Dec 28, 1998, 5:10pm

Hey, it's the post Christmas rant!

So how was your Christmas / Hanukka / Kwanzaa whatever? Mine was okay. I don't think I've had a truly great Christmas for many years, but I have to admit that my Christmases with Jeanette are much better than some of the ones I've had before I met her.

Some of my last Christmases back in my hometown were not all that great - in fact, I think there was a fair amount of sour will. I can't remember the exact circumstances now (a good thing, I suppose), but I just remember them as being not too good.

I also remember my first Christmas away from my family. My Dad probably took it the hardest - which was surprising... he really missed having me there to celebrate, and it was one of his rare displays of emotion with me. The next year, as a Christmas present, he paid for my flight back home... and he offered to do so the next two years, right up until my first real Christmas with Jean.

Last year my Mom was in town during Christmas, so she spent time with Jean and me over the holidays.

This year it was back to the sort of normal routine - Jean and I have Christmas here, and we buy presents to ship back east... and we get so lazy about the shipping time that we invariably end up sending it only a few days before the 25th. But like magic, our packages arrived back east on the 24th, in time for everyone to enjoy them.

And, as if by magic, we had a white Christmas here. So why am I making a big deal about a white Christmas? After all, I live in Canada where it's frozen tundra 8 months out of the year, right? Not so, mon frere. Vancouver, along with Victoria and Vancouver Island, enjoys very mild winters thanks to the Pacific. In fact, we aren't much colder than San Franscisco in the wintertime. I think in the eight years I've been here, I've had 2 "white Christmases", and a third year, it snowed the day after Christmas.

This year, we had a major dumpage on the 23rd, which carried over to the 24th... over 30 centimeters, or a foot of snow for you backwards Yanks, still on the imperial system of measurments... :-). It was enough to almost paralyze this region, since a) most Vancouver drivers suck, and b) they suck 1000 times worse in snow... thankfully, most of them realize that while they can go out and suck at driving during normal conditions, they can't manage driving in snow.

And yes, like every snowfall before it, there was a massive run on tire chains at the various hardware stores! In my entire life growing up back east, where a -30 January was common, I've never used tire chains, nor have I seen anyone but the big plows use them. Here, people seem to think that if there's an inch of snow on the ground, it requires chains. sigh......

Back to Christmas... I took in quite the haul this Christmas. I'm not going to list what I got this time around because, well, frankly a few self-righteous types really criticized me last year when I supposedly bragged about all I got...

Suffice to say, I gave big time... and those who give gifts to me were very generous. I guess I got that from my Dad - Christmas was a time when he spent just about every cent he had... maybe it was to make up for time he didn't spend with his kids, or maybe it was just his nature that one time of the year, I dunno. But it sort of fell on to me.

I don't think we were spoiled at Christmas though. While some people tend to give and get only a few gifts or inexpensive ones, other people I know got pretty lavish things that made my usual haul miniscule by comparison. I think the most expensive thing I ever got for Christmas was an Atari 1600 (I think) computer... I think it cost my Dad around $900 or so back in 1983 or thereabouts. Nothing else comes close... and all that cash bought a 5 1/4 floppy drive (actually my birthday present, which is exactly one month after xmas), a computer with a cartridges plug in area, a joystick, and a freaky printer that was kind of a cross between a daisy wheel and one of those balls that IBM Selectrics used to have. Oh yeah - a whopping, I mean whopping 128K of memory. Compared to the Commodore 64 or the Vic20, it was massive. It was the only gift I got that year, and I think my Dad really had to scrimp and save to buy it.

So getting back on track here, I tend to go all out for xmas, pretty much emptying my various slush funds to get friends, family and Jean stuff I want to get them. This year, I got Jean three Fondue items (a cheese / chocolate fondue, a 4 bowl rotating serving / dipping set, and a large stainless steel fondue set, one for oils or broth), a Ryobi rotary tool with "101 accessories!" (kinda like the Dremel rotary thing or the Black and Decker Wizard thing you probably see advertised on TV), candles, lights, and scents, a laser pointer (she wanted one), business cards, letterheads, video tapes, nice Bass winter / wet boots, baking sheets, some pyjamas, and a new website for her business (uncompleted, but at www.spiffle.com/jchanstudios if you wanna take a look).

Quite a haul, eh? She also got a rather expensive Bell Pro something bicycle helmet, gift certificates, new kitchen knives and other things from my family. She made out good!

