Enjoy Pi Day with a fabulous pecan pie

March 9, 2015 by 1 Comment

 

Every year has a Pi Day, but this year’s , which takes place next Saturday, will be a once-in-a-century happening.

Pi, of course, is the mathematical constant that describes the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. And so Pi Day occurs every year on March 14 to celebrate the first three digits of pi, 3.14.

But there’s something odd about pi, which you probably remember from your school days. It’s infinite. You can keep dividing a circle’s  circumference by the diameter and you’ll never get a final number, there will always be something left over. And the sequence never repeats. Pi has been calculated to more than a trillion digits past the decimal.

So this year, on March 15, 2015 we can add two numbers and celebrate 3/14/15. If you want to be even more precise, you can carry the calculation out further and celebrate at precisely 9:26:53 – a.m. or p.m. You’ll be forgiven if you take two seconds to mark the occasion: some argue that 9:26:54 on 3/14/15 is more the accurate time because the 11th digit of pi is 5, which would cause the 10th digit to round up to 4, rather than 3. (Though by the same logic, we should celebrate Pi Day next year, because the sixth digit, 9, should round the fifth digit up to 6.)

The first Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw, a physicist at the San Francisco Exploratorium, in 1988. Visitors joined the museum’s staff in marching around the circular spaces and then eating fruit pies. The Exploratorium still has annual Pi Day celebrations.

Congress has even gotten into the act. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution in 2009 recognizing March 14 as Pi Day.

There’s also a Pi Approximation Day, July 22, which makes sense if you write the dates European-style, with the day first, followed by the month: 22/7 is a close fractional approximation of the value of pi.

Lots of colleges and other organizations celebrate by eating pie, throwing pies or holding contests to see who can recite the most decimal places for pi. At Princeton University they also celebrate the March 14 birthday of Albert Einstein, who worked there for 20 years. In addition to pie eating and pi recitation, there’s an Einstein look-alike contest.

Even the ancients knew that a circle is a little more than three times its width around. In the Bible book of 1 Kings (7:26), a circular pool is described as 30 cubits around and 10 cubits across.

The Greek mathematician Archimedes determined that pi was approximately 22/7. The Greek letter “pi” was first used in 1706 by Welsh mathematician William Jones. History Today has an interesting article about Jones and the development of the pi symbol.

You might want to mark this once-in-a-lifetime day by buying a commemorative tee-shirt; you can find many varieties for sale on Amazon.

Better yet, eat pie. Here’s a great recipe for a pecan pie from my sister, Sue Holliday, who makes it every Thanksgiving.

But before I sign off, I have to share an old joke.

A young lad in Appalachia is the first in his family to go to high school. When he comes back to the holler, his pappy asks him what he learned in school, and the boy says he learned geometry.

“Well say something in geometry,” says the father.

“Um, er…well, today I learned pi-r-squared,” says the boy.

“Hah!” says the father. “Shows what good all this high-falutin’ learning is! Everyone knows pie are round – cornbread are square!”

A love of chocolate

February 8, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Are you hoping your sweetie will recognize your relationship on February 14 with a heart-shaped box of chocolates? Or will you be the one paying a premium for a fancy box to express your love?

Among the people you can thank for this wonderful Valentine’s Day tradition of giving chocolate: Montezuma, Hernan Cortes and Richard Cadbury.

Chocolate comes from cacao, an ancient Mexican word meaning “God food.”  The Mayans brewed a spicy, bitter drink from the seeds of the cacao tree. The Aztecs lived farther north, where the cacao beans wouldn’t grow. They prized the beans above silver and gold, and used them as currency (100 beans could buy a canoe!).

Like the Mayans, the Aztecs enjoyed the drink made from cacao beans, which they called Xocolatl. The Spanish conquistadors corrupted the name of the bean to “cocoa” and the name of the Aztec drink to “chocolat.”

Cortes was probably the first European to encounter chocolate. Bernal Diaz, who accompanied him on to the court of Montezuma, wrote of the encounter:

“From time to time they served him [Montezuma] in cups of pure gold a certain drink made from cacao. It was said that it gave one power over women, but this I never saw. I did see them bring in more than fifty large pitchers of cacao with froth in it, and he drank some of it, the women serving with great reverence.”

