Friday Mochas--Portland Food List #1

TGIF. Because this year, that means it's time for my mocha. One of my favorite--and most successful--resolutions this year was to have a mocha every Friday afternoon. I've been very good. I missed it last Friday, but I was out of town, busy in a class about knitting skirts.

But back to the mocha. Fridays are for mochas, but not just any mocha. I'm going to Coffeehouse Northwest each Friday afternoon, for one of their exquisite mochas. They make three types there. I've haven't tried the ones made with milk chocolate or Ghirardelli white chocolate sauce. I always get the third. It's a splurge, but it's Friday, and hey--I like to think I'm worth it.

Made with rich Cluizel chocolate and Stumptown coffee, these mochas are rich. The kind of rich that makes it hard to drink them and read at the same time--kind of like Gerald Ford's troubles with walking and chewing gum (yes, I know I'm dating myself). Actually, turns out the original quote, from LBJ, was that Ford couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time. The things you learn on wikipedia!

But back to the mocha. The thing about these mochas is they just feel so good in your mouth. Usually when you drink something, you put it in your mouth and swallow. With these mochas you fight that--you don't want to let go. While you sit there, feeling a little idiotic hanging on to a mouthful of mocha, it seems to shift between a solid and a liquid. It's actually a bit fascinating.

I do take a book with me. Today it was M.F.K.Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf. Funny--reading this book is a lot like drinking the mocha. It's full of bits and pieces I don't want to let go of, such as this bit about polenta:

"It is really cornmeal mush, nothing more. But it is dressed for the fair, in its most exciting clothes, and it can be the mainstay of a poor family's nourishment or the central dish of a buffet supper for twenty jaded literary critics with equal nonchalance."

And I read a little, but each sip of mocha deserves attention, so after a little while, I give in. You want to taste and feel this mocha, and not miss a second of it. Because before you know it, your mocha will look like this:




Coffeehouse Northwest
1951 W. Burnside Blvd.
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 248-2133