Grind and brew in a percolator over your campfire. It does not get much cheaper, fresher, better and funner’ (much more fun), than this, in my art of manliness.
Just add a stick to stir and a campfire and roast away!
In my years, I have fed 100’s if not thousands of people (often many at the same meal), delicious and beautiful, full-course meals. There have been no complaints that I am aware of. Now unless you think I am bragging, I should explain – Not to Impress, But to Bless.
When I learned to cook all those years ago, part of my manliness was to see that preparing and presenting food comes by drawing upon all the five senses. Besides the final enjoyment of tasting the food, all the senses must be involved in anticipation experience and recall. All of this actually aids in digestion and promotes conversation, good conversation among people, all kinds of different people, men and women. And my “Not to Impress, But to Bless” motto was because, part of my art of manliness, was to serve others.
The evolution of my art of manliness began with food and presentation to serve and appeal to all the senses. I call this, “The Gathering Place.” It evolved to “Thrill of the Grill.” Then becoming, “Woke with the Smoke.” Then, “Sips with Susan.” Now, it has come full circle with, “Toast of the Roast.”
For many people, there is no better end to a satisfying full-course feast, the frivolity of adult libations in moderation, and good conversation, than a nice fresh roasted, fresh ground and fresh brewed cup of coffee while you slowly sip the memories! Ahh, but this is part, of my art of manliness.
I have prepared with expensive and professional equipment and in several large commercial kitchens. I call myself a chef, but have no piece of paper from any culinary institute. It is not necessary, none of these things are! Remember when my Chef made me responsible for the Blue-Plate special? Part of my art of manliness that served me well in the beginning, serves me well today. I believe anyone can do what I have done and do! Anyone can learn to become what I often call myself, a refrigerator parts cook or chef, turning what you have on hand_ the ordinary, into something extraordinary! And to me, well, it is a part, of my art of manliness.
The sights, the colors, and the smoke. The sounds and sizzle, the fragrances, textures, the presentation, plating and cupping of nature outside or inside, cuz’ there’s no place like home. Cheap or expensive, quick or after much time, these are all parts, of my art of manliness!
Celebrate each moment of life with sense and all the senses, whenever possible. Celebrate with a few or many or alone. Overcome fear. Whatever you do, do it with all your heart and all your might to bless and not to impress. Whether long or hard, short or easy, cheap or expensive it’s all simple, simply to build good conversation and memories worth the living and the recall. The strongest man I have ever known, was the kindest man I’ve ever seen. These I try daily to paint, my art of manliness.
Note: This post, modified, first appeared on another of my blogs, ‘Dahni “Just-I-Magine’ see:
Next Time: a series on: ‘Toast the Roast’- Some History of Coffee
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-NG
By Dahni
© 2018, all rights reserved
Not too much is free anymore nor is there a place to feel free much anymore, except from the windshield of life.
There was a time when where I’m going, I could probably get to Hometown Columbia, MO and back Home again in Macedon, NY, for about a $20 bill. I probably could have and would have driven straight through, for about 14 hours. And did the same on the way back. It would have even taken less time, when you could drive without being pulled over at 76 mph, on most highways, where the speed limit was 70 mph.
Tolls? I would have and will avoid them.
Even if I did stop due to poor weather or I was tired, to where they leave they “light on for you”, (Motel 6 or some other), it would have only cost around $20-25 dollars. Food, 🥘 maybe a couple of bucks and coffee ☕️ 15 cents?!
Turn your radio on or play a tape, a CD, 💿 a DVD, 📀 and now, some playlist from your media device. Play what you want, when you want and as loud as you want. That was and still is, freedom in the ears, from the windshield of life!
Weather then and now (soon), could be about the same as it ever was or ever will be? Take care, know how to drive in inclement weather; how not to tailgate. Don’t be rude and stay far enough away, from unknown others. Watch your own windshields of life; not theirs.
Prepared then and now with maps, emergency kits, cash, water and warmth; something to eat and be prepared to wait, for the traffic to move again or help to arrive.
All in all, you prepare for the worst, but why else leave, unless expecting the best?!
My expectation then and now remains the same, Freedom to think 🤔 and if the music 🎼 is not on or is not too loud, actually hear my own thoughts. It’s free-time magnified, when the imagination is fired up like the vehicle’s 🚗 engine, tuned like the radio; humming and purring on all cylinders. What shapes and things in motion like the clouds, ☁️ will I imagine, coming through, the windshield of life?!
Free Peace to turn off and tune-out the daily news and the daily do’s, in the windshield of life.
Free to speak my mind! Free to be silent, quiet and still! Free to hear and to listen and to take heed of common sense, my own inspiration, or that still small voice of God, which draws near to, the windshield of my life!
Free to Resolve and Move On, into the future that’s seen in, the windshield of life, before your eyes.
Free Adventure! What new or old things in new ways will find me, in the windshield of life?!
Free Expectation! To bond with those who really matter that you are with and to bond with those who really matter that you are traveling to see. Their faces and lives seem to be, all superimposed, on the windshield of life.
Free Control! Free to the things you can control and free to change with what you cannot, in the windshield of life.
Free in the USA! 🇺🇸 There are no border guards from state to state, checking papers, no ID required to show; no purpose of your travel to declare or how long you will stay. None of these are seen nor demanded, in the windshield of life.
Free to Be! None to care, or ask, criticize or condemn me, for what I believe or don’t, in the windshield of my life!
Free to change! Free to take an exit and get off my planned trip to, whatever attracts me; calls out to me, from the windshield of my life!
Free adventure! While the destination is purposed, planned and important, the journey Is equally important and it builds the excitement after every mile in getting closer, in the windshield of life.
The costs paid then or now, cannot even begin to compare with the graces of the journey and the joys at the destination!
Free New! Free new of those things and friends I have not yet met, and free new news, of those friends and family, I have not seen in a time or a long time or a very, very long time!
Free Thanks!🙏 How apropos, with Thanksgiving coming and towards Thanksgiving I am preparing to be going, through the windshield of life. There is always something(s) and someone(s) to be thankful for!
Not much may be free anymore and not much freedom perhaps? But there’s still Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and we are still FREE to experience these, from the Windshields of Our Lives!!!
It is about time for some Steppenwolf, “Born to Be Wild”, some John Barry, “Born Free”, and some Willy Nelson, “On the Road Again”!!!
I’ll not be posting on FB (Facebook) or Twitter until perhaps, after 11/26/2018? But Until We Meet again, I would you each and all, a Very Happy Thanksgiving!🦃 I would for you each and all, a wonderful road trip from the windshield of your life, even if it is just, from the windshield of your mind and heart!
Live FREE at—
The Windshield!!!
I leave you now with a big and hearty; warm and friendly, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans—
“Happy Trails…Til’ We Meet Again!!!” 🙂
From the Windshield of My Life at— The Gathering Place,
-dahni-
“Born to be Wild!”
“Born Free!”
“On the Road Again!”
“Happy Trails!”
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Na
By Dahni
©️2018, all rights reserved
Ailanthus altissima /eɪˈlænθəs ælˈtɪsɪmə/, commonly known as tree of heaven. It is related to poplar and tulip trees. It is a deciduous tree in the Simaroubaceae family
It is native to both northeast and central China, as well as Taiwan. It prefers temperate climates. Grows well in sun or shade, moist conditions or dry, parched and drought-ridden areas. Sounds good yes? Tree of Heaven?
It is so named the ‘Tree of Heaven’ as it grows faster than most trees and in a forest, they are prone to dominate the canopy, starving other trees of precious sunlight. Tree of Heaven? I think not!
The tree grows rapidly and can reach heights about 49 feet in about 25 years. Typical heights in the USA is about 15-30’. What? The USA? Yes, and one WAS (for years before today), was between the side of our home and our neighbor’s property.
Well how did they get from China to the United States?
Thanks to the Chinese gold miners that brought these to CA during the Gold Rush and some idiot gardener in the “City of Brotherly Love” (Philadelphia, PA,), these damn gifts of the Tree of Heaven spread across the USA literally like a plague or a virus!
By the way, the Standard Chinese word for this tree, ailanthus is chouchun (Chinese: 臭椿; pinyin: chòuchūn; literally: “foul-smelling tree”). It has been described as the smell of rancid peanut butter. YUCK!
But they are not likely to live more than 50 years. I don’t think I will live 50 more, but, maybe? 😀 But, but, through its remarkable suckering ability, makes it possible for this tree to clone itself indefinitely!!!!!! What? Tree from Heaven? Oh, NO IT’S NOT!
But, but, but since these suckers are linked to the mother tree and PARTLY fed by it, the suckers are less vulnerable than the seedlings and can grow faster. Tree from Heaven? Oh HELL NO!!!!!!!!!! But, but, but, but “seedlings”, let’s talk about those.
The Tree of Heaven’s seedlings are like maple tree seedlings like we used to call ‘helicopters’ when we were kids. Oh it was fun watching the wind spin them and carry them off. But, but, but, but as an adult (I am chronologically an adult anyway), NOT FUN AT ALL!
Behind our home is a much (a bunch), of rocks purposely put there so not having to mow the steep pitch. It was planned perfectly years ago and did its job nicely. The area is rectangular in shape, about 40’ long by 30’ foot wide; edged with flat concrete blocks.
