"Hal, please open the door."
 "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that."
 With that auspicious reminder that we are now in 2001, it looks like there isn't as much of a space odyssey facing us as one might have hoped a few decades ago when the movie first came out.
 Hal, the infamous computer had psycho-chips instead of micro chips but (unlike Lt. Commander Data of Star Trek fame) could at least speak in contractions.
 Dave, the erstwhile astronaut was no Capt. Kirk, but was clever enough in a pinch.
 This past weekend we (your humble baristas) listened to no less than 5 versions of the waltz from "2001" and fully half of the car commercials used "Also Spracht Zarathustra" as their music to pitch vehicles to the public. Yoikes! Poor Richard Strauss...
 Does anyone remember what we thought the new millennium might be like 30 years ago? Space was going to be as commonplace a destination as Nebraska and computers would handle all the daily tasks from cleaning the house to scheduling your next dental appointment.
 O.K. you're right... no one actually goes to Nebraska and your dentist is probably online, so maybe we aren't that far behind (yet...).
 We are still amazed at some basic oddities of the past, present and future, both known and guessed. Take windshield wipers, for example:
 The wipers on a 1935 DeSoto are intrinsically no different than the ones on the 2001 Lexus.
 Sci-fi movies placed in the far future have vehicular designs that would make one drool, but they still sport old fashioned wiper blades... Huh?
 Grade B movies show aliens with wrist watches, but how else are we gonna tell time? A "heads-up display" on our glasses? Why are we still wearing glasses! (and a 'heads-up display' on our contacts doesn't appeal to us at all...)
 From 2001 to galactic romping in the 24th century, evil computers have been shown trying to destroy life as we know it, but how different is that from PC's that crash and burn when you fail to stifle a sneeze?
 Demonic computers don't have to be accompanied by a desire to take over the universe. They can probably succeed by merely annoying us to death.
 Now that we are in our barista-hood, watching for signs of The Bean in Sci-fi movies is one of the games we play - (yes, we do need a life... what's your point?)
 Buck Rogers, James Tiberius Kirk, Katherine Janeway and Han Solo are all coffee drinkers. That our favorite flag officer prefers "Tea, Earl Grey, hot..." is a disappointment, but he has other redeeming qualities.
 Long before they became popular in coffee houses, the sets of futuristic space movies sported shiny stainless steel airpots for dispensing their brew du jour. Now you can find airpots almost anywhere and, like calculators, they have dropped precipitously in price!
 Remember when the first calculators came out? Average price: $175 for a version that could only do basic math. Now you can get them in Cracker Jack boxes as the prize.
 Ten years ago airpots retailed at around $125 in specialty coffee outlets only. Now you can find them in any houseware department for around $24. We saw some this holiday season for $14, and they were reasonably good quality, too!
 In the background on "Babylon V" one can spot (are you ready?) French presses for making coffee! We have never seen them actually used, but someone in the TV  industry apparently thought that this honorable method of brewing The Bean was gonna last into the far flung future! And it's kinda nice to note that a decidedly low tech way of making coffee can last into a fantasy version (at least) of a high tech tomorrow..
 A decade ago a single mug press retailed at $40 bucks and they broke when you looked at 'em cross eyed. Now you can get a better designed press that is the same size and UNbreakable for about $15. Ain't science grand?
 There is still a high tech desire on the part of some people for a glitzy and 'Tomorrowland" way of getting your daily Java juice. For those people, the future is now. A new item on the market (we affectionately call it 'RoboCup') will measure and roast your green coffee, grind it and dispense it into a special filter, brew the coffee, empty and clean the filter and reset itself for the next use.
 Honest! And when you are talking a mere $4800 (preinstalled... you do require a plumber for this one...) why not one at home AND the office? We are gonna hold on this one, however, until we find one in our next box of Cracker Jacks...
 Finally, the futurists writing for screens big and small as well as genre paperbacks, make the assumption that every alien race has their own version of coffee. The most famous of alien brews is the Klingon version, Raktachino, but authors as diverse as Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagen have provided their space cadets with some form of brewed hot beverage that acts as a stimulant.
 It's nice to know that, no matter what we may or may not be prepared for, the future holds at least one thing for all of us:
 A good cup o' Joe!
 

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Heavy Water and Exploding Coffee - Honest!

