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Coffee
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Coffee (in reply to Aretium)
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It used to be in Mexico that cafe con leche was served a certain way.
The waiter would set a thick glass of a certain shape on the table. He would reappear with two pots, one coffee, one hot milk. He would pour coffee until you nodded your head or raised an eyebrow, followed by steaming milk to the brim.
You would add raw sugar to taste, and warm your hands on the glass. But it has been 30 years at least since I have seen this. If you ask for cafe con leche you are likely to get a cup of American style coffee with a plastic thimble full of "non-dairy creamer."
My brother did his medical residence in south Louisiana, the land of Cajun coffee and creole pastries. When he visited Mexico City in the 1960s he had been at the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston for a couple of years. I took him to one of my favorite cafes for coffee and pan dulce. He exclaimed, "Ah, the first decent coffee I've had since we left Louisiana."
Before we moved to Baton Rouge in the fall of 1971, I went to look for a house. I stopped for a cup of coffee at a Holiday Inn just short of the bridge across the Mississippi river into downtown Baton Rouge.
The waitress asked whether I wanted Texas coffee, or real coffee. "The company makes us offer Texas coffee," she explained.
In the faculty lounge of the Louisiana State University Mathematics Department, there was a double boiler on the stove all day long, with a "sock" full of ground beans in the upper chamber. As the day wore on the brew got thicker.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 4 2014 21:22:26
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to aeolus)
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While Caesar Kleberg still ran the Norias Section of the King Ranch, my father was invited every year to a deer hunt. I was taken along once, the last year Mr. Caesar was alive. My brother was 13 and included in the invitation. I was only nine, but I raised hell until my father agreed--somewhat reluctantly, it seemed to me. Of course it was fine with Mr. Caesar. He was sure that I would behave myself.
The deal was, you could stay up as late as you wanted, you could drink as much as you wanted--if you were old enough, of course--you could play poker as much as you wanted--for cash, no IOUs. There was no fighting, and you had to be at the breakfast table at 4:30 AM to say, "Good morning, Mr. Caesar."
To insure attendance at breakfast, it was the same ritual as you described at La Parra, guests were awakened with a steaming cup of coffee passed under their noses. As you probably know, the people who worked at the big Norias ranch house were mostly vaqueros who had been injured on the job. So you woke up to a "Buenos Dias" from a one-eyed, or one-armed or peg-leg grizzled Kineño, sometimes grinning wolfishly in hopes of a shocked reaction. I loved it. I didn't get to drink coffee at home.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 5 2014 1:44:37
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Aretium)
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Years ago I was invited to the opening of a Himalaya-Panorama show in Leipzig.
We logged in a Hotel that looked quite uninspiring. Just an ungly concrete cube. But the staff would care and the rooms were nicely tidy etc.
We returned from the opening pretty drunk around 4 am and ordered breakfast. After a short while things were delivered and taking off the lids an incredible odeur filled the room.
The coffee was without words, and they obviously had a baker of the old style. No laquered foam-like roles like usual today, but of the heavy, dense kind like they used to be common until 30 years ago. What a flavour again!
Same with the scrumbled eggs and just everything.
It was like travelled back to grandma´s cuisine in a time machine. ( See, it actually works.)
Everything was so delicious that we ordered another round of it all and afterwards went to bed like on angel wings.
It had been the first time of such rich flavour after many years and afterwards there was only the coffee beans I brought with myself from Costa Rica which presented a special taste - oh, wait, plus some fine sips I had in a newly opened specialiced café in my Berlin quarter where they make you selected sorts for quite a price - ...
Anyway, no good coffee for me since about 8 years now.
Have just recently scouted a manual grinder. Remains where to find passabale beans here, not to mention for passable price. The standard trash I buy, though spun out with roasted grain costs around 12-15 bucks per 200 g. Need to see yet what a recently opended shop asks for beans. Probably double the price.
- That while probably still weak in taste, for the idea of preserving flavour through air tight storing has not yet been understood around here. Things of vaporizing flavour are being held in large quantities in the open.