After many years, stuff started to grow out from the spaces between the stones. Particularly what grew profusely, like weeds or multiplied like rabbits were those damn seedlings from the Tree of Heaven.
It seemed that if these grew above 1 inch tall, the roots would already have grown back to China, their mother country. 🙂
If I did not pluck them out at or below 1” or douse the whole area with about 575,000 gallons of ‘Round Up’® every freaking year, nothing was going to kill them!
Note: Round Up is a registered trademarked chemical or its technical name is, Glyphosate, a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant, from your friendly chemical and world’s largest distributor of seeds, Monsanto company! Yes that was sarcasm and factual.
After 1” I would have to try and chop them out, use a jackhammer, break chain saws or concrete blades or try dynamite because, the evil green-less dead looking crap was like diamonds or petrified stone in hardness!!! Tree of Heaven my ass! This is the Tree of Hell!!!
We were GLAD to pay half to have this Tree of Hell cut down Yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today (Sunday 4/22/18 Earth Day), they will cut down the trunk and remove it all away!!!!! YAY!!!!!
Thanks China! NO, NOT REALLY; NOT AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you have a Tree from Hell or if you really and truly care about someone you know that has EVEN ONE OF THEM, watch and/or share the following video!!!!!
The Gathering Place,
Dahni
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-MJ
Note:
This was written sometime ago. I would come back to it every now and again to edit and add etc. Perhaps I should have published this at or near the beginning of this blog. But it was intended to show what is behind the title of this post and the actual wooden sign (as shown as the cover picture for this blog). It hangs over the mantle of the fireplace, in the great room of our home. This blog and that sign (a gift from family), represents our home which we also lovingly call– The Gathering Place. This post was written to explain why this place, called the The Gathering Place (our home), is so named, The Gathering Place. For one thing, I believe most people understand what a gathering place is and what it is for. That visual explanation works for this place, this blog and our home as well. But I want you to understand the depth of my meaning for it as well. I thought today, April 17, 2018, was as good as any time to publish it. Cheers! 🙂
-d-
(What’s in a Name)
by Dahni
©️ 2018, all rights reserved
When I was a child, I believed in many things. Then I found out I had been lied to. And I decided right there and then– there was no Santa Claus, no Tooth Fairy, no such thing as the Easter Bunny, that people cannot be trusted and there must be, no such person or thing as God. Then I came upon many beliefs about the meaning of life and I just started looking.
Then I found this and that and was told this and that– “Because”, ‘That’s what I was taught”, “Because, that’s just the way it is”,”Come here”, “Go there”, “Look here”, and “Look over there”, and I just kept looking!
I went to the mountains. I went to the desert. I went to the sea. I looked to the stars. I wondered and I wandered. Then I looked to the healing arts. Then I looked to the law. I looked towards anywhere and any place I could find. I turned to the so-called creative arts. I wrote and wrote in journal after journal and would read them from time to time. Then it was discovered I had encircled myself in my own words, trapping me inside them. I burnt them all! The Religion of obscurity and confusion was NOT for me, so I kept on looking.
I went to the valleys of the human kind. I searched the ancients and the currents, their dark arts and their light arts. The Religion of uncertainty, contradiction, hypocrisy and evil, was NOT for me, so I kept on looking.
I returned to the religion of my youth, for some solace and some comfort. I went back to something familiar and discovered the mystery of faith. But faith could not be explained, it was not understood and I could NOT apply it because, I had no faith, not enough faith or I had turned away from the faith. Then I thought, if it cannot be articulated in words it is because, it is not understood. If it cannot be understood, it cannot be applied and there can be no results or consequences. The Religion of faith was NOT for me and I must NOT have been adequate, for the Religion of faith. I found no comfort or solace, so I kept looking.
I thought I must be tried and purified. I must take the chance on luck that by chance I might be chosen. Born to stand upright, to seek and to excel, how could I rise if the fates were not calling me? I was NOT chosen. And the Religion of Fate and Predestination was NOT for me, so I kept looking.
At one time in my life, I considered living a life of self-sacrifice and use my all and everything to suppress my passions, to elevate only logic and reason, much like the ancient Stoics. But that did not seem like much fun to me. The Religion of endless works without ceasing and a joyless existence was NOT for me, so I kept looking.
I saw the dying and the dead. Some of the dying cried out in terror; in fear of the unknown. Some of the dead cried out in losing their lives to the void. They cried out in guilt, for what they had done amiss or had not done, vainly making deals with the unknown, for another chance, more days; more years. I saw them curse when the answers they wanted and needed, did not come and they all died. The Religion of helplessness and hopelessness, was NOT for me, so I kept looking.
I saw and heard the dead eulogized and memorialized. Some were great, near great, just common folk and some were despised. But all of them still had at least a few that sorrowed for them, pretended to cry or were happy at their departure saying, “Good riddance.” And I heard religious leaders proclaim that those embalmed, dead and lifeless before my eyes, were not dead, but alive with God. How cruel I thought and unfair to us that remain. We that are left must continue to bear the slings and arrows of humanity and inhumanity. Even if the dead were hated, they are better off than us poor, pathetic creatures, fragile and miserable. We the left-behind, continued to struggle and even with good intentions, were paving our own roads in hell, in the slim and unverified sliver of hope for, heaven’s door. How much rather better, to go nowhere at all! For to the dead with no coins laid on their eyes (or our eyes), for the ‘Boatman’, without consciousness or conscience, is this not the bliss of ignorance! The Religion of ignorance, favoritism, partiality, inequity was NOT for me and I, I kept looking right there.
Then I looked at the words from the same book these religious leaders read from. I heard them say that the dead which were before me were dead and I could see they were dead. I heard the tears of those left behind. Some were mournful, some pretended and some smiled happily. And I heard and saw these preachers contradict that the dead were not dead, after they had just read and said they were. And they said they were not dead, but alive and living elsewhere, not needing their shells. And these preachers talked of resurrection and I thought, if these dead were alive, why would God need to return and pick up their dust and bones? Is this not what it means to be raised (resurrected), from the dead? And then I heard my own pastor say, “The whole duty of a minister is to be intellectually informed for their congregation.” I supposed none of this was NOT spoken from some callous hearts; not abject hypocrites, but attempts at empathy, to comfort the mourners? How were we, was I, comforted in knowing the dead were alive and we alive were born to die? And the dead were alive? And the words the leaders read were, the dead were dead and yet they said these were alive! The Religion of stupid and the illogical; false hope and false comfort was NOT for me, so I left, got out and kept looking somewhere, anywhere else!
Then I thought, “Eat, drink and be merry”, cuz’ some tomorrow, I’m gonna’ die anyway, like the ancient Epicureans. But then I thought, surely there is more to life than just feeling and sucking the marrow and all the juice out of life, as much and as fast as I could?! The Religion of burning my candle at both ends, depravity, debauchery, self Indulgence, self-contentedness; total wholly selfishness, was NOT for me, so so I kept looking, but with barely any strength left to continue. It amazes me how fat I can become and yet how weak it makes me so, yes, I kept looking.
Then I discovered people who don’t believe anything (atheists). How mindless, irresponsible, how blissfully ignorant. And I decided that the Religion of nothing, no purpose or reason for the reasons and passions for life or that non-religion was NOT for me, so I kept looking, then nearly crawling, for lack of strength. A mind spent on arguing is one starving, so yes, I kept looking.
Then I discovered the really insane people who can’t decide or even make up their minds as to what they believe or don’t believe (agnostics). And Religion, that Religion or the i-dunno’-religion, the I don’t want to say yes and be wrong and the I don’t want to say no and be wrong either. This without a mind Religion, insanity was NOT for me, so I stayed blind, deaf, and dumb, looking nowhere.
Then I grew really, really grew tired of looking, but more tired of not looking!!!
Then I was found! And my empty hard heart, soul, and mind were pierced and shattered by these words-
“Don’t you know that by his stripes you WERE HEALED?”
Then I came to discover that I already was a Christian; that Christ was already in me, and that the riches of this mystery was, Christ in me, The Hope of glory (future). I found the best of both lifestyles (reason and passion), and the balance of reason and passion for my past, present and future, plus hope for an everlasting life of joy, health and wholeness! I found when I so concentrated on these things- focused, without allowing any distraction in, I was calm and as pure as undiluted and undisturbed water, while the storms of life raged all about me. And my whole life was quickened– physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I have been healed often to the absence of any possibility and without medical explanation. I am alive when I should have died several times that I know of and perhaps more than I know?!
I have been filled according to my appetite. My questions all answered to my satisfaction. I overflow my fullness. I know what and why I believe what I believe and can show the same to anyone that desires to know the hope that is in me. This I can show that they can be filled according to their appetite and their questions answered to their satisfaction and their filling full, can overflow from them too!
I no longer look anymore! Whew, if you only knew how much time, resources and life this saved and saves me!
Then I discovered I have the best possible life going, even if I’ve succumbed to something so foolish and explained away as rapture of the deep and unrealistic euphoria, going nowhere! 🙂
But daily there are proofs and sometimes I prove them to myself and others see them in me too!
Then one day I will discover that I’ve been gathered together– dead, alive; here or there. Then, I’ll one day meet Jesus Christ, in the air!
And now I hope, to see you there! To the some I KNOW. I’ll be gathered together with you!! To all the rest, I hope to see you there!!! Until then, The Gathering Place (our home), is purposed to be like a miniature or mini-gathering together, until the real one or the big one occurs. 🙂
What’s in a Name?
