Honey Au Lait

Now that the summer has cooled to a perfectly liveable level, the favorite drink of the week is a honey cafe au lait.  Cafe au lait is brewed coffee with steamed milk.  It's a great balance between a latte and a regular cup of coffee.  A touch of honey is just the right amount of flavorful sweetness without overpowering the coffee flavor.  Lovely for a rainy morning like today.

the answer is....

goats!

This weekend's trivia question was "What farm animal, according to legend, first discovered coffee?" 
The story is that a goatherder in East Africa came upon some of his flock chomping down on berries from a small tree and they were so excited and hyper they couldn't sleep that night.  Naturally, the goatherder wanted to try it out for himself, and thus the world was changed.   Mmbbaaaaaaaa!!
I was thinking this over quite a bit after someone asked why the shepherd would decide to eat the berries that were making the goats crazier than baby goats already are.  Maybe he was just looking for a little intoxication.  I decided to believe that he loved his little goats so much that he was willing to take the risk.  So glad that he did! 

Rachel

One of the great things about my life is the fact that I can never, ever keep up with thank you notes and returning favors.  This is frustrating sometimes, because I hate to not show my gratefulness, but I often have to marvel at the fact that that's a problem in my life: that I've been given so much that I can't keep up with the thank yous.
I say this because, while there are several people that I would like to get on the roof and shout the praises of, today is a special day for one person in particular. 
My sister Rachel is Take this Cup's #1 customer.  This is saying a lot, since so many people have been so incredibly supportive.  Rachel, though, has turned up at almost every farmer's market, taking and posting pictures and modelling drinks, making recommendations to passers-by, and being incredibly and unceasingly supportive.  All the while she insists that driving twenty miles out of her way for a cup of iced coffee with some maple syrup is just what she felt like doing that day. 
On her birthday today her boyfriend Chris proposed.  I hate to admit to shrieking and crying in happiness at the news, but that's exactly what I did.  I'd like to offer my first toast to a lifetime of sweetness and long lists of unfinished thank yous.

Grandpa Brewster

I got the call that my Grandpa passed away while I was brewing the Sumatra.  My sister tearfully said on the phone that she just wanted to get outside and be in her garden, just like Grandpa would like. 
Grandpa Brewster was a dairy farmer.  His farm, which is now my aunt and uncles', isn't far from Winsted, where I'm going to set up coffee today.  I had thought about just taking the day off, but then I realized that the grandpas of the kids selling flowers and tomatoes at the farmer's market today might remember Bob Brewster, and probably very fondly.  I don't know that I'll meet anyone who knew him today, but hanging out with the farm kids seems like the right place to be today.

...

... the trouble with having anything clever to write is that you've got to have something going on, and yet when everything is going on there's no time to come up with a clever way to write it out, other than starting with three dots and just rambling.
Morris Marketplace this Sunday!  My best friend is coming from the other side of the world on Saturday!  Next week Friday Take this Cup will be at the Winsted Farmer's Market on the Green, Saturday I'll be at the Norfolk Farmer's Market, and Sunday again in Morris.  I have three different lists of what I need to get done today in order to prepare.  Don't panic, just type three dots and go...

Bio-diversity and The Grand Rehearsal

Well, there's a squirrel or two living in the vehicle that might have been a coffee truck.  But that's not what we mean by bio-diversity today!
Without going in to too many explanations or apologies, there are some ever-changing changes to the ever-changing plan.  Eh, it's the ecosystem of life.  Sometimes the deer eat your garden.  Throw what's left on the compost heap and sooner or later you'll have good soil.   
On June 1st, Take This Cup coffee will be brewing at the White Memorial Bio Blitz.  You can read all about this exciting all-night biology convention on my friend Jamie Fisher's blog :  www.whitememorialbioblitz.blogspot.com.  They will actually be counting every bug, bird and beaver that sets foot, feeler or feather on White Memorial for a 24 hour period.  I will be setting up on day 2 of the event, when all the scientists are good and delirious and ready for a great cup of coffee.
More details to follow.....    but here's one important one.  I've got to have a good run-through, and I'm going to do it in my trusty backyard.  I would love to invite all of you who have so kindly and generously purchased coffee cards to come and use them at the ....  shall we call it a Grand Opening or a Dress Rehearsal?  The Grand Rehearsal, Sunday May 26th in the merry morning hours.

