New Coffee Book Events: YOWL!

Here Comes The Coffee Book That'll Perk You Up!

Wake Up To The Amazing Perks Of Coffee!  Your Coffee Book is Ready!

It's the beverage we can't live without--yet few consume it without some guilt.

Java facts you didn’t know...

• According to legend, an Ethiopian goat herder was the first to discover the energizing benefits of the coffee bean plant centuries ago.
• Drinking freshly ground coffee from whole beans can help lower the risk of heart disease, cancer (including breast, prostate and skin), cirrhosis, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease!
• Coffee is the number #1 source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet.
• Two antioxidants key to coffee's health buzz are chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid; and coffee boasts more antioxidants than cocoa and tea!
• Coffee can relieve a host of ailments, including asthma, dental woes, gallstones, headaches, short term memory loss, muscle pain, as well as help you slim down and shape up!

Percolating with information about the world’s favorite “new” health food, as well as interviews with medical doctors, researchers, and coffee roasters, this intriguing book (with a jolt of past and present coffee culture) reveals coffee types and blends, and flavored varieties (both regular and decaf), like chocolate, fruits, nuts, and spices. Discover why this potent elixir has gone from vice to virtue and how to incorporate coffee in Mediterranean-style, healthful recipes like Cappuccino Biscotti, Thai Coffee Spice Chicken Sates, Coffee Cheesecake and Maple Espresso Pudding (plus DIY espresso drinks). Also included are more than 50 home cures that fight seasonal affective disorder to fatigue, plus beauty and anti-aging treatments, and eco-friendly household uses—all made with coffee’s magical beans!

Foreword
In writing the Foreword to The Healing Powers of Coffee, I am confronted by the delicious ubiquity of this most friendly of drinks. For hundreds of years, coffee has started our day, ended our meals, and served as nucleation for budding conversations in cafés around the globe. And today, its recent retail explosion penetrates our cultural awareness to a degree that we have not seen previously in our lifetimes.
What a perfect time for this book! What a perfect time to take a fresh look at the eye-opening health properties of coffee. There are some myths to overcome, new data to consider, and an even stronger array of reasons to wrap two hands around this beverage and make it part of your daily routine.

COFFEE, THE TIMELESS
Coffee has become that anchor of sanity that brings in the morning for over 150 million Americans every day. And even though it has morphed over time from a “cup of joe” steaming from the curved ceramic mug of the local diner to a specialty drink made from specialty cafes, the essence of coffee’s ritual comfort remains. For our parents and their parents, this delicious drink has been a red thread of cultural continuity across time.
Even today, coffee remains woven so completely into the folds of our everyday experience that it carries the comfortable feeling of your favorite jeans that bring recurrent pleasure with each new wearing. At my own house, for example, we have “couch time” every morning, where our own ritual has me making the coffee at 6:00 A.M. My wife and I share that drink together on the couch for 20 minutes every single morning, before wading into the Class-5 rapids of another day. Like millions of other experiences—all similar but different—our daily coffee couch time conversation becomes a continuity of our enduring relationship with coffee.

COFFEE, OUR RITUAL BEVERAGE
While living in France for two years, doing research on the brain, I went through the wonderful routine of eating lunch every day. There are many misconceptions about the relaxed pace of eating in this part of the world. For example, although it’s true that their lunch period is actually more of a lunch epoch, lingering on until about 2:30 every day, they are not eating the entire time. It actually takes them about 40 minutes or so to finish their meal.
This is where ritual comes in. After every lunch, we would amble off to “finish” the meal with a little espresso. The point wasn’t to bring a lidded, big-gulp bucket of what is essentially a caffeine delivery device back to your desk, but to sit with your friends and talk over this lovely beverage. Within this daily ritual, coffee is a product but, more important, a process of communicating with people.

COFFEE, THE HEALTH DRINK
The Mediterranean people have one of the healthiest diets on earth, and they drink coffee every day. It’s funny, though, because when I suggest to people that we should follow suit and add a cup of coffee to our lives, I’m often met with shrieks of protest or dismay. People with those concerns, however, need to “wake up and smell the coffee,” because the most recent data confirms what you see in healthy cultures around the planet: Our favorite common morning eye-opener is extremely good for you.
I know, I know. Coffee was associated with cancer some 60 years ago, but according to newer massive studies, coffee consumption is associated with decreased risk of cancer (colon, breast, and prostate). So, if you’re concerned about the kinds of foods you need to eat in order to prevent the development of those cancers, you may just want to sit down, have a cup of coffee, and mull it over.
While you’re thinking over the internal organs you’re protecting with your java jolt, keep in mind that you’re also doing your brain a favor. Coffee consumption also improves cognitive function, so you think better. And at the risk of sounding like a late-night infomercial (But Wait There’s More!), it is also associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson’s as well as Alzheimer’s disease. So don’t forget to take your coffee in the morning or you may start forgetting to take your coffee in the morning.