So that explains how chocolate came to Europe, but how did it get inextricably meshed with Valentine’s Day?

The food of love

By the 1840s, Valentine’s Day had become a holiday to celebrate romantic love throughout the English-speaking world. The Victorians loved to demonstrate their love through elaborate cards and gifts.

The Cadbury company had been making chocolate in England since the 1820s. In 1854 the company received a royal warrant as manufacturers of chocolate and cocoa to Queen Victoria.

Richard Cadbury, son of the company’s founder, improved the drinking chocolate by developing a press that extracted the unpalatable cocoa butter from the whole beans. He used the cocoa butter to produce what was then called “eating chocolate” (as distinct from most chocolate, which was still consumed as a drink).

Richard Cadbury began selling his chocolates in beautiful boxes he designed himself. When February rolled around, he created heart-shaped boxes and decorated them with roses and cupids. He promoted them not only for the chocolates inside, but for the boxes that could then be used to store keepsakes. Original Victorian-era Cadbury boxes are valuable collectors’ items.

It probably wasn’t too hard a sell for Cadbury. Few of us don’t enjoy a piece of good chocolate – and there’s some science behind behind our appreciation of it. Not only is it good for your heart, because it’s rich in antioxidant polyphenals, but there are amplereasons why chocolate gives most of us an emotional boost.

Chocolate  increases the brain’s level of serotonin, the feel-good brain chemical. If you find yourself craving chocolate when you’re “down” and perking up when you eat some, you’re not just imagining the change. Serotonin contributes to many positive emotions, including increased sexual excitation, desire and responsiveness. Women may be more sensitive to the benefits of chocolate because they have more serotonin in their systems, making chocolate the perfect gift to give a gal on Valentine’s Day.

Here is a wonderful and very easy chocolate mousse recipe for Valentine’s Day or anytime. I got it from a friend soon after we were married and have been making it ever since. Be sure to use good quality chocolate chips. Top it with a dollop of real whipped cream and you have something that will make your sweetheart (of either sex) swoon!

 

Blooming almonds herald Tu B’Shevat

February 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment

February 3, as night falls, we start the minor Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat. “Tu” is the phonetic pronunciation of the Hebrew characters for the number 15, because this is the 15th of the month of Shevat.

Tu B’Shevat is the New Year of Trees. In Judaism there are several new years. At first this might seem odd, but consider that in our contemporary culture we have the calendar new year, the start of the new school year, and, for many business entities, the start of the fiscal year.

In the Jewish calendar there’s the calendar new year (Rosh Hashanah), there’s the first day of the first month, Nisan, because even though Rosh Hashanah is the start of the new calendar year, it actually falls on the first day of the seventh month. Don’t ask me to explain this.

The first of Elul is the new year for tithing animals. The Bible is full of descriptions of what should be sacrificed: a yearling this, or a two-year-old that. The animal becomes one year old on the first day of of the first month of Elul after its birth.

And then there’s the new year for tithing trees. In Leviticus (19:23-25), the Israelites are told not to eat fruit from a tree during its first three years. The fourth year’s fruit is for God, and after that, in the tree’s fifth year, may people eat from the tree’s bounty.

It could be difficult to keep track of when exactly every tree was planted, so Tu B’Shevat evolved as a way of reckoning a tree’s age. Trees were considered to have aged one year on Tu B’Shevat, even if they were planted just a day or two earlier.

A low-key holiday

There’s not a whole lot of ritual or celebration connected to Tu B’Shevat. Some congregations and individuals make a point of eating the seven species described as abundant in the land of Israel (Deut. 8:8): wheat, barley, grapes (vines), figs, pomegranates, olives and dates (honey).

You can make a nice pilaf using all seven species by cooking bulghur wheat and barley, mixing in chopped figs, dates and pomegranate seeds, and tossing it with a dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (made from grapes).

The mysticism-minded kabbalists developed a Tu B’Shevat seder, which I described here last year, a celebration that is fairly popular in synagogues and religious schools.

In Israel and other countries with warm climates, children often celebrate by planting trees.

