Compliments and Coffee

The blog-a-day challenge has forced me to try RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. I’ve never quite understood their appeal and always opted for email subscriptions. The inbox method was easy when I only followed a couple of blogs. Now that I’m keeping tabs on more than two dozen, I took renegade blogger Diane Burrell’s advice and set up an RSS feed. Using this handy catch-all, I was stunned to find myself the subject of a very complimentary post by fellow blogathoner Carolyn Erikson. I had a Sally Field moment and called my husband over to the computer screen yipping, “She likes me. She really likes me!”

My pleasant surprise soon dissolved into dread. Further down the post, Carolyn confesses her husband roasts his own coffee. He buys “the best green coffee beans from around the world” and roasts them at home. While the foodie part of me is green with envy, my practical side sees red flags. Unless this involves an industrial sized roaster, Andrew will want to try his hand at this, too. Whisky aging requires his attention only a few seconds a week. That leaves a whole lot of time for beans. I envision complicated equipment with a steep learning curve and great burlap bags of anemic beans arriving via UPS in exchange for even greater amounts of money.

Perhaps my hesitation to embrace this brave new world of coffee roasting is as unfounded as my RSS resistance. Just like my stove-top caffettiera is an unobtrusive and inexpensive alternative to the Cadillac-sized espresso makers, there must be an RSS-type solution for home roasting (Roasting Sweet & Simple?) Surely you can buy tiny little bags of pallid beans and toast them to perfection in the oven.

Right, Carolyn?

Photo by BaSaK.Reprinted under a Creative Commons License.