 In the days before the end of WWII, the search for 'heavy water' was the key to the atomic bomb's creation.
 Heavy water had an extra atom of something... hydrogen... oxygen... something (hey, we're baristas, not chemists!) - so it was H3O or H2O2 (ummm... no - we think that's hydrogen peroxide...) but it was 'heavy' by one atom or another and ultimately caused the BOOM in the bomb.
 What does this have to do with coffee, you may (justifiably) ask? Well, read on, oh faithful reader(s).
 Your humble baristas have maintained from the very beginning of Buzz Words that no connection exists or should exist between your microwave and your favorite morning beverage.
 Microwaves and The Bean are inherently mutually exclusive for lots of reasons. First, there is the bizarre concept of something called 'instant coffee' which, as any real coffee drinkers know, simply doesn't exist. There are those who 'nuke' some water, spoon in some brown powder and have the effrontery to call it coffee.
 Next there are the conservationists who live and die by the "reduce, reuse, recycle" rule of life. They make a pot of decent Java and pour themselves a fresh cup - then they put the leftovers into the fridge (ack!) and nuke a cup of it every morning for a week until it is (mercifully) gone.
 Nevermind that this is a horrible thing to do to perfectly good coffee, it's also a great way of having a week's worth of not only bitter (bitterer by the day...) coffee, but offers a drink that takes on the various tastes of the other leftovers in the ol' ice box!
 There is something uniquely unappealing about pizza flavored coffee or, even worse, coffee having the flavor of some of the vegetative archeological artifacts that exist in OUR fridge... (you don't want to know... honest)
 Our research department has discovered an even better reason why not to microwave water for coffee or coffee itself.
 It explodes.
 No lie, it explodes!
 What? Does this look like an April Fool's column? It EXPLODES for crying out loud!
 Again, with the disclaimer that we are baristas (and humble) and not physicists or chemists, water heated in the microwave is dangerous, whether for coffee or for Jello.
 Coffee brought to a boil in a microwave oven doesn't LOOK like it's boiling - steam, sure, but no bubbles. No rolling boil or obvious indication that it has reached it's 100 degree Celsius mark.
 For whatever reason (someone tried to explain surface tension to us but we just recommended an herbal tea - our solution for any kind of tension...) the surface of the microwaved H2O fails to resemble the surface of boiling water in a kettle.
 And (here is the important part) when you add a spoonful of something or pour a bit of cream into the micro'ed mug, the surface tension breaks and the damned stuff explodes!
 Exploding coffee is not the way to start the day. It can ruin your mood, suit, and eyesight. Worse, it will ruin your coffee.
 The story exists on the web (no urban legend, this) of a guy that was blinded from heating water in a bowl in the microwave in preparation for making Jello. He added the packaged powder (Lime, we believe...) and it exploded and he is now blind.
 Let's face it, Jello ought to not be a hazard to health, home and happiness.
 And the same should be said for coffee. Now, allow us to go on record as saying that we are not in favor of a surgeon general's warning on each bag of fresh roast, fresh ground Celebes Kalosi that states: Microwaving coffee may be hazardous to your health.
 From our point of view, anyone who nukes a Celebes deserves whatever fate dishes out (so to speak).
 Nevermind that there are more than enough stupid warnings out there to boggle the mind already - our Coke machine states that if you tip it over on you it could cause injury or death - duh...
 So, with our entire readership awaiting our recommendations on nuclear water, it is as follows:
 1- Boil the water in a kettle (duh...) and simply avoid the microwave.
 B- Never (NEVER!! as in not EVER!!!) use anything claiming to be instant coffee.
 III- if you MUST microwaves water (office personnel come to mind...) use a French Press to actually make the Java. The ground coffee is already in the press and pouring the nuclear water into the press is (apparently) a safer method of avoiding flying shards of glass  and (more to the point) better way of making coffee anyway.
 4- Do NOT spoon anything into microwave headed water. Nothing - Nil - Nada...
 Our readership is already small enough. We want to make sure we keep all our fans healthy!
 

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EXTRA! Stylist Saves Snowbound City

