CI, now bloviating more efficiently
Wednesday, October 4th, 2006would this blog churn 500 mystical words on the fundamental human needs at least partially met by coffee and not post them here? why, no!
Archive for category ‘screeds’
would this blog churn 500 mystical words on the fundamental human needs at least partially met by coffee and not post them here? why, no!
SERBC: slow-blogged scraps
Monday, October 2nd, 2006nagging serbc remainders, bulleted for easy culling. * exhaustive coffee innerneck trollers already know that this blog's primary spro-progenitor is profoundly broken -- not unlike a barista competition! no, wait. the comparison applies to the other machine, the antiquated levered wonder that requires a painstaking amount of wiping, bleeding and ...
competition backing: the economic analogy
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006roughly on par with its usual logical pace, this blog just discovered what it REALLY meant to say about, you know, larded corporate zombies winning all the barista competitions. slog through all 72 76 77 80 88 89 comments, or go straight to the economic analogy! this blog is calling ...
schnaikes
Friday, September 22nd, 2006was all the bench-testing and advance slobbering over the la marzocco gs3 really worth it? the price seems only to be inflating. this could be because delays have fattened production costs -- or because slobbering + delays = a higher tolerance for premium pricing!
metallic accessories, enshrined
Thursday, September 21st, 2006yes. yes, i do. i carry a slightly tapered ridgeless double portafilter basket everywhere i go. shades, car keys, ridgeless. right front pocket. my thigh bears its imprint. there are problems with this arrangement, of course. the occasional glances of alarm at what appears to be a "chaw of terbacky" ...
CI, genially co-opted by the professional ranks
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006it turns out the perfervid poet himself quite effortlessly dismantles our passing quibble with his usbc performance in the inner bowels of the comments section -- two months after the fact! mighty charitable of him to wait so long. seriously. read jon's truly scintillating elucidation -- and watch us madly ...
not your everyday chaw of terbacky
Sunday, September 17th, 2006you know how it is, when about 17 possible blogposts are percolating ... er, extracting themselves down through the wrists and knuckles toward the fingertips, but none are quite complete ideas. half-baked hackery? never stopped you before, you say. hmmm, well, yes. still, something should be ready for typing by, ...
more humble webby contributions
Thursday, September 7th, 2006having scanned the stat page this morning, this blog just wants to say it is humbled and honored to receive page views from people googling such high-minded word clusters as "flame+Nick Cho+Mark Prince." also: "espresso+lack+South." anything this blog can do for more reasoned and enlightening coffee dialogue... UPDATE: add "pearls before swine ...
CI does the extraction factor juggle
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006the sulawesi, it tasted of baked hash. maybe some newt tail. extraordinarily gritty. thus, conjuring the notion that brew temperature is how one buys espresso solubles, the conclusion was reached that we were, ah, overpaying. that is, the extraction of oils was heavily tainted by the extraction of bean infrastructure ...
labelous deficiencies observed
Thursday, August 31st, 2006this blog's beef with equipment supplier extraordinaire chris nachtrieb is NOT that he plasters his business vehicles with espresso machine images -- that's rareified geekery that makes this blog look placid and erudite by comparison! no, we quibble with the guru's newly birthed foray into specialty roasted coffee ... ...
support your coffee processing assistant
Monday, August 28th, 2006the boss's porch-grown coffee cherries are now de-muscilageed, or however you say it. mystically patio dried and treated with estate-like reverence, their wilting husk remainders nonetheless prompt this blog to marvel: the pry-with-your-thumb method is for the birds. if opposable thumbs are the ethiopian tool of choice, then theirs must ...
solemn huzzahs for notable nativities
Saturday, August 26th, 2006rumor has it that nate the finger -- who has an uncanny ability to produce sublime-as-espresso single-origin roasts in a jerry-rigged, flea-market-purchased, lidless popcorn popper -- has produced new offspring. hopefully the coffee-roasting sort. in celebration, we'll post some of nate's early stabs at silvia-enabled latte art. because, ...
your chemically induced introspection, right here
Thursday, August 24th, 2006"i live for your coffee," said the lady for whom i was walking barefoot on midsummer asphalt while trying hard not to slosh the latte art. she was four doors down, the mother of a friend, and had managed to flatter me into whipping up a brimming beverage, hand delivered ...
the s&p 500 urges you to brew at home
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006scintillating, charbucks-earnings-drop-related thesis: "the cost of living well is rising more rapidly than the cost of living." which holds a certain ring of truth for this blog. it was only last week that the meager writer's salary failed to cover the cost of beaufort special reserve french import cheese for the ...
establishment shunning II
Friday, July 7th, 2006this blog's brother: an establishment shunner so thorough he even eschews the traditional use of the cup warmer! ... though a taxidermied boar's head would be better than paper towels, bro ...
our lady of esmeralda: exerting hemispheric pull
Sunday, June 25th, 2006forget trips across the lake -- this blog's chicago-bound brother tells me he may eschew the lake altogether (and intelly's sizeable markup on sister esmeralda) for a brief, eight-hour highway jaunt for the sole purpose of partaking in the lusty array of panamanian coffees on which this blog has rashly ...
