Archive for the 'New York' Category
January 22, 2011
Fifteen years ago today, on Jan. 22, 1996, The New York Times — which already had a news service behind a paywall on AOL — started its free Web site, jolting newspaper publishers and editors across the land to follow suit. A happy birthday tweet prompted me to go on a memory-jogging journey with the Wayback Machine looking for another newspaper site born that month. Back then, I was working for The York Daily Record in southcentral Pennsylvania. The existential headline on this blog post is from an article I wrote for that paper in December 1995, part of a five-day series explaining the Internet. (I had been a computer dabbler since I was a teenager.)
The article is reprinted below, with permission (My favorite line: “Some people believe the Web or some future souped-up version of it will transform society. Others think the accent in ‘hypertext’ should be on ‘hype.’”) The series was later archived on the paper’s rudimentary Web site (logo at above left), a precursor to the now-thriving YDR.com. That site was pushed into the world a bit early, thanks to some bad weather.
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Posted in Blogging, New York, Paper & Ink, Social Media | 6 Comments »
Tags: blizzards, floods, History, Internet, news, newspapers, NYT, NYTimes.com, Wayback Machine, weather, Web, YDR.com, York Daily Record, York Pa.
December 5, 2010
Are you a poetry fan? Jane Rosenberg LaForge (my wife) and three other New York area writers — Lisa Marie Basile, Britt Gambino and Jim Meirose — will present a free evening of poetry and fiction this Saturday in Chelsea.
Jane is promoting her second chapbook, “Half-Life,” from Big Table Publishing. It is drawn on experiences with cancer in her family (her mother died in November 2009 and her sister in July 2010, while many of these poems were being written and revised). (I wrote last year about Jane’s first chapbook, “After Voices,” now in its second printing, about growing up with a deaf father.)
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Tags: After Voices, Books, Britt Gambino, Half-Life, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Jim Meirose, Lisa Marie Basile, NYC, Spark Art Center
November 14, 2010
It was a busy summer and autumn, both personally and professionally, so I suspended my coffee blogging — but not my coffee drinking. The best bean by far was the (expensive) Honduras Cup of Excellence Lot #4 from Fernández Farm in El Cielito, Santa Bárbara, Honduras, as roasted by Cafe Grumpy. (It’s still available: I picked up some today.)
The tasting notes: “Red currant aroma. Floral brightness. Sweet notes of aged bourbon & molasses.” The Cup of Excellence rewards barista skill, of course, but you have to start with a good bean, and this far exceeded my expectations. I was parceling out beans like bits of gold on mornings with important business.
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Tags: Aeropress, B. Koffie, Café Grumpy, Chelsea, Coffee!, drinks, espresso, Finca La Tina, Hell's Kitchen, Honduras, La Columbe Torrefaction
July 18, 2010
One July weekend, I had the opportunity to combine two of my favorite activities — riding my bike through Manhattan and visiting new coffee shops.
My family was traveling elsewhere, and New York had not yet fallen into the drippy hot torpor that has marked recent days. I rode down the west side a bit, diverted to to the Hudson River trail, then passed through TriBeCa, Chinatown, SoHo and my old East Village stomping grounds before chugging up the East Side — a loop of sorts.
I made a pass by La Colombe Torrefaction, but I had already tried beans from there via B. Koffie, so I decided to check out Kaffe 1668, one of the shops highlighted in The Times a couple of months ago.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York, Social Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Antigua Los Volcanes, bikes, Clover, Coffee!, cycling, East Village, Facebook, Foursquare, Guatemala, Kaffe 1668, La Columbe Torrefaction, Manhattan, Novo, Plowshares Coffee Roasters, Posterous, SoHo, TriBeCa, Twitter
July 3, 2010
When you step into McNulty’s Tea & Coffee in the West Village, you feel as though you are stepping into another era of coffee, when specialty shops like this were the main purveyors of gourmet beans from around the world. In that respect, it reminds me of Empire Coffee or Porto Rico Importing Co.
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Tags: Birch Coffee, Café Grumpy, Coffee!, Empire Coffee & Tea, espresso, Intelligentsia, McNulty Tea & Coffee, organic, Peru, Porto Rico Importing Co.
