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In French, my name means collar, and I think immediately of the metaphysical poet George Herbert’s poem “The Collar,” published in 1633, a poem in which the fervid speaker seeks more freedom in his life. It has taken me some days to sit at his desk.
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Mirrors are also a motif in his poems-mirrors that remember us across the years, reflecting our beauty and dissolution alike. He was an early riser and liked to give the first hours of the day to his poems, which reflect, mirrorlike, so many of my own feelings. These must be the sounds Merrill heard, too, while working. Still, I can hear a train whistle, a foghorn, halyard lines clinking against the masts of sloops anchored in the harbor, church chimes, and bits of conversation from villagers below on Water Street. Merrill’s big desk is in a small room-in an apartment of small rooms-behind a hinged bookcase that creates a very private space. It speaks in polished, rudimentary tones with a slow tempo. Searching for the meanings of our names in French, I am distracted by a blackbird perched on the windowsill, drinking a little dew and then swaying on a nearby branch. Forty years after first meeting James Merrill at my teacher David Kalstone’s Chelsea apartment, I am sitting at his desk in Stonington, Connecticut, with his large Petit Larousse open before me. It is in the same genus as the meadowlark. The male has black feathers and a yellow beak. In French the word merle means blackbird, a dark bird of the thrush family. Look for a 1:3 ratio between espresso and milk microfoam, and you’ve got yourself a bone-dry cappuccino.James Merrill with wisteria in Charlottesville, 1976. Using a spoon to scoop the foam is best, as just pouring it over the coffee could cause some of the milk below the froth to find its way into the cup. Then it’s time to top the espresso with the milk foam and no extra milk whatsoever. After all, some people like their cappuccinos dry because the coffee stays hot for longer. Then you have to brew the espresso and make sure you serve it while it’s still piping hot. The good news is that the proteins in whole milk capture air bubbles nicely, and you can get a pretty decent amount of froth just by heating and whisking the milk for a while. So, the first thing you need is milk and a way to heat and froth it. Of course, that depends on your equipment! Milk frothers like those attached to fancy espresso machines are much more efficient, but if you’re using a pot on the stove-top and a whisk, you’re in for a labor-intensive task. You might need up to 12 ounces of milk to make enough foam for a bone-dry cappuccino.
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To make milk foam, or microfoam, as snobby baristas call it, you need lots of milk. It comes without saying it’s a bit more complicated than you think! Now, let’s get our hands dirty and make a bone-dry cappuccino. That’s kind of crazy, right? But in a good way. Now, you can order your cappuccino as wet or as dry as you want. So, the classic ratio of 1:1:1 between espresso, steamed milk and foam became outdated. More recently, Starbucks helped pave the way to order coffee with different terms, some as odd as Venti for a tall cup or dry for a cappuccino sans-milk. After all, some people like more milk and others enjoy more microfoam. With a coffee shot as intense as the espresso, it was only natural to round it up with cream or milk.īy the 1950s, cappuccinos were a worldwide phenomenon, and people soon started asking for theirs differently. Of course, coffee became increasingly good thanks to the invention of the espresso machines created in the early 1900s. Interestingly, the creamy drink didn’t find its way to Italy until the 1930s, where coffee bars started serving Viennese-style coffee. The drink was named for its creamy top, resembling a monk’s hood or cap. The original cappuccino was created in Viennese coffee houses as far back as the 1700s and was actually called a kapuziner. The bone-dry cappuccino is one of the very many versions of the popular Italian milky drink, and it caters to people who love their coffee strong, hot and robust.