The Pumpkin Spice Challenge

Tags

coffee, coffee shop, fall, pumpkin, pumpkin spice latte

You’ve heard the name tossed around as people prepare for the coming of autumn. Grocery stores are beginning to sell mini-pumpkins, and the menu boards at Starbucks are orange with fall drinks advertised in curly script.

Yes, my friends, the seasonally-appropriate Pumpkin Spice Latte is back.

This year I have decided to challenge myself to find the best pumpkin spice latte in Charlottesville. This is not a task for the faint of heart (or palette). It is a very good thing, I tell myself, that I enjoy pumpkin spice lattes so much, or October could be a very long month.  My task is to sample these delicious drinks from as many purveyors of coffee as I can find and rate them using some sort of scale. Then I will present my top choices to the world (or the readers of my blog, and maybe facebook, if I am that bold).

Will it be easy? Yes and no. There are actually many places that sell coffee in Charlottesville. I am sticking with just coffeeshops here, not restaurants that sell many other things, so that should cut down on the numbers.

Will it be tasty? I certainly hope so.

Will I become sick of pumpkin by Thanksgiving? Possibly. I hope not.

Will it be subjective? Absolutely. But I hope to present an unbiased view as possible. I invite anyone who wishes to weigh in with comments and/or to join me in my tasting experience.

See you at the coffeeshop!

Cooking Adventures, Again

Tags

accident, coffee, cooking, instant oatmeal

Be careful what you put in your microwave. Microwaves are not built to handle very much, though they do a decent job at warming things up if used correctly.

Yesterday, however, was a lesson on watching food. I put a mug with instant oatmeal and some water in the microwave for a minute. All was well. I took it out and stirred it, noticing that it was still quite soupy and not cooked. I had added too much water, so I thought I should put the oatmeal in for another minute.

I knew I should be watching the oatmeal as it cooked, and I did watch for the first few seconds, but then I got distracted by something else and looked away for about 25 seconds. That was all the time my oatmeal needed. When I looked back at the microwave, I saw with horror that the oatmeal had exploded all over the microwave!

It had completely overflowed the mug and almost all of it was now covering the turntable of the microwave. The next few minutes were spent cleaning out the microwave and wiping off the outside of the mug, which seemed to have more oatmeal than the inside.

Alas, my breakfast was gone.
And I hadn’t even had coffee yet. Now that I think about it, both my recent cooking snafus have taken place prior to the consumption of coffee. Perhaps I should learn something from this. Actually, in this case, I learned two important things:

1. Watch your microwave oatmeal like a hawk.
2. Drink coffee first (though perhaps this tip should come first…).

The Dangers of Coffee

Tags

caffeine, coffee, headache

For most of the day I’ve had a caffeine headache. Alas, the day has come. It works like this: my housemates all like coffee, so I’ve had coffee most mornings since I moved in 2 weeks ago [and actually, I had coffee many mornings in July as well]. Yesterday I think I had 2 or 3 cups of coffee because people offered it to me and I like coffee. I was especially tempted because it was Shenandoah Joe’s coffee, but that’s beside the point.

This morning I did not have coffee. I didn’t have coffee when I went to work, and I didn’t have coffee in the middle of the afternoon. In fact, it has been a caffeine free day, hence the pounding headache and the fatigue. I think I need to stay away from caffeine for a couple days until my body figures itself out.