Almonds: the first trees to bloom

The date of the holiday coincides more or less with the blooming of the plentiful almond trees in Israel, the first trees to bloom there. It seems almost unfathomable to us in frozen Michigan, but in Israel, the almond trees usually flower in early- to mid-February. The Hebrew word  for almond, shaked, is related to words meaning “wakeful” or “hastening.”

The Bible has numerous references to almonds:

  • Jacob asked his sons to take almonds and other fruits of the land into Egypt as a gift to Joseph, probably because this tree was not a native of Egypt (Genesis 43:11).
  • Moses was told to make parts of the lamp for the holy ark to resemble almond blossoms, although the Hebrew word there is luz rather than shaked. Luz could mean wild almond, rather than cultivated almond; some English translations use “hazelnut” instead. Lauz is the word for almond in Arabic, a close linguistic relative of Hebrew.
  • Aaron’s rod that sprouts did so with almond blossoms (Numbers 17:8).
  • Jeremiah says (1:11) “I see a rod of an almond tree (shaked)…for I will hasten (shaked) my word to perform it;” the word is used as a symbol of promptitude.

The almond and the almond blossom inspired artists throughout the ages. The distinctive oval of the almond nut forms a halo around religious figures in paintings, stained glass windows, and other art through the Renaissance to signify spiritual energy or to serve as a protective shield. Italian artists called this halo a mandorla, the Italian word for almond.

Ancient musicians adopted the oval shape in a lute-like musical instrument called the mandora or mandola – which evolved in 18th century Italy into the mandolino (mandolin).

A healthy food choice

Almonds are a great choice for people interested in healthy eating. They have fewer calories than other nuts. They’re high in monosaturated fats and loaded with antioxidant Vitamin E, magnesium, potassium and other minerals necessary for a healthy diet. A quarter-cup of raw almonds has only 132 calories and can be a satisfying snack.

Almond milk is a good alternative for people who have a dairy allergy (or who keep kosher and want an alternative to milk to use in recipes for meat meals). Here’s a way to make your own inexpensively.

Of course today’s recipe isn’t exactly a paragron of good nutrition – but it’s very delicious.

My original recipe came from a co-worker of Dutch heritage who made these every Christmas. His recipe called for sprinkling the sliced almonds on top of the dough before baking. The problem was most of them fell off when I cut the cake into bars. Using the white chocolate glaze adds yet more sugar and fat, but it will keep the almonds in place!

You can buy almond paste in specialty grocery stores.

(The photo with the recipe is courtesy of Betty Crocker Recipes, via Flickr Creative Commons.)

 

Gaga for Grapefruit

January 12, 2015 by 1 Comment

Today’s piece is by Neil Steinberg who writes a blog called Every Goddamn Day for the Chicago Sun Times. He writes literally every goddamn day, I don’t know how he does it! A Chicago friend kept forwarding me his pieces because she knew I’d like them and I finally subscribed to the blog myself. I love his writing, and I love what he has to say about one of my favorite fruits. It’s a long piece but well worth reading! Neil says he eats only raw grapefruit, but I thought I’d give you a recipe for a grapefruit-poppyseed cake, a new take on the traditional lemon.

There is nothing interesting to say about grapefruit.

Regular readers will recognize that admission as an earthquake, coming from me.

Because I believe that there is something interesting to say about everything.

But grapefruit has thwarted me.

If the subject were oranges, well, that would be another matter. Oranges would be easy. Books have been written about oranges.

At least one book, a good one, Oranges, by the great John McPhee.

Or limes. My God, limes, just the British naval aspect alone could fill a week’s worth of posts: Grog. Limeys. Scurvy.

Not to forget key lime pie.

There is no grapefruit pie.

Even lemons. How did troublesome cars ever get called “lemons?” I’d love to find out.

But grapefruits….They’re big. And heavy.  And ……. delicious.

Grapefruit, straight up, for breakfast

I eat a grapefruit almost every day for breakfast. One entire grapefruit — no halving and segmenting—too messy and time consuming. No sugar or sweetening or demure half maraschino cherry—defeats the purpose.

One orb, peeled, like an orange, eaten in segments, the separation of which can be a true challenge, tearing away all that white coating, but worth it, when you pop the first segment, feeling the sweet, nourishing grapefruit goodness coursing through my system, jump-starting my brain.

