BIRTHDAY GIFT

BIRTHDAY GIFT

Dec 16, 2023 | WHO CARES

SPECIAL birthday present for KCDC!

Keep Calm & Drink Coffee turns four years old, I just ten lustres older, but we both received this fantastic gift from Elisa Mirko and Diego. 

Don’t you think it’s perfect?

As you know I love cats, the coffee cup is really cute and the attitude is absolutely iconic.

Speaking of iconic cats, do you have a favourite?

Maybe Sylvester Cat, from Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

Or Tom from Hanna-Barbera. 

Maybe Felix the cat. 

Or Garfield. 

In my memories of fairy tales is Puss in Boots,  the one about the Marquis of Carbas.

Also nice is the version of Puss in Boots from Shrek.

The kitty Keep Calm & Drink Coffee on the other hand, what do we call him?

Did you know that cats sleep an average of 12 to 16 hours with peaks of 18 hours?

Practically twice as long as we sleep.

What can we say? We have only to learn!

KCDC kitty even has an eye mask!

I’d launch a poll to see what the favourite name is, for example, between:

SLIPPER

SLIPPERS & COFFEE

SLEEPY SLIPPER

KEEP CALM A CAT

KEEP CALM & WEAR SLIPPERS

PURRED COFFEE

KEEP CALM & PURRED COFFEE

CUPCAT

THE CAT IN SLIPPERS

But I’m sure you’ll come up with a better idea!

So tell me! What name shall we give the birthday present?

COFFEE DISPENSERS

COFFEE DISPENSERS

Mar 11, 2023 | WHO CARES

For more than 30 years I worked in a company where there was no coffee dispenser.

I know: it sounds unbelievable, yet it is true.

My colleagues, however, organized themselves with a mocha and made coffee mid-morning and in the afternoon.

As soon as the coffee was ready they used to call me.

Nice.

My contribute was for to the expenses and for the chat 🙂

So I never really witnessed situations of the kind represented by the famous sitcom Camera Café for instance.

How about you instead?

I guess anyone can tell several anecdotes, do you have any?

I think it is also possible to group characters into categories, such as the profiteers … that is, those who never have any coin, or do we want to call them by a slightly more slang appellation?

Perhaps a form of suspended coffee should be created for distributors as well.

Speaking of inventing … do you know who is the author of the first device to distribute automatically?

Heron! 

His dispenser however was for holy water, and thinking about it … I get a big smile 😉 I would very much need it …

Joking aside, the idea came because Heron noticed a waste of water outside the temple.

Through Heron’s mechanism, a coin struck a lever that dispensed a given amount of water for each person.

What to say. I love brilliant minds.

What kind of dispenser would you like?

So, it’s ok if we take this week’s coffee at the dispenser?

MARTA’S BROLO

MARTA’S BROLO

Oct 1, 2022 | BOOKS

I sincerely thank Beatrice Tognarelli and Mari’s Manual for the opportunity to read Marta’s Brolo. 

I admit that when I first read the title of this book, I wondered what a brolo was.

Do you know?

Around here, we don’t call it brolo, we just say vegetable garden, or in slang “vineyard” even though there isn’t any vine plant.

So: at the first step of Marta,s Brolo I learned something new.

But the most beautiful surprise was this wonderful dedication.

And I listened to the author’s heart and I sensed a deep love for roots, with reference to both the land and family, and this as you know is something that I cherish.

Are you fortunate enough to have a vegetable garden?

My father has always tended vegetable gardens: at our house we only had a strip of land, but he also helped elsewhere, allowing us to eat fresh, wholesome vegetables.

This, on the other hand, is the mini garden that my father-in-law gave us for the kitchen, although in the house unfortunately the plants suffer.

Speaking of cooking, I enjoyed the recipes that Marta’s Brolo encompasses.

So did the particular “introductions” to each chapter.

I was also pleased to find several references to coffee, including this one

The smell of coffee intoxicated the room, she poured it into the cup, and stood at the window to taste it, closed her eyes as the rustle of vegetation came to her, suave sound of the countryside.

What sound comes from your window as you drink coffee?

VACUUM POT AND BALANCING SYPHON

VACUUM POT AND BALANCING SYPHON

Aug 27, 2022 | WHO CARES

We started from 1884 and the first espresso machine created by Angelo Moriondo but Lu author of the blog The Caustic Misanthrope,  in addition to tips on rice,  pointed me to the 19th century coffee maker!

It was originally the Vacuum: illustrated in this video by Trieste Coffee Experts: an event that brings us back to a place we have already talked about for its coffee supply chain

 

The Vacuum also called Vac Pot or Syphon Pot, was born in 1830.

In 1850 the next evolution: the Balancing Syphon Brewer.

The Balancing Syphon consists of two containers with a siphon tube connecting them.

Coffee is placed in one of the two containers, usually made of glass, and water in the other made of ceramic or copper.

An alcohol lamp heats the water, forcing it through the tube to the other container, where it mixes with the coffee.

As the weight changes, a balancing system based on a counterweight or spring mechanism is activated, which in turn causes the lamp to turn off.

A partial vacuum is formed, which sucks up the mixture originated through a filter, and returns it to the first vessel, from which coffee is dispensed through a tap.

 

Is your cup ready?

What do you say, wanting to make it a family affair, can we therefore say that Vacuum Pot and Balancing Syphon are the grandmother and great-grandmother of the mocha?

Certainly the names Vacuum Pot and Balancing Syphon sound more scientific than familiar, but their cruets also represent warmth, anticipation, and the ritual that foreshadows something good.

At this point the connecting links remain, and in this regard I think back to the enameled coffee pot with floral decoration with which my parents first, and my brother later, decorated the kitchen.

I then have this little one

what shall we call it?

And what about your coffee pot?

ANGELO MORIONDO DOODLE

ANGELO MORIONDO DOODLE

Jun 6, 2022 | ITALY

Today’s doodle is dedicated to Angelo Moriondo on the occasion of his birth date, so we can’t help but remember him here too!

This video from the Economy Times illustrates Angelo Moriondo’s story in broad strokes

 

I immediately focused on the date: 1884.

1884, which is the date of publication of the patent in the Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Italy. 

1884 which is the date on which the people of Turin, who already count the Bicerin among their specialties, enjoyed the world’s first espresso coffee.

1884 which is also the date when meridian 1 i.e. the Greenwich meridian was established.

But which also corresponds to exactly 100 years before what for me is the glorious and emblematic year 1984. 

To get back to coffee, Bicerin and chocolate though, Angelo Moriondo must be credited with a taste for GOOD things, since after coffee he founded the Moriondo and Gariglio chocolate shop. 

What struck me, is the historical sign, which reads “confetteria” exactly like Il caffè al Bicerin. 

The people of Turin, accustomed to coffee and chocolate, are sympathetically described to us by The Economic Times as impatient with respect to brewing times.

But precisely because of this excelling in the art of brewing, someone claims that Turin is the true Italian coffee capital … as the saying goes … there’s no two without three, right?

Here is the poster for the upcoming Turin Coffee: coffee exhibition in Turin to be held on June 11 and 12, on which “Turin coffee capital.” stands out.

Trieste, Naples or Turin then?

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