Friday, August 5, 2011

But I Can't Fly Without Caffeine, Road Trip Part 6

Now that I've come down from that angel dust high of the South Texas beach, whose mad bright sexy come-on line made me think I might just launch myself airborne...well, sobered up, I can bitch about the other side of a road trip: the devastating lack of decent coffee. It is a sad state of affairs indeed when the Starbucks logo appears to me as a luminous emerald herald of all that is Good and Right...


Oh South, what is it with you and your weak-ass coffee? Why are you playing me like this? Even Cafe Du Monde--shame on you, former chicory haven--presented me with a pale drink as milky as an opal. Hot shops, truck stops, cafes, homes, hotels, motels, dives and fancy restaurants: uniformly pallid brew.

One lone beacon of hope was Tootie's, where finally I procured a deep dark cold murk of delight...as well as coconut custard pie...but we weren't speaking of pie, so I won't elegize, or rather fetishize, the smooth pale yellow creamy spoonsful, the toasty tender flakes, the thick crumbling crust...for while the South can't make a cup of coffee to save its Confederate life, it can certainly win the war with its pie!...

Anyway, bless you bitter expensive Starbucks, because three espresso shots and a few headlines later, I am for the nonce as right as rain.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

15 comments:

  1. say it isn't so, sugar!!! cafe du monde disappointed? i am CRUSHED! by the by, i learned a LONG time ago, carry a single serving french press and my own coffee! xoxoxoxoxo

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  2. I love french pressed coffee!!! So sorry to hear of your coffee woes. Florida has better shops, but then again, it's mostly northerners here.

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  3. As Savannah says, a French Press and a sack of favorite brew, all necessary outside Italy, parts of France and my kitchen.

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  4. You can get decent coffee in Northern Ireland. We need a good slug of double espresso before we start on the next bomb, ha ha. We still have our complement of crappy Starbucks though.

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  5. i am enjoying a bux as i read....mmm hmm...

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  6. Sav, while the beignets were, of course, sublime, the coffee was beastly weak! Sarge liked it though, as he is a coffee ingenue.

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  7. Haha! Weak-ass coffee. You made me laugh.

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  8. Coffee is best consumed in the company of those with good conversation or at the very least a thick slice of carrot cake.

    I like my coffee as black as my own heart, served piping hot and without sugar to taint its taste.

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  9. Oh, how I love your writing. Let me count the ways...

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  10. I'm comforted to know that I am just a 'coffee ingenue.' There aren't many of us left.

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  11. Disappointed to hear about Cafe Du Monde. Maybe they're under new management? They were a MUST stop for me in New Orleans.

    Now I want a Tootie's pie.

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  12. MJ, it's still wonderful there, save the weak coffee. But their brand of chicory coffee is great--they just didn't brew it strong enough for my taste, so I took home a can of it to make up myself! Never fear, it is still a beloved must-stop!

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  13. Oh, that's my Leah. I bet those women in Huntington Beach put down their knitting needles and go back to tanning and botox in a few days too. (If this does not make sense, read my comment on your previous post.)

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  14. As someone who moved way back when from Brooklyn to Tennessee and then Georgia, I agree that pie is something the South does right. Pecan in particular.

    Yet another advantage of moving from there to Hawaii: The selection of local coffee. I've actually eaten at restaurants where the menu has a full page of tasting notes on the different farms whose beans they stock.

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