Anna Brones

When you’re cooking on the go — whether you’re roughing it in nature or testing the limits of your Airbnb kitchen — it’s smart to think simple. Do go for these three-ingredient roasted potatoes; maybe save the two-day pasta sauce for when you’re in your kitchen at home. But simple doesn’t have to mean boring — especially if you have a spice kit on hand. The right spices can take a meal from tasting so-so to great.

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I love having my daily cup of coffee — for the caffeine, but also for the ritual involved. That’s why, when I set off on a two-week bike trip at the end of summer, I brought along a pretty serious coffee setup. Taking a normal ritual and doing it somewhere entirely different is special, which is why I’m such an advocate of making coffee outside. So what do you need to make good coffee outside?

These camping staples are easy to make at home and will only add to the joy of cooking in the great outdoors.

Candles, a crackling fireplace, a mug full of a warm libation, wool socks; in the gray of winter, there’s no more fitting social custom than hygge. A Danish term that is difficult to define with a one-word translation, hygge is a cozy sense of being. It’s the warm glow that comes from food and friends; the feeling you have after you return from a winter hike in the snow and wrap your hands around a hot drink.

These days, it seems there are a million alternatives to your standard supermarket-variety flours. Banana flour? It’s a thing. Quinoa flour? Check! Obviously there’s coconut flour, too, but have you heard of coffee flour? Here’s what you should know — and why you should give this gluten-free flour a try. Before we delve into coffee flour, it helps to understand a bit about how the coffee we drink is made.

Would you pour coffee into a sippy cup? Probably not. Culturally, childhood consumption of coffee is usually avoided — at least during the very early years. But as children grow older into adolescence, the world of lattes and macchiatos can be hard to resist. So, how young is too young? We asked a few experts to weigh in. As coffee shops become places where adolescents hang out and congregate, thinking about their caffeine consumption is increasingly important.

Absolutely Fabulous character Edina Monsoon once said, “Instant coffee is just old beans that have been cremated.” And while that’s not entirely true — instant coffee is actually brewed coffee that’s been dehydrated into dry granules that are packaged up ready for you to spoon into a cup — the just-add-hot-water stuff doesn’t have an excellent reputation for taste. That is, until now.

If there’s one thing that excites market-goers this time of year, it’s certainly the strawberry. After a winter of root vegetables, the chance to pop a bright red berry in your mouth is hard to resist. But did you know, botanically speaking, strawberries aren’t really berries? If you want to get really botanical about berries, science defines a berry as “a fleshy fruit from a single ovary.

Is there a more vibrant harbinger of spring than asparagus? When the bright green stalks pop up at the farmers market, you know winter is ready to make its retreat. It’s a sign that warmer days and greener vegetables are just ahead. Cultivation of asparagus dates back to Roman times, when Emperor Augustus coined the phrase “velocius quam asparagi conquantur.

Green and spiky, it’s easy to be intimidated by the artichoke. But once we master it, most of us fall in love, charmed by its sweet, succulent interior. (No wonder food companies have taken to selling artichoke hearts!) Steamed and served with a little butter, the artichoke is at once simple and exquisite — not to mention the perfect ode to the season. We are not the first to be enamored of the artichoke.

For many of us, breakfast is rarely more than a cup of coffee or a piece of fruit while rushing out the door. That’s if we manage to eat anything at all: Over 31 million Americans regularly skip breakfast. There is research to back up both sides of the “To Eat or Not to Eat Breakfast” argument, but I think most of us share a wistfulness for a proper breakfast.

Spring is officially here — although you wouldn’t necessarily know it from your weekly grocery run. Seasonality doesn’t really exist in the produce aisles. Perhaps there are more apples in the fall; maybe a special berry display in summer, but there will always be apples and there will always be berries.

If you’re in the market for a coffee-lover gift, look no further. From limited-edition coffee to coffee brewers, there’s something for any kind of coffee-lover on this list. Because if you’re a good gift giver, you can probably expect a few good cups of coffee brewed for you in return. Here are 15 fun coffee-themed gifts for anyone with a love of a good cup of joe.

As the days get darker and darker, it’s no surprise that a Northern country like Sweden would know how to make December the coziest month of the year. In Sweden, December is full of celebrations and traditional food and drink. One of my favorite December customs is adventskaffe, a coffee gathering to celebrate Advent. It’s essentially the combination of two of Sweden’s most iconic traditions: fika and Christmas.

Europe has always had a special relationship to coffee. Centuries ago, European traders got their hands on it during travels to the Near East, helping to launch an entire global industry. We have France to thank for cafes, and Italy to thank for our beloved espresso drinks. European coffee culture has always been rich, and it continues to grow and expand today. Even the British, known around the world as tea drinkers, had a role to play in American coffee habits.

When it comes to dessert this holiday season, what do you plan on putting on the table? I am not talking about the actual dessert – let’s be honest, we all know you’re going to make at least one pumpkin pie in the coming weeks – I’m talking about the coffee. Coffee-lovers, what’s the best way to pair coffee with pumpkin pie? Let’s get geeky.

It seems like every week there’s a new report telling us how much coffee we should or shouldn’t drink, which leaves most coffee drinkers wondering: What is the optimal amount we should be consuming? Recent recommendations from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee cited the various health benefits of drinking a few cups of coffee per day, which left a lot of people citing three to five cups per day as an acceptable amount.

Coffee on the go often means popping into a cafe and ordering a drink to take with you. But with this drink being a regular — most often daily — activity, society’s coffee-to-go habit comes at a cost: Americans consume (and therefore dispose of) about 14 billion paper coffee cups per year. That’s enough to circle Earth 55 times! All because of our coffee addiction.

