Free chocolate at Koko Black
When I recently asked for poetry recommendations after showing you a poem by Pablo Neruda, my mother responded by giving me The Bee Hut, a collection of poetry by the late Dorothy Porter. Oh, how it sears into me. I’m only halfway through, but I see echoes of my own thoughts and rhythm in Porter’s free verse, and her words, images, and meanings dance beside the swirling choices currently speeding towards me in life.
Here’s just one of Porter’s poems that I’ve found myself rereading this week:
II. What a Plunge!
After Woolf
This morning the street
stings
like salt in a happily healing
wound.
A memory breaks under
your ribs
and plunges you
in turbulent sweet water.
Life is so dangerous,
but this morning you can take
the wave
right to the sparkling shore.
You can bear knowing
the street will one day dump you.
* * *
Not everything in my life, however, is centred on thoughts and possibilities catching in my throat. I’m spinning from intense conversations to silver moments of peace and solitude to rapid-fire repartee with friends such that we cannot speak for laughing.
There’s been cackling with E.Moonbeams over Upside Down Dogs.
Brunch with Christina at Farmers Daughter, where we were given free samples of the café’s new cold drip. It was beautifully smooth and strong, but the highlight was when Christina picked up her glass of cold drip with its enormous ice cube, took a sip, and screeched “IT’S COLD!”
Oh, Christina.
Chatting with Deb, who never fails to make me laugh while also, somehow, always creating opportunities for me to make incredibly inappropriate jokes that she then quotes me on for her status updates. Mum, if you saw that on Facebook… I apologise. I swear, we were only talking about chlamydia in the context of koalas.
After performing at the Governor General’s Open Day, we got more cream than scones.
And sometimes, when I’m missing Jeniqua with all my heart, I think about all the things that made our friendship as strong as diamonds. Like chocolate.
You see, this is Jeniqua before chocolate.
And this is Jeniqua with chocolate.
This is me without chocolate.
And this is me with chocolate.
I rest my case.
Question Time: What do you think of cold drip coffee? Gimmick, or delicious?
Still trying to decide whether I want to try cold drip or not, particularly now that Melbourne has well and truly descended into Autumn/Winter mode. For the moment it’s a question of ‘do I spend more money on a cold drink that I’m not sure I’ll like or less money on a warm drink that I know I will?’. So far what I know is winning.
P.S. Please explain the free Koko Black chocolate …
P.P.S. Love the poem
Unless you’re standing in front of a heater, or warmed up inside like I was from shrieking with laughter with friends, I’d vote for the hot-drink-to-warm-your-hands-up over cold drip too.
P.S. Um… they came over and offered it to us? I mean, I also gave the waiter a lapdance, but I’m fairly certain that had nothing to do with it.
P.P.S. Sorry family members who are reading this. I’m joking, I promise.
P.P.P.S I’m so glad
and here I was thinking there might be some special chocolate blogger event invite behind it or some such – lap dance would do it though … although the dance move above may do more damage than good
Bahaha! Good call, my friend, good call.
No no, Canberra doesn’t really do blogger events. Or I don’t get invited to them. Either way, I don’t get those sorts of freebies
Blergh to cold drip coffee!
Love your before and after chocolate pics hehe
Well, I’d say that probably indicates your answer.
Hot coffee only for Leah!
Well actually hot choc or tea only for Leah
most likely why I wouldn’t want cold drip coffee!
Oh! Teehee! Well yes, that would *definitely* make cold drip less appealing
xo
Love Upside Down Dogs website – one of my ‘go tos’ for a quick laugh.
And your case is indeed rested. ‘Me before chocolate’ is far too dreadful to ever publish!
I’m simply upset that I don’t think my dog has ever lolled around like that. What’s wrong with her?!
*laughs* I don’t believe you, Kath. But I understand the sentiment
I’ve never tried it!
I don’t think cold drip coffee and I would be a good match. There is something about coffee that just demands hot – even lukewarm is too cold – and with winter coming, I’m afraid there is no room for ice cubes in my drinks.
