Drinking Coffee

At the mother-in-law's today I came across this little blurb about coffee in a cookbook from Louisiana. So, sit down with a cup of coffee and enjoy this quote from Picayune Creole Cookbook, 13th ed. (Times-Picayune Publishing Company: New Orleans, 1966). In a chapter titled "Creole Coffee," it reads:

"When you have produced a rich, fragrant concoction, whose delightful aroma, filling the room, is a constant, tempting invitation to taste it, serve in fine china cups, using in preference loaf sugar for sweetening....[t]he milk should always be boiled, and the cream very hot" (pp. 1-2).

Though one probably would neither hear nor read this in any coffee advertisement these days, here's to all of the coffee drinkers in the blogosphere. And, of course, make sure the coffee you enjoy is fair trade coffee.

Back from Morocco; Family; Conference

I'm back from Morocco now, and had a nice interesting time. My presentation on Sudan went very well, and I had some critical but constructive feedback from an outstanding scholar, Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk of the International Islamic University, Malaysia. I met and spoke with scholars and teachers from places like Turkey, Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, and India. The day after the conference a group of attendees visited the ancient trading city of Fez, built in the ninth century. I have a slide presentation with all sorts of fascinating pictures, but I'm going to post it soon along with an essay I'm writing about the trip.

In other news, I finished teaching my summer school course last week and am enjoying my summer vacation with the wife and kids. It is nice to just hang out for at least a few weeks. Jenni and I find out what we are having (our 3rd child is due in December) in two short weeks.

This brief respite from teaching has also afforded me the time to catch up on some overdue book reviews for various journals, continue reading for my independent readings course on Central Africa, and work on several conference papers. I found out recently that two proposals of mine were accepted for the After Evangelicalism? conference in Grand Rapids, September 15-17. I've organized a panel (or, rather, several panels) on the Emerging Church with several fellow grad students, a theologian, and one practitioner. It should be an interesting conference.