CI’s strong suit: patient sobriety
Saturday, June 24th, 2006strangely enough, this blog has been humming (ok ... belting) a jarring medley of pining ditties, careening unpredictably from "she'll be coming around the mountain" to coldplay's "see you soon" to "someday my prince will come" from dawn to dusk. this may or may not have anything to do with ...
CI’s logistic-free journey to source
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006this blog had fomented evening plans including the consumption of the latest netflix installment, deep thoughts on the subject of pending panamanian goodness and perhaps shots from the long-neglected levered device. alas, it is becoming evident that when innocent bystanders realize you're the sort of blathering nutcase who would drop a ...
more public service, emanating from this blog’s very pores
Saturday, June 17th, 2006this blog feels it is its duty to inform you that barista-blogger james hoffmann just said "surfactant." also: "lactoglobulin." we don't even want to know what sort of edgy euphemisms those might be. it reminds us of an old and dense discussion on "foaming fractions" -- also known as "crema." this ...
advisory
Saturday, June 17th, 2006this blog doesn't mean to gloat -- ok, it does -- but it is about to immerse itself in the sober study of panama's best. you might ask this blog why three pounds of coffee is worth $100. easy! the blogwife didn't say no! in this peerless wasteland, a pursed lip ...
inanimate homage
Saturday, June 17th, 2006it was just one of those feckless days, when the wet-aroma wake of the blueberry bomb had even the bronze desk monkey indulging in a little kow-tow.
logic: touchstone of madness
Wednesday, June 14th, 2006now this, i say, is what this blog calls a truly visionary investment tool. it tells me, for example, that if i were to purchase every coffee that i currently drink at a local chain store, i would spend about $4,200 a year. this would seem to breathe new life ...
establishment shunning I
Monday, June 12th, 2006surreal, really, to discover that the same bush-bred brother who mere months ago was roasting in a hand-woven wire basket and grinding with a mortar and pestle now boasts a set-up mechanically superior to my own -- though the homemade espresso bar (complete with hand-hewn bamboo trim!) did flex a ...
foundational posits
Friday, June 9th, 2006as a general child-rearing principle, this blog favors toys that teach:
this blog … doth it protest too much?
Monday, June 5th, 2006the bitter juicy dregs at the bottom of my lemony cuppa yirg, clover-brewed, at chicago's newest intelly. also: nate the finger tries to share. if, say, you were a quality espresso heavyweight, one of the few nicely profitable trinitarian-wave companies with the ability to snap heads around and effect the sort ...
latent perks of weekend employment
Sunday, June 4th, 2006it turns out there are some very productive ways to write crime copy in a vacant saturday newsroom -- ways that tend to make one quite popular with the straggling weekend colleagues and produce the metabolic edge to stay ahead of the competition. fervent thanks to the bioluminescent cypriot for allowing ...
snivelling advisory
Friday, June 2nd, 2006to this blog's crushing chagrin, its, ahem, "day" job actually has it toiling late into the eve and hurling itself out of bed at the butt-crack of dawn -- even on saturday -- in order to chronicle the grisly details of a national crime story unfolding in its back yard ...
intelly: more than you wanted to know
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006signs your coffee joint is comfortably profitable: orange-paneled la marzoccos and flat-screen order displays looming overhead -- even though the order taker is about as far away as a technical judge at a barista competition. somewhere after the clover-brewed yirgacheffe, before the capp-to-go and in between the macchiato and random ...
“cloud gate” indeed
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006the city of chicago: spending taxpayer millions on controversial public art? ... or spending taxpayer millions propping up intelly's newest nearby location with the most gargantuan display of subliminal advertising known to mankind? this blog reports, you decide.
on the road: sock crust swilling
Friday, May 26th, 2006how does this blog respond to the peppy fan mail professing a daily affinity for CI snark? why, it lazily punts for five days straight! actually, we are meandering through the unenlightened midwest, where one has a better chance of finding hydrogenated corn-based bio-diesel than decent shottage. a ...
