Day: August 5, 2013

Maui Yellow Caturra Coffee from Roast Coffee & Tea Trading Company

My friend Evan and his family started a coffee shop, the wonderfully engaging Roast Coffee & Tea Trading Company, a couple of years ago. They aimed high and decided early on that they to roast their own coffee. They transparently source single origin green coffee beans from around the world, roast them, brew them and serve them as “single origin brews” so that you can taste the different regions and how they compare to one another. And it is from him that Lisa procures her daily dose.

A recent trip by the folks at Roast brought Maui Yellow Caturra to our home. Grown in a hot, dry climate on the island of Maui, these coffee beans produce high yields of coffee cherries all with a bright shade of yellow when ripe. Enriched by the nutrient-rich, volcanic soil from a farm located in the West Maui Mountains and grown under the guidance of owner Kimo Falconer, this coffee is grown overlooking the famous western coast of Maui. Mild and clean with a spicy character.

I’m a tea guy, not a coffee guy, and not a particularly crazed one at that, but there’s some kinda magic in good coffee, and Evan & Co. goes to great lengths to produce the magic. At this point Roast is quiet resource from Long Island and I know first hand the lengths that were traveled to procure an appropriate roaster, get it tuned and producing excellent coffee. I’ve also had the chance to taste the roasted beans of many batches and have learned quite a bit about the varying tastes and flavors. Right now, the Maui Yellow Caturra is the one Lisa tosses in the grinder and the smell is so wondrous it makes me wonder why I don’t drink the brew. Go get yourself some before it’s gone.

yellow_caturra

Law of the jungle

Law of the jungle:

Think about motorcycles. Most cagers who don’t ride think motorcyclists are batshit crazy sucides. But it doesn’t make them want to kill the guy on the Ducati in flip-flops and a t-shirt and an eggshell brain bucket who’s splitting lanes on the 405 at 70 when the traffic’s at a standstill.

At worst it makes you think “That dude’s gonna die soon and I’m not gonna feel sorry for him one bit.” It never makes you intentionally hit him. By the same token, seeing some old fart on a Goldwing with his wife, dog, and three kids on the back doesn’t make you love motorcyclists or change your opinion that this is their death wish.

[snip -ed.]

You have a right to be in the road on your bicycle. The only way you can keep that right is to exercise it. You won’t change the hearts and minds of the hater cagers by being a Boy Scout, although you may thereby avoid becoming a statistic. The only thing that will really change the way people think is making bicycles a permanent part of the traffic landscape.

Until then, the best thing you can do to change attitudes is to … ride your bike. Simply existing will piss off certain cagers, no matter how you ride.

[The term “cager” struck as particularly apt this morning.]

Source: Cycling in the South Bay

So Heralded

So Heralded:

My friends—my riding friends—they all always have some mission, some dream, some ride that for them is crazy and maybe impossible and which the world will never care about. Some aim to do a single loop of 2-5-10 without walking. Some want to ride across the country, win national titles, world championships, just keep up for once dammit, or figure out a good route to work. And we all understand it all. We know as fully and purely as we did back in those summer days that something vital to life and truth is at stake every day. We have each other’s respect—though not, anymore, because we saved the world but, I think, because we’re still at play.

[Noah teaches me this every day. So do my riding friends who always have some mission or other. Bill’s on fire lately.]

Source: The Selection

This weeked (we celebrated Oma’s 100’th birthday)

summer

Bill writes:

On my bike, when I am aware, which is almost always, I am aware of being me, or, more rare, of simply being, or, more often, aware of the riding, and sometimes of how my bicycle and I relate or of something I hope to put into words. If those words ever feel at all to anyone anything like a ride, or if in them riders recognize themselves, I have done my part, whatever my part is.

[Well that ain’t gonna happen with this description… but the rides are beginning to feel good. Joyous and overflowing with beauty. It was cool outside this morning so I pulled on arm warmers until I hit the climbs. The gnats that have been bit of a plague on the climbs were MIA. Two woman flying down a decent left an odiforous wake of sunscreen mixed with detergent(?) that nearly gagged a pair of hikers kitting up on the side of the road. The riders were also talking so loudly a deafness warning zone should have been established around them, so now I have some potential new additions for the Velominati rules. As it was a fleeting encounter, we collectively shook our heads, smiled and moved on. The little cottage (rectory?) of the Church in the Woods is being rebuilt and is coming along quite nicely. And as you can again see from the above, the anglers stayed home.

By the time I rolled home Noah had saved the world at least twice (evil ninja’s, storm troopers, who knows from what else) and was headed out the door to get some summer reading books and to meet his friend at the book store.

Below, you can see my Oma making her entrance to the celebration of her 100th birthday. 61 (not counting babies) of her immediate family, their spouses, nieces, nephews, and including grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren were able to attend. Those who were not able to make it were missed. Beneath that is some of the food that was served and why the scale yelled at me this morning. But what is one supposed to do? We waited 100 years to have this celebration. I doubt I’ll be at the next one… Allez!]

Source: True BS

IMG 2588

le bad food