Also, I am laughing yet at “only talking about chlamydia in the context of koalas”
And I love that poem – the words but also the structure. I’m liking this poetry twist on your blog of late!
In all honesty, that’s how I feel too. That said, I do think you should at least probably *try* it before getting all hoity-toity about ice cubes, missy
Oh, thank you darling! I’m very nervous about the poetry twist because I know many people don’t “get”/enjoy poetry at all. But I write what my heart wants.
Bahaha, there is a life lesson in there for me for sure – never judge an ice cube before you try it
Hannah’s Food-Related Pearls of Wisdom. I gotcha covered.
Haha I’ll take any excuse to see that dancing photo again!
Teehee, I couldn’t resist reusing it!
You are great at food photography. Definitely inspiring!
Aw, thank you!
hehe oh life’s always better after chocolate!
Those silly koalas and their rampant chlamydia!
Not a huge fan of cold coffee, really more of a tea girl in general though.
Hey hey hey there, missy! Careful now! This is like how someone can make fun of their own family but no one else can; you watch your tongue about our gorgeous (weird) native creatures!
It’s funny, growing up I was a dedicated tea-drinker, but now normal black tea gives me the heebie-jeebies. Herbal tea, though, I love
I haven’t had cold drip coffee, but overnight iced coffee in a coffee press is delicious in hot weather!
That’s a bit of a cultural thing, really; the American style of iced coffee isn’t really something we have here in Australia! Our iced coffee is ice cream topped with coffee syrup, milk, and whipped cream
I should be grading my students’ spelling tests, and instead I’m reading your blog. It is worth it. Maybe I should put up a picture of myself before reading your blog, and after reading your blog. Your writing made me smile like tasting a real good piece of chocolate!
My 4, 5, 6 grade students were delighted by your raw marzipan recipe. After too much grammar there is no better way to finish a lesson: Getting the hands sticky by rolling marzipan balls and popping them right into the mouth!
Oh Elisabeth! My breath just caught in my throat. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your beautiful comment; I wish you were right here so I could give you a great big squeezy hug! xoxoxo
I also wish I’d had a teacher like you in primary school. I remember once making honeycomb in Grade 8 Science, but it tasted horrible and chemically. Methinks the saucepans hadn’t been properly cleaned after previous non-food experiments… but hey, we all survived!
I’m not really into coffee but I think I wouldn’t mind trying this
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
It was only a shot glass of coffee, so even if you did hate it, you wouldn’t have to leave much behind
Cold Drip Intrigues em so much! A friend who owns a coffee shop just showed me how to make it though he calls it a Toddy. I think its convenient for the lazy who don’t feel like waiting for their coffee to chill in the fridge. aka me
This somewhat confuses my brain, as the cold drip takes at least six hours to make, so it probably isn’t much more convenient than the fridge option?
Also… I want a friend with a coffee shop. Mmmm free caffeine…
The recipe he gave me, you start the process at night and when you wake up its ready to go
Oh, interesting! So do you have one of those amazing glass spiral contraptions that it spirals through? Or wait, is there a difference between cold drip and cold brew/toddy coffee? Teehee, I have much to learn in this fancypants coffee world (I’m a French Press girl myself).
I’m still learning the lingo to. But yes its cold brew/toddy You put it into your french press let it steep for 12 hours before plunging it. Definitely will be trying it this summer. Hopefully it still tastes good
Ah, I thought so – your creation is quite different to the cold drip. I mean, similar basic principle, but very different in execution
In truth, I’ll be sticking to my hot French Press coffee 
I’m not a coffee drinker so I can’t really comment, but I did want to say that was an impressive amount of cream with your scones. My other half (who I swear would live on cream alone if I let him) would approve greatly.
My favourite, favourite part of that cream/scone escapade is that once Deb finished the enormous mound of cream on her own plate, she started stealing more from the plates around her. I love that woman. (And methinks she’s get along well with your other half too!)
Well, it (clearly) wasn’t enough cream. What can I say, I like some scone wit my cream… Mmmm. Cream.