 It was just over a year ago that she walked into the coffee shoppe and made her fateful proclamation:
 "You know, we ought to do something - anything - in the wintertime for the kids. It gets so blah here. Like a carnival or something, don't you think?"
 Her words were those of prophesy; not only that, she put them into action and last January saw the emergence of the First Annual Winter Carnival.
 Can there actually be a 'first annual' anything? I asked that once of a theology professor, 'cause it seemed a theological dilemma, and his reply was profound. "In order to be a First Annual Something, there simply has to be a Second Annual Something."
 Bingo! (as other theology prof's used to say...) And now we have the Second Annual Winter Carnival bearing down upon us like a beam of sunlight in an eternally gray sky. This Saturday! Yay!
 Last year's humble beginnings were awesome. On a day that was 7 below zero (for cryin' out loud!), people from all over our Seasonally Affected Disorder'ed community flocked to Water Street and other downtown venues to, well, just get OUT of the house.
 Around here a simple case of cabin fever can nearly be a terminal disease and we were amazed at what transpired in a downtown frozen solid.
 Our heroine hair-stylist from Strands And Essence and the guys from Kathmandu/Midnight Sun set up games on Water Street. Fancy? No... just the opposite - Snowbowling involving pins and balls rolled down Water Street...
 Basket Snowball. A hoop and some bales of hay and a few basketballs of the small squishy variety made their appearance.
 Snowball Targetshooting - simple stuff, really - and everyone (including the Kathmandu guys) were out honing and thawing their skills. It should be remembered that these are the very same guys who organize the April Fool's Dip and go swimming in Ontario on 1 April - sheesh!
 The Oswego Children's Board joined forces with plays at the Armory (as we recall) and OCBD got some bucks out of a magic hat somewhere and hired a world famous snow sculptor to come to town.
 But, of course (as these things go) there was no snow to sculpt. It was too COLD to snow (what is wrong with this picture???) We hovered at the zero mark for two weeks, long enough and cold enough to form a small glacier had there been any snow.
 There wasn't. Poor Klaus the Sculptor sat in the coffee shoppe and looked sadly at his work element and shrugged. "Even if I had some ice, I could carve that."
 His wintertime wish was a command and several 400 lb. blocks of crystal clear ice appeared and he went to work. Some outlying snow (non-city snow, but welcomed) was deposited up at Civic Plaza and in the three days left to him, Klaus transformed these humble substances into "HockyLove", an ice sculpting of kids enjoying the Canadian national pastime complete with bleachers with hockey fans (with two of them smooching in the top row, thus commemorating America's favorite pastime!)
 The pile of snow became "The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe" which actually looked a lot more like a snow boot, but hey!
 A "Chili Cook Off" was organized with the local restaurants competing in a friendly challenge of peppery eatery with judging and samples for the crowd (and - glory be to the snow gods, there WAS a crowd!)
 The coffee shoppe was a mob scene! We made hot cocoa about as fast as we could whip it up (literally) and people kept coming.
 It was 7 BELOW ZERO, folks... The organizers were hoping that a few intrepid folks might show up, but our stylist heroine was right:
 We DO need something to do in the middle of January.
 So, enter the "Second Annual Winter Carnival" thus allowing last years fest to become the 'first annual'. This Saturday. Yay!
 The river's end bookstore is jumping into the mix this year with professional story tellers at 1, 2, and 3 of the clock. Cookies and cocoa will be on hand to warm the cockles of your tummy while the stories warm your hearts.
 Drawings are being held at eleven downtown businesses for prizes generously donated by them to help cure the wintry blues.
 And to test YOUR creativity, this year's snow sculptings are gonna be done by (are you ready?) YOU! Snow will be available along Linear Park  and you can try your hand at anything from a snowman to the Magic Kingdom!
 The Chili Cook Off will once again headline the hot blooded city chefs down on Water Street. And no matter who wins or how much chili they make, it disappears fast, so take a hint! Get there early.
 In that great tradition that they are famous for (for which they are famous... sheesh!), Coleman's will have a party going on to celebrate the snow and "Steav and the Micro Chips" will provide some hot swing and jazz music at the Coffee Connection in the evening. If he's lucky he might convince Mary Lou from Picture Connection to come sing - and maybe Sherri from Shapiro Paper!!!
 In a community where we knew about cabin fever and seasonal affective disorder long long before they ever coined the terms it's neat to know that we not only complain about the weather,
 but we do something about it!
 
 

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You are what you drink, right???

 If you are among the millions of people who get email you are either blessed or cursed... Lately it's hard to tell.
 Your humble baristas have been on the now ubiquitous net for a very long time - we predate both Netscape and Explorer. Heck, we even predate Mosaic (does anyone remember that?). In fact, when we first went online there was no such thing as junk email.
 None... Nada... Nil... When you got email in the good old days, it was actually from someone you knew. Now the emailbox is as stuffed as the regular mailbox with missives from no one that you ever met or probably would care to become acquainted with (with whom you would ever wish to be acquainted... sheesh!)
 Which is a tortured and somewhat roundabout way of saying that we got some junk email the other day that prompted a Buzz Word moment. It was a series of pictures proclaiming that dogs and their owners tend to look a lot alike. And they did. A prissy matron and her equally prissy poodle (both with bluish hair)... A WWF type (maybe XFL...) and his torn-eared burger faced boxer.
 A tall, skinny fellow with a long nose and his doppleganger dachshund... There were about a dozen perfectly duplicated human/canine lookalikes. It was a hoot!
 Without going into the ridiculous concept that WE actually look anything like OUR pups, it did remind us of a game that baristas play unbeknownst to our unsuspecting customers.
 We are of a mind to tell you that (sad to say) your humble baristas try (when exceedingly bored) to match people with the drink they are about to order. The tall businessman customer in the SUV with the brush cut is easy enough: large regular to go with a flat top. Anyone could figure out that one.
 The slender 'dressed for success' gal who orders a latte skimmed is just as easy. It's when she orders it "breve" (made with steamed cream!) that you loose the game.
 The great thing about coffee is that it comes in so many styles, a sort of designer drink. And like all things designer, similar types of people tend toward similar types of drinks.
 There is not a week goes by when someone doesn't order "what they drink on 'Friends', please" (the NBC group drinks lattes... doubles, or so we are told).
 And there are the novice cafe consumers who have sampled vending machine cappuccinos and want the same at their local bean bar. For the record, vended caps are nothing remotely resembling cappuccinos; they are hot cocoa and instant coffee whipped in an automat blender to create the impression of foamed milk.
 Not even close.
 But (baristas to the rescue!) there is a parallel drink available to the trial taster: we call it a moccaccino (brewed coffee, hot chocolate and whipped cream) and a dark chocolate drizzle makes it classy looking, too.
 Our 'match the drink to the customer' game gets even more intriguing when said customer has an accent... trust us.
 Southern accent? They may want chicory blended brew or possibly molasses for a sweetener.
 European accent? Darker roast, of course. Mediterranean type? Espresso... The closer to Rome you go, the less milk you steam for their drink!
 It's true! Honest! In fact, we are studying the premise that the farther you get from the original home of coffee (Ethiopia) the more watered down The Bean becomes.
 Fact: in Ethiopia they eat the bean raw! OK, not everyone there does, but it is popular, and certainly the most undiluted form of The Bean, eh?
 Travel from there a short distance to Turkey where their beans are roasted to the point of being burnt and then brewed so strong as to curl your toes (or any other appendage, for that matter).
 From Turkish coffee to Italian Espresso increases the distance from the mother country of Ethiopia just a bit more, and (true to our thesis) the Italians like their beans very darkly roasted (but not burned) and strongly brewed. If you wander a ways northward from Rome your  Espresso becomes Cappuccino and no longer black and strong. Cappuccino uses the same thick, rich espresso brew, but 'cuts' it with an equal amount of steamed milk.
 Casting our fate further from Central Africa, we come to France and the famous Cafe au Lait (coffee with hot milk) - the French like a fairly dark roast but (can you guess???) not as dark as the Italians. Add a fair dollop of hot milk to the drink and you have your 'au lait'.
 Now comes the tricky part because, according to our hypothesis, coffee looses more of its original authenticity the greater the distance from Africa. Enter Starbucks and the omnipresent west coast concoction, the Latte.
 Latte is a hybrid of cappuccino and Cafe au Lait. (Confused? Hang in there!) Lattes consist of espresso (one or two shots... what is this, whiskey???) and a whole lot of steamed milk -  We're talking 2 or 3 ounces of espresso and 14+ ounces of milk here, folks!
Now let's face it, we don't have a thing against lattes - we drink 'em ourselves, but they are (by our scientific study) a less authentic beverage compared to the original.
 You may have noticed that we have, conveniently, skipped right over our own local Central New York coffee preference. That is, drip. Mr. Coffee. Bunn. Scoops of fresh ground beans into a filter with hot (not boiling, by the way...) water poured through. It's what you will find in every restaurant, truck stop or cafe. Specifically in the northeast we have conquered the percolator battle (mostly) and some 85% of coffee drinkers in New York drink drip coffee in some form. The other 15% are about equally divided between folks who French press and those who are espresso drinkers.
 Our nicely filtered brew may not be as lethal as the cafe you sip in Paris or Rome - certainly we don't hold a candle to the killer kaffe of Kabul! But we can rest assured that, while the Silicon Valley kids swill their tepidly overmilked lattes, we are (if only by a teeny weeny bit) closer to the motherlode of The Bean.
 And as far as folks resembling the coffee drinks they consume well, hey... it's just a game.
 We don't look like drips... do you???
 