Most of my days begin with a grapefruit—220 breakfasts in 2014, by my count, and I would have eaten grapefruit even more often, but sometimes there are none in the house, sometimes I do get sick of them – “grapefruited out” is how I put it – or just feel like an English muffin or a bowl of Wheat Chex instead. But if I do, usually I regret not sticking with the grapefruit. Cereal leaves you hungry; a grapefruit sticks with you.

And it should be red grapefruit; in my mind, and perhaps even in reality, red grapefruit tastes sweet; and also tends to come from Texas, where the red variety began as a mutation in 1929.

Must be the citric acid, which is in all citrus, of course, or the lycopene, which accounts for the pinkish yellow of grapefruit and it thought to reduce the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease.

I suppose I could work up a nostalgic post on eating grapefruit. My grandmother every year would send a case of grapefruits up from Florida in the winter, a great luxury, because how were we supposed to get them otherwise?

Or there was the time, at the Royal Cafe in London, when we all ordered grapefruits baked in kirsch, because really, how often do you get the chance? Any my mother, having never seen a salt cellar before, and thinking it was sugar, dosed salt all over the warm delicacy.

But I want to do better than that. I suppose I could troll pop culture. Yoko Ono titled a book of random musings Grapefruit, but to find out why I’d have to read it, and I’m not willing to go that far.

An unforgettable movie scene

Better to find refuge in the cinema. No great movie scene collection used to be complete without Jimmy Cagney mashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in “The Public Enemy.” But given our times, that moment has lost its whimsy.

One problem with finding lore on grapefruits is they’re a recent development. Oranges go back thousands of years, in China. But what appears to have been grapefruit, referred to as “forbidden fruit” by the British, a nod to the Garden of Eden, were noticed in the Caribbean around 1700.

“It thus appears reasonable to assume that the name ‘grapefruit’ originated in Jamaica, and has been used since 1814,” Walton B. Sinclair writes in his 667-page The Grapefruit: Its Composition, Physiology and Products.

By 1830 grapefruit were in Florida, which leads the production in the U.S., which leads the world.

According to Citrus: A History, by Pierre Laszlo, the variety of names for grapefruit include pomello, the British term (the 12-volume 1978 Oxford English Dictionary has no entry for “grapefruit,” but tucks the word in a list of derivatives under “grape,” identifying it as a U.S. term, so chosen, I found elsewhere, because the fruit bunch in the trees like giant grapes).

Laszlo continues with shaddock, then pamplemousse, which is French. He doesn’t mention it, but German for grapefruit is …. ready? … grapefruit. Kind of a lack of imagination on their part but then, with grapefruit, that’s par for the course.

Orange is a color. Lemon is a color. Grapefruit is a … well … grapefruit. Its only creative use as an adjective is “Grapefruit League,” baseball farm teams in Florida and Arizona, where grapefruits are grown.

While looking at oranges, some of McPhee’s gaze fell upon grapefruit, and, unlike me, he has no problem unearthing grapefruit-related wonders.

“Citrus does not come true from seed,” he writes. “If you plant an orange seed, a grapefruit might spring up. if you plant a seed of that grapefruit, you might get a bitter lemon.”  Thus the trees can be grafted together, to dramatic effect.

“A single citrus tree can be turned into a carnival,” he continues, “with lemons, limes, grapefruit, tangerines, kumquats, and oranges all ripening on its branches at the same time.”

Yowza. I didn’t know that. And neither did you. But now we both do.

Hunter S. Thompson’s fave

The only writer beside myself I know of who loves grapefruit was – not to compare us in any other fashion – Hunter S. Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is rich with the softball-sized fruit.

His Samoan attorney orders from room service, along with the club sandwiches, shrimp cocktails and rum, nine grapefruits.

“’Vitamin C,” he explains. “We’ll need all we can get.

In the novel, grapefruits are practically a leitmotif: they’re chopped apart with razor sharp knives; they’re moved out into the trunk with the luggage; they become Thompson’s only source of sustenance at one point: “I’d eaten nothing but grapefruit for about twenty hours and my head was adrift from its moorings.”

He carries grapefruit in his satchel, pulling one out on an airplane and slicing it apart with a hunting knife, which makes a stewardess nervous.

