While in Italy I used to have my breakfast in the mornings at the little bar nearby. Sometimes with colleagues that had already woken up, often alone. Starting with a cappuccino and a pastry, often filled with nice thick cream.When I am in France, Portugal, or Spain, same ritual. But nowhere like in that small bar in Florence. After three mornings in a row you get recognized, after a week you do not even have to order anymore. Rituals!
Rituals
After that first cappuccino always one or two quick espresso, some days in the same bar, some days on my way down to the town. Although at home I try to keep rituals like that, coffee never tastes like that quick, money on the counter, adding sugar, drink, and wave espresso in whatever Mediterranean bar.
But me and obsession for good coffee? The ones that follow me on twitter know that if there is a good infographics on coffee I will tweet. And yes, my windowsill is full with different caffettiere. And calling me before my first coffee?
Biscotti
In the chapter on coffee, in the Australian book I referred to in my earlier post, is a great recipe on biscotti. Due to the liquor not really suitable for the morning coffee, but so delicious! And last Sunday I was in the mood for cookie baking, but the greengrocer was closed. So today I went to get some wonderful citrus fruits to make my grated zest. Since there were no organic oranges, and I prefer unsprayed fruit for the zest, I used mandarins.
A second adaptation I made to the published recipe is that I use less sugar, I stick to 400 gram, instead of the mentioned 600 grams caster sugar. The dough always comes out very sticky, but after refrigerating for a while you can make nice logs. Watch out that the logs rise when in the oven, keep some space between the logs. Also experiment some with the baking time, I prefer some thicker slices, like in cantucini, but they take some longer to harden. But do not get them too hard.
I started this blog with the morning coffee ritual. Tonight, after dinner it will be espresso with biscotti. Unless I will find the cookie jar empty…
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