The Art of Coffee is not just about the Beans

Today I write to you to not only connect but to express my need to be at peace with my decisions in life. Basically, I am in trouble at the moment, umm yes again. You see I bought another set of coffee cups. They weren’t just any coffee cups they were hand made in Italy by Artisans in Deruta.

For many years I have been enamoured with this pottery, and recently many porcelain cups in the cupboard have broken leaving one or two that are the same and more annoying, just random one offs. The thing is I am not only a coffee drinker but love a cup of herbal tea and consider not only the ingredients but the vessel of upmost importance. You cannot just drink from just any cup or mug or worse plastic. The experience therefore is not only tainted but ruined.

So a little while ago I happened to order these Deruta pottery cups from Paradiso Ceramics, a company in the region who ship them from Italy to sell to the Australian public. The thing is I could have driven the hour and a half to there showroom, however sometimes on a day off I just need to get things done here at home. At the moment I am in the middle of dealing with a glut of tomatoes, blackberries, peaches, soon pears, potatoes too, it goes on. So time is of the essence and I am between two day jobs. So I ordered them, months ago and promptly forget about them, mostly out of denial with the drama of explaining this to husband.

Yesterday the beautiful mugs arrived, very early in the morning. I was in the kitchen stirring black berry jam to use in a Crostata in the afternoon. I unwrapped the mugs, thinking they were even more beautiful than I expected. I washed them and placed them on my old school mug holder just hoping my husband wouldn’t notice them, while I think up a reason why exactly I purchased them.

Blackberry Jam, home made, random recipe I made up on the go, all picked from the garden so I am happy…

I was lucky at first, he didn’t notice, so I figured he just may have been keeping quite, being kind and keeping the peace. This morning however I am in the kitchen again. This time stirring tomato sauce and writing up a recipe before I settle into some writing for the day. Rich is running late, his usual, get out of bed and leave 3 minutes later. He was making a coffee to take on the way to work and I hear “Shell what is this? Why did you buy more cups? Why did you do that? We have too many already, what do you think we are going to do have 800 people over or something, because we are not?

I did not exactly reply and just kept on with my baking and cooking. I had three things on the go. Ricciarelli this wonderful almond biscuit common in Tuscany, the tomato sauce and a large pot of potato and zucchini soup because I am laden with both. I was busy and I might add I was also generating a lot of great and beautiful things on my day off and it was only eight o’clock in the morning. So I figured I should be in his good books, not his bad books. Anyway he had to leave so I got off light, for now.

The Ricciarelli Recipe from Gennaro’s 'Italian Bakery Book' is a dream recipe!