This past weekend I made my first trip to NYC and it was an adventure. Those of you who know me know that I am a city person, so let me just say that it was everything I expected. We didn't really do a whole lot of touristy stuff, although we did go to (and get lost in) Central Park. We went to the New York Public Library which was fascinating, wandered around the city, met a friend at Columbia University and then had dinner with some people in her graduate program. After dinner we went to a music venue to check out a local jazz/experimental ensemble that I like. The concert was amazing Steven Bernstein and Friends brought the house down. Bernstein is the band leader and he plays the slide trumpet, along with the slide trumpet there was an amazing bassist, drums, saxophone, and electric guitar. There were two continous sets in which the rythm section laid down an incredible groove and the trumpet and sax soloed and improvised on everything from the Beatles to Prince. It was an incredibly good time. After the concert we headed over to Brooklyn to spend the night with a friend. This is when we ran into problems. The New York City subways are old and sometimes they need work, and obviously the best time to work on them is at night and on the weekends. We hadn't had the foresight to check the internet and see if anything was going on, so we didn't know that the whole lower east side metro system was shutting down for the weekend at midnight. We got to the station at 12:05 and what normally would have been a 20 minute trip ended up taking 2 hours, but we finally made it to our friends house, and spent the next morning with him before heading back to Jersey.
25 September 2006
16 January 2006
What Makes a Great Cup of Coffee?
While coffee is a subject that I love to talk about, and something that I would love to discuss at length on this blog, this post is primarily directed towards those who have left comments on their blog regarding the drip coffee at my place of employment. These people have said that our coffee is “terrible.” “It is a coffee house and therefore should serve, at the very least, a decent cup of coffee,” one blogger said. I say that our coffee is a least “decent” and I believe it is even good. Could it be better? Probably. Are there steps being taken to further the quality of everything at Midnight Oil? Absolutely. How do I know? Because I am the new manager of Midnight Oil. So for those of you who would like to know what makes a great cup of coffee: here it is.
There are several factors to a great cup of coffee. Some of the more important are water, brewing method, the roast of the bean, the freshness of the bean, the grind of the bean, and the proper water temperature.
Almost more important than the beans themselves is water. After all coffee is mostly water so if you have poor tasting water you will have poor tasting coffee. As we all know Searcy water is not the best around, but in order to combat this we run the water through a softener and a charcoal filter. It helps but it is not absolute. Unfortunately, however, we can’t use only bottled purified water, it would cost way too much.
The brewing method is also very important. One should use freshly ground beans in order to extract the most flavor for each cup. Here at MO we use a shower head drip which evenly distributes the water over all of the grinds in the filter as opposed to lower quality machines that just use a straight stream of water to slowly fill the basket. It is generally agreed that the best brewing method is the french press. Unfortunately it would be impossible to brew the gross amounts of coffee we serve using only a french press. However, for those of you who pretend to be connoisseurs, in the near future you should be able to purchase a small pot of french press coffee for your enjoyment.
The roast is always an important part of the process, and it is the deciding factor for many people. We serve a different roast everyday and I hope that soon we will be brewing a lighter roast and a darker roast in order to serve you our customers, but until then I suggest that those of you who aren’t too fond of our coffee try our newest acquisitions, Zimbabwe and Tanzanian Peaberry. Zimbabwe is served on Thursdays and Tanzanian Peaberry on Fridays. To be completely honest the coffee should be brewed every hour to keep it from going stale, but at the moment this a luxury I have not been allowed.
Finally to taste. The research shows that coffee is seven to twenty times more complex than wine (I’ll gladly show you the research, including a lengthy article in Wine Spectator if you would like). Just as wine has proper food pairings so does coffee, and it is this area I readily admit we are most lacking here at MO. I don’t really know how to improve the situation because we have a space problem, but I am working on some ideas. But for the moment here are some tips that might help. Next time you buy a cup of coffee also try a biscotti, or perhaps bring some dark chocolate to have with your coffee. Here are some pairings to try.