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:25 KJV
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
I Thessalonians 4:16,17 KJV
“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.”
II Thessalonians 2:1,2 KJV
Don’t stop looking, you’ll be found if you want to be!
Oh, and what and where is real comfort?
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
I Thessalonians 4:18 KJV
The Gathering Place,
Dahni
short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Mu
This is one of my favorite songs. You decide, which is my favorite version of this song below and decide for yourself, which is yours.
Kent Rogers & Winnona Judd
Voctave
Original Music by Buddy Greene and lyrics and originally sung by Mark Lowry
Pentatonic
Clay Aiken
Mary Did You Know
(Lyrics)
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered, will soon deliver you
Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God
Mary did you know, Mary did you know, Mary did you know
The blind will see, the deaf will hear and the dead will live again
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb
Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding is the great I am
Mary did you know, Mary did you know, Mary did you know
Music by Buddy Greene & Lyrics by Mark Lowry:
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-Mq
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Stuffed? Stuffed with stuffing? Why yes, but so much the more! 🙂
Stuffed with information about how we came to celebrate Thanksgiving, what the first one was really like hundreds of years ago or what is really wasn’t like.
Stuffed with customs and traditions.
Stuffed with a measure of tired to you and they, depending on how far the distance traveled, the manner of transport and how long it takes to arrive.
Stuffed with the excitement and anticipation of, “Can’t wait for this day to come,” “Can’t wait to get there,” or “Can’t wait, for them to get here!”
Stuffed with the real possibility that you, “Can’t wait to go home,” or “You can’t wait, for everyone to leave!” 🙂
Stuffed with ‘catch-up’ since the last time together.
Stuffed with so much to stuff in and so little time, celebrating ‘long time no see,’ fall, Thanksgiving, birthdays and even Christmas too, early.
Stuffed with joy and perhaps, some trepidation from meeting new folks or some concern over how they find you and will remember you from the first impression you make.
Stuffed with nasal blockage, upper respiratory breathing restraints, colds, headaches, pains, strains, prescriptions and the need for perhaps more.
Stuffed with care and concern, empathy and sorrow over those that cannot be with you.
Stuffed with care and concern with all the things left behind that need to be resolved.
Stuffed with stuffing and all manner of culinary delights.
Stuffed with so much work and hours to make such a feast and preparations and accommodations that are devoured and messed up in mere minutes, and forgotten in even less time.
Stuffed with wonder at conversations from: “Where’s the gravy,” “Pass the potatoes,” “What time is the game on,” to all but total disengagement, nap time (The tryptophan effect), and texting one another from device to device while sitting right next to each other.
Stuffed with wonder at, “Why do we do this,” (all this work and effort), when there is a Denny’s, open 24/7, somewhere down the street or close by, with no dishes to wash or mess to clean up.
Stuffed with Thanksgiving, ThanksLiving and thankfulness.
Stuffed with even more wonder at being thankful to any degree for all one has to midnight of the new Friday, where so many rush and pull and push and knock down each other for all they perceive they do not have and must have before it’s too late.
Stuffed with despite it all and because of it all, thanks, for my favorite holiday and with anticipation and hope, for, “Can’t wait to do it all again!”
Stuffed with long or short goodbye, farewell until next time!
Stuffed with so much stuff, I’m just stuffed!
Stuffed with tired and into some easy chair of comfort wrapped snug in a blanket of love and joy and thanks.
Stuffed with peace and reflection at the afterglow of hearth fire and heart fire of memories, awaiting all these calories of a full and grateful life, for when I can get stuffed again!
Happy ThanksLiving, One and All!
https://youtu.be/0fYL_qiDYf0?&autoplay=1
Afterglow. A nice fire for your Thanksgiving! Gather yall’ 🙂
The Gathering Place,
Dahni
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Well, when all hell breaks out, within and without and it looks like this is your sign to just stay home or it’s just hell trying to keep you home WHAT, wadeeah yah do?
Cold, hot, foggy, snowy, blowy, sick and tired? Either stay and let all hell continue to beat the hell out of you or let all hell beat the hell out of itself and let it stay.
Don’t even bother sweeping the dirt under the rug, or clean and organize nuttN. Don’t make the bed 🛏 just throw the bedspread on and call it good. Shut the door to the office crapola. Turn off the lights, stuff your stuff, grab your two Ladies (your wife and your dog), don your sunglasses 🕶, flip up or down the sun visor, and/or turn on the windshield wipers and just git goN! Don’t stop 🛑 on Go to even collect your Monopoly parking money and just Gooo!!!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 🦃 Enjoy the ride! Man what a trip!! 😂
Love is comforting, healing, restful, peaceful, and a warm and toasty fire 🔥 of family and Friends, waiting on you to arrive! 😃
The Gathering Place is pleased to announce…
Dahni & Susan, the WallKnocker Singers. Just two people, two toilets, an extensive musical repertoire and one wall between them. People that wallknock out tunes together, stay together! 🙂
All your familairs including:
And your classical holiday favorites too:
Short url to this post:http://wp.me/p4jGvr-LT
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Hydrophobic Pusillanimous Skin? As the Sesame Street Character the Swedish Chef might have said, “Vert Der Ferk,” or just WDF?? 🙂
Actually, the full wordage and one of my favorite lines of all time, was often said by our grandfather, ‘Papa.’ (pronounced, paw paw). He loved to laugh and make others laugh. He would often say the following with a twinkle in his eyes and a huge warm grin on his face:
“Gosh dern you hydrophobic pusillanimous skin!”
Papa [pronounced paw-paw], was a very smart man, but what on earth, was he talking about?
Fingers and toes!
Yep, fingers and toes, particularly that have been submerged in water. About five minutes should do the trick. At or around this 5-minute mark, fingers and toes do this curious and funny thing. They wrinkle! 🙂
“Gosh dern you hydrophobic (scared of water, not liking water or water hating), pusillanimous (lacking courage or resolution; cowardly; faint-hearted; timid), skin (fingers and toes)!”
Fingers and toes? Yep, some parts of human skin, better known as glabrous skin, have a unique response to water. “Glabrous?” Isn’t this just a nice fun word; another way of saying, “hairless, naked or bald!” Now, let me use this in a sentence. “When I was born, my baby butt was as glabrous and smooth, as a cue ball! 🙂
Unlike the rest of the body, the skin of our fingers, palms, and toes, and soles of our feet-ies wrinkle, after becoming sufficiently wet. As I said afore, about 5 minutes or so, will usually do the trick.
But why do these patches of skin wrinkle? Some believe it is just a biochemical reaction, an osmotic process in which water grabs a handful or a foot-ful of stuff out of the skin and leaves the prune effect or the prune-y like skin, in place? 🙂 I dunno’, but there are a couple of things known, that I do know. To follow here is one thang’ I knows’! 🙂
“Even though you can’t see it, your skin is covered with its own special oil called sebum (say: SEE-bum). Sebum is found on the outermost layer of skin. Sebum moistens, or lubricates (say: LOO-bruh-kates), and protects your skin. It also makes your skin a bit waterproof. That’s why water runs off your skin when you wash your hands, instead of soaking it in like a sponge would.”
Excerpts from: ‘Why Does My Skin Get Wrinkly in Water’
http://kidshealth.org/en/kids/wrinkly-fingers.html
If the nerves in your feet-ies and toes-ies are cut or damaged, guess what? They won’t wrinkle anymore! So, the second thing I know about wrinkly or hydrophobic pusillanimous skin is, it’s a good sign of a healthy nervous system!
But why else could they possibly wrinkle?
“We have shown that wrinkled fingers give a better grip in wet conditions — it could be working like treads on your car tires, which allow more of the tire to be in contact with the road and gives you a better grip,” says Tom Smulders, an evolutionary biologist at Newcastle University, UK, and a co-author of the paper.
People often assume that wrinkling is the result of water passing into the outer layer of the skin and making it swell up. But researchers have known since the 1930s that the effect does not occur when there is nerve damage in the fingers. This points to the change being an involuntary reaction by the body’s autonomic nervous system — the system that also controls breathing, heart rate and perspiration. In fact, the distinctive wrinkling is caused by blood vessels constricting below the skin.
Better grip in wet conditions? I dunno’ what do you think? For me personally, wrinkled fingers and toes were invented by God and just so our Papa (pronounced paw paw) could say—
“Gosh dern you hydrophobic pusillanimous skin!”
From The Gathering Place,
-Dahni-
Short url to this post: http://wp.me/p4jGvr-Ll
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
“Any road“ is, an English colloquialism. You know, “English” as from England or British (Britain). Instead of how many of us use and say “anyway” (any way), “any road” (anyroad), takes on a similar meaning. example: Anyway as I was saying, I have to get to the dentist or anyroad (any road), traveled, I must get to the store. 🙂
There is an exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where the following line has been incorrectly attributed to, Lewis Carroll. It appears all over the Internet and all kinds of merchandise are being sold with the line, falsely quoting Lewis Carroll, as its author. The line reads as follows:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
This MAY (?), have been someone’s paraphrase of the exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, but Louis Carroll never wrote those words!
