Who loves coffee? We do!

I have been working on this banner for my blog:

It is very interesting to see how much information I can get in a teeny tiny little box!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

~ Shelley

Home of The Velvet Foam

This wonderful title is not from me. It is from a Spanish artist living in the U.S.A., Gabi Campanario (as he says himself “drawing life around Seattle.”). I met him on the net not such a long time ago and was at once quite charmed by his sketches and the themes he chooses. Recently I saw the drawing with that great title, and felt very happy that he also dedicates his art to coffee. I had only one wish: to share it with my friends from Cafe Crem!

I asked him if he would allow me to publish his coffee “cup” here, and he kindly accepted. I am extremely thankful to him for his spontaneous and uncomplicated way of participating. If I understood him well, he has some other coffee art, and if he agrees, I will gradually publish here a series of his coffee cups.

But for now, my dear friends from Cafe Crem, please welcome our new artist friend out there in Seattle and enjoy this velvet foam, Have a look too at his blog entry related to this drawing, it is very interesting!

Posted by Miki

Animal life + camera phones

This is actually for you Kev. I wanted to reciprocate after your wonderful tour of Portugal’s creatures. . .

Yesterday I took Ben and Andy to an amusement park and while they were spinning upside down and in nauseating circles I joined the camera phone crowd to look at the animals. This walrus loved to be “petted” through the glass, endlessly mooshing his face up against the glass and posing for pictures. He is also a painter apparently. I say a video of him wielding the paint brush quite effectively and felt a bit jealous.  I mean we artists just cannot afford the competition of these creative creatures!  THey were also selling canvases painted by Shouka, the “killer” whale.  And I am not kidding here!

Here I am in the butterfly garden photographing the double camera phoning of this unsuspecting insect.

HOw many camera phones do you think were pointed simultaneously at this fine fellow? Isn’t he so adorable and totally unpettable.

I’ll get back to coffee cups too one of these days, but I couldn’t resist.

-Susan

The Coffee Cup Mambo

Here’s a little something I wrote a few months back, in homage to Cafe Crem. I never got around to doing a video for it until recently -so now, here it is Cafe Cremers, in all it’s glory. It’s dedicated to all our friends here. Enjoy!

Kev Moore

The Madrid Plane Crash

Miki and Kevin,

I’m so sorry to hear about this plane crash in Madrid. I hope no one you knew was on the flight?

My own mother died in the Egypt Air plane crash October 31, 1999, the one that was ruled pilot suicide as it headed out over the Atlantic from New York.

Best regards,

Madame Monet

A quick cup for the road…

Meditation on a Coffee Cup #4

I drew it through the Grapevine…

I said it before, we did not buy any coffee cups in Portugal, but this does not mean that we didn’t drink any coffee on our trip. We both really enjoyed to sit in the local cafes, especially Kevin who was spending hours there, reading, waiting for me to do my sketches all over the place. This photo was taken in Miranda do Douro on such an occasion, I was sketching in the town (read the story) while Kevin was sitting on this lovely terrace in the shadow of the grapevine. After a while I joined him, we had a coffee together and I drew a solitary man reading the newspaper.

Very basic colours, I know, but this is really how it was! And as you can see on the photo too, I did not invent the thing with the Portuguese flag: they hang everywhere in Portugal, really everywhere, above all when it is the Football Cup and they are in! And don’t ask me why I deformed the cup in the drawing… I had that tendency in Portugal, to draw like that, all the houses and churches, for example, were tumbling down!

By Miki

Ahh…. Summer at Last!

You ever have one of those days? You know the kind of day I mean. The sun was shining and the temperature was warm but not too hot. I was sitting outside at Paradiso di Stelle with my friend, Heather, and we watched the world go by.

We shared a panino and split a spinach salad while we caught up on all the important news and events in our lives since we last met. People were passing by on their way through Bastion Square, stopping at some of the Artisan’s tables to look at their hand made jewellry, CD’s, art and books .

By the time we ordered dessert, we were relaxed, just enjoying each others company. This is an Affogato Coffee. Affogato in Italian means drowned. Basically it’s ice cream with espresso coffee poured over it. The hot coffee slowly melts the ice cream and the two flavours meld together to make a refreshing and yummy dessert beverage.

This is the view we saw from our table outside, looking out over Victoria Harbour. You know the kind of day I mean – a perfect summer day.

Bonny

Madame Monet’s Easy Chai

A cup of chai--Image by Eshwa, at http://www.afghanforums.com/showthread.php?p=453156

I first drank Chai at an Indian restaurant in Vancouver (about 25 years ago). I must have had ten cups, I thought it was so good.

The next place I found it was in Kenya. I stayed a long time in Nairobi in a very cheap hotel, where we went out to eat breakfast in the street. You can buy bread (maybe fried?) and chai. I think they’ve had a lot of Indian workers and shopkeepers who have gone to Kenya, which is probably how chai got to be popular there.

My easy recipe:

Mix a mug half full of hot whole milk, and half full of black tea. Add ground cardomom, and some sugar to taste.

Delicious!

Madame Monet