SHERMAN8R
Ma'ale Adumim Israel,
I'm a coffee lover living in Israel. Coffee has come a long way here, from Turkish coffee only to espresso everywhere. In my small town, I can walk to five espresso shops! Italian espresso with milk is my favorite. Here we can get it as cappuccino, latte, or "upside down" coffee! When not enjoying coffee, I'm a writer.
My Equipment:
Coffee maker
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LAVAZZA QUALITA ORO SETS THE BAR HIGH
sherman8r | Wed, 04/13/2011 - 08:58I'm not a discriminating taster when it comes to any food, and I've been used to less than specialty coffee. A few years ago (we won't say how many), it was a step up to go to - I hate to say it - Yuban. But now I'm a Lavazza fan. After trying the Qualita Oro, made in a stovetop Moka pot, everything else tastes flat. This Italian has a richer, sweeter, creamier taste which has spoiled me. I hope to try all Lavazza's offerings.
DUNKING ALA SWISS - REMEMBER FONDUE?
sherman8r | Fri, 09/24/2010 - 10:49When it comes to dunking, I think the Swiss elevated it to a whole new level with the introduction of a special pot and forks. If you are old enough to remember the 60's-70's, you might remember the fondue pot. I don't see these in stores anymore, but back in the day it was part of every young couple's kitchen. In this elegant form of dunking, we lit up the fondue pot with alcohol and poured in the cheese, then skewed French or Italian bread cubes on our special forks and dunked them into the melted cheese. We had whole cookbooks suggesting all kinds of tasty additions to be added to the melted cheese, but plain was best. The risk to burnt fingers was all but eliminated by this use of skewers. For dessert, the pots were filled with chocolate. Then we stabbed our forks into all kinds of things: fruit chunks, cake pieces, doughnuts, soft cookies that were stab-able with the fork, cinnamon rolls, and just about anything sweet, and dunked them into the melted chocolate. Accompanied by a nice hot coffee, with Kahlua added, one could forget for a moment how poor one was. This was the life! Definitely, To Dunk!
COFFEE AS A HAIR COLORING
sherman8r | Fri, 09/24/2010 - 10:22Bravo for being adventurous and volunteering yourself as the guinea pig for this experiment! It would seem as it the strong brewed coffee you prepared would be enough to really stain - and color - your hair. After all, when we spill a drop of coffee on a white shirt, it stains quite readily! Hair is a little more stubborn than cotton apparently. I too have tried coffee as a hair darkener. In my case, I had dark brown but now it's got a lot of gray mixed in. I had read about a procedure using henna with some coffee. So I bought a henna product at the natural grocery store. This one happened to have a two-step procedure. My instructions were to use day old coffee and add it in place of water in the second step, the second rinse of the henna. When I was meticulously measuring and mixing, I forgot the coffee, until I'd already added the water. So I ended up only putting half as much coffee as was optimal. I followed the directions for the second rinse and left it on for almost an hour. I wrapped my hair in plastic and blew the hair dryer on it to heat it and thereby help the stain to hold. It was then rinsed out and the results amazed me. Where henna had turned my hair orange on a previous use, my coffee-ed hair was now a nice shade of dark-medium brown. The coffee smell washed out in a couple of washes, but the color stayed until the hair grew out. Except for the mess, this method worked excellently and saved me from exposing my head to the yucky hair coloring chemicals. Remember to read the henna package to make sure it doesn't have chemicals, but is the natural henna. Keep experimenting. At least you discovered a good rinse for your hair. And next time you're at the beauty salon, and they offer you a cup of coffee, make sure you tell them to leave it black and pour it on! To your health!