Some of the items I gave her were items that required a lot of time and effort on my part - the web site and the business stationary. I try most years to give a few gifts to Jean and my family that are "from the heart" or in other words - stuff I make. These kinds of gifts are the most important to me - sure, anyone can buy gifts, but I think the ones that are the most valuable are the ones that actually come from effort.

It makes me feel good to make things, be it physical things (I once gave my friends carvings I made - I'm actually not too bad at carving wood with my Bowie knife), or more and more these days - ethereal things like websites, logos, graphics, etc etc. For my brother Mike who's into uh, copying his OWN playstation games (nudge nudge), I made up a bunch of very real looking cd covers, back covers, and labels for his games. Ditto for a few others I know who are into copying THEIR OWN playstation games... :-). I took the time and effort to track down scans of the covers (there are a lot of resources online for this -check out search "cd cover psx" at hotbot to see what I mean), then I went out and bought some expensive photo paper to print them on. I printed them, cut the paper, and inserted them into jewel cases. I have to admit, when I got good scans (like 500kb jpgs), the results were very good, and indistinguishable from the originals at arm's length.

Anyway, I think these efforts show that I am sincere in giving my best wishes, and some of myself, to those I love or care about at Christmas.

In other news, I kinda bought myself a gift this year - green coffee. Did you know that you can actually roast coffee at home? And seriously, have it turn out as good or better than any coffee beans you can buy anywhere, at any price? Did you know you can get started in this for as little as $10? What's the catch?

There is none! Here's all you need - a hot air popcorn machine. That's it! I'm sure that either you or a member of your family has one of these contraptions sitting in the attic or storage room. Just make sure it has airvents on the side of the chamber inside - not on the bottom. These machines can easily produce the 400-450F temps needed to roast coffee, and the fast air circulating is tailor made for even, perfect roasts.

I bet you can find any of these things at a garage sale for $5 or less. The preferred model for roasting seems to be the West Bend Poppery II, but I have a Proctor Silex Popcorn Pumper (the newer white and slim model, not the older squat and yellow model), and after two roasts, it seems great for the job.

So here's what you do - first, find a supplier of green coffee. The place I got mine from, Sweet Maria's, is highly recommended (and trusted) by the gurus in alt.coffee, and their prices are among the lowest I've seen. How about $21 for 5 pounds of Ethiopian Ghimbi? In Canadian dollars, that's $33, give or take a few pennies. To buy this locally would cost $19 a pound for fresh-roasted from Yokas - so do the math.

The whole roasting process takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. About 10 minutes of actual roasting, and 3-5 minutes "quenching" the beans. You have to rapidly cool the beans down (quench) after the roast is over because they will continue to roast from the inside out, they are so hot. Quenching is easy - just pour them from the popcorn popper into a steel colander, and either flip them in the air, or pass them back and forth between two colanders. They are so hot that only metal ones will do.

And let me tell you... it is the absolute best cuppa I've ever had in my life. The best. I'm not exaggerating here. You don't know how good coffee can taste until you've had a roast that's only a day old. Trust me.

There are many benefits from home roasting, such as being able to select the "roast" you want, from the lighter Full City style to a very dark French Roast or Vienna Roast... you can also create your own custom blends for some interesting tastes.

The best benefit though is the cost. After it's all said and done, it costs about half what buying roasted coffee from a shop does. Sometimes the savings are even greater. For example, Jamaican Blue Mountain, the most expensive coffee bean in the world, runs about $80 per pound here in Vancouver (CDN dollars)... if you can find it. Sweet Marias is currently selling JBM certified, and green, for $21.70 a pound! After converting to CDN, it's still about $50 less per pound than if I bought it locally! It turns what is a steep luxury into a manageable cuppa!

For a cheap bastard like me, these savings combined with the best tasting coffee I've ever had... well, it's like heaven for a coffee junkie.

Hey, if you want more info on home roasting, email me, and I'll fill you in on some sites and info I have... or visit Sweet Marias. They have some great info, frank notes on the beans they sell, and links galore around the net.

So till next time, as I enjoy some of my ultra fresh roasted Ethiopian Harrar coffee, thanks for stopping by!

0 comments | reply

Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
Photos from my trip to Algonquin Park this fall with my Mom and two brothers.

War Stories

Making Snow for the Fortress
One of the worst jobs I ever had... till I got out.

Webiffied

Tools I Use
The tools I use to build websites and lead a tech life.

iPod and iTunes Offline

iMark's iTunes and iPod isn't iPlaying anything right iNow.

Most Recent Songs

Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
It's all new, as of March, 2002. My personal coffee obsession site.

WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D