Sumatra: have a mayan choc chip biscotti with this and it should change the taste
Colombian: try the traditional almond biscotti
Ethiopian Harrar: try the dark chocolate almond biscotti
Zimbabwe: to be honest this would be best paired with a fruit such as blueberries, but it combines with the white and dark choc raspberry biscotti quite well
Tanzanian Peaberry: the raspberry biscotti works quite well with this one as well
Uganda: an almond biscotti compliments this coffee quite well
I know that most of us who frequent Midnight Oil were not brought up in household where we were encouraged to develop our taste for wine, which is less complex than coffee. So how would we have developed a taste for fine coffees especially when we grew up drinking our Grandparent’s pre-ground, old, stale, in a tin can, in the freezer for freshness Maxwell/Colombia House/Folgers coffee. And that in fact is what we get used to and what we come to call good coffee. It is like thinking that a bottle of Blackberry Arbor Mist is wine. It is and it isn’t. Some people think that it tastes good and they get used to it, and then when they have their first Cabernet Sauvignon or Chianti or Pinot Noir, they say that it isn’t as good as their good ol' Arbor Mist. Are they correct? In some respect perhaps, it is at least what they like better, but sometimes what we like the best isn’t always the best. So good luck, investigate our coffee, do some research on your own, try all of the different roasts we have, try different food pairings, and if you still don’t like our coffee okay, but it is at least a “decent” cup of coffee and we are continually taking steps to make it better.
Steven Baird
There are several factors to a great cup of coffee. Some of the more important are water, brewing method, the roast of the bean, the freshness of the bean, the grind of the bean, and the proper water temperature.
Almost more important than the beans themselves is water. After all coffee is mostly water so if you have poor tasting water you will have poor tasting coffee. As we all know Searcy water is not the best around, but in order to combat this we run the water through a softener and a charcoal filter. It helps but it is not absolute. Unfortunately, however, we can’t use only bottled purified water, it would cost way too much.
The brewing method is also very important. One should use freshly ground beans in order to extract the most flavor for each cup. Here at MO we use a shower head drip which evenly distributes the water over all of the grinds in the filter as opposed to lower quality machines that just use a straight stream of water to slowly fill the basket. It is generally agreed that the best brewing method is the french press. Unfortunately it would be impossible to brew the gross amounts of coffee we serve using only a french press. However, for those of you who pretend to be connoisseurs, in the near future you should be able to purchase a small pot of french press coffee for your enjoyment.
The roast is always an important part of the process, and it is the deciding factor for many people. We serve a different roast everyday and I hope that soon we will be brewing a lighter roast and a darker roast in order to serve you our customers, but until then I suggest that those of you who aren’t too fond of our coffee try our newest acquisitions, Zimbabwe and Tanzanian Peaberry. Zimbabwe is served on Thursdays and Tanzanian Peaberry on Fridays. To be completely honest the coffee should be brewed every hour to keep it from going stale, but at the moment this a luxury I have not been allowed.
Finally to taste. The research shows that coffee is seven to twenty times more complex than wine (I’ll gladly show you the research, including a lengthy article in Wine Spectator if you would like). Just as wine has proper food pairings so does coffee, and it is this area I readily admit we are most lacking here at MO. I don’t really know how to improve the situation because we have a space problem, but I am working on some ideas. But for the moment here are some tips that might help. Next time you buy a cup of coffee also try a biscotti, or perhaps bring some dark chocolate to have with your coffee. Here are some pairings to try.
Sumatra: have a mayan choc chip biscotti with this and it should change the taste
Colombian: try the traditional almond biscotti
Ethiopian Harrar: try the dark chocolate almond biscotti
Zimbabwe: to be honest this would be best paired with a fruit such as blueberries, but it combines with the white and dark choc raspberry biscotti quite well
Tanzanian Peaberry: the raspberry biscotti works quite well with this one as well
Uganda: an almond biscotti compliments this coffee quite well
I know that most of us who frequent Midnight Oil were not brought up in household where we were encouraged to develop our taste for wine, which is less complex than coffee. So how would we have developed a taste for fine coffees especially when we grew up drinking our Grandparent’s pre-ground, old, stale, in a tin can, in the freezer for freshness Maxwell/Colombia House/Folgers coffee. And that in fact is what we get used to and what we come to call good coffee. It is like thinking that a bottle of Blackberry Arbor Mist is wine. It is and it isn’t. Some people think that it tastes good and they get used to it, and then when they have their first Cabernet Sauvignon or Chianti or Pinot Noir, they say that it isn’t as good as their good ol' Arbor Mist. Are they correct? In some respect perhaps, it is at least what they like better, but sometimes what we like the best isn’t always the best. So good luck, investigate our coffee, do some research on your own, try all of the different roasts we have, try different food pairings, and if you still don’t like our coffee okay, but it is at least a “decent” cup of coffee and we are continually taking steps to make it better.
Steven Baird
13 September 2005
Artists of the Day
Today's artists of the day are two Mexican Muralists from the early 20th century. They are Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. In my opinion these are two fascinating artists so look them up and enjoy. A good book to start with is here. Here are some of their works. Enjoy!!