June 12, 2010
Posted in Coffee!, New York | 1 Comment »
Tags: B. Koffie, Birch Coffee, Coffee!, cold brew coffee, cold press, espresso, Ethiopia, Intelligentsia, Kenya, La Columbe Torrefaction, NYT, soccer, t, tweet, Twitter, World Cup, World Science Fair, Yirgacheffe
June 5, 2010
It was painful to pass so close to Stumptown at the Ace Hotel without stopping, but I was glad I did, finding myself off the lobby of another boutique hotel, the Gershwin, in a different temple to caffeine — Birch Coffee. I had been wanting to visit after noticing it on The Times’s list of the best of the new coffee cafes. It was love at first visit.
The decor gave me a warm feeling right away. True, you’re not going to find a half-dozen varieties of obscure single origin coffees from as many countries, as you would a couple of blocks away, but there are chairs and stools, something Stumptown eschews. And food. And wine. And beer. And a lending library upstairs.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York | 2 Comments »
Tags: Ace Hotel, Birch Coffee, Coffee Labs Roasters, Coffee!, computers, drinks, espresso, Flatiron, Gershwin Hotel, Guatemala, India, Monsooned Malabar, Museum of Sex, Nicaragua, NYC, NYT, Stumptown
May 16, 2010
A good coffee shop is all about atmosphere. And the atmosphere is one reason that I’ve tried to like the Joe Art of Coffee chain. They really make an effort.
Paintings and other one-of-a-kind art on the wall. Barista classes. Cute little signs describing bits of coffee lore. Cupping notes on the bags. The last time I sampled some beans here, very early in my coffee quest, I was disappointed. Lately Joe has been popping up on best-of lists, so it was long past time to give Joe another chance, and now I’m glad I did.
One important change: Joe has switched to a new roasting partner, Ecco Caffe in California, since my visit last year. A good roast makes all the difference. The retooling landed the shop on this best-of-New-York coffee list by The Times.
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Tags: Aeropress, Brazil, Coffee!, Ecco Caffe, espresso, Joe the Art of Coffee
April 3, 2010
It’s still syncing.
While I prepare myself for the inevitable post-purchase depression and “why can’t I do that, Mr. Jobs” revelations, here are some unboxing pictures and a video from my Posterous page.
At some point I’ll list the pros and cons. But I’m done with the posting and tweeting today. I doubt there’s much new that I could say about it.
Technology isn’t my beat, so I’ll leave the iPad news and reviews to my colleagues at Bits. (Here’s an earlier post about how I made the purchase decision.)
For me, the iPad is first and foremost a book and media reader. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in iPhone Apps, New York, Paper & Ink | 3 Comments »
Tags: Apple, Books, Collyer brothers, comics, ebooks, iBooks, iPad, Kindle, Kindle for iPad, macs, NYT, Posterous
March 26, 2010
I don’t remember how I first came across the Aeropress, but as soon as I saw it, I wanted it. I had been looking for a way to make coffee — espresso in particular — in my office without creating a lot of mess. For the past few weeks, I have discovered that something like this is possible. No longer am I the slave to the stale, vaguely machine-flavored Illy served upstairs in the cafeteria or the over-roasted swill found in the Starbucks shops of Midtown Manhattan.
Using air pressure, the press extracts delicious “espresso” (not really) from two scoops of finely ground coffee. Top it off with hot water, and you have an Americano. So far I’ve had the best results with the Kenyan Gatomboya from Stumptown and the Novo Decaf Espresso carried by Cafe Grumpy. I heat the water to 175 degrees Farenheit using this Breville electric kettle, served up in these supposedly unbreakable glass mugs.
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Posted in Blogging, Coffee!, New York | 7 Comments »
Tags: Aeropress, Brazil, Breville electric kettle, Café Grumpy, Coffee!, decaf, drinks, espresso, Illy, Kenya, NYT, Starbucks
Fifteen years ago today, on Jan. 22, 1996, The New York Times — which already had a news service behind a paywall on AOL — started its free Web site, jolting newspaper publishers and editors across the land to follow suit. A happy birthday tweet prompted me to go on a memory-jogging journey with the Wayback Machine looking for another newspaper site born that month. Back then, I was working for The York Daily Record in southcentral Pennsylvania. The existential headline on this blog post is from an article I wrote for that paper in December 1995, part of a five-day series explaining the Internet. (I had been a computer dabbler since I was a teenager.)
Inside Third Rail Coffee at 240 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village.
