Post Seattle Trip

I got back from Seattle a while ago. It was a great to see Pat and Angela, and go to a bunch of coffee shops. I was reminded how small the coffee world is and how many connections there are between people I know. I was reminded about the hype and the ego. I was reminded that there are some really good tasting coffees out there, and there are some mediocre coffees with fancy labels.

I love that now when I talk with Pat, I can picture his life and the scenes from one of his average days.

The trip was also about photography. I hadn't intended it to be, but bringing along my favorite Nikon system was bound to do something. Walking into Jim's Cameras to get my FE2 fixed did something too. I was surrounded by old cameras. I wanted to look at so many of them that I think Jim got tired of me. Oh well.

I got home, started developing film again, and bought a Canon CanoScan 8800F scanner. I'm having a lot of fun scanning my hand-processed negatives. It's great because I can use my 35mm cameras for everyday photography and have a way to use the photos digitally, and then hand print the ones I really like.

So, my Seattle & Portland Set on Flickr is now complete with both digital and film pictures taken during the trip. I also have a set just of film scans.

If you run into me on the street or in a coffee shop soon, chances are I'll have an SLR or a rangefinder on my person.

Beginning of Seattle Trip

This is my first morning of my trip to Seattle and Portland. I'm visiting my friend Pat and going on an espresso pilgrimage. You can follow my adventures on twitter, and see photos on flickr. (More will appear daily.) I'll be taking real film photography while I'm out here too, so those shots will take a while to make an appearance. My Nikon FE2 seems to have a possible issue with a light seal, but I've already found a place in Seattle I can have it looked at. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm not a superhero, I'm just a kid

Can you tell from this photo that this superman outfit gets a lot of action? I've noticed that when we go places, often the kids get a lot of attention they don't really relish. This is totally understandable because often one or both of the kids is wearing something somewhat or completely outlandish: an animal costume, a kilt, a cape, a mask, etc. I bet there are lots of kids who love to get noticed and exclaimed over when they are cute or funny, but not these two. They seem generally surprised and a little confused; "No, I'm not a hero--I'm just a kid."

Also pictured is a treasured ring. It came from a quarter vending machine, at Java Train Coffee in St. Paul, and Oh, did Ezra treasure it. I haven't seen it in a while.

New Trivia Blog - Trivial Cafe

Every morning that I've opened the coffee shop, for more than five years now, I've come up with a new trivia question for the day. If the customer gets the answer right, they get a peppermint patty... and a lot of satisfaction.

Coming up with a new question day after day is a challenge. I try to gauge the difficulty level of the question so that maybe %10 of the people can get it right. It's no fun if it's so hard that no one can figure it out, and it's no fun if it's too easy. I also try to have looked up at least two sources and some background information in case I'm challenged on the legitimacy of the official answer. (I tend to get at least one challenge every day.)

So I thought that maybe all of this work (and fun) I put into trivia questions might interest some of you enough to enjoy a blog full of them. Right now I open three days a week, so I should have at least three questions a week as well as some favorites from trivia past. I'll post the official answer at the end of the next day's question. I don't have any prizes to give out, but the satisfaction of being the first to comment the correct answer should provide some satisfaction.

So with no further adieu I present to you Trivial Cafe!

Cupping at Bull Run

Yesterday I had the opportunity to do some cupping at the new Bull Run / Rustica shop in Minneapolis. Some of my coffee friends have been heavily involved in the launching of this venture and it's exciting that good coffee has made it across the river to Minneapolis.

I'm trying to do as much cupping as possible these days because I will soon be a roaster! Amore Coffee is working on our new location in West St. Paul that has a roaster. I have a lot of learning to do about the craft of roasting, but I also want to get as much experience as I can tasting coffee so that I can keep evaluating the beans I select and the roasting I do. Yesterday we cupped coffees from Bull Run, Black Sheep, Stumptown, and one from Dunn Brothers. The selection from Dunn Brothers was so bad that we removed it from the cupping table. I, however, was excited to get to taste it because I want to know what different roasting defects taste like. My fellow cuppers thought I was crazy for lingering over the "bad" one!