11 September 2005
Hurricanes, Midnight Oil, and the GRE
My good ol' hometown of Searcy is now home to over 100 hurricane evacuees. Camp Wyldewood, just outside Searcy, is now home to over 70 of those people. My younger brother works part time at Wyldewood doing odd jobs and cleanup duties. This past week though he has been busy helping serve meals, taking people to the doctor, distributing clothing, and other things of that nature. I think it is safe to say that this whole experience will profoundly affect my 18 year old brother, maybe now at 18 it will endow him with a passion and compassion for people that will influence his religious, political, theological, and academic views for years to come. Yes, it is his job because he works at Wyldewood, but he is happy to be serving. I am very proud of my younger brother and I look up to him.
Everyone in Searcy is eager to do what they can in this situation. I work at Midnight Oil, that bastion of coffee talk and discussion for the hippy academic philosopher pseudo bohemians of Harding. My boss wanted to do something to help so today, Sunday, we opened our doors at one o'clock. Normally we are closed on Sundays, but today we were open, all of the employees worked for free and our boss is giving every dime, not just the profits, and all of our tips to Camp Wyldewood to help feed and house the evacuees. I have never worked a busier shift than the one this afternoon. The line was out the door for the whole time I was there and one woman put a five hundred dollar check in our tip jar. Once again my faith in Christians and people in general, the faith which is often very small, has been buffered and rebuilt.
I'm preparing to take the GRE soon, does anyone out there have any advice on how to study for it? Should I just treat it like all the standardized tests I took way back in high school and do nothing? I did extremely well on those, but this is of more importance to me because some scholarships to help with graduate school would be more than nice. So if anyone has any advice please share.
Everyone in Searcy is eager to do what they can in this situation. I work at Midnight Oil, that bastion of coffee talk and discussion for the hippy academic philosopher pseudo bohemians of Harding. My boss wanted to do something to help so today, Sunday, we opened our doors at one o'clock. Normally we are closed on Sundays, but today we were open, all of the employees worked for free and our boss is giving every dime, not just the profits, and all of our tips to Camp Wyldewood to help feed and house the evacuees. I have never worked a busier shift than the one this afternoon. The line was out the door for the whole time I was there and one woman put a five hundred dollar check in our tip jar. Once again my faith in Christians and people in general, the faith which is often very small, has been buffered and rebuilt.
I'm preparing to take the GRE soon, does anyone out there have any advice on how to study for it? Should I just treat it like all the standardized tests I took way back in high school and do nothing? I did extremely well on those, but this is of more importance to me because some scholarships to help with graduate school would be more than nice. So if anyone has any advice please share.
05 September 2005
The Constant Gardener
Last year I saw the Portuguese film City of God, which was partially directed by Fernando Meirelles (I am one of those people who reads all the credits in every film I watch, so be warned if you ever to go to a movie with me), and I was very taken by the cinematographic style he used. It was a lot of handheld, quick cut shots, almost ADD at times, but the intensive style only helped magnify the emotional subject matter. When I discovered that Fernando Meireles was directing a British film, set in Africa, dealing with the corruption of African medical aid, also involving a conspiracy theory, and starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, I decided that I must see The Constant Gardener. So Saturday night my girlfriend and I drove to Little Rock (because, as anyone familiar with Searcy knows, the Searcy cinema never shows anything good) in order to watch the film. I must say that this film was intense, the acting was superb, the ADD camera style of Meireles was utilized, and it was overtly political for something billed as thriller. I don't know if one ever enjoys films of this type, but I do know that one ruminates and thinks about them for a while. While I don't want to give away the movie to those who haven't seen it, I will say that the state of African Medical Aid occupies a large part of the film and I can't stop thinking about the state of affairs portrayed. I don't know whether things are as bad as the film implied, but if they are even half as bad then there is a huge problem. I am not one who accepts whatever I see or hear, especially from today's media, so I am currently investigating this on my own to see if there is any merit to the films claims. As far as the rest of the film goes, my opinion is that it is superbly done and that this is one of the most quality films I have seen in a long while (I always hesitate to label things good or bad, or best or worst, because those terms are fairly ambiguous, but when I saw quality I mean well made). This film is not for the faint of heart as it very much deserves its 'R' rating. There are at least 3 fairly disturbing images as well as a few brief bursts of strong language. There is also some nudity, although in my opinion it was fairly innocent and not of a strongly sexual type. If you just want to be entertained go see something else, but if you like to be engaged participant in the art form of film then I highly recommend The Constant Gardener.
P.S. Stay and read the credits as there is a very moving dedication of the film towards the end.
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