But is it coffee?
Jun. 28th, 2009 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsI wrote about Me and Food last week, so here's Me and Coffee. We have 5 different ways of making coffee in our flat (two stove top espresso makers, one filter machine, one cappuccino maker and one Neapolitan coffee maker, bought in Neapolita Napoli Naples and ill-used), plus a coffee bean grinder. Occasionally, I lustfully hanker after a Gaggia. But up until I was about 22, I didn't drink coffee; I'd only ever been offered instant with its dreary smell of long car journeys and flasks in lay-bys and I didn't see the point. As a child, when offered tea, I'd hope that the second proposal would be lemonade or Ribena and as a student, if I was tired, I had a nap or occasionally drank a jolt cola. But in 1995, a friend took me to the Seattle Coffee Company (now a Starbucks) in Covent Garden and I had a steamed milk with syrup; the next time I went I graduated to a mocha and talked non-stop for a couple of hours. Here was a drug I could get used to. A couple of years later, I did a coup at work and stopped buying catering sizes of Nescafe, replacing it with the less offensive Kenco, and found that I needed it in the morning as my teenage energy started to dissipate.
So, anyway, although now I need a fix of joe every now and again, I've found that just as I didn't like coffee when younger, it doesn't really like me now. It makes me dehydrated and bloated and gives me headaches, indigestion and insomnia. A cappuccino is a treat to be savoured, rather than a morning habit.
On Saturday we went to the highly praised Dose for a flit whoite (which I like because it has the creaminess of a latte without the excess of milk) and on Sunday to Columbia Road Market to check out the offerings of the Best Barista at Columbia Road Market. Both are run by antipodeans who seem to have taken over the role of London's Seriousest Coffee Experts from the Italians and the Americans, although the latter has the advantage in having a cute bowl-haired girl take your order and a cuter Smiths fan to foam the milk.
We also went to the Tate to see the Futurist exhibition and the Danish fellow. It was a blistering hot day and so the Tate was nicely empty (but air-conditioned). I enjoyed the Futurists, but from a vantage point of actually living in the future, it doesn't look that radical, basically, it's Italian cubism, with a bit of abstract expressionism thrown in. Picasso with a manifesto. Where they are interesting is in the sculpture (some of which I imagine George Lucas was also keen on) and the way they seem to anticipate the primary colours of op and pop art. Annoyingly, the Tate have got rid of the exhibition booklets they used to hand out, citing reasons of the environment (but there are still endless paper towels used in the toilets). It's quite annoying to have to go back to the corner of the room to read the information. Also, it seems to be a Tate policy to pad out exhibitions with related material:- thus the Van Dyck exhibition had a room of People Who Were Influenced by Van Dyck, last year's Klimt retrospective also featured Klimt's Chums. Here we have some stuff left over from the Constructivism expo and they sneak in a bit of Vorticism too. It's like releasing a Best of The Smiths compilation and, as well as hits by Moz and Marr, it features songs by James, the Libertines and the Sundays. There was a man/woman in Room 6 wearing a plastic cake on her/his head. I wasn't sure if s/he was part of the exhibition or just an Eccentric Of London.
We also visit the Per Kirkeby exhibition which I liked (vast vague canvases with tiny pictures of huts), but have little to say about it. Neither did the curator it seems: "resists easy categorisation", "difficult to establish meaning" etc. Again, it's the sculpture that appeals. Made from bronze, but looking like coal, some pieces are shaped like dead tree trunks. Obviously I'm "layering my own meaning" onto it.
We go downstairs to the secet level 2 gallery and have a look at the Stutter exhibition. There's a shiny thing. I like it.
Safely back at home, the sky cracked and the heavy hot day went as black as thunder and hail started hitting the windows. It was very exciting but made me think that global warming is Real And Here.
So, anyway, although now I need a fix of joe every now and again, I've found that just as I didn't like coffee when younger, it doesn't really like me now. It makes me dehydrated and bloated and gives me headaches, indigestion and insomnia. A cappuccino is a treat to be savoured, rather than a morning habit.
On Saturday we went to the highly praised Dose for a flit whoite (which I like because it has the creaminess of a latte without the excess of milk) and on Sunday to Columbia Road Market to check out the offerings of the Best Barista at Columbia Road Market. Both are run by antipodeans who seem to have taken over the role of London's Seriousest Coffee Experts from the Italians and the Americans, although the latter has the advantage in having a cute bowl-haired girl take your order and a cuter Smiths fan to foam the milk.
We also went to the Tate to see the Futurist exhibition and the Danish fellow. It was a blistering hot day and so the Tate was nicely empty (but air-conditioned). I enjoyed the Futurists, but from a vantage point of actually living in the future, it doesn't look that radical, basically, it's Italian cubism, with a bit of abstract expressionism thrown in. Picasso with a manifesto. Where they are interesting is in the sculpture (some of which I imagine George Lucas was also keen on) and the way they seem to anticipate the primary colours of op and pop art. Annoyingly, the Tate have got rid of the exhibition booklets they used to hand out, citing reasons of the environment (but there are still endless paper towels used in the toilets). It's quite annoying to have to go back to the corner of the room to read the information. Also, it seems to be a Tate policy to pad out exhibitions with related material:- thus the Van Dyck exhibition had a room of People Who Were Influenced by Van Dyck, last year's Klimt retrospective also featured Klimt's Chums. Here we have some stuff left over from the Constructivism expo and they sneak in a bit of Vorticism too. It's like releasing a Best of The Smiths compilation and, as well as hits by Moz and Marr, it features songs by James, the Libertines and the Sundays. There was a man/woman in Room 6 wearing a plastic cake on her/his head. I wasn't sure if s/he was part of the exhibition or just an Eccentric Of London.
We also visit the Per Kirkeby exhibition which I liked (vast vague canvases with tiny pictures of huts), but have little to say about it. Neither did the curator it seems: "resists easy categorisation", "difficult to establish meaning" etc. Again, it's the sculpture that appeals. Made from bronze, but looking like coal, some pieces are shaped like dead tree trunks. Obviously I'm "layering my own meaning" onto it.
We go downstairs to the secet level 2 gallery and have a look at the Stutter exhibition. There's a shiny thing. I like it.
Safely back at home, the sky cracked and the heavy hot day went as black as thunder and hail started hitting the windows. It was very exciting but made me think that global warming is Real And Here.