BrainyQuotes inaccurately attributes this to Carroll.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lewiscarro165865.html
And you could even buy a vinyl decal from Amazon (and other places), with the line and supposed quote by Lewis Carroll. Note: Currently this item is not available from Amazon (but it was, just do a search). Maybe they figured out they were selling something falsely quoted?
Anyway or Anyroad, back to ‘Alice.’ 🙂 Below are the actual words of the conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, from Chapter 6, ‘Pig and Pepper’ of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Alice
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Cheshire Cat
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.
Alice
I don’t much care where— said Alice.
Cheshire Cat
Then it doesn’t matter which way you go, said the Cat.
Alice
So long as I get SOMEWHERE, Alice added as an explanation.
Cheshire Cat
Oh, you’re sure to do that, said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.
Excerpts: Chapter 6, ‘Pig and Pepper’ – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
So, if neither Alice or the Cheshire Cat never said the line or the words “any road” (and they didn’t), and Lewis Carroll never wrote them (and he did NOT), who did?
It MAY(?), also, be found in the ancient Jewish Babylonian Talmud?
But if not Lewis Carroll, Alice, the Cheshire Cat, someone’s paraphrase of the three or the Jewish Babylonian Talmud, who else could have written these words?
‘Any Road’ is, a song written by the late, former Beatle, George Harrison, who passed in 2001. The song was released as a single and from his posthumous album ‘Brainwashed,’ in 2002. Notice in the lyrics to follow, the line is NOT “…any road will get you there,” but “…any road will take you there.”
Any Road
By George Harrison
Oh I’ve been traveling on a boat and a plane
In a car on a bike with a bus and a train
Traveling there and traveling here
Everywhere in every gear
But oh Lord we pay the price with a
Spin of a wheel with the roll of a dice
Ah yeah you pay your fare
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there
And I’ve been traveling through the dirt and the grime
From the past to the future through the space and the time
Traveling deep beneath the waves
In watery grottoes and mountainous caves
But oh Lord we’ve got to fight
With the thoughts in the head with the dark and the light
No use to stop and stare
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there
You may not know where you came from
May not know who you are
You may not even wondered how
How You got this far
I’ve been traveling on a wing and a prayer
By the skin of my teeth by the breadth of a hair
Traveling where the four winds blow
With the sun on my face, in the ice and the snow
But ooee it’s a game
Sometimes you’re cool, sometimes you’re lame
Ah yea it’s somewhere
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there
But oh Lord we pay the price
With the spin of a wheel, with the roll of a dice
Ah yea, you pay your fare
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there
I keep traveling around the bend
There was no beginning, there is no end
It wasn’t born and never dies
There are no edges, there is no sides
Oh yea, you just don’t win
It’s so far out – the way out is in
Bow to God and call him Sir
But if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The only known public recording of this song by George Harrison was on VH1 in 1997. For your enrichment and enjoyment, the link to the YouTube video follows here.
The last song on the last album by all four Beatles (Abbey Road) was ‘The end.’ The last words are:
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
But all things considered, in the end, for me-
“All things must pass” [G. Harrison] “Let It Be” [the Beatles]
All the unknown and undone and what I’ve left this life, showing
I’d rather to have been on the road and known, where I am going!
-Dahni-
PS And at my end, I’m taking more love with me and in me, than it is possible, for me to have ever made, in 10,000 X 10,000 lives! I cannot equal, out-give, out-love and out-live God, but His Road will take me there!
-d-
Good to the Last Drop of the Midday 
to you!
Taking a break from the series about Java Joe, I picked up something I believe Joe would approve of. Because, of course, it involves coffee! 
The following story is being picked up and is popularly seen all over the Internet and the media, but neither sourced nor credited as to its authorship, the original author. I believe in giving credit where credit is due and I do believe the credit is due to:
ABHISHEK KUMAR SINGH,. CEO
TAJ PHARMA INDIA (MUMBAI)
The Carrot, 
The Egg, 
and The Coffee Bean 
By Abhishek Kumar Singh
A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her – her husband had cheated on her and she was devastated. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as soon as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, ‘Tell me what you see.’
‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied.
Her grandmother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The grandmother then asked the granddaughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.
Finally, the grandmother asked the granddaughter to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The granddaughter then asked, ‘What does it mean, grandmother?’
Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
“Which are you?” she asked her granddaughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity? Do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?
Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain.. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level?
How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.
The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.
When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.
May we all be like the COFFEE.
Share this with your friends and family today.
Be the Bean! 
From The Gathering Place,
Dahni
short url to this post: http://wp.me/p4jGvr-Ka
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Good Morning!☀️
The Story of ‘Civil Discourse’
Summer is drawing to a close, but it is NOT over just yet! One of the great things about summer is real socializing when people get together and enjoy one another’s company. If together for any length of time, this usually leads to the engagement of conversation more than just the weather, sale day finds and the results of some sporting event. We are after all, social creatures. We like to get together and have a good time. And we like to converse with others especially if we agree with them, but even more importantly, if, they agree with us! 😂
There is both a science and an art to civility, to agree to even disagree, to discuss. I call this, ‘civil discourse.’ To discourse is much more than to just converse and discuss. It is an elevation of intellect or simply put, putting our best foot (our best selves), forward, out there, for the mutual benefit of all involved.
What more of an enhancement to this end than to frame it around food 🥘 and drink! 🍹We like to eat and drink 🍹 and to be together, to hang out together and talk about things of most importance to us, things and people who really and truly matter in this life, in this wonderful, but albeit, truly short lifespan. Moments are precious and we do try or should aspire to, getting the most out of it, “milking the moment,” deeply breathing in every breath available and sucking the marrow out of every piece of meat this life has to offer; second and every moment of life we have!
There is a reason for the phrase, “Happy Hour.” As many are familiar, Happy Hour is often thought of as, starting somewhere around 5 PM. Another saying that may be familiar to you is, “That it’s 5 o’clock somewhere!” 😂 I even have a photograph taken of an old clock that used to set inside a bar. All other numbers were removed and replaced with only 5’s so yes, it does show that no matter what time it is where you are, it is, 5 o’clock somewhere, meaning, it’s always time, for Happy Hour! 😊
Along with getting together, conversing, having food 🥘 and drink 🍹 and well, just having a good time, a Happy Time socially, there is also something “social” about, making and serving drinks! 🍹
I like mixing drinks 🍹and trying new things and yes, even making them up! My brother-in-law, Kevin, recently sent me a link to a website offering many different new foods 🥘 and drinks, to explore and try.
Now I am not a professional (I am neither employed or tipped as a), bartender or mixologist, but I profess, I am certainly (if an amateur), highly enthusiastic!
In searching the aforementioned website that Kevin provided me with, there was one particular drink 🍹 which caught my attention. I knew I wanted to try it, but also, I did not have all the ingredients it called for. So, I improvised. Now, I figure that if not following their recipe, then I am making it up and I should be able to, can and I did make it up, make it my own?! So I did. In so doing, I should be allowed to name it and I did name it! I call it-— ‘Civil Discourse’ 😊
Now, before I share with you the recipe, I want to first share with you what’s in it (the ingredients), and WHY.
Bergamot 🍊- similar to combining lemon, 🍋 lime,🍋 orange, 🍊 and grapefruit, all in one fruit. It has calming and uplifting effects (it induces one to just “feel good” 😊)
Cucumber 🥒 – soothing and cooling, good for joints and the heart (a good heart ❤️)
Mint 🍃- refreshing (the herb of hospitality)
Earl Grey Tea ☕️ – considered as “posh” or upper class, but I like to think of its effects and affects, resulting in the art of civility. Black tea ☕️ a little caffeine to ‘keep you and your ‘Civil Discourse’ going’ 😂
Lime 🍋 – citrus 🍊 vitamin C refreshing and ‘sunny’ 🌞
Tito’s Vodka – smooth while not adding to or taking from the overall taste and it lessons the distinct flavor of Gin
Bombay’s Sapphire Gin – very smooth and distinct with botanical and aromatics, but it is mixed with vodka (Tito’s made in the USA 🇺🇸), to retain its characteristics and alcohol % while not overpowering the drink 🍹
It should be noted, the main ingredient to ‘Civil Discourse’ implied, recommended, and absolutely necessary is, You and I!! 🙂
Ingredients:
Tito’s Vodka – 2 1/2 ounces
Bombay Sapphire Gin – 1 1/2 ounces
Fresh squeezed Lime juice – about a whole small lime or 1/2 of a large one
8-10 fresh rinsed mint leaves + 2 for garnish
3-4 slices of cucumber + 2 for garnish
3/4 ounce of fluid sugar (simple syrup)
3/4 fluid ounce of Earl Grey Tea
Preparation:
Note: It’s nice to have some simple syrup always on hand. 1 part sugar to 1 part water. Heat to dissolve. Store in refrigerator to have on hand when needed. Stores for a long time.
1. Boil about 1 ounce of water and pour into a heat-resistant container. Place 1 bag of Earl Grey tea into container and let seep for about 3 minutes. By the time it is ready, the boiling of the water, evaporation and the bag will have taken about 1/4 ounce of the water leaving, about 3/4 of an ounce of fluid tea. Remove tea bag
2. Muddle all but 2 leaves of mint and all but 2 cucumber slices with a mortar and pestle or some other means to get the most possible juice from these two items.
