We've been making espresso at home for a few months now. The local market has the Lavazza Caffe Espresso and it's pretty good.
Last week Maria and I were wandering a Whole Foods. They had the Illy espresso. We've been meaning to try it, but there's no Whole Foods by us, and no other place by us has it. So we got a couple cans. It's more than twice as expensive as the Lavazza - ouch! Could it be worth it?
Caspita! Illy really is a lot better. It looks better. It tastes better.
So now we have a problem. Is Illy better enough to justify the expense? Illy will ship to you free if you buy six cans at a time, but it's still twice as much as the Lavazza. Maybe there's another alternative? Maybe there's a blend I can pick up at Intelligentsia that we like better than Lavazza, and that's less expensive than Illy?
And is this the slippery slope to full-blown espresso snobbery? How the hell did this happen to me?
28 May 2008
26 May 2008
25 May 2008
Larry Hanks
Last night Maria and I were downtown with Susanne, after a fabulous dinner at Salpicon (thanks Mom!). We wanted to go to the Signature Lounge at the John Hancock building, but the line was terribly long. So we wandered around a bit, and finally landed at the lounge at the Four Seasons Hotel. We sat right next to the piano. The pianist there was a very nice fellow named Larry Hanks. He played the room very nicely--there was as much there to enjoy as you wanted. Most could tune out or ignore the music, but we listened intently. Very nice harmonies. Hope to see him play again soon.
Bike the Drive
The weather was just gorgeous for this year's Bike the Drive. It was Ella's first time on her own bike. Plus Maria's sister Susanne is visiting from Germany, so she joined us on the ride.
We had only ever gone on the north end of the ride. This time, we went north but turned around at Fullerton. Then back at Grant Park we decided to try the south half, and we biked to 31st Street before turning around. 15 miles in all, about the same as doing either half of the ride completely. There was a very nice CBF volunteer who met us at 31st Street, offered Ella some Gatorade and Martin a banana.
The Chicagoland Bicycle Federation is a fantastic group that encourages biking and walking, promotes safe biking practices, and organizes support for laws that are friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians. They started Bike the Drive in 2002, and we've gone every year so far.
We had only ever gone on the north end of the ride. This time, we went north but turned around at Fullerton. Then back at Grant Park we decided to try the south half, and we biked to 31st Street before turning around. 15 miles in all, about the same as doing either half of the ride completely. There was a very nice CBF volunteer who met us at 31st Street, offered Ella some Gatorade and Martin a banana.
The Chicagoland Bicycle Federation is a fantastic group that encourages biking and walking, promotes safe biking practices, and organizes support for laws that are friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians. They started Bike the Drive in 2002, and we've gone every year so far.
15 May 2008
Musicophilia
I finally finished Musicophilia, an amazing book by Oliver Sacks. A neurologist, music lover and writer, he discusses the pathologies of his patients (and himself) as they relate to music. This leads to fascinating insights about our brains and our relationship with music. It is an especially good companion to Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music and Hawkins' On Intelligence.
Sacks writes about people with enhanced musical abilities and people with musical "impairments", such as an inability to connect emotionally with music, or a shift in one's pitch perception enough to make all music sound out of tune. He writes about professional musicians and how their maladies affect their livelihoods; but more often the subjects are musical "civilians". Music is such a pervasive component of the human condition that an impairment could affect a listener as much as a performer. But Sacks also writes about music's ability to connect to some people when nothing else can, to temper a Parkinsons patient's tremors, or to animate otherwise silent Alzheimer sufferers. Brilliant.
That it took me so long to read it is not a commentary on the book, but rather the relative insanity of my life the past couple months.
Sacks writes about people with enhanced musical abilities and people with musical "impairments", such as an inability to connect emotionally with music, or a shift in one's pitch perception enough to make all music sound out of tune. He writes about professional musicians and how their maladies affect their livelihoods; but more often the subjects are musical "civilians". Music is such a pervasive component of the human condition that an impairment could affect a listener as much as a performer. But Sacks also writes about music's ability to connect to some people when nothing else can, to temper a Parkinsons patient's tremors, or to animate otherwise silent Alzheimer sufferers. Brilliant.
That it took me so long to read it is not a commentary on the book, but rather the relative insanity of my life the past couple months.
04 May 2008
North Branch Trail
Today was a perfect day for biking - sunny and neither cold nor hot. So we loaded up and went on this year's first family bike ride.
We thought it might be too cool to bike by the lake, so we decided to bike the North Branch Trail. It's long been a favorite trail of mine. We started at Dempster and headed north, Ella on her own bike, Maria on hers, and Martin in the trailer behind me. Ella did a great job. She chugged right up the bridge at East Lake Ave. We got to the lagoons just north of Willow Road and stopped to rest. I expected we would turn around there, but Ella and Maria insisted they wanted to ride on, so we did. We went up to the Botanic Gardens and had lunch, then turned around for the ride back. Ella complained only a couple times but proved she was up to the task. And Martin was content the whole way, and fell asleep on the way back.
I figure now that we biked about 22 miles today. I still think we should have turned around earlier. It really was too far to go for our first ride of the season, but it turned out alright.
We thought it might be too cool to bike by the lake, so we decided to bike the North Branch Trail. It's long been a favorite trail of mine. We started at Dempster and headed north, Ella on her own bike, Maria on hers, and Martin in the trailer behind me. Ella did a great job. She chugged right up the bridge at East Lake Ave. We got to the lagoons just north of Willow Road and stopped to rest. I expected we would turn around there, but Ella and Maria insisted they wanted to ride on, so we did. We went up to the Botanic Gardens and had lunch, then turned around for the ride back. Ella complained only a couple times but proved she was up to the task. And Martin was content the whole way, and fell asleep on the way back.
I figure now that we biked about 22 miles today. I still think we should have turned around earlier. It really was too far to go for our first ride of the season, but it turned out alright.
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