5:00 Fridays

It's no secret that I love coffee. Coffee ice cream is even my favorite flavor. One of the reasons I grind my own beans is that it just smells so dang good. I love the sound of peeling the foil off a new canister of beans. I stick my big fat nose right into the top and inhale. Deeply. Then I do it again with gusto. This is quite possibly what heaven smells like. I'd wear coffee perfume if I had it. I've found that a dab of real brew isn't so effective. And it can burn. Ouch!

I never understood the point of mixing a perfectly good cup of coffee with a perfectly good shot until I tried this:


Coffee Fit for a Nut

1 steaming cup of coffee
1 shot of hazelnut liqueur (Frangelico is one brand I bet you recognize.)
1 shot of creme de cacao
whipped cream (Not Cool Whip or the canned variety! Use the real deal.)

If you have one of those tall glass mugs that restaurants have, go ahead and use it. I prefer things more homespun so I just use a big ole mug my brother got as swag from TBS about a century ago. Pour the hazelnut liqueur and creme de cacao into the mug, add hot coffee. Top with generous amounts of whipped cream. Garnish with a cinnamon stick that can double as a stirrer. If you want to be little miss fancy pants, add some chocolate shavings to that puppy. Your friends will ooh and aah...but that means you'll be stuck making drinks for everyone all night. I'm a DIY kind of gal when it comes to mixing drinks.

If you really want to make friends and influence people a la Dale Carnegie, serve your coffee artistically. See how lame your coffee skills (and mine) are compared to Micheal Keen's. If you master this, you'll be all the rage. Maybe you'll even be hired out to work the party circuit. Cha-ching!

Since this drink is technically brown, it would be perfect for our weekly neighborhood Brown Liquor Night!