I've been Yelped

I don't make a point of looking at online review sites very much, mostly because I don't trust them. (There are so many ways that a review can be biased: anything from ignorance to conflict of interest to personal vendetta, etc.) That being said, it's always nice to get a compliment.

My boss Cathy showed me this review today on yelp.com that included the comment, "Paul, their groovy super-barista was working, and he does a great job. Coffee was really great today. I appreciate they have constantly tried to improve and it's obvious that they have put thought and consciousness into their product."

Thanks, Guya I., whoever you are.

Goodbye Conti. Hello La Marzocco.

Though I wouldn't put the art of espresso on quite the same level as that of music performance, there are some similarities. One is in the area of equipment. I can be an accomplished pianist, but if I'm playing on an out of tune spinet piano, there's only so much I can do. I'd like to think that after close to a decade of experience I'm a fairly accomplished barista. The old Conti espresso machine I've been playing on for the last six years (never a Steinway in the first place) has gone very out of tune lately. It was loosing steaming pressure big time and my drinks were coming out flat no matter what I did...

Enough with the musical puns. This week Amore acquired the real Steinway of the espresso machines: a La Marzocco. Ours is a refurbished 3 grouphead Linea, which was the flagship machine of just a few years ago.
Here are Blair and I the day it arrived. We carried it across Grand Ave. with the help of a few regular customers. Waiting for the installation was grueling.
Here's our old Conti about to be carted away.
A look under the hood.
Here are the Roastery 7 guys finishing the installation.
The Amore employees decided that I should get to make the first drink.
I guess it was also my job to drink the first drink.
Here's the first shot served to a customer. He's gotten an American double espresso practically every day since I've been around. I'm glad he was served the first shot.

Amore in the Media

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed for a review of Amore Coffee by the local online Magazine The Heavy Table. It's great to have our coffee shop reviewed by someone who actually knows a lot about coffee.

On the other hand, Amore tied with Kopplin's for third in Minnesota Monthly's Readers Choice Awards... just after Caribou and Dunn Brothers.

Funny, no?

Racy D'lene's Coffee Lounge

Last weekend I went on a trip with my best friend Pat who is getting married a week from today. It was a "just the two of us" kind of get away before he becomes one with Angela. On the way back from his cabin we stopped at Racy D'lene's Coffee Lounge in Eau Claire. I've blogged about Racy's previously, but it's worth another mention.

I used to go to Racy's when I was in high school and home from college. This was before I knew much about coffee (which is good, because their coffee wasn't that great back then!) Racy's has been a kind of formative ideal for me of what coffee shop atmosphere can be. It's cozy yet industrial, and a little dark. It has an adequate sound system, which is a detail many other good coffee shops lack.

As I mentioned before, the coffee quality at Racy's has been elevated in the last few years. It might be the only shop with a Synesso in western Wisconsin. We had a good time talking with Kyle, the barista pictured below. Baristas have many common experiences: the gripes and joys of the job. He humored us and poured some latte art.
Thanks Kyle.

Mmmmouse Museum

At a coffee shop we like to go to, there was a tiny little display called "Mouse Museum".
Little folded pieces of cardstock displaying tiny paintings. As you can see in the photo, the mouse museum was patronized by cattoy mice.
Ezra had endless fun picking them up and rearranging them.




This would be such an easy little toy-game-art-project to make with things around the house.

Barista Boy

Gibbie really knows his way around coffee shops. He has his favorites and list off most of the independents in St. Paul. He has his own regular drink (foam, aka a cappuccino minus the espresso). He does a better job of busing his own dishes than a lot of regulars I know. Sometimes he plays coffee shop at home and serves up pretend drinks. He can recognize a latte on sight.

Today he got some behind-the-bar with my best buddy and pro barista Pat. I was impressed that Pat could pour a good rosetta with Gibbie on his shoulders. I don't know if I could do that!

Java Train Day

One of the lofty goals Libby and I have for our lifestyle is regular individual project time. Gibby and Ezra are the reasons why it's a lofty goal right now! Once a week I take the boys for an afternoon while Libby gets to work on whatever she wants. This is kind of a double blessing in that I not only get a time for my stuff once a week, but I also get this special time with the boys (which I often end up enjoying more than my "free" time.)

