Recently Uncommon Grounds joined forces with Battenkill Valley Creamery as a part of their “Home Delivery” initiative.

We ask, “What could be better than locally produced milk, delivered directly to your doorstep each week?”

We answer, “How about bags of the freshest coffee beans to go along with that award-winning milk!”

As pointed out by the Fun in Saratoga blog, UG coffee is another addition to an exciting array of local products which can be purchased to be delivered to you. We feel we are in good company with folks such as Rock Hill Bakehouse, Argyle Cheese Farmer and Saratoga Peanut Butter.

If you are interested in joining in on the fun, please visit Battenkill Valley Creamery’s Home Delivery page on their website to learn more. There’s a Frequently Asked Questions section which should cover all your concerns.

Cheers to local businesses banding together to serve our community with great products!

COFFEE LINKS:

Great news for expectant mothers! Reuters Health reports that drinking a small amount of caffeine a day does not significantly contribute to premature births or miscarriages.

Coffee Adventures has an awesome “Citizen’s Guide to the Perfect Pour“.

James Hoffmann (aka Jimseven) shares his method for brewing iced coffee. How do you make iced coffee at home?

Art in My Coffee post of the week – dolphin? Whale?!!

LOCAL LINKS:

What should Jimmy Fallon’s signature drink at Siro’s be? Help Steve Barnes and the TableHopping crowd figure it out.

Check out Flickr user Bobistraveling’s Saratoga Racetrack Opening Day photo of horses in the starting gate; in the rain!

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

A nice round up of some fun latté art designs.

Someone left us a tip in the form of a real life emoticon.

It made us smile.

COFFEE LINKS:

LifeHacker tells us What Caffeine Actually Does to Y(Our) Brain! Interesting…

Daily Shot of Coffee shows us the Coffee Calorie Calculator.

What are the most overused words for describing coffee? Coffee Nate has a list of abused coffee terms for us.

Art in My Coffee post of the week – hearts!!

LOCAL LINKS:

This past weekend was the third annual Troy Pig Out in Troy, N.Y. featuring the most concentrated existence of meat a carnivore could ever hope for. Tablehopping has the winners of the People’s Choice Awards.

Check out Artie the dog’s Saratoga Seen style! Artie loves chillin’ on our patio, for sure.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Infared video of cold cream being mixed into hot coffee by researchers at Yale and Bath Universities… wild visuals. (via Shot Zombies)

COFFEE LINKS:

Steve Dolinsky interviews World Barista Champion Mike Phillips. This is a great piece that details the preparation that goes into this competition

Brewed Coffee tells us the Four Ms of Espresso.

Imagine a 235 year old mug. You can’t, right? Daily Mail shows us otherwise…

Art in My Coffee post of the week – pile of hearts, with mist!!

LOCAL LINKS:

Saratoga Seen has photos from this past weekend’s NYC Ballet Gala at SPAC.

Steve Barnes at Tablehopping tells us how we can help to attempt to break the world’s record for “largest can drum ensemble” this week at the Plaza in Albany. We would love to point out that the attempt is being made with “cans” of Pringles potato chips!

Flickr user TCSuliv has a great set of photos from Albany, NY’s Independence Day fireworks.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Another funny coffee ad. This one’s a bit DIY, in the vein of OK Go’s treadmill music video…

Photo by Sébastien

If you frequent local websites such as All Over Albany or even search for “Albany NY” on photo-sharing site Flickr, you’re bound to catch a glimpse of the excellent photography of Sébastien Barré. We were so excited when Sébastien agreed to put together a full photography show for the Uncommon Grounds Albany location featuring images from his series of “urban exploration” around the region. A transplant from France in the early 00s, “Seb” found his way to the Capital Region through his work as a biomedical engineer. We are selfishly glad he stuck around with us since we get to see our lives and the activities of those around us through the careful lens of such a talent.

A book!

Of special note for this show, aptly named “The Unnoticed“, Sébastien has assembled a book of the images which is now available for purchase in hard-cover or soft-cover format! This is a first for any of the Uncommon Grounds art shows and we are so happy that a memento of the occasion exists.

We fired some questions at Sébastien over email to find out a little bit more about his show and what it was like to embark upon his first physical art show, noting that until now, his work has primarily been seen online only. The show at UG Albany comes down on Tuesday, July 13th so stop by this weekend if you’d like to see this work in person. Or you could order the book which will last a lifetime…

Uncommon Grounds (UG): Noting that your photography has primarily been displayed online, what was the main spark of inspiration for putting together “The Unnoticed”?

Sébastien Barré (SB): I’m a goal oriented person. Every amateur photographer has different milestones; a few will remember the first time they developed their own film, others will reminisce when they started Black&White photography, many will think of the first time they bought a DSLR, etc. I have the feeling there is a point in time that everyone is bound to remember though, and that’s the first opportunity you get to show your work in a physical space.

I’m an Internet junkie, but I think it’s easy to underestimate how many people are off the grid, peacefully ignoring the flow of information we are subjecting ourselves to. Post after post, slideshow after slideshow, the pace at which we consume digital goods can be a bit daunting. This series of photos is about the impact of time on the places we love. My goal is to freeze a moment in a place’s history before it collapses into memory. Everything happens so fast online. If you think about it, committing this digital work to a physical support is not unlike slowing down time to give it a space to breathe, to give it an opportunity to be shared with people who are more comfortable looking at something tangible. At the same rate, by discarding this electronic intermediate chances are I can enable a stronger relationship between my work and an audience.