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 5 2014 9:08:56
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aeolus
Posts: 765
Joined: Oct. 30 2009
From: Mier
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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My first hunt was in 1948 and came about through a lucky circumstance: our neighbors in San Antonio had a connection to Judge Lee Lytton (Kenedy county) an office earlier held by my grandfather, and he asked Sarita Kenedy if he could take the neighbor's boy hunting. Sarita told him yes if you take Edward (me) too knowing that we were friends. That was just so thoughtful of her and typical. So for my years of hunting I stayed in Lee's home in Sarita.
A few years ago on a local forum a guy gave a description of his first hunt and I was moved to take pen in hand, or more accurately keyboard and word processor to offer my remembrance.
Truth at first light
With apologies to Papa
On the sleeping porch facing south, in the still of early morning, the coyotes now quiet,, with only the drone of a lone long haul semi to be heard, from a far piece, the whine of its engine beginning as a low hum, then building slowly, implacably, irresistibly, obeying the laws of physics, the Doppler effect, to then recede as it came. The muggy heat of South Texas saturated, even in late November, the air, requiring that we must be in the pastures at first light, when it was cool enough for the bucks to emerge before retreating deep into the brush during the heat of the day. At 15, I needed no second call to arise and dress hurriedly, alive with anticipation, for the hunt to begin. But today was to begin with a singular event: seated at the breakfast table, addressing our bacon and eggs, we hear a low whistle from outside. Within, but just barely, the loom of the porch light, an ancient, or so it seemed to me, vaquero, too humble to approach the screen door, informed our host: Señor Johnny es mort. That was news: one of the last descendents of the founder of the vast LaParra Ranch had died. Fortunately it did not alter our plans for the day and we piled into the jeep, still in the predawn hours and headed onto the trackless pastures of the ranch. The way of the hunt was to drive slowly through the brush for deer, who like all animals are curious creatures and are not frightened by a vehicle driven slowly. The thing is to stay silent and search for the pray who with its tan fur, blends well into the semi arid landscape. At last our host stopped and pointed to a buck no further than 40 yards I would say, standing within a light stand of mesquite. Silently I left the jeep and went to a kneeling position to steady the rifle. I fired one shot which was immediately followed by a loud whack of the bullet hitting its mark. The animal turned and ran but as though blind, ran into a bit of brush: It's a gone buck, said our host and guide. Sure enough as we drove up to it, it was motionless but our guide delivered the coup de grâce with a .22 pistol as a precaution. I was numb with the enormity, or so it seemed to me, of the event. The ritual for a first kill is to cut off the penis and wipe the blood of the animal on the cheeks of the shooter but as their was a woman with us I was deprived of this seminal event in my young life.
If you are interested in the history of that part of the world you might try:
Petra's Legacy: The South Texas Ranching Empire of Petra Vela and Mifflin Kenedy by Jane Clements Monday, Frances Brannen Vick
I am a descendant of Petra but as luck would have it she died before Mifflin and wishing to keep the ranch intact bought out his step-daughter's claim to the estate. Bummer.
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Date Mar. 5 2014 11:14:26
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Aretium)
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I love the rich taste and smell of coffee in the early morning. The smell alone gets my juices flowing, and that first swallow can only be described as heavenly nectar. When I was growing up I was indifferent to coffee. But I spent a few years in the U.S. Air Force and developed a passion for it. Ever since, throughout a career in the U.S. Foreign Service and now post-retirement, I drink about four mugs of coffee (always with cream and sugar) in the morning while reading the newspaper. When I am overseas and it is available, I always read the "International Herald Tribune," and here in Washington, DC the "Washington Post," but always with a cup of coffee at hand.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 5 2014 13:35:55
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Having lived a total of eight years in Indonesia and Malaysia, I can attest to how good Sumatran coffee can be at its point of origin. There is a very flavorful (although quite expensive) coffee known in Malay and Indonesian as "Kopi Luwak." ("Luwak" is the Malay/Indonesian term for the Palm Civet, sometimes incorrectly called a "civet cat.") Kopi Luwak is made from coffee berries ingested by the Palm Civet, the beans of which are then excreted with the Palm Civet's feces and collected for processing as coffee beans. It is said that the flavor of these beans, and the resulting coffee made from them, is enhanced because the Palm Civet only chooses to ingest the finest coffee berries, as well as because of processes occurring in the digestive tract. It should be noted that Kopi Luwak refers to a method of processing coffee beans. It is not a "variety" of coffee.
