Spro

An awesome, extended weekend in Baltimore with good friends, Amelia, Basil, Alison was highlighted by a trip to Spro. This little coffee bar is located a few blocks away from the Safi home and they served me one of the best coffees I have ever tasted. Below is their weekly menu. I had a Piendamo and the Nigusie on the two days I visited. Each coffee is built and served in a method that brings out the best of the bean. 

 Here on a whiteboard in the back room are the remains of an interview test to hire a new employee. Sproployees need to know their stuff.

Coffee used in cold drinks never needs to be heated in the first place. The devices below add water to coffee grounds one drip at a time and collect the coffee in the pitcher at the bottom. It takes 12 hours to run a cycle of cold coffee.

 Most of our crew went with coffees that were brewed in with the pour-over method. It is similar to a drip machine, but with greater control of variables to create better coffee.

By slowing pouring water over the grounds in different waves, you allow the grounds to foam up and suck up the water before releasing it into the cup.

After one and a half years of a Spro location in Basil's neighborhood, I was able to take him along for his first trip. (It was my second.)

Baltimore and D.C. had tons and tons of fun adventures to offer, but I had to share my Spro trip first.

Giving Thanks

My parents recently made a long-anticipated move to a real town for a new job (and secretly, I suppose, to be nearer to children and grandchildren). Lo and behold, they settled on lovely Mitchell, South Dakota, home to both the World's Largest Corn Palace and Adam's extended family. This has been a wonderful gift for all of us, and we're so happy to see them settled in their new place. 

Their new home came with 30 years of wallpaper, but I promised my mom that if she did the hard work of wallpaper removal, then I would help paint. So, I traveled to Mitchell to help out for the entire week of Thanksgiving, which was the best form of a working vacation that I can imagine. 

We took a break from painting to make the easiest and most delicious pie in the entire world, gleaned from an early morning episode of The Nate Berkus Show. I'm not kidding - I don't even like pie, and I made two, one right after the other.

Adam and TJ arrived just as the second pie was coming out of the oven. Their timing, as always, is impeccable.

Unfortunately for home decor fans, I was too busy to take any "after" photos, so I'll have to snap a few photos over Christmas, once we get everything put back into place. I do have one photo of the basement wall, which is still a work in progress. This delightful color treat is called Chrysanthemum. Looks even better in person.

The best part of my parents' move to Mitchell is that Adam's parents are now only a five minute drive away. By the time we arrived at their home for second Thanksgiving, TJ had already reverted to his wild country dog ways.

Thanksgiving Day reached a beautiful record high of 71 degrees, and then, being South Dakota, the following days immediately returned to winter. It's a wonderful time of year to be a Samoyed. TJ is already looking forward to a white Christmas, and so are we.

The Final Days of Fall

Here's a quick photo round-up of our final fall weekends. We've been lazy, and I'm going to miss the sun terribly.

We let Pickles out for her last rendezvous before the snow, and she took full advantage of her time: posing, stalking, climbing, pouncing, and more posing. (FYI, I'm referring to her excellent skills at leaf stalking, not wildlife. We're a bird-friendly house here, and I've been known to leave out the occasional carrot or two for the resident bunnies.)

TJ was originally dressed as a Work Dog for Halloween, but he kept tripping on his tie. So, he converted to a Vikings Dog (again) for the rest of the night.

BOO! Guess which one Adam made? (Hint - it's probably not the one you think.)

I think these photos are so funny, but my camera just couldn't keep up with TJ's speed. He had a blast running through the leaves, although he looks a bit like a fake dog.

We showed TJ the prettiest yellow maple leaf in our whole yard, and he happily tore it to bits. This is a dog that is ready for winter. He might get his chance this week.

Happy Birthday, Dog!

TJ celebrated his 9th birthday on October 20 with a brand new pumpkin. Not quite as tasty as pumpkin treats, and definitely a lot more work. 

Love you, bear! You are the best thing!

Where the Wild Beers Are

This past Saturday, I joined 100 other fans of wild and sour beers for a memorable event. It was the 4th annual "Where the Wild Beers Are" wild and sour beer tasting. Everyone was required to bring two qualifying bottles of beer and $10. The total ounces you brought, allowed you to taste the same number of ounces. Thankfully, that quickly became an unnecessary restriction.

Eric Johnson was kind enough to alert Jeremy and I about this intimate affair. Compared to the two of us, he is an expert on these beers. As you can see from the photo below, Eric always had his eye on the special bottles being opened around us.

With high ABV and super-hopped IPAs finally hitting the big time, sours and wilds could be the next major trend in American craft brewing and consumption. For the time being it still feels like an underground movement, but with the quality of beers I tasted, it is ripe and ready to explode. 

This was my shining star of the event. It was a 1992 bottle of Liefmans Kriekbier. It smelled like creme brulee and tasted like sour cherry sherbet and cream. Absolutely amazing. The only way we were able to determine the age, was because it was printed on the inside of the cork. 

There was also a homebrew section. 

My favorite homebrew was this sour scotch ale. It was a reject from a scotch ale that someone decided to age. Thanks to the sour revolution, bad beer can become good beer in 8 short months. 

New Glarus is such an awesome brewery. They make my favorite beer of all-time, Enigma. Below is one of the other crazy wild yeast beers that they only sell at the brewery.

 Halfway through the event, we were all ushered inside of Republic for a special seminar on beer blending. Several sour beers are actually blends of different aged batches. A brewery will combine 25% of a year old beer with 75% of a 3 year old beer to craft a specific flavor profile. Most of these amazing techniques are practiced in Belgium. We were able to taste how the Bockor Brewery creates their Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge at 6 different stages of their process. It was fascinating and very tasty.

 Back outside, Dave of Dave's Brewfarm was pouring three of his special saisons. This guy is all for bending the conventions of beer.

 It was a very intimate affair, the organizers could have added more people, but I am glad they didn't. There was enough variety and it never took long to get a new sample.

 Here is the "seconds" table. These were beers that had already been at a tasting station, but were opened for a while. There were no taste restrictions at this table and we could drink as much as we wanted. The quality of the beers here were so amazing and diverse that this could only happen at an event like this.

By the end of the event, organizers still had two coolers of unopened beer left over. Until next year....

This picture represents about half of the cashed bottles.

Such an amazing experience. I will have to drag Ryan Bean along next year. His schedule be damned!