The Food Studio Field Dinner

Last weekend I had the pleasure of joining Food Studio for their latest happening in Oslo—the field dinner. I was invited to help brew coffee for dinner guests one evening and be a guest myself the following night. Although coffee is what brought me to the table, it was served as part of a larger dining experience that the coffee industry strives to be a part of as often as possible—treated with the respect of fine wines and served following artful plates of King’s goose, pumpkin gnocchi and hyper local produce.

Food Studio organizes events that share the story of good, honest food and the people who believe in it. Meals are developed and prepared by well known chefs, or passionate individuals you’ve yet to hear about, using ingredients as fresh, wholesome and responsible as possible—sourced from the field we ate in and a few kilometers beyond.

Dinner was prepared all three nights by Magne Ilsaas, a graphic designer by day who spent three months at culinary school in Paris. The entire meal was cooked in the field just steps away and all five courses were paired with a delightful selection of organic or biodynamic wines by a sommelier from Moestue.

After desert, a coffee from Michiti in West Ethiopia (provided by Tim Wendelboe) was prepared using a traditional Nordic method of brewing called kokekaffe. The process is simple and works great for unique and enjoyable coffee outdoors.

We used a ratio of 65 grams of coffee to 1000g of water, ground fairly coarse. After taking the water off boil, the coffee was poured into the kettle and lightly stirred to fully saturate all of the grounds. After letting steep for 5 minutes, the coffee is ready to serve. Finally, the coffee can be poured carefully from the kettle into cups, but to add a bit of clarity, we filtered the brew through a fine metal strainer and served from a Chemex.

As each course was served throughout the night, a story about the food was shared with the table and the coffee was no exception. It was a pleasure to serve and an equally enjoyable experience to dine alongside new friends and experience real food prepared exceptionally well. Most of all, it was an honor to end the meal with an example of just how spectacular coffee can be, when it’s appreciated as it should be.

Learn more at FoodStudio.no

Coffee brewing photos by Christoffer Johannesen. All others by Tim Varney.

Chocolate Coffee Stout Cupcakes

When I’m not drinking coffee, I enjoy drinking stout. And when I’m not eating fruits and veggies, who doesn’t love a chocolate cupcake? What happens when you drink too much stout, pass out and dream about all those things combined? You find yourself with a batch of chocolate coffee stout cupcakes (and maybe a fruit salad).

The culinary talent of Ms. Kostyk from The Gentrified South, has made every drunken coffee lovers dream come true. The recipe uses Primavera Coffee, a great local roaster in Birmingham, Alabama—who I reviewed last year—and a Coffee Oatmeal Stout from Good People Brewery. I’m sure you could substitute the coffee with any of your favorite roasters, but why pass up an opportunity to try one of the South’s finest?

While I’m not much of a baker myself, I do have a guest visiting soon who is—so, I may have to drop a couple hints about these (good thing they read this blog).

Check out this recipe and more over at The Gentrified South

Ka-Pow! Coffee as the new chocolate

I love coffee, but despise coffee flavored candy. It usually tastes nothing like coffee and has little to do with the bean we love. Enter Elizabeth Montes of Sahagún, an artisanal chocolatiere in Portland, OR. She takes single origin coffee beans from local roasters like Stumptown, Heart, Ristretto, and Extracto and treats them like cocoa beans.

Elizabeth combines the coffee with a bit of sugar and cocoa butter for texture, to create a coffee bar that acts like chocolate, but has all the distinct flavor of the single origin coffee used. So each batch of Ka-Pow! bars are as unique as the coffee used to make them.

I’d love to try these, but since it’s the “warm season,” $30 overnight shipping is the only available option for getting a hold of one. Guess I’ll have to wait until Christmas.

Ka-pow! at Sahagún