Espresso with a TWIST

Here's the link to my Spill the Beans coffee column in yesterday's HTR. The article is about a cool new espresso gadget called the Mypressi TWIST. I need to point out an important error in the edited version (or more properly, altered version) of the article that went to print. In the article I submitted I had written the second sentence to read "Unfortunately, the price of a quality machine forces many more people to assign such units wish list-only status." I also ended the article with "The Mypressi TWIST offers excellent value at its $170 price tag."

In the published version of the article the staff, for whatever reason, combined the two sentences so that the second sentence erroneously reads "Unfortunately, the $170 price tag of a quality machine forces many more people to assign such units wish list-only status."

Quality counter-top espresso machines do not cost $170. They are quite a bit more expensive than that. The intention with the original last sentence was, of course, to make it clear that the $170 cost of the Mypressi TWIST is a very good value and well under the cost of a good counter-top machine.

Beer for strong bones

As if we really need another reason to like beer, here's another article reporting the health benefits of beer. This time it's for the silicon, which contributes to bone health. I want to be a test subject in these studies. Click here for the article.
I'd advise staying away from crappy mass-market corporate beer and go with a good craft or microbrewed beer. We may as well drink good beer while improving our health.

Steampunk Coffee Maker

Click here for today's Spill the Beans coffee column. Just FYI, my title was edited from the much more succinct & interesting "Steampunk Coffee Making" to the wordier/nerdier title in the paper. Also they edited out the following sentence, "We intend to offer vac pot coffee at our coffee shop, for no more elaborate reason than because it makes a great cup of coffee and it's fun." It's no biggie that it was pulled, but I did want it known that we intend to utilize vac pots at the Stump, which no one else is doing in this neck of the woods (again making Stumpjack the first coffee shop in our area to do something ahead of the crowd). Yes, I'm blowing my own horn a little there.

Feb 4: The essay got snagged by this cool steampunk blog. Click here.

Spill the Beans column: Haiti and coffee

Click here to go to yesterday's Spill the Beans coffee column in which I wrote about purchasing Haitian Bleu coffee as one small way to do something positive for Haiti.

Here's another article I just came across on the same subject, published this past Saturday in the Ethiopian Review.

The coolest Stumpjack teapot ever.

Our just 15-year old daughter Jesse just brought home the coolest thing from her art class. Dig this teapot made in the form of a stumpjack critter. Its tail is the handle and there's a little hole in its snout where the liquid pours from. This is awesome!
I LOVE the color and beefiness of the piece. She told me what she was making several months ago but I really was expecting something much more fragile and more brightly colored, which would have been great but this is so much more the kind of thing I like...earthy, weighty, rough and primal. Awesome!And even cooler is that she made this for me for my birthday last November. It was well worth the wait. I did say how awesome this is didn't I. Awesome.