3. Juice from about 1 small lime or 1/2 of a large lime
4. Measure out 2 1/2 ounces of vodka
5. Measure out 1 1/2 ounces of gin
6. Pour vodka, gin, 3/4 ounce of fluid Earl Grey tea, 3/4 ounce of simple syrup, lime juice (=about 4 tablespoons), into muddled cucumber and mint
7. Add ice to a shaker
8. Pour drink mixture into shaker and shake
9. Strain mixture TWICE
10. Pour strained mixture into a highball glass, half filled with cubed ice
11. Add 1 slice of cucumber and one mint leaf to garnish
Note: This recipe yields 2 drinks. Multiply for more drinks 👍 bon appétit & Salute La Familia (salute my family) which includes: all those I get to choose as family 🙂 and strangers, folks I haven’t met yet! 🙂
And on this day, August 28, 2017, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, on August 28th, 1963, delivered from the steps of The Lincoln Memorial, in our nation’s capitol, in the presence of 200,000 + peaceful protesters and the world looking on, which led to- ‘The Civil Rights Act’, being signed into law…
…ENJOY YOUR—
‘Civil Discourse’! 😃
Cheers🍹 from: The Gathering Place,
Dahni
Amateur Bar Tender and Mixologist, but a Professional Enthusiast! 😂
Coming Soon: The Grilled Veggies’ we had with ‘Civil Discourse’
short url to this post: http://wp.me/p4jGvr-Jt
Java Joe
Part 2
‘Machina (It.) – “the machine”
by Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Good Top of the Morning to you! Time for a cuppa!Today’s series begins with what the Italians call, machina, [pronounced: mah-chee-no] “the machine.” It takes the best mano “hand” of the best hand to bring out the best flavor of the best beans and Joe was and the best mano (“hand”), and the best machina (“machine”), to do it. Beans begin when what they are called, “green.” Then temperature is used to roast them to perfection. Each bean and each batch can have many variables and nuances of flavor. It takes a master; an artesian, the mano (the “hand”), to do this. This was Joe. But there was much more and there is much more to this.
“green” (un roasted), beans
under roasted – purrrfectly’ roasted 🙂 – and over roasted (“burnt”), beans
The Original ‘Java Joe’ loved his own coffee!One has to know what the various coffees and blends of coffees are supposed to taste like. Joe knew. And he knew all the popular nomenclature of coffee like latte, cappuccino and espresso and etc. Joe knew what they are supposed to taste like and how each are supposed to be made. I will offer proof of this as this series continues.
But Joe mostly liked expertly roasted, rightly ground and with the right equipment (machines), like brew pot and espresso machines. Remember, when he came back to Rochester and having been in Hawaii and he tasted and favored Kona, when he got back here, no one had any decent coffee. So, he decided to roast his own. He liked his own work and coffee or espresso, he drank his coffee black. He found no need or reason to screw up a good cup of coffee or espresso, by adding sugar and cream and frothy milk poured out in some fancy-schmancy artsy fartys design, which is more for show than for just plane-O good coffee. But Joe accommodated different tastes. Again, more proof about this too, as this series continues.
All in the coffee business use some type of machine, but did you know, most of the familiar, store-bought and big name coffee companies, don’t actually roast their beans, they bake them. They would say it is part of their brand’s consistency in taste and quality control. Joe would say, they just “burn” the beans. He would be reluctant to use the word roast, when the beans are all mostly baked. I came to understand exactly what he was talking about. As he taught, I learned. As I learned, my sense of smell and my palette evolved—got trained, got educated. Since Joe started, coffee (micro-roasted coffee), took off in the Rochester area. There is an area around Henrietta that as you drive by, you can smell it being cooked. It is actually being baked and I learned from Joe, to tell by the smell in the air, just like Joe said, it is being over-roasted, or as Joe often said, “burnt.” Some people might think this is just strong coffee being produced. No, it’s just coffee being burnt, just like it tastes after it sits all day on a warming plate. You who know what that tastes like, know exactly what I’m talking about! More about that later, as this series continues.
But Joe decided from the beginning, to use some other machina (“machine’), like what, I dunno, like a COFFEE ROASTER?! 🙂
Joe found and developed a unique roasting method: turn-of-the-century style coffee roaster. This is turn-of-the-century style roasting with the highest quality beans available, to micro-roast coffee in small batches. This unique roaster enables your coffee to be expertly roasted, using a direct flame process, instead of convection ovens. Joe was, one of the only roasters in the United States who actually roasted– not baked – coffee. This method of roasting takes much more skill to produce – but all coffee lovers, tasters and aficionados believe, it yields, unsurpassed flavor!
Choose your figure of speech (simile or metaphor), but Joe was, “like” a machine or he “was” a machine, when it came to roasting coffee! The Master Roaster and Grandfather of Fresh Micro-Roasted Coffee: Java Joe. In 1975, long before anyone even thought about micro roasting, Joe was in Hawaii clearing an old abandoned coffee farm with machete in hand. He literally learned and understood coffee from the ground up. OK, that was kind of pun-ny’, but it works. 🙂
When Joe returned to his home town of Rochester, NY years later, he was way ahead of anyone in this field and the present social phenomenon, surrounding coffee. He was amazed at the attention to detail, the time and money spent by the finest restaurants. He was even more shocked to realize that virtually no consideration was given by these same restaurants, to the last thing a customer has to remember their dining experience there by, a cup of coffee! Well, my friends, the visionary Java Joe enlightened many of theses chefs and owners. Today, there are not a few of the finest restaurants in this area that have not served his coffee. And there are others that due to him, do roast their coffee. Others, do roast their own coffee in this area, but not as good as the One and Only, thee original, Java Joe! To my great delight, Joe taught many his craft and his namesake still offers Joe’s coffee at, Java’s Café and many other places locally.
Click the image to visit their site
16 Gibbs Street, Rochester, NY
For those that are local, you can still buy a cup or bags of beans, still roasted, literally, with Joe’s machina, Joe’s “machine”! And his mano (“his hand”), is still evident, in the hands that roast coffee, the hands of those he taught and taught well!
Dahni at The Gathering Place
Next time: ‘Macinato’ (It.) – “the grind”
short url to this post: http://wp.me/p4jGvr-Jg
Java Joe
Part 1
Mano (It.) – “the hand”
by Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Good Top of the Morning to you! Time for a cuppa!
I have thought about writing this for months and it is because, I’ve thought about this man for months. Both his life and his passing has deeply affected me. I have much to say, much I want to tell you, much I want to share with you and yes, much I want to teach about much that he has taught me. So, it is my hope to pay my teacher, a master teacher, the respect and the credit he deserves. And it is my greatest hope as he has done for me that I can impart to you, some of the art and mastery of the world’s second most traded commodities, coffee!
So I begin with a series, simply called, Java Joe. And it and this series begins with, what the Italians call ‘Mano [pronounced: mah-no] – “the hand.” In this sense, this hand, belonged to the man, affectionately known as, Java Joe.
Java Joe – Joseph J. Palozzi
Born February 1949
Died March 11, 2017
When you have a cup of coffee, you might think of it or call it a cup of Java or simply, a cup of Joe. Whether you realize it or not, you are paying respect, every time you have a cup, to the one and only, the original, Java Joe.
Java Joe, or a.ka. Joseph J. Palozzi and Joe Palozzi and just, Joe, was a legend. At least many of the stories surrounding his life were legendary. To be a legend in one’s time or in one’s mind, the story or stories are sometimes popularly regarded as historical, but unauthenticated. I don’t believe Joe thought of himself as legendary in his own mind, but he was to many, a legend in his own time. Even to write this, I found it very difficult to find many facts about his life, from public places. Even his obituary did not give his date and time of birth. All I could track down was the Month (February), and the year (1949), when he was born.
I had heard rumors of his passing for about 2 weeks, before I started writing this. Life being what it is, it took me awhile to track down and verify that he did indeed die, March 11th, 2017, after a long fight with lung cancer. Now you may not believe or understand this, but his death deeply saddens me because, beyond his ‘legend’ status, and all he accomplished, he was for my part, my friend.
You may not know me and Joe may never have even thought of me as his friend, but to me, for my part, he was my friend. To me, he was my teacher, a master teacher and I remain, a devoted student.
I first met Joe by way of his coffee, at a local coffee bar owned by two friends of mine, Nick and Connie Reda. They bought all their coffee from Joe. One time, I went with Nick on a trip to resupply his coffee stores. Nick introduced me to Joe.
I believe I understood who this man was, the first time I met him. His language was colored with expletives, his opinions set and to many, he may have come off as harsh and bristling. He certainly was set in his ways, but as the old adage says, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” Underneath the covers of some of the most intense blue eyes I have ever seen, was the man, perhaps many never saw. I got Joe. I got him from the beginning. I might not approve of his salty language or his political opinions, but he was at least, if not a formally highly educated man, he was certainly, a highly self-educated man. You cannot separate the man from what he does. Joe did coffee. That’s who he was to me and what he did.
