Skip to main content

Starbucks Simulation

My mom gave Stuart the Totally Coffee Cookbook for his birthday. I took a mental coffee road trip as I flipped through the pages.

Six years ago, we were living in Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders love their coffee. Cars with a Rhode Island license plate come equipped with two standard features... a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary glued to the dashboard (on account of their driving) and a Dunkin Donuts coffee in the cup holder. My cup holder held a Kahlua Coolata...until we moved to Tennessee.

In Chattanooga, a Dunkin' Donuts beckoned on Hixson Pike. The first one we had seen since flying out of New York. We pulled into the parking lot to find an abandoned van parked in front the broken drive thru window. Citizens south of the Mason-Dixon line have different sensibilities. Southerners pick up their sweet tea at Chick-Fil-A. A lit Krispy Kreme light sucks cars from the street and up to the window for melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Dunkin' Donuts is superfluous.

Starbucks moved in about the time we moved out.

Here in our little town there is neither Starbucks nor Dunkin' Donuts. People keep offering us grits but this does not help. By necessity, we must brew our own java.

I came across a recipe, on page 30 of the Totally Coffee Cookbook, for a cappuccino blizzard. The recipe promised greater taste than the actual results. So I have been experimenting in my quest for the perfect frozen concoction. But...coffee makes me hyper...and tense...and shaky. Even decaf. Because I am hyper and tense I must keep creating and sampling until I get it right. Because I am shaky I cannot measure accurately. But I'm determined. I'm off to the kitchen to have another go at this!
Posted by Picasa

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

4-H Exhibits-Updated

Update: Blue ribbons all around! 4 of our projects will go onto the state fair. John's headboard exceeds size limitations and so we will lug it home tomorrow. We are relieved. That thing is heavy! ************* For the past few weeks we have been busy sewing, sawing, quilling and painting 4-H projects. The kids have been in 4-H for about a month and they started with a bang. The annual 4-H fair is tomorrow. So this morning we loaded these projects and four kids wearing slippers into the car. The fifth one had sense enough to wear flip-flops. (The other four complained as we pulled out of the driveway that their feet were sweating.) John reclining against the headboard that he built with Stuart. He wrote the 10 Commandments of Table Saw Safety to accompany this project. Claire's quilling project. Lauren modeling the apron that she sewed. Lauren and the dog painting she has been working on in art class for the past few months. Faith and her quilling project. So now...
27 comments
Read more

Artistic Expression and Faith

A few days ago, I came across a post called Of Books and Faith written by Beck at Frog and Toad are Still Friends ( The best blog name EVER to my mind.) She writes about how the Christian market is saturated with mediocre books. How few fiction authors there are who really grapple with the messiness of humanity from a Christian perspective. I agree with her whole-heartedly. The Christian life does not come with the lack of conflict and the happily-ever-after resolutions that I find in many books of this genre. It's funny that I came across that post because I had been thinking similar thoughts about another form of Christian expression. Art. Christian art is often either poorly rendered or is just too pretty. It lacks creativity. It doesn't engage the mind. Remember when I made that long trek to Hobby Lobby for stencil supplies? That was where this idea started to form. I spent a few minutes flipping through posters. Flip. Glowing Jesus in a meadow. Flip. Glowing Jesus surr...
15 comments
Read more

Potholes

We were driving home on the back roads between The Land Flowing With Milk and Honey (where the Wal-Mart is) and Smallville . The Suburban dipped and swayed through the tight curves and potholes. Lots of potholes. Asphalt sprayed the car’s undercarriage. “Tink. Tink. Tink.” The children were oblivious to the dipping and swaying but the noise caught their attention. They looked out the windows. “Hey Mama, didn’t they just fill those potholes two weeks ago? Why did they have to fill them again?” Good question, kids. Instead of hiring the Fix It and Forget It Construction Company , our county employs Larry, Darryl and Darryl to maintain our roads. Larry drives the pickup. Darryl shovels a bit of asphalt off the back and the other Darryl tamps it down into the hole. Week after week they fill the same holes. Week after week our wheels grind away their efforts. Potholes. We all have them. Places in our lives that just can’t seem to stay filled up. Holes that consume great quantities of love ...
10 comments
Read more