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Saturday, December 13, 2003
Coffee cat
By Ober Khok
Coffee, like wine, seals a good meal. The two beverages have a magical way of making food settle well, and they’re good extenders as far as conversation is concerned.
You sip, make gossip; you sip again, gossip again. That’s how you drink wine and coffee – sip by sip as you gossip.
As I have been to one too many parties this week, I found the best reason for coffee-drinking after a meal: they keep your eyes open.
My corn-born (I’m only corny) Cebuano friends tell me that I have SSB or sakit sa baboy for my tendency to feel sleepy after eating.
Oink, guilty as charged. Be that as it may, I’m a coffee cat, and I’ll drink coffee even if it’s my only meal for the day.
After my party-hopping, I have picked up some gossip about food. They’re nothing libelous.
n So you think popsicle is cool and utterly this century. Open you mouth and be amazed: California’s Frank Epperson invented the popsicle in 1905 when he was 11 years old.
n In an authentic Chinese meal, the last course is soup because it allows the roast duck entree to
“swim” toward digestion.
n Goulash, a beef dish, originated in Hungary in the 9th century A.D.
n Capsaicin, which makes hot peppers “hot” to the human mouth, is best neutralized by casein, the main protein found in milk.
So next time it’s too hot for you, drink up from baby’s bottle to neutralize the fire.
n Traditionally, a coffee cup must be thick and made of porcelain.
My Aunt Frieda said that Europeans warm the cup before using it not because they’re phobic about germs.
The heated cup keeps the coffee warm longer; about 30 minutes longer than the normal lifetime of hot coffee.
n Coffee was introduced in Vienna at the dawn of the 17th century. The first coffee house in Austria opened in 1683.
n This entry I like: an etiquette writer of the 1840’s advised, “Ladies may wipe their lips on the tablecloth, but not blow their noses on it.”
n Large doses of coffee can be lethal. Ten grams, or 100 cups over four hours, can kill the average human.
n There are 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine in an eight-ounce cup of brewed coffee, 10 milligrams in a six-ounce cup of cocoa, five to 10 milligrams in one ounce of bittersweet chocolate, and five milligrams in one ounce of milk chocolate.
Enough coffee for me. I’m into my 10th cup.
(December 13, 2003 issue)
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