Onions. Mille-feuilles. Winter clothes. These are the things that come in many layers. People are much simpler things. There are our inner thoughts, and then our external representations. What’s on the outside could well be very different from what goes in our minds, but it’s the differences that make up our personalities. By saying this I don’t mean it as an absolute truth. We’ve all lived long enough to know nothing could be 100 percent. It’s just a comforting perspective.

Our external representations differ when we’re with different people. Across time, space as well, and I couldn’t sound more redundant. But sometimes it’s necessary to state what’s obvious. Like telling your loved one how you feel. Because it’s necessary. In any case the differences can be upsetting, when we couldn’t be sure who we really are, who we could be, and who we should be. In the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert L. Stevenson wrote, ‘man is not truly one, but truly two.’  I think it’s a gross understatement. Man is truly… many?

It’s also a strange case how we can be obsessed with one and many at the same time. The Grand Unified Theory, the Ego, and the One. We like these singly, and we find comfort in their coherence. On the other hand, when it comes to money, time, or attention, we want many, or should I say much. It’s also strange how ‘money’ and ‘time’ are uncountable nouns, although when we count we are mostly counting time or money. To quote a bryologist I once met, ‘Man has very strange taste.’

Speaking of taste, it has been an exciting week. Blue cheese macaron, tamarind sorbet, passionfruit-thyme bonbons. Ma Sœur brought back a couple of chocolate tablets from Paris. Pierre Hermé, Jean-Paul Hévin and Un dimanche à Paris. I would have been over the moon if she had one from Alain Ducasse’s La Manufacture du Chocolat, but I couldn’t be more grateful already. That said, I had to get another one of Mast Brothers’ from a local distributor. C’est américain, oui, mais c’est chocolat. Blame those eye-catchy wrappers.

And, obviously, I have completed my coffee brewing set with a Porlex hand grinder. Time to put my age-old Frenchpress to use. I got a bag of beans from Nylon Coffee Roasters to celebrate the occasion. This bag of goodness from Baroida has a wonderful layered profile. A remarkable lingering finish with molasses! It takes a deal of effort to brew coffee yourself, but nothing beats having a cup of goodness in the comforts of your home. Here’s to good coffee, good chocolate, forget the could bes and couldn’t bes, the should bes and shouldn’t bes… L’chaim!

Nylon Coffee Roasters
4 Everton Park #01-40
Singapore 080004
T: 6220 2330

http://www.nyloncoffee.sg/