Fall Foods

All present in the house at this time:

Apples
Apple Butter
Apple Cider
Bourbon
Butternut Squash
Gouda 
Onion
Potatoes
Pumpkin Bread
Sage Sausage
Yams

Most of these ingredients (excepting the apple butter, apple cider, bouron, and pumpkin bread) are in a casserole (modified from this recipe) that is currently in the oven, making the house smell very warm and homey. Don't think I wasn't tempted to add the apple cider and the bourbon to the casserole too.

Overheard

I) A logging song, read (not actually overheard) in Ted Gioia's "Work Songs" (p. 142, in the chapter on lumberjack songs):

I am jolly shanty boy

Who loves to sing and dance.

I wonder what the girls would say

If they could see my pants!

With fourteen patches on the knee

and six upon the stern,

I'll wear them when I'm in the woods

And home when I return.

For I am on my jolly way,

I spend my money free,

I have plenty -- come and drink

Lager beer with me.

II) At the coffee bar, while working:

"Well, caramel's just peanut butter and jelly mixed, isn't it? Oh. No, it's not?"

III) At another neighborhood coffee house; a father and daughter (around age 4):

"That's quite a cough. Are you sick?"

"Yeah."

"Why? What are you sick from?"

"The moon."

(holding back laughter) "The moon? The moon is making you sick?"

(deadly serious) "Yeah."

Coffee Continued

I was planning on writing this bit as the final paragraph of my previous post, but it got a little long. Rather than consign it to the trash, I'll put it here.


Complications

The proliferation of cafes in recent decades is, of course, the product of coffee's Third Wave, begun in 1990s Seattle and spread across the country. Starbucks had a big role to play in this movement, and I'll spare the usual coffee-snob-hating-on-Starbucks routine to share two stories that happened during my coffee tour.

1) As I walked through the swanky Rittenhouse Square district, I passed three or four Starbucks. Inside, at the bar along the window, sat a man who I assumed was homeless: scraggly beard, dirty clothes, two bulging plastic bags tightly at his side. He swirled his paper Starbucks cup, smelled it, and sipped. His face lit up. I realize that's a cliche, but it's the only way to describe it.

2) The back alleys of the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood have their fair share of loading docks, dumpsters, and shadowy corners, and in one of them sits an old facade. Tiled and bricked in an art-deco style, faded yellows and greens barely overcoming the dust, it bore the sign "Rittenhouse Coffee."

These complicate my understanding of coffee. Apparently, crappy corporate coffee can transform someone's day . I doubt that the homeless guy would have smiled any bigger had he sipped on my pourover of Maragojipe microlot or my Sidama Macchiato. And apparently the past had its own coffee waves, come and gone, leaving behind artifacts like Rittenhouse Coffee, which has not (surprisingly enough) been revived by the current interest in 1) all things coffee and 2) all things vintage. Which leaves us with: When will our current coffee phase end, and what difference will it have made? Will Starbucks remain, making people smile, even when skilled baristas and single-origin coffees have fallen by the wayside?

Philadelphia Coffee Pilgrimage/Evacuation

Four blocks over, two blocks down from my apartment;
the whole reason I'm even here in Philly.

I don't know if it's bad form to write about coffeeshops while using their free internet, but I'm doing it. I'm in Philly for the day, my neighborhood evacuated due to widespread central PA flooding from Tropical Storm Lee. Heather is attending a conference at one of the sports arenas, so I've ridden the Broad Street Subway two stops north to the first stop on my self-guided Philadelphia coffee tour:


I) Ultimo Coffee

The first thing I realize, approaching from the Snyder stop on the BSS is that I planned my tour backwards; Ultimo is paired with a local brewpub, but it's nine in the morning, so they're closed.  Had I arrived here later, I could've expanded this to a coffee and beer review.

Nonetheless, the coffee is wonderful. I'm starting off with a regular cup of brewed coffee, and they've got one of my favorite coffees of all time: Counter Culture's Finca El Puente, brewed with the Chemex. I've never had Chemex coffee before (it works a lot like a pourover brewer on a large scale), and this does not disappoint. Bright, with a clean finish, but not thin or watery. The experience was improved by the nearly-identifiable music over the speaker -- mellow, trippy guitar work and a familiar vocalist. It took me until halfway through my cup of coffee to identify early M. Ward.