Totally going to invite you over for dinner one night and just serve you an enormous bowl of slightly-sweetened-with-vanilla whipped cream topped with dark chocolate shavings.
Cold coffee! Hot Coffee! It’s all just horrid coffee. And that is far too much cream for those poor wee scones! Give me chocolate – it provides everything I need (though I don’t think I will be doing heel clicks any time soon!)
Bahaha! I’ll take your coffee, you take my orange chocolate, and we’ll call it square
P.S. In all fairness, that cream was very, very aerated, so it probably wasn’t really as much cream as it looked!
I need a spring in my step. I’d better get me some chocolate. And those people dishing out the cream are incredibly generous. xx
Generous, but also incredibly rude. They were almost like demon versions of CWA ladies…
And yes, you must always get chocolate!
Upside down dogs! I love them! In fact, I even inserted one in the middle of a lecture about statistics earlier in the semester.
And that, my dear, is why you’ll be/are the lecturer that students will choose courses for in order to be taught by.
GRAMMAR LOGIC ABORT ABORT.
But I think you know what I mean
x
Hello! I enjoy drip coffee from time to time…! Especially if it’s at a cafe I like that I know has good beans. And I don’t think I’d mind having more cream than scones, I’m weird like that. It’s like when I order fried noodles at restaurants, I secretly wished there were more eggs than noodles ;p
You, Deb, and my late Grandma should start a club called Cream Lovers United
You can converse via seance! Woot!
Hey… do you ever actually order extra eggs? Oooh! You could smuggle in extra eggs in a carton and then break them into your dinner as soon as it arrives so that the residual heat cooks ‘em! Hey Winston, look, I’m helping!
But what is cold drip coffee? And do koalas get chlamydia? Poor things
Yes, I never knew either, but recent estimates have suggested up to 80% of koalas have chalmydia! Deb said it’s in their eyes, but I don’t know whether I believe that part…
As for cold drip, here’s a recent article about it. It’s crazy-expensive because it takes 6-12 hours to “drip”, apparently.
i tried cold drip once, very clean flavour, not bad but not really enjoyable either.
i use to love poetry at school, haven’t looked back there in a long time.
“Not bad but not really enjoyable either” < - bahaha! I think that’s how Christina felt too.
I go through phases in my life where I forget about poetry, and others where I need it to help manage anxiety/craziness in my own life. I’m in the latter right now
Oh I remember that poem … it’s beautiful.
And no, I have no interest in cold coffee.
As for Facebook statuses, I don’t always get to see them … just as well it sounds!
I was so thrilled to see you’d posted a bit of it in your review too
I don’t think I’d ever choose cold drip over hot coffee myself, but this small taste was surprisingly enjoyable.
Ah, but this means you also miss moments of exquisite status brilliance… or maybe not, on second thoughts.
I think Happy Hannah with chocolate is a better blogger
Aw, thank you! Fingers crossed we never have to see what a chocolate-less Hannah is like
Heel click!
Your friends seem *almost* as delightful as you.
Cold drip coffee! I first tried it last year, it is so delicious. Total revelation.
Aw, you! Though I would tentatively suggest they outdo me in awesomeness
The cold drip was indeed delicious, and yet I can’t help feeling that I’d still prefer my straight coffee hot, and my cold coffee adulterated with delicious ice and syrup and blended into frappuccino goodness… because I’m classy like that.
Love, love these pictures. They have me smiling even before I your hilarious anecdotes.
And, they have me craving iced coffee like crazy. I made a huge pot of it a week ago, and now it’s been cold, rainy, and generally clammy since then so I haven’t touched it. Boo!
Teehee, thanks Hannah! Hmm, maybe in future I can skip all the time spent writing and just put the photos up
Oh, what a sad coffee story! On a more positive note, my mind keeps inherently tying you to ice cream and so now I’m imagining you making delicious delicious vegan coffee ice cream
Haha! Love that shot of you at the end!
Aw, thank Rach!
Not being a coffee drinker, cold drip has passed me by. It does sound particularly vile though. I love that last photo too. I’d need more than coffee (or chocolate to recreate that though), think I’d have to book in for my knee reconstruction first.
