For months I have been pondering the issue of why coffee I make in my little imported Italian espresso machine tastes vaguely burnt. It’s not bad, just a little off. I even asked my zia Lelia in Italy to see if she had any suggestions, which she did, but I had already tried those, to  no avail.

Last week there was some Kicking Horse coffee on sale at the grocery store, and feeling in a “fair trade” kind of mood, I bought it.  I had rescued my dad’s old coffee grinder when we closed the house all those years ago, so I pulled it out and tried grinding the coffee. Except the blades had gotten dull over the years, and so it was just ‘chunking’ the coffee as opposed to grinding it. Being in a frugal mode, I wanted to purchase a new grinder, but didn’t want to spend more than $20, since I can squeeze that into my budget ($40 for a swanky Krupps one, not so much.)

Yesterday I ran across a nice Black & Decker one for $14.95 at Canadian Tire, which was just the price point I was looking for, so I snagged it immediately.

This morning I pulled out the Kootenay Crossing beans, which is a medium roast, and the coffee grinder, and bizzed up the beans as required. (For an espresso machine, they need a fine grind, so I bizzed them up for about 25 seconds or so.) The smell in my kitchen was just wonderful. I’ve always loved the smell of ground coffee, even when I didn’t drink it. Growing up I would always grab the can of coffee away from my mother when she was making the morning espresso for her & my dad, and just stick my face right in it. Inhaling deeply, I was in heaven. My kitchen now smells like that right now, and it’s just bliss!

I pulled out my Bialetti espresso machine, poured in the water, spooned in the coffee and put it on the stove. And I waited. A few minutes later, the coffee percolated up, and I poured it into a cup. The smell was just wonderful, and I took a sip to know if I had to put any sugar in it (no comments from you coffee purists out there. I know I ruin my coffee with sugar & milk, leave me be.)  It tasted pretty good, but is a tad bitter for my taste, so I tossed in a sugar packet and a dollop of milk. While I always put some sugar and milk/cream in my coffee, I am reducing how much I put in. And I took a sip.

Wow, what a sip! Just fabulous! I think I have finally solved my coffee dilemma. The Kicking Horse Kootenay Crossing was just heavenly. I slowly sipped my double espresso and enjoyed it. (My machine is a two-cupper, but I drink all of the coffee that it brews, unlike my sister, who only drinks the single. When I go out and order coffee in Italy, or even at a cafe here in Canada, I only order a single, but at home, I drink the double. I guess I need all the caffeine I can get at 7:30am. )

So there you have it folks, when making coffee in your espresso machine, make sure the coffee grounds are as fresh as you can possibly get them. Otherwise you’re not enjoying your coffee to its fullest.

Aaah, now that’s more like it! I finally pulled out my Mukka Express today, and whipped up my very own home brew cappuccino.

I am impressed. It frothed up the milk like it’s supposed to, and made the coffee just right. The basic functioning is this: the coffee comes up through the middle like any stove-top espresso maker, and the milk, which is in the top half of the maker, froths up as the hot coffee forces itself up. Very, very cool.

The noise the thing made scared the crap out of me though, let me tell you. When the steam pressure builds up, the little nobby pops up and makes a boat-load of noise. But it makes a mean cappuccino.

1. I woke up with another headache this morning, which I am not pleased about. After a battery of drugs, it seems to have receded somewhat, which means this is just a weather-related one. The Weather Witch is in the house, look out.
2. Drivers in the GTA forget how to drive over the weekend, so that on Monday morning, they’re all prematurely breaking, or forgetting that the left lane is for passing, or that the gas pedal is on the right.
3. I laugh every morning when I hear ads on the radio for the Toronto Laser Clinic. This is the clinic that was in the news a couple of months ago after a 37-year old woman died after having liposuction done at this clinic. It turns out the doctors there aren’t licensed Plastic Surgeons, but only “certified” in plastic surgery, whatever that means.
4. Drinking my espresso out of my new espresso cups seems to have eliminated that slight burnt taste I was getting from it. How is this possible? Is it a change in pouring method? Is it because I’m not pouring out the entire machine anymore? Who knows.
5. Speaking of coffee, I forgot to mention that while out shopping on the weekend, I was in a kitchen supply store, and saw my Mukka Express on the shelf. This is a stove-top cappuccino maker that I purchased while in Italy in May. My zia Lelia said this thing works like a charm, that my cousin Matteo finds it quite handy. I also enjoy cappuccinos, but don’t like paying the $4 price at the local coffee shop. So I was curious about this machine. While I have yet to use it (I keep forgetting as it’s still in the box at the back of one of my cupboards), what shocked me this weekend was the price tag. I purchased the machine for around 35 Euros in May. I saw it at this store here in the GTA for $99. Yep, you heard me, $99. Even with the crappy exchange rate back in May, that 35 Euro machine was only about $42 or so, not $99. I have no idea where they got that price, but I’m sure glad I got mine in Italy.
6. Tonight I’m off to play trivia with Melanie and her team. They need a sub for three weeks, so I volunteered. It’s in a really cool trivia league that has very cool rules. One round is always Canadiana, one is an audio round, and the rest are all trivia, but fun, sometimes obscure trivia. Lots of fun. I look forward to it.
7. I’m only past the 5500 word mark in Nano, which is severely lower than where I should be. I should be at almost 17K words by now, so you can see I’m falling behind. But I’m really finding it difficult to find time to write. At least I know where the story’s going, so when I do find those 5 or 10 minutes, I’m able to write, but still, I’m feeling a little frustrated. Maybe this Hollywood writers strike will help out so that I am able to ignore the temptation to watch my shows and just write. Who knows. Keep your eyes on the meter over on the right and see if I’m able to keep things up.

Okay, now it’s time to go earn the bacon at work.

Funny story about coffee: My company provides free pop & coffee to the staff (it’s a software company, they’ve gotta keep us all awake & coding till the wee hours of the morning…this is the easiest & cheapest way). I didn’t used to drink coffee regularly, only about once a quarter. Until my last job, where it became once a month, then once every two weeks. But I couldn’t keep that up as it was only ever lattes, which are like $4 a pop, so a regular habit of those would’ve put me in the poor house. This company provides it free, but I resisted for almost a year, drinking only the free tea. (they have this yummy green tea that’s wonderful.)

Until I realized that green tea has a lot of caffeine in it too. And then I had a big project earlier this year that just had me in supremely early, so I needed the pick me up. And now I’m up to a coffee a day, sometimes two.

I noticed that the Breakfast Blend seemed to always taste a tad burnt, but I often thought it was just the machine. (We have one of those swanky machines that lets you make one cup of whatever flavour you want. We have 9 flavours right now.) So this week I took a look at the box of the Breakfast Blend, and started laughing. The description reads: “Complex, sweet & smoky”. Well duh, I coulda told you that! So I switched over to the French Vanilla, which isn’t as sweet as I thought it was going to be, and my days of wondering what’s up with the coffee are over. Silly me.