COFFEE, TO LOVE
All those incredible health properties of coffee are available when you have it in control. If you have a couple or three cups per day, you get all that brain boosting and cancer prevention. But coffee is like any other food: If a little is healthy for you, a bucket is awful. In other words, the health or ill health of this drink is about not only the coffee itself but also whether you use it or abuse it.
How much is enough/too much? If you need a rule, try this: Love your coffee. Just remember that love is not the same thing as con- sumption—whether for your food or your drink or anything in your life. The only way to really love your coffee, and get the maximum health benefits from this wonderful drink, is to taste it. Enjoy it. Focus on the flavor, and trade in high-quantity for high-quality consumption. Crazy, right?
It turns out that if you love your coffee in this way, you end up developing a taste for it without needing the sugars or other additives. Even better, when you actually love your coffee and take time with it, you end up controlling consumption through your better behavior. That way, you get to enjoy all the wonderful benefits that Cal Orey’s The Healing Powers of Coffee reveals, every day.
—Will Clower, Ph.D., author of The Fat Fallacy: Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle and The French Don’t Diet Plan: 10 Simple Steps to Stay Thin for Life

San Jose, a Place of My First Coffee Experience

By Cal Orey, The Writing Gourmet

Release date July 31

Coming Home...

In the real world as a little girl (with a big imagination) I didn't live in Brazil, nor was I raised surrounded by coffee trees. Back in the fifties, I was born in a suburban neighborhood in San Jose, California--a place where coffee was bought in a can at the store and percolated in an electric coffeepot. 
My life as I knew it was simple amid houses with white picket fences, sidewalks, and planted shrubs and flowers. It came with two parents--my father was Scottish, my mother Irish Catholic--two siblings, a dog and cat, and the music of the ice-cream man and milk bottles delivered on our doorstep. In our house there was a European-style round table, wall oven, dishwasher, and salmon-colored countertops. I was familiar with the aluminum coffeepot--a constant in may parents' world. It created a strong, familiar coffee aroma wafting into my bedroom seven days a week, including Sundays, the day I went to church.
One fall day, during the priest's sermon, I, a seven-year-old kid, was desperately trying to stay awake. My mother whispered, "Sit up," and nudged my arm. The words "ice cream" were my mantra to help pass the grueling prayers in Latin. After Holy Communion we were released and my mom treated me and my siblings to a local ice-cream parlor. 
She ordered a large cup of hot, black coffee (not the kind served to our priest when he came to dinner). My first coffee experience was in the form of ice cream. Since it was a flavor for grown-ups, I felt like I was entering the land of forbidden fruit. The cold, creamy coffee ice cream was bittersweet. The flavor intrigued me. My taste buds didn't love it; in my mind I liked it. This event began a Sunday ritual. I was hooked on coffee ice cream (maybe it was the caffeine), which ignited me journey into Coffee World...

08/11 Saturday

3pm

The Healing Powers of Coffee - Cal Orey, Author

Meet Cal Orey, author of the new book The Healing Powers of Coffee, the latest in her series on the healing powers of foods. Cal will greet customers and sign copies of her books.

Organization: Barnes & Noble

Location:

Barnes & Noble Booksellers - Stevens Creek

3600 Stevens Creek Boulevard

San Jose 95117

See map: Google Maps

408-984-3495

Website:

Event Website

The Joy of a Heat Wave

By Cal Orey, The Writing Gourmet

Today, in the Sierra it's hot, hot, hot. I can do heat but I prefer not to do it. After living at Lake Tahoe for more than a decade I've grown used to cold, cold, cold. It's cool. I layer clothing.  I stoke a mean fire in the old over-sized rock fireplace. Bake my fave dishes. Crank up the heat and the waterbed heater. And I cuddle up with the fur kids...
But now, in the heat of the summer it's different. Instead of sipping hot tea I'm taking to ice cold bottled water. Baking is out of the question and preparing quick and easy no-cook fare is on my agenda. Swimming outdoors instead of indoors is par for the course (it was utopia today) and the word hot tub isn't in my vocabulary. And that's not all...
I realize I'm more active in the fall--not the summer. I feel like a sluggish fish out of water. Yeah, I have writing to do but the words "later" and "tomorrow" comes to mind. When I was young(er) tanning was "in" but now it's "out." So, what to do except turn on the ceiling fan and watch the temperature go up on the online weather map. Enough...It's like black ice. I count the days. So, in theory we have about 60 more days (give or take) of hot weather. 
The best part is, I can see fall, sort of. It truly is around the corner. Meanwhile, more swimming, earlier dog walks, more water, more fruits and vegetables, less comforters and windows open at night. Did I mention autumn is coming in about two months? I can do this. Fall. Fall. Fall. 

