Summer fun food and drink - a burning in Seattle · Monday September 15, 2008 by colin newell
Attended Seattle Coffee fest this weekend – overall it was a great time and I will have a much larger report on it shortly.
My rant is on the current issue with the new bio-eco friendly coffee and tea to-go cups that are appearing in cafes everywhere.
What happened was this: My wife and I were in a Bakery in Seattle and while Andrea was preparing her cup of Tea, the Eco-friendly cup collapsed in her hand splashing her with water just off the boil!
Angry I was yes. Frustrated indeed.
We immediately got ice on it and kept it iced for almost 3 hours and she did not need a hospital visit.
Ok. I know all about all the law suits over coffee and take out cups. It is old news. The real issue are these new eco friendly and biodegradable “paper” cups that collapse when you breathe on them… or start to biodegrade the moment the product is poured into them.
My wife dodged a bullet. Many people will not be dodging this bullet and there needs to be more testing of these new eco-friendly products.
Ironically, a gentleman at the next table came over and offered: “I saw the whole thing…” (me now thinking he is a lawyer…) and he turned his hand over revealing a massive weeping scald blister from when he burned his hand a week earlier in the same bakery.
Bakeries and cafes: Get with the program and stop putting your customers at risk!
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Summer fun food and drink - CBC TV Steven and Chris Show · Saturday August 16, 2008 by colin newell
The best thing about Food and Drink culture in Canada, I think, is sharing it with the ones you love… and sharing it with complete strangers.
And whether it is a TV thing, a radio spot or a newspaper article – I like the exposure that the food and cafe scene gets…
No. Not the exposure that I get… the exposure that the scene gets.
Because trust me, brothers and sisters, the message is much prettier than I am! If anyone recalls my appearance on WTN (The Womens Network) episode of “The Shopping Bags” – Well, they will recall that I was actually more wooden than Jean Claude Van Damme – my TV delivery a cross between a bad action hero, diction more like Horatio from CSI Miami crossed with the peppy patter of William Shatner tossed in to seal the deal.
This is why I am on the web.
Which is not to say that I will turn down a good offer. Because I rarely do.
But I had to pass on a wonderful opportunity to one of my most talented assistants in the last few days. After getting an offer from the producer of the CBC TV’s fabulously successful Steven & Chris Home show – to appear in Toronto next Tuesday – for a taping of one of their shows… about coffee no less, I had to acquiesce… fairly willingly I might add.
Because I have great people in Toronto – one in particular, Sara Lee Spector, the ever effervescent host and roast-mistress at St. Lawrence Markets Every Day Gourmet caffeine hot spot.
Toronto is a city of 5 million. And half of those people line up for her great lattes and cappuccinos at her lower level shop in the historic market on Front Street – Toronto.
And Sara has been in the business for going on 2 decades. So who could possibly know more about Toronto’s cafe culture than her?
Exactly. So I will stay put and plug the heck out of the event. Times and dates to follow!
Summer fun food and drink - Starbucks in decline chapter three · Tuesday July 29, 2008 by colin newell
In the race to win a large slice of the Australian coffee market, Starbucks acknowledged experiencing the business equivalent of a blown head gasket. 61 “under-performing” stores to be shuttered out of its total Aussie portfolio of 84.
Starbucks ambitions to be Aussie’s caffeinated Billabong of choice and its subsequent yewey have left investors and speculators saying hooroo to share value.
Buggah. Explanation of some of the words above? Aussie Slang
With 15,000 coffee shops globally and 600 stores in the US heading to the long paddock one has to ask: Where does it all end? 12,000 employees in the U.S. could be flipping pages in the help wanted section – so what’s next?
In my opinion, I see this more as a stage of healthy weight loss – kind of like Marlon Brando shedding a few pounds… at least… while he was alive.
Ok. Maybe not a really good example.
Starbucks can afford to shrink a little when you think about it for a moment. What other business can you name, that when you look down your main street in your town… you see a Starbucks… and when you move your head ever so slightly to the left or right… you see another Starbucks. I dare say you would not find that with a McDonalds… or a Subway… or… whatever. You get the point.
Heck. Starbucks is more ubiquitous than Vitreous Floaters – and more common than the Head Cold – There is so much Starbucks coffee consumed in Seattle, Washington alone that the caffeine levels in Puget Sound spike measurably at 10:20 AM and 3:20 PM every weekday.
So they can shrink a little. Sure their share price is falling faster than a gray squirrel base jumping from the penthouse level of my apartment building. This will be a golden opportunity at some point in the near future. After all, we are talking about coffee here – a infinitely renewable resource – with a captive audience… hopelessly addicted… I mean dependent on a healthful beverage rich in… antioxidants… yea.
One other thing – Starbucks would be well served to abort the gut-bomb breakfast items – The TurboChef, a malfunctioning Star-Trek replicator type device that reconstitutes breakfast sandwiches made several light years from here is not a great addition to a place that is supposed to smell like coffee. If I want a Sausage McMuffin (made fresh and on the spot…) you know where I am going to get it from!
And the squirrel. He is fine. Terminal velocity for a squirrel is about 3 miles an hour. He dusted himself off, threw back a quad espresso and got back to the serious task of getting his nuts together.
