So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We have the lovely scent of roasted coffee beans in the kitchen :) Which have the advantage of being calorie free!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I do love the smell of coffee, but I just can't do with the taste! Living on my own, that means I don't really get the smell of coffee either...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Aie! A person who doesn't like coffee! [Makes cross symbols]

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I meant to learn how to drink coffee, honestly! But then this course mate of mine told me I wouldn't be able to get through my engineering degree without drinking coffee. That was just a challenge I couldn't let pass by. Then, just to make sure I wasn't accused of cheating, I didn't drink coffee for my Ph.D. either. And then I moved to England, where people actually make good tea, so learning how to drink coffee just slipped off the list of things to achieve in life. I used to think drinking coffee was the mark of being an adult; this might still be the case, I have just given up on being an adult...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I learned to drink coffee slowly through my childhood -- my father apparently made it for me with milk before I can remember, and then as a fairly small child we stayed in France where they didn't serve milk with coffee at all, so I learned to drink it black, with lots of sugar, before I was ten. Then I gave up the sugar as a teenager, and started drinking espresso when I graduated and first got a proper flat to put an espresso maker in. So for me it's definitely not a mark of being an adult!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

In the remote parts of Sweden, where I grew up, coffee was what the adults drank when you went visiting; children got cordial. With age, I find I don't much care for most cordial any more, finding it far to sweet. When I moved to university, tea started being offered as an alternative hot drink. At first I drank it very weak with lots of milk, and that would have less strong a taste than coffee so it was easier to get used to. Nowadays, given the choice I will mostly have peppermint (or even better fresh mint) tea.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

When I was a child, children in the UK also got fed cordial -- or at least squash, which is much the same. (Never quite worked out the difference.) Most adults drank tea, not coffee -- my mother, who preferred black coffee to tea, was quite an exception.

I must get back to drinking herb/fruit teas -- I used to do it a lot but I've got out of the habit.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

All through my childhood my parents would have coffee with breakfast and tea with the evening meal, which consisted of sandwiches. They were the only people who I knew of who did drink tea, except my Mother's family in England.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Perhaps my equivalent of coffee as an adult drink is wine -- my parents often drank wine with the evening meal, but I've never really learned to like anything but the very sweet wines -- dessert wines & Gewurztraminer. I don't drink red wine at all.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Alcohol is another of those things I just never got around to learning how to drink. This was a bit more of an active decision on my part; I found I could have good fun without drinking, and having been brought up awkward by an awkward Mother, I figured I could be the difficult person who made sure there were non-alcoholic beverages on offer for me as well as those who might not be as comfortable being different. Sweden is a very conformist country, so not-normal is a very bad thing indeed to be and people will go to surprising lengths to avoid having that epithet levelled at them. I am already counted as weird, for having a non-Swedish born Mother, so I got used to it...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I gave up alcohol almost entirely when I was in my twenties. It was quite difficult -- work colleagues were often very pushy and my parents were very hostile about it -- but I've never regretted it. I do drink occasionally now but rarely in group situations and only then when I feel totally comfortable. Most of Mr EA's family is teetotal for religious reasons, which does help.

I've never fitted in, so being the weird teetotaller didn't bother me too much, except for all those people who assumed I must be trying to get pregnant.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I, too, tried to learn to drink coffee, and I could enjoy the taste. But my belly simply will not tolerate it: not in a cup, not in a cake or any other food. So, it's tea for me, and enjoying the smell of others' cups. [grin]

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Mum gave up 'regular' coffee, when she had an ulcer decades ago. She found she could still drink the instant kind, with about half coffee/ half milk. Indeed, she says she prefers instant coffee to the other types, though most other people I know who like coffee think instant is a disgrace to the name.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think instant is blasphemy, but everyone must find what works for them.

We make a middle strength espresso, the kind where you can still discover the taste of coffee, not just the bitterness.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I have learned to tolerate the existence of instant without complaint as long as no-one calls it 'coffee'. Mr EA drinks it a lot with milk (the man has to have some flaws...).

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

At least instant tea seems to mostly have gone away! I never quite understood the point of that; while making proper coffee does require special equipment, it is quite possible to make a decent cup of tea straight in the drinking container...

Not being a coffee drinker myself, I usually keep some instant 'coffee' in the house for recipes that require coffee and to offer to guests (notably Mum, who as I mentioned does like it). I did usually offer it to my friend K paraphrasing Douglas Adams as "a substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee".

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I've never seen instant tea -- I don't think it really took on in the UK. The tea bag in mug method is pretty easy, even for a lazy tea-maker like me.

I have made instant for the builders; I don't think they liked it when I made them espresso! And my sister-in-law much prefers cafetiere coffee; she's very polite but she dilutes my espresso about 50:50 with water then adds a lot of milk. I can't recall when I last drank instant myself; more than 25 years ago I think!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Mmmm.... coffee....

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Mmm indeed!

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I cannot drink coffee, even though, as someone once noted, my tea is dark enough that it looks like coffee! However, The Beloved is quite fond of his coffee. He grinds his beans, and when buying them at the store, often mixes a couple of the choices. So, I get to enjoy the wonderful aroma!

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Oh, and in college, my then-boyfriend's roommate sat down at the dining hall table, looked at my cup, and said, "I thought you couldn't drink coffee?"

"I can't," I replied. "That's tea."

He looked hard into my cup, looked up again, and said, "No. That's coffee!"

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Ground fresh beans do smell simply wonderful :)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Indeed.