Holy Coffee!

I am currently reading the book "Uncommon Grounds" by Mark Pendergrast.


Although I haven't had too much time to read much, this beginning passage is one I found quite....amusing. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me chuckle.


"Europeans eventually took to coffee with a passion. Pope Clement VIII, who died in 1605, supposedly tasted the Muslim drink at the behest of his priests, who wanted him to ban it. 'Why, this Satan's drink is so delicious,' he reputedly exclaimed, 'that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptizing it and making it a truly Christian Beverage.'"


So...I wish I had the power to say "yeah....this is totally sinful....but.....it tastes AWESOME so.....let's just call it our own and poof! it's totally acceptable now!"


Hooray for things that make sense! This truly made my day.

Blood Mountain Hiking Extravaganza!

Last week I escaped the city and found myself in a fall fairytale. Since living here, life has kind of felt like a giant bubble of bad air quality, heavy traffic, and masses of ants crawling everywhere. What a wonderful thing to discover that the rumors are true! Heart stopping mountain views lay just an hour and a half from the city. I think I've fallen in love with Atlanta a little more knowing that I am so close to such splendor! After sleeping in, quickly picking up my partner in crime (friend Isabella), and stocking up on salads from Whole Foods, Luna bars, water, and of course small champagne toasting bottles, we hit the road. The first hour of the drive isn't very interesting, but as soon as we turned towards Dalonegha that all changed.


We were quickly greeted by windy mountain roads, which I have missed driving since leaving my temporary ski bum life in Colorado. Turning on "sport mode" in my little red mini cooper, I gave my car a little more gas than I normally would and turned into a little bit of a teenage boy hugging curves and laughing a little moronically. As we felt our ears popping, the trees began to gain more and more color. With Florence and the Machine and Bat For Lashes on the stereo, we left the city behind and entered one of the most beautiful forests I've seen.


We wound through the mountains for about 45 minutes until we ended up at the Walasi-Y visitor's center, where hundreds of used hiking boots from the Appalachian Trail hang from the ceiling and trees outside. When we left Atlanta the temperature was a warm 60 degrees, but up here it was already only 39. Needless to say, this made me embarrassingly excited. After being given a little hand-drawn map of the trails we should take, we headed briefly down the road to the parking lot and trail head.

drive up to the parking lot

Being a Florida girl, the bagillion colors in the trees turned me into a little kid waiting to go on a pony ride. I practically skipped my way to the trail head, thrilled to have a reason to don my ski jacket, hat, and hiking shoes for the first time in months. It didn't take long to realize this hike would be a bit strenuous for us, but we felt plenty prepared with our salad and booze. What else do you need for a successful hike? The answer: well, nothing!

After walking uphill for about 15 minutes we came across our first stream, which was the biggest we saw all day. We carefully balanced ourselves across the slippery rocks that remained above the water as our champagne toasts clanked in my backpack.

After not too long we came to the fork in the road that we had been told about when given our little map. Well, we lost our map and couldn't remember which fork to take. We went with our best guess and turned out to be wrong. Even though this set us back about 30 minutes, it was such a gorgeous detour. The mountains were visible between the trees and this was definitely the most colorful part of the day, with reds, golds, greens, purples, and even some more "cute" streams.

Once we got back on the right path the trail began to quickly steepen. This part of the trail is full of sharp switchbacks and tons of uphill climbing. Despite several breather breaks, we made it up to the top in about two hours after we left the trail head. This is a little over two miles of uphill hiking, which for two restaurant girls who aren't in the best shape, felt pretty good. (Enough twos?)

Not too far from the top, the trail begins to get very rocky and you spend little time hiking on dirt and "stairs." At about this point, fall was over and voila! Winter! We stopped for a breather not too far up the stretch of large rocks, and turned back to notice all of the treetops below us were covered in ice from the thick cloud cover. Crazy!!!!

This is about the time when I hardly put my high-tech over the top camera (or phone...) away. I won't even bother saying much about the rest of the hike to the top. Here it is...

(one of my favorites) 

Once we felt we were basically at the top (the fog was too thick to tell for sure) we unpacked our lovely lunch of salads and champagne. A few minutes later a family passed us and we discovered we had stopped a mere hundred feet from the stone shelter marking the top. Oops! Anyways, we toasted champagne and basically felt like badasses (at least let us pretend here). At the top of the mountain it was about 20-25 degrees with a decent wind. The fog was thick and for this reason everything was iced over and lovely.

On the way down we continued to be frequently distracted by beautiful areas just off the trail.

The clouds even parted for us briefly, and wow...

Of course it took much less time for us to descend than to climb up the mountain. As I warned Isabella I might, I sang en entire half opera version of "Colors of the Wind," which only a couple of other hikers had the misfortune of witnessing. It was lovely, to say the least.

I think it goes without saying that both of us were feeling pretty jazzed from our more than successful hike. I was absolutely blown away at how beautiful these mountains are and cannot wait to go back. Next time we plan to take the 6 mile look trail around the mountain....the loop we accidentally started when we took the wrong fork.

We hopped back in the car and made the relatively short drive back to the city and to the restaurant where I work----Empire State South. I've worked there for nearly 2 months now and this was my first trip in as a guest. We planned to have one cocktail and maybe a snackie. Three hours, two cocktails, an order of Tybee Island Shrimp, our Pork Belly, a shared Smoked Duck Breast entree, and a bowl of Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream later, we left. Good lord my restaurant has amazing food. Seriously, I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

What an amazing day!!!! Blood Mountain (and the North Georgia Mountains in general), you are BEAUTIFUL and I can't wait to be back!

FALL FALL FALL!

Last night it rained. No, it poured! It was amazing. Although everyone has been saying "fall is here!" for a month now, I think this morning we started shouting it. A gorgeous 48 degree overcast day that reminded me of some of my favorite days in Alaska greeted me when I woke up. What better way to celebrate than to work on perfecting my pumpkin spice coffee syrup? This might never make it to the menu at my coffee shop, but it will still make it into my personal lattes.

I might want to mention that my new dream is to open a coffee shop and gluten free bakery. I have a bachelor's in fine arts in interior design, but I think I enjoy making delicious treats a lot more. But I'm not going to turn this into some personal biography.

SO!

I made a small tester batch of this syrup the other day which turned out amazing. Like a fool, I didn't document anything I did. Not surprisingly, this second (much larger) batch is giving me difficulties. As a base, I made a simple syrup with 3 cups water and 3 cups sugar. I then added some apple pie spice from the Dekalb Farmer's Market and 5 whole cloves. I let that simmer and reduce for a while then discovered it tasted like candied cinnamon. Uh oh.

After adding several things, I think it's time to call this one a learning experience. This syrup shouldn't be super sweet. My first batch tasted like pumpkin bread in syrup form, which is exactly what I want. It also tasted amazing in our Counter Culture coffee.

Oh well, can't win them all! Take 2 tomorrow.