“I noticed her watching me closely, so I tried to smile,” he writes, explaining: “I never go anywhere without grapefruit…It’s hard to get a really good one – unless you’re rich.”

A grapefruit is key in one of the oddest sequences in the book, early on, when Thompson hurls one into the bathtub where his attorney is having some kind of drug-induced psychic breakdown while listening to Jefferson Airplane at full volume.

“I let the song build while I sorted through the pile of fat ripe grapefruit next to the basin. The biggest one of the lot weighed almost two pounds. I got a good Vida Blue fastball grip on the f***er and just as ‘White Rabbit’ peaked I lashed it into the tub like a cannonball.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought of that. Because grapefruit are huge, we store them in the second-hand refrigerator in the basement, and I’ll tramp down to get one for breakfast. Walking back up the stairs, that phrase, “a good Vida Blue fastball grip”  – Blue was a hotshot lefty for the Oakland A’s in the early 1970s – pops frequently into mind, and I’ll happily bounce the grapefruit on my open palm, sometimes even arrange my fingers around it as if I were about to fire it across the plate, and smile, thinking: grapefruit.

A poetic tribute

Well, I guess we’ve dug up enough on the subject. Maybe something of interest after all. As I was wrapping up, I bumped into Craig Arnold’s lovely little poem, “Meditation on a Grapefruit,” that sums up the breakfast process far better than I ever could.

This perfect paean appeared in Poetry in October, 2009. As a tribute, it turned out, not just to the fruit, but to the poet himself. The previous spring, while exploring Kuchinoerabu-jima, a miniscule Japanese island, he had fallen into a volcano and died.

Which is a long way from grapefruit. But that’s the marvelous thing about grapefruit: one will take you a long way. Or at least until lunchtime.

Pretzel and Rolo New Year Noshes for Procrastinators

December 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Today’s guest writer is Jennifer Blackledge, who used to work with my husband in the professional recruiting section of Ford Motor Company. They’ve stayed in touch since leaving the company. Jen is also a poet and the mother of two teenaged girls. Today she gives us an easy, stress-free way to prepare yummy holiday snacks.

I’ve always been a worrier and a procrastinator, which is a stressful combination.  As a kid, I remember taking the plethora of pre-feminist print and TV ads to heart. They implied poor planning and/or surprises would expose one as a less-than-competent hostess:

“Oh no, drop-in guests? But I have no tasty snacks on hand!”

“Surprise! My husband’s boss is coming to dinner in two hours, and he forgot to tell me.”

“Timmy just told me at bedtime that he needs to take treats to school tomorrow.”

An obsession with easy recipes

Combine the worry and procrastination with a slight tendency toward hoarding, and it explains my obsession with recipes that use things I can keep ready in my pantry or freezer. I snap to attention when I see the promise of something delicious and socially acceptable made from only a cake mix , a can of peaches, and a 12-ounce soda.

You could look at this as either a) resourcefulness, b) a cavalier disregard of fresh and nutritious cooking, or c) arrested culinary development , circa 1976.  (See“Circus Peanut Jell-O, in Feed the Spirit from May 26 for a clear example of this.)

Best of all, these are usually recipes even a toddler can make. If you’ve got kids of any age, a penchant for last-minute living, an irrational hatred of the grocery store, or severe holiday burnout, I present to you the ultimate treat for endless social obligations. Salty, sweet, endlessly variable, delicious, and homemade (if only in the sense that a)you can’t purchase the final product in a store, and b) you look like you actually tried a little instead of putting Oreos on a special plate, of course)…I give you pretzel/Rolo combos!

Feed the spirit by taking it easy

I’d love to be known for some special recipe like cranberry walnut cookies or homemade fudge, but at this stage in my life (come to think of it, probably my whole life), this is what works for me. Feeding the spirit is sometimes about taking it easy on yourself and watching “Modern Family” reruns instead of Rudolph while you unwrap a million Rolos with your kids. (This is where kids really come in handy – they like these so much that they will offer to make them, and I can just volunteer to unwrap Rolos while watching TV).

Did I mention you don’t even have to search for your ridiculously specific Tupperware cupcake transporter or special thermal casserole-carrying dish to take these somewhere? All you need are some cute paper plates and a big Zip-loc bag.

