Libations Friday! 24 July 2009

Featured today: A Louisiana coffee recipe in the form of a coffee shake for this hot summer and an original dream sequence poem.

From Denny: Around here the famous Louisiana coffee company is known as "CC's" - short for Community Coffee. You can use your favorite coffee for this shake too. I'm a big fan of CC's New Orleans Blend with Chickory (which tamps down the acid level). Try this super simple easy recipe for your lazy weekend, so refreshing after a long work week!

CC's Coffee Banana Shake

Ingredients:

1 cup brewed and chilled Community Coffee's Louisiana Blend Coffee

2 medium-ripe bananas, sliced

1 pint good quality ice cream

3 tablespoons sugar

1 or 2 drops of almond flavoring

Directions:

Pour the coffee into a blender, then add the bananas, ice cream, sugar and almond flavoring. Cover and blend at high speed until thick and fluffy. Pour into chilled glasses. Serves 3 to 4 people.

On to the poetry section for this week...

From Denny: Those of you who read over at my quotes blog, Beautiful Illustrated Quotations, know I read some articles recently I found disturbing in their political vitriol. There is some seriously toxic stuff written without so much as a true fact to back up the rhetoric. It's pretty amazing how toxic and full of hate some people continue to choose to be, all in the name of identifying themselves as good Christians. Uh, do they read the same Bible I do? Last I checked, Jesus preached love and the digging out of our hearts all hatred for others.

Anyway, the recent event brought to mind a poem I wrote last year talking about toxic people. You know how it is; you get ready to go to sleep and go into a meditative state to process the day. Well, with that meditation I added a question prayer about how God views all this toxic squabbling on this planet. It wasn't long before I got an interesting answer. Of course, my spirit tends to be joyful and loves ironic humor and so, as God talks to us with our own private language, He framed the answer in my own personal code of humor. At first the dream was a bit disorienting and disconcerting as it felt like a smothering effect until I realized what was going on - and that I had the power to do something about what was happening.

When some other poet friends read this poem they thought it was a death and resurrection poem, something I never intended but hey! a cool extra double meaning works for me! What I intentionally wrote about - as this was written in the middle of the night upon getting this dream - was how life and toxic people throw dirt on us and its our job to dig our way out, knowing that we have helpers standing nearby, and, in the end, laugh at it all. Laughing off garbage seems to be a recurring theme for my writings.

I even created a little abstract drawing to go with the poem. The cheekbone area looks like a stairway. Dream sequences are such fun to draw! It's like "all bets are off" on the expected and you can insert the unexpected or unusual.



Flinging Dirt Drawing by Denny Lyon

Flinging Dirt

The muse guy smiled and beckoned
Directing my attention to a hill
Upon which I stood waiting

Suddenly huge mounds of dirt flew my way
Falling back surprised, fell down to the ground
The dirt filled the air, covering me quickly

Inside the dirt, perplexed, I blinked
The dirt was busy above, growing heavy
Groaned, stifled from the weight of it all

The dirt was not earthy and fresh or new
Smelling bad, stinking stale and worse it was
Deeper I sank, now a depression made a grave

Deeper into the earth I sank, the dirt mounded high
A shovel appeared, grabbed the smooth handle
Carved a space to sit and ponder dark, shovel propped

Why is this happening?
Why does this dirt smell so bad?
Why does no one notice this wrong?

Decided to fight, moving dirt behind
Determined, ascending faster than dirt above
Gratefully surfaced, peered up the narrow hole, light!

Climbed out onto the dirt, now highest mountain
The dirt throwers disappeared, evaporated, not known
Felt the sun on my face, warm, inviting, renewing

Looked around for trouble, looked long way down
At the bottom a long line of angels, tall, smiling
Approaching they all broke into cacophony applause

Who are you? I inquired
Why are you here? I continued
What is your purpose? I had to know

We are the Congratulations! Committee to greet you
We are here to assist your next decisions, eternally
Our purpose to walk by your side on your souls journey

I took it all in, delighted to meet them
They must have provided that shovel
Assuring my survival if only I would act

The dozen very tall men kindly bent down to my level
Dazzling smiles all, requesting how may they continue
I scratched my head, wiped the dirt off my face, shook my clothes

First things first, guys, I demanded, which way are the showers?
At that they all roared laughter, so loudly, it hurt my ears
Which way are the showers? They laughed and laughed more

One angel, raised his hand, laughing hard, sweeping right
My eyes looked up at his, tracking his directive to behold
Jesus Himself was laughing, waiting for me, clean towel in Hand


Denny Lyon
Copyright 12 July 2008
All Rights Reserved

Coffee Photo by once and future @ flickr

Have a great weekend, everyone; stay safe! Thanks for visiting!

Blender, Ice cream, coffee shake, coffee Recipes, poetry, New Orleans, Food, Cooking, Home, CC, Christian, Bible, Jesus, Cook, Denny Lyon, The Social Poets, Flinging Dirt, angels, humor

Libations Friday! 8 May 2009

New coffee recipes, new coffee site, original poem AND it's Friday! Does Life get any better? :)

Coffee Photo by once and future @ flickr

From Denny: With the “hurry up and wait all day” jury duty this week I didn’t get a chance to pre-load any of my posts. They were keeping us longer than usual as a Mexican drug lord was on trial, complete with over a million dollars in drugs as evidence and a SWAT team to protect his sorry criminal self from assassination. Let's hear the applause for where our tax dollars go: forced to protect mocking criminals while awaiting trial. Such is the downside of a civilized society dealing with the savage violent members.

