October 23, 2007
Pretty Pottery Painting Party!
Say that 10 times fast.
Some of the gals at work arranged a party for my birthday at Dish it Out.
Oh my gosh it was so much fun.
Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but you pick out a dish ready for firing and there are all sorts of shapes and sizes to choose from.
A collaborative effort was made to bring a picnic-style dinner with croissants and deli meat and cheese, fruit, and yummy birthday cake.
We each chose an item to paint. Donna chose a water dish shaped like her puppy Casey, Andrea a bowl for Ms. Kitty, there were ornaments, a vase, a pretty flowery plate and I painted multi-coloured "O"s on a funky bowl.
I was pretty pleased with my effort, but we have to wait about a week for our dishes to be fired in the kiln before we can see the final result.
It was so much fun, I may have to sneak in by myself again. Pictures here.
October 06, 2007
Boca Java II
We have created a gallery That contains some pictures of our 3pm Coffee Break from Boca Java. The main reason for this is to allow people to comment on the reviews. While comments are disabled on our main site, they are allowed to registered users in the gallery area.
We have had four of the coffee packages so far. We were surprisingly disappointed with the first two coffees we tasted. There coffees were Boca Mocha Java and Boca Sunrise. Marlene and I drink a pound or more of coffee per week. We grind them that day for brewing and prefer fairly strong coffee. We thought our bad experience with the first two Boca brands might be either stale production or maybe we needed to use less water.
To the test the comparable water we used the coffee measure that came with our KitchenAid burr grinders. This measure has a cup guide from 2-12 cups. We normally use the 8 cup level for our coffee maker. The Boca minis come up the 9 cup line. So, in theory, they should be slightly stronger. Well not for the first two. Maybe it's a productions problem.
Boca sells itself as custom roasted coffee. They say that your order is roasted and package within 2 days of your order. I thought the Boca-minis might have been roasted in batches and then filled earlier in the year. We called the company and Boca says that they are custom roasted and that any leftover minis at the end of the week are taken home by employees or donated to charity.
Maybe we just are not used to the weak coffee. We have also had the Expresso and the Ocean Drive. The Expresso was brewed with two fewer cups of water in an attempt to make it strong. That had the effect of making it better, but I would not say it was as good as what we use daily.
The Ocean Drive was a light roast coffee. It was weaker than we would have liked, but it was tasty. We also made this with less water than we normally use.
More coffees later.
October 04, 2007
Boca Java 3pm Coffee Break
I had been hearing Rush talk about Boca Java coffee on his afternoon radio show. We are always up for coffee so I checked their website out and decided to order their 3pm Coffee Break
From Boca Java
"'Who needs a coffee break?'' A common phrase heard in offices across the world. The 3 p.m. coffee break has become commonplace and we're here to make it more exciting for you! Enjoy a selection of 20 Sample packs, each of which make 8 steamy cups of coffee. There will be a new blend of delcious gourmet coffee to try every day. It will also give you a chance to find your new favorite blend! As an added bonus we're including a free snack to share with the office (and you'll be everyone's new best friend).
We've preselected 20 different coffee blends for you, but you may make changes, as well as choose a different snack, by clicking the ''customize'' button below.
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You cannot order all of their estate coffee's and blends in this sample pack so we ended up doubling up on some items to avoid having to get flavored coffee(YUCK).
So now we are on an 20 odd day coffee adventure. Marlene and I drink about a pound of coffee a week. I am hoping that we might something we like enough to be an occasional coffee.