There have been many tributes to Joe about his legendary adventures. Some will talk of his love for music and even his once owned café, Java’s Café. Java’s Café was right in the center of downtown Rochester, NY, a mid-sized city and right next door to Eastman Theater. Eastman Theater was gifted by George Eastman of Eastman Kodak, then just Kodak. The theater was built-in quality and with culture outreach as any other larger city like, New York City. So, Rochester had something great bestowed upon it that rivaled cities many times its size. And Rochester, to this day, is home to so many incredible artists and musicians that the world have never heard of and may never will. Now it is just my opinion, but I think if you spread all of them out, all across the United States, city and town by city and town, each of them would have, could have and should have, been world renown. I could say the same thing about Joe. His name and his perfected coffee bean roasting prowess should be known all over the world. He got pretty close to that happening, but like the musicians of Rochester, for most and for Joe, it just didn’t work out. Put Joe and artists, and musicians all together in a small mid-sized city and the chances of success are reduced exponentially. But to the locals and visitors, go to almost any pub, bar and grill that offer live music and you will be blown away at how good these artists are here! Go to many of the areas finest restaurants and you would have most likely ended your meal with a cup of the original Java Joe’s coffee. But very few, ever seem to make it out of here.
Rochester, once known as Image City had three of the top companies in the world — Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb. So yes, there was a lot of talent here, which had offshoots of such things as the digital press (a football size printing press), that could print 10,000 + pieces, each custom designed and all in about an hour. Adobe spun out of here, the digital camera, and, why even the personal computer and many other things had their origins here. My thoughts are the area had great talent, but poor management. None of these big three are anything like they once were. Same for music here. Most musicians need good management. It seems to have been lacking here, for many things, for a long time. You could fault Joe as not being a good businessman or lacking good management skills, but like many artists and musicians here, these do not diminish, the quality of their art: of Joe’s art!
I will leave it to the legendaries to tell of how Joe came to Rochester to roast coffee, but I do know he had spent time in Italy and in Hawaii, areas known for their expertise in the art and science of roasting coffee and the other, rich in volcanic soil, where Kona grows. Now where do you suppose Joe learned about coffee? Italy and Hawaii would be my educated guess, but if it was just from books so be it. But I do know personally, that when he came back to Rochester, after he left Hawaii, he noticed a very peculiar thing. One of the last things you might recall, about a fine dining experience (in some 4 star restaurants here), would be the cup of coffee served at the end of the meal. Joe noticed it was all over roasted or burnt coffee. And we are now, talking about the birth of, micro-brewed coffee. Yes, Java Joe was its grandfather, its patron saint if you will. So, Joe finds and builds a roaster from a nineteenth century design.
A vacant spot opened up next to Eastman Theater in the heart of downtown Rochester, NY, and Joe moved in, roaster and all. He started roasting and selling whole beans in Java’s Café to the public and he roasted the coffee, for several fine dining establishments. He sold simple foods and deserts when so many patrons kept asking him to. The café had the look and feel of something like a blend of bohemia, hippies, beatniks and a more modern culture, slightly offbeat, but colorful emergence.
Local art for sale or those pieces gifted, adorned the walls. There was a corner bay window with pillows spread about the floor. There was a piano, for any that would care to tune it and play it and there were many that did. The interior was a lot of rustic dark wood, old floors, old walls if not filled with art, were lined with advertising of some culture, art, music etc. thingy happening somewhere. And there was Joe, in the center of it all, OK-ing it all, drawing all these different people and roasting coffee.
My first visit to Java’s Café was one in which I will never forget. Musicians dressed in tuxedos carrying their instruments, business people, local dignitaries, young and old, rich and poor all stood in line and set together or near each other. Music is said to be a universal language which draw many together that may not ordinarily be together. Coffee does too. Where art, music and coffee may be subjective and uncertain, where so many make conclusions based on opinion, there is the technical side of art and music and coffee, which attest to their mastery. And behind every masterpiece, there is a master. Joe was a master!
Java’s Café was and still is a place where art and artists of the Rochester, NY area merged and converge, conversed and voice and were given and are given voice, but this tribute is for Joe’s passion and for all of that it is, coffee.
I met Joe in 2001 through another friend that used to buy coffee from Joe, for his small café, also in Rochester. I certainly have not known Joe the longest or even close to the detail and intimacy of others, but he was my friend. Me to Joe? I don’t know what Joe thought about me, but he did remember me and he always treated me with respect.
“There was a phrase heard again and again while interviewing those that knew Joe Palozzi, endearingly and enduringly known as Java Joe: “That was just Java.” Whether people were describing how he golfed barefoot — something he picked up when he lived in Hawaii — or how when he would deliver coffee to restaurants that he loved, he’d walk into the cooler, grab whatever he wanted cooked for him, be it lobster, steak, you name it, and still charge you for the coffee.”
By Katie Libby, March 29, 2017
To me, Joe summed himself up personally, in the following.
“When you taste our coffee I personally guarantee it will be the best coffee you ever tasted.”
Java Joe
Now you would probably expect him to say this as would any other roaster about their coffee. You may think it is his opinion. And you may think that it is just my opinion, if I agreed with him. I certainly do, agree with him and opinions are subjective and uncertain, but there is more to this statement and there is more to Java Joe than whether you or I agree with him or whether you like this coffee and I like that other coffee.
As this series continues, despite its many variables, there is a formula for making great coffee and it is based on science, the mastery of the art and expertly executed; time-tested techniques. Joe was a master artisan! Grab a cup of Joe and I’ll see you next time.
Dahni at The Gathering Place
Next time: ‘Machina (It.) – “the machine”
Mano-tini
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
As the end word (a suffix actually), in the title suggests, this is all about a Martini.
I call it, The Mano a Mano Martini.or The Mano-tini for Short. I am a curios fellow in that when I become interested in something, I dig or dig into the details. Perhaps this in part due to my training in journalism in that the very first paragraph should contain— WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and HOW. It is my intention to fulfill this by paragraph’s end. I am a gregarious fellow in that I like to share my discoveries with others (YOU)! I would like to think that even if you do not drink alcohol or like martinis, you might find the following interesting and maybe even humorous, for your time spent here. This perhaps ‘long in the tooth’ piece will conclude for you that do like martinis, would like to try one and try a new recipe for one IF, you keep reading until the end. You could, skip or scroll all the way to the bottom if you want to. 🙂
Like a bartender’s or mixologist’s list of ingredients and preparation, here, there are some parts of fact, parts of fiction and some history in our list of ingredients, for preparing this alcoholic libation.
Often ingredients are mixtures of other ingredients combined or infused in certain ways, like our word “libation,” for example. Libation has its roots in Greek and Latin and its simple definition was an offering, a liquid poured out. Well, this is certainly how we may think of it today and with this liquid being offered and it being most likely an alcoholic liquid or beverage with its effects, bringing up the ideas of ‘Happy Hour,” “getting a buzz” or “high,” it’s a drink most likely shared at least between two lovers, two friends, two people or two associates, for a good time, to celebrate or just for a happy time among people, even if the two are the bartender and the bar-sitter. 🙂
That’s great, but not so fast. Libation was originally a beverage offered to some deity (god or goddess), as a form of sacrifice, seeking favor of the gods?
OK, just suppose there were no gods or goddesses, but the root word of mythology is, myth. 🙂
Alright, maybe they were made up, but people did and may still believe in them (the gods). How easy would it be to pour out some liquid as an offering for some god or goddess and when others weren’t looking, get yourself a nice, free drink! “WOW,” so they might think, “Not only did the gods take the drinks, they must have accepted them (liked them),” especially if, the beverages constantly just seemed to disappear. 🙂
Cue the myth reel for our next word, ‘Ambrosia.’
“In the ancient Greek myths, ambrosia (pronounced am-bro-ze-yah Greek: ἀμβροσία, “immortality”) is sometimes the food or drink of the Greek gods, often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus by doves. Ambrosia is sometimes depicted in ancient art as distributed by a nymph labeled with that name. In the myth of Lycurgus, an opponent to the wine god Dionysus, violence committed against Ambrosia turns her into a grapevine.”
Excerpt from Wikipedia ‘Ambrosia’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia
Also, at the above link, there is an image of a plate (a majolica plate), thought to have been made in 1530 by Nicola da Urbino. It’s title is, ‘The Foods of the Gods on Mount Olympus’. Oh, that sounds familiar, like the 19th Century USA invention, most of us know as, ‘Ambrosia Salad.’ Well, if this fruit, whipped topping concoction was or is the modern-day equivalent of, “Food for the gods,” what about Mead, originally a fermented beverage of honey, water and yeast some called, ‘Ambrosia’ or, “nectar of the gods?”
Forget the fact that in an area where grapes were not grown too well, but they had to have something alcoholic to drink. And forget the idea that real mead does not taste much more than like just watered down honey water. But like a bartender’s or mixologist’s special add-ins, add some folklore and a little bit of well, whad-di-yah-know’ there is something to be said about all those B vitamins that do increase as the stuff ages. Could they actually help a hangover from too much drinking the night before with drinking some more of the ‘tail of the dog that bit you?’ Supposedly, the word ‘honeymoon’ (honey + moon), came from the celebratory wedding drinking of Mead. The couple was to wed when she was close to being able to conceive. They were to wed during a lunar cycle and drink Mead for a month. WOW, how about that, a month long honeymoon, for you that may have never had one? Mead was supposed to make him more virile and the lady more fertile. Hmmm, is there something more to those B Vitamins in Mead, the ‘Nectar of the gods?’ I don’t know, but people believed it. So what’s my point? Drinking is supposed to be associated with special times and happy and high’ times. Get some gods and goddesses involved and the traditions continue. 🙂
So what? So what does this have to do with Martinis? We’re going there next? 🙂
According to all the sources I checked, a martini may in fact, be a ‘Made in America thing, what it is, but not its name. You ‘re gonna’ love this!