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Black is the colour of my true love's shirt...

 OK- Valentines Day is passed and the lyrics in the headline are wrong anyway, but the question often arises between baristas (those fun-loving caffeinated bar tenders) and their customers (those fun-craving caffein-addicted patrons), to whit:
 Why do you always wear black?
 One could simply say that your humble baristas wear black because it is considered 'slimming' but with one obvious exception, all of our baristas aren't in any need of slimming, and the exception is currently writing this column for your entertainment and doesn't want to pursue this line of thought, thank you very much.
 Another possibility is that black is easiest to find at our favorite clothing store (Best Kept Secret... but don't tell anyone...)
 In fact, BKS doesn't often have black shirts available (but when they do, they often disappear into my closet!) and usually have, instead, a wide selection of vertically striped shirts.
 I don't do vertical strips... Makes me look like our awning. Not good.
 Actually (and this is truth time, so pay attention!) wearing black has been the hallmark of the coffee drinking intelligencia for nearly 400 years!
 Back during the early Renaissance the rich (and therefore educated) were dressing in flamboyant clothes made with expensive coloured dyes and gold and silver decorations.
  In the early part of the 17th century as the Renaissance was spreading into Northern Europe the Dutch invented the first permanent black dyes. Before that the best anyone could achieve was a sort of midnight blue that turned your body a pleasant shade of midnight blue if you should chance to sweat. (Horrors!)
 At the same time Dutch merchants were surpassing the Italians as Europe's premiere merchants and Amsterdam was becoming the centre of power and learning for Europe.
 Far be it from us to point out the obvious, but where power and learning exist, can The Bean be far behind?
 Dutch merchants also introduced coffee and chocolate (huzzah!) to Europe around this same time. So you suddenly wound up with the wealthy and educated merchant crowd (and the artists they supported - three cheers for the patron system...) sitting around in coffee-houses all dressed in black (the colour du jour), drinking coffee (the drink du jour) and eating chocolate for a buzz.
 Sound familiar?  Right - precious little has changed. In our little shoppe we do pastry/bakery offerings with our brew and what is most popular with the caffeinated crowd? Chocolate brownies, chocolate biscotti, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate half moons... you get the idea.
 The world's single greatest composer (ok, arguably, but it's an argument I'll win) Johann Sebastian Bach used to spend loads of time hanging out in cafés, jamming with his
contemporaries over a fine Java when he wasn't busy begetting his 20 or so offspring.
 He even went so far as to write a "Coffee Cantata" about a woman who wanted to drink coffee despite her father's wishes and the 'family values' of the time to the contrary (which saw coffee drinking as a potentially major sin - just goes to show you that family values aren't all that carved in stone...)
 Anyway, I digress (what's new?) - Back to the black.
 While styles continued to change amongst the rich and powerful, the image of the black-clad artist and intellectual became an identifying mark. Coffee remained the drug of choice but was at times augmented over the centuries by other new arrivals such as opium, absinthe, cocaine, LSD and the like.
 Some of the finest thinking of the Age of Enlightenment was done by black-clad
coffee-drinkers, Voltaire is rumored to have had a 50 cup a day habit. Ever read "Candide"? There is the product of a 50 cuppaday mind!
 The black-clad style accompanied by much strong coffee persisted through the early 19th century Romantics and on into the 20th century Avant Garde artists. At one point during the making of "Citizen Kane" Orson Wells had to be taken to the hospital due to excessive coffee consumption!
 The Weimar intellectuals such as the founders of the Bauhaus school also continued the tradition of black clothes and black coffee leading directly into the Beat Generation to which today's 'Gothics' owe a great deal.
 So the case could be well made that 'baristas in black' comes from a long and fascinating history of art and edification and intellectualism and creativity.
 But actually, it's because black clothes don't show coffee stains...
 

