pain perdu

french toast, bacon, and cabbage...
a rather international breakfast

I'm writing this about a week later than intended thanks to a complete failure of internet at the new apartment. Ah, well... several hours spent on the phone with the internet people and one new modem later, we're back in business! 

Last Monday, after a long weekend of moving and unpacking, breakfast for dinner was in order. Because let's be honest - breakfast, in the proper sense of the word (i.e. bacon must be included) doesn't happen all that often during, well, breakfast hours. But who doesn't love bacon and french toast? 

Funny story about this dinner, too...

toddy

Chocolate, men, coffee - some things are better rich.


I have a major case of the Mondays. I'm not sure if I'm coming down with a cold or if yesterday's hangover just won't give it up, but I woke up feeling like garbage today. Thankfully, the cure was only a few steps away in my refrigerator: a pitcher of toddy.


Sometimes a regular cup of coffee just doesn't cut it. Today I wanted something deeper, darker... richer. Toddy is just the thing. Basically it's nothing more than cold-brewed coffee. I think it has a similar flavour to coffee made using a French press, but is much stronger. You can drink it hot or cold. I like mine poured over a glass of ice and topped with milk and just a touch of simple syrup for sweetness - essentially an iced latte! (Similarly, with steamed milk you have a hot latte.)


The best part about making toddy is you need zero fancy equipment. No special pots, presses, stirrers, or any other contraption. Just a bag of good coffee, two containers that will hold a quart of water, a strainer and some coffee filters. As one of my friends who worked at a coffee shop in Cedar Falls used to say - easy peasy Japoneasy!

holiday brekkie

“Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!” 
                                                       - Ebenezer Scrooge 

I woke up this morning at a lovely late hour in the mood for a good breakfast. Then I realised it's Christmas Eve, and I especially wanted something nice. Lucky for me, I had on hand half a loaf of thick-sliced honey wheat bread and just enough bacon to feed my brother and me. French toast and bacon it was!

good grief

The next to last week before finals - also known as hell week - has at long last come to an end. And all I have to say is...

...and thank God for caffeine.

Hoping to put up a real post in the next day or so!

community

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. - Alex Levine 

Coffee... one of those rare things that qualifies as both a pleasure and a necessity. I can barely remember life before coffee. My parents were wonderful people who allowed me to taste sips from their cups even as a child, eventually allowing me to lace hot cocoa with increasing amounts of java, then weaning me off the faux mochas until I would take my coffee no other way but black. These days – especially those mornings I work at 5 a.m. – I require at least a wake-up cup and an afternoon pick-me-up.

My current favourite brew? Community Coffee Dark Roast. Smooth, dark, wonderful. 

Again, I have my dad to thank for this gem. I first tried it when I spent Christmas with him three years ago, and has been nice enough to keep my supplied since then! In fact, about three weeks ago he mailed me two 32 oz bags – that's sixty-four ounces of coffee grounds. I'm already about halfway through the first bag and looking forward already to restocking when I visit Dad in January.

I'm not the only one who loves this coffee. It's been dubbed the state coffee of Louisiana. My advice to you:

Get some!

brekkie

Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.  ~Josh Billings

There's only one obvious solution to having an hour of free time between work and classes: breakfast. And I definitely don't mean a bowl of cereal. Cereal is more usually for dinner... but that's a different story. I'm talking about a thick slice of bacon fried and married with an egg, cosied up together under a blanket of provolone between two halves of a quarter loaf of asiago focaccia liberally spread with mayo on one side and half an avocado on the other, the whole assemblage grilled in a bit of (okay, maybe quite a bit of) bacon grease.

Heck yes.

This baby was so delicious I didn't even take a picture before going to town on it. In my defence, I did have to get to class.

What I do have a picture of is the iced coffee I drank on my walk to campus - the most epic, Japanese canned coffee:

BLACK BOSS.

It is black. And it is boss. What more is there to say? I bought out the last of this stuff from one of my favourite Asian grocers in Iowa City, and my back-up plan in case they don't carry it any longer is buying it online at $2.50/can and flat rate shipping of $6.95 for orders under $99... not a terrible price. 

Then again, I'm only a little dedicated to these things.