Kopi Luwak is available in some shops in the United States, but one must be careful that one is purchasing the real thing. There are packages labeled as "Kopi Luwak" that are not, in fact, the real thing, even though they may have been imported from Indonesia. (Shades of "genuine" Rolex watches one can purchase for $50 in Jakarta street markets.)
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 5 2014 22:26:23
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Aretium)
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No rebuke. Dealing with a general circumstance.
It is understandable how customs will be adapted, but the adaption / deemed legitimation won´t change on the effects.
Maybe not so much in those times, but since WWII pogroms at the latest, people should realize that in the end everyone is individually responsible for his doings / always due to check back on one´s culture.
( I know that we are not there yet, but we should.)
-
Aeolus,
The bob cat you missed out on.
Would you have regrets now on missing out if it had been you and the bob cat without tools in a room?
As long as there been no needs of survival, hence kind of a ( one-sided) "sport" going, matters of fairness should be considered, I think.
And it appears obvious to me that you would have no regrets about having not met a furious bob cat with bare hands.
-
I used to have hours long disputes with my hunting brother in law at glasses of vine, and you could say that he always lost the debates. hehe 
However, after all with his permission I´d say.
I think he actually seeked the nights in the wood for to allow himself some schnapps ( hiding the consume from my sister); not so much really for pleasure with shooting exposed creatures.
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 7 2014 14:57:36
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to aeolus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: aeolus
quote:
I think he actually seeked the nights in the wood for to allow himself some schnapps ( hiding the consume from my sister); not so much really for pleasure with shooting exposed creatures.
Well yes that too for the adults in our party as in most cases it removed them from the control of their wives. In one instance, having achieved our limit by Friday, on Saturday morning at about 9 am our host and my friends father went into the dining room with a bottle of whisky and a couple of glasses intent on some serious drinking. Immediately the wives barged in all atwitter: no, no! And like all American men they folded. But there were night time excursions that provided for ample opportunity for surreptitious tippling. Never let the wife get the upper hand.
On the way to Monterrey, Mexico to do some business for my grandfather, we stopped in Nuevo Laredo for the night. My younger cousin, along for the experience and to meet Mexican contacts, wanted to see what the famous Boys' Town red-light district was about, so I took him to the biggest bar, Papagayo's. It was packed full, far busier than I had ever seen it. We had to wait for a table, and I was relieved to see that all the girls were occupied, fearing my cousin might succumb to temptation.
Speaking to a man seated at the table with us, I commented on the crowd. He informed me that it was the first night of deer season, and the crowd were "hunters" liberated from domesticity.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 7 2014 23:09:18
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aeolus
Posts: 765
Joined: Oct. 30 2009
From: Mier
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Aretium)
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At some point , I can't remember when, in the parking lot of the Max Starke
Park in Seguin, I came across an AJS British motorcycle resplendent in lustrous black enamel; gold leaf hand drawn logo; polished aluminum cases. I was smitten. Eventually finding a way to acquire one, I was soon to discover the beauty was skin deep. Nevertheless, having been introduced to the fine points of the bull fight by my oldest sister in Mexico City, at their enormous Plaza de Torres, , I rode my steed (as per Che Guevara;s description, peeing oil)northward to Reynosa to see the celebrated Dominguin. I was not disappointed. Of particular note was his usual practice of placing the banderias himself with a grace which would have made Nureyev envious.
Departing I came upon a line of cars backed up from the traffic. In passing them on the right I came upon a car with a few of my Hispanic classmates, football compadres. We chatted briefly and I told them of the wondrous performance I had witnessed. They had not much to say and I had guessed their purpose in this somewhat desolate area: Boys Town. Avoiding that of Matamoras so as not to risk seeing a recognizable face.
Any male visiting the Texas border is inevitably shown Boys Town as a prime local attraction. It's really sad but it provides earrings I suppose for a few years. What happens then?
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Date Mar. 13 2014 22:00:33
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) didn't turn out well. I think I had two hours of sleep that night. 