Almost every time we go to Java Train coffee shop. The coffee's average, but the toys are great! And the kid's love it.
There is an actual Java Train play place shaped like a box car filled with stuff to do. It's two stories high and has a seasonally changing model train village on top. Pretty cool.When I'm not playing with the kids, I usually get a head start on planning Bible Sutdy for the next week and muntching on animal crackers with Ezra.

Brush Painting

This is a brush calligraphy set given to me by my dear chum Emily once upon a time. She brought it back with her from China. Thank you, Emily. It is really a wonderful little thing. Inside this lovely, silk-covered box, is a complete set for brush and ink work.
Gibbie is learning to do it too. His first job is to take each component out of the box, and set them up around his pad of paper. I fill the tiny water bowl with water. He uses the delicate spoon to move the water into the stone basin where it will be made into ink. Then we take the stick of compressed pigment, and grind it on the stone until we have a good amount of nice, black ink.There is a special porcelain stand upon which to rest the brushes, and places in the case for each brush. One brush has been designated as Gibbie's. I've noticed the most difficult thing for small children in painting is not destroying brushes. He's working hard on this, but still, just in case... I love this painting set because it is self contained (here we are using it at a local coffee shop) and very high quality, and getting to take out all the parts and mix the ink ourselves is an enjoyable part of the process rather than a chore.

I learned a lot more about Chinese calligraphy, and painting when I studied it in college. Enough to feel almost unworthy of taking a brush in my hand!

Oh, and the best part is the little chop, the stone carved stamp with which the artist marks her work. Emily tells me that mine is carved with the phonetic syllables of my name. Pressing the chop into the greasy red inkpot and making that clear, bright red square on his white paper is the best part.

Family Coffee Date: Swede Hollow Cafe

One of our very favorite spots to come as a family is Swede Hollow Cafe. It's on East Seventh, just up the hill from Metropolitan State University. It's not open in the evenings so much, but is a great place to come earlier in the day.What we love about our beloved Swede Hollow Cafe:
-beautiful outdoor seating, including: >a great fountain. Good for kids to play by/in when it's nice out! I like the sculptural faces on it as well.
>a community-run vegetable garden.
>a big, terraced rain garden of native plants and wildflowers--so fun for the kids. there's a little path to follow, and low, wide stone walls to walk on.
>ample outdoor seating
>poetry on rocks and a little door behind which to put your own poetry.
>in close walking distance to Swede Hollow park, which has good plant life, forest, a big tunnel, an old train bridge, a little stream running into still pools of water, lots of steps, a rock-sculpture area, some wetland area, an echo-y tunnel, sumac, touch-me-not, cattails, groundnuts, willow, and all kinds of other fun things.
-good coffee
-great house-made baked goods. I recommend the fruit cobbler, scones, and caramel rolls
-little piece of chocolate comes with espresso drinks
-very kind and considerate proprietor
-atmosphere-Swede Hollow is sun-drenched with a worn, wide-planked wood floor. It's not huge, and doesn't have couches, but while we've always been able to find a table, it's also always busy enough to have private conversations.
-has a high chair
-manages to be both very tasteful and unpretentious

Swede Hollow is one of those places we drove past for years before we actually stopped there, every time thinking it looked like such a promising place. When we can, we come here every week. The only thing we wish is that they were open more later in the evenings. On the rare occasions we have coffee shop time in the evenings, I'd love to go there, either for live music, or for time alone with the kids.

We actually frequented Swede Hollow Cafe for most of the winter last year. We bundled up the whole family in long underwear, sweaters, mittens; the works. We would take a hike, mostly with the kids wrapped on our backs, and then trudge up the big hill for hot chocolate, coffee, and scones at the cafe.

Goat Milk Latte!

This is something I've allways wanted to try. Coffee shops are known for having too many choices (size, flavor, drink type, etc.). Milk is one of those choices. "Would you like that latte with whole, skim, 2%, soy, rice ...?" Why not goat milk? I've joked about it in the past, but now thanks to a free sample from a local dary company, I got to try it!

I'd never had goat milk before, so I tasted a bit of the cold stuff before starting the latte. It didn't taste like cow's milk, but it wasn't that weird either. It felt thinner than whole milk.
Steaming it went pretty well. The microfoam was nice and tight. It poured really well, though I ended up making a little more foam than I'd expected. That makes sense if it's not as fatty as whole cow's milk. The foam seemed to break down a little quicker than cow's which lead to a somewhat embossed looking rosetta after a couple of sips (pictured above).