Is It the End December 21? 2012 Doomsday Scenarios

EARTH CHANGES

I Feel the Earth Move… 

By Cal Orey, The Writing Gourmet

 2012 Phenomenon—Is it the End?

Welcome to the spooky, sensationalized end of the world “2012 Phenomenon.” Thanks to an array of spellbinding theories tossed about on the Internet, books, TV, and blockbuster films, catastrophic events are feared to hit in the year 2012.

Simply put, two major events may affect our world: A galactic line up falls on the winter solstice when the Earth and the sun align with the center of the galaxy. The forecast is based on the Mayan Calendar; it stopped on December 21, 2012. Today, despite the consensus of scientists debunking this phenomenon, doomsday believers say the world will stop, too.  Will it look like "The Day After Tomorrow" and can we look forward to an ice age? Read on—unravel some believe it or not no-nonsense scenarios that may or may not happen.

December 21^st Events May Be Coming to You

·        Alien Attack:  In the exciting film “Independence Day” aliens pay a visit to Earth. The extraterrestrials are hostile and their arrival causes devastation. Other UFO films like “War of the Worlds” and real-life open-minded human observers show us that we may not be alone. 2012 Scenario: Come December 21, an E.T. sequel could take place on our planet. But, the rumor is, this 2012 Phenomenon scenario may come with a Planet X aka Nibiru and collide with Earth.

·        Great Earthquakes:  If you don’t like space creatures, you may not enjoy a group gathering of planets that can shake it up. The Jupiter Effect, a book penned by John Gribben, Ph.D., and Stephen Plagemann, predicted an alignment of the planets of the solar system would cause gravitational effect on the Earth’s crust and create great earthquakes, including a great movement of the San Andreas Fault, on March 10, 1982. It didn’t happen. 2012 Scenario: Still, some folks believe, like in The Jupiter Effect, there is going to a “galactic” teaming with the sun and black hole at the center of our galaxy and it may spell disaster on Earth.

·        Asteroid/Meteor: If the shaky West Coast doesn’t go down, the East Coast just might, according to the film “Armageddon,” when an asteroid zooms toward Earth. As the rock nears, meteorites damage New York with cause of concern for our planet. According to California Geologist Jim Berkland in my book The Man Who Predicts Earthquakes (Sentient Publications, 2006), he said we may be tested during the 2029 scheduled close approach of an asteroid. 2012 Scenario: But 2012 end days believers sense a large asteroid or meteor may arrive sooner than later on Earth. If it’s large enough, doomsday could be the end result.

·        Polar Shift: In another sci-fi thriller, “2012” shows us a pole shift in motion where the North Pole and South Pole change places. 2012 Scenario: In reality, if there is a pole shift (shifts of geographical locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of the Earth), great earthquakes and massive flooding could be the end result.

·        Solar Storms: Seattle-based, science author Mitch Battros believes there may be a connection between the Sun and Earth’s magnetic field shift and earthquakes. In my book  Earthquake book, he noted his studies have been targeted toward solar activity and its link to weather. So, what is Battros’s equation? Sunspots – Solar Flares – Magnetic Field Shift – Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents – Extreme Weather and Human Disruption. 2012 Scenario: Solar flares are nothing new. In the movie “Knowing” the sun’s solar flares scorch the Earth and a lethal tidal wave of fire sweeps the Earth. Some theories and scientists show solar storms can and do happen. But the question remains, will the sky light up on December 21^st this year and will it be the end of the world as we know it?

As time passes, I sense a change of the Earth’s magnetic field (which could cause mega glitches in technology to solar radiation). I believe we’ll be challenged, like in the past, by  natural disasters and man-made catastrophes. But note, as an intuitive, I forecast 2013 will arrive on time with or without turbulence and the human race will survive.

[SIDEBAR]

 As Our World Turns

Back in 1999, people feared Y2K--linked to a potential global computer crisis that would set our world back in time--but we entered the 21^st century. In 12 years, we have endured events that have felt like the sky was falling. Who can forget the attack of America on September 11, 2011; The 2004 Asian Tsunami; Hurricane Katrina; the BP oil spill; the 2009 flu pandemic; the 2011 Super Tornado Outbreak in Southern U.S.; and the 9.0 Japan Quake-Tsunamis and nuclear crisis? Despite great worldwide damage, loss, past and present challenges--our world still turns.

BIO:  Cal Orey is an accomplished author and journalist specializing in health, nutrition, science, and pets. She is the author of The Healing Powers series (Vinegar, Olive Oil, Chocolate, Honey, and Coffee) published by Kensington. The intuitive is a phone psychic for two international networks. She lives in northern California. Visit her website at www.calorey.com .