In 1863, an Italian vermouth maker started marketing their product under the brand name of Martini, after its director, Alessandro Martini and the brand name may be the source of the cocktail’s name?
Then another theory is, ‘The Martini’ evolved from a cocktail called the Martinez, served sometime in the early 1860’s at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, CA. People hung out there before taking an evening ferry ride to the nearby town of Martinez. And of course, the people of Martinez say, the drink was first created by a bartender in their town? But a, “Martinez Cocktail,” was first described in Jerry Thomas’ 1887 edition, of his “Bartender’s Guide, How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks”
Are you ready for the following? 🙂
“By 1922 the Martini (the vermouth), reached its most recognizable form in which London dry gin and dry vermouth are combined at a ratio of 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, with the optional addition of orange or aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass.[3] Over time the generally expected garnish became the drinker’s choice of a green olive or a twist of lemon peel.
A dry Martini is made with dry, white vermouth. By the Roaring Twenties, it became common to ask for them. Over the course of the century, the amount of vermouth steadily dropped. During the 1930s the ratio was 3:1, and during the 1940s the ratio was 4:1. During the latter part of the 20th century, 6:1, 8:1, 12:1, 15:1 (the “Montgomery”, after British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s supposed penchant for attacking only when in possession of great numerical superiority),[4] or even 50:1 or 100:1 Martinis became considered the norm.[5]
My father-in-law thought just passing the cork over the martini made it dry enough! 🙂
“A dirty Martini contains a splash of olive brine or olive juice and is typically garnished with an olive.[6]
A perfect Martini uses equal amounts of sweet and dry vermouth.[7]”
“Some Martinis were prepared by filling a cocktail glass with gin, then rubbing a finger of vermouth along the rim. There are those who advocated the elimination of vermouth altogether. According to Noël Coward, “A perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy,” Italy being a major producer of vermouth.[8] Luis Buñuelused the dry Martini as part of his creative process, regularly using it to sustain “a reverie in a bar”. He offers his own recipe, involving Angostura bitters, in his memoir.[9]”
“In 1966, the American Standards Association (ASA) released K100.1-1966, “Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis,” a tongue-in-cheek account of how to make a “standard” dry martini.[10] The latest revision of this document, K100.1-1974, was published by American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the successor to ASA, though it is no longer an active standard.[11]”
“There are a number of variations on the traditional Martini. The fictional spy James Bond sometimes asked for his vodka Martinis to be “shaken, not stirred,” following Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), which prescribes shaking for all its Martini recipes.[12] The proper name for a shaken Martini is a Bradford.[13] However, Somerset Maugham is often quoted as saying that “a Martini should always be stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lie sensuously on top of one another.”[14]A Martini may also be served on the rocks, that is, with the ingredients poured over ice cubes and served in an Old-Fashioned glass.[15]”
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_(cocktail)
WOW, does all that not sound factious, factitious, facetious or something with a superfluity of facts?! 🙂 I suppose one could start a religion over a martini, not to mention heated arguments as to its authenticity and origin. But there is, still more.
I have long been fond of James Bond, 007, the fictional character created by Ian Fleming. There is no cocktail served up better to “Bond, James Bond,” than the ‘Vesper Martini. This was from Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale. Vesper Lynd was one of the few ‘Bond girls’ that he truly loved. She is the reason Bond’s drinks are always, “shaken not stirred.”
According to the author, the ‘Vesper’ is “strong and cold and very well made” —much like 007 himself. That’s all fine and dandy, but neither you nor I will ever get to try it!!! Its ingredients and preparation is specific with Gordon’s Gin, and vodka. The type of vodka was not specific, but the accepted gin was Gordon’s. Gordon’s Gin is thought to be the gin of gin with its strong start and finish of juniper.
But there was also, one unique ingredient that is no longer available, Kina Lillet, the aromatised wine that gives the Vesper its distinct, bitter edge. Kina Lillet was a proprietary blend of sweet wines and macerated fruits with the unique addition of quinine, its signature ingredient.
In the 1700’s, a French scientist named Charles Marie de la Condamine discovered that quinine, a compound found in cinchona bark, is an excellent treatment for malaria. Cinchona is a genus of flowering plants. It is native to the tropical Andean forests of western South America. Cinchona bark is used in powered or distilled from, of the bark of the shrub, to make quinine.
Having some remedy for mosquito-infested territories, where the British and the French Foreign Legion were expanding into, like India and Africa in the 1800’s, this was great news! But quinine is very, very bitter. What to do? Mix it with something else like today, in Tonic water or as in yester-years, Kina Lillet. These drinks were called qinquinas (kɛ̃kinas), or wines flavored with quinine. So, the idea worked successfully. The soldiers got the quinine they needed in a drink they enjoyed. It worked so well, the soldiers developed a taste for qinquinas and kept drinking them after they came home. France’s most popular one was, Kina Lillet. So popular in fact, it spread oversea to even post-prohibition America.
Oh, and if you sit at the bar too long or develop leg cramps, quinine just might help? 🙂
Gin has long been a favorite clear alcoholic drink in the United States. People even made ‘bathtub gin’ during prohibition. Vodka was not favored for a long time. It was thought to be mostly a drink of Russia and there was a time in this country where WE were on an anti-communist kick and WE the People, certainly were not about to drink vodka. A man by the name of Smirnoff (a Russian), sold his livelihood for cheap to an American and with some ‘creative’ marketing, some ginger beer, lime and special copper mugs, with Smirnoff vodka, the Moscow Mule was born in America, with Vodka made right here. 🙂
Now, some prefer their martinis to be solely based on vodka where others prefer gin. Adding vermouth or olive juice to make a dirty martini came later. But that Vesper, the Vesper used both gin and vodka and Kina Lillet.
About 1986, tastes changed and Kina Lillet fell out of favor and Lillet dropped the name Kina, along with the quinine. Today, they offer Lillet Blanc which is supposed to contain quinine, but it’s not the same. Calling this a Vesper today, is just not the same either. In Rochester, NY, there is a pub and grill named,‘The Vesper.’
The Vesper (pub and grill), have of course, what they call, The Vesper Martini. Just remember, Kina Lilliet has not been made since 1986. The Rochester pub relies on Lillet Blanc, which is labeled to contain quinine. But it’s not the same as Kina Lillet. If you scroll down the page of the website to their signature drink offerings, you will find what they call, ‘The Vesper’ and how it is made.
The Vesper
“A twist on the classic martini. James Bond made it famous, and if it’s good enough for 007, it’s good enough for you. You’ll feel classier immediately. Shaken, not stirred, with Zamir Vodka, Plymouth Gin, Lillet Blanc & lemon twist.”
The description according to their website at rocthevesper.com
There are two main problems with this. For one thing, missing is Gordon’s Gin. I’m not so concerned about their choice of vodka, but Lillet Blanc is NOT, the same thing as, Kina Lillet. So how could this be good enough for you, when it would NOT be good enough for 007?
The original drink was 3 parts Gordon’s gin, 1 part Vodka and ½ part of Kina Lillet, shaken (“not stirred”), with lemon peel. Despite that Lillet lists quinine on the label of its Lillet Blanc, it’s not the same and no mater what The Vesper of Rochester calls itself or its drink, it is not The Vesper Martini!
This entire post all began with my trying to discover and make for my brother-in-law Kevin, a Vesper Martini. Before continuing, this is a good spot for some back story.
I have painted a lot of houses inside and out in my past. I used a lot of oil-based or alkyd paint. To clean my brushes, I often used turpentine. Turpentine smelled like gin and gin like turpentine to me. I was danged if I was going to paint all day then drink anything that smelled like what I cleaned my brushes with! I did not like gin to put it mildly! Then in 2014, my wife and I were in Australia.
After a local fair one evening, son Jonathan and I stopped for a nightcap on the way home. He ordered a gin and tonic. I was in a curious mood and I asked if I could try it. I did and thereafter, it has become a favorite drink. Even it has certain ingredients I like. The gin is Bombay Sapphire. I like its blend of botanicals. Recently, I have once again confirmed my mother’s description of my personality which is, I have, “Champagne tastes with a beer pocketbook. “ 🙂
I have an acute sense of smell so what can I say, if I don’t like how something smells, I will not like how it tastes. I discovered Fever Tree brand of Tonic. A four pack of 12 ounce bottles can cost around $5.00. One can buy other tonics for a lot less, but to me, there is nothing better than Fever Tree tonic which has, real quinine in it!
I was never fond of vodka. To me, vodka was mostly a clear alcohol with little taste that blends well with other ingredients like fresh squeezed lime juice and simple syrup, for my beloved Vodka gimlet over ice. Believe it or not, I also use vodka in my pie dough to retard the gluten process when making pie. Maybe you can make pie? I could not. My recipe is about the same as any other, but I use half as much chilled water and replace it with chilled vodka. Science allows me to make a flaky, tasty crust every single time. The alcohol cooks out and there is no taste of vodka left behind, just delicious crust which really is, maybe 90% of what makes great pie! By the way, my taste buds have evolved. Not all vodkas are equal!!! I use and prefer Tito’s. And it’s made in the USA.
