Club or Circle or What?

I have got some doubts concerning the name Coffee Cup Club…

First I made some research on the Internet, and saw that a Coffee Cup Club, with the internet address www.c-cup.com, already exists. To be precise: existed. It seems to have closed its doors in 2006… but well, I don´t like to have a second hand name for us!

And then I got to thinking that the word “Club” is not adequate. Club sounds like something exclusive, and in fact it should be the contrary.

So I have thought to replace “club” with “circle”, a word which is much more inclusive, and I think describes us all as we sit around our virtual coffee table, exchanging paintings, photos and ideas.

Please. members and readers, I would like to hear what YOU think.

MIKI, Spain, (Albir)

Mmmmm….painting with coffee!

(c)2007 val webb

My coffee cup doubles as a paint palette: I brew up a good, strong batch of my favorite beverage and use it just like watercolor. Coffee from different parts of the globe creates different colors: African beans result in a rich reddish tone, for example. Central American coffee imparts a shiny, very dark brown. And your painting is wonderfully aromatic!

 

 VAL WEBB

Turkish coffee and Zepter cup…

Among many bad things, the Turks (masters of the Balkans for centuries…) let us inherit some good ones… Turkish coffee, for one…

You can make a coffee in many ways: by percolation, infusion and even decoction… Turkish coffee (I think the Turks borowed it from the Arabs so maybe we should call it Arab coffee? But this is a dilema as difficult as the name of siphylis in the old times: the English called it “the French sikness” and the French “le mal italien” and the Italian the Spanish sickness…) so, Turkish coffee is a combination of infusion and percolation… Or a slow way to percolate it… I won’t yet describe the “ritual” but I would say that the Turkish coffee, super strong, super black and almost of muddy consistency is quite different from the transparent percolated pisswasser (those with some notion of German understand…) they usually call “coffee” here, in North America (where coffee is very hot, at least…) The Italian way – expresso, etc. – is more alike… A common thing with the Italian way of drinking coffee is that the Turkish one is drank from very small cups…

Here is my Zepter Turkish coffee cup, one of my most prized possessions…

ION VINCENT DANU, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada

Rug Mug

MIKI, Spain, (Albir)

Yesterday morning I got a phone call from my Mother.
„Will you come tonight?“
I had promised to go two days before, but well, I was not in the best mood and didn´t want to confront my parents as a sad daughter.
„I´m not sure….“
I heard a lot of noises on the other end of the line. Then a voice shouting in the phone
„Allo, Miki, c´est Papa!“
My father is quite deaf, and thinks, like all deaf people, that he has to shout to be understood.
„You MUST come tonight!!
„Why?“
„We are sad… France lost yesterday against Argentina in the Rugby World Cup. Tonight is the final, England against South Africa… we are waiting for you, then. What do you want to eat?“
Without waiting for an answer, he gave the phone back to my Mother! Like always and again like all deaf people, he never waits for the answers to his questions, as anyway, being deaf, he couldn´t understand them. And like always he thinks he can still decide about the life of his 52 year-old daughter! After all I have done in my life, he should know better…
My Mother went on:
„What did you say you want to eat?“
„I didn´t even say I want to come!“
„Come, please… anyway I have a surprise for you!“
The magical word was spoken!
„Ok then… will you at least be for England?“
„Never again! They beat France last week!“

I arrived there about 8 p.m. I was welcomed with many hugs, especially from our lovely and tender dog Maya. The TV was on, and just as I entered the living room, an advert from Nike was running, featuring the French Rugby Men, accompanied by the words::
„Together we fell, together we´ll get up again!“
These French!

My mother gave me a small packet, wrapped in beautiful metallic purple gift paper. I guess purple lights went on in my eyes too! I opened the packet and found … this beautiful, unusual coffee cup inside.
„Now I don´t ever want to hear you moaning again!“
The fact is that I always take a milk coffee there and always moan that they don’t have a nice coffee cup for me.
Of course I was very pleased, but also I felt ashamed. Imagining my 82 year-old Mother going alone through the shopping hell of Benidorm – Anyone familiar with Benidorm will know exactly what I mean!- just to find a suitable coffee cup for her spoiled daughter, shamed me deeply.
But I guess this is what they call „Mother´s Love“.