A procrastinator’s Yuletide wishes

My final Yuletide wishes for you:

  • May this recipe save you a trip to the supermarket on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.
  • May this recipe prevent a midnight run to 7-11 for eggs or butter while simultaneously crying and cursing your family’s inability to write things on the giant centrally located calendar.
  • May this recipe keep your kids occupied for at least an hour of the two weeks of “boredom” they’ve anticipated since September.

You’re welcome!

(The photo with the recipe is “Reindeer Noses” by Julia Pfaff Daley via Flickr Creative Commons.)

The elusive Baumann’s butter cake

November 10, 2014 by 14 Comments

Every year when my birthday rolls around, as it did last week, I find myself pining for the bake shop of my youth: Baumann’s Bakery in the Burholme section of Northeast Philadelphia.

Baumann’s was an old-fashioned German bakery in an old-fashioned, largely German neighborhood. The green-sided shop with big plate windows was on the corner of Tabor and Cottman, with the entrance right at the corner. For my entire childhood it was our go-to bakery.

Whenever anyone in the family – my parents or the three children – had a birthday, my mom would order a Baumann’s birthday cake, even if we weren’t having a party and there were only the five of us to eat it.

The 10-inch layer cakes were decorated with colorful swirls and flowers – and our name, written in loopy icing!

Our name in print (or icing)

I passed Baumann’s several times a day on my way to and from school (we also went home at lunchtime). It was always a thrill to see my cake on display in the window, with “Happy Birthday Barbara” embossed on it in pink icing (I wasn’t Bobbie until my teens).

After my mother discovered the cakes could be customized with more than just a name, my sister, whose birthday is right before Halloween, would often get a chocolate-iced cake decorated with pumpkins and ghosts. My dad’s cake sometimes had icing tennis rackets to reflect his favorite pastime.

Baumann’s is gone now, but its memory lingers on. The bake shop made wonderful cinnamon bread, raisin tea cakes, tasty Linzer torte cookies, and killer cinnamon sticky buns loaded with pecans. The filling in their custard and whipped cream doughnuts was so fresh they kept them in a refrigerated case.

Our favorite dessert of all was Baumann’s butter cake.

Buttery nirvana

Imagine a thin, yeasty base topped with a layer of buttery, melt-in-your mouth, vanilla-scented custard. The top was slightly browned, letting you see the luscious yellow, moist filling. It was baked in a sheet pan, and you ordered a hunk of a certain size, which was cut off, weighed so you could pay by the pound, and packed up in a square cardboard box tied with string.

I have never found anything like Baumann’s butter cake anywhere else.

Determined to recreate it myself, if necessary, I searched for a “German butter cake” recipe. Most of the recipes sounded like ordinary cakes made with butter – not a custard-topped yeast cake.

One recipe called “St. Louis-Style GooeyButter Cake,” sounded promising, but it used cream cheese in addition to the butter, something I knew Baumann’s hadn’t done. And it was based on yellow cake mix, not yeast dough. I tried it, and it was delicious – but it wasn’t Baumann’s butter cake.

“Philadelphia” is the key

Then inspiration struck. I did a Web search for “Philadelphia butter cake.” Success!

Sort of. Again, it was a delicious cake, and it was pretty darn close to the Baumann’s version. I thought it was too thick. I made it in a 9 x 13-inch pan as the recipe directs.  Using two 8 x 8-inch pans would probably make it a little thinner, which I will probably do next time.

I’m not sure when “next time” will be. This is an extremely rich dessert, and the recipe makes a large cake. (If you make two smaller cakes you can probably freeze one.) But if you’re planning a special meal and want to impress your guests – or if you want to wow someone who grew up in Philadelphia – give this yummy confection a try.

Coffee talk—and a great biscotti recipe

November 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment

 

“God cries and an angel loses its wings” is not some Bizarro version of It’s a Wonderful Life. Rather it’s what Frank Lanzkron-Tamarazo says will happen if you drink his coffee with cream (or anything white) and sugar.

Frank is an unabashed coffee snob, but he’s entitled. His suburban Detroit coffee roasterie and café, Chazzano Coffee Roasters, regularly wins “Best Coffee Shop” awards in local media contests, even though he doesn’t serve cakes, cookies or bagels. Chazzano offers nothing but fine coffees and teas.