Martinis? Gin? Vodka? Some of both? Me? No way, until discovering…
…micro brewed beers (micro-breweries), are no longer a niche market. They have become the standard for excellence and quality, our tastes demand. Local wines? The same has become true. Local hard ciders are becoming hugely popular. Local distillers are producing gins and vodkas (and other spirits), which worry the big-name-brands. They should be worried! Often the locals are far superior in quality, purity and most importantly, taste, but also, they are often less expensive! Why? Put your money into the end product and less on marketing, transport overseas and hype!
These small independent breweries, wineries and distilleries may not have the volume of the big ones, but they certainly make up for it in quality and imagination and incredible innovations and taste explosions. Why in fact, the US government hold them to greater standards than the big established brands. Pretty much, you do get what you pay for from the little ones and a whole lot more!! And on the economic side, these small drink makers probably contribute greatly to the employment market. Small breweries, wineries and distilleries are everywhere nowadays, state by state. And all those that work in them that I have met, all seem to love their work where they see themselves as personally invested crafters of quality, rather than mere unknown workers of volume, for BIG-corp’s profit and bottom line. Hey, I believe there is much to be said about putting love in what you do. I believe love can actually improve the quality and taste of what is made!
We recently returned from a trip and visited two small distilleries in Tennessee. One makes a true, 100%, excellent bourbon and a gin (more about the gin later), and the other had excellent and to my surprise, both a clear whiskey not oaked (not aged in oak barrels for that distinct taste and color of traditional whiskey), and a clear Rye (also not oaked). We bought some of all mentioned. That good? Oh, YES, that good!!! Oh, and one more thing about that little distillery (maybe a few thousands of gallons made per year as opposed to the big boys that produce tens-of-thousands of gallons an hour, day after day. H Clark Distillery is the first distillery in 106 years that can accurately and legally call its product, bourbon. Not even Jack Daniels, Dickel or Pritchards can call their offerings Bourbon! To do so, certain ingredients must be used and in certain ways. They all do this. The big three mentioned have another step they use, which is an organic process, but it disqualifies them from calling their product, bourbon. H Clark Distillery in TN, only uses the standard practice and ages their bourbon in brand-new oak barrels, for the taste, smoothness and amber color of true Tennessee, 100%, pure American Made Bourbon! And they make an incredible gin to rival say, Gordon’s gin! Again, more about this later.
So, what have we seen and learned and where have we been up to this point? Taking all the best points, our libation should be poured liquids to share with one another; to celebrate life, toast each other to-the-day and share some moments together. Should these beverages include alcohol, they should be finely crafted to produce the best taste possible and should be consumed responsibly. Now to be true, to drink responsibly, would NOT include alcohol or any drug or substance which can diminish our ability to act in an emergency, in the best and fastest way possible. But if we do drink or will drink, let us do so as the old adage says, with—“All things in moderation!”
One last thing to do here before giving my recipe for the Mano a Mano-tini or in short, the Mano-tini. What is in a name or what’s in a name? For one thing, I for one, am not about to try to make a Vesper, when ALL of the exact ingredients are not used (Kina Lillet is NOT available)! And I am NOT going to try to replicate it, while using alternatives and call it a Vesper. I will not even use the words Vesper Martini. But I will do two things. First, I will make, name and claim my own drink. Secondly, I will shorten Martini to just ‘tini,’ which will still suggest the type of drink it may be listed under, in the world of bar guides and mixology.
Have you ever heard or seen the words “mano a mano?” For a long time, I thought they were Latin words. They are not, they are originally, Spanish. I and many people thought and many still do think that they mean, man to man. That’s an easy stretch when the first three letters of mano is man. Is that sexist? Could not “man” be an all-inclusive noun, to describe all men, women and children as in mankind or humanity? I think yes, yes it could. But what is its meaning?
The god of words since 1823, Meriam Webster, defines “mano a mano” as: “in direct competition or conflict especially between two people.” Please note the words “two people” as I have underscored them.
OK, I can sort of understand how these words have and are still being used today. Perhaps images of hand to hand combat come to mind? And the original meaning of these Spanish words are pretty close to that (minus the combat part). 🙂
“Mano a Mano” just means, “hand to hand.” I like that, especially when talking about making a drink by hand, making it by hand and hand-ing’ it off to another to enjoy! From the hand of the bartender to the hand of the bar-sitter, from one lover’s hand to another’s hand, from one hand of a friend or an associate (even a stranger), to another’s hand, let us celebrate life and each other!
So without further adieu, I give you, ‘The Mano a Mano- (from my hand to yours) tini! 🙂
Most of its ingredients are made in America, and fitting and proper since most likely the “tini,” began in the USA!
Mano a Mano-Tini or Mano-Tini
Ingredients:
3 Parts H Clark Distillery Tennessee Gin (prevalent juniper notes at the start and finish)
Note: Previously, I was using Tito’s Vodka, but they have gotten “too big for the britches” in my opinion or for sure, they have priced themselves out of my pocketbook! I now use New Amsterdam Vodka. Just as good as Tito’s (that was compared to Absolute), if not better, is made and bottled in Modesto, CA USA, and is moderately priced.
1 Part New Amsterdam Vodka (made in California and comparable to Absolute and less expensive)
½ part of Lillet Blanc (French)
3-4 drops Cinchona (quinine distillate from South America)
3 parts H Clark Distillery Gin (made in Tennessee, USA)
1 part New Amsterdam vodka (made in California, USA)
1/2 part Lillet Blanc (made in France)
3-4 Drops of Quinnine Distillate (made with cinchona bark from South America)
Lime peel twist
Instructions:
Add gin, vodka, Lillet, and the cinchona (quinine) drops to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into martini glass. Garnish with lime peel (I like lime better than lemon peel, but use either to your liking.
If you use lemon peel, maybe you can call it, ‘The American 007’ and when “Bond, James Bond,” is in the USA, he will like it. 🙂 But mine is made with lime peel. I am for short just calling it, ‘The Mano-tini’
This recipe may be found (when Published) at:
The Gathering Place
Holidays & Special Occasions Entertaining
by Dahni
© 2013-2017 all rights reserved
For more information on my sources see the following websites, links provided below.
http://www.newamsterdamspirits.com/
https://www.lillet.com/intl-en/
https://nevadapharm.com/shop/cinchona-bark/
In closing, H. L. Mencken called the martini,
“the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet”
and E. B. White called it,
“the elixir of quietude”
P.S. Kevin loved it and asked for another. We both drank two! 🙂
By Dahni & I-Magine
©️ 2018, all rights reserved
From my Work in Progress: ‘The Gathering Place Cook Book’, under the category of: beverages
Dahni at The Gathering Place
Opus Unique
“The Music of You”
By Dahni
© 2017, all rights reserved
Tuning heartstrings
Summon it all up and project
Dramatic effect
Walk on a darkened life stage
Unannounced and unknown
You are a stand
You are a microphone in hand
A single focused spotlight is upon you
Silent crescendo
Silent expectation rises
Will you sing A cappella
Will you voice something written
Will you sing impromptu
The eyes and ears of hearts trill
Waiting loudly in the seats of silence
Compelling
Adagio Allegro
Cadenza Canon
Resonance Dissonance
Dynamics Harmonics
Tremolo Vibrato
Capriccio Concerto
Cavatina Grandioso
Interlude Intermezzo
Fifths Finale
Pages of blank staffs
No trebles or bass clefs
No signatures
No keys
No Majors
No Minors
No sharps
No flats
Only you can write and play the notes
Encore
Take thy bow virtuoso maestro
But first-
The world awaiting, is silently seated
This music is to be composed
To be perfectly played
Sung as if with angelic voice
Unique as if from heaven
Pure as if from the lips of God
Are not in the notes
But in the rests
A beautiful silence
Every heart and every soul
In anticipation
A beautiful silence
Awaiting the Opus Unique of…
You
It is your time
It is your moment
This the music of you
From the collection: ‘Staffs of Life’ By the same author
Short url to this post: https://wp.me/p4jGvr-14p
By Dahni
© 2026, all rights reserved
Some books begin with an outline.
Sips with Susan began with a habit.
Not a business plan.
Not a publishing goal.
Just an evening… a glass… and a willingness to try something a little different.
At The Gathering Place, drinks were never just drinks.
They were conversation starters.
Excuses to sit longer.
Reasons to laugh one more time before calling it a night.
It started with a Moscow Mule — changed just enough to make it ours.
Then another variation.
Then another.
Before long, we were doing what creative people often do without realizing it — we were keeping track.
Not because we planned a book…
but because we didn’t want to forget.
Names were given.
Tweaks were made.
Favorites were repeated.
And somewhere along the way, the number quietly reached one hundred.
That’s when the idea finally spoke clearly:
Maybe this isn’t just a collection of drinks.
Maybe it’s a collection of moments worth saving.
That thought became
Sips with Susan — Volume 1.
Not as a commercial product first —
but as a memory preserved.
Today, the book exists.
But more importantly, the gathering continues.
If you’d like to explore the finished collection, you can find it through I-Imagine Press, where it is available in both free and paid editions.
And if you’d like to see where the drinks truly live —
where new ones are still being created —
visit The Gathering Place, where the stories behind the glass are still unfolding.
Because in the end, this was never just about cocktails.
It was about connection.
And connection, like a good drink, is best when shared.
— Dahni
Explore Sips with Susan — Volume 1:
➡ https://I-ImaginePress/products
gatheringplace.blog 