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Who let the drugs out? Who? Who? Whowho?

 "Did you know that your mother is a Communist?"
 The question, being posed to an 8-year old, was more of a statement than anything else. Rhetorical, really.
 I did know that my mother was a Universalist turned Methodist.
 I also knew that there were Communists in the world. It was, after all, 1958, and speculation on the potential Communistic leanings of nearly everyone seemed fair game. One Senator McCarthy had whipped all the assembled multitudes into a red-cum-pink frenzy and so the question had a certain ungenuine reasonableness to it.
 My mother was a Communist? It seemed unlikely. She was a Republican, as far as I knew. Still is registered as such, to the best of my knowledge (tho' in the past several years she has batted for the other team - or so the rumor goes).
 Communist? OK - it was a legitimate (-ish) adult that posed the query. Thus, to my pre-publican and pre-pubescent mind, the accusation was more than idle speculation.
 I asked my Dad: Is Mom a Communist? I wanted to use the term 'Commie' but was barely wise enough to refrain from doing so. (the term DID kinda roll off the tongue nicely...)
 Dad paled a tiny bit, grinned slightly, and explained.
 He had just begun his first month as pastor of a church. My mother, upon entering their new worship space, had noticed that the American flag and the Christian flag near the altar were awfully dusty and took 'em down and sent 'em to the dry cleaners.
 The flags in question were still at the cleaners the following Sunday. Instead of asking or otherwise seeking out the truth, some overzealous religious being went directly to the Bishop (do not pass GO - do not collect $200) and reported Mom's Commie Plot.
 Thus, at least in 1958, removing the American flag and/or Christian flag was tantamount to being a Commie... Even if you were just having it cleaned.
 Misrepresentation is something that we all deal with (with which we all deal... sheesh!) And sometimes no matter what the truth of the matter is, people believe what they choose.
 Take "The Bean" for example (yes, we were going to get around to coffee eventually - patience... patience!)
 On a regular basis, people ask if we carry two specific beans: Kona (the Hawaiian bean) and Jamaica Blue Mountain (a pricey little bean from an island of the same name). For some reason, word on the street is that these contain the biggest BUZZ of caffeine. We have heard that JBM is up to 5 times as potent as 'regular' coffee (whatever that is).
 Five times more expensive, perhaps. Maybe more! But the Buzz Word on the buzz of the bean is simple...  You won't get a bigger bang.
 JBM and Kona are, like my mother, not nearly as exciting or subversive as they might seem. True, they are expensive, but only because they are both high quality beans grown in very limited space.
 It isn't Communism... Merely  simple Capitalism, actually. Supply and demand and all that. But it would seem that the greater the price of The Bean, the greater its rumored caffeine content. Wrong-o...
 Baristas to the rescue. You want the low down on the real Buzz? OK - our crack research staff has put their mugs to the grindstone and brewed up the following honest to god factual factoids about caffeine and The Bean.
 Here are the vital stats on some of our most popular coffees. Ready?
 Ethiopian Yrgacheffe (Steav's fav) is 1.13% caffeine.
 Kenya AA (Bill's preference) is 1.36% caffeine. Buzzier!
 Sumatra Mandheling is a whopping 1.65% buzz! Cool! No wonder people like it!
 Tanzania Peaberry? 1.42 % on the buzz bomb scale. Not bad...
 Colombia Supremo, which nearly everyone likes, comes in at 1.37%
 Java Estate, a very popular bean, 1.20% caffeine.
 Celebes Kalossi (rumored to be harvested only by virgins but, like mother's political persuasions, more disappointing in real life) shakes out at 1.22%
 The highest of our particular beans on the buzz counter comes out as the Sumatran, and the lowest caffeine content we sell (other than decaf, thank you...) would appear to be Brazil Bourbon Santos at 1.12%
 And the two beans rumored to be the biggest bang? Well Kona comes in at a  barely respectable, but not overwhelming, 1.32% and the $56/lb Jamaica Blue Mountain clocks in at a mere 1.24% caffeine. Who would believe it!
 It's probably just a commie plot.
 