How did it taste? Good! At first I couldn't really tell that it was an unusual latte. After getting past the initial crema and cooling a bit, there was a little more "goaty" taste, but certainly not as much as the straight cold goat's milk.

I'd say it was a great success. In my mind it tasted way better than soy or rice. The steaming characteristics were much more favorable than these milk substitutes. I think the hardest part is selling it to the customers - getting past the weirdness factor.

I had two takers this morning.

ps - Sorry about the crummy image quality. I only had my phone with me to document this event!

Family Coffee Date: J&S Bean Factory at Hamline and Thomas

We love our coffee shops. We used to love spending whole evenings lounging around in them, reading aloud to each other, staring deeply into eachothers' eyes, working on our own quiet projects, critiquing the art, bantering with the baristas. Ah, the happy golden days! Well, we still care about good coffee, independent ownership (we're not really herd animals, if you know what I mean), and good atmosphere.

But now child and baby-friendly bathrooms are a veritable necessity, along with toys or really fun outdoor seating. When we have the luxury; nay, the scarce but necessary time for coffee-shoppin', we look for a place Paul and I can talk (and enjoy ourselves; ixnay on the acDonald'sMay unParkFay) where the kids will have fun too. J&S Bean Factory Makes the Cut.
Things we like about J&S Hamline and Thomas: (different from their Randolph Avenue sister store, which Paul can tell you is good for high school kids in the early morning, but not so much for wee lil 'babes)
-Good toy area!
-Bathroom is closeby, with diaper changing station
-consistently good coffee, okay baked goods rockin' awesome sandwiches and soups from Acme and Xanders'
-right next to a great knitting shop (okay, only Libby cares about that, but in the knitting shop, there is a nice lil' ramp between the front and back rooms, which the kids love to crawl up and down. The shop's staff are indulgent of this wildness.)
-breastfeeding friendly environment
-real art on the walls, that actually changes every so often
-friendly, chatty baristas
-some outdoor seating
-accessible via bus: the 67 runs within two blocks and the 16 within four blocks
-accessible via bike: great bike rack (it's hidden!) and bike paths run on Minnehaha, two blocks away
Ezra loves to crawl on chairs, especially if Gib is already on them.

We're not so much into:
-not much privacy (we have a penchant for secluded nooks)
-the kids' area is a tad dim, and doesn't always have outlet covers, though outlets are covered by toys
-the kids' books are mostly lame-o, not that our kids have noticed
-If there's already someone in the play area, like, say, a parent's group or someone else's play date, it doesn't work so well, but this would be true anywhere
-there's not much not to like; we've been hitting this one a fair bit lately!
This is a "city" we built. We used every last one of these great blocks. Most of the toys at J&S are good ones, like these, that we can really play with. The key with blocks is having enough of them that you can really build something fun. J&S does. That's a score for us, as when the kids are playing happily, we can read, talk, and think deeply. When Mama and Papa are happy and get good time with each other, it rubs off on the kids and they're happier too.
Of course, we also do a fair amount of playing too. By the by, do you see that little tower Ezra started there? He can stack four blocks! Gibbs did this particular big big big one all on his own! That's his hand about to place the next story.

Papa's Papa

That's how my dad described himself to Gibbie today. He drove over for an afternoon visit with us. We went to the Cherokee Sirloin Room and then Cafe Juliana, both on the same corner of St. Paul's west side.

I forgot my camera, but did have my phone to capture a bit of the domino playing with Grandpa Bill, Gibbie, and Mama. I think everyone had a great time. Part of our conversation had to do with the mechanical bent of my Dad's family. While Libby's ancestors were farmers, most of the men on my Dad's side of the family were machinists and engineers (although one was a successful musician). I grew up seeing my dad work on cars, but as he pointed out today, he didn't systematically educate me in auto mechanics. Now he sees me working on diesels, which he doesn't know much about, and guesses that it's only natural.

Cafe Juliana used to be Old Man River Cafe. It's still a great space, and the coffee's still about average.

