Peregrinating Omphaloskepsis

I am indeed in love, but only with an espresso machine. A friend and I purchased a Rancilio Silvia semi-automatic and a doserless Rocky grinder, effectively entering ourselves into coffee geek-dom and probably ending our dating lives (if nothing else because I now only have enough cash saved up for two dates…which means if the first date goes well, I will have to tank the second).

Anyways, I’m still a ways away from pulling ‘god’ shots on it, but I’m consistently getting better shots than I have gotten anywhere outside of the high-end NYC coffee shops. For your viewing pleasure:

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Two weeks ago I headed south for my sisters graduation.  Even though it felt a bit rushed, I enjoyed every moment I got with my family.  My brother and sister-in-law are having a second, their first is now 11 months old,  Kristin’s got a sweet job lined up for 08-09 and my parents are doing just fine.

On my last night there, we went to a tie and button down shirt steak house.  When our 7.30 reservations
turned into a 9.00 seating, though, we had to break up the formal celebration.  Katie wasn’t feeling well, so they bugged out around 9.30 and my sister had to be somewhere at 10.00.  They left my parents and I with a a $200 lobster and lamb kebabs, given to us for free as recompense for the restaurants terrible seating service that evening.

As we enjoyed our superb meal, we talked about church.  Jonathan and Katie had opened my eyes by sharing some of their difficulties as new parents.  So, as we talked about church, their situation entered into my thoughts.

My parents go to pretty amazing lengths to help J&K with Grace and through this next pregnancy.  And they love and are happy to do it.  Jonathan and Katie and Grace are their children. I seriously doubt, however, that anyone in their church (or in most churches) would do so much for JK&G as mom and dad do; I know I don’t do as much for the people in mine.

And yet, the church is a family.  As Christians, we don’t believe in an abstract God.  We believe in the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth, and one of the things we learn from him is that God is our Father; the Scriptures talk about Jesus as Son; we are adopted children of the living God; and the New Testament writers are addressing their letters to their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Why do the Scriptures use this language?  Because as members of the church we are supposed to act towards God like a child to a Father and we are to act towards one another as members of a family.

As I reflected on the lavish love my mom shows to my grandparents every week, giving up most of her days to drive them places, the love mom and dad show when they buy me a plane ticket so that I can be at Kristin’s graduation or when they give up their plans to take care of Grace so Jonathan and Katie can have some time, I’m stuck asking myself, “what am I willing to do for my brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in Christ?” Am I willing to shoulder their burdens in the way I am happy and willing to do for my family?

I’ve been working at Starbucks now for 6 months. Though it would be an overstatement to say I’m a great employee, I have learned quite a bit and I like working there. Nevertheless, In order to supplement my income, I am applying for a GRE teaching job at Kaplan. The hiring process happens in four stages.

1. An online application
2. A 5 minute audition/presentation
3. A 30 minute one-on-one interview
4. 2 months of training

I am waiting to hear back after the 5 minute presentation, but it went spectacularly; I really don’t think it could have gone better. I presented on “How to order coffee at a coffee shop”. I could have just as well entitled it, “How to read a coffee menu” or “what the heck is the difference between coffee and espresso”. Here are the basics of what was said.

Why You Should Care

When I say I’m going to speak about ordering coffee at a coffee shop, I imagine two responses.

Some of you have already tuned me out. Coffee is a synonym for yucky and gross… or mud water, stained teeth, and bad breath. If you fall in this group, I totally sympathize with you; not even a year in Italy could not cure me of such an opinion. There is one simple problem, though: coffee is everywhere. No matter how much you avoid the beans, you’re going to bump up against their watery ilk somewhere. 50% of Americans drink 3+ cups a day. Even more have a coffee related beverage, a latte, a cappuccino, something, every week.

You’re on a date and your girlfriend wants Starbucks, but wants you to order for her; or you’re at work and your boss sends you on a coffee run…but wants a decaf double soy extra hot no foam latte and you forget the order; or you’re watching Zoolander and they start talking about orange Mocha Frappuccinos. The stuff is everywhere; knowing something about it is a good idea.

The other group of you, the majority, drink coffee every day. You’re thinking, “I know how to order coffee. Why would I care about this?” Hopefully, this will open your eyes to a few other possibilities on the menu, things you’ve seen or heard of but have never known how to order.

Two Basic Option

Starbucks has 68,000 different coffee combinations. I’m not going to go through them all. What I want to do is give you the building blocks that all these combinations play off.

COFFEE

BREWED COFFEE | ESPRESSO

When you know you want coffee, these are your two basic options: brewed coffee or espresso. Brewed refers to the process where ground coffee beans are mixed with hot water and passed through a filter, pouring out the brown liquid we call coffee. There are about a dozen different ways to brew coffee, espresso being one of them. The above division is between all other forms of brewed coffee (on the left) and espresso because espresso is such a distinct form of brewed coffee. Espresso means water was passed through the beans at extremely high pressure resulting in a more highly caffeinated, stronger tasting drink.

So how do you know whether you want espresso or brewed coffee? Espresso has more caffeine per ounce (an ounce of caffeine is called a shot), but espresso is also more expensive per ounce.

1. If you want cheap caffeine, drink brewed coffee.
2. If you don’t want much to drink, but you want a caffeine kick, get a double (two shots/ounces) of espresso; or,
3. If you want a stronger flavor, go with espresso.

Fancifying

The other thing to consider when deciding between brewed coffee and espresso is what you’re going to do/add to the coffee.

Those are the basic additions and drink names. Adding steamed milk (which usually means a bit of foam will soften the taste of the coffee, while syrups will almost get rid of it. An Americano is a very strong form of coffee, but is more or less the same thing re: taste.

Next time your at a coffee shop, hopefully this will help you understand, a little better, what’s going on.

Apparently the Greeks punished adulterers (moichoi) by raphanidosis: stuffing a radish up the ‘fundament‘¹.

Here is a funny Latin conversation from Winston Churchill’s autobiography:

“Then why does mensa [in the vocative] also mean ‘O table’?” I inquired, “and what does ‘O table’ mean?”
“Mensa, ‘O table,’ is the vocative case,” the master replied.
“But why ‘O table’?” I persisted in genuine curiosity.
“’O table’—you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table.”
And then seeing that he was not carrying me with him: “You would use it in speaking to a table.”
“But I never do,” I blurted out in honest amazement.
“If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely,” was his conclusive rejoined.

Winston Churchill, My Early Life (1930) as quoted in Carpe Diem by Harry Mount

Sin of sins, I’ve never seen The Big Lebowksi. Well. OK. That’s not so bad. I have a friend who’s never seen Star Wars; it could be much worse.

Just about every time I go home, I flip through my parents Blockbuster-like-collection of DVD’s. When I see The Big Lebowski cover, I think, “Oh. I wanna watch that.” The DVD, however, has been missing since college. MIGUEL! You really need to give that back. Or watch it with me.

I am thinking of watching it, but I want to do a double feature. The Big Lebowski is (putatively) based on The Big Sleep, a hard-boiled detective film of the 1940’s. Time magazine called the book one of the best 100 English language novels of the 20th century (more or less) and William Faulkner co-wrote the screenplay of the 1945 version.

Is anyone up for that?