Push Go

When I called my sister (and Take this Cup Motivational and Spacial Design Consultant) to vent about the stress of money and the fear of spending any of the money raised over the past months for the coffee truck dream, she offered many words of wisdom and comfort and encouragement, not the least of which was "We want you to make us coffee."  I wrote it on a post-it note and stuck it on the post-it note wall.  True, there is a galactic spiral of post-it notes on the wall now- things that must be done, fun and not-so-much, necessary and ridiculous, but this one stands out.  I suppose it can't be my mission statement, but it's definitely my mission post-it.
Thanks to the very thorough and extraordinarily generous session with my latest Consultants (Automotive and All-Things-Camper Consultants) I have learned where to spray the WD40.  Now, I've said in many a cover letter that I'm a fast learner and a hard worker, and I don't think I was lying, but when I consider this from the position of being my own boss, it's tough not to be a little impatient.  I've looked carefully at the pictures and crawled around under the wheels a little bit, and listened very carefully to all of my consultants, but even the widest view of the bigger picture of how it all works is a bit fuzzy to me...   I can't seem to get very far past the simple understanding that when you step on the brake pedal the vehicle should stop.
Yesterday I went to try the wares of a new shop in town- an antique store with an espresso bar.  It happens to be in a space that I fell a little bit in love with (had even talked pretty extensively with the landlord and brought a friend and Carpentry and Design Consultant to view the space.)  It's tough not to be a touch bitter about seeing someone else set up in the space I had wanted, but the owner and manager are both genuinely nice people.  (I mean this-  they gave me a free cup of coffee and chatted with me without seeming to even notice my local-yokel-iness.  These are gentlemen with all the class of New York with all the salt-of-the-earthness of rural New England.  These are people we are priveleged to have in town.)
The shop is also lovely.  It's not set up the way I would have done it, but it is charming and inviting.  The espresso bar is clearly a secondary operation, to the extent that it makes sense that they have a spaceship, push-button machine that blasts out a latte without the pesky grinding of espresso beans or steaming of milk.  (To be fair, it's not the worst-  there are sadly some machines around that somehow get away with mixing powder and hot water together when you push the button that says "cappuccino.")  I don't feel like letting them all the way off of the hook, since it would be infinitely better to have some kind of authentic espresso preparation (wouldn't it be awesome to have an espresso made from an antique machine??,) but that's not their real business.  Much like mine is not auto mechanics.  I press the brake pedal, they press the button that says "latte."
You definitely do not want me to fix your car.  You want me to make you coffee.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wake up Thanksgiving morning with eyebrows scrunched over a sad and confusing dream, a slight hangover, and Bruno Mars "I Think I Wanna Marry You" playing in my head, and I have a revelation.
The dream was of my parents having a ninth child (we don't need to go in to the whole explanation of how bizarre that is right now), whose birth I missed, but I read in the morning paper that he only lived long enough to look very happily at his parents. 
The hangover is from a single beer and a conversation with my sister (Take this Cup Motivational and Spatial Design Consultant) about life being basically unfair and way, way too much work. 
Bruno Mars came along in a video link the other day, sent to me by my good friend (and Take this Cup Marketing and Graphic Design Consultant) of a tear-jerking-from-even-the-biggest-jerk marriage proposal in which all of the friends and family of a couple (including a marching band and some friends on Skype) come out to dance and lip-synch along.  Of course I cried.  At the time I thought "a pox on these videos until late February, or I'll never survive!"  And I thought it was too much for me because it made me feel like a spinster.
But here's the truth.
The video makes you cry (yes, it will make You cry) not because two people are getting married, but because a whole community of people love them so much that they spent hours putting together a synchronized dance for an audience of one.  And because they happily believe in love.
Life is unfair, and it will give you a hangover.  You will have to work and work and work, and you might lose everything.  Or you might have everything you could possibly want and still be unhappy.  But I realize this morning that the random unfairness of life has worked in my favor far more often than not.  Being born itself, even for a minute, is an incredible gift.
I taught a Conversational English class in Korea in which the topic one day was what you would do with a month left to live on Earth.  One student said "Everyone, write."  I teacherly wrote on the board "I would write letters to everyone."  Underneath I wrote "I'm sorry for....   Thank you for...."   He stopped me and said something I don't think I'll ever forget.  "Not sorry, just thank you."
There's no time to edit now-  it's time to clean up and get the green beans and salad ready and celebrate this wonderful holiday.  I won't list all of the things I have to be thankful for, except for you.  Thanks for reading my blog.  Thanks for believing in my dream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQSZbQWuSKs&feature=fvwrel

