Polar Hot Chocolate

Once again a little break away from the home office and the Rome office. A quick stop to write and think in my little book bar haunt in L’Aquila - Caffè Polar. The music is from Ray Gelato’s most recent album, a current jazz singer who’s sound seems more at place alongside Louis Prima recordings. It’s cold and humid today, my older relatives here would say c’è aria di neve, in other words the air is perfect for it to snow soon.
It’s five-fifteen in the afternoon and it’s pampering time - hot chocolate, almost as dense as pudding, with a little island of crushed coconut in the middle.
You can find excellent hot chocolate all over Italy, and sometimes it’s better. But today I like it best here.

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Joshua

Don't forget the chocolate

Had another Terra e Vento today…forgot one other ingredient…just a touch of liquid chocolate at the botton of the glass. Just a touch. It’s the Earth to the cinnamon wind…the espresso is the world between

mea culpa

Joshua

………….

Earth and Wind

Today the words “terra e vento” were printed across the chalkboard in my favorite Saturday afternoon bar, just above the names of the CDs that were playing.
“Terra e vento?” I asked the barista as I studied over the pastries.
Espresso with cinnamon. She replied. A bunch of Germans came through last week and they all ordered it. Terra e vento, (earth and wind) was their translation.
There was just a light sprinkle of cinnamon, barely enough to affect the taste of espresso in my little glass cup, but then taste wasn’t the point. It was aroma. The weather was brisk and windy, so a touch of cinnamon became the aroma that ran ahead of the coffee, awakening both senses before the coffee touched my tongue.
A newspaper later I remembered I still hadn’t had my second Saturday morning breakfast. A pane e cioccolato roll and a cappuccino, with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
Again the aroma raced ahead….
Neve e vento? Wind and snow?

Cinnamon summer

Cinnamon is one of those spices that bring back memories. Especially, freshly ground cinnamon. This evening I made a quick stop at the Caffè Polar, the tiny bookshop café, with a free hotspot (still not very common in provincial Italy) here in L’Aquila, the city in the Apennine mountains where I live. My goal was a short cappuccino and a newspaper break, but that change, as I stepped up to the bar to order and caught a whiff of that, oh so familiar spice. The young woman behind the bar was busy grating cinnamon over a small glass cup of espresso.  As she tops it up with panna (dense cream), I ask how she would do espresso and cinnamon cold. It is a warm day, after all. “I would make a

Caffè Shakerato,” is her response. 

Caffè shakerato is the hedonistic Italian version of iced espresso. It consists of two shots of espresso straight from the machine, ice and sugar.  The ingredients are mixed in a cocktail shaker then poured into a flute or cocktail glass. In Milan, and a few other parts of northern Italy, Rebarbaro, (a semisweet bitter), or Biancosarti, (a vanilla-based liquor) are added before shaking.   It is great with a touch of freshly ground cinnamon. 

What I like about the  best spices is how they can turn on your memories that play on all of your senses.   I’ll tell you how cinnamon transformed evening strolls on the Sicilian island of Panarea last summer, in the next installment