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Summer fun food and drink - Great coffee in Panama - a downside · Sunday July 27, 2008 by colin newell
Panama’s gourmet coffees fetch record prices for their prized flavors – and I know all too well just how wonderful Panama La Hacienda Esmeralda Geisha tastes – but the increasing demand has convinced some growers to clear land illegally… and plant in one of the country’s few protected highland forests.
Here are some facts. Coffee employs 12 to 15 million people World-wide, many of them complete families… all ages. And many of them live in a cycle of poverty. The average coffee bean changes hands over 100 times on its way from the coffee bush to your cup – often by people who never actually see the often – who live a World away from the environment that actually produces coffee.
The internet, on various levels, has changed some of that – for at least a some of these hard working folks: Online auctions and farm to roaster direct purchases have put the money where it belongs – in the hands of the farms (fincas) and the farmers and their community.
The upside is, the average family has gone from earning pennies on the pound to several dollars for a pound of green coffee – coffee you and I regularly pay 10 to 15$ a pound for roasted. This means food, health care, shelter (for the farmers) and an education for the children – and great coffee for you.
For Panama, having small tracts of incredible coffee that has been yielding upwards of $130/pound in the marketplace, the temptation to exploit this has been irresistible . Panama’s Environmental Protection Agency has uncovered rogue tracts of land in the Volcan Baru National Park, raising concerns that more park land could be endangered as the demand increases.
The nature preserve is ringed with coffee farms growing the country’s “geisha” beans, often described as the champagne of coffee for their subtle jasmine-like taste highly sought after by boutique roasters from North America, Europe and Japan. I have had this coffee. The descriptions do not do it justice – and if you do a google search, you will see that the net has been sprouting new Geisha sites every week.
And now, an insatiable demand for geisha beans have lured some growers well inside the park’s boundaries. It is ironic, but not surprising considering the kind of hardship coffee farmers have lived with.
The point of all of this? Get to know your coffee when you are drinking it. Get to know the farmers, the processes and the economy of coffee – look beyond the rim of your coffee cup and get the big picture.
Summer fun food and drink - Finding great coffee and cafes in Victoria B.C. · Tuesday July 15, 2008 by colin newell
Buon Amici’s – The Black Stilt Coffee Lounge – 2% Jazz – Bubby Roses – Habit Coffee and Culture – Sounds like Coffee – Discovery Coffee – and others.
Wherever you find your coffee and friendship or companionship… well, that is your best place. It is the best place… for you.
In the last 10 days or so we have had the fun exercise of polling our readers (and many people who have never seen this website before…) on where the Best cafe is in Victoria B.C. Canada.
It has been a fun, but largely pointless exercise… because the reality is: The great cafe is truly in the eye of the beholder. Some Examples:
(a.) Bubby Roses 2 Cafe – Andrea and I sat at Bubby Roses Bakery a few days ago while I spooned their Vegetarian chili into my tummy and shared some wonderful croissants.
At the next table was a very sweet looking young girl with crazy red hair sitting cross-legged in one of the chairs – and she was hand-writing a letter to her lover (and future husband) – Yes, I am naturally curious and yes, I have impeccable vision. He was somewhere far away – but she had this curious smile that would spontaneously appear when she checked out some of the people walking by. At some point a male friend appeared, asking her where her man was – she explained – and they sooned walked off down the Cook street sidewalk – hand in hand…
(b.) B.A.‘s – While at Buon Amici’s on Friday I talk with owner-creator Derek Lucas as he describes, in great detail, his model for the perfect cafe – his passion is measured in megawatts – his ideas flash pass me like a meteor shower. His clientele are urban professionals and all appear to be enjoying their environment.
(c.) The Drumroaster – At the Drumroaster Cafe South of Duncan (my pick for Island’s best cafe [maybe the next poll]) on Saturday Geir Oglend describes the latest and greatest pieces of new equipment for the leading edge cafe. Geir and his wife Pat run one of the few totally Mom and Pop third-wave places on Vancouver Island (and arguably British Columbia too) that is All Family oriented that produces coffee and espresso based drinks as good as they can possibly be – and the food is as good as it can possibly be as well. Bubby Roses, obsessed with every minute detail leader, Mark Engels, comes up with edibles that rival Geir’s – but they are neck and neck.
(d.) The Black Stilt Coffee Lounge is an interesting blend of fine design, eco-friendly deployment with an adult-oriented menu (they have a liquor license) – The coffee is good too. The staff are highly motivated, effusive, friendly and very professional. Half of the guests, tonight, were stationed behind lap-tops – surfing, texting, messaging and face-booking – some were even talking to each other. The space is warm – and even if you are alone, you feel like you are at home.
(e.) Habit Coffee and Culture is home to hipsters, scene-makers, artists, observers, hangers-on and wanna-bee’s – And yes, I am all of those things… especially that last one! If you are a hip chick or sick dude, you suck back your espresso at Habit – you might even find time to work on your sneer or perfect that utterly disinterested look.
So. Long story short. Buon Amici and Black Stilt may have cornered the market on the votes – but the reality is… The best cafe in Victoria B.C. Canada is the cafe you are sitting in right now. You know it better than I do.
But thanks for participating!
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