So you can guess how many people wanted to be on that jury... I didn't really care if they picked me or not as I can't be intimidated and have no use for bullies. I was the last person to be paneled and once they found out I was a journalist I made the immediate cut. Many of the jurors complained that it was a bit creepy giving out your home address and other personal information in open court since the accused has the right to know where his accusers live. Talk about a law that needs to be changed - like yesterday!

Apologies for any inconvenience to my readers as I know you clock in from time zones all over the world. Usually I try to load at least one post a day by early morning my time (and Canada’s) so folks across The Pond in Europe have a read by late afternoon.

Hello to the folks in Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Greece as I’m surprised to find so many readers from Eastern Europe. Hello to those of you in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark!

As to the folks in the Mideast - like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - and Asia - like lots in India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia - Thank You for checking in for a visit!

Now on to the coffee portion! Found this interesting coffee site: BestOfCoffeeNews.com.

Here are some of their coffee advice tips:

Troubleshooting Coffee

Does your coffee taste bad? There are several possible reasons why the coffee doesn't taste right. Here are some possible solutions to common coffee problems.

• Stale coffee beans or stale grounds? This will create a recipe for bitter coffee. Get fresh coffee!

• A dirty pot? An unclean coffee pot makes bitter coffee. Follow the coffee maker cleaning instructions.

• Poor water quality? Typical city water may lead to bitter tasting coffee. Use clean water if possible.

• Using an incorrect ratio of coffee grounds to water? If the ratio isn't right, the coffee can turn bitter, or make the coffee taste like nothing.

Coffee Maker Maintenance

How to you clean your coffee maker? In order to be able to keep making good coffee, do this every month:

1. In case you have a built-in filter, take it out.

2. Fill your carafe with water and add two tablespoons of vinegar.

3. Pour the mixture of water and vinegar into the coffee maker and turn on the coffee maker.

4. Let it brew halfway through the brewing cycle and stop the machine for about 15 minutes. Resume the brewing process and let the brewing finish.

5. Now, rinse the carafe out and brew plain water through the system - twice. Rinse out the carafe, and you're now all done!

Here are two recipes from BestOfCoffeeNews.com:

This is definitely one I’ve not seen. I suppose if it’s made with fresh farmer’s market yogurt it could be outstanding, though I doubt I’d try it with what’s available in most grocery stores stuffed full of preservatives, additives and sugar.

Coffee Yogurt Drink

Ingredients

• 8 ounces plain yoghurt
• 8 ounces cold black coffee
• Sugar to taste
• Ground cinnamon

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a blender and serve in a long glass with a straw. Decorate with cinnamon. Serves 2.

***
This one sounds refreshing for a summer drink with all this mint!

Peppermint Coffee Cream

Ingredients

• 2 ounces white creme de menthe
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 8 ounces hot freshly made black coffee
• lightly whipped double cream
• mint chocolate cut into thin slivers

Warm a brandy glass. Add the creme de menthe and the sugar. Add the hot coffee, stir well. Pour the whipped cream over a spoon onto the top of the coffee. Decorate with the slivers of mint chocolate. Drink through the cream without mixing.

***



Photo by Sarah Sitkin @ flickr

Now on to the poem. How many times do you find yourself amused by something small that happens in your daily life? Parents and grandparents experience this often. Do try to record those amusing real life incidents - if only to write about years later. Look at it this way: you can embarrass your kids at their wedding, entertaining the wedding guests with funny stories.

Though I don’t have children there are times when my husband is a great substitute. Most days he is the hard-nosed tough-minded businessman. And then his Irish side pops up out of nowhere to hijack his personality and he is like a daredevil nine-year-old on a sugar rush! He definitely keeps my life from being too serious.

No matter how annoying he gets I still enjoy watching him at play – or should I say watching him “in play” like some strategic game plan like you see in sports. It’s like a coach called Life handed him a playbook and told him to execute it! The way some people’s minds work when mildly stressed and the inventive solutions they create…

As you read this light-hearted and total silliness ditty, think of the amusing childrens' writer Dr. Seuss' “musical words” in your head and you will have the right frame of mind to be amused and follow the beat of the poem. Oh, and don't forget to write fan letters to my husband! :)

Have a good weekend, everyone! Thanks for visiting!




Pastel Drawing by Denny Lyon


The Husband Who Cleans

Lunching together at home my husband and me
One Friday summer at noon: Horror happened!
Spilled my red sauce dots, splat! All over ivory

My husband he comforted me, No big deal!
I’ll clean it later, good intentions he had
OK, I agreed, forgetting ‘til many hours that late

Like many a wife I circled back to clean
But not found those red dots! So astonished was I!
My husband proudly approached to show me you see
Pointed to where the red spot dots had been dining
And declared the ivory cloth so spotless and cleaned

I peered closer, doubting, to examine for wet
Found none, now perplexed, now downright puzzled,
What ever did you use to clean “It”?

He solved the problem, can’t you see?
Rotating ‘round the tablecloth one place setting
Grinning wildly, he lifted up the long S & P tray
He exclaimed, so proud he was to me, See? I cleaned!
The red dots they remained, new home, well hidden,
Under the accommodating accomplice S & P tray...



*Male Motto: If you can’t see it, then it’s clean!

*Disclaimer: My husband wants to make sure everyone knows it was the woman who was the table slob… He’s sensitive.


Denny Lyon
Copyright 18 July 2008
All Rights Reserved