I'm Looking Forward to This

This is what gets me going in the morning.

OK, that's a LIE. It's my kids that wake up at 6:15am that REALLY get me going in the morning, but a good cup of coffee always helps!

This is an espresso machine that I got for my birthday about 4 years ago. I love it. It's beautiful. It's shiny chrome and lots of heavy metal, and it makes an impressive latte.

Here I am trying to get a nice close up. Again, it's chrome. . . . not a lot I could do about the reflections. Don't I look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame? In hindsight, I guess I should have tidied my kitchen up a bit more.

I start by steaming some milk. This seems to be an important step. Not only does it make my milk nice and frothy, but it really does make it better in the coffee. (hee hee that rhymes) I can't explain it except to say that it just plain tastes better when I steam it than when I pour it into my coffee right out of the refrigerator. So it's settled: Steamed milk = extra yummy goodness and regular cold milk = OK if I'm in a pinch.

Here are the coffee grinds in the brewing cup. I don't think that's the technical term for this device, but who the heck KNOWS where my manual is that came with this machine? Seriously, anyone know?????

After the grinds are in, then they must be pressed down in order for the espresso to brew correctly. (and I say brew loosely because the machine is actually passing pressurized liquid through the grounds to make the espresso).

Ahhhhhh. . . . . here it comes. Whoever said that oil was black gold obviously did not have one of these machines.

The espresso is added to a mug and then comes the lovely hot and steamy milk.

And that, my friends, is a delicious yummy latte made by my little self for my own personal enjoyment. I'm off to bed now so I can dream about having one of these in the morning. Now if only I could get a few good hours to sip this and read a trashy gossip magazine, then I'd be pretty close nirvana.