1st Coffee Post - How I got into coffee

Well, seeing how this blog is called Knit, Purl and Brew I figure I should try to stay true to the title and have a few posts on coffee.  Yes, the Brew refers to brewing coffee.  Although, I had thought about opening it up to include tea and maybe even beer.  Let's just say that I'm not totally closing the door on beer - I'll probably throw a post or two about it.  Maybe I'll try knitting drunk one day.

Anyhoo, back to coffee.  Yup, I'm into coffee... alot of coffee.  I drink quite a bit of coffee at work everyday - most of it not very good coffee.  But on the weekends, that's when I break out the good stuff.  Nothing beats a freshly ground and brewed cup-o-joe on a cold Edmonton Sunday morning.

I got into coffee thanks to my mom.  I don't remember where we were, but I was quite young, maybe 7 or 8, it was cold and my mom gave me a sip of her coffee to warm me up.  Back then she had cream and sugar with her coffee.  When I tasted that warm sweet creamy liquid I was hooked.

Even though enjoyed the taste of coffee, I actually didn't drink much coffee after that first experience, but when I grew up, I re-established my addition.  Throughout university, coffee kept me awake and focused when studying.  Then I discovered coffeegeek - a website dedicated to coffee and espresso.  Soon, I learned that there was quite the coffee community online.  Even though I was in cold blue collar Edmonton, I could get all the coffee information I needed.  The only thing left was to taste great espresso.

With coffeegeeks reviews and forums, I decided to get Silvia, a tough little starter espresso machine that was very finicky with her temperature consistency.  But from the interweb I discovered that she could be modded.  Sites like Murphy's  and Pepe's (I can't seem to find his site), detail how a PID can be implanted into Silvia to make her great.Then on one fateful day in September she was mine.  Sandy and I had been dating for about a year and she surprised me with Silvia for my birthday gift.  

Of course any coffeegeek would know that you need a good grinder to get good espresso.  I had wanted to get the Mazzer Mini, the ultimate in home coffee grinders at the time.  But also at the time, I was short on free money so I looked around the netterweb and found Sweet Maria's.  

They carried hand grinders from Zassenhaus which had conical burrs - which is the latest thing in grinders now(conical burrs, not hand grinders, back then the flat burrs were the norm).  Plus, I figured, since the coffee was hand ground, physically, I would not be able to heat up the grounds through grinding - this was a good thing.  So ordered one from Sweet Maria's.

With the grinder on it's way, I needed some beans, freshly roasted beans.  These I found locally.  Even though, at the time, Edmonton only had one or two espresso cafes it had a roaster - Edmonton Tea and Coffee and they carried 100% Kona and Jamaican Blue Mountain beans as well as other coffees and blends.  But being me, with the mentality of going big or go home, I got a pound of kona beans.  Not really the best purchase for the newb barista on a new equipment.

So with freshly roasted beans and grinder in hand I set out to make my first espresso on Silvia.  I think I must have wasted half the pound of beans just getting the grind and tamp right, or what I thought was right.  Really, it wasn't right.  I basically just managed to find a grind and tamp that produced a puck that wasn't so tight that it choked Silvia or too loose that water just gushed out.  The first cup of espresso I made that was drinkable really wasn't.  It was horrid.  Sooo bitter and sour.  What had I gotten myself into.?

Baby Beanies Review

Sandy and I picked up this book, Baby Beanies - by Amanda Keeys, at a local grocery store.  We bought it pretty much just because of the cute baby pictures.  I didn't even glance at any of the pattern instructions.  The babies in this book are darn cute; oh yeah and the knitted beanies on them are pretty cute too.

After reading the book and testing out some of the patterns, I have to say that I quite enjoyed the book.  I'm not saying that it's a great read like a good novel but enjoyable for a knitting book.  The patterns are easy to follow and instructions cover the techniques needed to make the beanies.  And of course the cute baby pictures make this book that much more enjoyable.

The book starts out with the usual introduction from the author about how she/he got into knitting and what she/he hoped to give the readers through the book.  Amanda Keeys is actually a professional children's photographer and you can definitely tell from the pictures in her book.  She, like most knitters (I think), got tired of the usual beginner scarf pattern - plain, seemingly never ending garter stitch.  I can so relate to her - I have yet to make another scarf; I made one for Sandy as a Christmas gift and have never made another dull, oh so boring to knit, scarf.  Any way, she actually got into knitting when she just got fed up with boring beginner scarf patterns and just picked up a pair of needles and improvised a baby hat.

I'd say that she fully understands the frustration newbie knitters have with boring beginner patterns like the garter scarf.  Her baby beanie patterns are easy to follow for the beginner and fun to knit.  Also, as she states in her book, baby hats are small so they do not require a great investment in yarn or time.  She does introduce some knitting skills that will test those new to knitting.  If you are a newbie, you'll appreciate the experience - I certainly did; I learned how to do three needle bind-off and a weird thing called knit into front and back of same stitch (kfb).  I also relearned how to increase and decrease - I had forgotten after a long break from knitting (2 year break).

The book is perfect for the beginner knitter who wants to make something other than a scarf.  An added bonus is that, what you end up making looks really pro.

I will add posts with steps and videos of some of the hats I made from this great knitting book.  You can get a copy of the book following this link to Amazon.ca but if you can find it at a local grocery store that has a book aisle, it'll probably be cheaper there since you won't have to pay for shipping.  Unless you were planning on getting other books from Amazon anyway and needed another book to push you into the free shipping range then, maybe Amazon is the way to go.