Coffee Beans

What do you do when you have coffee beans, but no coffee grinder?That is the position I found myself in recently. I wanted my caffeine. The only way I could get it was to somehow pulverize the bag of coffee beans I had in my freezer.I had run out of ground coffee. All I had left was the bag of beans someone had given us as a gift. There was a time in my life, before the kids arrived, when this would not have been a problem. In those days, I had my own personal grinder, and a morning coffee-making ritual.

It began to rain yesterday evening as I sat on the porch with a pipe and a Manhattan, calm in the knowledge that the preparations, all that could be done, were complete. The grill and the porch furniture were in the garage. Five loads of laundry were complete. Coffee beans, enough for a few days' pots, had been ground and stored. Kathleen had made a large quantity of beef barley soup, and there was, of course, bourbon on hand. This morning, with the full force of Hurricane Sandy yet to come, I've supplied you with the word of the week, sockdolager , and the joke of the week, "The Sailor and the Pirate.

All those eggs, all that butter give poundcake its appropriate name. It's rich and dense and has a melt-in-your-mouth texture. However, poundcake is subtle. It doesn't have the dazzling good looks of a fruit pie or the flavor jolt of a chocolate layer cake. Because of its simplicity, you might overlook poundcake when you want to make a luscious dessert. That would be a shame. With a little make-over, poundcake becomes an elegant and stunning dessert. Start by baking a chocolate-streaked marble cake.

This list of Top 10 Sites for Mail-Order Delicacies, which appeared on my blog last Tuesday, may not help you for this holiday season; but tuck it away somewhere and bring it out next December. Or give yourself a gift: You deserve it. Amadeus Vanilla Beans : for the serious cook, gourmet vanilla beans from Uganda, plus all sorts of vanilla extract. (AmadeusVanillaBeans.com) Avocado of the Month Club : If your friend loves avocados as much as I do, this is the perfect gift.

As coffee bars continue to expand and show no sign of waning in popularity, for older Baltimoreans, the mention of Starbuck's or Gloria Jean's Gourmet Coffee, for instance, must inevitably recall memories of the Smith Punch Base Coffee and Tea Co. and the C.D. Kenny Co., two former hallowed and cherished local purveyors of the heavenly bean.The C.D. Kenny Co. was founded by Rochester, N.Y., native C.D. Kenny, who arrived in Baltimore in 1872 and opened a coffee, tea and sugar store at Lexington and Greene streets.

Coffee bars and their alluring aromas of freshly roasted beans seem to have brought a new sophistication to American streets. In fact, they are reviving smells that were familiar in earlier times. Not too many generations ago, many stores were equipped to roast their own coffee beans. And plenty of families did their own at home. Coffee was a popular drink, and although few people in this country had ever heard of such treats as cappuccino, much less mocha latte, Americans at least knew that the best coffee was not just freshly brewed from freshly ground beans, but also freshly roasted.

Around the house* Remove stubborn stains from interior of microwave oven. Place a cup of water inside microwave and bring to a boil. Let sit for about 1 minute. The steam should loosen stains so they can be wiped away.* Store coffee beans in an airtight container in your freezer. Beans will stay fresh up to 3 months and may be ground frozen; store beans in refrigerator 3 to 4 weeks.* Use a small, empty plastic squeeze bottle as a bellows to blow out dust from niches and corners.* Clean washing machine's lint traps with sheets of fabric softener.

What is shade-grown coffee? Buying coffee used to be easy. Now, shoppers are confronted with all sorts of arcane descriptors. There are two main varieties of the coffee plant, Arabica and Robusto. Arabica is harder to grow - it prefers higher elevations and is less resistant to disease, but it produces a finer coffee. Robusto beans are sometimes added to espresso blends because they contribute to the foamy crema that distinguishes a well-made shot. Traditionally, coffee trees were shielded from the sun by a canopy of taller trees, but many modern plantations do away with the noncoffee flora because an orchard of just coffee is easier to manage.

I took a trip to smell the coffee. It was roasting in three different spots: Coffee from these wholesale roasters shows up under a variety of labels all over Maryland. In addition to being aromatically interesting, my trip also taught me a few things about coffee and the history of the city.I started sniffing in Towson at the area's newest roaster, the 3-year-old Baltimore Coffee & Tea Co. Tucked behind a Super Fresh grocery on Dulaney Valley Road across from the Towson Town Center, the place was not easy to spot.

I HAVE BECOME a bean counter. Now if I spill any coffee beans, I begin a full-scale, down- on-my-knees search for the missing ones. This aggressive, bean-chasing behavior is new for me.Not long ago, if I spilled beans while putting them in the grinder, I would only pick up the ones that were easy to find. I retrieved the beans sitting on the kitchen counter. But I ignored the ones that had fallen to the kitchen floor.Then the price of coffee went up, about $1 a pound for the kind of beans, Yirgacheffe and Golden Sumatra, that I buy, and my habits changed.

