1. For a long time, even when I worked in a coffee shop, I thought a cafe au lait (French for coffee with milk) was a cafe olé. Or rather cafe olé! Because it just needs an exclamation point. But “olé!” like what bullfighters supposedly shout.
Since I was wrong, and there is no such thing as a cafe olé!, I have decided to invent one. It’s a mocha made with Mexican chocolate, and I would bet that it’s delicious. If you open a coffee shop, you can serve cafe olés! but I get them for free, for life. And yes, I know, Mexican chocolate and a Spanish word. But hey, there’s no such thing as Mexican pizza and that never stopped Taco Bell.
Bonus fact (that I stumbled on while trying to figure out how to make the diacritical mark for é): the dots over the lower case i and j are called a tittle.
2. Awhile back, we got a bunch of old flash cards from Saffron and Genevieve, a store that, if instead of having a wee person who is about to start wreaking havoc on breakable items I had loads of expendable income, I would want my house to look like.
Anyway, the flash cards are super cool (pronounced like the French do, please, soo-pair kewl), they have the desired vowel sound and an illustrated example and the name of the illustration on one side
And on the back, some more examples, that sometimes read like a little poem
Of course, as a fey, liberal arty, English teacher, I can’t help but think of how much these flash cards depend on cultural context. For example, I would be pretty screwed were I trying to learn the hard u sound, as the picture is of a fuse. So, I think for our next collection I would like to find flash cards from another country.
Now you know what to get me for my birthday.
3. My dear friend Lacy started a cooking blog! It’s called A Grain of Salt and you should read it. To give you an idea of the kind of food Lacy creates: sometimes I want friend chicken, and I’m like, “Eh, too hard. Oh well.” Sometimes Lacy wants fried chicken and it’s near her birthday and she’s all, “I’m going to make nine pounds of fried chicken for my birthday party!” And then she goes, “Oh yeah, and also coleslaw and macaroni and cheese!” And then you go to her birthday party and you’re 40 weeks pregnant and you eat all her amazing food and then the next day you go into labor. That’s how good her food is. Also, she will tell you to eat pancakes in your underwear.
Hey Serena,
I popped over from Lacy’s blog. FYI: Cafe Pergolesi makes a “Mexican Mocha” (or they did 7 months ago, anyway) and indeed, it is bomb. It would be bomb-er if it was called a Cafe Olé, though, of course. Hope that you (and the dear little bubby) are well.
—Carolyn
— sheshakes · Mar 1, 07:12 PM · #