Luckily my shame didn´t impede me enjoying my coffee in thís new wonderful cup, which I have baptised „Rug Mug“, a nickname for „Rugby World Cup“.
Unfortunately England lost, but at least my parents felt avenged.

By the way: my father asked me what the word on the cup means. Although it looks like Mwg, I guess it is meant to be „Mug“. To my deep shame, I have no idea where this word comes from, I just noticed that everybody nowadays calls this kind of coffee cup „Mug“. Can somebody tell me what „mug“ means?

Just my cup…in its usual environment

 ION VINCENT DANU, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada

Since Miki wants to see my coffee cup, here it is! Freshly photographed this very morning, half empty (or shall I say half full?), among the tools of my trade… I would have prefered it among Golden pots but that’s too expensive…

As for slurping your way through a very hot coffee, I think the small plate method comes from Siberia and was apply to the hot, very hot, tea… Give the hot liquid more surface to cool and it will be suportably (?) hot… so, maybe, we should call the method the “siberian way”…

Coffee without cigarettes…

ION VINCENT DANU, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada

I was not very sure, when Miki invited me here, at the Coffee Cup Club, that I would have a lot to say… My coffee mug is quite ordinary (although it has a special form, in order to give coffe a quicker way of cooling… and sometimes, when I’m in a hurry, I use the Russian method of slurping it from a small plate… a lot of nasty noises but very efficient…) and though I am an old coffee drinker, I do not smoke… I’m not a fanatical anti-smoker guy, though, and all my children smoke – it’s their lungs, after alll… So, I wasn’t sure I have a lot of things to say about coffee cups… But somehow the ideea got to me and I found myself day-dreaming and reflecting at subject quite close to coffee cups and even closer to coffee (this is a larger and much more interesting subject, maybe… )

Then I thought, hey! there is a whole movie based on the coffee & cigarettes thing! Jim Jarmush, a director I like very much, did it! A very funny, subtle and entertaining movie with some very picturesque characters and actors : Cate Blanchet is in it and the extraordinary (litterally!) Tom Waits… It’s a movie worth seeing and coffee and coffee cups are there all the way… Maybe a special essay on the coffee cups used in it would be funny also… Just a suggestion…

My Mug

SUSAN CORNELIS

Here’s my mug shot! I take it with cream too, and sugar. And just a
small cup of stroooong coffee brewed American “designer” style. It sits
with me while I’m doing my blogging!

5 minutes of clicking around and I’ve arrived!

Mona Piedra caught by the Paparazzi

KEV MOORE

By way of a sequel to Miki’s lovely painting and post about her cup Mona Piedra, I managed to catch her in an unguarded moment; Inspired by Susan’s self-portrait from an icamera pic. I think it was only her love of the cup in question that prevented it from being hurled at me as I sneaked the snapshot!

Blue Cup With Daisies

W.R. Jones

We were at the local Vons grocery store when my wife mentioned we needed coffee. In the past I had watched her, somewhat inattentively it turns out, grind the moca java beans that we normally use. I told her to go get me some candy while I took care of the coffee.

What could be easier? I filled a bag with the beans and went round the end of the isle to the grinder. There I poured the beans from the bag into the grinder and set the bag on the shelf underneath. I switched on the grinder and turned away to browse other items on the aisle. Since the bag was only 3/4 full of beans I felt I did not need to watch the grinding as there was no way for the bag to overflow.

As a nearly world famous scientist I was of course correct about the overflow. However, overflow was not the problem, it was “around” flow that led to the neat pile of coffee grounds on the store floor. I had placed the bag near the spigot instead of under. You’ve heard the saying, “clean up on aisle 7.” The young man who came to clean up my mess was not amused by my ignorance; neither was my wife.

Later that day I found this blue cup at a yard sale and added it to this painting.