K-Squared Ramblings » chocolate

The Office Barista: Simple Drinks For Your Coffee Break

Kelson — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:48:18 +0000

Don’t have time to go to Starbucks, but want something more than plain coffee? Here are some simple drinks you can make with ingredients that might be in your lunch room, or that you can easily keep at your desk.

Coffee + hot chocolate mix = mocha

Coffee + hot chocolate mix + cinnamon

Hot chocolate mix + mint-flavored black tea

Hot chocolate mix + cinnamon-flavored black tea

Hot chocolate mix + masala chai tea

Since I realized that this was more of a list of what you can do with hot chocolate mix, I’ve been meaning to fill in more detail for…well, months now. Apparently today is National Coffee Break Day, so I figured rather than letting it sit in the drafts folder forever, I’d post what I had in observance!

LOST Finale: DHARMA Initiative Cake and Pizza

Kelson — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:42:35 +0000

Remember the Battlestar Galactica cake? For last night’s LOST finale, Katie made an authentic DHARMA Initiative chocolate cake, and pizzas with the Swan and Orchid logos.

The cake is chocolate, with homemade buttercream icing (vanilla for the background, chocolate for the design). The pizzas have an outer ring of sausage, with bell pepper strips for the I Ching. The Swan logo is cut from a bell pepper. The Orchid is cut from a tomato, and placed on the pizza after baking.

For more views, including in-progress pictures, close-ups, and making-of commentary, check out the LOST finale food photos on Flickr.

Mars, Twitter Stats, TTW etc.

Kelson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:30:00 +0000

From @lol_spam:

Irony: Someone just sent me email spam plugging the spam control features of their Twitter client. *headdesk* #
Very cool! From @ThisIsTrue:

COOL pic: Mars Orbiter gets photo of Mars rover, including tire tracks. #
Interesting: graphs of your Twitter usage by hour, day, replies, retweets, etc. tweetstats.com #
Kinda wanted to see Time Traveler’s Wife, but ad campaign & insistence that it’s not scifi are pushing me away. Low tomatometer not helping. #
Note to self: No more light chocolate syrup. 50% less calories/carbs doesn’t help if you have to use twice as much to match the flavor. #

Coffeechocolatea

Kelson — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:32:00 +0000

I’m trying to make 8-hour old coffee palatable by adding both chai tea and hot chocolate mix. It’s…palatable. #

Coffee and Chocolate

Kelson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:30:00 +0000

1 mug coffee = 14 mugs hot chocolate (or 28 with my mug) CNN on caffeine withdrawal #
Have become chocolate snob. Walked into break room looking for chocolate and couldn’t bring myself to grab a Hershey bar. Ehh, just as well. #

Chocolate Mint

Kelson — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 06:07:28 +0000

After our trip to the nursery this weekend, Katie started seriously looking at our existing plants. We have a mint plant that got so pot-bound it grew down, through the drainage holes at the base of the pot, and back up the outside of the pot. She decided to make cuttings out of those bits… but what to put them in?

Well, she’d just finished off a container of baking cocoa…

Moroccan Mint Mocha

Kelson — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 02:56:21 +0000

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has a drink they call a Moroccan Mint Latte. It’s a tea latte with chocolate. You can get a fairly good approximation by making hot chocolate using mint tea instead of hot water. Katie suggested Bigelow Plantation Mint (after I mentioned that I’d tried it with Stash Moroccan Mint), which seems to work well.

Update: I forgot to mention the key difference between the two varieties of tea that I tried. Black tea works better with chocoloate than green tea.

Only in San Diego? Volume 2 Part 1

Kelson — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 08:11:36 +0000

Some more strange sights from around San Diego (continued from last year’s series).

First, a modern Stonehenge from the UC San Diego campus, all made with stone (or cement) cubes. Update: Found some info on USCD’s Stonehenge.

Then there was this cactus in Old Town, which looked like it was made up of feet!

Something about the phrase “Vegetable Garage” just sounds funny. (This is at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.) There’s also a Fruit Garage.

Sam Adams Smoothies? Where’s Lister from Red Dwarf? Someone needs to tell him he can get those beer milkshakes here!

We weren’t entirely sure just what was supposed to be haunting this hotel, but it’s next to Hooters. Make of that what you will…

And finally, here’s a movie-style marquee from the Ghirardelli shop.

(On a side note, I really miss having a Ghirardelli shop in South Coast Plaza. After shopping overload, I could just stop in there, get a milkshake, and be able to face another store or two. Plus I actually had a reason to go to South Coast Plaza on occasion.)

(Continued in Part 2.)

Separated at Birth

Kelson — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 21:15:21 +0000

Since we saw the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last week, I’ve been trying to figure out just what Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka look reminds me of. Then last night it hit me:

He looks like Amélie!

But then, while looking for photos to demonstrate this connection, I discovered a more disturbing resemblance:

Hmmm… A Chocolate Orange?

Donkey Xing

Kelson — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:30:42 +0000

Driving through the lava fields of North Kona, you’ll see signs like these:

After coffee companies stopped using donkeys for transportation, they turned them loose, and a herd of wild donkeys roamed the fields. They apparently picked up the nickname “Kona nightingales” from their, uh, “singing.” They’ve since been moved up to greener—and less traveled— pastures on the lower slopes of Mauna Kea, but the signs remain.

One can only assume the Kona nightingales were the inspiration for Surfin’ Ass Coffee Company and their signature island confection:

For the record: 1-inch macadamia nuts dipped in chocolate.