Unconventional Hero (and Villain)

So does anyone here remember Earthworm Jim? Pretty weird game back in the day, and it even had a cartoon that lasted two seasons. I watched a good number of episodes and I gotta say it's rather creative as well as bizarre, with characters the likes of Major Mucus, Professor Monkey For A Head and Princess What's Her Name. It runs in a similar vein to The Tick in terms of humor, cleverness and weirdness, but I found Jim to be the more enjoyable. Granted I only watched bits and pieces of The Tick so I probably haven't seen the best it has to offer. Still, Earthworm Jim is an underrated gem of children's television.

I bring this up because in one episode the villain Psy-Crow becomes a being of pure nervous energy by ingesting an octuple espresso shot, topped with a gallon of normal coffee. It grants him super speed, super vibration, and super skittishness. The episode even had a disclaimer put in for the kids about not taking that much coffee and what it would actually do to you. Also, it revealed that the secret to pure mellow energy is aroma therapy consisting of mangoes and oatmeal. Yeah, weird stuff.

September Pumpkin (Spice)

Turns out pumpkin spice lattes are now available at McDonald's. All kinds of October things coming in a month early. Anyway, a nice sweet morning treat to sip at just two bucks. Just wanted to bring that up. And also make a Touhou reference, because god I do love Touhou music.

Exotic Flavor

Several years ago, me and my pals went to an Ethiopian restaurant to try a different type of cuisine. Very interesting dining experience, where meat is served on unleavened bread which you tear up to eat the meat in question. It's essentially finger food, and quite delicious. However, they also served proper Ethiopian coffee, which is made by roasting the coffee beans before grounding and brewing it. Made for a subtle, earthy flavor unlike any other coffee I drank before. Ethiopia is supposed to be where coffee first originated, so it was definitely a treat to taste the authentic style. There's still lots of cultural techniques I'd like to try, like the one where coffee is brewed in hot sand. Curious how that would taste.

...as Midnight on a Moonless Night

So some time ago I finished watching the first two seasons of Twin Peaks, which is a series that does love its coffee. It's a gritty yet mellow companion drink for them hard-boiled noir detective stories, y'know? Anyway, what a weird show. The first season is pretty grounded with few supernatural elements, but season 2 rolls around and hoo boy Lynch just goes bananas. Repeatedly I found myself asking aloud "what the fuck, David Lynch?". Would've been cool if they kept the supernatural angle suspect, like that all these weird things were just hallucinations or Cooper's possible insanity. But no: spooky spirit stuff actually exists. And what a note to end on for 23 years when season 3 finally arises. I haven't the means to see the latest season right now, but I'm hoping there will be a satisfying conclusion. For what it is, though, I see why it's such a cultural icon. Memorable characters, intriguing mystery (for much of it), and moments of inexplicable comedy. And damn fine cups of coffee to go around.

Back on the mentioning of hard-boiled noir, one time I decided to cook myself the most hard-boiled hard-boiled egg, which is simply boiling said egg in a pot of coffee. Did this twice; doesn't seem to affect the taste, though it makes a nice shade of brown on the shell. Perhaps I should try poaching it in coffee someday...

Early Tastes

I haven't been much of a coffee drinker until just a few years ago, and even before then I rarely drank the stuff. There was one time I tried mixing some peanut butter in a cup of Joe one time and tasting pretty good. Recently tried it, though, and it didn't turn out as good as I remembered. But perhaps my fondest memory is with Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice lattes. Around junior year of college I thought I'd give that stuff a taste, and turned out I loved it! In fact, it's probably because of that drink that I've come to hold a fondness for pumpkin-related goodies. Having a cup of that stuff right before class had me jacked up for Fiction Workshop, practically bouncing all over the place. Good way to make an impression among your fellow scholars is to look like a hyperactive jackass ;P

Seeing how there's the option to post comments with these blogs, I invite anyone to share their earliest or fondest memories of drinking coffee. Just to while away the time until I get around to making another post. Until then, bottom's up!

Cold Brew

Hello one and all, and welcome to Coffee Month 2017! I'm a spazz-tastic sometimes writer going by the handle Compendium of Steve, and also as I Wanna Be The Guy fangamer conlycameobasher. I'm a guy who likes coffee, to the point where I like to try out new aspects of coffee whenever I get the chance. For this month, I'll be making posts about my own tips to coffee appreciation, and relate my own musings and experience with that wondrous bitter black stuff. So for a good opening post, I'll begin with a good type of coffee you can make at home: Cold Brew.

For those unawares, cold brew is a means of coffee extraction that makes for a smoother, bolder taste that's otherwise lost during a the hot drip brew method. Now what I know about the method itself I got from this fine British bloke here, but if you'd rather read than listen, I'll just summarize this relatively simple approach to enhancing your daily Joe.

You take start 3/4 cup of coffee grounds, be it something you got from the store like Maxwell or Folgers or ground up yourself if you're extra fancy, whichever type of grounds you prefer. You put it in a medium sized bowl and pour a liter of filtered water over it; whether filtered at home or store bought it's up to you. Be sure to moisten as much of the grounds as you can as you pour, and once you're done, you cover the bowl with a small towel and put it in the fridge overnight. Preferably you want it to sit in there 20-24 hours.

Now for the tricky part. You take the bowl from the fridge, get another bowl, and grabbing a sieve or similar type of strainer you pour the coffee through it, letting the liquid drain through and separating all that soggy groundage. After getting as much fluid as possible from the mass, you throw it away in a proper disposal bag (those grounds get everywhere), then taking a moistened paper towel you line the sieve, then pour the coffee fluid through it back into the bowl it started out in. The paper towel is there to further filter out the coffee and make it cleaner. You may have to repeat this process once more with another paper towel, and it can take a while to do. But what I found is that the higher you hold up the sieve from the bowl, the faster the coffee drips. Pretty handy there, gravity!

Once the coffee is sufficiently filtered, you then pour the results into a sealable container, preferably a glass jar with a screw top lid, then put it away in the fridge for storage up to two weeks. The cool thing here is that all you need to do is just pour in a little bit of the coffee juice at the bottom of your cup, fill the rest up with hot/boiling water and voila, a refreshing cup of coffee without the need of your coffee maker! Saves on preparation and clean-up, and as I mentioned before it has a smoother, less bitter taste to it.

Hopefully you found those directions easy to follow and will give it a go for yourself. Or if not, there's always that link I provided where a professional can more expertly explain it. And with that, that wraps up this post. Dunno if I'll be able to make this a daily thing, but there will always be time for Coffee Talk either way! (heh, cheesy)