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Many many moons ago (about 16 moons to be precise) our publisher (bless him) and our then editor (yay, Tim!) evicted us from the food section of the paper and plonked us into WEEKEND 2.0 (which was just WEEKEND 'way back then...)
 We asked if that changed our "content parameters" for the column and were met with blank stares - Yay, Tim! mumbled something about 'What parameters?' and Ron (bless him) launched into the abyss and said that we could write about what was buzzing in the coffee house arena instead of just about The Bean itself.
 We recall a stifled giggle from Yay, Tim! but we took our new responsibilities seriously (sorta) and when Colleen (gotta love her) became our editor she failed to curb our excesses and (to our relief) has yet to complain about them (our excesses, that is...)
 So our excesses are safe.
 Problem is that the buzz at the shoppe would currently center on only one topic.
 No, no - not the pardons...silly!
 No - not Boy George's 'State of the Re-Union' address, either...
 We mean that penultimate topic of conversation throughout the Oswego community: the weather.
 Not only are we unable to do anything about it (we're good... we're not that good...) but we are sick of both it and talking about it. As we e-pen this weekly missive, the TV warns of the greatest blizzard since 1978. Buzz Words is writ on Sunday evening and by the time you read it we all will know if said blizzard materialized.
 Which brings us to the topic of conversation that may help your terminal cabin fever slip into remission long enough to survive until the Ides of May: Micro-cations.
 Little mini vacations that are, increasingly, the brain-game of a number of our customers.
 We have one regular that is SO regular you would think her coffee was made with metamucil - she appears twice a week for three hours each visit. She orders different 'exotic' specialty drinks, glides upstairs with a good book and steps into her vacation.
 She claims she is pretending to be on a sunny beach reading the book - doesn't really matter  - it's her vacation time - she works 6 days a week but has two mornings off which she spends at the coffee shoppe in her near-virtual get away.
 She says it is the only thing that has gotten her sanely through this long cold winter. OK - it would be a cinch to question her sanity, but it really seems to work for her.
 Her recommendation for dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder is directly associated with one's ability to suspend reality: don't take 'breaks' from your schedule - take vacations instead. Little ones...
 The psychology of it is simple. If you take a break from your routine, you have that same routine staring you in the face all through said break. The mini vacation scenario requires that you totally ignore your schedule, your deadlines, your backlog, your everyday environment for a defined period of time - maybe a couple hours, maybe an evening or a morning - maybe a whole day if you can squeak it out!
 Thus, she gets six hours of 'vacation' every week (nearly an entire work day, as she describes it) which in the course of this long winter will amount to almost a whole week's get-away! She hasn't used up any of her actual accrued leave time, isn't seasonally suicidal, and believes that everyone could use a vacation now and then.
 So we put it to the test. Grabbing a little R&R here and there does seem to make the interminable winter seem terminal. For us it's puppy-time. Long walks in the woods, Rice Creek, Canal Park, Linear Park, Fort Ontario or other touristy territory and tossing our wonderful Labs' frisbees or tennis balls or snow balls.
 In a non-scientific survey of area micro-vacation spots, it seems that others have discovered the great diminutive getaway. Legal loitering seems to have struck all over town. River's End Bookstore reports regular vacationer sightings, as does Time and Again Books and Tea.
 Curling up in a convenient cozy corner of a cafe or coffee house with the current best seller can cure a bit o' blues. According to one local book-meister, the bigger the book, the longer the vacation! Michner, anyone?
 Taking an evening and going somewhere (ANYwhere!) also seems to help - dinner out! Colemans? Madelines? Port City? Canale's? Vona's? Little While? Press Box? MoJo's? Hey - if there is one thing we have in town, it's food!
 Or a social affair... no no not that kind of affair. It is easy to get home at night after work and just cocoon in front of the TV.
 On the other hand the tiny bit of extra effort involved going back into the wintry wonderland could reward your par-frozen mental health. Music Hall? Art Association? College recitals? OHS concerts? Oswego Players shows? Any of the many club dates with acoustic and amp'ed performers?
 There are way more things to do in Oswego than we ever give it credit for. It's probably the result of other folk's answers to their own winter woes. But what a great opportunity for everyone else to cash in on.
 Finally, we have arrived at a time when people not only talk about the weather, but we can DO something about it!

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Help Wanted: Lifeguard - Gene Pool