This list of Top 10 Sites for Mail-Order Delicacies, which appeared on my blog last Tuesday, may not help you for this holiday season; but tuck it away somewhere and bring it out next December. Or give yourself a gift: You deserve it. 1 Amadeus Vanilla Beans: for the serious cook, gourmet vanilla beans from Uganda, plus all sorts of vanilla extract. (AmadeusVanillaBeans.com) 2 Avocado of the Month Club: If your friend loves avocados as much as I do, this is the perfect gift.

What is shade-grown coffee? Buying coffee used to be easy. Now, shoppers are confronted with all sorts of arcane descriptors. There are two main varieties of the coffee plant, Arabica and Robusto. Arabica is harder to grow - it prefers higher elevations and is less resistant to disease, but it produces a finer coffee. Robusto beans are sometimes added to espresso blends because they contribute to the foamy crema that distinguishes a well-made shot. Traditionally, coffee trees were shielded from the sun by a canopy of taller trees, but many modern plantations do away with the noncoffee flora because an orchard of just coffee is easier to manage.

As any coffee connoisseur knows, the world's most expensive bean comes from the unlikeliest of places: a cat's behind. That's right, the beans used to make Kopi Luwak coffee - which sells for upward of $200 a pound - are ingested as cherries by a Southeast Asian cat called the palm civet and harvested from the feline's feces. Who came up with the idea to do this is anybody's guess. But Thomas and Amy Rhodes, owners of Zeke's Coffee in Lauraville, wanted to give their friends and customers the opportunity to try what's now considered a delicacy: coffee rid of its bitter aftertaste by the civet's stomach enzymes.

The first thing you notice is the aroma - strong and vaguely sinister - a subtle scent that practically commands you to inhale deep into your lungs. Coffee, unmistakably. About 6 o'clock on a recent chilly morning, in an old East Baltimore industrial plant that looks from afar as though it had been abandoned decades ago, a trek two floors up a dark, dingy staircase is rewarded by an olfactory prize, a tantalizing hint of greater pleasures hidden behind one of many doors. The mesmerizing smell is like a warm current of air in the frigid, vaporous atmosphere.

There's a basket in my favorite Annapolis Starbucks filled with an assortment of coffee beans from Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, along with pound bags of bold flavors such as Caffe Verona and Sumatra. And they all have messages written on them in black marker. "God bless you." "Merry Christmas." And "Go Navy beat Army." The coffee beans have been purchased by Starbucks customers and donated, to be sent to American troops overseas. Just about every bag of beans carries a message of love and thanks.

It is the place to revel in blackened redfish, boiled crawfish, he-man muffuletta sandwiches, achingly sweet pralines and beignets that coat you in a cloud of powdered sugar after the very first bite. It is the home base of celebrity chefs Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse. It is famous for legendary restaurants such as Antoine's, Commander's Palace, K-Paul's, Nola and Galatoire's. And it is a major hub of production and transport for food products from coffee to shrimp. But will New Orleans ever be all that again?

Around the house* Before painting a room, glue a paper plate underneath each can of unopened paint. This will catch spills which would normally run onto newspapers that have been used to protect floors, but ultimately wind up stuck to the cans.* Loosen stubborn windows. Try running a pizza cutter between window and jamb to cut through dried paint.* Store an excess of coffee beans in an airtight container in your freezer. Beans will stay fresh up to three months and may be ground frozen; beans can be stored in refrigerator for about three to four weeks.

The business of Riverside Roastery & Espresso is analogous to the green coffee beans that are roasted to perfection on its stores' premises every day - ever-shifting, maturing and becoming more distinct. The coffeehouse chain, which began on Main Street in Ellicott City eight years ago, has expanded and cut back several times as owner Michael Lentz learned the types of locations and the formats that would make his business a success. Two months after opening his newest coffeehouse on Centre Park Drive in Columbia - the sixth in his experience - he is preparing to close the one in the Glenwood library in western Howard County in two days, winnowing his holdings to three shops - all in Howard.

ADJUNTAS, Puerto Rico - Long before Starbucks and even Sanka, the coffee produced in this cool mountain region was internationally beloved - so much that Puerto Rico, barely the size of Connecticut, was among the world's largest, proudest coffee exporters. The cafes of Vienna, Paris and Madrid served Puerto Rican coffee in the 19th century, as did European monarchs and even the Vatican. But while short and sturdy coffee trees still flourish on parts of the island, it is hard to find Puerto Rican coffee anywhere now. Puerto Rico does not even produce enough to meet its own demand, forcing the island to buy beans from other countries.

Located in Hickory Plaza in Columbia, the five-year-old Mad City Coffee has brewed its way into the hearts of customers, nourishing their psyches and quenching their thirst. "People can walk here, take a break, read the newspaper or meet with friends," said owner Bill Martin, who calls his caffeine haven a "community-based coffee shop." In true cafe style, Mad City offers intimate table seating with simple, modern flair. One side is food and drink prep and the other is a nearly store-long window on its corner of Columbia.