They say opposites attract, but when the opposites involved are “coffee lover” and “non-coffee drinker,” can it really work? That might sound a little too serious, but if there’s one thing we know about coffee drinkers, it’s that they take their coffee very seriously. Some people go as far as to call abstaining from coffee a dating deal-breaker.

Coffee is a part of regular routines for many creatives — writers in particular. Coffee shops are also preferred work spaces, as the ambient noise found in coffee shops has been shown to be conducive to creative cognition. A cup of coffee can feel like the kickstart to a creative process, and help get us into a creative flow. But how are coffee and creativity really linked? Some research shows that, contrary to popular belief, coffee may inhibit creativity.

Coffee and Instagram seem to be meant for each other. Even those who aren’t obsessed with coffee have probably posted a caffeinated photo or two at some point in their Instagram career. If you’re looking for visual coffee inspiration, here are 10 great coffee Instagram accounts to follow.

Coffee often gets branded as an acidic drink, but in fact, coffee comes in at around a five on the pH scale, which is actually less acidic than drinks like beer, orange juice, and even soda. So, when we talk about acid and coffee, most often, we are not actually talking about the pH level of the drink. Here’s what we are talking about. Acidity is one of the key components of how a coffee tastes.

Up until the last few years — when pour-over coffee started garnering cult status in the specialty coffee world, making filter coffee cool again — espresso had often been deemed by many as the “best” way to drink coffee. When it was introduced in the United States, a country where we had become used to drinking drip coffee, it was an entirely new way to experience coffee.

Most of us celebrate each morning like it’s a special day for drinking coffee, but this week you have an extra-special reason to pour yourself a great cup: October 1 marks the first official International Coffee Day. Orchestrated by the International Coffee Organization, International Coffee Day is all about celebrating coffee. There are events taking place all over the world — each and every one of them devoted to your favorite drink.

Coffee came to Cuba in the mid-1700s, and soon thereafter Cuba became a large coffee producer and exporter. In fact, coffee production has had such an impact on the Cuban landscape that the first coffee plantations now have a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list. As coffee production grew, the drink became part of the national identity; it’s no surprise that even those of us who have never been to Cuba have probably at least once or twice heard mention of a café cubano.

Coffee shops used to be the place you just went to hang out on a lazy Sunday morning, throwing yourself down in the overstuffed chair probably bought at a garage sale. But nowadays many cafes are precise operations — every drink, food item, and fixture carefully plotted and planned. Sometimes these places can even come off as intimidating, especially if you get a condescending barista. Blah, right? But good manners on everyone’s part will get you a long way.

If I were to guess which city had the most guidebooks written about it, my guess would be Paris. Paris is, after all, the city many romanticize, regardless of whether or not they have actually been there. There is a charm to Paris, a pull for many travelers — it’s a city full of quirks, mystery, hidden streets, and tucked-away gardens. But as a resident of Paris, I am here to tell you: the guidebooks don’t tell you everything.

No matter what kind of coffee drinker you are, I think we can all agree on the fact that airplane coffee generally falls into the category of “bad coffee.” Why is the coffee served in the air so terrible, and what can you do about it? The first place we usually check for low-quality coffee is with the beans. But in this case, the beans themselves aren’t necessarily the problem.

Is your daily dose of coffee just not enough for you? Are you looking for something a little extra? Perhaps some coffee education? Or the latest gossip in the coffee industry? Then a coffee blog just might be for you. If you’re a coffee lover, coffee geek, coffee nerd, or just someone looking for more information about coffee, here are my favorite online coffee resources. Brew a fresh batch and start reading.

Have you seen people drinking coffee pulled from a tap this summer? That’s nitro coffee, and it’s currently all the rage. We’ve already seen how the bubbles-and-coffee combination makes people go crazy with the popularity of espresso tonics, so it’s no surprise that this slightly effervescent cold drink would be a big hit.

You got distracted earlier this morning and left your precious mug of coffee to sit out for a few hours — now it’s cold, but you’d like to reheat it. Is microwaving the way to go? Ask around, and the answer is usually a resounding “no.” But why? When we are talking about reheating a cup of coffee in the microwave, the first concern is the level of freshness, which is going to affect taste.

Just like in any industry, people can take things pretty far in the coffee world. It can all seem a little silly when we think about the fact that we are just talking about a drink. Is it really necessary to be concerned about water temperature, brewing ratios, and all the other stuff that coffee lovers geek out on? Well, yes — if you want to produce a good cup, that is. But dive into the coffee world, and things can get really geeky really fast.

How do you know which coffee beans to buy? If you’re standing at a coffee shop looking at all of the options, it might seem hard to choose, but the best way to know what to buy is to simply ask. That’s the beauty of going directly to the place that roasted your beans, or to a place that specializes in stocking beans from a few different roasters; they know their product and they know it well. Here are four questions to ask to help you get what you want to drink each and every time.

There’s only one thing better than iced coffee: iced coffee with bubbles. When it’s hot out, who doesn’t want a caffeinated, fizzy drink? What kind of bubbles are we talking about? Tonic water, of course. While tonic and coffee might seem odd together, it’s a combination that has risen to popularity in the specialty coffee world, providing a refreshing, caffeinated kick to drinkers in search for something different than just a regular cup of coffee or espresso.

You know what’s great about this time of year? It’s cold brew coffee season. Easy to drink and addictively refreshing, it’s no surprise that cold brew has become a summer drink of choice for many. Cold brew is different from traditional iced coffee — which is just hot brewed coffee poured over ice — in that it’s made by mixing coffee grounds and cold water and letting it sit for a much longer extraction time.