UG: What were some of the challenges you faced in putting together this show?

SB: This was a lot of work and I am grateful for all the help I received. I would recommend this experience to any photographer: I don’t think this is very difficult but it requires a fair amount of organization the first time around. I had seen my friends show one, two or maybe three pieces in galleries around town, but when Jennifer Maher offered me to fill the whole space I knew it would be an interesting ride.

I divided and conquered. I asked my friends to help me pick 30 good photo candidates, I talked to a few curators I knew, I browsed the web for hours, I visited a few galleries looking for the “right” mat, the “right” frame, the “proper” finish. There was a bit of trial and error involved of course, a lot of prints scrutinized before I was happy with the results. I also raided pretty much all the Michael’s in the Capital District to find the same 30 frames. UPS delivered all my mats to the wrong house, good times too. Picking 30 photos for the show was difficult: do you want to be uncompromising with your vision (if any), or are you trying to please people? Probably in between. At the end of the day, nothing compared to the sheer terror of hammering 30 picture hooks the night before the show: I’m terrible with my hands Thank God for friends.

UG: How did your perception of the images change when the prints arrived? Did you feel differently about the work when it arrived in physical form?

SB: I felt nervous but really happy about it. This was the best I could do in this time frame and I didn’t spare my efforts. Same goes for the photo book I’ve been working on.That warm feeling started when I picked up all the photos at McGreevy Prolabs downtown Albany. They looked pretty good on that support, I knew at this moment that I would not be ashamed of what I had to show. One afternoon I started to assemble everything together: photos, mat, frames, wires, etc. At the end of the weekend I had large piles of 11×14 frames all around my living room. That was it: out of millions of bits and pixels, I had summoned something I was impatient to share. I’ll let people be the judge of the art, but the object itself was, to me a digital “artist” pretty much, greater than the sum of its physical parts.

UG: Any other upcoming shows on the docket?

SB: Not at the moment. I would love for that show to find a new home. I think it will be at Spectrum 8 at some point, but if you are a curator, let me know. I was pretty busy the past few weeks finishing my first photo book, an extension to the show. This is something I had wanted to experiment with for a while now, as a photographer, and I feel good about this new physical form; 136 pages, about 110 full-page color photos. This is something I hope a few people will want to look at.

COFFEE RECIPE LINKS:

Daily Shot of Coffee has a “Espresso’ed Steak For The Grill” recipe.

Jamie at The Coffee Adventures has an interesting “Coffee Punch” recipe!

Old Recipes features an “Iced Coffee with Orange” concoction from an old recipe book.

Chaos in the Kitchen gives us a really intriguing Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream recipe. If anyone has an ice cream maker and feels like making some and bringing a sample by the store, we’d love you even more than we already do!

This Pork with Coffee and Oyster Sauce recipe from Overseas Pinoy Cooking was wild sounding enough to include, despite calling for instant coffee.

Chef Lagniappe brings New Orleans inspired cuisine to France with this Blueberry Coffee Barbeque sauce. Sounds perfect for some grillin’ this summer!

What are your favorite recipes involving coffee?

( front page image by Flickr user LemonFlavor )

COFFEE LINKS:

Brewed Coffee Blog offers Three Coffee Myths You Shouldn’t Believe. ( Myth #1 is one we often find that our customers are stymied by until explained… )

Congratulations to Mike Phillips for winning the World Barista Championships this past weekend in London! Mike is the first person from the United States to win the championship.

Art in My Coffee post of the week – “dream of purity” – gorgeous!!

LOCAL LINKS:

If you find yourself in Lake George over the next few summer months, the Adirondack Chick tells us to stop in to the Adirondack Brewery to try out their new “Cafe Vero Coffee Stout” beer. Sounds delicious from here!

Our condolences to the family and friends of David Taylor Miller, who recently died in service in Afghanistan.

Check out this photo of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, by Flickr user SkunkworksPhotographic.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Check out WBC Finalist Stefanos Domatiotis competing in last week’s championships!

( Front page image by Flickr user confusedbee used under a Creative Commons license. )

Pre-cut, side view.

Last week, we participated in All Over Albany’s “Lunch Week” by sharing a sandwich concoction that included almost everything on our menu in one bagel sandwich.

You can see our submission among a bunch of other fun submissions here.

After much deliberation and brainstorming, we decided that the sandwich would be hereby named “MEAT MOUNTAIN“.

If you want to climb Meat Mountain, you’ll have to pay for it.

It’s a little costly (~$12.90), but for someone who’s really hungry?

Priceless.

Meat Mountain Weighing-in.

COFFEE LINKS:

Kettle and Kup shows us the 20 Worst Beverages in America for us to mull over. (Wow.)

This Blog Rules tells us 15 Things You Should Know About Caffeine.

Art in My Coffee post of the week – stars!!

LOCAL LINKS:

Saratoga Seen reveals some logos for this week’s upcoming Jazz Fest at SPAC as well as this year’s Travers racing event.

Check out this photo of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, by Flickr user SkunkworksPhotographic.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Another funny coffee commercial!