The shop is small, but not cramped -- large corner windows let the sun shine on the battered wooden tables and the bar-style window seating. I didn't try their espresso, but the cappuccinos have well-executed latte art on the top, and they're using Apollo, so I have faith in their quality. I won't be acting on that faith -- I have a lot more caffeine to consume today, and I don't want to overload early on. I just overheard the baristas chatting about Orlando Arita, Counter Culture's latest espresso project, and one that I'll be experimenting with once I get back to Harrisburg.

A Chemex brewer.

II) Elixir Coffee

I wasn't planning on visiting Elixir, but as I searched for transit times to reach West Philly to meet up with Nathan and get to my next stop (Lovers and Madmen), Google presented me with this option, only a few blocks from my station. If Ultimo had the laid back charm of a South Philly brewery/coffeeshop, this place is all swank; located just off the Avenue of the Arts in the Walnut Street upscale shopping district, it has clean lines, wood and tile, and the smell of a spa (from the carafe of cucumber water, I think). I am seated at some of the only non-communal seating. Most of the chair space is along wooden benches at family-style tables. A nice touch, but most of the strangers sitting at them are (like me) tapping away on their screens.

Though tempted by their streetside sign ("Pour Over: Finca los Planes, Sumatra, Elida"), I decided to switch to espresso for stop number two. The Espresso Macchiato is my drink of choice, and, upon asking the barista, I learned that it would be made with a single-origin Sidama espresso. For those not familiar, single-origin espressos are a sort of coup-de-grace: most espressos are blended from coffees from a variety of sources to achieve a particular flavor. A single-origin can only be produced from an exceptional source coffee, by a roaster skilled at bringing out the minute particularities that reveal themselves in espresso.

The macchiato was (is; I'm sipping it as I write this) delicious -- the brightness of the Ethiopian coffee is evident, even as the chocolaty body is enhanced by the little bit of steamed milk in the cup. It has a complex, nutty flavor that is interesting at every sip. It makes me want another one, but I can feel my fingers starting to shake as I type. It's time to meet Nathan at the Clark Park Farmer's Market in West Philly for a break before heading to Lovers and Madmen.

III) Lovers and Madmen

Skipped the farmers market and met Abigail and Nathan here at Lovers and Madmen, just off of Market Street, near the Market-Frankford Line station at 40th Street.

Inside, the ambiance is different from the two shops before: more open space, more seating, more conversations than the two small shops before it. It might just be the time of day, but this place seems less hip and more welcoming.

I ordered a pourover coffee of Counter Culture's Maragojipe microlot. A microlot is a small portion of a coffee farm's seasonal take, usually selected by variety of coffee plant or from location within the farm (Maragojipe is the former). It is redolent of pistachio and plums, as described, so it was brewed well. The staff seemed less professional here; disconcerting in terms of expectations about coffee quality, but part of what made the place so welcoming when we walked in. The coffee is reassuring me, even as the baristas quibble about what kind of music to play.

Nathan and Abigail are sitting beside me discussing contemporary theater and literature, the kind of thing that the Scholar breeds, and the kind of thing that I haven't found at any of the coffeeshops I've visited today. Again, it might just be the company of the time of day, but this place feels like it engenders that kind of conversation. The aftertaste on that microlot doesn't quit. Even as we leave, the rum-like flavor remains on my tongue.

The counter at La Colombe.

IV) La Colombe

This place has always been my go-to spot for top-quality coffee in Center City, and yesterday's trip (yup, I'm writing from the next day now) only served to confirm this. If you can get a seat at La Colombe, it's a nice place to sit, but more often than not, the line stretches from the counter to the door, and all the seating is filled.

They focus on the espresso at La Colombe, and it shows. No menu posted, no flavored syrups, one variety of drip coffee on tap at a time; this is a place for coffee snobs. Their cappuccino is so creamy that one of my friends, upon tasting it, asked "What did you get? Hot chocolate?"

If it's variety that you seek, go elsewhere, but if you want to taste some of the best espresso beverages in the city (on the East Coast, even) go to La Colombe.


V) Conclusion

I have shied away from declaring any of these four cafes the "Best of Philly." I only visited four cafes, and my selection criteria were not at all scientific. And while La Colombe is the cafe I'll still visit the most (in part because of its central location) each of these cafes has its own charm, and should, if you get the chance, be visited. If you're heading to Ultimo anytime soon, pick me up some beer.