the sourcerer: Love/Insanity

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Love/Insanity

As I drove to Milnerton yesterday morning, I wondered how it could be that this careful-person-I was about to spend almost a month's rent on a coffee machine. Reviews had been read, comparisons made of steam jets and copper water tanks. There were transcontinental Skype discussions and calls to the Italian importers in Johannesburg. Still...

Then I met Mr JP Gelonese. I was all for paying him and rushing back home to play. But he said: No No. We'll plug it in and make some coffee together. This from a man with a raging tooth-ache and a constantly ringing phone. It turned into an hour-long lesson full of tips and wisdom. Cup after cup of beautiful coffee. Espresso, latte, cappuccino, flat white. Crema.

So happy and giddy with coffee love was I that I clean forgot to eat. Stopped at the supermarket to make a few more unprecedented purchases: hot-smoked salmon, Mozzarella di Buffala, sweet potato sourdough rye, candied kumquats.

This Winter is slow. Project after project is canceled before it starts. But this is what I realized with a smile as I made my first cup of coffee: in this world of uncertainty and no guarantees, it's about starting every day doing at least one thing pure and calm and right.

My Isomac Maverick is from Caffetalia. Real people who love coffee.
(As I left, Mr Gelonese gave me a gentle caution - he's recently had to cut down to a scant 24 espressos a day due to a spot of insomnia.)

5 comments:

Chris said...: I think a visit is on the cards...; July 9, 2011 at 12:21 PM
D said...: Oh well done. I'm jealous - I make do with an aeropress, which is an OK compromise if paired with a decent grinder. Which you will also have to buy if you don't have one already. And freshly roasted beans... See http://coffeegeek.com/guides to fuel an obsession if it needs fuelling.; July 9, 2011 at 5:29 PM
the sourcerer said...: D. ja... that burr grinder is in the wings. I know it's the key. maybe next month. at present I'm on a quest to make perfect microfoam. (coffeegeek is my guru!)
the most interesting thing for me is this: manuals and reviews aside, it's all about getting to know your equipment - feeling and listening.
:); July 10, 2011 at 12:23 AM
Marie said...: He made coffee with you??? Jeepers. Sounds wonderful. I'll have to live with my galoppinghorses stovetop espresso pot.; July 10, 2011 at 5:32 AM
the sourcerer said...: Marie - I like the sound of galloping horses! yes, this man is wonderful. he also said I could phone him anytime between 7 and 11 if I have problems. I've nicknamed him the Coffee Doctor.; July 10, 2011 at 4:52 PM

Post a Comment

You could tend a garden at night, only at night, pouring dark water onto leaves, and into the earth, like pouring midnight onto midnight. You could hold your soil-stained hands up to the moon. The stars would gleam on the bottom of the shovel. It would smell the same as a daytime garden - it would smell green, violet, red, white. But come back, in daylight. Come back, to see the colours without closing your eyes.
- Sean Michaels. Accompaniment to the song "Immune" by LOW. Said the Gramophone

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."
Jim Jarmusch (1953- )

You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you smelled and saw nothing to eat all the way from the Place de l'Observatoire to the rue de Vaugirard. There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought that Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) - from A Moveable Feast.