Coffee has at least 1,500 different flavors, says Frank, depending on the type of beans, where they come from and how they’re roasted. (Pay attention, wine snobs: wine has only 750 flavors.) What, you can’t taste the notes of blueberry, cherry, pipe tobacco with a red wine finish in that cup of joe? Neither can I, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.

To taste coffee properly, you have to drink it black, without sugar. If you have to add anything, says Frank, it means you just don’t like the flavor of the coffee (along with a gentle insinuation that it can’t possibly be his coffee, and is therefore inferior).

There are some notable exceptions to Frank’s requirement—I had the best cappucino I’ve ever had at Chazzano!

How to build businesses and congregations

God Cries and an Angel Loses Its Wings is also the title of Frank’s 72-page monograph, which shows how the customer service techniques Frank learned in his coffee business can help other businesses and religious congregations.

Frank was in music school in New York training to be an operatic tenor when he changed career paths. He moved to St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, for an undergraduate degree and then enrolled in cantorial school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, earning a master’s in sacred music.

After working as a cantor leading religious services at several synagogues for 15 years, Frank made another about-face. Finding himself jobless thanks to congregational politics, he turned to his avocation, coffee roasting, which he had started doing in his garage. The hobby became a full-time business with the establishment of Chazzano Coffee Roasters in 2006. The name is a play on chazzan, the Hebrew word for cantor, and the logo features a dancing cantor. (The “ch” is guttural, like in the German “ach.”) The company’s motto: “Good coffee makes you sing.”

Give customers ownership

When Frank tells a new customer to taste the coffee before adding cream and sugar, he says, the customer gains some sense of ownership in the business. Now when his stalwarts bring friends to the cafe for the first time, they’re the ones who announce the rule. They’ll tell how they always used cream and sugar until they started coming to Chazzano. They feel like part of a family. By educating his customers, Frank builds loyalty.

One of Frank’s fans has even developed a video game based on his rules. It’s called Coffee Defenders, and the villains are cream and sugar. (The game is in the final stages of development.)

Here are a few other tips from Frank’s book that can help houses of worship as well as businesses to build community:

First impressions are crucially important when meeting a new customer or prospective congregant. But so is the last impression. If you promise something and don’t deliver, you’ll kill the relationship you’ve just established.

Interview customers (or congregants). It’s all about networking! Find out what they do and what they like. Once you know something about them, you can make connections by introducing them to others. Through Frank’s shop, homeowners have found a good plumber and a family law attorney has reached prospective clients. Frank makes the same kinds of connections at the suburban Detroit synagogue where he now works part-time as a cantor. “Talk to everyone. Learn from everyone,” he says.

Encourage educated customers (or congregants) to recruit others. Frank was thrilled to hear that a customer who was dissatisfied with the coffee at a restaurant told the manager he should be buying from Chazzano instead.

Be kind to everyone. Put some love into your voice when you talk to people. It’s an extension of the Golden Rule: when you are kind to others, it will lead them to find ways to help you.

Do some introspection to see what’s lacking in your business or house of worship. Common lacks, all interrelated, are enthusiasm, new visitors, follow through and integrity, says Frank. Take care of what’s missing, and you’ll bring people into your community, whether it’s a business or a church, synagogue, mosque or temple.

The wisdom of Hillel

Frank likes to quote the great Jewish sage, Hillel, who famously said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” In other words, look out for yourself, he says, but don’t think of yourself alone. And start now! A good first step is to try smiling more.

Here are Frank’s instructions for making a great cup of coffee using a French press. But that’s not really a recipe, so I’m also offering directions for making tasty biscotti to go with that great cup of coffee.

1. Use a burr grinder to grind your coffee at a coarse grind.

2. Using a standard scoop, scoop your freshly ground Chazzano Coffee (two scooops for a 2-cup press, four scoops for a 4-cup press).

3. Pour water that is between 195° and 205° F into the press pot. Cover the pot with the plunger, but do not press down. If you boil the water, wait about 30 seconds for the boiling water to drop a few degrees.

4. After 90 seconds, press down the plunger slowly and serve the freshest and most fragrant coffee that you have ever had.