I Put a Spell on You Bet e and Stef

Food and drink is sex for the taste buds. And a jazzed up version of I Put a Spell on You is sex for the ears. 

Day by Day Bet e and Steph
                                                                                                                                                         Jazz makes anything taste better. Kick back from mainstream and listen to the melodic riffs and maracas of Bet e and Stef’s Day by Day. More jazz to come!

Literature and Caffeine

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Magic Realism, divinely colourful story telling, sentences that go on for pages without a period… this is only a “jist” of one of the most beautiful books ever written. And, the first piece of literature I would recommend to accompany yourself with while enjoying a nice warm cup of coffee, with or without sugar. The book parallels the bloody history of the dictatorship and colonization of Columbia within its own world. 100 Years of Solitude also tells the story of a banana plantation massacre, as natives were forced to work like slaves in order to satisfy their rich colonial overlords. Such a book should make you think twice as you sip your rich brew of caffeine; since you are also sipping years colonial blood shed (both African and South American).

Cheers! 

Gathering the Gun Powder



Isn't it just devilishly delish looking?

 BAM! Yes, BAM! Feeling the heat yet? Because I am. The searing sound as the coffee machine grinds the espresso beans into a perfect powder... the powder is measured to perfection, pressed, and then set. A clink is heard, the machine rumbles like a hungry belly and steam issues from its pours. A second clink is heard and the liquid brown gold pours out. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, its judgment time!

After a week of recovery, pills, and sharp pain, I am ready to return to work and ready to begin my quest! I have decided to shape myself up for body and have a little "taste test". When a jug of coffee has surpassed its time (65 minutes max), and passed around the kitchen to those thirsty before it is dumped down the drain, cleaned and then ready to be replenished. I will bravely pour myself a dabber of coffee and taste- SANS milk, SANS sugar, and SANS cream. Naked, if you may! It's all for the better; coffee in its purest of forms!

Cheers!   

The teeth are out and the chipmunk is in!



He can add my teeth to his pearl necklace!



After an hour of drilling dental tools and chisels that look like they are better suited for a construction site than my own pearly whites,I am comfortably sitting in a lazy boy chair with my mouth stuffed with tea bags. Yes... tea bags. According to my dentist, the tea bags stop the bleeding faster than cotton balls and also reduce the taste of blood. The procedure was alot less arduous and painful than I had expected, and all thanks to the skillful hands of my doctor and the Supertramp hits blasting from my ipod. For some reason, as my eyes were closed tight and my teeth under deep scrutiny, I kept imagining Dr.Frank-N-Furter bending over me with his 1970s sci-fi dental tools and pink rubbery operation gloves. However, given that this is reality and not a 1970s cult classic, I was spared a great deal of pain thanks to the several injections of a freezing solution into my very tiny mouth. Had this been Dr.Frank-N-Furter,however, he perhaps would have skipped the injections completely and yanked my teeth out with his own enormous golden plyers (and then skip around his laboratory to a musical number as I cry out in thundering pain!).

The worst is over and recovery ensues- sooner than later I hope so that I may FINALLY begin my coffee quest! I shall be on a diet of soup, tea bags, and chocolate flavoured replacement drinks for the rest of the week... yum!

I part you for today as I venture into the masrhy world of semiliquid foods and bloody tea bags. Cheers!              

Coffee Break!

Totally unrelated to the rich world of coffee but  definitely deserves a mention i: Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage. It is about time a "darkly humorous"(Kathryn Greenaway, Gazette) play sets foot in Montreal and, according to the press, this play is bound to have spectators rolling around laughing in their seats (not to mention that it won a Tony Award so it must be good).

I look forward to see what Reza has in store for us in this play. The plot is fairly simple (but leaves room for ALOT of action/creativity): two couples meeting to discuss a bullying incident involving their 11 year old kids, only for the meeting to get out of control. Reza will most likely rely on a witty text and absurd behaviour (though I have heard, pinch me if I am wrong, that Reza enjoys some slap-stick comedy as well, looking forward to that!). The play stars Ellen David and Mark Camacho and is directed by Roy Surette. God of Carnage shall being running at the Centaur from November 8th to December 4th.

If you are not a fan of the theatre, a theatrical version of the film directed by Roman Polanski will be coming out (titled simply Carnage) and will be staring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, and Christoph Waltz.

I look forward to blogging about the experience

Enjoy and check out the link!



Centaur’s God of Carnage: Bullying is bad, but can be darkly humorous

Hark! Already a catch-22 on quest...

Aahhhh... wisdom teeth, you saucy lads you! Come to put a dent in my quest to coffee conquest! I will not  even be able to begin until the next 2 weeks pass,  thanks to fearful but anticipated removal of all 4 of my wisdom teeth. I will have to put my adventure on hold for a bit, but perhaps this is for the better, as a dear friend of mine points out!
And such an impending detail this is, if not the most important one: where and what kind of coffee to start with. Should I haste myself to the first Tim Hortons or McDonalds and indulge in commercial caffeine only to disappoint my taste buds, or should I go big and try la creme de la creme and order something indulgent? According to my dear friend,I should avoid going for the quality first because

"every time [I'll] have something else, it's going to suck and [I'll] be disappointed so go for the crap and then when [I] have the legit shit it'll blow [my] mind" (Dear Friend, Facebook convo).

He makes a good point, and oddly enough seems to relate coffee to other substances... (ha, not that I have ever come in contact with these other "substances"... heck I'm a coffee virgin!). Though, what if I do go for the "crap" and the taste disgusts me so much that it disappoints me to move onto something bigger and better?

Please, help me out!    

   

The Decaffeinated Conchord: Greetings from a coffee virgin

Hello, hello all. This is entry one of the Decaffeinated Conchord, on her quest to food and drink glory ( first entry and it's already hitting the corn factor). As made utterly obvious in the title, I have never ever ever ever ever had a cup of coffee in my life. No sip, not even a smidgen of coffee. I have tried the foam from atop of my father's cappuccinos, and I have had chocolate covered coffee beans (perfect if you want to stay up LATE and hyper for New Years), though these are no substitute for this luxuriously brown coloured gold. I must try the real thing, I really must. 

And what makes this sudden quest even more crucial, is the fact that I work at one of Montreal's best coffee shops (well, at least according to the papers)! So, 4 days out of seven I spend several hours in out of the fumes of the liquid brown gold, grind, measuring, and prepping, but never actually tasting. My boss does a superb job with his lattes and cappuccinos, even shaping the foam to resemble a leaf or heart. Such time, care, and soul is given to such a bitter (I assume coffee is bitter? hit me if I'm wrong) drink that it is about time that I drop the double-chocolate-chip-frappuccino and expand my palate to something acerbic.

Wish me luck!