 Beware the Ides of March! Tis on or about this infamous date that we annually and gleefully go where no one will ever go again. It's time for the Darwin Awards!
 The Darwin Awards is that jolt of sanity in an insane world, offered each year to those individuals who have helped clean the human gene pool by removing themselves from it, thus ensuring the survival of the fittest...
 Frank Zappa once noted," It's not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity and make it work for you."
 Well, the Darwin Awards work for us. Actually we have acquaintances we've  nominated each year, but who have so far failed to live up to the amazingly low standards set by the awards committee. Nonetheless, hope springs eternal...
 Here follows some of the inspiring moments of evolutionary history, gleaned and harvested from various sources, but all verifiably Darwin Award material.
 Arizona, 2000: The Grand Canyon has fences around some of its most dangerous overlooks, some of which are enticingly close to towering natural platforms which lure tourists to toss coinage on them as a sort of dry wishing well - many coins pile on the natural platforms, some plummet to the canyon floor far below.
 One D.A. winner climbed the fence, leaped to the platform, filled his bag with booty and jumped back to the fenced area, failing to allow for the substantial increase in weight caused by the heavy bag of coins.
 Other tourists were treated to a view of his spectacular plunge into fame.
 Kenya, 1999: Money may not be the root of ALL evil, but... At All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, worshipers were astounded to see a would-be thief stashing handfuls of money into his pockets as the offering plates were passed. Realizing that he had been spotted, he fled from the church into a busy street whereupon he was killed by a speeding bus... An act of God?
 February, 2000: An insecure and overweight worker at a coal burning power plant apparently conveyed himself into the Darwin Awards as a result of his shyness. Having been told by his doctor to loose some girth for health's sake, he decided to use the coal conveyor belt that he routinely monitored which fed the plant as a sort of treadmill, knowing that no one would see him exercising.
 His fellow workers found his lunch pail and work boots. It is assumed that he became an ecological and evolutionary replacement for fossil fuels.
 Canada, 1999: A man attempted but failed to clean his bird feeder on the balcony of his condo while standing on a swivel chair outfitted with casters. Twenty three stories later, the coroner commented, "It's one of those freak accidents. No fowl play is suspected."
 During a major cleanup in a petrochemical plant two workers were assigned to remove debris from the top of an oil storage tank. Having been carefully trained in safety, they both wore harnesses and tied themselves securely before heaving the junk to the ground below.
 The last piece was unusually large and required both men to throw it over on the 'count of three'. Immediately following the shouted "Three" one worker heard the other's last words of, "Damn! I'm tied to it!"
 It is, perhaps, worth noting that the Darwin Awards had notoriously significant historical beginnings as it is reported that Atilla the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night. Apparently drunk on his successes at destroying and pillaging all of Asia, he was also to drunk to notice his bleeding and drowned in a snootful of his own blood.
 To be fair, even the musical world has had its share of Darwin hopefuls. Jean-Baptiste Lully, a 17th century composer and conductor used a tall metal tipped staff to pound out beats on the floor for his musicians, a precursor to the modern conducting baton. In an excess of artistic enthusiasm he plunged the staff through his foot while conducting and died of blood poisoning.
 The infamous story of a major American conductor also comes to mind when, one day during a rehearsal, he inadvertently released his famously long baton and impaled a cellist through the wrist. The ensuing lawsuit was dismissed when a non-musical judge determined it was a job-related hazard.
 Germany, 2000: The Darwin Honorable Mention Award (a category in which the winner fails to successfully remove him/herself from the gene pool, but who remains noteworthy)  was bestowed upon a bank robber who put his gun on the teller's counter in order to hold open his booty bag with both hands. The teller seized the opportunity and the gun. Confused, the robber attempted to menace the teller with his cocked forefinger, apparently forgetting his gun was gone.
 The teller laughed so hard that the embarrassed robber fled the scene and is considered armed and fingered....
 North Carolina, date unknown: Jacob, 47, accidentally shot himself to death when, awakened by a ringing phone in the middle of the night, he reached for the telephone but grabbed his Smith and Wesson .38 Special instead which discharged as he drew it to his head...
 Finally, we leave you with a quote from  the wife of the Bishop of Worcester who, upon hearing of Darwin's Origin of Species remarked, " Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known."

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SPRING IS SPRUNG... yeah right...
 Frankly, the last thing you probably want to read about right now is roasting. Spring has barely peeked it's head 'round the corner and then goes and runs away - like some god-forsaken ground hog. There is simply something significantly wrong with life when people are happy that the temperature is UP to 40 degrees.
 40? Excuse us? Up? Someone quick bring on those hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer, if you please.
 But we digress, as usual. There is a roasting that can occur in any weather and when it is done by a master-roaster the result is absolute nirvana!
 Not exactly a celebrity roast, altho' your humble baristas do tend to think of The Bean in those terms.
 We are talking about The Bean and the aromatic and sensual process of getting it from its cute pale green state to its magnificent deep brown self! Sensual? Absolutely. Coffee roasting nearly deserves a PG-13 rating.
 I can recall being on a school bus passing by Paul DeLima's roasting plant each day at the tender age of 8. No one on the bus actually knew what the smell was, and some of the little terrors riding with me thought it smelled bad!
 Bad? No. no. no. it was sensual - One pathetic peer even believed someone was burning toast - every day in the same area of town. Duh! I, however, knew that it was something special, mysterious, secret, something magical - the aroma was too exotic, the effect it had too alluring. Little did I know then that I'd be a real live barista 43 years later...
 The Bean is green, no matter where it comes from, about the shade of lima beans, but more the consistency of a peanut. We are forever grateful that coffee doesn't taste like either of those though. (Lima bean flavored coffee? I don't think so...)
 Roasting The Bean isn't much different from roasting a hunk of beef. Stick it in the oven, stir occasionally, when it's brown enough, it's done.
 Roasts of The Bean get their names from the areas of the world where a particular darkness of roast is preferred. Most everyone has heard of French roast, but (trust us) there are no beans grown in France. Or in Italy, or Europe, or Vienna or Spain - yet all of those areas have a roast named for them.
 From lightest to darkest the roasts are: Green (really half baked), Light (or New England), Cinnamon (or American), City  (or Light French), Full City (or Viennese), Espresso (or Italian), and Neapolitan (or Spanish or Turkish).
 Now, c'mon, why bother with all of this? Wouldn't it be easier to just bake the stuff and be done with it? Of course it would, but The Bean is a special and delicate creature and the more you roast it, the more the flavors change.
 The two lightest roasts, Green and New England are hardly worth mentioning. By almost anyone's standards they produce a grainy watery swill that might be good for watering your plants but not much else (not that we have an opinion on that...).
 Americans by far prefer the Cinnamon roast where The Bean is nicely tanned and  shiny from the emerging coffee oils, has a definite snap in the flavor, is richly toned but with a sweet line of flavor running through it. (Sweet line? Trust us. Dump the Folgers in the compost and try some real coffee. It actually doesn't have to taste like road tar.)
 City Roast is a little darker colored than America's standard fare and The Bean is a bit oilier. The sweetness becomes slightly bittersweet, the snap you tasted in the cinnamon roast is muted, the coffee tastes a bit richer and there may be a hint of smokiness.
 Full City is much darker and the beans are quite oily (and smell great!), the bittersweet tang is pronounced, the nice snappy zing is giving way to a smoky flavor, the coffee is deeper and duskier.
 Espresso is nearly black, very oily on the surface, has no snap but instead boasts a very deep, rich, smoky flavor. The bittersweet tang is extremely pronounced and is pretty much what the espresso drinker is looking for in terms of flavor. (well brewed and well roasted espresso is NOT bitter but it is rich! If you can't taste the sweetness then either your taste buds are broken, the beans are inferior or old, or the espresso was made badly).
 Neapolitan looks like little bitty charcoal briquettes, is like brewing charcoal and pretty much tastes that way, too. (not that we have an opinion about this either...)
 You know something weird? There is a surprising parallel between the roasting of beans and the roasting of people. Americans seem to like a nice even light skin tan in the summer (in the SPF 15 range), Central Europeans (from, say, Vienna) like a slightly darker skin tone for showing off their tan lines. The French tend to overdo the sun (among other things), and the Italians are about the color of good espresso after a good summer's roasting  (many with no tan lines at all!).
 Hmmm... we might have just come up with something here. Wonder if there is any grant money available to study it...