Oh and well done you for poetry reading. I’ve never managed to get it. Although I have read The Bee Hut. I should have sensed your mother’s gentle guidance there.
That photo was from Christmas Day, so it was not only coffee and chocolate but all the food in all the world that gave me the elevation for that leap
Ah yes, Mum’s wonderful lit knowledge and ever-deepening bookshelves always come in handy when I need something new to read! In my defense, though I found Pablo Neruda, Catullus, and Dylan Thomas all on my own
Is cold drip coffee vietnamese style coffee?? I’ve had that. & that’s great. You combine it with sweetened condensed milk – hello! Beautiful poem. Happy friday, lovely.
Heidi xo
Oh Heidi, you’re from Melbourne! You’re supposed to have been born with an innate knowledge of cold drip coffee along with your city’s made-up things like “magics” and the like!
No, not sweet Vietnamese coffee, it’s coffee that has filtered (“dripped”) down over 6-12 hours in crazy spirally glass contraption. Or something like that. Don’t quote me! 
oh my, Hannah. I try to come to your blog as often as I can (which lately, is not as often as I would like), in the hope of gaining some sort of foodie inspiration, some sort of food-envy experience to excite me about the possibility of being more creative and see what lovely thoughts you’ve had for the day. As a bonus I get poetry, and a poem that (you will not be remotely surprised to hear) seems to speak as strongly and clearly to me as it does to you. Thank you for sharing it.
You make my life so very much better, Hannah, just by being in it. Thank you for your heart-soaring comment. I am undeniably joyful that the poem sneaked into your heart and soul too, so you are more than welcome.
I was thinking of you just recently, by the by, as I always do when (re)watching Downton with my parents. Lord Grantham just became his non-perfect self with the maid and I swear, for a second, I saw you on the telly
Well, I think you would know that were I there in said scene with the ever so slightly imperfect Lord Grantham, that I too would have fought back all temptation so that I was not slammed on the internet as being an Evil Hussy of Scheming, No-Good Villainy, as Jane very much has been. Can’t we all just agree that Bobby Crawley is made more loveable by his weakness than his hitherto perfection?
First of all: I just gigglingly started to love you even more for calling him “Bobby”.
Second of all: Seriously? People are getting worked up about that on the Internet? … wait, never mind. I always forget how much crazy exists on the Internet. I’m on your side, non-Evil Hussy Hannah.
Third of all: My parents almost missed paying attention to that entire scene because they were too busy chatterboxing about where they know the Jane actress from and what her husband’s name on that show was and so on and so forth… Though I shouldn’t make fun, as I distracted Mum at one point with the website What Should We Call Me.
Fourth of all: Time for me to stop typing.
HAHHAA Hannah you make me laugh
I love the photos of you with and without chocolate hahaha 
I’m a bit like you when I don’t get my daily sugar fix i’ get really cranky hehe ~
Aw, thank you Daisy! Delighted to help give you a reason to giggle with my nincompitude
That looks like the perfect ratio of scone to cream.
Also, cold drip is THE DELICIOUSNESS ALL THE DELICIOUSNESS.
You have my permission to take me around Melbourne to teach me more about the deliciousness of cold drips more extensively in future. You may also bring an album of photos of Ryan Gosling to place on the table as we drink. I’ll learn eventually.
I have yet to try cold drip, but I look forward. Iced coffee, hot coffee, day old coffee. Doesn’t matter much at the moment. Just give me coffee.
Oh darling, I’m with you. I just got out of the four-hour Budget Lock-In and will be spending all tomorrow, too, with the thousands of pages of Treasury documents I’ve spent the night poring over (I’m the girl who quit Maths in Year 11). We can be coffee fiends together, halfway across the world. xoxo
I thought ‘cold drip’ was going to be about noses dripping due to a nasty cold. Me and my nose have been similarly occupied these past few days. Now playing catch up:)
Pingback: 33 Steps To Make Long-Distance Plane Travel Relatively Painless, with Bonus Chocolate - Wayfaring Chocolate