Monday Adventure

I'm not bloging about anything too serious today- just a photo tour of our day.We stepped out of our front door for our usual Monday morning outing. This week's adventure had an added twist caused by our recent car trouble. (Don't worry, it's nothing too serious. I just need to get around to it! I'll blog about it later.) We took the bus to Swede Hollow!
We had to transfer buses in downtown St. Paul. Gibbie's did pretty well with the waiting.
We finally made it to Swede Hollow. Much to our surprise, as well as their's, the power was out. Gibbie had a cold chocolate instead of hot, and I had a drip brew instead of Macchiato. The shop has such good natural light that, apart from the slight drink differences, we didn't miss the electricity.
Then down into Swede Hollow park we went. Libby and Gib had a great time playing by the water.
Look at the strange flowers Gibbie found. He said, "They're sticky."
Ezra needed a little snack in the woods.
He felt much better afterwords.
Here we all are. It was a difficult self portrait to take with such a squirmy family. Another freeing, relaxing day off.

Too Much Coffee?

While Libby and I were sitting in Black Sheep Coffee Cafe on Monday, and I was taking a picture, she said "Our blog's getting pretty coffee-centric, don't you think?" She's probably right, but I do work with coffee five days a week, and then we go to a coffee shop first thing on our days off. It was bound to happen.

It's not all about the coffee. Ok, this sounds cheesy, but Libby and I are best friends (awwwwwww). There aren't many places we can go to hang out casually anymore, but we have figured out how to still go to coffee shops with the boys. That means that we can have some time out to kick back, share our ideas and thoughts from the last few days, and try to plan what to do in the coming week. Since we tend to read a lot to each other at home, we always have things to share about our current book. We just finished The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald. It's a wonderful young person's story with so many layers of Christian truth. I wonder how much it influenced Lewis' Narnia.Gibbie played with Legos for the first time at Black Sheep (though he thought of them as strangely small Duplos). For now they're too much of an Ezra choking hazard to keep around the house, but it was great to find them at a coffee shop. By the discretely placed toy area a sign read, "Unattended Children will be given a Shot of Espresso and a Puppy."
It was also good to see Andrea at Black Sheep. I'm proud of her learning latte art (though I don't think I can take any credit!) As for me, I had one of the best latte pours ever today. Want to see it?

So I don't think there's too much coffee on this blog. Do you?

Over the River, Through the Woods

This weekend we went to visit my family in Menomonie, WI. Here you can see Ezra held by his Great Grandmother Veronica. It's kind of funny that in order to get to where my mom and dad live, you do have to drive over the St. Croix river and through the woods of western Wisconsin.

The visit started out with an adventure of our car getting thoroughly stuck halfway down my mother's long snow-packed gravel driveway. It took at least an hour of work and the skillful help of my mom's Gary to get us out. We just walked up the drive from that point on! Libby and I got to go out without the kids that evening, and then came back to celebrate my mother's birthday a day early.

Since neither of my parents have a place for us to stay at their respective houses, and because my mother is generous, we stayed the night in a hotel. Gibbie was excited, though somewhat disappointed that there was no one for him to watch in the pool.

In the morning, since it was a Monday and my parents were working, we decided to go to Eau Claire. It's about a half hour drive and always has greener grass than Menomonie, if you know what I mean.

I was also curious to go back to Racy's. I mentioned it in my last post about latte art. I guess it was one of my early coffee house influences and is still somewhere I think of as an example of my favorite kind of coffee shop atmosphere.



Hey all you coffee geeks: do you recognize what kind of espresso machine is in this picture? (You know, you can click on it go get a better look.)

Yes, the drinks were excellent. We also ended up eating a delicious, reasonably priced lunch there. Still, in some ways it seemed a little soul-less compared to the Racy's of old (which had worse coffee, more weird furniture, more dirt, and a constant cloud of cigarette smoke). Why do great coffee and great atmosphere rarely mix?

While we were at Racy's, there was a young mom with her 16 month old daughter as well as what seemed to be her whole extended family. What stuck out more than the mom's tattoos or the dad's punk hoodie was the utter delight she had in her child. Why do I mention this? Simply because it was beautiful to see in another parent, and hopefully somewhat reflective of our family experience this weekend.