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Lightening the Languishing Load - The Lenten Latte Loophole

 She walked into the shoppe not long ago... shaking. Her eyes were unfocused and her look said that she was as determined as she was fearful.
 She hesitated momentarily, obviously pulling some form of courage from somewhere deep in her soul. Finally she spoke. "A Lenten Latte, please."
 Oh-oh. It was something that we have seen before at this time of year. We knew instantly what the problem was and knew with just as much surety that there was precious little we could do for her.
 We went around the counter, took her hand and eased her into a seat. We both wore one of those "knowing barista smiles" so that she might relax a bit in the company of friends - even friends that she didn't know.
 "You gave up coffee for Lent, didn't you...", we smoothly commented, trying to create an atmosphere of understanding and well-being.
 She nodded and glanced up at us with a wane smile - "Probably a foolish thing to do, but so far, so good."
 We didn't want to tell her that she looked like the devil itself was sitting next to her drinking an octopus (eight shots of espresso...). We didn't want to tell her that (in our humbly barista'ed minds) giving up coffee was akin to giving up air. We didn't want to tell her that when it comes to Lent, we just simply give up. Period.
 One of us sat with her, speaking softly holding her hand while the other went behind the counter and drew a 'Lenten Latte' - steamed milk. that's it - just steamed milk without the obligatory espresso shot (or double shot.)
 I smiled at her and asked the critical question, "Did you give up sweets, too? Or just coffee..." "Just coffee", she replied, looking relieved that we could empathize with her sacrifice. As baristas, we caught each other's eyes and nodded. The one making the 'Lenten Latte' added a hefty jigger of French Vanilla cordial syrup to the drink.
 "Here... try this." We eased the drink into her hands. She sipped carefully, religiously. Her mind knew that this was NOT what it wanted, but her body was pleased to go through the ritual of drinking what appeared to the undiscerning eye to be a real latte.
 She is not alone - We have met a number of people, good people, who for whatever reason think that they can function without Java juice for 40 days. We know that their hearts are in the right places but would think that promising to sleep on a bed of nails or walk a fire pit for 6 weeks or other religiously masochistic pastime would be healthier in mind, body and soul.
 But what do we know - we're just baristas who think that the five basic food groups are: chocolate, whipped cream, wine, sugar, and caffeine.
 But we did some research (in the name of our affected and afflicted clientele) and have discovered a loop hole!
 Not unlike the government, the church offers loop holes for all of it's most oppressive laws (and giving up caffeine seems beyond the pail... pale... pall... whatever) but you really have to look for them - and look we did.
 Here is the key (do loopholes have keyholes? Nevermind...) to solving your Lenten Languishing: Sundays.
 Sundays are Feast days! Sundays are not Fast days!!! Glory be to God, praise the Lord, and pass the French Press, please. We have it on the best knowledge from the most reliable sources (clerics who frequent our humble establishment) that Sundays are a day off - a day of rejoicing - a day of rest - a day of caffeine! or chocolate! or whatever item you determined would make Lent more onerous or wondrous for you.
 We applaud your determination - we hail your constitution - we laud your sacrifice. And we are pleased to offer you this loophole because we care, we understand, we empathize... and we are going broke with all these caffeine abstainers in our midst. Remember: Sundays are your (read: our) salvation! Sundays are your feasting day. Sundays you can have caffeine. Proving that there is a god.
 And that she not only created coffee but drinks it.

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