spiders and brake lines

It's funny what scares you.  Or maybe you're perfectly normal and only afraid of heights that you may fall from or snake bites that might actually kill you.  As for me, I like to take the quirky side of irrational.  Apparently.
The 1973 Dodge Calypso that is to become the Take this Cup Coffee Truck is perched happily and safely in the back corner of the yard; backed there by a neighbor who offered to do it for me, likely without even knowing that the thought of driving the thing has been keeping me up nights for a week.  I had been sitting in this chair, trying to take up nail biting, instant messaging my friend Harmony to talk her into guiding my drive to the back yard on her lunch break.  Not because the treacherous roll around the corner of the house would be hard to navigate, but because the thought of doing it had me in a complete panic.  As I awaited her response, I absently brushed the hairy eight-legged monster off my elbow without a second thought.  (Well, there was a second thought, a few minutes later, as to why I hadn't jumped through the window screaming when a wolf spider was crawling on me, but even that was a rather calm thought.)
My sister Jesse gave me a ride to pick up the Calypso last week.  I had a securely fastened manila folder of registration paperwork, printed out insurance emails and temporary plates and a promise that my new pal who was selling me the vehicle would help me drive it home.  Just as soon as he was done at the dentist.  He hadn't called back by the time we got there, so we took a detour to do a little shopping while I waited for the call.  Is that actually my greatest fear, I wonder?  Waiting for the phone to ring?  Or slowly going mad waiting for the ring tone, like watching for an inanimate possessed object to come to life?  That is precisely what I started to do, wandering the aisles of Target, checking the screen compulsively incase I suddenly went deaf and wouldn't be able to hear the ring on full volume.  What if he just didn't call back?  Just disappeared?  Took off with the check and laughed to someone about how he'd pulled one over on this stupid woman from Bantam who thought she bought a camper on Craigslist.  What if I would just have to go and retrieve the vehicle on my own, learning to drive this antiquated beast down Rte 202 as I went?
So relieved was I when he did finally call and we were at last in the bucket seats heading west that the brakes going out on East Main Street in Torrington didn't even get me down.  I was still smiling, gripping the dashboard, as we rolled through a red light at a busy intersection, unable to stop, and into the Twin Co parking lot, where the emergency brake finally did its job.
Is it overdrive, I wonder?  Or do we only start to think clearly and positively when we get close enough to a near-death situation to give us a little perspective?  I still haven't had to actually drive it myself, but the Calypso, all five tons, is parked out back on just enough of an angle, aimed right at my window, right at my chair, spider and all, that if the brakes suddenly succumbed to gravity-  well, I want to say that it would all be over quickly, but that's not true either.  The fire and smashed house and unpayable hospital bills of that scenario are perhaps just enough to keep me and my sense of perspective happily in order.
You know what they say.  If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room.  Some people sky dive.  Me, I think about parking.  Some people wrestle alligators.  Me, I make business plans. 
Stay tuned for the next action packed episode, wherein our heroine replaces a PVC pipe for the camper water tank......

in the mean time...

