16 January
2026
16 January
2026
View from the hotel as we were checking in
16 January
2026
Descending into Ft. Myers
16 January
2026
Flying over St. Pete
16 January
2026
Flying over Clearwater
The year was 2021. The month was February. The world was still under the spell of Covid virus. I was dealing with the news of my mom’s death. I did not know then but a couple of weeks later, my dad would pass away too. Due to the virus, we were all cooped up without any ability to travel.
Moment I got my first vaccination, I hit the road. I needed to get out somewhere and decompress. Deal with my mom’s news and the constant feeling of getting stuck in a place. It was me and my friend Avi.
If you notice the break in the beach where the water goes in, and then follow to the first multi-storey building a bit to the right – that is the Sheraton I had escaped to.
That was my first trip after Covid!
16 January
2026
Off to our first island / beach trip together this year
16 January
2026
Noticeable improvement in my third attempt
Thanks to a call last night with Lakshmi (Vidya), I changed up a few things, and the results are improving. The big difference was the grain size. Instead of using some packaged grind, I used the Breville to grind the coffee beans with a “3” setting – that is Turkish Grind level. That made a huge difference to the dripping speed. In fact, there was no dripping during the blooming period.
Ten minutes later, while meditating, I could hear the sound of water dripping in an otherwise quiet room. Caught between the prospect of a bathroom faucet leaking and my coffee-dripping reaching a modicum of success, I rushed to the coffee counter and was delighted to find no bathroom leaks!!
I still have a long way to go. While the decoction was strong, the coffee (with milk) did not hit the richness of what I have tasted in my South Indian friends’ houses. I wonder whether using skimmed milk is part of my problem.
Also, I can’t get the end result to be piping hot. Do not get me wrong — it is coming out hot — around 160 deg F. But, in my friends’ houses, I can barely hold the tumblr!
The experimentation shall continue…
15 January
2026
Second attempt at Filter Kaapi
12 January
2026
My first foray into “filter kaapi”
When I first got started with cappuccino and all that, my friend Raghu from Austin had sent me this contraption to make South Indian coffee – often called “filter kaapi“. Now, this is something I grew up with during my college years since I did my engineering in Chennai.
This year, one of my goals is to learn how to make good “filter kaapi“. Today was my first attempt after looking up a few YouTube videos.
The result of the maiden venture has been distinctly un-South-Indian-like. Followed all the instructions, and then I was left with only half a tumbler of totally diluted coffee. I might have had some more coffee in the cup if only I had not spilt some in the basin while trying to do that South Indian frothing thing with some panache!
If you are not aware of what I am talking about, you have to look it up. Those guys in the coffee stalls in college would throw the milf-coffee combo from high up in the air from the tumbler into the dabarah – without spilling one little drop.
I need to call up Raghu and Prabha and get some tips on how to make the coffee thicker.
[P.S. My second attempt fixed the volume problem but not the thinness problem]
11 January
2026
Cleared out a lot of alcohol and liqueur bottles
Thirty, to be precise! This year’s goal is to try to specialize in Indian cocktails. Which means cocktails with some Indian twist to it. So far, I have some base alcohols from India and some tropical fruit juices from there. And a myriad of Indian spices.
This will be tricky. Indian spices are so flavorful that the palate I am afraid will overwhelm the nose. Let’s see if trial and error gets me anywhere.
