Pressin' it French Style

I had to run over to Lulu's this evening to pay her my portion of the rental car fees from this weekend, but I didn't leave empty handed. She gave me a bag of tomatoes, a fresh onion, and some lemon cucumbers. Yum.
The best surprise she had for me though was a french press for coffee. She'd brought one with her this last weekend and made us the most fabulous coffee with it. She had three at home so she gave me one of her extras. Of course I had to bring it home and immediately make a pot. It goes like this; fill the carafe with 3 heaping tbsp of coarsely ground coffee (to keep it from getting through the sieve).
Then you boil a pot of water and fill the carafe up to the middle of the upper metal ring, stirring the coffee and water together and letting it steep for about 5 minutes.
Lastly you put on the lid with the mesh plunger and SLOWLY depress the grounds to the bottom of the carafe. Then you pour and enjoy!
Chris agreed that coffee prepared like this is superior to drip coffee from a standard coffee maker. We're now officially coffee snobs.

Chris was working out of town today and got home late so while I was waiting to make dinner I baked some cranberry-orange sourdough muffins using some of my sourdough starter.
I cut the tops off of one of them and it was really tasty. They were made with whole wheat flour (called for in the recipe), but weren't too dense. I even took one to Lulu, the resident baker, and she thought they were good too. I'm taking one to Sherry (who taught our baking class) tomorrow for her to try. She said she'd be interested in any good recipes I found using the starter. Look at me, I'm like a little baker extraordinaire!

On a final note, I emailed Mum to get the story behind the ring of hers that Chris gave me and found out it was a ring made for her when she found out she was pregnant with Chris. She said that it had nothing but good memories associated with it and to enjoy it. How sweet!