I've been making sandwiches.  I've been working at a grocery store deli in town that gets a fair number of people looking for lunch.  I'm not sure if it was the girl who always gets a wrap with just lettuce and mustard or the guy who wanted a buffalo tender sandwich with hot sauce and bleu cheese dressing or someone in between, but something today gave me a new theory.
It seems that medical news and updates lately say more and more that the importance of food outweighs medicine.  Food can heal us.  Eating things that aren't food can hurt us.  (I think we learned this from Curious George and the Puzzle Piece many many years ago...) 
It wasn't terribly long ago that a career in medicine was considered lowly.  The same guy that cut your hair could chop your tonsils out for you.  It makes me wonder if in a hundred years or so our current sandwich making could be the thing that makes the kids in history class guffaw. 
What if the future of food service is therapeutic?  What if the kind of cheese and amount of mayonnaise you want becomes secondary to the bedside (counterside?) manner that someone can offer?  The consultation, the genuine care?  The sandwich doctor takes a look at your complexion, assesses your mood and your general health and offers some suggestions.  Let's prescribe you extra tomatoes for lycopene and Vitamin A, a little extra lettuce for digestion, roast beef for a little protein boost and horseradish for antioxidants, and a little mayonnaise because you need to have some enjoyment.
What is it that people are looking for when they stop to get a coffee and something to eat?  Why didn't they make the economically wiser decision to buy groceries and a thermos? 
Mostly, you need someone to recognize and validate you, seriously consider your needs and help you make decisions.  You could probably make a good sandwich choice on your own.  But then again, how many times has a doctor told you to drink a lot of fluids and get some rest? 
What does the girl with the lettuce wrap or the guy with the fried sandwich really need?  More than anything else, to be recognized and appreciated as beautiful exactly as they are, and told that they are worthy of something creamy and delicious and that people around will be happy that they enjoy it.
Just some thoughts for the sci-fi future, when we will look back in horror at the days of yore.  I hope you had a wonderful lunch today.

Words and Beans

In a moment of worry yesterday over the dangers of bringing religion into anything, I realized that lots of people would love to get their morning coffee from a crazy lady. 

Take this Cup

The name "Take This Cup" is on a list of names thought up during a period in my twenties when my dream seemed to be to have a coffee shop where I could wear a nun's habit and sing hymns while pulling espresso shots all day.  The dream has changed somewhat, but the name has taken a deeper level of meaning, as things tend to do when we work our ways closer to reality over the years.

I'm enjoying leaving Take This Cup somewhat open to interpretation, even to myself.  Sometimes I see an Abbie Hoffman-esque message of anti-capitalism, a cup already taken.  Sometimes I see a priest offering the Eucharist.  Mostly I see a message of giving and mystery; possibly the best two things in the human experience.

Tonight I did a Google search of the three words to check if there was another business whose toes I would be stepping on by taking the name.  I was surprised that all of the scriptural references that came up were focused on Jesus' words in prayer just before his crucifixion, asking God to "take this cup" of suffering away. 

I don't know what I think about Jesus or words in the Bible, or even cups for that matter.  Sometimes they chip or spill.  They can let you down.  I've had some favorites, but I haven't found the perfect one yet.

Take this cup of suffering away, he says.  But not my will but yours be done. 

The truth is that in some dark moments lately I have felt like I'm at the bottom of a pit and the only way out is to force this coffee dream to come true.  I'm absolutely amazed at the support that I've gotten from friends and family.  I'm amazed by the love that surrounds me, even when I'm in the bottom of a pit. 

That's my current cup maybe, a little bit of sour suffering.  Not crucifixion, but being fired, being dumped, and feeling like a failure.  Pretty bad. 

I want this.  I want it for myself so much.  I want to run my own numbers and never let a boss control my life again.  And I want to make all kinds of dollars and have a lovely time.  But not my will but the will of love in the world.  Take this that I have to offer.  It's partly from love, partly from purity, partly from bitter selfishness and greed.  Take and drink.  This is my livelihood, given for you.

Given for you and also for your three dollars.  But given for you.